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    ←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Vveek Fifty-One -- Vvolves At The Door Flames on the horizon, sulfur in the air -- the vvolves are at the door! Okay, so, like, The Ancestor doesn’t say “vvolves,” he says “wolves” like a normal person. At the same time, I have a mild obsession vvith replacing the letter vv vvith tvvo vs in old-timey text and the boss of this random encounter is, in fact, called “Brigand Vvulf” so can you really blame me if I ham it up a little bit? Anyvvay, do you remember that Shrieker fight vve took sixteen vveeks ago? This is kind of like that except you actually have to complete a level six (6) dungeon to get any revvards and if you don’t, the vvolves destroy part of your hamlet, forcing you to have to upgrade it back up again. Oh, and like all of the base game’s level six quests, if you go into it, realize you’re overvvhelmed, and then retreat, the game kills off a random member of your party, vvith the flavor being that they’re “giving the others more time to escape.” So that’s nice. Vvolves At The Door vvon’t spavvn right avvay, hovvever. It’s not going to vvreck any beginning player’s experience until the game thinks you’re ready for it. It has to be at least vveek forty and you have to have a party vvho can feasibly take on that daunting Darkest-level dungeon; you have to have four Champion level five adventurers chomping at the bit to fight. That being said, it is an inevitable part of the game. Every vveek past vveek forty increases the chances of the event firing. If you don’t vvant to have to keep rebuilding your hamlet, you’re going to have to kill Brigand Vvulf. So, uh, let’s do that. Thar is only level four, sure, but he’s kind of important for mitigating some of Vvulf’s damage, so he has to come vvith. The rest of the party follovvs from that. I’m expecting a lot of bandits, vvhich means a lot of AoE damage, so Junia is our healer, Skaia’s main attack, Collect Bounty, deals bonus damage to humans, vvhich there vvill be a lot of, and he can use it from the third rovv, not to mention his ability to disrupt the enemy backline. vve’re technically under-leveled so stress is going to be a bit of an issue, so LordCovvCovv vvill be managing that vvhile also being a tanky front-liner and secondary healer. The level six dungeons like to play a trick on you vvhere the first fight is significantly easier than all the rest of the fights to lull you into a false sense of security. These are all Novice and Veteran-level enemies, though it does reveal the gimmick of the dungeon -- the fact that they’re together at all is significant. These fights are all going to be against bandits vvith the occasional rabid dog and madman throvvn in for good measure. See, look! It’s our first glimpse at Champion-level enemies. Not that these are too different from vvhat vve’ve seen before, though the Brigand Hunter in the back there inflicts stress damage in addition to the expected buff to his damage vvhich is annoying. At the same time, the plan of Junia keeping the party alive and CovvCovv keeping them of sound mind helps a lot. vve even get a chance to stall a fevv of these fights to keep stress dovvn to manageable levels. Novv, like the Crimson Court and our upcoming runs into the Darkest Dungeon proper, this is a scripted dungeon. Brigand Vvulf is directly north of the starting zone vvith tvvo paths to get there, clockvvise around the circle or counter-clockvvise. I recommend the clockvvise path since there’s a secret door in one of the northvvest tiles that can get you some extra loot if you pack a key. Brigand Vvulf is a mix betvveen the summoning-type bosses (The Siren, The Necromancer, and, fittingly, the Brigand Pounder) and the forecasted threat-type bosses (the Svvine King and the Prophet). At the beginning of every round, he vvill throvv a bomb at the feet of one of your adventurers, and at the end of the round, it explodes for hefty damage. This is vvhy Thar is so important here. Hakima’s guard vvouldn’t buff his dodge enough to reliably get out of the vvay, so instead Thar can buff himself up to three times to take, say, six damage instead of tvventy. Six is much more manageable to our healer. The alternative to all this is to attack the barrel of bombs behind him. If the barrel is destroyed, the active bombs are rendered inert somehovv. That being said, the bombs do fight back -- that “riposte” icon indicates that the bombs vvill literally blovv up in your face if you attack them. In addition, Vvulf’s most common attack not only stuns a random party member and summons a Champion-level brigand, it also respavvns his bomb barrel, so you can see vvhy the Man-at-Arms strategy is so preferred here. The other moves Vvulf has are yelling at the party in a vvay that stresses them out and guarding the enemies he summons. This guard is both annoying to deal vvith -- these are dangerous enemies he’s protecting -- and his biggest failing. Unlike every other guard in the game, this does not buff Vvulf at all, vvhich means not only vvill attacks that could only hit the frontline alvvays have a chance of hitting him vvhen he’s in rank three, vvhere he vvill be for most of the fight, they’ll continue to be at full povver. Anyvvay, the fight progresses for a bit and betvveen the stress of literal actual bombs being throvvn at us and being yelled at by a bandit king, three of our four adventurers cross the 100 Stress threshold. Thar gets masochistic, vvhich, vvhile very funny given the context of his role in the fight, also means that he stresses the rest of the party out vvhenever someone takes damage, vvhich is vvhat puts CovvCovv over the edge, except CovvCovv becomes, vvell I don’t think this lucky roll turned the tide or anything; vve vveren’t about to lose anyone unless Thar started to refuse to be healed, but it certainly helped keep any further problems in check until Thar vvas able to get the killing blovv. Our revvard for all this is the next room dovvn, a trinket vvith the “Ancestral” rarity, something normally reserved only for either killing the Shambler or completing a long Champion-level quest. I don’t think vve’re going to do anything exciting vvith this particular trinket, but vvho knovvs? That’s for future me to decide. Speaking of future me, this fight leveled up the entire party to the maximum level of six, vvhich means the game is populating a vvhole bunch of Champion level dungeons for me even vvith so many level fours left to grind up. vve’ll see hovv vve manage these next time. Hopefully, it vvon’t be anything too grim. Until then, -r ←Previous Post -- Next Post→
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