Jailer | Dark Souls 3 Wiki

Hey you! Yes you! You ever wanted to be tortured mentally? So you want to smash all your possessions in a fuming rage? Do you hate fair and good enemy design? Well these branding-iron using hellspawns are just the thing for you! Hope you have fun smashing your controller in half in rage!

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Just a heads up, if you turn your camera and don't look at them, you don't lose HP. Basically once you see one, turn your camera away, close the distance, and look at them only once you are close to strike distance.

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This is honestly the absolute worst designed enemy in any game that I've ever played. These cheap ****s belong in a rage game, not dark souls.
It looks at you funny and all your health disappears.
It has a weapon that, if it so much as ****ing grazes you, knocks you down, stops you from drinking estus and makes you fat roll. Also spews a gas that more or less has the same effect.
It on top of that when you are knocked down has a pseudo grab that is garuanteed to kill you by the time you get hit by it. At the very least you can dodge out of it but at that point even your health will be drained so much that their simple shitty poke will kill you.
As for anyone saying to just "GiT GuD" I want to ask you something. What about these enemies is there to get good at? What counterplay is there to them that doesn't make you play in either the cheesiest way possible or slow as ****? I want to play dark souls people, not metal gear ****ing solid.

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It's not that they are hard, rather annoying and anti-fun, because you have to be careful around these shyteheads

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Some information regarding the life drain mechanism is missing in this article. There are multiple cases where this occurs; I just encountered them during my playthrough so I don't know all of them yet, but:

Bot,h them casting a particular spell on you and you being in their smoke, causes this to occur. I'm not really sure how to stop it from happening once they cast the spell directly on you; it seems to stay with you for the length of the curse. The only solution I have found so far is to attack them before they cast the curse and lock them in stagger; this doesn't work with multiple enemies though unless you cleave them, so in large groups, I draw out 1 at a time.

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I hate these biatches

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i guess we’re calling branding irons soldering irons now.

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when i was in prison, the guards were exactly like this.

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These ****s really put the fun in dark souls

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If you look in the ds3 subreddit you'll see that his attack is a beam that can be avoided if you dont walk straight to it

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Actual worst enemy in DS3, genuinely not fun to face be it 1v1 or 1v6+ like they have you do later on in the dungeon. What were they thinking???

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It is such a buzz charging at these horrible things

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Jailers and the whole prison area reminds me a lot of the Prison of Hope from Demon's Souls.

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I love Dark Souls 3, but the last part of the dungeon where you need to face a group of these jailers is simply lazy and definitely anti-fun.

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Closer inspection reveals that they actually hock a loogie on the floor, at the epicenter of the HP squashing mist. Some aristocrats.

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the look, the mask, the sounds 10/10. would be a cool enemy if they didn't take %60 percent of your hp just by looking at you. see this is just bullshit.

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Why does it just take away your hp? It’s horrible, there’s no way to stop it from happening.

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Why does it just take away your hp? It’s horrible, there’s no way to stop it from happening.

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Why does it just take away your hp? It’s horrible, there’s no way to stop it from happening.

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Most egregiously unfair enemy I've come across in this game yet (and that's saying something). They immediately take away all your HP as long as you're in the same area as them, even if they don't actually attack you.

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And i thought those stupid curse frog ****ers in the depths were bad.

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Im willing to let the first flame extinguish to get rid of these mf's

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Whoever invented these mfs needs to be taken out back and put down

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I love getting looked at funny and having my health get ****ed so hard you'd think think it was the girl from the casting couch, I can survive a giant ass haldberd being swung into my torso at god knows how fast and be fine, but some **** looks at me with a lantern and my health evaporates.

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weakness : fire bomb

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You know what? I don't think I like DS3 very much.

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And that point they could remove the life drain effect and have a creature come out of my monitor and take the controller away from me for 20 seconds and I wouldn't see the difference

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Ummm are you sure about lightning ? Cause i hit them with lightning spear and it didn't do ****.

On the other hand Chaos fire orb took more than half of its life.

I also hit them with a dark infused Astora and 8tndid great amoun of damage but idk about that cuase my Astora was +6 and i had high int and faith

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You know, they could have made irythill dungeon a top-tier level if it was more based on sneaking around them. Unfortunately, they just decided to put a jailer around multiple corners that you're required to pass, and the only way to avoid them is to just run away as fast as you can. Coulda been like metal gear solid, with all the jailers aggroing at once, as well, requiring you to find hiding spots, maybe inside the cells. On top of that, maybe make the hollows in the cells respawn- that way you have to focus on avoiding them while in a confined space, as fighting back will alert the jailers.

