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 is: Don't ever attack Wilbur! The Swine Prince will immediately counter attack the entire party with a crushing strike if anyone dares to harm his little buddy. Wilbur can safely be stunned, so long as the skill does no damage. Oddly, this counter attack is not triggered by riposte, but if Wilbur is killed, then the Swine Prince will rage permanently for the rest of the fight. This means you should avoid using riposte, as it could get Wilbur killed prematurely. For the most part, you want to ignore Wilbur until the Swine Prince has been put down.

There are many counters against Swine at any level:

1. Arbalest: Rallying Flare can clear the Mark and the Stuns Wilbur applies at higher levels. On Apprentice this is an instant win since Wilbur can't stun yet, but becomes less consistent at Veteran and Champion since Arbalest can get stunned by Wilbur.

2. -damage Similar to Prophet, Swine can be debuffed to deal almost no damage. Swine will still deal damage, since he deals +100% damage against Marked enemies, but at Veteran and Champion, Occultist and Leper can debuff Swine for most of it's damage, giving your other heroes enough time to kill Swine. Leper will also constantly mark himself with Intimidate, making Swine hit him instead of other heroes. Guard also works very similarily to Prophet. Man at Arm can lower the damage from Swine not just with the Prot his Guard gives, but it also takes away the double damage buff against Mark Swine has.

3. Stunning Swine Since Swine only has one action, stunning it can stall a full turn to deal damage. Occultist is very good at this since he can easily get a base 50% chance to Stun Swine with Demon's Cauldron.

4. Hitting Swine Swine has no good defenses aside from his relatively high HP. Bursting him down isn't very hard since he sits in Rank 1-3. Attacks like Chop from Leper, Bleed Out from Hellion and Rage from Abomination can all deal very high damage to Swine. Mark is also very effective, since it will last it's full duration of 3 Turns since Swine only has one action per turn.

5. Shieldbreaker Shieldbreaker's campskill can deny Mark from Wilbur. She can deny Mark on a fragile hero and then use Serpent Sway if she gets Marked. The Block will get cleared by Wilbur marking or stunning Shieldbreaker.

Things that don't really work amazingly:

1. Riposte Very dangerous, since it can kill Wilbur by accident and make the fight a lot harder

2. DoT Both Bleed and Blight aren't very effective since Swine only has one action

You technically don't have to kill Wilbur, since the mission specifies killing the Swine Prince/King/God, so even if Wilbur wipes the party, you will finish the mission.

Good Choices

 * Abomination - His Beast form can deal massive damage with Rage.
 * Arbalest/Musketeer - Can counter everything Wilbur does with Rallying Flare. On Veteran and Champion, you have to plan around them getting potentially stunned. Relying solely on them to win the fight is a bit inconsistent since it's possible to lose the fight because they got chainstunned by Wilbur.
 * Bounty Hunter - With Arbalest mostly filling the role of countering Wilbur, Bounty Hunter is the best option for Mark payoff. Mark is very effective, allowing Bounty Hunter to deal massive damage. Especially with his Campskill against size 2 enemies, he can deal amazing damage. Flashbang allows him to Stun Wilbur without provoking attacks from Swine King.
 * Flagellant - While he can't deal great damage with Punish since the DoT isn't super effective, he can still draw attacks with Suffer to take the damage and then hit Swine with Exsanguinate for great damage.
 * Grave Robber - Lunge deals great damage, especially after using Shadow Fade. If the party doesn't get messed up my Graverobber moving around, she can deal massive damage.
 * Hellion - Bleed Out can deal massive damage extremely quickly, especially if Hellion gets a crit. The -dmg debuff does suck, but a crit can instantly offset it. She also gets amazing campskills for this fight, gaining +25% dmg for the entire fight since she won't get pushed out of Rank 1 by Swine or Wilbur. She can also gain +10% crit to make Bleed Out a massive damage move.
 * Jester - Can easily triple the parties offense by using Battle Ballad. He can also finish the Swine with Finale after drawing attacks with Solo. Solo also has the advantage of giving a huge Dodge boost and drawing the Swine's attacks by marking himself.
 * Leper - Probably the first hero you think of when picking someone for big damage. After activating Revenge, Leper can start hitting Swine for insane damage. Aside from that, he is the most effective option to debuff Swine's damage with Intimidate. Intimidate also draws attacks from Swine with the Self-mark.
 * Man-at-Arms - He has an amazing Guard to lower the Swine's damage considerably. Otherwise he can draw attacks with his Riposte, but is very dangerous since it can accidentally kill Wilbur. Command is also very good since it increases the offense of the party by a huge amount. He himself can't deal outstanding damage, but his support and countering Swine is very good.
 * Occultist - He can lower Swine's damage with Weakening Curse and has the highest base Stun chance in the entire game with the right Trinkets. He can also Mark Swine with Vulvernability Hex, allowing other Mark heroes who can deal much more damage against Marked enemies.
 * Plague Doctor - While she can't deal great damage, Blinding Gas can potentially stun both Swine and Wilbur at the same time. Disorienting Blast can achieve the same thing, but can't Stun both of them at the same time.
 * Shieldbreaker - Can deal big damage with Adder's Kiss, use Serpent Sway to negate damage and has a campskill to allow another partymember to not get marked by Wilbur.
 * Vestal - Doesn't do a whole lot offensively, but can outheal the damage Swine deals if the party has good options to lower Swine's damage.

Slightly outclassed

 * Antiquarian - Can't deal a whole lot of damage, but can draw Swine's attacks with Protect me. Her Dodge buffs and ACC cuts don't do a whole lot since Swine has very high ACC.
 * Crusader - Deals decent damage and has decent Support. But for this fight decent damage with nothing else just isn't enough. His heal is decent since it can get someone off of Deaths door guaranteed, but most other heroes outclass him in either pure damage or Healing. His flexibility just doesn't do anything since Swine has no way of moving heroes.
 * Highwayman - Since he can't really use Duelists Advance, since it risks killing Wilbur with the Riposte. His damage otherwise is good, especially Wicked Slice, but other heroes simply deal more damage.
 * Houndmaster - He doesn't deal amazing damage against Mark, even with Dog Treats and his Mark isn't as good since Swine doesn't have any Prot. His Guard is nice since it can draw attacks from other heroes, lowering Swine's damage since it doesn't gain the double damage buff against Marked heroes. His stun is also nice since it has higher than average base Stun chance. However, his damage, Guard and stun are outclassed by other heroes. His Guard is arguably worse than MaA, since MaA gets Prot, which is much more effective against the high ACC attacks of Swine and he doesn't get the amazing crit and Trinket support Occultist has.

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 be largely influenced by the "Great Unclean Ones" of the Warhammer universe.
 * The Swine Prince is likely a reference to The Rotten from 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.
 * If they player hurts Wilbur, a random hero will say one of the following lines to advise against attacking him: "It is protecting the little swine!", "Wounding the small one has infuriated the giant!", and "Leave the small one alone!".

Swinefolk

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

Bosses

 * Wilbur
 * Flesh