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Darkest Dungeon The Crimson Court: How to beat The Viscount? Darkest Dungeon Guide
Last update: Thursday, April 20, 2023
The Viscount is the second of the three main bosses encountered in the Courtyard. You will be fighting him during the third mission of the area, "Served Cold". As with the previous one (Baron), you will first need to get to the boss before you can fight him. The area of the third mission is divided into dozens of rooms, filled with numerous enemies, traps and Curios. Like with the previous mission, you need to find specific keys in order to open locked passages and continue towards the boss. Fortunately, the dungeon layout is fixed - it's always the same (like in the Darkest Dungeon area). This guide will include complete maps of each Courtyard area - if you have any problems navigating through them, check those chapters.
The second of the three bosses of the DLC - the Viscount.
Keep in mind that you can always leave the Courtyard area and re-enter it with a fresh party, with a better composition that will be more effective against the boss. There's no point in entering the boss area when most of your characters lost 2/3 of their health and are almost afflicted.
Statistics of the boss
The following table presents the boss' stats during the third mission in the Courtyard, "Served Cold". The boss doesn't have three different variants (like, for instance, Crocodilian) - you will encounter him only once.
Name | The Viscount |
Health | 127 |
Dodge | 23 |
Protection | 0% |
Speed | 5 |
Resistance to Stun | 55% |
Resistance to Blight | 95% |
Resistance to Bleed | 70% |
Resistance to Debuff | 70% |
Resistance to Move | 95% |
Note - the boss has 4 moves each round.
How to defeat the boss
Once the battle begins, the boss will enter the area, accompanied by three "allies" - Emanciated Body, Body and Bloodstuffed Body. Those bodies can't move and won't be a direct threat to your party - they are "only" used for the boss to heal and buff/debuff himself, depending on the target of his attack. The boss will use an ability on one of those during each round (using one of his moves - two for Revenous Feast). Three attacks are associated with those bodies:
- Miserly Morsel - used on the Emanciated Body. The boss will restore 10 health points, cure Blight and Bleed, gain +5% CRIT and -25% DMG. The ability costs the boss one move.
- Square Meal - used on the Body. The boss will restore 25 health points, cure Blight and Bleed, gain +25 DODGE, +20 ACC and +6 SPD. The ability costs the boss one move.
- Ravenous Feast - used on the Bloodstuffed Body. The boss will restore 50 health points, cure Bleed and Blight, gain +50% DMG, -25 DODGE, -20 ACC and -4 SPD. The ability costs the boss two moves.
Aside from those, the boss will use four different attacks - Hungry Eyes, Riposte Attack (a buff gained after using Hungry Eyes), Refined Pairing and Served Rare. All of the abilities can cause stress damage and are quite powerful. However, they have extremely low accuracy (ranging from 97,5% to 102,5), making dodge parties very effective against the Baron. Using dodge trinkets and two Man-at-Arms' Bolster abilities, or two Hound Masters' Guard Dog abilities will allow you to reach 100 DODGE (even over 100 with the Hound Masters), making all of the Baron's attack useless - he will have about 5% chance to hit (5% is the minimum hit chance, regardless of DODGE / ACC values). Even the two buffs of the boss won't change much - he will still miss most of his shots. The remaining two heroes can be the ones that focus heavily on dealing damage - Flagellant, Hellion, Lepper, Abomination are the best for the role.
The thing to watch out for when dealing with the boss is his ability to heal himself - especially when doing so with the help of Ravenous Feast. The boss will each time restore 10/25/50 health points, boosting his stats at the same time. You have two possibilities here - you can either take out all three of the bodies or bring a damage-oriented party and try to take the boss down with force, negating his healing. The first approach is easier to accomplish - you just need to eliminate the bodies one by one. They have low health pools and lack any dodge or protection. Lepper will be particularly good here - he can target ranks 1 and 2 simultaneously, dealing huge damage, and his main weakness, low accuracy, won't be a problem thanks to 0 dodge of the bodies. Keep in mind that the bodies don't move - applying any damage over time effects (Bleed and/or Blight) won't damage them at all.
Once you take out the bodies, the boss won't be able to heal and boost his stats, making the entire encounter trivial - you should be able to take him down in 2-3 rounds.
There's a number of things you should keep in mind while preparing to fight and/or fighting the boss. Those are:
- There's no point in bringing heroes that benefit from Mark. The boss moves 4 times during the round - before your heroes will be able to react, the mark will be gone. However, if you can bring fast / slow enough heroes (so that they move either before or after the enemy), you can still benefit greatly from the Mark.
- Even though Blight and Bleed are ineffective against the bodies, they can still be useful when dealing with the Viscount. If the boss uses one of his abilities on the bodies to heal himself, he will transfer any Bleed and/or Blight status effects applied to the bodies to himself. This can be extremely powerful - stacking huge Bleed / Blight values onto the bodies can deal over 30 points of damage to the boss with his each move. This is, however, a very risky tactic - the boss might take some time before hitting the body you've applied DoTs to.
- The boss moves 4 times a round, making Bleed and Blight effects extremely effective against him. Those, however, can be ineffective, if the boss uses one of his healing abilities on the bodies - this cures any Bleed and/or Blight effect applied to him (he will still suffer from the effects transferred from the body).