Irythill dungeon had so much potential bro ;-; why from

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these guys are kinda strange when it comes to stuns...
i did a PGS weaponart in one of these and it just barely flinched, but others were sent flying by a regular attacks or even firebombs

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Absolute middle finger to ng faith builds. Even while using unfaltering prayer, they still break your poise with their irons, and poise is one of the most important parts of any faith build.

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Im gonna hate them once i get to jail for my SL1 run...

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This is inaccurate. The health drain does not rely on line of sight, and lasts as long as they are aggro'd.

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The 9 or 10 at the bottom of the dungeon is the ultimate middle finger from Miyazi. On top of that the ambush in the narrow hallway where the giant is at was very nice lmao

I love their designs but these ladies are up are there with Winter Lanterns as the most annoying Souls enemies hahaa

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This is the definition of **** enemy design. Their attacks have horrible cues. They just hold the brand and suddenly you get hit, there is no windup, no arm raising or any sign to show you when to dodge. So this isn't a skill based enemy, its a RNG based enemy. If you're lucky, you hit them before they magically hit you, if not, you die instantly.



This enemy would be fine if the game didn't have the most useless garbage poise system in any Souls game ever made. Dark Souls 1 had a perfect poise system, 2 was decent, it let you customize more, but DS3 took a big **** on poise, and consequently STR build players. You can tell the idiots at From were trolling when they put 10 of the ****ers in one big open room.

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Whoever decided to put 10 of these at the end of the dungeon should be banned from designing games

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Enemy type: CHRONIC MIGRAINE

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Why not just design a creature that kill me in 1 hit. At least it make sense.

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Only if the lantern could be a weapon in the game, that would so much fun

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I hate these mfs

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I know there are multiple ways of getting through them but no.
Just screw those guys.

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Any poison cloud effect makes killing the large group of them trivial. Stand behind the wall with the Chameleons, blow smoke through the Wall whenever an unpoisoned group walks by.

Toxic Cloud and Storyteller's only takes one poison proc to kill them; normal poison smoke requires two (but only by a smiggin of HP.)

If you can get an ATT slot (be it with a ring, 10 ATT, or similar) and the 10 Fth then you can do this. You can do this with any char if you farm a Storyteller's Staff. Also quite useful to cheese the two nearby mimics.

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If you struggle against them, here are some tips:

1) Replenishment miracle (requires only 15 Faith, costs 30 FP) + offhand Gentle Prayer from any Chime (requires 10 Faith, costs 13 FP) = 11 HP/sec for a minute resulting in 660 HP for 43 FP in total.
Throw in a Blue Tearstone Ring and Sun Priestess Ring for good measure

2) Hidden Body (requires 15 Intelligence, costs 25 FP) + ranged attacks (my favorite are Greatbows) = cheese

3) Shield's wont work since there's no shield that protects for 100% of fire damage, and their weapons deal fire damage, which at 1 HP means you will die, so ditch the shield altogether and equip something more useful in the offhand, or just dual wield.

4) Hidden Body + (Spook | Slumbering Draconcrest Ring)

5) Roll to their side and not into/away from them.

6) Rapiers are very good against them, and also in cramped spaces such as Iriythyll Dungeon.

7) Black firebombs knock them down

8) You can walk behind and backstab most of them if you are patient enough.

9) You don't have to engage them, just walk behind them to places you want to visit.

10) Try not to engage several at the same time, if you do make sure you hit all of them with the attack (e.g. position them in a line towards you with thrusting weapons and in a sector in front of you with sweeping weapons). They are pretty slow so it shouldn't be much of a problem.

11) In the lower level of the Irithyll Dungeon where there are a bunch of Jailers, you can release the Lycantrope locked in the cell opposite of 2 Giant Rats and he will be hostile towards the Jailers.

Overall not a bad enemy, you can think of it as a temporary one-hit-kill mode. Playing DS3 for the first time with 10 Vigor and 10 Vitality I didn't even feel these guys as special since half the enemies oneshotted me anyway, even on NG+. My second pyro character felt the same on both normal and NG+. I finally saw where the hate was coming from on my third, shields-only character.

My problems are that the range of the drain and what triggers it is not clear. Also it would be nice if you had all the health returned if you managed to not get hit during the debuff, but I understand he current decision.

