Confused about Mother of Threads [SPOILERS]

[shuck]

I've been absolutely loving the new Kingdoms module, top to bottom. Designs are wonderful, enemies have fun gimmicks, it's been lovely. But I got to the Mother of Threads and I was hit with the kind of loss where I have no idea how I could've beaten the boss.
I'd like to be missing something or encountering a bug, but here's what I've experienced; she has three turns, two of which she used to attack half or all of my party with >10 damage, additionally inflicting Vulnerability to the entire party. Then her last turn is a single-target attack which dealt ~41 damage each time for me - I assume due to the vulnerability? One time it did ~15 - or a phase swap.
In her second phase she deploys Necrotic Fungus, disabling healing. That's a curveball, but that's Darkest Dungeon. However, and I want this to be a bug, it also put -200% Healing as a debuff on my party themselves, duration 1 battle, which lasted even after the Fungus was gone. This is the biggest problem to me, I think. She has 250 health, as I recall? On Radiant. So it's not a rushdown or glass cannon kind of a boss either. If she disables all healing partway through the fight and still deals that much party-wide damage I don't see how beating her is possible.
Text wall complete, am I missing something? Am I bugged? Is it a skill issue? As far as I found there's no information about the boss online yet so this is my best bet of finding out.

[QuartzBeam]

The healing debuff should've gone away when the Mother's Fungus disappeared.

Wait, did you kill the Fungus or did the Mother turn it into a Mother's Spitter as part of her stance change move?

[Rosminn]

I found the battle to basically just be a DPS check. I just ignored basically everything else to nuke the boss ASAP since the damage and debuffs it applies are so devastating. You might have gotten screwed over by a bug though since that fungus' debuff should have been removed after it got destroyed.

[shuck]

Originally posted by QuartzBeam:

The healing debuff should've gone away when the Mother's Fungus disappeared.

Wait, did you kill the Fungus or did the Mother turn it into a Mother's Spitter as part of her stance change move?

I think the fungus was transformed during the stance change.

[Gwumpy Fwog]

Yea I beat her but it went downhill fast, her nukes are crazy strong, lost my crusader and occultist one after the other, Graverobber deadeye came in clutch with the crits, and bounty hunter is amazing all around

[Penrose!]

Odd, I found her significantly easier than Meathook in pretty much every way. I think the #1 advice is to have a team with some bulk and bring healing combat items on everyone. My team was MAA (Wanderer), Occultist (Aspirant), Vestal (Confessor), and Highwayman (sharpshot). The general stat for me was to dps down her summon asap, as the extra damage from the spider and the anti-healing from the fungus are pretty much her strongest aspect. I imagine the glitch you mentioned from the nonhealing affect was due to the fungus being swapped without being killed, it might just be a bug and could be reportable. The phase swap itself seems to deny healing skills till the end of the turn, so keep that in mind too. Her damage for me was really low, she doesn't have any notible dots really, so regen is great against her, as long as her fungus isn't up, have good ways to generate block tokens and taunt, the general stuff you want for bosses, and seriously healing combat items on everyone, makes your action economy amazing. Having decent debuff resist seems like the play, and her debuff resist doesn't seem very great so you can keep her damage lower like that too.
Generally, kill her adds immediately, have healing items, have characters with good self sustainability, rank flexible characters, good tanking abilities like withstand or MAA in general, and stack tons of inn items right before the boss. genuinely the list of buffs my characters had going in was a good second of scrolling. Good relationships help a ton too, and saving fatigue heals till right beside the boss. Upgrade all your abilities and stats as well. Good trinkets and inn items basically grow off trees in this mode, so do your best to curate well for the fight, stained trinkets like the one that heals you when you attack are amazing for bosses, so use your resources well and be very prepared.
My team beat her at the end of round 10, people barely got close to deaths door near the end, no one hit it though. Something I recommend is stacking the inn item that boosts how much healing you receive too, it makes healing items do some pretty great healing and pair well with block+taunt tanking her heaviest hits without really needing to sacrifice damage.
Hope this helps, and hope you continue enjoying this amazing mode like I am :3

[QuartzBeam]

Originally posted by shuck:

Originally posted by QuartzBeam:

The healing debuff should've gone away when the Mother's Fungus disappeared.

Wait, did you kill the Fungus or did the Mother turn it into a Mother's Spitter as part of her stance change move?

I think the fungus was transformed during the stance change.

Yeah, after some file digging and testing, this is definitely a bug. The fungus has an effect to remove the debuff on death, but there's no effect to remove it on phase transition.

[Penrose!]

Originally posted by QuartzBeam:

Originally posted by shuck:

I think the fungus was transformed during the stance change.

Yeah, after some file digging and testing, this is definitely a bug. The fungus has an effect to remove the debuff on death, but there's no effect to remove it on phase transition.

