focused fault... act III boss fight

[Hormesis]

wtf? man he completely obliterated me. he does insane damage to the entire party, steals all my positive tokens, gives me 4 or 5 negative tokens and my deathblow resistance for the entire party is reduced by 20%? i don't even know where to start with this. i built my party specifically to benefit for having large stacks of positive tokens, both for their benefit and for my plague doctor heals but that completely backfired. can i hear your guys' strats and/or party composition? i went in with plague doctor, jester, highway man, man at arms and barely got him down to 200/250 before my final member was wiped from existence.

[pan1154]

I beat it first time today with PD, GD, HWM, FLAG. They killed the first phase quickly with only two of them marked. Once the final boss appears, they focus to deal DOT poison or bleed on it. The boss's AOE attack doesn't do much dmg and since 3 of these characters have healing skills and one with healing combat item, they rotationally use the heals. Two of them also carried a combat item that causes blind, though I think it only affects 1 of the boss's single target attacks? I didn't realize the boss steals/removes positive tokens but they might explain why the AOE always hit my characters despite certain skills giving me dodge.

This strategy carried me comfortably to the final 1/4 of the boss's hp until the healing can't keep up anymore and people starts dying. Flagellant was the final survivor thanks to his excellent staying power and I was surprised that even though he was on death's door multiple times, when he hits 10 stress he actually regained some hp back.

[DearSaintMary]

> i built my party specifically to benefit for having large stacks of positive tokens
Too bad for you, should have built them to stand against the boss.

Anyway, I just lost against that cursed boss for the 4th time in a row. I'm not getting back into the game any more to waste more time on experiments with this crap.

[Lynfinity]

Originally posted by EZ kill:

i went in with plague doctor, jester, highway man, man at arms

I was using the same team. Took me a fair amount of tries to figure everything out, but still.

Phase 1: Retribution on MaA whenever possible to draw all the Seen tokens on him. If you have a combat item called "Noisemaker" - even better, two Taunt tokens for free. PD keeps R3 and R4 Stalks in check, bombarding them with Blight and denying them their turns. All the others focus on killing the front two as quickly as possible.

Phase 2: It is highly advisable to begin phase 2 with only MaA being marked. Because for a few rounds, the boss will only use Limerance on him. Much easier to keep one dude alive than two or even three, obviously.
Ideally, MaA should have Taunt at all times here too, to not allow Behold to mark anyone else. From there, you just unleash your most damaging attacks on the boss while keeping eye on MaA's HP - having a trinket called "Corrupted Bile Gland" on PD is especially valuable since you can apply up to three DoT's with just one attack.
Jester mostly uses Razor's Wit and Fade to Black - constant Combo tokens for MaA's Crush and blinding the boss every other round.

If, for whatever reason, Behold manages to mark someone else, you're in for a real DPS race. Since Limerance hits two heroes now, and HWM and Jester don't have any self-sustain abilities, PD's job is now rotating between attacking the boss and healing whoverer is in danger, unless you have enough powerful healing items. But do remember the "DPS race" aspect of the fight - should you fail to dish out enough damage per turn, you will burn through healing items rather quickly.

[Hormesis]

Originally posted by pan1154:

I beat it first time today with PD, GD, HWM, FLAG. They killed the first phase quickly with only two of them marked. Once the final boss appears, they focus to deal DOT poison or bleed on it. The boss's AOE attack doesn't do much dmg and since 3 of these characters have healing skills and one with healing combat item, they rotationally use the heals. Two of them also carried a combat item that causes blind, though I think it only affects 1 of the boss's single target attacks? I didn't realize the boss steals/removes positive tokens but they might explain why the AOE always hit my characters despite certain skills giving me dodge.

This strategy carried me comfortably to the final 1/4 of the boss's hp until the healing can't keep up anymore and people starts dying. Flagellant was the final survivor thanks to his excellent staying power and I was surprised that even though he was on death's door multiple times, when he hits 10 stress he actually regained some hp back.

thanks for the input. i've always liked flagellant and already had considered using him for this fight. i'll also look into your party composition, but what is GD, did you mean GR?

Originally posted by DearSaintMary:

> i built my party specifically to benefit for having large stacks of positive tokens
Too bad for you, should have built them to stand against the boss.

Anyway, I just lost against that cursed boss for the 4th time in a row. I'm not getting back into the game any more to waste more time on experiments with this crap.

until this fight i thought that positive tokens was building them to stand against the boss xD

Originally posted by Lynfinity:

Originally posted by EZ kill:

i went in with plague doctor, jester, highway man, man at arms

I was using the same team. Took me a fair amount of tries to figure everything out, but still.

