Hag

The Wizened Hag/Hag/Hag Witch is a Human boss that appears in the Weald.

Ancestor's Memoirs: The Hag
"I had collected many rare and elusive volumes on ancient herbal properties and was set to enjoy several weeks immersed in comfortable study. My work was interrupted, however, by a singularly striking young woman who insisted on repeated calls to the house.

Her knowledge of horticulturalism and its role in various arcane practices impressed me greatly. My licentious impulse gave way to a genuine professional respect, and together, we began to plant, harvest, and brew.

As time wore on, her wild policy of self-experimentation grew intolerable. She quaffed all manner of strange fungi, herbs, and concoctions, intent on gaining some insight into the horror we both knew to be growing beneath us. The change in her was appalling, and no longer able to stomach it, I sent her to live in the weald, where her wildness would be welcomed.

Narration_load_weald_01.ogg Narration_load_weald_02.ogg Narration_load_weald_03.ogg"

- The Ancestor

Behavior
The Hag always appears taking up rank 3 and 4, while her pot takes up ranks 1 and 2; neither she nor her pot can be moved from those positions. When empty, the pot cannot be damaged unless you only have one character left.

During the first turn of the battle, she will use Into the Pot! on one of your heroes. This places them in the Cauldron, where they cannot do anything and take constant HP damage every time you or the Hag makes a move. The Hag has multiple moves per turn.

The filled Cauldron has substantially less HP and can be attacked down to 0 HP to tip it over, which releases the trapped hero into the front spot of your group. The pot immediately respawns, however, and the Hag will duly put another hero in on her next move (possibly the same one). The pot automatically tips over when the hero inside reaches death's door. The pot doesn't have a lot of HP in this stage and doesn't cause a huge amount of damage to the trapped hero per tick (but it will mount up). Therefore, it's worth maintaining DPS from all your heavy hitters on the Hag and getting her down as soon as you can whilst whittling down the pot with your smaller guns.

It is worth noting that a hero currently inside the pot will not retreat with the rest of the party, but will instead count as having died. Furthermore, if three of your heroes die and the fourth is in the pot, you lose the battle and the hero in the pot is counted as dead.

Whilst a hero is inside the pot, the Hag uses Seasoned to Perfection, Meat Tenderizer, and Taste the Stew on the rest of the party, concentrating mostly on building stress. None of them do much damage, but since the Hag gets multiple turns and Meat Tenderizer hits the whole party, they are extremely dangerous to heroes at death's door. If there's only one hero left alive or all party members are at death's door, she will only use Meat Tenderizer.

Strategy
The Hag will sit in Rank 3+4 for the entirety of the fight, making attacks that can hit her very important. She has high Stun resist, has above average resist against Blight and about average Bleed and debuff resist. She has about average Dodge but very low HP and no Prot.

Main Threat of Hag
The only way Hag will set up a kill on someone is by killing them after the hero exits the Pot. She herself has some of the lowest damage of any Boss in the game, meaning Hag's attacks won't be a big threat if the fight doesn't go on for too long. Similarly, the Pot deals %-based damage to heroes, so heroes will always have 12 actions until they automatically exit the Pot on Deaths Door. This is a little more than 2 turns because of Hag's two actions plus the three actions of the remaining heroes. The Pot has about 1/4 of the Hag's health, so putting too much damage into the Pot will likely mean Hag could be in a much worse shape if the Pot was just ignored.

How to ignore the Pot
Putting damage into the Pot is usually a horrible idea, since attacking Hag with those attacks will usually end the fight before the Hero exits the Pot. That's why it's important to have a party that deals huge amounts of burst damage against Rank 3 or 4. The Party also needs to be relatively safe against both someone exiting the Pot and losing one of it's members. If someone exits the Pot, they will always be at the very front of the party and lose their action for the turn. Having more than one Healer is crucial for this scenario, since if your only healer gets thrown into the Pot, they will be very vulnerable without a way off of Deaths Door after exiting the Pot, exposing them to multiple possible deathblows from the Hag. Heroes that have to be in one specific position also get worse from this. For example, if Abomination is in Rank 2 and someone exits the Pot, Abomination will be moved back into Rank 3, disabling Rage and needing to use Slam to get back into position, so if someone exits the Pot he will be dealing no damage against Hag until he can get back into Rank 1 or 2. Since the Hag throws one of your heroes into the Pot, the rest of the party has to be able to still work and either be able to free that Hero from the Pot or deal enough damage to kill Hag quickly. For example, having only one Mark available on a Mark team makes that team very vulnerable to the one person with the Mark getting thrown into the Pot, making the team lose a huge chunk of it's damage.

Burst strategies
1. Marking: Using Marks can prove useful against the Hag, even though it requires some set up, it allows to deal very high damage against a single target. Although a Bounty Hunter cannot attack the Hag with Collect Bounty, he can still be a great support, applying Marks and increasing the damage output by using Caltrops. Both the Houndmaster and Arbalest can utilize the Marks to deal massive damage to the Hag.

2. Focusing her down: Heroes like the Hellion and Abomination can be used in a party to ignore the cauldron and simply focus down the Hag with Iron Swan and Rage respectively.

3. Dancing party: The Graverobber's Lunge deals significant damage to Rank 3. Trying to set up a team around her usually includes other heroes that can enable her to use Lunge multiple times in a fight to deal massive damage to the Hag. Do keep in mind that the creatures in the Weald bear a high resistance to blight, which might hinder the Graverobber's efficacy.