It's really strange that she can phase transition without you dealing with the add, seems like that'd be what determines when she'd be able to swap. Good to know though, killing the fungus is mandatory then until that gets patched.

[shuck]

Originally posted by QuartzBeam:

Originally posted by shuck:

I think the fungus was transformed during the stance change.

Yeah, after some file digging and testing, this is definitely a bug. The fungus has an effect to remove the debuff on death, but there's no effect to remove it on phase transition.

Good to know, thank you very much!

Originally posted by Mercy!:

Originally posted by QuartzBeam:

Yeah, after some file digging and testing, this is definitely a bug. The fungus has an effect to remove the debuff on death, but there's no effect to remove it on phase transition.

It's really strange that she can phase transition without you dealing with the add, seems like that'd be what determines when she'd be able to swap. Good to know though, killing the fungus is mandatory then until that gets patched.

Thanks for all your advice as well, I really appreciate it!

[Penrose!]

Originally posted by shuck:

Originally posted by QuartzBeam:

Yeah, after some file digging and testing, this is definitely a bug. The fungus has an effect to remove the debuff on death, but there's no effect to remove it on phase transition.

Good to know, thank you very much!

Originally posted by Mercy!:

It's really strange that she can phase transition without you dealing with the add, seems like that'd be what determines when she'd be able to swap. Good to know though, killing the fungus is mandatory then until that gets patched.

Thanks for all your advice as well, I really appreciate it!

Of course! Good luck beating her in your next run <3

[Checkmaid]

Originally posted by Mercy!:

Odd, I found her significantly easier than Meathook in pretty much every way. I think the #1 advice is to have a team with some bulk and bring healing combat items on everyone. My team was MAA (Wanderer), Occultist (Aspirant), Vestal (Confessor), and Highwayman (sharpshot). The general stat for me was to dps down her summon asap, as the extra damage from the spider and the anti-healing from the fungus are pretty much her strongest aspect. I imagine the glitch you mentioned from the nonhealing affect was due to the fungus being swapped without being killed, it might just be a bug and could be reportable. The phase swap itself seems to deny healing skills till the end of the turn, so keep that in mind too. Her damage for me was really low, she doesn't have any notible dots really, so regen is great against her, as long as her fungus isn't up, have good ways to generate block tokens and taunt, the general stuff you want for bosses, and seriously healing combat items on everyone, makes your action economy amazing. Having decent debuff resist seems like the play, and her debuff resist doesn't seem very great so you can keep her damage lower like that too.
Generally, kill her adds immediately, have healing items, have characters with good self sustainability, rank flexible characters, good tanking abilities like withstand or MAA in general, and stack tons of inn items right before the boss. genuinely the list of buffs my characters had going in was a good second of scrolling. Good relationships help a ton too, and saving fatigue heals till right beside the boss. Upgrade all your abilities and stats as well. Good trinkets and inn items basically grow off trees in this mode, so do your best to curate well for the fight, stained trinkets like the one that heals you when you attack are amazing for bosses, so use your resources well and be very prepared.
My team beat her at the end of round 10, people barely got close to deaths door near the end, no one hit it though. Something I recommend is stacking the inn item that boosts how much healing you receive too, it makes healing items do some pretty great healing and pair well with block+taunt tanking her heaviest hits without really needing to sacrifice damage.
Hope this helps, and hope you continue enjoying this amazing mode like I am :3 :os_niko:

Yeah I agree, with meathook you kinda have to play with a dancing/mobile team (a team that can change their positions easily). But mother of threads is pretty versatile, she doesn't shuffle your team so as long as you have a good comp you can beat her on the first or second try. Meathook took me two tries but she took me one, to be fair though I did have a lot of healing items.

[Penrose!]

Originally posted by Checkmaid:

Originally posted by Mercy!:

Odd, I found her significantly easier than Meathook in pretty much every way. I think the #1 advice is to have a team with some bulk and bring healing combat items on everyone. My team was MAA (Wanderer), Occultist (Aspirant), Vestal (Confessor), and Highwayman (sharpshot). The general stat for me was to dps down her summon asap, as the extra damage from the spider and the anti-healing from the fungus are pretty much her strongest aspect. I imagine the glitch you mentioned from the nonhealing affect was due to the fungus being swapped without being killed, it might just be a bug and could be reportable. The phase swap itself seems to deny healing skills till the end of the turn, so keep that in mind too. Her damage for me was really low, she doesn't have any notible dots really, so regen is great against her, as long as her fungus isn't up, have good ways to generate block tokens and taunt, the general stuff you want for bosses, and seriously healing combat items on everyone, makes your action economy amazing. Having decent debuff resist seems like the play, and her debuff resist doesn't seem very great so you can keep her damage lower like that too.
Generally, kill her adds immediately, have healing items, have characters with good self sustainability, rank flexible characters, good tanking abilities like withstand or MAA in general, and stack tons of inn items right before the boss. genuinely the list of buffs my characters had going in was a good second of scrolling. Good relationships help a ton too, and saving fatigue heals till right beside the boss. Upgrade all your abilities and stats as well. Good trinkets and inn items basically grow off trees in this mode, so do your best to curate well for the fight, stained trinkets like the one that heals you when you attack are amazing for bosses, so use your resources well and be very prepared.
My team beat her at the end of round 10, people barely got close to deaths door near the end, no one hit it though. Something I recommend is stacking the inn item that boosts how much healing you receive too, it makes healing items do some pretty great healing and pair well with block+taunt tanking her heaviest hits without really needing to sacrifice damage.
Hope this helps, and hope you continue enjoying this amazing mode like I am :3