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Yeah these are stupid. They make me just afk with the sun princess ring after they nuke my health. They aren’t even hard to kill; a decent bow makes short work of them. The stupid health drain is just dumb and unnecessary

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Ladies and Gentlemen the most annoying enemy in DS3.
To mention a comment below me that summed it up perfectly:

"Stupid enemy. Makes no sense. Overtuned. Teaches nothing. Designed to artificially extend your time in the Dungeon"

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Is it possible to lure the Lycan Beast being held in one of the bottom cells into attacking the mass of circling Jailers?

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If only they were parryable...

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A lot of people seem to be trying to rush these dudes and kill them aggressively. If you're finding that strategy too difficult, you can actually sneak up on all but 2 of these dudes for a backstab. Of those 2, one of them is encountered alone within about 6 feet, so he can be rushed and killed swiftly.

Slumbering dragoncrest ring makes it way easier, but it can be done without it too.

It takes patience, but you can easily clear the whole jail bit like that. Doesn't really require any skill or anything, just patience. I'm pretty sure that's how it's intended to be done. Trying to fight 2-3 at once is clearly not incentivized.

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mfw when getting touched with a hot object instantly kills me

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go ahead and yell at me all ya want, these enemies are fun, i enjoy jumping and running around the room trying to stay out of sight while occasionally throwing bombs at them, go ahead, get mad, its not my fault these things exist and if i enjoy fighting them i will do so. not like ya can stop me anyway-

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As a host, i hate these.
But as an invader,these are my best friends

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anyone know why they emit that yellowish smog when noticing you? is it a cosmetic thing?

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they drop simple gem

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If you can get close and hit them first, they're ridiculously easy to bring down. It's just that, from a distance, draining your max health can be quite dangerous and their soldering iron burns your health really fast if you let them hit you with it. Seems like an enemy that encourages you to hide behind corners.

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Trash enemy, isn't even using a pontiff curved sword. Using a soldering iron, what casul lmao

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Stupid enemy. Makes no sense. Overtuned. Teaches nothing. Designed to artificially extend your time in the Dungeon. Waste of a zone.

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Not difficult, just tedious due to extra strategy/different loadouts required to deal with them - most of which require patience. The laziest way to kill them by far is with Storyteller's Staff WA or Toxic Mist.

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most annoying enemy to deal with for me

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If you use the crow quills, do a running L1 on these guys the second you see them, it knocks them down so they can't drain hp.

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I can't confirm this yet, but It seems duel charms might stop them from draining your hp, at least for a short amount of time.

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This is the worst designed enemy in the game, what were they thinking!? It's almost bull**** and unfair at times

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It's not that they're hard, it's just that they aren't fun to fight.

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go ahead and tell us to stop complaining about these enemies because of this being a "hard game" these enemies take it too far on hard. even spam won't work sometimes on these pieces of ****

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yeah...they are ****.
i just walk up and 3 hit killed them no prob....
I came her to find out what the yellow cloud is.. but its not on the wiki.....

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Players hate the jailers and I totally get why, but I think they're some of the coolest enemies in the DS games. Those freaky giggles emanating from blank masked faces as they gleefully rush up on you to snatch away your life. So scary. Plus, jailers have the coolest death sound of any enemy in the DS games. 10/10 would allow to haunt my nightmares again.

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Players sure love to complain about any mechanic in a Souls game that isn't "big boss uses big move, dodge it, attack and repeat to win."

You signed for a difficult game, not every mechanic is going to be exactly the same or "fair." The use of "fair" in these comments sections is entirely subjective. I suck at Dark Souls, but I love the games because they have a huge variety of challenges, not just flat out combat. I have a feeling people, just like with complaining on other games, are just looking for things whine about without actually taking the time to see the developer's point of creating the content nor removing their own subjective thinking from the equation. Criticism is great, complaining without reason nor factual argument on the other hand makes you look like Gamespot journa...I mean...content mill writers.

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The easiest method to kill all the jailers at the last part of dungeon was to spawn from Profaned Capital, open the cell with a red-eyed Lycanthrope inside and bait him to jailers. Watch him wreak havoc on them.

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The enderman of Dark Souls

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Ashen one: AAAAAAGGHHHHHHHHH *being burned to death*

Jailer: hehehehe tssssssssss

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wow and I thought bloodborne's winter lanterns were the worst enemy in the series

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Hmm, I have to check if there is a geniue counter of this enemy. It seems there is not huh. First enemy who made me died 2 two times in the row before I understand her mechanic. Basically, she can decrease my hp just by look at me ... eh. Wow, what a great design.

