AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I find the "Everything is RNG!" odd, because I routinely watch and get through champion dungeons myself without losing anyone or even taking that significant an amount of damage. By champion dungeons, DD expects you to not be making *any* mistakes and when it does, it punishes you severely. It expects you to know what every one of your heroes does, what they should be doing and what actions are most efficient. If you leave a huge opening, like giving them free reign to attack your healer constantly, you will die incessantly.
Even so, every now and again you'll have an awful run of luck, especially when the game decides to roll shit on surprise 3-4 encounters in a row (which can and will happen). These are recoverable situations and parties that are not good against shuffling will have a terrible time - but that's the game. In DnD just two weeks ago, I had a player who rolled an average of 3.74 on a d20 for an entire encounter (15 rolls in total). That's *unbelievably* bad luck, but even with that atrocious streak of rolls he wouldn't have died should a different series of decisions been taken from the other players. Lots of "How not to die" in games like this are about not panicking and making good decisions, even when shit is going 100% sideways constantly.
So, i posted here a couple of days ago for some help because i was getting rolled in the early game, and the simple advice was "avoid curios and kill sanity attack dudes first" and i'm rolling things now! huzzah. Thanks!
FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
The best advice is simply "Play More". The more you play, the better you will understand the combat and stress mechanics and learn which heroes' powers interact effectively.
Golden YakBurnished BovineThe sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered Userregular
I find you can save yourself a lot of grief purely through hero choice. If I go to the cove or ruins, I bring plague doctors, grave robbers, crusaders and/or abominations, and I blight the hell out of them. Bleed classes for the other places. Look at what skills do damage to what creatures, and what creatures you're likely to find going into a specific area. Make sure you can hit the backrows with effective dots - I suffer so much from those Bone Nobles and Cultist Witches in terms of stress unless I can get the PD to nail them with a couple blight bombs - then they're gone in a few turns. Trinkets are obviously a huge help but if you have nothing but raw damage or bleeders and you run up against those crab-people in the Cove, or those octopus guys who defend and have huge protection scores, you'll get whittled down.
In DnD just two weeks ago, I had a player who rolled an average of 3.74 on a d20 for an entire encounter (15 rolls in total). That's *unbelievably* bad luck, but even with that atrocious streak of rolls he wouldn't have died should a different series of decisions been taken from the other players.
Well that just sounds like a case of cursed dice. You need a cleansing ritual to exorcise the dice ghosts.
0
FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
A good rule for DD is, "Always bring someone who can light up that Monsters' back row". It's typically the enemy in Rank 4 who is most dangerous to you, so you want a Hero who can kill or stun that mook or at least drag it from Rank 4 into your kill zone.
The most effective Rank 4 killing ability, I find, is the Hellion's Iron Swan.
A good rule for DD is, "Always bring someone who can light up that Monsters' back row".
Also a good rule for your mum
+4
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited June 2017
And lost two parties in a row to the 8-pounder.
That boss is cursed for me. I've lost so many parties to the 8-pounder and 16-pounder bosses, it's not even been funny. No matter what I do, something fucks up and I can't kill the match stick guy. It's my boogie boss in this game. I've killed bosses that people routinely complain about easily, but that entire string of bosses just wrecks my shit every single time.
Edit: And then I realized if I had retreated from the fight, I would have won because killing the pounder was all I needed to do. The game has registered the boss as being dead, which actually adds so much more additionally salt to the wound. Had I not tried to kill the remaining jobbers, I would have got all the rewards etc.
That boss is cursed for me. I've lost so many parties to the 8-pounder and 16-pounder bosses, it's not even been funny. No matter what I do, something fucks up and I can't kill the match stick guy. It's my boogie boss in this game. I've killed bosses that people routinely complain about easily, but that entire string of bosses just wrecks my shit every single time.
Edit: And then I realized if I had retreated from the fight, I would have won because killing the pounder was all I needed to do. The game has registered the boss as being dead, which actually adds so much more additionally salt to the wound. Had I not tried to kill the remaining jobbers, I would have got all the rewards etc.
