Shambler

Shambler =

Shambler Tentacle = "The space between worlds is no place for mortal men."

- The Ancestor

A predatory nightmare summoned from the darkest recesses of the unknown, the Shambler is an Eldritch miniboss that lurks in blackest pitch, dropping Ancestral trinkets when killed. When traveling with your torchlight at 0, the Shambler may appear, replacing any hallway fight (1% chance on Apprentice, 8% on Veteran, 12% Champion), or when a Torch is used on a Shambler's Altar (which will also set the light to 0). Every turn, it will attempt to spawn two Shambler Tentacles, fairly weak enemies that give themselves an enormous buff with every attack, causing it to grow stronger and stronger. Even if a Tentacle is killed, the Shambler will just create a new one, replacing ones that were killed.

Behavior
The Shambler fight will always be at 0 torchlight, with all the buffs and debuffs associated, and the light cannot be increased with torches or skills while the Shambler is still alive. The party will always be surprised when the battle starts, disrupting party formation. If summoned but then ran away from, the Shambler will appear again as the next encounter. Don't summon it unless the party is prepared to kill it.

Due to a very low speed, it will most likely act last, using either Obdurous Advancement or Undulating Withdrawal and summoning 2 Shambler Tentacles. Unlike the Shambler itself, the Tentacles have a very high speed; they are very likely to take actions before the party, applying an extremely strong buff to themselves. If one or both of the Tentacles are killed, the Shambler may attempt to re-summon them the next time it acts by. If at least one is left alive, the Shambler has a chance to use Stentorious Lament, which will shuffle your party's formation again in addition to causing stress.

Strategy
The Shambler is very strong, stronger than some bosses. It is very easy to lose heroes to it, and the longer the fight lasts, the stronger it becomes. Most of the time, it is wise to pass up the opportunity to fight a Shambler; nevertheless, if you decide to summon one, it's better to do so after you've completed the quest objective, as your party will most likely be in no condition to continue the expedition after the encounter.

The first and likely biggest obstacle here is the fact that you are subject to a guaranteed ambush and immediately plunged into 0 Light. You'll likely spend the first turn rearranging the party unless your team has their fair share of movement skills. To work around this, ensure that the party has emergency movement skills to return to their ideal positions, on top of not having any low-light penalties through their Quirks or Trinkets. Only the Shambler limits the light level—once it is dead and only Tentacles remain, the light level can be raised again with torches and skills, which will at least reduce the stress caused by the Tentacles.

Planning for a Shambler fight is also key, particularly through camping: an Occultist, in addition to dealing increased damage against Eldritch enemies, can give a +20% DMG buff for your heavy hitters. The Man-at-Arms also works well due to his amazing camping skills. Also consider saving Curios that buff damage or other stats for after camp so they are not removed, as they tend to be more powerful than many camping skills on their own. Make sure the party is in good health and at very low stress before the fight starts.

When dealing with the Shambler it's important to finish the fight as soon as possible. One strategy is to kill the two Tentacles and try to stun the Shambler to prevent it from respawning them, though it is not very consistent given the Shambler does have very high stun resist. If you don't have enough damage or reliable stun to do that, you can leave 1 Tentacle alive and hope the Shambler uses Stentorious Lament, which will shuffle your party but not summon a Tentacle. High bleed and blight resistance is encouraged; consider bringing/using Holy Water to buff these resistances at the start of battle.

High AoE damage is necessary to kill the Tentacles quickly; the Abomination shines here: with high speed and Rake, they can kill both Tentacles even before they buff themselves, and will only be more effective as the battle continues.

The Shambler's high health and PROT makes it a prime candidate for the Houndmaster's Target Whistle to support a Bounty Hunter or Arbalest, who can then deliver massive damage for a quick kill. With the right setup, a mark-based party can ignore the Tentacles altogether and finish the Shambler in 2-3 rounds.

Since all of the Shambler's attacks hit the entire party, it will trigger all instances of Riposte active at the time. One method of establishing this is having two Highwaymen repeatedly use Duelist's Advance to eliminate the Tentacles and shuffle between positions 2 and 3, leaving Riposte damage as the main damage source on the Shambler itself.

The Jester can function as a good utility class against the Shambler; Inspiring Tune cannot heal stress faster than it accumulates, but he can move quickly in either direction to combat shuffles, and using Battle Ballad whenever possible can let your team move before the Tentacles, in addition to giving huge accuracy buffs to deal with their high DODGE. Harvest can hit and bleed both the Shambler and one of its Tentacles at the same time, helping to advance the fight and keep a tentacle in check.

Ancestral Trinkets
The main reason for hunting down this monstrous creature is because it carries with it Ancestral-rarity trinkets, items once carried by the Ancestor that contain terrible power. Every time a Shambler is slain it will drop any one of the 5 trinkets below. However, since only one of each trinket can exist in the player's inventory, when they are all obtained Shamblers will no longer drop Ancestral Trinkets (unless one of the trinkets is lost or sold), and will instead drop a random rare trinket.

Abilities
Since the Shambler fight is always at 0 torchlight, the appropriate light level buffs will apply (+25% DMG, +5% CRIT, +12.5 ACC), but they are not displayed here.

Apprentice =

Shambler Tentacle
Veteran =

Shambler Tentacle
Champion =

Shambler Tentacle
* Summoning will occur whether the ability lands or not.

Wandering Bosses

 * The Collector
 * The Fanatic
 * Thing from the Stars

Trivia

 * In the early access and the original release the Shambler left a normal Corpse after it was killed instead of a large one, despite it taking up 2 Ranks during a fight.
 * As evidenced by its corpse, the Shambler has purple blood.
 * The Shambler features in two Journals that can be found in the game. The first, "Journal of Darius, Highwayman", ends with Darius' party being ambushed and slaughtered by a Shambler. The other one, "The Blackest of Fates", documents the fate of a party whose occultist, "thrice damned Mizir", activated a Shambler Altar and unleashed a Shambler upon everyone.
 * As of the Inhuman Bondage update, the Shambler will physically drag the party into another dimension. The area resembles a violet galaxy and functions the same as Pitch Black.
 * The name "Shambler" likely comes from the "Dimensional Shambler", one of HP Lovecraft's creation. The Dimensional Shambler is a creature that comes from another dimension and attacks its prey by using a form of hypnosis to make the victim believe they've been dragged into another plane of existence. However the appearance of the Shambler does not match the description given of the Dimensional Shamblers, as they are mostly humanoid. Rather the Shambler's appearance closely resembles the description given of the Shoggoth, said to be "vaster than any subway train— a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming. "
 * Another reference to Lovecraft is when the narrator calls it a "Star-Spawned horror." In Lovecraft's work the Star Spawn are another name for the Cthulhi, which are spawn of the Great Old One Cthulhu, one of the central beings of Lovecraft's mythos.