Swine Prince

The Swine Prince/King/God is a Beast boss that appears in the Warrens.

Ancestor's Memoirs: The Swine Prince
"The ways and rituals of blood sacrifice are difficult to master. Those from beyond require a physical vessel if they are to make the crossing into our reality. The timing of the chants is imperative: without the proper utterances at precise intervals, the process can fail spectacularly.

My first attempts at summoning were crude, and the results disappointing. I soon found, however, that the type and condition of the host's meat was a critical factor. The best results came from pigs, whose flesh is most like that of man.

The great thing I had managed to bring through was brutish and stupid. Moreover, it required prodigious amounts of meat to sustain itself. But this was only a trifling concern. After all, I had a village full of it.

Narration_load_warrens_01.oggNarration_load_warrens_02.oggNarration_load_warrens_03.ogg"

- The Ancestor

Behavior
The Swine Prince always appears taking up rank 1, 2 and 3, with Wilbur taking up rank 4. Wilbur can be moved though it is ill advised.

During battle, Wilbur will use End This One or End These Two on one or two of your heroes. This marks your heroes for extra damage from the Swine Prince's attacks, as well as targeting those specific heroes for either Obliterate Body (for one target) or Obliterate Masses (for two targets).

An Arbalest with the Rallying Flare ability can clear marks from all heroes (except herself), and the Swine Prince will use Wild Flailing instead of Obliterate Body or Obliterate Masses, for substantially less and much more manageable damage. Additionally, if one of the marked heroes has been stunned by Wilbur, Flare will clear the stun and prevent that hero from missing a turn.

Note that hitting Wilbur with any damaging attack whilst the Swine Prince is still alive will result in immediate retaliation by the Swine Prince in the form of all the heroes being attacked with Enraged Destruction for increased damage and a chance to stun. Therefore the best ways to manage Wilbur is to either clear the marks with an Arbalest each round as above (hoping Wilbur doesn't stun the Arbalest), or hit Wilbur with a stun attack that does not do damage, such as the Bounty Hunter's Flashbang or the Plague Doctor's Blinding Gas.

Wilbur can also be killed to stop the marking of your heroes, however, this will result in the Swine Prince going ballistic and using Enraged Destruction on every turn for increased damage and a chance to stun (as you have no hope of outhealing this, it will result in a total wipe very quickly unless you kill the Prince or retreat). Be wary of using Riposte attacks, as Wilbur's mark will trigger them and the Swine Prince will not react immediately but he will still start using Enraged Destruction once Wilbur dies.

After the Swine Prince is defeated, the heroes will also have to defeat Wilbur. Wilbur will use Squeal, which does one to two points of damage, but mainly inflicts stress damage on your heroes, and has a high chance to stun them in the higher levels.

Trophy
After completing the Swine Prince's champion quest, Wilbur will drop his flag as a Trophy.

Abilities
Apprentice =

Veteran =

Champion =

* When a Hero uses an ability on Wilbur, Swine Prince will automatically perform Enraged Destruction after that action, ignoring any status effects already on it (stun etc.). If Wilbur dies, said ability will be used every turn by the Swine Prince/King/God afterwards.

Strategy
The most important thing to remember in this fight: don't target Wilbur first. The Plague Doctor's Blinding Gas and the Bounty Hunter's Flashbang can stun him without enraging the Swine Prince, but in all other cases attacking Wilbur will invite disaster.

The Swine Prince, for his part, is a powerful but predictable damage dealer. Since his Obliterate attacks can only land on marks, they can be mitigated by Man-at-Arms' Defender, or prevented by Arbalest's Flare. He's also weak to debuffs and it's possible to stack damage debuff on him - having two Occultists/Lepers on debuff duty is enough to lower his damage to manageable levels.

This fight is all about firepower: you want to kill the Swine Prince as quickly as possible. As such, the Leper is an excellent pick for this fight, due to his heavy damage, strong self-heal, and the fact he can increase his PROT with Withstand. This can be stacked with Antiquarian's Protect Me to great effect. Another effective technique is to utilize the synergy between the Grave Robber and Antiquarian: keeping 1-2 stacks of Toxin Trickery or Shadow Fade coupled with Protect Me provides a significant dodge + PROT buff to half of the team, and can reduce incoming damage significantly. For this to be most effective the Antiquarian should be in position 2, with the Grave Robber in position 3.

One extremely powerful party composition for any level of Swine Prince is Shieldbreaker/Shieldbreaker/Houndmaster/Vestal. The Shieldbreaker's campfire ability Sandstorm prevents a player from being marked completely, but it doesn't stop them from being targeted for a mark. If the Shieldbreakers use Sandstorm on each other after camping before the boss, Wilbur will frequently waste turns trying to place marks on unmarkable characters. With the Houndmaster spamming Guard Dog on the Vestal and buffed by the Vestal camp power Bless (+10 Dodge) and at least one dodge trinket, the Swine Prince's damage output is trivialized while the Shieldbreakers make quick work of the fight with their powerful attacks and blight.

If you defeat the Swine Prince, you will be credited with completing the quest even if you flee the fight without finishing Wilbur off. In point of fact, you will be credited with completion even if Wilbur manages to kill your party outright - though this is, of course, far from ideal. In any case, if you're on the ropes near the end of the fight, consider retreating: Wilbur's full-party Squeal attack is easily capable of finishing off someone on Death's Door. One interesting point to note is that killing Wilbur with a Riposte from either the Highwayman or the Man-at-Arms will activate the Swine Prince's enrage mode.

Extra numbers: Using the Arbalest's "Rallying Flare" every round will reduce the Swine Prince's average damage output by about 70% (71.5% to be exact, assuming average dodge of heroes to be 26.61 at Champion level and equal chance of Obliterate Masses/Body). This damage output reduction is primarily due to removing of marks, but also due to removing the Obliterate Masses ability (hence cannot target two targets for additional damage) and reducing the accuracy of the Swine Prince.

One viable party composition for Stygian Swine God is Vestal / Man-at-Arms/ Leper / Leper. With so much PROT, the fight is much more manageable.

Trivia

 * Despite a red light appearing in his eyes when he attacks, the Swine Prince appears to be blind. This might explain why he is so protective of Wilbur; he needs the smaller Swine to direct his attacks.
 * Despite appearing to lack eyes, a Plague Doctor can still stun The Prince and his higher forms by using "Blinding Gas".
 * The Ancestor using pigs as vessels for creatures from "outer spheres" is potentially intended as a reference to Legion, a man possessed by many demons from the Bible who begged Jesus to allow them to possess a sounder of swine instead of being sent back to hell.
 * Wilbur's name and runty appearance comes from the book Charlotte's Web written by E.B. White, which follows the adventures of a farm pig named Wilbur who was the runt of his litter.
 * The achievement you receive from having a member of your party killed by Wilbur, "That'll do pig..." is a reference to the movie Babe where Farmer Hoggett tells his pig Babe, "That'll do, pig. That'll do."
 * The Swine Prince also seems to largely influenced by the "great unclean ones" of the Warhammer universe.
 * The Swine Prince is likely a reference to The Rottenfrom Dark Souls 2. Both are giant, legless piles of rotting flesh that wield large, rusty cleavers, and are commanded by a creature much smaller than them.

Swinefolk

 * Swine Chopper
 * Swine Slasher
 * Swine Wretch
 * Swine Drummer
 * Swinetaur
 * Swine Skiver

Bosses

 * Wilbur
 * Flesh