Well that pisses me off a great deal.
Try using +ACC trinkets on your DPS characters to ensure you don't miss the torch. Also consider using a 4 DPS group, with minimal or no heals (perhaps an arbalest, or a DPS-focused occultist). The cannon encounter has fairly low damage output, so you're not penalized for cutting heals.
oh dear god i just ran into a crocodilian in a level 1 quest with a level 0 party..he had 118 HP when the next toughest thing i've encountered so far had 18, it did not end well for my party
That boss is cursed for me. I've lost so many parties to the 8-pounder and 16-pounder bosses, it's not even been funny. No matter what I do, something fucks up and I can't kill the match stick guy. It's my boogie boss in this game. I've killed bosses that people routinely complain about easily, but that entire string of bosses just wrecks my shit every single time.
Edit: And then I realized if I had retreated from the fight, I would have won because killing the pounder was all I needed to do. The game has registered the boss as being dead, which actually adds so much more additionally salt to the wound. Had I not tried to kill the remaining jobbers, I would have got all the rewards etc.
Well that pisses me off a great deal.
Try using +ACC trinkets on your DPS characters to ensure you don't miss the torch. Also consider using a 4 DPS group, with minimal or no heals (perhaps an arbalest, or a DPS-focused occultist). The cannon encounter has fairly low damage output, so you're not penalized for cutting heals.
Oh I do that. It's just that one time the stun fails or the DPS fails to hit him. In this case, I missed him 4 times in a row. Then it blew my party up, then I killed the cannon (as it was almost dead) and I had an entire additional round of failing to hit anything. The last three guys then proceeded to kill my entire party with blanket fire and my surprise, as I've never seen it before now, the matchstick guy can hit your *entire* party with one attack.
The boss is just plain cursed for me. I know what to do, it's just every time I fight it I just get fucked over at exactly the wrong time (when it's always looking easily handled). I just utterly hate that boss in every conceivable way.
A good rule for DD is, "Always bring someone who can light up that Monsters' back row".
Also a good rule for your mum
Mum is 81, and her big Christmas gifts last year were new electric blankets for both the master and guest bedrooms--
you'll know your parents are old when their gift lists are full of things like towel warmers and electric blankets
-- and I'm helping her to put them on and she's dropping down to the floor and crawling around under the bed like a champ to untangle wires and hook up the connectors. Geez, Mom, I never remember you being this limber even 40 years ago.
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
My advice for the game is don't think that every character is meant for every portion of the game. For example, (I keep getting the Warrens and Weald mixed up, but in one of them) blight skills are highly resisted by the bulk of the enemies. So a plague doctor is not the best thing to bring.
0
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
And then I clear the 16-Pounder taking only a net 10 damage the entire combat. That's Darkest Dungeon for you.
That boss is cursed for me. I've lost so many parties to the 8-pounder and 16-pounder bosses, it's not even been funny. No matter what I do, something fucks up and I can't kill the match stick guy. It's my boogie boss in this game. I've killed bosses that people routinely complain about easily, but that entire string of bosses just wrecks my shit every single time.
Edit: And then I realized if I had retreated from the fight, I would have won because killing the pounder was all I needed to do. The game has registered the boss as being dead, which actually adds so much more additionally salt to the wound. Had I not tried to kill the remaining jobbers, I would have got all the rewards etc.
Well that pisses me off a great deal.
Try using +ACC trinkets on your DPS characters to ensure you don't miss the torch. Also consider using a 4 DPS group, with minimal or no heals (perhaps an arbalest, or a DPS-focused occultist). The cannon encounter has fairly low damage output, so you're not penalized for cutting heals.
Oh I do that. It's just that one time the stun fails or the DPS fails to hit him. In this case, I missed him 4 times in a row. Then it blew my party up, then I killed the cannon (as it was almost dead) and I had an entire additional round of failing to hit anything. The last three guys then proceeded to kill my entire party with blanket fire and my surprise, as I've never seen it before now, the matchstick guy can hit your *entire* party with one attack.
