Strategy / Notes
Similar to how the Weaponry Trial II boss cannot be safely or effectively attacked with ranged attacks, this boss cannot be safely attacked with melee attacks, so make sure you’re only using ranged and/or AoE attacks!
The boss will be inflicting your characters with lots of stacks of [Stigmata], which cause your characters to die via chip damage over the course of a few turns so take care to remove the stacks with your healer and to avoid standing on [Stigmata Realm] tiles.
The boss has a three-turn cycle that it rigidly adheres to. On Turn 1, it will use Dust to Dust, which not only does a solid chunk of damage to the target (it targets the closest character to it), but also inflicts them with [The Magician’s Crimson], which shows up as a small diamond on the character’s sprite. This debuff triggers if the character gets hit with any attack, and causes them and anyone around them to get massively nuked AGAIN, pretty much guaranteeing they all die. Make sure whomever has the mark does NOT get hit with an attack.
On Turn 2, the boss will charge up its Calamitous Erosion attack, which will be shown as a 3x6 rectangle in front of it. I advise you to keep everyone out of this. You should still be able to attack from the corners on either side of the rectangle, so you should be able to keep attacking during this turn as you evade the coming attack.
On Turn 3, the boss will actually unleash the Calamitous Erosion AoE, and then immediately lock on to the lowest-HP character on your team. You need to make sure that your character who is marked with [The Magician’s Crimson] doesn’t get targeted by this, as on Turn 4, Abyssal Gaze will hit that character no matter where they run, and anyone within a 1-tile radius around them. You WANT this to hit two others, as it lowers the amount of damage each character takes, but again, make sure the marked character doesn’t get hit. Immediately after unleashing this attack on Turn 4, the boss will use Dust to Dust on the closest character and the cycle will repeat, with that character now being marked.
Be aware that, at the end of every turn, the boss uses its passive, Surreptitious Gaze, to inflict three random characters with 2 stacks each of [Stigmata], while also creating [Sigmata Realm] tiles. Keep cleansing those stacks! An Empress tarot on your healer/support character helps to cut through the stacks faster.
Edda is an excellent support in this fight, particularly for you magical attackers, and Safiyyah is also excellent for her ability to inflict multiple defensive debuffs on the boss. Also, Nungal can be an absolute monster on this stage, but I recommend watching some YouTube videos for more info on Nungal cheese strategies.
Use your Tactics to adjust turn order, increase your damage output, and/or provide your team with stat buffs and extra NRG—these really make a huge difference throughout the fight!
