Brain of Darkness | Darkest Dungeon 2 Wiki

Video Strategies

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Strategy Writeup

The Brain is the final boss of Darkest Dungeon 2, encountered at the very end of the journey at the Mountain. The Boss Brain Battle is represented by the four Shackles (Locks). Clear the locks shackling the Brain to win the battle. Each Lock has its own set of Stats and "Denial" Skill. These Denial Skills are added debuffs that inflict the Heroes and cannot be countered. Each Lock take turns to inflict their denial Skill once per round, affecting each of the Heroes for the round and forcing them to play without the Denied skill or Ability. The effects do not stack and is cleared at the end of each round before the next  t Lock places their Denier. These effects will be indicated after a Denial Skill is dealt and a debuff token is added to the Heroes. Players may scroll over the tokens below the Hero HP for the official description and effects. Below are the four Locks and their corresponding debuffs. 

• Bolt of Lamentation (arrow quiver) - Denial of Reach (Cannot use Ranged Skills or Items)
• Latch of Regret (lion head) - Denial of Arms (Cannot use Melee Skills or Items)
• Padlock of Wasting (cross) - Denial of Fortitude (No Health aid Skills or Items)
• Shackle of Despair (circular) - Denial of Reason (Cannot use Stress Heal Skills or Items) 

Keep in mind that if a skill does more than one thing, like Leper's Solemnity being both a Stress and HP heal, then both the anti-healing and the anti-stress Denial will block it!

These four locks must be cleared in order to win the battle. All of them can cast Crippling Doubt and Paralyzing Fear. Crippling Doubt targets 2 random Heroes and inflicts damage and stress. Paralyzing Fear targets 1 random Hero and inflicts Stun and Vulnerable. In addition to these 2 skills, each of the locks has its own unique attack: 

• Bolt of Lamentation - Mental Lashes: targets both back ranks, inflicting damage and Blind.  
• Latch of Regret - Ruptured Vessel: targets both front ranks, inflicting damage and Weak.
• Padlock of Wasting - Cerebral Falter: targets 1 random Hero, inflicting damage and multi-DoT. 
• Shackle of Despair - Overwhelming Anguish: targets 1 random Hero, inflicting damage and stress. 

Focus on which locks to clear out first depending on the build of the Hero party and their available Skills. If focusing on ranged attacked, clear the Bolt of Lamentation first. If melee attacks are the teams forte, clear the latch of regret. Ideally, clear the other two, which affect Health and Stress first, as having Health and Stress at dangerous levels for even one individual will be detrimental to the whole team. It is recommended to bring a number of Stress Reducing Items as the Locks' general attacks will come with an addition of Stress. With a variety of Skills and attacks it should be easy to avoid the debuffs all together and work with the Heroes' available Skills for the round. 

Keep in mind that the locks have their own set of Stats. Each have 75 HP, but vary in resistance. When checking for vulnerable effects, it'll be easier to get rid of the Shackle of Despair with Damage over Time hits first, having 20 points of DOT resistance across the board rather than he 50 points of Resistance that the Padlock of Wasting has. When Dealing with the Bolt of Lamentation, his Bleed Resistances and Burn Resistances are most vulnerable standing at only 10 points. Latch of Regret is especially Vulnerable to Blight and Burn Damage, so these are effects to take note of when deciding which Skills to use on the locks. 

After each denial has been set, take advantage of the round. For example, if a character's HP is getting low and no Denial of Fortitude enforced, use a skill or item to regenerate HP before the round ends, since the next denial for the coming round cannot be predicted. To clear this battle, Focus on clearing lock at a time. There is no distinct choice in priority, since all four locks deal a relatively even amount of damage, stress and similar attacks, so your first choice might be to clear the lock that you feel has the greatest disadvantage to your team due to their rebuffing ability. A notable thing to remember is that clearing the Padlock of Wasting will result in all other remaining locks to regenerate a great portion of their Health (+30), and clearing the Bolt of Lamentation will provide other Locks extra Buffs. So Ideally, when attacking the locks focus on one, so that damage is not distributed and reset at the death of a lock. Each lock has the ability to deal Crippling Doubt which targets an enemy with damage, but additionally affects members with Stress. Since the locks do not focus on DoT damaging effects, Items recommended include mainly Stress reducing and Health regeneration effects rather than items that grant DoT resistance effects.

Recommended Items: 

Combat Items: 

• Healing Salve - 1 Target. Moderate Heal.
• Bear Trap - 1 Target. Immobilizes enemy (2 tokens), medium  attack.
• Greek Fire Grenade - Party. Medium  attack.
• Ichor Bomb: 1 Target. Very large  attack.
• Laudanum: 1 Target. If Target  or Stress > 0%: Cures , -1 Stress.
• Triage Kit - 1 Target. Large Heal.
• Holy Water - 1 Target. Negative Token or if : Removes all negative tokens.

Trinkets: 

• Greater Heartseeker - +% CRIT 
• Greater Sharpness Charm -  +20% DMG 
• Galvanizing Goblet - On Heal: Extra Action 
• Ghastly Gruel - Turn Start: Heal
• Royal Summons (Jester Only) - +25%  RES
• Gilded Mind - +x  RES
• Inert Indicia - +20%  RES

Repeat using Combat Items and Skills to balance HP, Stress and focus all damaging and DoT damage attacks on one lock at a time to clear them.

Brain of Darkness Stats

 

 Attacks & Counters

 

 

Brain of Darkness Lore

"The caliginous cathedral - malign temple of the Iron Crown! Pity the Great Denier - chained by its own command! The mind must be freed of its self-imposed incarceration! At last, the world's mind is free to remember a time before the cancerous corruption."

 

Brain of Darkness Notes & Trivia

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