The boss is just plain cursed for me. I know what to do, it's just every time I fight it I just get fucked over at exactly the wrong time (when it's always looking easily handled). I just utterly hate that boss in every conceivable way.
I've never had any trouble with that boss and I still hate it, because it is stupid design IMO. It's bloody 20 rounds of "oh god I hope RNG doesn't screw me over this turn".
My advice for the game is don't think that every character is meant for every portion of the game. For example, (I keep getting the Warrens and Weald mixed up, but in one of them) blight skills are highly resisted by the bulk of the enemies. So a plague doctor is not the best thing to bring.
That's the Warrens and the Weald.
Warrens/Weald = bleeds good, blight bad.
Ruins/Cove = blight good, bleeds bad.
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
0
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
My advice for the game is don't think that every character is meant for every portion of the game. For example, (I keep getting the Warrens and Weald mixed up, but in one of them) blight skills are highly resisted by the bulk of the enemies. So a plague doctor is not the best thing to bring.
My advice for the game is don't think that every character is meant for every portion of the game. For example, (I keep getting the Warrens and Weald mixed up, but in one of them) blight skills are highly resisted by the bulk of the enemies. So a plague doctor is not the best thing to bring.
That's the Warrens and the Weald.
Warrens/Weald = bleeds good, blight bad.
Ruins/Cove = blight good, bleeds bad.
See even I'm still learning.
Keep in mind that the Human Cultists have a good chance of spawning in any dungeon, and both Bleeds and Blights work like a charm on them.
Golden YakBurnished BovineThe sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered Userregular
I throw Blasphemous Vial and/or Poisoned Herb on a Plague Doctor, her blights are guaranteed. A few rounds will decimate an enemy's backrow, and the 1/2 space targeting blight is super helpful for cleaning up.
the slickest thing I pulled off was 4 crits and a dead champion necromancer
bleeds always feel less useful than blights. probably because PDs are so effective. dots in general are a little eh, you can't wait around for 3 turns for things to die. better to strip their protection with a bounty hunter or houndmaster.
0
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
My advice for the game is don't think that every character is meant for every portion of the game. For example, (I keep getting the Warrens and Weald mixed up, but in one of them) blight skills are highly resisted by the bulk of the enemies. So a plague doctor is not the best thing to bring.
That's the Warrens and the Weald.
Warrens/Weald = bleeds good, blight bad.
Ruins/Cove = blight good, bleeds bad.
See even I'm still learning.
Keep in mind that the Human Cultists have a good chance of spawning in any dungeon, and both Bleeds and Blights work like a charm on them.
My dungeons are almost exclusively bloodsuckers now.
Shit is getting real and I am 100% considering doing the next stage of the courtyard just for a break from them.
Should I try a no-torch run? Yes, the extra treasure is worth the risk!
Sucks to be you, The Shambler lives in the dark
This, in particular, is something that seems bullshit to me. Because, hear me out here, the chance of the Shambler popping up at 0 torch in a level 1 dungeon is 1%. You will not run into a Shambler at 0 light in a level 1 dungeon. The chance of a Shambler popping up at 0 torch in a level 5 dungeon is 12%. The shambler will fuck you up, then.
So, you're taught early on, when the stakes are low, "hey if you need more stuff just snuff out the torch it'll be fine" and then, when the stakes are higher, "haha fuck you go train up some more mooks".
0
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited June 2017
IIRC there is definitely a voice line or similar that implies something really bad lurks in the darkness. I'm also pretty sure that it's 1% per hallway tile, not 1% per entire dungeon, which vastly increases the probability of fighting the shambler in the dark.
Edit: Yep it's 1% per tile. That's still low, but considering the number of tiles you need to walk through it's not as impossibly small a chance as you might think.
