Auntie Ethel/combat: Difference between revisions

Her abilities and tactics are much the same, simply scaled-up with the levels, with several additional twists:  

 

=== Pearlspore Bells ===

In order to truly kill Ethel, players need to destroy her Pearlspore Bells. These lustrous mushroom clumps will revive the hag each time she is felled, if left unchecked. The Pearlspores will automatically heal to full at the end of each round, requiring them to either be burst down with massive damage in a single turn or for the player to employ heal prevention, e.g. [[Arrow of Ilmater|Arrows of Ilmater]]. Party members with the Sharpshooter feat should fire at the Pearlspores with the "Sharpshooter all-in" passive toggled on, as hitting is guaranteed and thus the extra damage will always be applied.

Ethel has eaten [[Vanra]], hoping to transform the girl into a hag to grow her coven. Killing Ethel kills Vanra as well, locking the player out of any quest rewards later on. To avoid this, players can enable [[Toggle Non-Lethal Attacks|non-lethal attacks]] when dealing the killing blow, prompting instead a cutscene where Vanra is manually freed from an unconscious Ethel's belly. Alternatively, progressing through [[Help the Hag Survivors]] can provide players with {{RarityItem|Hag's Bane}}, which when [[thrown]] will force Ethel to vomit the kid. Being pregnant does not imbue any inherent combat bonuses, other than the tension of potential quest failure. If released, Vanra will run into a corner of the room -- the party must thenceforth be cautious about stray area-of-effect damage nearby.  

=== Invisible Copies ===

After her first group of illusory copies has been summoned, any future groups that Ethel summons will also now be {{cond|Invisible}}, making their dispatch trickier and increasing the likelihood they will survive to deal extra damage. The straightforward way to deal with this is area-of-effect damage such as smokepowder bombs/arrows, void bulbs, alchemist's fire, etc. However an additional albeit cheesy technique involves activating the jump ability with a party member (preferably one with high strength and therefore more jump range), and moving the target cursor slowly across the floor: places where the cursor won't allow a jump but which are not otherwise obstructed indicate the presence of an invisible baddie.  

A minor but useful feature of Ethel's lair in Act 3 is the barrelstalk fungus on the upper platform (near a patch of smaller mushrooms). Standing directly adjacent to the barrelstalk will confer {{cond|Haste Spores}} on any party members who do so, allowing them an extra action per turn.