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 Protection Points 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.

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 immobilize 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.

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. The Crew will routinely summon a minion with a high defense buff. This minion will chain one of your heroes. Once it does, this large defense buff switches to the boss until the minion is destroyed. This means the main tactic is cycle between the boss and his minion, avoiding the defense buff, and breaking the chains in the process. The boss will heal over time while a chain is active, so do not waste time breaking them.

The minion will always chain the hero in front, so you can easily plan for this. Put a powerful class here, such as the Leper or Crusader. The boss is undead too, so the Crusader is not a bad choice, despite having to fight through the cove beforehand. 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 high damage blast skill, but not be moved in the process. The same is true for the Shieldbreaker's poison strike.

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. You could certainly buff up the hero's virtue as insurance, but do not count on this to occur instead of an affliction.

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, is still dominant in the cove beforehand.

Related Enemies
Cove: The Pelagics
 * Pelagic Grouper
 * Pelagic Shaman
 * Pelagic Guardian
 * Sea Maggot
 * Deep Stinger
 * Uca Major

Bosses
 * Siren

Cove: The Drowned
 * Drowned Thrall
 * Squiffy Ghast

Bosses
 * Drowned Anchorman

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.
 * The attack "Drink With The Dead" is a reference to the song "Drink With The Living Dead" by Ghoultown.