Phase 1: Retribution on MaA whenever possible to draw all the Seen tokens on him. If you have a combat item called "Noisemaker" - even better, two Taunt tokens for free. PD keeps R3 and R4 Stalks in check, bombarding them with Blight and denying them their turns. All the others focus on kill the front two as quickly as possible.

Phase 2: It is highly advisable to begin phase 2 with only MaA being marked. Because for a few rounds, the boss will only use Limerance on him. Much easier to keep one dude alive than two or even three, obviously.
Ideally, MaA should have Taunt at all times here too, to not allow Behold to mark anyone else. From there, you just unleash your most damaging attacks on the boss while keeping eye on MaA's HP - having a trinket called "Corrupted Bile Gland" on PD is especially valuable since you can apply up to three DoT's with just one attack.
Jester mostly uses Razor's Wit and Fade to Black - constant Combo tokens for MaA's Crush and blinding the boss every other round.

If, for whatever reason, Behold manages to mark someone else, you're in for a real DPS race. Since Limerance hits two heroes now, and HWM and Jester don't have any self-sustain abilities, PD's job is now rotating between attacking the boss and healing whoverer is in danger, unless you have enough powerful healing items. But do remember the "DPS race" aspect of the fight - should you fail to dish out enough damage per turn, you will burn through healing items rather quickly.

thanks for your input. i'll take all of it into account. part of the problem for me is since my first playthrough seemed like a complete wash due to oversaturation of useless items and replacement by heroes w/ in many cases no upgrades or indellible trinkets available, that i restarted and so far have only unlocked 5 fully upgraded heroes, 1 pet, all stagecoat upgrades besides pet and torch and only the mandatory 5 candles worth of trinkets, combat items and inn items. i guess i should start getting those combat items as they sound like they could make a difference in this fight. i have essentially no healing options outside of my plague doctor

[Grimwulf]

Originally posted by EZ kill:

can i hear your guys' strats and/or party composition?

Easiest way I know, in detail:

Preparations:

1. Accumulate some +speed inn items on your way to the boss. Songbook of Rousing Tunes and several Stimulating Poultices. Your tankiest character should have 10-12 speed at the mountain.

2. MAA, Leper, Vestal and Hellion are all good picks for the tank role. Other characters don't matter. Any team compostion that made it to the boss should be able to kill it (provided you have a single tank or ready to sacrifice a character).

3. Also obtain a stack of noisemakers, ideally with Tinker's Bench so you can have 4 of those on one character. Give it to your fastest character, which is most likely the tank under speed buffs.

4. Every other character should have access to healing others. If they have a skill, give them combat items - anything causing big dot on a single target is good. If they don't have a healing skill (self-healing doesn't count), give them healing salve, adrenaline tonic and what have you.

5. Ideal trophy for this fight would be Bumper Crop. If not available, go for whatever.

Battle Phase 1:
- you should have first turn since your tank is at 10-12 speed. Drop noisemaker at the tank. If you have a taunt skill, taunt on top of noisemaker. If you don't have taunt skills, guard someone.
- gather orange sight tokens on your tank. Kill the eye(s) that place tokens on your other characters. Don't attack the eyes that already dropped a token on your tank. Taunt after you run out of taunt tokens. Repeat until the tank gathers all tokens.
- once all the tokens are on your tank, pass turns/buff/do whatever until the next phase begins

Battle Phase 2:
- your tank should generate blocks every turn, as much as they can. Any skill + noisemaker will do
- other characters go full damage on the boss. It doesn't have a death's door, so go wild with stuff like Sepsis or Cause of Death, don't worry about clearing its dot
- drop your first healing items on the tank when they reach about 60% hp or less. Later on it will be impossible to heal
- don't bother with healing skills until the tank drops to death's door. Even if the other characters are blind, go for that 50% chance to hit

It's all about preparations really.

[pan1154]

Originally posted by EZ kill:

Originally posted by pan1154:

I beat it first time today with PD, GD, HWM, FLAG. They killed the first phase quickly with only two of them marked. Once the final boss appears, they focus to deal DOT poison or bleed on it. The boss's AOE attack doesn't do much dmg and since 3 of these characters have healing skills and one with healing combat item, they rotationally use the heals. Two of them also carried a combat item that causes blind, though I think it only affects 1 of the boss's single target attacks? I didn't realize the boss steals/removes positive tokens but they might explain why the AOE always hit my characters despite certain skills giving me dodge.