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Their max HP drain debuff also works for other enemies as well, tested with cinders mod that allows you to rapport these guys. When he stares at a reanimated corpse (the one inside jail cell) it's health also depletes and then return to normal few seconds later.

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"player's max health slowly decreases while within line of sight. Max health remains lowered for a short time," Yeah sure "Slowly" decreases and remains for a "short" time. Who wrote that? Have they even fought these enemies? I'm not even pissed I'm just confused as to why they chose these adjectives.

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so im picking up ds3 after 2 years. these F****NG things made me rage quit the first time i played. i was a fat rolling heaviest armor greatsword greatshield str bro. just made it back to the dungeon on a pure dex low equip cheese bro. wish me luck!

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As a person who is new as the Souls series (only D3 and only 3 runs) I'm actually surprised ppl have trouble with jailers. They have more bark than bite. If you have range you can spam that to your heart's content. If you don't want to waste arrows/FP, then grab the longest sword in your inventory and spam light (make sure you use horizontal swing. Farron's GS spinning attacks works wonders). I say use the longest cuz the biggest threat (outside of retreating into an area with more enemies at 1hp) is having a jailer poke you through the body of another jailer. So use the range of your long weapon to keep them all far away. Roll away and backpedal when you need to recharge stamina. Rinse and repeat. And don't do anything with your hp until they're all gone.

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– Babe, it's 4 p.m. time for your HP flattening – Yes honey

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I remember on my first playthrough of DS3 I didn't get what everyone's problem was with these enemies, but I now on my 2nd playthrough I realize that I was ridiculously overleveled for that area. So yeah, f**ck them.

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These guys paired with the bleed buildup in the same exact dungeon is annoying as hell. They are manageable, though. At the cost of all of your souls.

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why are people so mad at these

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All bull aside, these enemies are cool as heck they genuinely scared me on first encounter, the way they turn red then glide towards you mega fast while giggling scary as hell

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Is no one gonna mention the fact these guys are displayed on the NPCs category and not the enemies catagory

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NOOO YOU CAN'T JUST DRAIN THE PLAYER'S HEALTH SLOW THEM DOWN AND DO AN ATTACK THAT INSTANT KILLS THEM THAT'S UNFAIR NOOOO: jailer: haha soldering iron go pssssh

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Dark Souls 2 isn't looking as bad now.

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They insta kill you if they catch you below half health

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Very rare drop; jailer lantern ; "slowly drains your opponents hp when in your sigh. only works against human adversaries"

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why are they in the NPC category?

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Does the cloud of mist they spew not actually do anything? wtf

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Players: we like dark souls because it'fair towards player and encourages you to gain skill because once you're good you'll have an incredibly good time! From: Uuuugh yeah, ***** that. Enemy that drains healthbar cause it sees you Kk fromsoft ***** you very much

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Looks like the Flatwoods monster

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Jesus how can people complain about this enemy. Yes it drain your health bar on sight but even with 1 hp these guys are easy as*****. They have 1 attack thats easy to doge. Git gud

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I always presumed that there was some sort of gimmick with these things that I couldn't work out. You know, a way to avoid having my health drained as soon as they saw me. But they are just annoying pieces of***** which exist to torment people.

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Stealth is a vital part of metal gear solid online.

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Alluring Skulls don't work on them of couse...of course....it'll be toooo fair if it did.

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I guess 2 nukes weren't enough...

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hmhmhmhmhmhm *loud walking*

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So many commenting "you can lure them one by one with a bow or magic" like 'no***** sherlock'. The problem is that this thing limits the gameplay SO much and in a very boring way. Makes it so you only have two options: either slow down your gameplay so you have to kill one after the other, waiting and waiting or realize you are gonna need to be flawless dodging any attacks while your HP is turned to 1, with potentially***** dodge because of course they also debuff. And considering the ranged choice is locked behind attributes (sure you can get a bow with little dex investment, have fun shooting a gazillion arrows) it only *****s certain builds and people further.

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Cancer.

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You can shoot their lantern with a bow, unsure if this cancels their lifesteal curse.

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I want jailers powers in PvP. Killing my opponent just by looking at them!

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Easy or not easy I found this enemy to be downright ridiculously unfair. I want an enemy with actual combat prowess and high damage per attack. This bull crap just isn’t fair. It’s one thing to be beaten by a tough SOB opponent but this is just cheap. Less than two seconds and your health is gone.

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