The Darkest Dungeon 2 Dreaming General and his soldiers laid down their arms in the Tangle when the Cult came down from the Mountain due to sheer horror. Now that they’re trapped in a never-ending nightmare deep within the keep, they’re your problem. Let’s go over how to beat the Dreaming General found within the Tangle.
How to Defeat the Dreaming General in Darkest Dungeon 2
The DD2 Dreaming General spends his days as the Lair Boss of the Tangle snoozing away in The General’s Keep. Now one with the jungle around him, his skeletal form has been overtaken by vines and roots. Accompanied by Taproot, he can inflict tons of Stress within a round as well as neutralize all four party members at a time.
Items to Bring to the Dreaming General Fight
To counteract all his Stress and repeated damage, you’ll want to buff your team with food, along with Stress reducing Inn items so you can start from the best possible place with your party. Some good Combat Items to purchase and equip are:
- Linseed Oil Flask
- Healing Salve
- Triage Kit
- Invigorating Intoxicant
- Toxic Ichor
- Otherwordly Fragment
- Incendiary Cocktail
- Ichor Bomb
Burn and Blight DoTs will be your friend against this boss, so stock up on those Combat Items. You can also prepare Stress heal and other healing items to get you through the combat. Equip Trinkets to boost Blight or Burn chance, such as:
- Early Experiment for the Plague Doctor
- His Rings for the Graverobber
- Laden Lantern
- Tinderbox
- Sacred Scribblings
- Corrupting Cleaver
- Locked Jaw
- Corrupted Bile Gland
Wake the Dreamer: Dreaming General Fight Strategy
When you get to the General’s Keep and in front of the General himself, you’ll want to start inflicting Blight or Burn DoTs. His Blight resistance is 30 while his Burn resistance is 20. As a skeleton, it’s hard to get him to Bleed as he has 50 resistance to it. Since the chance of having all four of your party members unable to attack at the same time is relatively high, having consistent DoTs going will steadily chunk him down.
You’ll also get inflicted with a special token by the Taproot, who is immobilized in position 4 band completely immune to damage. Creeping Growth bestows one token on all your heroes at the start of combat, then two heroes per round following that. Once it gets to three stacks, your character will become Strangled. When Strangled they’ll be unable to move, take damage, and can only act to use Whispering Darkness, which adds +1 Stress to the other party members.
Strangled only ends if all four party members are strangled at the same time, allowing The Dreaming General to use Nightmare, dealing between 10 and 16 damage to each hero.
Once Nightmare is cast all characters will stop being Strangled, so you can heal and attack once again. If you’ve had DoTs stacked, it’ll have chipped away at the General’s high health. If you have a Vestal, I highly suggest having her Divine Comfort skill equipped and leveled up. Consecrations and Regen will still take place if cast before the Vestel gets Strangled, providing support to the rest of the party.
You can attack the Taproot to remove Creeping Growth vines, but if you attack twice since the beginning of combat or since the last time Dreaming General used The Waking Dead, the Taproot will mark two heroes to get hit with The Waking Dead. You need to make sure you only attack it once between Waking Dead attacks to avoid this. I personally don’t attack the Taproot since I’ll lose track of how many times I’ve hit it, and I prefer to stack all damage straight onto the Dreaming General.
Best Party Compositions to Beat the Dreaming General 1
This is one of my standard party compositions whenever I play. It focuses on a mix of healing, Stress heal, and damage, with a Leper at the front to tank hits.
- Rank 4 – Vestal: Divine Comfort, Consecration of Fortitude, Consecration of Light
- Rank 3 – Jester: Inspiring Tune, Fade to Black, Razor’s Wit, Harvest, Battle Ballad
- Rank 2 – Runaway: Controlled Burn, Searing Strike, Dragonfly, Firestarter, Backdraft
- Ran 1 – Leper: Chop, Withstand, Solemnity, Reflection
Best Party Compositions to Beat the Dreaming General 2
This party revolves around stacking Blight, with Burn thrown in there for good measure. Even if you’re team is stuck Strangled, you’ll still be doing massive damage to the General with high stacks. If you go with this composition, you’ll want to have some Laudanum handy to heal Stress. You’ll want to unequip any multi-position or AoE skills, like Plague Grenade or Acid Rain, to avoid accidently hitting the Taproot.
- Rank 4 – Plague Doctor: Battlefield Medicine, Noxious Blast, Indiscriminate Science, Cause of Death
- Rank 3 – Graverobber: Poison Darts, Absinthe
- Rank 2 – Runaway: Controlled Burn, Searing Strike, Dragonfly, Firestarter, Backdraft
- Rank 1 – Flagellant: Punish, Deathless, Endure, Lash’s Gift, Sepsis
Those are two teams I like to use when looking to defeat the Darkest Dungeon 2 Dreaming General. The first still deals DoT, but has a well rounded heal, Stress heal, attack damage feel to it. The second is great at stacking all that DoT damage, but can quickly fail if you don’t control the party’s Stress levels. The key there is ending the battle as fast as possible before your team can get Strangled.
Darkest Dungeon 2 Dreaming General Rewards
Once you’ve woken the general from his slumber then dispatched him to the land of the dead, you’ll receive one of two available Trophies:
- The General’s Dream: +200 DMG to Corpses and Combat Start: Immobilize party
- The Nightmare’s End: -75% Trinket Prices
Along with the Trophy you can receive:
- 1 Mastery
- -2 Loathing
- -15 Flame
- Relics and Baubles
- 1 Random Trinket
- 1 Random Combat Item
- 1 Random Inn Item
- 1 Random Stagecoach Item
That’s all you need to know to defeat the Dreaming General, Lair Boss of the Tangle in Darkest Dungeon 2. Once you obtain his trophy you’ll be all set to get into the Mountain and take out whichever Confession Boss you’re working on. For more assistance in Darkest Dungeon 2, check out the rest of our guides.