This strategy carried me comfortably to the final 1/4 of the boss's hp until the healing can't keep up anymore and people starts dying. Flagellant was the final survivor thanks to his excellent staying power and I was surprised that even though he was on death's door multiple times, when he hits 10 stress he actually regained some hp back.

thanks for the input. i've always liked flagellant and already had considered using him for this fight. i'll also look into your party composition, but what is GD, did you mean GR?

Yeah it's GR sorry. I think you can replace HWM with Man in Arms for the taunt like the other poster mentioned for a slightly more defensive play.

[Lynfinity]

Originally posted by Grimwulf:

- gather orange sight tokens on your tank. Kill the eye(s) that place tokens on your other characters. Don't attack the eyes that already dropped a token on your tank. Taunt after you run out of taunt tokens. Repeat until the tank gathers all tokens.
- once all the tokens are on your tank, pass turns/buff/do whatever until the next phase begins

You're describing a pre-nerf/change version of phase 1. You must kill the Stalks to proceed to phase 2 now, and you can't get rid of Seen tokens in any way whatsoever.

[Hormesis]

Originally posted by Grimwulf:

Originally posted by EZ kill:

can i hear your guys' strats and/or party composition?

Easiest way I know, in detail:

Preparations:

1. Accumulate some +speed inn items on your way to the boss. Songbook of Rousing Tunes and several Stimulating Poultices. Your tankiest character should have 10-12 speed at the mountain.

2. MAA, Leper, Vestal and Hellion are all good picks for the tank role. Other characters don't matter. Any team compostion that made it to the boss should be able to kill it (provided you have a single tank or ready to sacrifice a character).

3. Also obtain a stack of noisemakers, ideally with Tinker's Bench so you can have 4 of those on one character. Give it to your fastest character, which is most likely the tank under speed buffs.

4. Every other character should have access to healing others. If they have a skill, give them combat items - anything causing big dot on a single target is good. If they don't have a healing skill (self-healing doesn't count), give them healing salve, adrenaline tonic and what have you.

5. Ideal trophy for this fight would be Bumper Crop. If not available, go for whatever.

Battle Phase 1:
- you should have first turn since your tank is at 10-12 speed. Drop noisemaker at the tank. If you have a taunt skill, taunt on top of noisemaker. If you don't have taunt skills, guard someone.
- gather orange sight tokens on your tank. Kill the eye(s) that place tokens on your other characters. Don't attack the eyes that already dropped a token on your tank. Taunt after you run out of taunt tokens. Repeat until the tank gathers all tokens.
- once all the tokens are on your tank, pass turns/buff/do whatever until the next phase begins

Battle Phase 2:
- your tank should generate blocks every turn, as much as they can. Any skill + noisemaker will do
- other characters go full damage on the boss. It doesn't have a death's door, so go wild with stuff like Sepsis or Cause of Death, don't worry about clearing its dot
- drop your first healing items on the tank when they reach about 60% hp or less. Later on it will be impossible to heal
- don't bother with healing skills until the tank drops to death's door. Even if the other characters are blind, go for that 50% chance to hit

It's all about preparations really.

wow man thanks for the in depth take. some of your advice illustrates a weakness in my current playthrough which i've unlocked only 2 inn items (not even sure what they are), 1 combat item and only indelible trinkets through the hero pages. it's been manageable so far, but i have no means for healing (except 10% life if they are suffering from a dot) and my inn items are pretty useless. i only use them for the slight boost to affinity to one another. i almost always have more money than i can spend and usually use baubles for the indelible trinkets.

[Hormesis]

Originally posted by Lynfinity:

Originally posted by Grimwulf:

- gather orange sight tokens on your tank. Kill the eye(s) that place tokens on your other characters. Don't attack the eyes that already dropped a token on your tank. Taunt after you run out of taunt tokens. Repeat until the tank gathers all tokens.
- once all the tokens are on your tank, pass turns/buff/do whatever until the next phase begins

You're describing a pre-nerf/change version of phase 1. You must kill the Stalks to proceed to phase 2 now, and you can't get rid of Seen tokens in any way whatsoever.

well ♥♥♥♥ lol. thanks Grimwulf anways. truth is when i started this fight today i didn't even realize there was a phase 2 and was just getting ready to celebrate, thinking i must have got really lucky since the fight was so easy, only to have phase 2 annihilate me before i could even get my bearings.

