Flesh

Head =

Bone =

Heart =

Butt =

The Flesh is a boss which appears in the Warrens, after the Swine Prince. Like other bosses, it has three variations (Inchoate, Unstable, and Formless). It features 4 different parts that change each round, each of which has its own specific set of abilities and stats. Each part only has one action per round no matter what form it takes. Lastly, they all share the same Health Bar, thus, all four parts are alive and active until you deplete its health to 0.

Ancestor's Memories: The Flesh
"My zeal for blood rituals and summoning rites had begun to ebb, as each attempt invariably brought only failure and disappointment. Progress was halting, and the rapidly accumulating surplus of wasted flesh had become burdensome.

I could not store such a prodigious amount of offal, nor could I rid myself of it easily, possessed as it was by unnameable things from outer spheres. When excavations beneath the manor broke through into an ancient network of aqueducts and tunnels, I knew I had found a solution to the problem of disposal.

The spasmodically squirming, braying, and snorting half-corpses were heaped each upon the other, until at last I was rid of them. The warrens had become a landfill of snout and hoof, gristle and bone - a mountainous, twitching mass of misshapen flesh, fusing itself together in the darkness.

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- The Ancestor

Behavior
The Flesh has 4 different parts in every rank with a shared health bar. Each part has a unique attack and stats. At the start of every turn, it will morph, randomly transforming parts. It is possible to have multiple copies of the same part. All parts, except the Heart, have a high PROT and will inflict different status effect. The Heart heals whatever part is located in rank 1.

Strategy
Since the Flesh shares one healthbar among all of its pieces, Cleaves are more effective against it. Due to the PROT 3 of the 4 pieces have though, it's usually not very effective to use Cleaves that rely on on-hit damage. Cleaving the Flesh with damage over time effects is much more effective since they bypass the PROT of the many parts.

Aside from cleaving the Flesh with damage over time effects, hitting the Flesh with on-hit damage can also be effective but unless the hero is able to hit every Rank for large amounts of damage or bypass PROT, this is a bit more reliant on getting the Heart to spawn in the right spots to deal massive damage.

Flesh has insane damage and killing potential with Stuns, Bleed and Blight. The on-hit damage of both the Maw and Butt is also high enough to make a crit bring someone to Death's Door. Having means to Resist/Remove the Damage over time effects and Stuns is crucial to making this fight as low-risk as possible.

Preferred Heroes

 * Abomination - Has good damage output with Beasts Bile and has good base Blight resist. Can also Transform in a pinch to heal himself and try to hit a Heart in the first 3 Ranks with Rage.
 * Flagellant - Amazing Bleed damage with both Rain of Sorrows and Exsanguinate. Reclaim can also prevent damage through DoT, which is the main way Flesh kills heroes. His high Bleed resist also helps with the Head.
 * Houndmaster - Can apply Bleed to all 4 parts with Hounds Harry, set up a Mark for someone else and Guard someone in a pinch.
 * Plague Doctor - Can apply large amounts of Blight and remove Bleed and Blight from the party. Blinding Gas also helps at keeping the backline safe from a Butt crit.
 * Shieldbreaker - Can cleave all parts with Blight and also pierce Prot. Not as effective as Houndmaster at applying Blight since she moves back and a little bit more fragile.

Reasonable Choices

 * Arbalest - Can deal huge amounts of damage to any Marked target. Putting either BH's or HM's Mark onto a part will almost guarantee a full-damage shot from Arbalest even through the Prot.
 * Bounty Hunter - His Mark can take off large chunks of the PROT the parts have, enabling big on-hit damage output against everything that isn't the Bone. Since Flesh is counted as a size 4 enemy, Planned Takedown will also increase BH's damage output.
 * Grave Robber - Can either Lunge a Heart for big on-hit damage or chip away with Pick to the Face or Poison Darts even through Prot.
 * Hellion - Can deal good amounts of single-target Bleed with either If it Bleeds or Bleed Out. Can also deal good on-hit damage against the Heart at any position.
 * Highwayman - Can deal good damage to any position or facilitate applying Bleed with Open Vein.
 * Jester - Can deal good damage with Harvest, but runs the risk of dying extremely quickly to a crit due to his low Health and Resists.
 * Leper - The PROT of some of the pieces can negate large parts of his damage output, but especially with Revenge Leper can still deal good damage, even through 50% Prot. If he ever manages to crit a Heart, the fight is over very quickly.
 * Man-at-Arms - Even though he can't deal much damage, he can focus on buffs, debuffs and Guard to Support the party.

Discouraged Heroes

 * Antiquarian - Can't deal a whole lot of damage and her Support isn't great here since the enemy with the ACC debuff from Flashpowder can transform into a Heart, making it much less efficient. She is very good when running a Dodge-focused strategy.
 * Crusader - Can't deal a whole lot of damage, even when hitting the Heart. His Range is very limited and he doesn't have any way to counteract Prot. He is very potent at getting people off of Deaths Door though.
 * Occultist - He just doesn't provide anything you really want. He can deal okay damage to the Heart and his Stun is good, but his other utility barely finds any use. His Healing is also unreliable, which really sucks in this fight.
 * Vestal - Similar to Occultist, she keeps her Stun and can deal decent damage with Judgement, but her Healing isn't especially effective in this fight. With Flagellant and Plague Doctor being a great duo for both damage and Healing, she doesn't usually provide much for the fight.

Trophy
After completing the Flesh's champion quest, it will drop a heart as a Trophy.

Abilities
The Flesh has four different forms, and each one uses a different unique attack. The table below will show which form uses which attack. Apprentice =

Veteran =

Champion =

Trivia

 * The Flesh takes heavy inspiration from the 1982 film "The Thing."

Swinefolk

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

Bosses

 * Swine Prince
 * Wilbur