Siren

The Captivating, Alluring, and Beguiling Siren is the first Boss of the Cove. She has 2 turns per round.

Ancestor's Memoirs: The Siren
"My lofty position wasn't always accompanied by the fear of office, and there was a time when I could walk the streets or raise a glass in the tavern without concern for molestation. Faithful as the tide, one precocious village waif made it her hobby to shadow my every errand. It was charming then, troublesome later.

In financial desperation, I struck a bargain with the ancient things that surfaced in search of sacrifice when the moon was right. Their price was the delivery of an obscure idol and one other item of more troubling portent. The pact struck, my new-found accomplices slipped silently beneath the brackish water. A fearful stirring at the edge of the torchlight betrayed a familiar witness and gifted me with malign inspiration.

Under the blood moon, I lured my wide-eyed prey to the pier's edge. Before she could properly appreciate her position, I clamped down a manacle, chaining her to the leering idol. A small push was sufficient to send both into the icy waters. And, when at length the tide receded, jewels of the most magnificent grandeur lay scattered upon the shore.

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- The Ancestor

Behavior
The Siren's main gimmick is her Song of Desire ability, which allows her to temporarily mind-control one of your heroes. Charmed heroes only have access to the moves on their bar and will move if they don't have a move they can use. Heroes will be put in a random rank either right in front of or behind the Siren (while she pushes herself backwards one rank) and typically fight for the Siren for two full turns (taking minor stress damage for every turn they spend charmed) before returning to your control - they will, however, be placed in Rank 4. Note that if you flee the fight while a Hero is currently ensorcelled by the Siren, that hero will be lost. In addition, the Siren's charm is able to target invisible heroes.

If it is the first turn of the round, and the following conditions are met, the Siren is guaranteed to use Song of Desire:


 * You have at least 1 hero not on Death's Door.


 * You have at least 2 heroes remaining in your party.


 * The Siren hasn't already charmed one of your heroes.

If it is not her first turn, but previous conditions are nonetheless met, the Siren still has about 1/4 of a chance to use Song of Desire again.

Aside from her powers of enchantment, the Siren can also inflict party-wide bleed and stress, or summon in Pelagic reinforcements. She will generally use one of Pressure Crash, Devour, or High Tide on her second turn. They are all equally likely to be used, unless the Siren has been unable to charm one of your heroes, in which case High Tide is twice as likely to be used in order to bring in additional firepower.

Strategy
With average dodge and fair resists, the Siren isn't very hard to hit. She will regularly charm one of your heroes, so the offensive power of the party will be lowered. Her own skills are weak — she relies instead on monsters and charmed heroes to fight for her. A hero that can stun or ignore Guard is valuable, in case Pelagic Guardians come to her aid. She also has no PROT, so skills with raw damage have the potential to hit very hard. With 2 actions per round, debuffs and Mark are not optimal, but still usable on her. If you want to use damage over time, note that her blight resist is lower than bleed, just like most enemies in the area.

Due to charm, you must be prepared to fight with 3 heroes. Also know that heroes will move forward to fill any empty slots, while a returning hero will always drop in the back. Skills that move may be ideal to fix positioning between charms. Be wary of using area of effect skills, as you could very well hit your own heroes.

Also, charmed heroes can be pulled back to your side by landing a Crit Move Skills ( Pull ) or Crit Stun Skill on that charmed hero such as Bounty Hunter's Come Hither. Additionally, having a Guard from either Houndmaster or Man-at-Arms can prevent a specific hero from getting charmed. Another helpful utility to have is stuns. Being able to stun whatever she summons, stunning charmed heroes and slowing down Siren's summoning can keep the action economy in the party's favor and help kill Siren before she can really start outpacing the party with her own two actions, the action of a hero and the summon.

Charm has a fixed 70% chance to succeed, ignoring any debuff resist. Despite this, the Siren is prone to targeting the hero with the lowest debuff resistance. After it expires, she will target the 2nd lowest resist hero, then cycle between them for future charms. This means you can mostly predict who will be taken, and influence subsequent charm targets with Holy Water. You can somewhat protect 2 of your heroes from charm simply by having 2 others with lower debuff resist. This is one of the few boss fights where the Antiquarian is desirable, as her low debuff resistance, campskill to buff debuff resistance and poor individual combat ability means that the Siren is very likely to take a largely irrelevant combatant.

Charmed heroes can only use skills currently equipped, and as such, there's no worry of, for example, a Flagellant using Exsanguinate while you have four other skills equipped. Additionally, if a Charmed hero has no skills Equipped, they will try to use Move on other monsters.

