Darkest Dungeon 2: How To Defeat The Ravenous Reach

The Ravenous Reach is the boss waiting for you at the end of Act 4 in Darkest Dungeon 2. At first glance, this monster is a grotesque amalgamation of twisted arms and little else. In battle, though, it’s a fearsome opponent backed by a variety of buffs. This is a battle of multiple phases and tricky gimmicks, designed to test your team composition to the utmost.

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While the Ravenous Reach looks like an intimidating monster, with the right amount of prep, it can actually become a fairly easy opponent. Here are the recommended Heroes and supplies to bring, as well as a rundown of strategy and what each of the Ravenous Reach’s phases actually mean for your party.

The Ravenous Reach’s Stats

The Ravenous Reach has a low resistance to Bleed, Blight, and Burn in Phase 1, which means applying DoTs to it is an effective strategy against it. In Phase 2, its resistances are increased, so either making sure you have resistance piercing or a damaging attack that isn’t reliant on DoTs for this section is recommended.

The final phase has its resistances somewhere between those of Phase 1 and 2. DoTs are still effective here, since a 60% success rate still offers good odds for you to apply an effect. Due to the nature of Phase 3’s fight, applying Blind or Weaken and running the odds against its 40% Debuff res can also be a useful risk to take.

The Ravenous Reach’s Move List

The Ravenous Reach has three phases with different skills in each one. Making note of each phase’s unique challenges will let you have an easier time successfully slaying this boss.

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

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Recommended Items

Bringing items into this fight will make it infinitely easier, since the Ravenous Reach relies on very specific gimmicks in order to tear your team apart. For Phase 1, bring items that increase Move resistance. In Phase 3, bring items to increase Bleed resistance, because Bleed tokens are incredibly dangerous in that section.

For immunity from attacks that move your heroes, you’ll want to brave the Cadavers in the Tangle and slay the Dreaming General for The General’s Dream trophy. This trophy immobilizes all of your heroes, making them immune to the Ravenous Reach’s attempts to move your team around. However, if you reach the Act boss and don’t have this Trophy, here are the items that you’ll have to find in order to increase your Move res:

• Tinned Delicacies (Inn Item)
• Ceremonial Drum (Inn Item)
• Steak and Spuds (Inn Item)

Phase 3 will have the Ravenous Reach applying Bleed tokens to your team, increasing its own damage and slowly draining your Heroes of their health. To prevent Bleed tokens from being applied to your Heroes, increase your Bleed resistance with these items:

• Clotting Poultice (Inn item)
• Tinned Delicacies (Inn item)
• Clotting Powders (Combat Item)
• Flapjacks (Inn Item)

Once you’re in combat, these items will remove Bleed before the Ravenous Reach’s turn:

• Pustule Salve (Combat Item)
• Medicinal Herbs (Combat Item)
• Bandages (Combat Item)

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Recommended Heroes

The simplest route to defeating the Ravenous Reach is to bring the Man-At-Arms and the Highwayman. The Man-At-Arms is able to use Bellow to remove Phase 3’s Riposte stacks, protect allies marked by the Ravenous Reach, and use his own Riposte to deal a healthy amount of damage back to the Boss. The Highwayman, in comparison, wants to sit in Rank 2 and use Highway Robbery whenever the boss has any beneficial buff tokens. These two methods will prevent the boss from having any especially damaging turns.

If you don’t have these heroes, it’s still possible to beat this boss. It’ll just be a little harder than if you had the Man-At-Arms and the Highwayman. The devious Jester allows you to put a Combo token on Ravenous Reach and move Heroes back to the location they want to be in. The Occultist can remove buffs, ignore Dodge stacks, and also apply Combo tokens as well. The Plague Doctor can apply Blight, heal allies, and Blind the Ravenous Reach for a smoother Phase 3.

Overall Strategy

Phase 1

In Phase 1, you’ll want to either resist the Move debuff from Setback, or find a way to always protect the squishy heroes if they get moved to Rank 1. The Vestal and Man-At-Arms are useful heroes here, since they have the HP to tank a single Setback hit while also using Guard to protect others. Once movement is no longer an issue, you’ll want to DPS the boss through DoTs and get out of this phase as soon as possible. Besides Phase 3, this phase is the most dangerous, because of how much damage the Ravenous Reach can dish out. Thankfully, it only has 65 HP in this section, so getting through it isn’t too much of a challenge.

Phase 2

Phase 2 is the easiest of the three phases. The Boss will give itself 2x Dodge stacks, and at the end of its turn, they will be converted into Critical tokens. Skills like the Highwayman’s Highway Robbery or the Occultist’s Vulnerability Hex will ignore and remove Dodge tokens. Highway Robbery is particularly useful here because you can still steal the Critical Tokens before the Ravenous Reach gets to use them.

Ravenous Reach will also apply Contempt tokens to its target before using Teardown. This gives you an opportunity to protect the Heroes who are marked, or to give those heroes defensive tokens to keep them alive through Teardown.

From there, damage the Boss however you can, but be aware that Phase 2’s DoT res will be increased to 75%. Without its Critical Tokens, Teardown doesn’t do too much damage. Teardown’s Bleed stacks will be bothersome, but unless you’re about to lose a Hero, it’s best to save your items for the final phase.

Phase 3

This Phase is the hardest part to overcome, because the boss will try to apply Bleed to your entire team with Rumination and then follow up with handing out express tickets to Death’s Door through Last Grasp. Your first priority in this part of the fight is to get rid of any Bleed stacks at all costs. If you have items that increase Bleed resistance or combat items like Bandages to remove Bleed, now is the time to use them. Otherwise, using a healer like the Plague Doctor or the Vestal to remove Bleed stacks is the next best option.

Once you take away the Bleed stacks, Last Grasp and Rumination are much easier to handle. The next biggest threat is the Riposte stacks granted by Rumination. The easiest strategy to handle Riposte is to use the Man-At-Arms’ Bellow or the Highwayman’s Highway Robbery. If you don’t have the Man-At-Arms, you can use tanky heroes or Heroes with Dodge or Block to attack into Ravenous Reach. These heroes should be able to mitigate the damage they receive from the Boss’ riposte attacks.

Since Last Grasp hits your entire party, you’ll have to find a way to protect your low HP Heroes in this phase. Adding Dodge and Block to those Heroes is a great way to protect them from Last Grasp’s party-wide damage. Applying Weaken or Blind to the Ravenous Reach will also help mitigate damage and give you more breathing room to heal hurt teammates.

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