Perfecting the Shieldbreaker's Fourth Nightmare Strat (thought experiment)

[Smuckem]

Since FOSTER posted his most recent work in the Videos section, and it involves dealing with the gimmick nightmare (well, the 1st gimmick if you count the final nightmare as the 2nd), I got to wondering what would be the most efficient way to deal with this fight, with minimal fuss. Thankfully, one doesn't have to think about this in a vacuum--since you can camp right away during quests to take care of nightmares while in top shape, it's simple to actually test out any ideas you might have (granted, only once per save) and wipe the floor with them. Like, I can actually try this on the next save.

For the purposes of this specific combat, the team should ideally:
- be able to ignore or remove Stealth fast
- have high Blight resist or Blight cures (if using the Scourge, at least have a Blight sink who can transfer all of it to himself)
- ACC buffs
- the standard considerations made for the SB (piling on the Pep Talks on her during Camp, buffing herself with Snake Skin for survival, equipping Pierce/Expose/Serpent Sway)
> -DODGE offense is helpful but secondary

Granted, me being me, I would pile on the modded classes like there's no tomorrow, and there are certainly classes who can reliably help with this. So, I was thinking something like:
- Rank 1 SB, Dancer's Footwraps+some Blight resist OR -Stress trinket; Pierce/Expose/Serpent Sway/Impale, Snake Skin/Adder's Embrace
- Rank 2 Slayer, Sin Eater's Leer+Bloodthristy Periapt; Spike Sabot/Biting Blade/Rip and Tear/Bound For Glory; Slay the Weak/It Smells Them/Pep Talk
- Rank 3 Arcanist, Eternal Candle+Black Ice Shard; Arcanist has all Abilities active between his two Formes, but emphasis on Frost Nova and Time Warp; Arcane Intellect/Pep Talk
- Rank 4 Apothecary, Ancestor's Scroll+any +ACC or +SPD trinket, Cosmic Dust if affordable; Firecracker/Soothing Vapors/Blinding Gas/Battlefield Medicine; Pep Talk

The general idea here is to have SB/Slayer burst the opposition down, while Arcanist facilitates mass De-Stealthing with Frost Nova and the Apothecary healbots, but contributes with a little offense to the front when necessary:
- It Smells Them allows the Slayer to ignore Stealth and simply smash frontline Pliskins, preferably with Sabot & Blade
- Arcanist opens with Frost Nova to de-Stealth front three Ranks, and if he misses he spams it until the deed is done; afterwards he casts Time Warp to help the slower frontliners (particularly Slayer)keep pace; during Camp he will have buffed SB with Arcane Intellect, so...
- ...instead of having to spend turns using Expose, she will instead Impale and Pierce the Rank 4 Pliskin, for Slayer to reach; she can contribute to frontline offense once backline is down
- Apothecary cures Blight with Battlefield Medicine, reduces SB's Stress with Soothing Vapors, and when possible throws Firecracker on the de-Stealthed frontliners; Blinding Gas is to be used when needed, after Frost Nova has ticked on the Rank 3 Pliskin

Vanilla-wise:
- I think Arbalest/Muskateer and Rallying Flare would be good here: you trade away chip damage (from Frost Nova) for being able to de-Stealth all Ranks instead of just three; I just dislike them both being so slow...and in the case of the latter, I'm using a re-worked MUSK anyways
- Jester would be solid here: he would be more prone to being ♥♥♥♥ed if the CRIT RNG goes wrong, but in the meantime he could wait out the Stealth with high-DODGE build and Battle Ballad/Inspiring Tune to SB, and then Bleed the opposition away
- in my original save, I played the nightmares blind, but luckily expected Pliskins every time out and had a Vestal with Illumination equipped on this occasion; Vestal does what Vestal does here; Dazzling Light would have some merit I imagine, but I didn't bother with it at that time
- MAA to protect SB from Death's Door stupidity is a niche option, haven't tried it myself though

Mod-wise:
- another recent addition, the Thorn, ignores Stealth with all of her DMG-dealing Skills,and could be a niche option to Guard SB while in Defensive Stance, then get to work pricking away at the opposition; the issue here is that her skills don't de-Stealth, and that CRIT buff is something you want to obviously nudge away ASAP

An easier fight than I have made it sound, but a much more fun one than most non-boss mobs (it's certainly more entertaining than the other standard all-Stealth squad, the infuriating triple Swine Gorers)...

[No One]

Since the nightmares have 3 rounds of stealth instead of two, rallying flare would in fact be great. Kill one of the rattlers in round 1 and then go to town on the assassins.

I've had a jester in that fight many times with no real issue. He can more or less guarantee the SBR doesn't get afflicted.