Yeah I agree, with meathook you kinda have to play with a dancing/mobile team (a team that can change their positions easily). But mother of threads is pretty versatile, she doesn't shuffle your team so as long as you have a good comp you can beat her on the first or second try. Meathook took me two tries but she took me one, to be fair though I did have a lot of healing items.

Actually the team I beat meathook with involved stacking move resist and immobilizing and then just flat out ignoring his move attempts, lotta good stuff for that with one of the leviathan and general trophies as well as some good trinkets and paths. Being mobile is definitely a strat but is definitely required, just due to how many options this game gives you for thoughtful planning. Honestly that's what I love so much about this mode, you have all these resources and you get to work out a lotta interesting and creative ways to handle the challenges put in front of you! Especially since meathook only moves the back ranks from what I remember, so the shackle for immobilizing someone and then having like a pd with trinkets and pathing for move res gives you a pretty much immobile team the entire fight. Genuinely this mode is all I could've asked for in dd2 and more, excited to keep doing runs and such. Also the quest design in this module makes me very excited for the next one!

[Checkmaid]

Originally posted by Mercy!:

Originally posted by Checkmaid:

Yeah I agree, with meathook you kinda have to play with a dancing/mobile team (a team that can change their positions easily). But mother of threads is pretty versatile, she doesn't shuffle your team so as long as you have a good comp you can beat her on the first or second try. Meathook took me two tries but she took me one, to be fair though I did have a lot of healing items.

Actually the team I beat meathook with involved stacking move resist and immobilizing and then just flat out ignoring his move attempts, lotta good stuff for that with one of the leviathan and general trophies as well as some good trinkets and paths. Being mobile is definitely a strat but is definitely required, just due to how many options this game gives you for thoughtful planning. Honestly that's what I love so much about this mode, you have all these resources and you get to work out a lotta interesting and creative ways to handle the challenges put in front of you! Especially since meathook only moves the back ranks from what I remember, so the shackle for immobilizing someone and then having like a pd with trinkets and pathing for move res gives you a pretty much immobile team the entire fight. Genuinely this mode is all I could've asked for in dd2 and more, excited to keep doing runs and such. Also the quest design in this module makes me very excited for the next one!

Ah yes immobilisation is def a good idea too! And yes I agree with you for the most part, kingdoms is definelty a warm welcome, but it does feel like a bit of a slog towards the end, but maybe that's my fault for playing on Ridgeline (the biggest map) lol. Def looking forward to the third kingdoms update and of course, Darkest Dungeon III

[Penrose!]

Originally posted by Checkmaid:

Originally posted by Mercy!:

Actually the team I beat meathook with involved stacking move resist and immobilizing and then just flat out ignoring his move attempts, lotta good stuff for that with one of the leviathan and general trophies as well as some good trinkets and paths. Being mobile is definitely a strat but is definitely required, just due to how many options this game gives you for thoughtful planning. Honestly that's what I love so much about this mode, you have all these resources and you get to work out a lotta interesting and creative ways to handle the challenges put in front of you! Especially since meathook only moves the back ranks from what I remember, so the shackle for immobilizing someone and then having like a pd with trinkets and pathing for move res gives you a pretty much immobile team the entire fight. Genuinely this mode is all I could've asked for in dd2 and more, excited to keep doing runs and such. Also the quest design in this module makes me very excited for the next one!

Ah yes immobilisation is def a good idea too! And yes I agree with you for the most part, kingdoms is definelty a warm welcome, but it does feel like a bit of a slog towards the end, but maybe that's my fault for playing on Ridgeline (the biggest map) lol. Def looking forward to the third kingdoms update and of course, Darkest Dungeon III

Yeah I usually only play on last stand, and honestly I find the end to usually be more of a victory lap, as long as you're doing everything fairly quickly you can end the run ~20 days early on normal mode at least.

[Penrose!]

Hey y'all, they fixed the issue talked about originally with the fungus debuff for no healing not leaving got patched in a hotfix, so don't worry about it not clearing anymore!!