Preferred Heroes

 * Antiquarian - Low debuff resist attracts the Siren's attention. Poor individual combat ability means your own heroes are not as vulnerable to harm. Just be mindful of either Flashpowders or Invigorating Vapors while Charmed.
 * Occultist - Even with the risk of a high roll, or even Crit Wyrd Reconstruction on the Siren, the utility of a Dodge Debuffing Mark, alongside Hands From The Abyss' sheer strength, can turn the tide, even with other heroes getting Charmed.
 * Arbalest/Musketeer - Apart from the moderate healing that Bandages can give, and the potential of being on the receiving end of Suppressive Fire, the Siren can't make much good use out of Arbalest, while she is able to deal massive damage when a Mark is placed on the Siren. Unless she starts in Rank 3, having a hero get pulled won't mess up her positioning.
 * Houndmaster - Once again, doubled damage against Marked enemies proves plenty useful against the Siren, as she can't get much out of the same strategy. Additionally, it is entirely possible to Dodge the Siren's Charm, and the Houndmaster is uniquely capable of this due to his high base dodge. He can also guard a hero to guarantee they won't get charmd. Just be mindful not to have him start the fight in Rank 2, as he cannot attack with his Mark synergy when the Rank 1 hero gets charmed and he moves to the front. He can also guard Siren, forcing the party to either wait out the short duration or land a Stun on him.
 * Plague Doctor - Her Blights are plenty powerful in this circumstance, ticking down twice on Siren and being able to melt her HP very quickly. Her stuns could prove more beneficial for her compared to you, but Blinding Gas isn't as disruptive since it can only ever hit one hero. Being moved isn't too much of an issue, since she can still access her main damage source, Noxious Blast from Rank 2-4.
 * Man-at-Arms - Whilst he doesn't excel at anything in particular in this fight, there's nothing he falters at either. Crush remains as respectable damage, Rampart works well as a stun, Bellow can slow the enemy party to a crawl and Defender can once again prevent any single hero from getting charmed. Be mindful that, just like Houndmaster, his Guard can also protect the Siren. Unlike Houndmaster though, his Guard is guaranteed to last for the entire time he's charmed. His Riposte should also be avoided since charmed heroes can hit him and take a huge blow in return.

Reasonable Choices

 * Bounty Hunter - Although Uppercut and Flashbang could prove problematic towards your team, Flashbang can also stun the charmed hero without dealing any damage. Additionally, the mark damage proves extremely valuable, on top of the Camping Buff which provides another damage boost against Size 2+ Enemies, of which none of your Heroes can be. His base damage is still high, even without Mark though. He is also out of position when he comes back after being charmed, hampering his turns before another hero gets charmed or he moves forward.
 * Grave Robber - Although a Lunge could prove very painful to be hit with, that's also a Lunge you can open the fight with, and it's entirely possible that, if charmed to the Frontline, she could use Shadow Fade, only to return to your side with the damage boost. Funnily enough, once the Charm has ended, she's in prime position to Lunge again. Taking a huge risk of a Lunge hitting the party in the face is something you have to really think about when building your party.
 * Crusader - Crusader's generalist performance, on top of the potency of Holy Lance both for and against your team, can prove either very good or very bad. His Stun can also prove helpful at slowing down Siren. Thankfully, the healing he can provide is sufficient for your team, and nonexistent for the Siren.
 * Highwayman - Highwayman activating riposte when charmed by Siren can be quite scary, making aoe attacks riskier to use. However, since the best strategy is to just focus down the Siren, it's not that dangerous. It's also recommended not to equip Point Blank Shot during the fight, to avoid your frontliner from being potentially placed on Death's Door. His damage output definitely makes up for these downsides though, specially thanks to Siren using aoe attacks, making his riposte easier to trigger.
 * Leper - Between Chop, Purge and Intimidate, all of these skills would be nasty to be on the receiving end of. He also has to recover at a Snails pace after being charmed. However, Leper can deal huge amounts of damage, especially after using Revenge, that bringing a dedicated hero to Guard him might be a good idea for the massive offensive payoff.
 * Shieldbreaker - Her main damage output comes from being able to pierce the prot of the enemy party. However the heroes rely on Prot a lot less, which makes her damage below average when used against you. Puncture being able to disrupt and Adder's Kiss being able to put out decent damage, she can be somewhat of a threat if charmed, but not by much compared to the average hero.
 * Vestal - She can heal the Siren for a decent bit, which equates to about 1 attack or Stun someone. She isn't much of a threat and only stalls out the fight slightly when charmed, which makes her a solid pick. Be mindful of her positioning though.

Discouraged Heroes

 * Abomination - In Human form, the Stuns can be rough to manage, on top of the damage. If he decides to transform, his damage skyrockets, which can quickly send a hero to Death's Door.
 * Flagellant - Since Redeem heals a percentage, him using it on Siren can often reset the fight back to 0. His Bleeds aren't very effective either, since Siren has higher resist to it.
 * Jester - Between Battle Ballad's incredible buffs being entirely usable while Charmed, along with a potential Dirk Stab/Solo into Finale being used against you, it's easy to see how a Charmed Jester can quickly become a problem. When another hero gets charmed, Jester can quickly lose access to Ballad, his most powerful move, making him a huge downside for the fight.
 * Hellion - Her massive damage output, ESPECIALLY with skills like Bleed Out equipped, can easily prove lethal if things go wrong. Additionally, unless Breakthrough is equipped, you will have a hard time getting Hellion back into the fight once the Charm has ended.

Trophy
After completing the Siren's champion quest, she will drop her conch as a Trophy.

Abilities
Apprentice =

Veteran =

Champion =

* A hero controlled by the siren takes 10 stress damage on each of their turns. When a hero is released from the Siren's control. they will go to rank 4. ** The Siren will summon either a Stinger, a Grouper, or a Guardian. The Guardian is twice as likely to be summoned.

Related Enemies
Cove: The Pelagics


 * Pelagic Grouper
 * Pelagic Shaman
 * Pelagic Guardian
 * Sea Maggot
 * Deep Stinger
 * Uca Major

Cove: The Drowned


 * Drowned Thrall
 * Squiffy Ghast

Bosses


 * Drowned Crew
 * Drowned Anchorman

Trivia

 * Her singing during Song of Desire can be also heard at the beginning of Darkest Dungeon's Official Launch Trailer.
 * In keeping with her "alluring" theme, the Siren's head sports the same shiny bulb on her forehead as the anglerfish's.