Drowned Crew

The Sodden, Sunken, and Drowned Crew are bosses which appear in the Cove.

The Crew are a group of three undead smugglers chained to the wrecked ship aboard which they drowned, typically alongside a Drowned Anchorman that they can summon repeatedly in battle. Although they may appear to be individuals, the Crew are mechanically a single-target entity filling three consecutive ranks in battle. The Drowned Anchorman is not part of the larger group, and has his own HP, resistances, and set of abilities.

Ancestor's Memoirs: The Drowned Crew
"Prying eyes had become a nuisance along the old road, and so I undertook to receive my most curious deliveries by way of marine shipments. A sheltered jetty was accessible by a narrow stone stair off the back of the manor, and a discreet system of pulleys could hoist even the heaviest prizes up the rock face from a securely tied dinghy below.

I employed a crew of particularly unsavory mariners, who for a time sailed the four corners at my behest, retrieving many valuable artifacts, relics and rare texts. Predictably, they increased their tariffs to counter my intense stipulations of secrecy. Such resources had long been exhausted, of course, and so I prepared an alternative payment.

While the greedy dogs slept off their revelry, I hexed their anchor with every twisted incantation I could muster, imbuing it with the weight of my ambition and my contempt for their crude extortion. At the witching hour, the anchor pulled with preternatural force, dragging craft and crew down into the depths. They must have cried out, but no sound escaped the swirling black waters.

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- The Ancestor

Behavior
The Drowned Crew will start the battle with "All Hands On Deck!", which moves a hero to the front rank and summons a Drowned Anchorman. The Anchorman will immobilize the first hero in line with its anchor and force them to experience the crew's horrible death. While the hero who is tangled in the anchor is free to attack, their stress will increase rapidly over time, and the Crew will heal health every time anyone takes an action.

Note that the Anchorman will change to a 'Drowned Puller' after immobilizing a hero, making it pointless to attack them if you're not going to finish it before it does so, since the Puller's health and DoTs are separate to the Anchorman's. In all other respects, the Puller is identical to the Anchorman.

The Drowned Crew will always start a round with "All Hands On Deck!" unless a hero is immobilized.

Any hero immobilized by the Drowned Anchorman can only be released either by killing the Anchorman, or automatically when the hero's stress reaches either 100 or 200. Additionally, when the Anchorman is summoned, it will have a buff that will drastically increase its PROT and resistances. It will keep this buff until it immobilizes a hero, after which the Drowned Crew will receive the buff instead until the Anchorman is destroyed.

Strategy
The Crew takes up 3 slots, has low dodge, low blight resist, 0 prot, and 2 actions per round. This makes it a rather easy target, but you don't want to always target it directly. The Crew will routinely summon an Anchorman if there isn't one present, and it has a buff that gives a large Protection bonus with resistance to Stun, Bleed and Blight. The Anchorman will attempt to chain down your frontmost hero, preventing them from being moved. While a hero is chained, the Anchorman's defensive buff is transferred to the Crew, and the Crew will constantly regenerate health while the chained hero is stressed out. Thus, the fight will involve regularly keeping a damage pressure on the Crew while dealing with the Anchorman when he shows up.

The Anchorman will always chain the hero in front, so you can easily plan for this. A powerful frontline melee class, like the Leper or Crusader, is recommended. The boss is undead too, so the Crusader is not a bad choice, despite having to fight through the cove beforehand. Bring skills that can hit both enemy positions 1 and 2 so that you can attack both the Crew and the Anchorman at the same time.

A chained hero can still use his turns, but cannot be moved. You can use this to your advantage by using skills which would normally move you, but suddenly can't due to the chains. The Highwayman practically breaks this fight while chained because he can freely use his Point Blank Shot skill without worry of being moved, decimating the Anchorman. The Shieldbreaker at the front can also use her Adder's Kiss and Impale skills without worry of disrupting formation.

A chained hero will suffer stress every turn, so having some way to handle this is recommended. Again, the Crusader and Leper have skills for this. Consider stacking stress-reducing camping skills on the hero you intend to handle the chains. While the Jester and Flagellant would be good for handling stress, their bleed skills are not effective for the area nor the boss.

Other effective heroes for the fight include the Grave Robber and Plague Doctor, due to the boss's weakness to blight. The Occultist, while not remarkable for the fight in terms of damage, has one of the most powerful stuns in the game and can reliably stun The Anchorman, essentially giving the entire party a turn free of the main gimmick for the fight while also marking targets and healing (note that stunning is only useful before Heave To! is used).

If the chained hero turns Virtuous, they will immediately break out of the chains, disrupting the Crew's regeneration and leaving both targets completely vulnerable. On top of that, if the Anchorman attempts to chain down a Virtuous hero, it will immediately fail, and the rest of the party experiences some Stress relief. Thus, a viable (but risky) tactic for the fight is to use Trinkets that increase Virtue chance on your frontmost hero. This will not stop the Crew from using All Hands on Deck to shuffle your other heroes to the front, so plan your movement accordingly to keep the Virtuous there.

Preferred Heroes

 * Crusader - Bonus damage against Unholy can make short work of the Crew and the Anchorman. His Holy Orders Trinket can raise his endurance against the mounting Stress and nudge up his Virtue Chance to turn the tides.
 * Leper - Great frontal area damage can clear the Anchorman while doing more damage to the Crew.
 * Jester - Inspiring Tune keeps stress levels low. If he gets pulled forward, he can easily jump back in formation.

Reasonable Choices

 * Abomination - Great frontal area damage, like the Leper; however, if he's transformed, be mindful of his Stress levels.
 * Grave Robber - Pick to the Face! can smash through the Anchorman's PROT to kill him before someone gets chained down. She can also easily escape from the front if dragged forward.
 * Shieldbreaker - Much like the above, Pierce breaks through PROT to kill the Anchorman. Be mindful that this may lead to her getting chained down.
 * Highwayman - If you have his Trinket Set, he's got the best odds of turning Virtuous for anchor-blocking. However, this will relegate him to the very front of the formation and restrict his skill use. You can spam Point-Blank Shot to make short work of the Anchorman, though.

Discouraged Heroes

 * Flagellant - It's usually more advantageous to turn someone Virtuous to derail the fight. However, if you focus around him turning Rapturous, he can deliver great results if he behaves.
 * Arbalest/Musketeer - Marks don't last long enough on the boss to exploit for maximum damage.

Trophy
After completing the Drowned Crew's champion quest, the captain will drop his bell as a Trophy.

Abilities
Apprentice =

Veteran =

Champion =

While "Heave to!" is the Drowned Anchorman's ability, it's worth mentioning here. It immobilizes the hero in the first position, and it gives the Drowned Crew a buff that will heighten its protection and resistances, while also dealing stress damage to the hero and healing the Drowned Crew every turn.

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 Anchorman
 * Siren

Trivia

 * The animation of the attacks show a different crew member using the attacks. "All Hands On Deck!" and "Mutiny" are the captain shouting and raising his bell, "Drink With The Dead" shows the middle crew member attacking by drinking a bottle while the insanity symbol appears above its head and "Boarding Clutch" has the lowest crew member attacking by striking with a long hook weapon.
 * Prior to build 24121, the Drowned Crew's move resistances were 100/120/145% respectively. As neither Crew nor Anchorman had means to move back into position, shuffling either will put the Anchorman at the far back formation, unable to chain down any hero, and thus bypassing the main gimmick of the fight. Their current raised move resistance makes this tactic impossible.
 * The attack "Drink With The Dead" is a reference to the song "Drink With The Living Dead" by Ghoultown.