How to beat Ravenous Reach in Darkest Dungeon 2

Oct 18, 2023

One of the hardest bosses in the game made easier.

Darkest Dungeon 2 is the sequel to the critically-acclaimed Darkest Dungeon created by Red Hook Studios. The game is considered by many players to be the "Dark Souls" of the role-playing genre because of the gloomy and desolate aesthetic of the game as well as the difficulty level. Also similar to the Soulsborne series, the peak of the game's difficulty comes from its bosses.

And there are several bosses in Darkest Dungeon 2, complete with their mechanics. Today, we will take a look at one of the most challenging bosses in the game: The Ravenous Reach.

Before we talk about the boss itself, we will need to know where to find it. Every journey that you undertake in Darkest Dungeon 2 culminates in the final area known as The Mountain. Atop the tall structure sits a Ziggurat, a giant temple that is considered to be the source of all madness in this desolate world, responsible for most of its destruction.

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The Mountain is so huge that it is divided into five different acts. Each one depicts an aspect of madness and you have to defeat different bosses in each area to clear the zone. The five acts are denoted as follows.

Every act has a confession boss that you will have to defeat to progress further. The Ravenous Reach is The Mountain's fourth final boss and the Ambition confession's final boss. Being the second last boss in The Mountain, it is no pushover and will wipe you out if you’re not careful. To top it all off, the Ravenous Reach has multiple phases, each with its own set of challenges.

Before you even start this battle, make sure you are well-prepared. Coming this late into the journey, you will need to have multiple things to make this fight doable. These include having access to Bellow and strong resistance to Death's Door. The boss will also focus on debuffs so make sure you have ways to get rid of Stress. Finally, make sure you come equipped with a Bleed or Blight of your own.

As dangerous as the three phases can be, just remember that the Ravenous Reach itself is pretty squishy for a boss at this stage. It is a glass cannon using offense as its best defense. As such, it will have relatively low health during each of its three phases so make sure you are prepared with some high damage output yourself.

But don't take the boss too lightly because this one will punish any openings it sees. If you go on the offensive too much without taking care of the debuffs applied on your team, the Ravenous Reach will make sure your party gets wiped out almost instantly. Now that you have everything you need, this is how you should handle each phase successfully.

The first phase is relatively straightforward. In this phase, Ravenous Reach has 65 health with a base speed of six, making him pretty easy to chunk down but his speed stat will allow him up to two attacks per round. He also has 20 percent resistance to Bleed, Blight, and Burn with a 75 percent resistance to Debuffs. At no stage in the game is Ravenous Reach ever susceptible to Stun or Move.

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These stats make it so that winning the fight in the first phase is simply a matter of having enough damage. Try to burst him down with your strongest DPS (or two) while the tank absorbs his damage. Make sure your support keeps everyone topped up on health and debuffs all of his status effects. The one major thing to watch out for is getting your party members moved around, so be careful.

The second phase is pretty similar to the first one. Ravenous Reach's health stat is now at 75 while his base move speed is now at eight instead of six. This allows him to tank more hits while now attacking three times per round instead of two. His resistances also increase to 75 percent for Bleed, Burn, and Blight status effects, although his Debuff resistance reduces to a mere 20 percent.

This phase comes down to whittling his health down with your strongest attacks while debuffing him constantly. Making sure his buffs are constantly getting dispelled while your team deals damage is the key to winning. As always, watch out for him reshuffling your team around and you should be good.

I found that the final phase in this fight is the toughest of the three. Ravenous Reach's health pool increases to 100 but his move speed reduces to five. His resistances are all rounded off at 40 percent for Bleed, Blight, Burn, and Debuffs, so a combination of anything will work here. He can now riposte incoming attacks and also inflict Bleed and Horror on your party members, making the fight difficult.

If these challenges weren't bad enough, the major difficulty of this phase stems from having relatively less mana to work with. Making it this far into the fight drained my resources and forced me to make a decision: I either had to play it defensively with what I had and whittle his health down or go all out with my offense and burst him down instead. You can choose the one you feel best suits you.

Related: How to beat the Act 3 boss in Darkest Dungeon 2

Ravenous Reach can also remove all positive traits on your heroes, so making sure these debuffs are dispelled is key when you’re being defensive. On the other hand, being offensive will need you to remove his Riposte, which can be done by using Bellow, as mentioned earlier. No matter which route you choose, with enough patience, you should be able to take down the Ravenous Reach.

Getting to this point can be pretty difficult, so make sure you take your time with this boss as well. Take turns to debuff your party and heal them up whenever you get a chance so that you can maintain a consistent offensive throughout the battle. Keep your debuffs on as well and you should be well on your way to the final boss: Body of Work.

Freelance gaming writer for Dot Esports.An avid gamer of 25 years with a soft spot for RPGs and strategy games.Esports writer for 2 years and a watcher for 12 years.Aspiring author.Dad to a host of animals.Usually found trying to climb ranks in Dota 2, plundering the seas in Sea of Thieves, or mining rare minerals in Deep Rock Galactic.