Darkest Dungeon The Crimson Court: How to beat The Countess? Darkest Dungeon Guide
Last update: 20 April 2023
The Countess is the third and the final "main" boss of the Crimson Court DLC fought in the Courtyard. You will encounter her during the fourth mission of the area called "A Bewitching Predator". As with the two previous bosses (Baron and Viscount), you first need to get through a huge area, divided into dozens of rooms and filled with keys and enemies, to get to the Countess. Fortunately for you, the layout of the dungeon is fixed - it's always the same (like in the Darkest Dungeon area). Thanks to that, you will be able to skip about 50% of the rooms, avoiding numerous encounters and traps. This guide will include complete maps of each Courtyard area - if you have any problems navigating through them, check those chapters.
The the third and final main boss of the DLC - the Countess.
The Countess is the third and the final "main" boss of the Crimson Court DLC fought in the Courtyard. You will encounter her during the fourth mission of the area called "A Bewitching Predator". As with the two previous bosses (Baron and Viscount), you first need to get through a huge area, divided into dozens of rooms and filled with keys and enemies, to get to the Countess. Fortunately for you, the layout of the dungeon is fixed - it's always the same (like in the Darkest Dungeon area). Thanks to that, you will be able to skip about 50% of the rooms, avoiding numerous encounters and traps. This guide will include complete maps of each Courtyard area - if you have any problems navigating through them, check those chapters.
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 fourth mission in the Courtyard, "A Bewitching Predator". The boss doesn't have three different variants (like, for instance, Crocodilian) - you will encounter her only once.
Name | Countess |
Health | 400 |
Dodge | 25 |
Protection | 30% |
Speed | 4 |
Resistance to Stun | 140% |
Resistance to Blight | 110% |
Resistance to Bleed | 90% |
Resistance to Debuff | 120% |
Resistance to Move | 220% |
Note - different forms of the boss allow her to move a certain amount of times during a round. Thirsty has 3 moves, Flushed 1 and Bloodlust 4.
How to defeat the boss
As soon as the battle starts, you will notice one thing - huge (400 points!) health pool of the boss. However, the battle wont' last significantly longer than the previous encounters - Countess doesn't have the Pods to hide behind (Baron) or almost any means of healing herself (Viscount). What's more, one of her own attacks, Love Letter, deals 10 points of damage to her. The biggest difference between her and the previous bosses is the fact that she has three different forms - Thirsty, Flushed and Bloodlust. She will turn into them in that order and transformations will give her different benefits and penalties, such as:
- Thirsty form - she starts in this form. She can move 3 times during a round and has access to attacks that deal moderate damage, can shuffle and Blight your party and cause high stress. The most dangerous attack is Love Letter - she infects one of your characters, placing a "tumor" on them. It will deal damage to them each round and at the end of third round (after getting infected) the "tumor" will explode, dealing high damage to the character. The boss can infect multiple characters with it. The boss also has access to a shuffle DoT, inflicting characters with an effect that will shuffle them randomly for three turns. She will use Flushed to transform into her second form.
- Flushed form - the weakest form of the boss, in which she only has 1 move each turn. After transforming into the Flushed form the boss will receive a severe penalty to her resistances, allowing your party to apply Blight and Bleed with ease. In this form she has access to two attacks - Momentary Overexertion that slightly buffs her resistances and Metamorphosis. The latter applies Horror status to your party, cures her of Blight and Bleed and transforms her into her third form.
- Bloodlust form - the strongest form of the boss. She can move 4 times during a single round. She can deal high damage to multiple heroes, apply Bleed, Stun and infect with Crimson Curse and can heal herself with The Thirst. After several rounds the boss will use Courtship Renewed to transform back to her first form (Thirsty) and repeat the cycle.
Given the fact that the attacks of the boss aren't the most accurate in the game (ranging from 110% to 120%), increasing the DODGE attribute of your characters will be extremely effective. 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 most of her attacks (especially those that target multiple ranks) miss her mark. Damage over time effects are also extremely effective, as the boss has multiple moves in a single round. The best weapon to use against her is the Bleed effects, which she, by default, has 90% resistance to. Using a Hellion and a Flagellant in ranks 1 and 2 will allow you to decrease her resistance even further and apply powerful bleeding effect. During a single round, when the boss is either in Thirsty or Bloodlust form, this will allow only two of your characters to deal over 50 damage.