That boss is cursed for me. I've lost so many parties to the 8-pounder and 16-pounder bosses, it's not even been funny. No matter what I do, something fucks up and I can't kill the match stick guy. It's my boogie boss in this game. I've killed bosses that people routinely complain about easily, but that entire string of bosses just wrecks my shit every single time.
Edit: And then I realized if I had retreated from the fight, I would have won because killing the pounder was all I needed to do. The game has registered the boss as being dead, which actually adds so much more additionally salt to the wound. Had I not tried to kill the remaining jobbers, I would have got all the rewards etc.
Well that pisses me off a great deal.
Try using +ACC trinkets on your DPS characters to ensure you don't miss the torch. Also consider using a 4 DPS group, with minimal or no heals (perhaps an arbalest, or a DPS-focused occultist). The cannon encounter has fairly low damage output, so you're not penalized for cutting heals.
Oh I do that. It's just that one time the stun fails or the DPS fails to hit him. In this case, I missed him 4 times in a row. Then it blew my party up, then I killed the cannon (as it was almost dead) and I had an entire additional round of failing to hit anything. The last three guys then proceeded to kill my entire party with blanket fire and my surprise, as I've never seen it before now, the matchstick guy can hit your *entire* party with one attack.
The boss is just plain cursed for me. I know what to do, it's just every time I fight it I just get fucked over at exactly the wrong time (when it's always looking easily handled). I just utterly hate that boss in every conceivable way.
I've never had any trouble with that boss and I still hate it, because it is stupid design IMO. It's bloody 20 rounds of "oh god I hope RNG doesn't screw me over this turn".
Yeah that's basically what happened. I either lose concentration, like last night where I missed that Matchstick guy didn't die from blight (I miscounted his 2 damage blight while he had 3 HP) and it's just a hugely long fight. There is plenty of time for something to just go dramatically wrong odds wise, all the while you're getting blanket fire and stabbed while chipping away at the cannon. I think that's primarily what gets me, because the fights so simple if done correctly, that I don't think to bring a -prot character to debuff it. This always backfires when that one confluence of bad rolls or simple absent-mindedness gets everyone killed.
I can kill almost every other boss in the game with no issue or troubles, but that one thing is just my boogie. It probably suggests I'm doing something fundamentally wrong in combating it.
At 1% per tile, it's pretty likely you'll find one at some point. Assuming around 24 corridor tiles (6-ish average 4 tile corridors for a short dungeon) the percentage chance of NOT finding the Shambler is about 78.5%
So that's around 21.5% chance you find at least one shambler in a 24 corridor tile dungeon.
Tri-Optimum reminds you that there are only one-hundred-sixty-three shopping days until Christmas. Just 1 extra work cycle twice a week will give you the spending money you need to make this holiday a very special one.
I'm not positive (never been a fan of pitch black runs) but I'm fairly sure the Shambler REPLACES a hallway fight at those odds. He doesn't just pop up out of nowhere.
0
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I'm not positive (never been a fan of pitch black runs) but I'm fairly sure the Shambler REPLACES a hallway fight at those odds. He doesn't just pop up out of nowhere.
This is not correct. The Shambler can spawn from nowhere. Have you never scouted a dungeon, moved a tile and suddenly noticed a new encounter popping up in an already explored hallway? For example, last night I fought 2x Bloodsuckers in a row, then had a room encounter on a dead end. On returning to that same hallway, I then fought ANOTHER set of Bloodsuckers (because the game thinks this is my fetish now) that appeared after I moved into the hallway.
It absolutely can create new encounters if it wants to.
Edit: The Collector works differently. He replaces a hallway encounter on spawn and this is not something I actually knew until now.
Edit2: Can confirm this is how it works. I went to a low level dungeon, took out everything in it and then ran around in the dark. Eventually ran into the shambler, in absolutely no condition to fight the thing, but he definitely will pop up in a completely cleared dungeon.
