The Color of Madness Final Boss

[orian34]

I've been enjoying the game so far, I was a bit scared at first of the endless harvest, but I quickly realized that you could use some heroes to their full potential here.

Unlocking the crystal heroes, I went on and tired two or three times with somewhat random parties and no trinkets(I didn't realize they could die without problems).

I died at the Miller after some tries, and then, I decided to make a fun party build for this challenge specifically(and start using trinkets).

So, after that(and seeing how ridiculous the mildred's locket was to beat the miller), I made a party to try to deal with every type of situation(ideally), and set up once again in the endless harvest.

The fights went well, Almost always full health, I was mostly trying to keep the buffs up and lowering stress while killing all the enemies in one round. I went through the first phase easily, having sometimes the curio heals actually be useless.

Once I reached the firecamp, I gave my team armor penetration with Snake Eyes(which makes the following fights much easier.), as well as using Pray to lower stress and give additional resistance.

Then I used Every rose has its thorn to lower stress even more and give a stress resistance(pretty important to continue more easily) and finally, once they have stress resistance, I use Psych Up on the abomination to increase the damage output even more(so much even that it becomes disgusting).

Once you're loaded with permanent buffs, you'll continue churning through the rest even faster, and once I reached the Miller, he got debuffed by the locket(so it was worth bringing it), losing his armor, and I just did the usual, buff team, then rake and try to blight the boss to death while smashing his head violently. He shouldn't last more than 5 rounds, depending on his combos.

Afterwards, it's the same deal, more churning through, destroy all the stress dealers on sight, then eat the fodder, until you reach the second camp, before the second boss.
obviously, considering it was my first time doing this well, I was a bit scared of what it would do, I just repeated the buffs for the camp, and went on to fight The Sleeper!

The first phase actually is pretty... plain? The abomination will just crush the small crystals trying to grow, while you can deal heavy dps with your shield breaker on the main one. After some damage, the crystal will transform and the real boss appears.

At this point, it's just a race, he'll deal heavy, heavy stress damage over time so don't even try to make the fight last. His mass attacks are easily negligible otherwise because he only acts once per turn and some blight resistance means you can just team heal every turn if you reach death's door and you'll never have the risk to lose a hero to damage.

So, I did like always, but this time rake isn't worth, and just spam heavy hits until it falls, and the blight stacking up can be pretty good too. As the boss finally fell, I was rejoiced by my first memory, and the fact I just beat this boss on my first encounter.

I didn't use supplies but it would make the follow up more manageable maybe, but I just wasn't interested. I was happy with defeating the final boss of the DLC, which was quite a challenge but also a very enjoyable ride.

I wanted to say, thank you for making this, it was awesome! And now, I've got a countess and more bosses to defeat!

So after all that, I wanted to share my experience on playing the harvest, and was wondering maybe what could be other set ups people used to defeat it. And maybe mine can inspire some others as well. Please tell me!

(note that all the details on this strategy were learned on the heat of battle, so I'm not a master player)

Support Team:
Vestal with Judgement, Dazzling Light, Divine Grace and Divine Comfort. On the fourth row, you'll usually end up finishing enemies with Judgement because of the sheer power of your melee warriors, but her heal skills are vital to keep full health during the entire harvest.

Jester with Harvest(hurr), Slice Off, Battle Ballad and Inspiring Tune. On the third row, you will end up never attacking and just spam alternate ballad and tune to 'heal' your abomination. But having some potential bleed and attacks is always good in case.

DPS Team:
Abomination, now this is where it gets interesting: Because of the way the harvest functions, you will stay a beast for a very long time and rank up your rake buffs while churning through fodder enemies. I suggest to instantly transform at the start of each segment as you'll end up killing 1 or 2 enemies per round without forcing, and his sanity debuff will be easily countered by our jester. Rake gives a very viable way to crush crystals while still dealing heavy damage.
Sometimes rage gives some range and crit for bigger enemies, and slam gives a recover option against party swaps.

Shield Breaker with Pierce, Adder's Kiss, Impale and Captivate. I didn't specify a position for the abomination because of her. Simply, you'll often swap the first and second places just by attacking, so it doesn't really matter. Her pierce gives full range and goes through the hated armor buffs, which makes her very useful to deal with most enemies, while she also can deal with crystals and several weakened enemies that need to be finished off with her impale. Captivate will sometimes be used after an impale or adder's kiss and you'll be able to stack up blight heavily afterwards on one big enemy(or the bosses). Keeping in mind 1 turn in the future for her position and different attacks is important to not end up locked of the attack you wanted to do.


With that team, I added trinkets:
Vestal: Junia's Head and Mildred's Locket, to ensure good healing power as well as some bonus against blight and the miller(also, since the trinket is obligatory to make the fight easy and progress without damage, you gotta find a place).
Jester: Ancestor's scroll and Overture Box, to give a stronger stress heal, and since accuracy doesn't matter, the box gives more survivability.
Abomination: Ancestor's Candle and legendary bracer, to give sheer power increase.
Shield Breaker: Legendary Bracer and Crescendo Box, same, increase damage output.

[orian34]

Here's a display on how the fights go usually:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTjPhLKj22g