One specific enemy in Poko Kohara ruins giving me issues

[Destinyblade]

I'm playing in turn based mode and I was doing the 'Terms of Trade' quest. Most of the fights in the area were fairly simple but there was this one giant-like enemy standing next to the gates of the ruins who seems too strong for me?

I'm assuming I'm just underlevelled for this fight but I'd like to confirm that since this is the one enemy in this area that easily claps my party.

I don't think this is a matter of me playing the game wrong since I do literally no substantial damage. I went through an entire round and I did not see the healthbar go down a bit

I uploaded a screenshot of the encounter I'm talking about.

 

[Boeroer]

This guy has very high armor. You don't have enough penetration (see the "No Pen." message in the combat log in the lower right of the screen). 

That's because you attack the Titan with slashing or piercing weapons (like the hunting bow, guns, sabres, swords and so on). As you can see it has 11 armor against most things and even 13 vs. pierce damage. In the combat log it is shown that you tried to deliver slash damage (your hunting bow does pierce or slash damage depending what armor is lower - in this case slash armor at 11). Given your low level I assume that you are far from reaching 11 penetration with your hunting bow. I assume your whole party is using either pierce or slash damage. 

Underpenetration means a severe damage malus. Making sure you penetrate enemies' armor is one of the most important things to do in Deadfire. THat's why switching weapons according to the enemy is important - and to pick some abilities that may raise penetration (for example Fighter's Penetrating Strike) or lower enemies' armor (for example Wizard's Expose Vulnerabilities).

As you can see the Titan has only 7 armor vs. crush damage. So the easiest way to beat him is to attack with crushing weapons. Instead of pierce or slash weapons use weapons that do crush damage. It doesn't even matter if the crushing weapons have lower quality or whatever - underpenetration is so severe that it's much better to attack with a weak crushing weapon that can penetrate than with a good pierce weapons that cannot.

Ohter alternatives are shock damage and corrode/acid damage. For example Serafen could have Antipathetic echo (corrode), Aloth could use some shocking spell like Crackling Bolt or something. Also there's a hunting bow in Port Maje (you can buy it) named Essence Interrupter which is very good and does shock damage.

What always works: ablities/spells that do raw damage (see some Ciphers spells vor example) - raw damage just ignores all armor. 
 

 

Edited November 20, 2021 by Boeroer

[Helz]

In addition, fights will get longer and longer. It might take a bunch of rounds to chip away his health. Positioning matters too. Big guys tend to have AoE attacks so grouping up like that isn't going to help.

Pay attention to Defenses as well. He's got a high Fortitude, so don't bother with attacks that target it. Instead hit him where it hurts, Deflection and Will. Also, pay attention to resistances and immunities. Resistances only drop afflictions by 1 tier, so they are sometimes worth casting, but immunities make spells completely useless.

 

Edited November 21, 2021 by Helz

[Boeroer]

I forgot: always flank the enemy if possible. It's giving -10 deflection and -1 armor. It's easy to do, you just have to attack from opposite sides with melee characters or melee summons. There's no immunity to it nor do you actually have to hit to apply the "flanked" status.
 

[Carys]

Also, those 3 skulls on the sword over his head show that you're significantly under levelled, as you guessed, for this fight.  That does not make it impossible, it will just be harder.

[Destinyblade]

switching everyone to crush damage weapons, flanking and focusing on will abilities made it managable. Thanks

[xzar_monty]

21 hours ago, Carys said:

Also, those 3 skulls on the sword over his head show that you're significantly under levelled, as you guessed, for this fight.  That does not make it impossible, it will just be harder.

The OP already has the problem solved (good!), but I'd simply want to point out that this enemy was always a three red skulls one for me, but not that hard anyway (when using tactics described above). This was a recurring theme in my two playthroughs: these big enemies tended to have three red skulls, but they were not that difficult in the end (exception: megabosses, on those I just gave up).

Edited November 22, 2021 by xzar_monty