I think that's primarily what gets me, because the fights so simple if done correctly, that I don't think to bring a -prot character to debuff it. This always backfires when that one confluence of bad rolls or simple absent-mindedness gets everyone killed.
If it is any consolation you can't debuff it, it has 200 to 245% debuff resistance depending which version you are fighting.
0
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I think that's primarily what gets me, because the fights so simple if done correctly, that I don't think to bring a -prot character to debuff it. This always backfires when that one confluence of bad rolls or simple absent-mindedness gets everyone killed.
If it is any consolation you can't debuff it, it has 200 to 245% debuff resistance depending which version you are fighting.
I'm not wording myself well, but its prot can be debuffed by mark skills. That's the only thing I know of that can reduce the prot it has.
This is a game where I feel zero shame for looking up the basics of boss fights before starting their missions. I beat the Apprentice Necromancer easily, then got smashed by the Hag and Siren because I didn't bring good party compositions or have the right skills. Never again.
I killed the 8 pounder last night without taking a cannon shot. Arbalest was the MVP of the fight, able to one shot the matchman almost every turn. I also had a Vestal, Bounty Hunter and MaA who could all stun in case the Arbalest missed. Highwayman could have filled the Arbalest's role too but Dismas is too high level for a level 1 dungeon now.
I think that's primarily what gets me, because the fights so simple if done correctly, that I don't think to bring a -prot character to debuff it. This always backfires when that one confluence of bad rolls or simple absent-mindedness gets everyone killed.
If it is any consolation you can't debuff it, it has 200 to 245% debuff resistance depending which version you are fighting.
I'm not wording myself well, but its prot can be debuffed by mark skills. That's the only thing I know of that can reduce the prot it has.
Are you sure? I'd think if you use a mark with prot debuff on it, since they are two different components of the same skill the mark works and the prot debuff doesn't. The wiki article on the boss says its protection can't be reduced.
Tynnanseldom correct, never unsureRegistered Userregular
Flagellants are incredibly strong, and that's even just using them as a straight-up bleeder without going into low-health high-stress rapturous builds. I'm not comfortable playing at death's door, so I haven't explored that design space, but it seems like it could be really powerful too.
I'm not positive (never been a fan of pitch black runs) but I'm fairly sure the Shambler REPLACES a hallway fight at those odds. He doesn't just pop up out of nowhere.
This is not correct. The Shambler can spawn from nowhere. Have you never scouted a dungeon, moved a tile and suddenly noticed a new encounter popping up in an already explored hallway? For example, last night I fought 2x Bloodsuckers in a row, then had a room encounter on a dead end. On returning to that same hallway, I then fought ANOTHER set of Bloodsuckers (because the game thinks this is my fetish now) that appeared after I moved into the hallway.
It absolutely can create new encounters if it wants to.
Edit: The Collector works differently. He replaces a hallway encounter on spawn and this is not something I actually knew until now.
Edit2: Can confirm this is how it works. I went to a low level dungeon, took out everything in it and then ran around in the dark. Eventually ran into the shambler, in absolutely no condition to fight the thing, but he definitely will pop up in a completely cleared dungeon.
I am saying that, when your torch is at 0, and you walk INTO A HALLWAY FIGHT, as in one of the hallway tiles that have crossed swords on it, there is a chance (depending on dungeon level) that the fight will be against a Shambler. This is in contrast to the OPPOSING THEORY, which is that when your torch is at 0, and you walk INTO ANY EMPTY HALLWAY TILE, as in a hallway tile that does NOT have an encounter, curio, trap, or hunger check, there is a chance (depending on dungeon level) that the fight will be against a Shambler.
So the question is: in your experiment, did the shambler show up when you entered a HALLWAY FIGHT, or when you entered an EMPTY tile?
Flagellants are incredibly strong, and that's even just using them as a straight-up bleeder without going into low-health high-stress rapturous builds. I'm not comfortable playing at death's door, so I haven't explored that design space, but it seems like it could be really powerful too.