- Stunning and Marking the boss is ineffective, as the boss can move 4 times during the same round.
Recommended team composition for the encounter
Depending on your approach - heavy damage or dodge-oriented party - there are different party composition that can be used to combat the enemy. You should, however, target the main weaknesses of the boss - no protection (0%), rather low dodge (23%) and low accuracy. The boss has quite low Bleed and Blight resistances (70% and 95%) and those effects can be easily applied and deadly (given his 4 moves during the same round), but his support abilities (Miserly Morsel, Squeal Meal and Ravenous Feast) cure him of any Bleed and Blight status effects. If you want to deal damage with the help of those effects, you must use an extremely slow party - the boss starts his turn with one of the healing effects, curing himself of DoTs. Applying any Bleed and/or Blight before the boss can move is pointless - he will take one tick of the enemy and cure himself of the effect. Your party needs to move after the first attack of the enemy.
As you can imagine, the above scenario is extremely hard (if not impossible) to pull off. This is why you shouldn't really rely on those effects - if you still want to, try to apply them to one of the bodies, so that the boss can transfer the effects on himself. In this chapter we will discuss a party focused around dodging and dealing huge damage.
The team that will do well against this boss consists of:
- Hellion in the 1st rank. Hellion can deal high damage and from the first position she can target any enemy. She can also apply bleed to the target, dealing huge "normal" damage at the same time - you will unfortunately need a lot of Medicinal Herbs to get rid of her damage debuff, but those items are easy to carry to the Courtyard. Hellion can also be swapped with a Jester, focusing on the use of Solo and Finale. The first ability will allow the Jester to come to the 1st rank, decreasing the accuracy of the enemy at the same time, whereas Finale can deal the highest possible damage in the entire game - with proper trinkets you can even take half of the enemy health with a single strike. Be sure to take several Medicinal Herbs on the mission, as Finale applies heavy debuff to the Jester.
- Lepper in the 2nd rank. Lepper has the highest damage in the entire game, although he lacks accuracy - normally you need accuracy trinkets for him to even hit the target. The boss, however, has rather low (22) dodge value, allowing a Lepper equipped with 1-2 accuracy trinkets to hit him almost every time, dealing extreme damage (thanks to 0% PROT of the boss). Lepper is also quite self-sufficient - he can heal his wounds and reduce stress and has high health pool. Lepper can be swapped with Abomination - his Rake ability will become increasingly powerful as the battle lasts more rounds, but you must keep an eye on his stress meter.
- Man-at-Arms in the 3rd and 4th rank. Both of MaA should focus on using Bolster - it increases the speed and, most importantly, the dodge of the party. They can increase dodge value of every hero in the party by 54 points - coupled with armor upgrades and dodge trinkets the heroes will be able to reach over 100 points of dodge, rendering Viscount's attacks completely useless. Alternatively, you can use 2 Hound Masters and keep using their Guard Dog abilities on the heroes standing in the front - the dodge bonus will be higher, but the enemy will be able to hit the protected heroes with area of effect attacks (when targeting ranks 1+2+3+4).
This is the easiest and most effective party to use against the Viscount. Both Man-at-Arms need to focus on using Bolster every single round, severely decreasing the boss' chances to hit your party. Heroes in rank 1 and 2 should focus on taking out the bodies first - they won't be powerful enough to take out the boss, as he will outheal them. As far as the trinkets go, you should use the ones that give 8-15 points of dodge on every hero. However, if you want to be sure that Lepper hits his targets, you can equip him with the accuracy trinkets. He will still have 70-80 points of dodge, allowing him to dodge most enemy attacks and he is sturdy enough to take some of the hits. With a dodge party like this you don't need a healer in the party - about 90% of enemy attacks will miss their target.
However, you can use different party compositions if you want. Those are (from 1st to 4th rank):
- Crusader/Hellion/Jester, Lepper, Grave Robber, Arbalest, all heroes equipped with trinkets increasing damage, critical chance and accuracy. This party will allow you to take out the enemy extremely fast - with enough luck you can kill the boss at the end of round 2, round 3 at the maximum. However, this party will be very ineffective and risky if the battle lasts longer than 3-4 rounds - they will receive a lot of damage and you won't have any dedicated healer.
- Lepper, Man-at-Arms, Jester and Vestal, all equipped with trinkets boosting their role (healing for Vestal, dodge and damage for Jester, accuracy for Lepper and damage, health and protection for MaA). This is the most balanced party - you can deal high damage and easily heal regular and stress damage as well. You should, however, focus on taking out the boss' bodies first and focus Viscount when he's alone.
- Bounty Hunter, Hound Master, Occultist and Arbalest - the best Mark party. The key here is to have the Occultist with the highest speed (preferably 8 points more than the second fastest party member) so that he can use his Vulnerability Hex to mark the enemy. The rest of the party should use their abilities benefiting from the mark and have equipped trinkets that increase damage (or damage on marked targets). This team has the potential to take the enemy out by the end of 2nd round, but it's a little tricky to use. Preferably, all of your party members should either move before or after the Viscount - otherwise the mark might fade away before you can utilize the skills that benefit from it.