Other strategies
Aegis Scales will not prevent being thrown into the pot, but will block the first hit a hero at death's door would get when thrown out of the pot, giving you a bit more time to heal them. Since Into The Pot! is the first skill the Hag will use, it'd be best to activate the Scales on all four heroes before entering the boss' room, as being put in the pot will not remove the buff.

Damage over time effects, namely bleed and blight are able to get their full value quickly because of the Hag's two actions per turn, but keep in mind the Hag's high blight resistance.

When the Hag is slain, the pot will immediately release whoever is trapped and end the fight.

Good choices

 * Abomination - The highest base damage against Rank 3 with Rage. Very hard to move out of position if you place him in Rank 1.
 * Arbalest/Musketeer - The highest damage against Marked targets for this fight. She's in big trouble if she exits the Pot, since she can't do anything for the next Turn or two (If the Hag pots someone when Arb has already moved into Rank 3, she'll need another Turn to be able to do anything)
 * Bounty Hunter - Can either provide Support to other Mark chars with his Mark and Caltrops or hit the Hag himself with Finish Him. (Giving the other chars +damage against Hag with Caltrops might be more effective than hitting her himself).
 * Grave Robber - If you can enable her with the right party, GR deals massive damage against Hag.
 * Hellion - If it Bleeds is actually a better damage tool against Hag than Iron Swan. Since the Hag will take full damage from the DoT, If it Bleeds is more effective than Iron Swan. It also doesn't restrict Hellion to Rank 1, which is pretty great.
 * Highwayman - Both Duelists Advance and Pistol Shot can deal good damage against Hag. His Riposte triggers a lot more frequently since only 3 heroes can be targeted and the Hag uses AoE frequently. Pistol Shot also deals a bit extra damage against Marked Targets, which is a nice small bonus for Mark teams. He has to start in Rank 4 though, since the Hag will throw someone into the Pot and he will move forward, for a total of 2 spaces forward. To still be able to Pistol Shot after that he has to start in Rank 4.
 * Houndmaster - Can deal huge damage against Hag with Hounds Rush, especially after using a Dog Treat, and provide Support setting up Mark. His Guard isn't great for saving Heroes that exited the Pot since Hag can ignore Guard with "Meat Tenderizer", but it's better than letting that Hero sit on Deaths Door without any defenses. Since he is relatively fast, his Guard can also be used before someone got thrown into the Pot to prevent a specific hero to be taken and allows him to potentially dodge the attack to get thrown into the Pot, wasting one of the Hag's actions.
 * Jester - Battle Ballad can increase your offensive power by a huge amount and a Turn 3 Finale allows you to deal the final push of damage with Jester.
 * Occultist - He can set up Mark and deal decent damage with Sacrifical Stab. He is pretty much the only good main-Healer for Hag parties, since he can heal from anywhere for a good chunk. It's a bit risky since he can roll a 0, but he's the best option for the fight. His Mark is the best one for this fight since it doesn't take a action from the other Mark chars who all deal more damage against marked enemies, allowing them to deal more burst damage instead of wasting a turn marking. Dark Strength, a Campskill, is also able to increase the damage of other heroes by a lot.
 * Shieldbreaker - Can fix the positions of other heroes and deals decent damage to Hag.

Need a suboptimal plan/Slightly outclassed

 * Crusader - Holy Lance is not a great move to hit Hag with. Since it requires Crus being in the backline, setting it up can be a bit hard and provides little upside over just bringing someone else. He has the most consistent heal, but he is so slow that it usually won't do much.
 * Flagellant - His DoT can start ramping up quickly, but other chars will usually deal more damage. He can't really use his >40% HP moves, since Hag does little damage to single targets. They are useful after he exits the Pot though, allowing him to basically heal himself and another char for a big chunk of their HP. Reclaim is a really bad heal for this fight since the Healing happens when the char that exited the Pot takes his action, not getting them off Deaths Door until the next Turn.
 * Man-at-Arms - His buffs are outclassed by Jester for this fight and he deals less damage than other heroes against Hag. Overall just slighly outclassed by other heroes. Similar to Houndmaster, his Guard can be used preventively as well, though he is slower and less reliable to get it off before Hag tries to throw someone into the Pot.
 * Plague Doctor - Due to the highe Blight resist has, PD does a lot less reliable damage than other chars. She still brings a heal to get someone off of Deaths Door, Emboldening Vapors to buff someone else's offense and her Stuns to maybe prevent Hag's actions.
 * Vestal - Very low offensive power and is screwed if she exits the Pot. However, she is the best at outhealing Hag's damage and getting someone back to high HP after they exit the Pot.

Outclassed/Don't do anything

 * Antiquarian - Very low offensive power. Her Dodge buffs take too long to ramp up to reliably dodge "Into the Pot!" and don't affect anyone in the Pot.
 * Leper - Can't reach the Hag and is easily screwed by heroes exiting the Pot.

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

Abilities
Apprentice =

Veteran =

Champion =

* While a hero is in the cauldron it won't be able to attack and will take damage each turn.

** Used only if a hero is in the pot.

Weald

 * Fungal Scratcher
 * Fungal Artillery
 * Crone
 * Unclean Giant
 * Hateful Virago
 * Necrotic Fungus

Bosses

 * Cauldron