It's not worth the risk IMO. Stack +dmg on him (you want him to get hit to access Exsanguinate) and let his Death's Door resist just give you a bit of confidence before he lunges back in. He can't sit there weathering a hundred Death's Door attacks, but the fact that he heals his party when he hits it and doesn't have a near-death debuff is definitely a boon.
Edit: and all the +stress he procs on your team when Rapturous? Not worth it.
Chance on
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
Posts
Even so, every now and again you'll have an awful run of luck, especially when the game decides to roll shit on surprise 3-4 encounters in a row (which can and will happen). These are recoverable situations and parties that are not good against shuffling will have a terrible time - but that's the game. In DnD just two weeks ago, I had a player who rolled an average of 3.74 on a d20 for an entire encounter (15 rolls in total). That's *unbelievably* bad luck, but even with that atrocious streak of rolls he wouldn't have died should a different series of decisions been taken from the other players. Lots of "How not to die" in games like this are about not panicking and making good decisions, even when shit is going 100% sideways constantly.
Well that just sounds like a case of cursed dice. You need a cleansing ritual to exorcise the dice ghosts.
The most effective Rank 4 killing ability, I find, is the Hellion's Iron Swan.
Also a good rule for your mum
That boss is cursed for me. I've lost so many parties to the 8-pounder and 16-pounder bosses, it's not even been funny. No matter what I do, something fucks up and I can't kill the match stick guy. It's my boogie boss in this game. I've killed bosses that people routinely complain about easily, but that entire string of bosses just wrecks my shit every single time.
Edit: And then I realized if I had retreated from the fight, I would have won because killing the pounder was all I needed to do. The game has registered the boss as being dead, which actually adds so much more additionally salt to the wound. Had I not tried to kill the remaining jobbers, I would have got all the rewards etc.
Well that pisses me off a great deal.
Try using +ACC trinkets on your DPS characters to ensure you don't miss the torch. Also consider using a 4 DPS group, with minimal or no heals (perhaps an arbalest, or a DPS-focused occultist). The cannon encounter has fairly low damage output, so you're not penalized for cutting heals.
Oh I do that. It's just that one time the stun fails or the DPS fails to hit him. In this case, I missed him 4 times in a row. Then it blew my party up, then I killed the cannon (as it was almost dead) and I had an entire additional round of failing to hit anything. The last three guys then proceeded to kill my entire party with blanket fire and my surprise, as I've never seen it before now, the matchstick guy can hit your *entire* party with one attack.
The boss is just plain cursed for me. I know what to do, it's just every time I fight it I just get fucked over at exactly the wrong time (when it's always looking easily handled). I just utterly hate that boss in every conceivable way.
Mum is 81, and her big Christmas gifts last year were new electric blankets for both the master and guest bedrooms--
you'll know your parents are old when their gift lists are full of things like towel warmers and electric blankets
-- and I'm helping her to put them on and she's dropping down to the floor and crawling around under the bed like a champ to untangle wires and hook up the connectors. Geez, Mom, I never remember you being this limber even 40 years ago.
I've never had any trouble with that boss and I still hate it, because it is stupid design IMO. It's bloody 20 rounds of "oh god I hope RNG doesn't screw me over this turn".
That's the Warrens and the Weald.
Warrens/Weald = bleeds good, blight bad.
Ruins/Cove = blight good, bleeds bad.
Keep in mind that the Human Cultists have a good chance of spawning in any dungeon, and both Bleeds and Blights work like a charm on them.
bleeds always feel less useful than blights. probably because PDs are so effective. dots in general are a little eh, you can't wait around for 3 turns for things to die. better to strip their protection with a bounty hunter or houndmaster.
My dungeons are almost exclusively bloodsuckers now.
Shit is getting real and I am 100% considering doing the next stage of the courtyard just for a break from them.
