Custodian/Strategy

Custodian Strategy

General Boss information

Commander Center

• 60 HP
• Destroying the Commander Center instantly kills the Custodian. The Command Center has 60 HP, and does not currently scale with Escalation levels
  • Note the Command Center buff that allows for this instant kill is played as a card (1 pip) by the Custodian turn 1. So if you have a powerful attack that deals 60 precise damage (e.g. Heat Swapping Seebeck shot), it's best deal only most of the damage turn 1, then finish turn 2.
• Shield Phase (1 pip) is the next card played, Repair Shield equipment if broken, reduce shield cooldown by 1. This makes immediately destroying the shields on turn 1/2 a bad idea, but you can knock them down to low HP, then simply finish them off after the boss plays the Shield Phase card.
• Mirroring Defenses (2 pip) is next, a hack with duration that gives the boss 4 shield every time the player plays a shield card.
• Attack Phase card is played after the Custodian has taken sufficient damage. This reduces the Turbolaser cooldown from 3 to 2 pips, but does NOT impact a Turbolaser card already in play.
• Beam Calibration (2 pip)

PDC Mk II

• 16 HP
• Custodian opens with Missile Defense II (1 pip) that activates the PDC and grants 1 PDC ammo
• This is followed by Arm PDC (2 pip).
• Custodian later plays Target Tracking, which is a +1 damage buff

Blast Laser

• 22 HP
• Boss' Blast Laser opens with Pre-emptive Blast (1 pip), which deals 3 + 3 damage per attack in the player's hand.
  • This discourages holding attacks, discard any cheap ones you don't need. (e.g. Light Barrage from Flak)
• Heavy Blast is the next card played, 2 pip, 10 damage.
• Hyper Laser (3 pip, 12 damage base, +6 damage per Blast card Custodian plays) is next
  • Boss' Hyperlaser scales up with every Blast card played. This is supposedly meant to discourage attempting to outtank the boss as the Hyper Laser should eventually outscale the player's ability to generate shields. In reality, the fight doesn't last long enough for this to matter. And there are player builds that can stack enough shields to tank several rounds of the Hyperlaser.
• Cooldown, followed by Heavy Blast then Hyperlaser, repeat.

Beam Laser

• 18 HP
• Opens with Torch Beam (2 pip), 3 duration, deal 3 damage at the start of the player turn)
• Beam Sweep (1 pip), 6 damage Ignite 3
• Cooldown

Missile Launcher

• Opens with Torpedo (2 pip), 12 damage, 2 turn travel time.
• Reload Launcher (2 turn CD)
• Ion Torpedo (2 pip), 18 Ion damage, 2 turn travel time, on Shieldbreak, disable 1 player card slot for 1 turn
• Reload Launcher
• Trident Torpedo (2 pip), fires splits into 3 Light Torpedos (8 damage, travel time 2) after 1 turn

Shield

• 18 HP
• Opens with Shield Stream (2 pip), ongoing effect duration 3, gain 4 shield and 1 shield duration per turn
  • Note duration 3 includes the turn it's played, where it generates 4 shields immediately. So it will add shield and duration twice more, for a total of 12 Shield
  • Ongoing means the buff that produces the shield/duration can be removed by breaking the shield equipment

Ship specific Strategy

Arbalest

For the Arbalest, keys are:

• Have enough resource generation to play all your weapon cards, accomplished by upgrading the reactor / resource cards + augments
  • Be sure to spam the +2 all resources morale ability, if the fight drags, it'll generate an enormous amount of resources
• Stacking enough +damage to make your Lasers efficient at breaking the bosses.
  • Arbalest already comes with +1 damage on the PDC equipment and +1 damage from Catalyst Pulse.
  • Good additions are Weapon Stabilizer augment (+1 damage to weapon), Cascade Event (+1 damage when enemy shields broken by Ion), or Attack Forge equipment (+1 damage upkeep no hull damage taken). Combined Assault is great as well, as missiles are typically low cost to play, and provides value even if they're downed by the boss' PDC.
• You also want to bring an efficient answer to the shields, in this case Ion doubles as both a shield cracker and defensive tool.
  • Ion Spear is very good against the Custodian, as it's constant small shield generation via Shield Stream is makes it very easy to trigger the disable equipment conditional effect
  • All Missile racks/pods can acquire Ion Missiles, which at 12 Ion damage for 2G are an excellent rate.
    • It can be worthwhile removing Starflares, as 6 damage deplete simply isn't enough late game.
    • Enemy PDC's only fire if they have ammo at the beginning of the enemy turn. This means player missiles launched turn 1 with a 1 turn travel time can slip by before the PDC can arm.
    • Conversely, if you plan to use 2 turn missiles (Torpedo / Ion Torpedo), you likely need to focus out the PDC turn 1 with your lasers/precise weapons.

The most common Arbalest build, Laser / Ion / Missile locks down the boss with a combination of breaking equipment + Ionize effect, and is fairly consistent as both missile launcher and the Ion family of weapons are interchangeable. There are absolutely many other ways to beat the boss, but defanging the boss makes for fairly straight forward decision making.

Example videos:

Arbalest vs Custodian YT Playlist

Marauder vs Custodian YT Playlist