Pliskin

"Moans and cries, lost in the darkness..."

The Pliskin is a Beast type enemy that appears during the Shieldbreaker's nightmares, or in very rare encounters after all the nightmares have been completed. It appears as a giant cobra, and can devastate the team with powerful blight attacks and extremely high crit chances while stealthed.

Behavior
Pliskins act similarly to the Spitter spiders, since it either bites (Infuse) in the front rows or spits (Venomous Gleek) in the back, and both attacks apply powerful blight damage. For both attacks, it will prioritize targets with lower blight resistance (1.5x) and marked targets (2x).

The Pliskin will always spawn stealthed, and with a buff for a massive +15% CRIT. Breaking its stealth, either by waiting or using moves such as the Shieldbreaker's Expose, will remove the buff.

Strategy
With stealth, massive crit chances, and a decent amount of dodge and protection, Pliskins are potentially devastating foes. The most important thing is to remove their stealth as soon as possible: equipping the Shieldbreaker's Expose ability before camping will lessen the danger.

Their most dangerous ability, Infuse, can only be used when in the front ranks. Pushing Pliskins to the back with skills like the Bounty Hunter's Uppercut, or pulling other enemies forward, will reduce their effectiveness dramatically by forcing them to use Venomous Gleek with no way to move themselves forward.

Defeating the group of snakes brings great rewards, as they drop Aegis Scales when they die, as well as a Shieldbreaker-specific trinket and journal pages for the Shieldbreaker's story. The entire party also receives a quest buff for -15% Stress, except for the Shieldbreaker, who receives -33% Stress and +3% CRIT. However, the battle will end if the Shieldbreaker falls on Death's Door, and failing will cause a terrible quest-long debuff on the party instead, granting +33% Stress and -5 ACC for the Shieldbreaker and +15% Stress for all other party members.

Abilities
Apprentice =

Veteran =

Champion =

Trivia

 * The name of this enemy is a reference to Iroquois Pliskin, an alias used by Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid 2, which in turn is a reference to Snake Plissken, the protagonist of the movie Escape from New York.