PDs are god-tier as always. You can also bring all the bandages and antivenoms, but then it's a waste of money if the nightmare doesn't proc.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by No One:

Since the nightmares have 3 rounds of stealth instead of two, rallying flare would in fact be great. Kill one of the rattlers in round 1 and then go to town on the assassins.

In the fights with more than one Pliskin that might be useful but ARB/MUS are pretty slow. It's going to get in one hit before then, and if it's in front, which it probably will be other than in that one encounter with four of them it will have a super high chance of critting, and luck usually has it that the crit's on the SB who is already taking massive stress.

I usually want SB to have the de-stealth ability and use it on the Pliskin then finish it with someone else. Quickdraw can make this happen. If the first act destealths one of these and you can finish it with another 1/2 hits, that's the worst of the fight already over. While they're heavy damage dealers, they're pretty low HP and easy to kill once their stealth (and massive +CRIT buff) is removed.

[RopeDrink]

People view the fights as gimmicks? Even if you take no anti-stealth (assuming you are actually preparing for nightmares) you can weather the storm and then just blow them up when they're finished hiding, typically by utilizing anti-stress camping and/or having a Jester. Both for best effect as you then keep said buff as well as the nightmare-success buff on top of them for the whole party, and the best means of reducing SB from high to mid/low stress afterward (even if the success buff does make it extremely hard to get afflicted even when highly stressed).

I tend to no-brain all nightmares with JESTAL every single time. I mean, why not? Best healer and best SHealer in a fight with guaranteed stress for at least one hero no matter what you do, and likely chance of passive riposte damage and/or DoTs.

In short, I usually just roll with VES-JES-???-SB

FLA - usually my go-to for Nightmares. His bleeds wreck snakes, he's a stress-healer (great with another stress-healer if you want to hard-nuke SB stress), he's an off-healer (if you take damage for some reason, one of which [exanguinate] will often annihilate snakes outright), and if they hit him he just gets better/faster at killing them.

LEP - just have him hew everything. He doesn't care about snake riposte thanks to being the meatiest meatsack from meat hill, and his self-sustain (if needed) gives DoT res if you're worried about blight. Assuming you can provide him with proper stats, you're almost guaranteed to not have to even throw maintenance his way, leaving you free to tend to the SB or others while he just farts around waving his big stick.

CRU - similar to above, except he is also a stress-healer. I'd plop him out back and have him lance his way to glory before resorting to stuns or stress healing by the time the board is clearing up.

HWM - bleeds and his own riposte. Besides, with an SB guaranteed in the party, it helps to have an additional shuffler to help keep each other in optimal positions, or even push certain people back out of harms way when the opposing side has been thinned. Given it's a fight on a soft-timer, he's one of the better damage dealers in the game, thus always useful.

HM - great stun. If you don't want to waste turns bypassing guard, just slap those slitherer's upside the head with a blackjack and let the SB go to town. You can opt for full-team AoE/bleeding if you already have bleeders (and to get damage rolling on stealthers you decide to leave hidden, so long as there's at least one attackable target). Can guard if necessary. Failing that, you COULD have him as a replacement Jester for stress-healing, but that's not exactly effective when you're mostly going to be worried about one hero (rather than the whole team), but it's an option.

ARB/MUS - I tend to not bother, but I would take them for fun now and then. Sure, if you want to be super timely then you can drag the flare along, but I'd usually just have her spamming quickshot to become the fastest shot in the west and then have her abuse guaranteed first-round damage to dunk whatever is a priority or finish whatever my other heroes had been slapping. Failing that, she can off-heal.

Most of the rest I don't bother with, but you can make ♥♥♥, BH, HEL and various others work perfectly fine.

[Skinny Pete]

If you are bringing along an ANT (I rarely base my entire party around the nightmares) her anti-stealth is actually semi-useful here combined with SB's. You can kill both front snakes, which are the only ones that can actually cause serious damage, because the two in the back are limited to their weak Gleek attack unless they come forward.

So maybe a couple Gleeks get off in the first/second round but the high priority front ones get killed.

[Smuckem]

@Skinny Pete Makes sense--Fleet Forin, paired with whatever, to ensure the Flashpowder goes off, I take it. (although in my case, if I buy it by that point, would pair it with Smoking Skull to make the Infusers waste turns maybe targeting her while she & SB go to work.)

@Rope Drink Not in general, just the fourth and seventh ones because they rely more on mass Stealth (4th) and the "oh noes, twin Size 2s" fear factor (7th), as opposed to the balanced composition of the other ones, to trip up those used to nightmares, but still playing the specific comps blind, up to that point.

Good shout to those mentioning JESTAL--amazingly, in the two times I've gone through these nightmares and completed the set, have only occasionally brought a VES along and have never used a JES, to my recollection. Madness.