This, in particular, is something that seems bullshit to me. Because, hear me out here, the chance of the Shambler popping up at 0 torch in a level 1 dungeon is 1%. You will not run into a Shambler at 0 light in a level 1 dungeon. The chance of a Shambler popping up at 0 torch in a level 5 dungeon is 12%. The shambler will fuck you up, then.
So, you're taught early on, when the stakes are low, "hey if you need more stuff just snuff out the torch it'll be fine" and then, when the stakes are higher, "haha fuck you go train up some more mooks".
Edit: Yep it's 1% per tile. That's still low, but considering the number of tiles you need to walk through it's not as impossibly small a chance as you might think.
Yeah that's basically what happened. I either lose concentration, like last night where I missed that Matchstick guy didn't die from blight (I miscounted his 2 damage blight while he had 3 HP) and it's just a hugely long fight. There is plenty of time for something to just go dramatically wrong odds wise, all the while you're getting blanket fire and stabbed while chipping away at the cannon. I think that's primarily what gets me, because the fights so simple if done correctly, that I don't think to bring a -prot character to debuff it. This always backfires when that one confluence of bad rolls or simple absent-mindedness gets everyone killed.
I can kill almost every other boss in the game with no issue or troubles, but that one thing is just my boogie. It probably suggests I'm doing something fundamentally wrong in combating it.
So that's around 21.5% chance you find at least one shambler in a 24 corridor tile dungeon.
This is not correct. The Shambler can spawn from nowhere. Have you never scouted a dungeon, moved a tile and suddenly noticed a new encounter popping up in an already explored hallway? For example, last night I fought 2x Bloodsuckers in a row, then had a room encounter on a dead end. On returning to that same hallway, I then fought ANOTHER set of Bloodsuckers (because the game thinks this is my fetish now) that appeared after I moved into the hallway.
It absolutely can create new encounters if it wants to.
Edit: The Collector works differently. He replaces a hallway encounter on spawn and this is not something I actually knew until now.
Edit2: Can confirm this is how it works. I went to a low level dungeon, took out everything in it and then ran around in the dark. Eventually ran into the shambler, in absolutely no condition to fight the thing, but he definitely will pop up in a completely cleared dungeon.
If it is any consolation you can't debuff it, it has 200 to 245% debuff resistance depending which version you are fighting.
I'm not wording myself well, but its prot can be debuffed by mark skills. That's the only thing I know of that can reduce the prot it has.
I killed the 8 pounder last night without taking a cannon shot. Arbalest was the MVP of the fight, able to one shot the matchman almost every turn. I also had a Vestal, Bounty Hunter and MaA who could all stun in case the Arbalest missed. Highwayman could have filled the Arbalest's role too but Dismas is too high level for a level 1 dungeon now.
Are you sure? I'd think if you use a mark with prot debuff on it, since they are two different components of the same skill the mark works and the prot debuff doesn't. The wiki article on the boss says its protection can't be reduced.
Bounty Hunter and Hound Master reduce Prot
Flagellants make bleeds good. Real good. They're like the plague doctors of bleeds.
I am saying that, when your torch is at 0, and you walk INTO A HALLWAY FIGHT, as in one of the hallway tiles that have crossed swords on it, there is a chance (depending on dungeon level) that the fight will be against a Shambler. This is in contrast to the OPPOSING THEORY, which is that when your torch is at 0, and you walk INTO ANY EMPTY HALLWAY TILE, as in a hallway tile that does NOT have an encounter, curio, trap, or hunger check, there is a chance (depending on dungeon level) that the fight will be against a Shambler.
So the question is: in your experiment, did the shambler show up when you entered a HALLWAY FIGHT, or when you entered an EMPTY tile?
It's not worth the risk IMO. Stack +dmg on him (you want him to get hit to access Exsanguinate) and let his Death's Door resist just give you a bit of confidence before he lunges back in. He can't sit there weathering a hundred Death's Door attacks, but the fact that he heals his party when he hits it and doesn't have a near-death debuff is definitely a boon.
Edit: and all the +stress he procs on your team when Rapturous? Not worth it.