I turned my gustav into a boss

[Swote]

So I tried to beat bourgeon. But I simply couldn't. Tried it like 6 times. It devoured someone in my squad and pretty much regardless of who got devoured I was getting beat up bad. Maelle was getting oneshot the moment I failed to dodge or counter anything at all. Lune couldn't keep up with healing. Gustav AP regen just wasn't enough to be useful.
So I embraced it. Took gustav out of the party. Gave him all the strongest stuff I could. Split his points between defense and vitality. At the end my gustav had 1.3k hp and insane toughness while maelle had like 300. His weapon scaled with defense too so my damage was great. Took some counter luminos. It looked great on paper.
So I take my party to the bourgeon. They die much faster than I anticipated due to me needing another warmup to counters and dodges. Then gustav arrives. I kid you not. It was insane. Even when I failed to counter like 2-3 attacks I just self healed myself for like 600. Due to repeatedly getting attacked my counter and ap refreshed so fast I was blowing overcharge every other turn. It was the first time ever I got to the damage cap because I was simply putting powerful on myself instead of attacking. I was counter attacking so much it made sense. Killed the boss with full health remaining. It never stood a chance.
Didn't think solo killing would be easier than party kill. But it certainly felt like a power fantasy.

[Uminak]

Later on the combos you can do get even more insane. Greater Shell, Greater Powerless, auto-revive, shields. It might just be possible to beat Act 2 without dodging/parrying at all even on Expert.

[['w']]

Solo is very viable

[Uhtred son of Uhtred]

Enjoy Gustav while you can.

[Kiruri]

So I feel like this game has the same thing as Elden Ring where you are expected to build a certain amount of vitality or else be a 0 hit legend. Build vit until you can feel comfortable about not dying, THEN build other stats. The heals even scale off max HP so it helps in that department too.

I've been doing 25-30% of all my characters attributes in vitality which MASSIVELY makes up for my inconsistency at parry timing. It was a night and day difference when I stopped expecting to survive as a glass cannon.

(0 playtime because gamepass)