Shadowflame-Hoyan Boss | Etheria: Restart

Grim Pursuit - Shadowflame-Hoyan Guide

Shadowflame-Hoyan is one of the Grim Pursuit bosses. In this guide you will find tips how to deal with her!

Shadowflame-Hoyan Overview

Boss Name: Shadowflame-Hoyan.
Element: Disorder.
Challenge Type: Grim Pursuit.
Difficulty Tiers: Nightmare → Hell → Inferno.
Key Threats: Extra AoE attacks and powerful Debuffs.
Constant Units Disadvantaged: On top of the generic disadvantages, Constant Units take massively increased damage from the enemy on Inferno difficulty (200%).

Shell Drops

Here are the Shells dropped by the boss:

Jackal Guard

Law of Silence

Revelation

Amber

Blizzard

Electro Squid

Skills Overview

High Defense
Shadowflame-Hoyan possesses higher DEF than any other Shell boss.

How to counter?

DEF Down or other sources of Damage Up Debuffs are crucial if you’re not using the DoT team, otherwise the fight is going to take a long time to complete and you risk dying to the powered up AoEs from the stacking Corruption Debuff.

Agonizing Hit
It's the time to give execution. Hoyan deals 400% damage to a single enemy and then gains 3 stack(s) of [Vengeful].
[Vengeful]: immediately starts the next turn and casts Corrode at 7 stacks.
Important! Both add-ons at Hoyan’s side trigger counterattacks that give Hoyan a stack of Vengeful whenever Hoyan takes a direct hit.

How to counter?

SPD and Turn Meter manipulation + Heavy CCs on the add-ons. Although Hoyan cannot be hard CCed, her small helpers can. If you rely on direct hits to take down Hoyan make sure to bring Stuns or other hard CCs. [Taunt] disables the counterattacks from the add-ons, dramatically reducing the threat from the AoE.
Alternatively, the DoT team barely notices this mechanic, which is another plus that helps an already tanky team survive even more easily.

Corrode
From here, the sin is reborn; Hoyan deals 450% damage to all enemies, inflicting 1 stack(s) of [Corruption] on them, with a 60% chance to inflict a 1-turn [Silence]. This skill cannot be casted actively.
[Corruption]: Each stack decreases DEF by 12%.

How to counter?

Spammable defensive utilities are key, the Boss only nukes after multiple casts of this skill but the addition of constant counters and extra attacks adds up quickly against fragile teams. ATK Down (preferably AoE), while not strictly necessary, is nevertheless an excellent tool to lessen the burden on your Healer.
[Taunt] does not prevent this skill from being cast, but it reduces the frequency of activation by turning off the add-ons counterattacks.

Team Composition Tips

Unlike most other bosses where plenty of teams can attain very fast clears, we feel that when it comes to F2P teams the Hoyan Shell Boss is more or less solved, so we’ll highlight the main team members that we feel excel while listing a few other options for those who’d rather build something less streamlined:

Buffer -
Chiaki [The Echo]

Special mention to
Freya
All you want here is a Turn Meter pusher, and Chiaki’s the best at providing constant Turn Meter push to the team without any requirement other than casting her s3 whenever it’s up;

Tank -
Rin

Special mention to
Tiamat
Rin has AoE Taunt, AoE Shield, and an AoE ATK Down. It’s literally all you need in terms of defensive utility for this boss in a single Unit;

DPS/Debuffers -
Fangus &
Obol

The two DoT stackers. If you want to replace them, you might as well look for a different setup with more Debuffs and a strong DPS. These two however are just too easy to build and the return on investment is extremely high, as their gear only needs SPD, HP and Acc, only stats that are easily transferred on other units when you go into non DoT friendly content.
The different setup: Look into Units like
Dinah and other DEF down/Damage taken up Debuffers and pair them with a heavy hitter like Khloros, Rosa, Diting, etc. You’re going to need much better gear as your Units still need to survive a few hits on top of dishing out hundreds of thousands of damage in total. If you go with them, favor the likes of Freya instead of Chiaki to really amplify your damage while improving your sustain.

Healer/Support: - You may bring a Healer/Support in the place of the Tank, preferably with Immunity or Cleanse:

Sania
Freya
Lingluo all work without trouble.

Best Teams

If you don't have some of the characters visible in the teams, you can replace them with another one that fulfills the same role (check the section above).

Team 56

Hoyan #1

Content: Grim Pursuit || Team type: F2P || Time: 1-2m

DPS

DPS

Sustain

Support