Shieldbreaker/Nightmares

• Hero
• Nightmares
• Strategy
• Butcher's Circus
• Barks
• Gallery

When Camping, the Shieldbreaker has a chance to experience a flashback, or nightmare, where the party will be forced enter combat against a group of Pliskins, Rattlers, or Adders.

Mechanics

If there is a Shieldbreaker in the party, there is a 50% chance for a nightmare to occur while camping. The Shieldbreaker will warn the party if a nightmare is about to occur: she will utter a unique bark after the party has eaten, but before any camping skills have been used.

Nightmares replace the usual Night-Time Ambush battles and cannot be prevented by any camping skills that would otherwise prevent nighttime ambushes. Nightmares will never occur the Courtyard, the Farmstead, or the Darkest Dungeon.

Only one nightmare may occur per expedition—it is not possible to face multiple nightmares during a single long expedition.

There are a total of seven nightmares. The enemies faced in each nightmare are the following:

Encounter Number	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3	Rank 4	Expedition Level	Reward
1	Pliskin	Rattler	Rattler	x	Any	Venomous Vial
2	Pliskin	Rattler	Rattler	Pliskin	Any	Shimmering Scale
3	Pliskin	Rattler	Death Adder		Any	Dancer's Footwraps
4	Greater Pliskin	Greater Pliskin	Greater Pliskin	Greater Pliskin	Veteran and Champion	Fanged Spear Tip
5	Greater Pliskin	Irritated Rattler	Sinister Adder		Veteran and Champion	Cuirboilli
6	Terrible Pliskin	Enraged Rattler	Nightmarish Adder		Champion	Obsidian Dagger
7	Nightmarish Adder		Nightmarish Adder		Champion	Severed Hand

The same nightmare will reoccur until it is successfully defeated. Nightmares are shared across all Shieldbreakers, and each nightmare may be completed by any Shieldbreaker. Once all the nightmares have been completed for a particular difficulty level, no further nightmares will occur for that difficulty. E.g. after the first three nightmares are completed, no more nightmares will occur in Apprentice-level dungeons.

At the start of combat, all Shieldbreakers in the party will receive 20 Horror for 6 rounds which cannot be removed with Laudanum. If combat ends before 6 rounds, the Horror will be removed.

The Shieldbreaker cannot become Virtuous during a nightmare. Because of this, and the Horror effect, without proper Stress management the Shieldbreaker is likely to become Afflicted by the time the fight is over.

The nightmare is failed if a Shieldbreaker reaches Death's Door. Upon failure, the Shieldbreaker will be healed off Death's Door and will receive a debuff for +33% stress and -5 ACC for the rest of the quest, while the rest of the party suffers a similar +15% stress debuff.

Strategy

Nightmares present a number of significant challenges to the party, and it is prudent to prepare ahead of time when bringing a Shieldbreaker to any medium or longer expedition.

The Shieldbreaker's stress should be reduced as much as possible prior to the battle, and additional camping buffs like Pep Talk can be used to reduce the stress generated by horror. While snakes themselves have no dedicated stress skills, Pliskins have a massive +15% CRIT buff while stealthed, and will almost certainly inflict stress damage on the party with their attacks.

While it is possible to kill the snakes quickly to end the horror, this will likely leave the party in poor shape with little opportunity to recover health or de-stress.

A large amount of the snakes' damage is dealt via Blight and Bleed. Holy Water may be used to boost resistances, preventing incoming damage; or failing that, Bandages and Antivenom can cure DoTs from the party.

All these dangers are exacerbated for novice (Resolve Level 0) Shieldbreakers since, in addition to their already weak resistances, they will take +25% additional stress from being underleveled for the expedition. Newly-recruited Shieldbreakers should ideally finish a short expedition to reach Resolve Level 1 before embarking on any longer missions.

Defensively, snakes have very high resistance to Blight, making the Shieldbreaker's blight skills weak against them, but low resistance to Bleed.

The Light Meter is fixed at 100 during the nightmare, so trinkets and quirks which activate at high light levels will be active for the entire battle. In particular, the Occultist can freely use Hands from the Abyss without decreasing the light level.

Reinforcements will never spawn during a nightmare. It is beneficial to stall after killing the most dangerous targets, leaving one last Rattler or Pliskin alive in order to heal the party before finishing.

Rewards

Defeating the snakes grants the following rewards:

• A number of Aegis Scales.
• A Shieldbreaker Trinket.
• Journal Pages that tell the story of the Shieldbreaker.
• Additionally the Shieldbreaker will receive a buff of +3% CRIT and -33% Stress received, and the rest of the party will receive a buff of -15% Stress. Both buffs last for the duration of the quest.

It is only necessary to pick up the Aegis Scales—both the trinket and the journal entries will become available in the Hamlet regardless of whether they are picked up, so it is not necessary to waste inventory space on them.

Once the seventh nightmare is completed, Shieldbreakers will no longer receive flashbacks when camping, and instead will receive a buff for +1 SPD, +10% DMG, and +10% PROT for 2 battles. Unlike other camping buffs, this buff can be stacked with itself multiple times. This can be used to buff up Shieldbreaker(s) during boss missions in the Courtyard.

Journal Entries

Shieldbreaker Journal Entries (Spoilers)
A Beautiful Thing 1/7
"	I am a beautiful thing, they say. Flawless as the sea of dunes. Graceful as the desert winds. Captivating as a shimmering mirage. They stare, they linger, they watch me without blinking.	"
A Beautiful Thing 2/7
"	Such exquisiteness must be admired, they say. And so I am made to dance for their desperate, dust-pitted faces; for their watery, bloodshot eyes; their cracked, grinning lips. I am not a person to this debauched audience, I am an exotic wonder. I am a beautiful thing.	"
A Beautiful Thing 3/7
"	Such loveliness belongs in the palace, they say. And so my hands are tied, and I am put in a caravan next to golden idols and jeweled icons. together, we are a priceless cargo of dazzling rarities, bound for the Vizier's treasury. I know this tyrant's reputation, and I am afraid.	"
A Beautiful Thing 4/7
"	As the wagon careens along the mountain road, I make my choice. I will not go to the Vizier. I will not be this man's prize; his plaything. With practice grace, I slip my bonds, and lunge for the open air. The wagon teeters and the guard shouts. Wheels lift, horses panic...	"
A Beautiful Thing 5/7
"	I am lodged in a jumble of corpses and wreckage. My arm is pinned. The serpent appears silently from behind a rock, tongue tasting the air. The bite is quick; the venom slow. It runs cold in my veins, inching up my arm - forcing me to make a terrible choice.	„
A Beautiful Thing 6/7
"	The knife is dull, and I must work quickly. In my panic, I saw, hack and gouge. My cries are met with the silent indifference of the dunes, the chill of the desert wind, the cold light of the moon. I am sacrificing my beauty for a chance to live; paying for my future with the only currency I've ever had.	"
A Beautiful Thing 7/7
“	I stare at my severed hand, my bloodied arm. There will be no more leering crowds, no more coins thrown at my feet. I breathe a wordless thanks to my liberator, as it slithers away into the shadows. At last, I am free of my gilded cage. At last, I finally understand: a thing cannot be truly beautiful until it is broken.	„