The most dangerous ability of the boss is Love Letter. After infecting a character with the tumor-like thing, the hero will take damage equivalent to about 10% of his/her max health each round. After three rounds the tumor will explode, dealing damage equivalent to about 60% max health and applying a 25% PROT buff to the boss. You need to be extremely careful and keep your hero's health above 0 at all times. Otherwise, the hero might start his round with 0 health and receive a death blow, reducing your party size and decreasing chances to success. There's no way to remove the tumor - your hero just needs to endure the damage it deals. Keep in mind that the boss can infect multiple characters with it.
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 3-4 times during a 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.
- Pure damage is not really effective against the Countess. She has 30% PROT and can increase it by 25-50% (depending on the amount of targets from the Love Letter). Unless you bring someone who can mark and decrease PROT, pure damage heroes (such as Lepper, Abomination or Crusader) aren't the best choices here.
- The boss acts differently while in different forms. Thirsty focuses on applying damage over time effects, shuffle and placing tumor-like parasites from the Love Letter and is able to move three times during a round. Flushed is almost harmless, with reduced resistances and can move only once during a round. Bloodlust is the most dangerous, dealing large damage, applying Bleed, Stun and Crimson Curse and being able to move four times.
- Bleed is extremely effective against the Countess as she moves 3-4 times a round. Her rather low (90%) resistance to it can be decreased with the help of a Flagellant and even 6 points of his Punish attack will deal over 20 points of damage to the boss.
- Stunning and Marking the boss is ineffective, as the boss can move 3-4 times during the same round. Additionally, there's no point in moving her - she has high resistance to it (220%) and you won't gain anything, as she's the only enemy.
Recommended team composition for the encounter
The best party composition for the encounter is a one that can exploit weaknesses of the boss (moderate accuracy and low Bleed resistance) and benefit from her strengths (3-4 moves during a single round). The best composition to use against Countess is a party composed of heroes that have high DODGE attribute and can apply Bleed. This will allow you to dodge most of the enemy attacks and apply Bleed, dealing damage to the enemy with her every move.
The team that will do well against this boss consists of:
- Hellion in the 1st rank. Hellion can deal high damage, is quite self-sufficient (can heal, buff and reduce her own stress), has rather high DODGE and can apply powerful Bleed while dealing regular damage. She is the best choice for the 1st rank when facing the Countess.
- Flagellant in the 2nd rank. He is capable of inflicting the most powerful Bleeding effect from all of the classes, decreasing the Bleed resistance of the enemy along the way. He can heal his wounds and apply more Bleeding, heal his and an ally's wounds, reduce stress and is really hard to take down. He also benefits greatly from fighting with low health, high stress and/or on death's door. Flagellant will have a great synergy with the Hellion - both will apply Bleed, while the Flagellant will decrease the Bleed resistance of the Countess, giving you a highest chance to apply more Bleed.
- 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 most of Countess' 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 without a doubt the easiest to compose and one of the most effective parties to use against the Countess. Both Man-at-Arms must focus on using their Bolster abilities every round,severely decreasing the boss' chances to hit your party. Flagellant and Hellion should focus on applying Bleed - Flagellant with his Punish (or Exsanguinate, if he drops below 50% health) and Hellion with Bleed Out. Keep in mind that you need to use Medicinal Herbs each time Hellion uses that attack, as it applies a powerful debuff on her. As far as the trinkets go, you should focus on the ones increasing the DODGE value by 8-15 points. This will allow all of your characters to easily reach 100 points of dodge, causing only about 20% of the boss' attacks to reach her target.
There are several heroes that shouldn't be used here, such as:
- Abomination - he relies on pure damage, which is ineffective here as the boss has 30% PROT (that can increase to 80% easily). He also causes a lot of self-stress, requiring a character that can reduce it.
- Lepper and Crusader - they both rely on brute strength and focus on dealing damage, an approach ineffective against this boss because of her high PROT.
- Heroes that can't attack from any position. Countess can apply a powerful DoT effect, causing Shuffle. This will shuffle (move to random position) all of the affected characters at the start of their turn.
- Characters that rely on marks, such as Hound Master, Bounty Hunter and Arbalest. The boss moves 3-4 times a round, making any marking extremely ineffective.