[Grimwulf]

Originally posted by Lynfinity:

You're describing a pre-nerf/change version of phase 1. You must kill the Stalks to proceed to phase 2 now, and you can't get rid of Seen tokens in any way whatsoever.

Was it already released? In that case, yeah - kill the stalks instead of waiting out. Yet another reason to ensure high speed on your taunting tank + stack of noisemakers.

Originally posted by EZ kill:

i've unlocked only 2 inn items (not even sure what they are), 1 combat item and only indelible trinkets through the hero pages.

I know some people finished the game without spending any candles whatsoever, but it's more of a challenge thing. You're limiting yourself greatly by ignoring these options. It's always better to have options to choose from.

[Hormesis]

Originally posted by Grimwulf:

Originally posted by Lynfinity:

You're describing a pre-nerf/change version of phase 1. You must kill the Stalks to proceed to phase 2 now, and you can't get rid of Seen tokens in any way whatsoever.

Was it already released? In that case, yeah - kill the stalks instead of waiting out. Yet another reason to ensure high speed on your taunting tank + stack of noisemakers.

Originally posted by EZ kill:

i've unlocked only 2 inn items (not even sure what they are), 1 combat item and only indelible trinkets through the hero pages.

I know some people finished the game without spending any candles whatsoever, but it's more of a challenge thing. You're limiting yourself greatly by ignoring these options. It's always better to have options to choose from.

oh hell no lol. i mean i like a challenge as much as the next guy but i'm spending every candle i can. i just figured if there were less items in the potential item pool that i could limit the heavy RNG the game already imposes on the player. i still think i'll not unlock trinkets though since i almost always end up with strong trinkets. so far i've fully upgraded the PD/HWM/GR/MaW/BH and haven't even unlocked the other heroes, that way if one dies i can be sure he'll be replaced by a strong hero. then i fully upgraded the first two tiers of my stagecoach and just one pet, the dog, which is really helpful. i'm afraid to unlock the other pets since i may end up getting stuck with one that is more or less useless.

my plan is to farm act 2 a bit and start to unlock combat items while unlocking and fully upgrading flagellant.

this is my second attempted campaign. the first one i unlocked all heroes first w/out bothering to upgrade them much and picked up a few inn items, trinkets, stagecoach items and combat items each run and 2 or 3 pets, leaving next to no candles for upgrading my stagecoach capabilities. i decided to start over and try a different approach. i never even got to act 3 in my first campaign.

just a side note can anyone tell me if 100 stress can lead to a positive result? i've put on the trinket that gives +25% virtue and i've never once seen a positive outcome from 100 stress.

[Lynfinity]

Originally posted by EZ kill:

can anyone tell me if 100 stress can lead to a positive result? i've put on the trinket that gives +25% virtue and i've never once seen a positive outcome from 100 stress.

By default, there's a 80% chance that hero will suffer a Meltdown, and a 20% chance that hero will become Resolute.

Resolute heals 50% HP, adds a bunch of Deathblow, Debuff and Stress resist, adds 2 pips of affinity with other heroes and a 40% chance of acquiring a positive quirk.

[Hormesis]

Originally posted by Lynfinity:

Originally posted by EZ kill:

can anyone tell me if 100 stress can lead to a positive result? i've put on the trinket that gives +25% virtue and i've never once seen a positive outcome from 100 stress.

By default, there's an 80% chance that hero will suffer a Meltdown, and a 20% chance that hero will become Resolute.

Resolute heals 50% HP, adds a bunch of Deathblow, Debuff and Stress resist, adds 2 pips of affinity with other heroes and a 40% chance of acquiring a positive quirk.

wow. that would be nice. rather than lowering affinity by like 4 with each player and dropping me down to 10% life. i'll have to do more research but it definitely seemed like i had the positive effects in DD1 far more frequently. then again i did spend a lot more time play DD1 so it could just be that.

[mr_oluap]

Just beat it with plague doctor, grave robber and bleeding based HWM/Hellion, no real tanking, basically full dps and a few heal.

Worked fine thanks to the massive DOT, though i lost the grave robber in the fight :)

[Hormesis]

Originally posted by mr_oluap:

Just beat it with plague doctor, grave robber and bleeding based HWM/Hellion, no real tanking, basically full dps and a few heal.

Worked fine thanks to the massive DOT, though i lost the grave robber in the fight :)

thanks for response. did you dot him up then use plague doctor's ability to dish out the full damage?