A completely accurate guide to 4-48 (Spicebush Dongbaek)

So, I've been replaying the game recently with an alt account, and found that I only encountered three major roadblocks in my progress. One of them was Dongbaek, specifically her Spicebush version. And looking around here, many others also struggled with her. So I decided, why not make a guide on her? Yeah, it's way back in Canto 4, but maybe people still need help with it? Also, please keep in mind I used a mix of level 35-40 sinners, and only base EGO, so there shouldn't be an issue of only using the most powerful units and ego from the gacha. Now, with all that said, let's get started.

DESCRIPTION

Spicebush Dongbaek is the boss you fight in level 4-48. She has 1465 health, and a resistance to pierce and weakness to slash. She uses multiple damage types to attack, so bringing a well rounded team is recommended. All her skills except two share a similarity of having high base power, and not much coin power.

The biggest threat in the fight is not her damage potential, but her unique status effect 'Blooming' that she inflicts on all her attacks. Blooming does two things. If the count if below 5, it reduces by 1 at turn end after the sinner loses (count*5) sp. If it is at 5, the sinner instead takes a percentage of their health as sloth damage and is trapped in a plant. They lose 20 sp for two turns, and if they reach -45 sp this way, they'll have their sp set to max and also be freed....but they can only target allies for the next two turns and lose 30 sp at the third turn.

It should be obvious to note why this is bad. Her main gimmick is basically to reduce your sp and also trap you in the plants. Also, if she manages to trap all your sinners in the plants she'll use an outrageously powerful skill called Culminating Fragrance that is near guaranteed to kill all sinners, or release them from plants at turn end in a staggered state. So mitigating how much blooming a sinner gets is key to the fight. Also, since blooming reduces by 1 at turn end, a sinner with 4 blooming won't just lose 20 sp, they'll lose 50 sp total until blooming is fully spent on them.

There's a few attacks to watch out for in the fight. The first is 'Pungent Fragrance', an aoe that hits three sinners and gives 4 blooming total to them. This leads to all affected sinners losing 20 sp at turn end, and eventually a grand total of 50. The next is 'Like flowers in Full Bloom', which gives your sinner 3 blooming on use, so they'll definitely lose at least 30 sp, just by clashing this skill. The last is her ultimate, 'Magnificent Spring Breeze', which is an aoe that hits all sinners and directly reduces sp by 15 on hit, while also giving 3 blooming. So you'd lose 45 sp total on every sinner if you got hit by this.

On turn 3, she'll change the scenery, and spawn three 'Soon to Bloom Flower' minions. They spawn very weak with little health, but can use attacks that inflict blooming on sinners and also gain more hp at turn end. She summons some via her skills 'Flowering Buds'. So they'll mostly always be replenished every turn. What you should use these for is to gain sp, and ensure you kill all of them every turn. On turn 5, she only guards, while the flowers that spawn in die on clash lose. You're gonna want to kill them all, not just for the sp, but because next turn she uses Magnificent Spring Breeze twice, and if any flowers are alive, the skill gains 5 final power. If all plants are alive, she gains an amazing 20 power to her 20 rolling skill, ensuring you'd need an EGO that clashes above 40 to win.

At half health, she will enter phase two, where she uses a skill called 'Must cover with dirt', which inflicts a status effect called Dueling on the sinner who clashes it. Next turn, everyone except the Dueling sinner is staggered and trapped in a flower. What you need to do is keep clashing her skills called 'withering flower' which is the only skill she uses in this phase, and which only targets the Dueling sinner. Win twice, and she'll stagger and all sinners are released at full SP. Lose even once, and it's highly likely she'll kill everyone by using Culminating Fragrance. Afterwards, the fight plays out as normal, no other gimmicks to be found.

GUIDE

So, that's all a big doozy, so what should you do to counter her?

Firstly, I'll be blunt. If you lose any clash on turns 1 or 2, you should reset, especially if you lost to pungent fragrance. There's nearly no way to win with three sinners at -20 sp. Second, if you lose to Magnificent Spring Breeze, that's another reset. If you lose a clash in the Dueling phase, guess what, another reset. It's nearly impossible to win if she actually lands MSB, and losing a duel will just kill anyone anyways.

Next, I'd recommend getting only 5 sinners to the fight, so your best two have two slots available to attack and regain sp with. Any lower and you won't be able to clash a skill on turn 3. You should be wary of her skills that inflicts 3 blooming on use. That's a load of sp gone, so what you should do is get two sinners with a high enough sp to clash the skills, then be wary not to clash it again until they fully spend blooming. Remember, of a sinner gets low sp, they can't clash her skills, and If they become a tree, that's 5 targets you have to focus on, besides Dongbaek herself, and not enough sinners to clash everything.

Whatever you do, you need to stop Magnificent Spring Breeze. It's her worst attack by far, because it has a base roll of 16 and only gains a measly 4 coin power. Losing a clash with this means losing 45 sp on every sinner. You should destroy all the plants by clashing them so she doesn't get base power up, and use two egos to clash both MSB next turn. She'll stagger after she loses a clash with it on turn 6, and that's your chance to put the hurting on her.

Get her to half HP and she will use her dueling skill. Now, if Yi Sang has Dueling, she gets 1 power up. Considering the skill only rolls 13 even with that condition, you should use yi sang, because if he wins then all allies gain 3 damage up when they're released after she staggers. Use crows eye view if necessary. After winning two duels, she staggers and all sinners should be able to do great damage to her or even kill her. If not, she just uses basic skills for the rest of the fight, so it's still easy.

For sinners, I'd recommend getting any yi sang id purely for the Dueling buff, any sp restoring passives or support passive ids, and ids with high base power. Because her skills have trash coins but high base power. Also give importance to ids with slash skills, or any Id without pierce really, as she's resistant to pierce and weak to slash. Other than that, you're golden! Just make sure your ids are at least level 35 when fighting her. It's a minor matter of luck, but other than that, it's all easier after the first time you beat MSB.

That's it pretty much. If you've any suggestions or questions, please, feel free to ask in the comments below!