Fighting The Fanatic on Champion...

[BlackDragon]

Seriously, how do you do it? The wiki barely has any tactical suggestions, and he's wrecking my **** every time I run into him. THREE ATTACKS per round, most of which can take even the toughest Heroes halfway to Death's Door with one hit, and meanwhile whoever wound up on the Pyre accumulates a whooping 12 damage. I've yet to even manage to free a 'condemned' hero before they fall off the stake at Death's Door. Heck, I've even tried lucking into a meeting with The Fanatic IMMEDIATELY after Resting, with full health and a load of buffs on everyone... and he STILL rolled over me without the slightest hesitation, taking maybe 20% damage in the process.

Most of my roster has the Crimson Curse at this point, so he's liable to ambush me regardless of what team I bring into the dungeon with me... is there a recommended lineup? Any particularly handy Trinkets? A winning strategy? ANYTHING other than an ignomious death at his hand?

(I find myself fiercely wishing that I'd jumped on a mission offering the Pagan Amulet a while back, now... at the time, I just went "Pffft, a Trinket that's only useful against a SINGLE, really rare enemy? What a waste of space...")

[Herr Gutentauben]

The fanatic is not rare. You can kind of force him to show up by sending 4 Cursed heroes into a mission. And once he is dead he stays dead in that level until a new cycle begins.

[Kaz]

Im still not really sure how to beat him either

[BlackDragon]

Originally posted by Dr Kappa:

The fanatic is not rare. You can kind of force him to show up by sending 4 Cursed heroes into a mission. And once he is dead he stays dead in that level until a new cycle begins.

Yes, I know that now... but at the time, I figured he functioned kind of like The Collector - whom I've been routinely whalloping without much trouble. (Well, SOME trouble, depending on what team I happened to bring. Probably couldn't beat him with an unfavorable team on Champion, but fortunately, that hasn't happened yet, and hopefully won't either since I've already collected all three of his heads...)

[Crabapple]

Avoid him by only going to the Courtyard, thats what i did until i finnished the bosses

[LaserGuy]

At Champion, he's probably one of the hardest, if not the hardest, fight in the game.

There aren't really any parties that can steamroll him, and there's more than a few that it isn't even worth attempting to fight him on. I beat him on Bloodmoon/Veteran with a marking party that killed the Pyre and then just outdamaged him. But it was pretty rough.

[Ploof Ploof]

Originally posted by Dr Kappa:

The fanatic is not rare. You can kind of force him to show up by sending 4 Cursed heroes into a mission. And once he is dead he stays dead in that level until a new cycle begins.

i must have been lucky so far then. I have regulary been sending a parties of 3-4 cursed hero's into the dungeons and i have NEVER encounterd teh Fanatic before.

and i'm glad for that

[Herr Gutentauben]

Originally posted by Comrade Fluffs:

Originally posted by Dr Kappa:

The fanatic is not rare. You can kind of force him to show up by sending 4 Cursed heroes into a mission. And once he is dead he stays dead in that level until a new cycle begins.

i must have been lucky so far then. I have regulary been sending a parties of 3-4 cursed hero's into the dungeons and i have NEVER encounterd teh Fanatic before.

and i'm glad for that

His event must activate first. It does in some moment during mid infestation. Before that you are safe.

The 4 curse chance is 75% I think. Details can be found in the wiki... Also he never appears in boss or scripted dungeons

[Quickshooter]

send tanks
a leper can easily destroy the stake given enough crits
alternative tactics is to stack bleed using flagellant and a hellion

hell the flagellant alone can this guy if the stake was never present

[Vantris]

Even if you destroy the pyre the fanatic will just use "fury of the rightous" everyturn instead which is the equivalent of "enraged destruction" the swine prince uses when you attack wilbur. Also his stats and damage go up if you destroy the pyre but i dont doubt that destroying the pyre could be a viable strategy with the right comp.

[BlackDragon]

Originally posted by Severard:

Even if you destroy the pyre the fanatic will just use "fury of the rightous" everyturn instead which is the equivalent of "enraged destruction" the swine prince uses when you attack wilbur. Also his stats and damage go up if you destroy the pyre but i dont doubt that destroying the pyre could be a viable strategy with the right comp.

I'm pretty sure it's the ONLY viable strategy. Fury of the Righteous is nasty, but it can be dodged and the damage mitigated in various ways. Meanwhile, anyone who winds up on that stake takes 12 damage EVERY ROUND, which no-one can survive for long, and there's NO way to mitigate it. Knocking someone off the stake before they wind up at Death's Door takes concentrated damage, leaving basically nothing to turn on the Fanatic himself, especially since you're likely to be focusing some energy on healing too. Better to just get rid of the stake altogether ASAP.

That's just, like, my opinion, though. I STILL haven't been able to beat him on Champion. I finally gave up - just wanted to get ON with the game - so I did some quick modding to disable the 'can't send high-level guys into low-level dungeons' and then steamrolled him with a level 5-6 team in a level 3 dungeon. Not exactly honest, but BOY did it feel good to give him the same kind of drubbing he's been handing out to me. :P Maybe next time he pops up, I'll feel ready to face him 'honestly'.

[Ploof Ploof]

Originally posted by Dr Kappa:

Originally posted by Comrade Fluffs:

i must have been lucky so far then. I have regulary been sending a parties of 3-4 cursed hero's into the dungeons and i have NEVER encounterd teh Fanatic before.

and i'm glad for that

His event must activate first. It does in some moment during mid infestation. Before that you are safe.

The 4 curse chance is 75% I think. Details can be found in the wiki... Also he never appears in boss or scripted dungeons

The event is active

[LaserGuy]

Originally posted by Severard:

Even if you destroy the pyre the fanatic will just use "fury of the rightous" everyturn instead which is the equivalent of "enraged destruction" the swine prince uses when you attack wilbur. Also his stats and damage go up if you destroy the pyre but i dont doubt that destroying the pyre could be a viable strategy with the right comp.

He does it once per round, not every turn. It's nasty, but it's manageable damage.

[Vantris]

Originally posted by JellySlayer:

Originally posted by Severard:

Even if you destroy the pyre the fanatic will just use "fury of the rightous" everyturn instead which is the equivalent of "enraged destruction" the swine prince uses when you attack wilbur. Also his stats and damage go up if you destroy the pyre but i dont doubt that destroying the pyre could be a viable strategy with the right comp.

He does it once per round, not every turn. It's nasty, but it's manageable damage.

Right i meant once per round thats ny bad for poor wording. My first encounter (blind DLC playthrough) with the fanatic was on champion (before the nerf and bug was fixed) and while I admit my team was not the best and had 2 people hit deaths door, once you learn the fight it is manageable

[Ploof Ploof]

Shouldn't have said i never had encounterd him
Just had my first run-in with him and boy am i glad that i stacked dodge (my grave robber reached 87 dodge when buffed) This allowed me to dodge his "sentence renderd" a lot.
Sadly my luck ran out mid fight and they stopped dodging it, had to retreat ebcause i could neither out heal, or out DPS the Fanatic

[Enhancement Talent]

I only encountered him once in veteran, but he just straight burned me down with fury of the righteous. I like how challenging he is, but I honestly don't know if there's a way I can even encounter him anymore now that I've killed the countess. Its probably possible to do something along the lines of stack PROT and focus on burning down the pyre, so you can withstand his attacks of fury of the righteous. The issue being, a lot of the heroes that can reach such a high level of PROT cannot hit rank 3+4 effectively, and he'll shuffle himself and his pyre back and forth.