This is a sort of companion piece to the Lumberjack Miniboss mod which (eventually) adds a new wandering miniboss to the game, specifically to the Weald. I was motivated to write this guide as I very rarely find new monster mods to the base game interesting or fair enough to warrant installation, but was hooked almost immediately by this one. The timing of its release is excellent--it's Halloween season as I write this; the mod is simple enough that it doesn't "intrude or disrupt" upon the base game much at all, so unless you visit the Weald frequently in your travels, it won't feel like it's somehow damaging your enjoyment of the rest of the game; the Lumberjack himself is pretty balanced for a modded enemy, I feel. This guide will cover the Prevent Clearings plot quest in which you first face him: the map layout, what you can expect to find within it, the teams I've used to face him in my test runs of the mod, and what sort of strategies would work well against him.

You can check out and download the Lumberjack Miniboss mod here; you can also read what the mod does and the rewards for beating him:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1879840996

For the most part, this quest is a standard Medium Champion Weald quest; it is formally a 100% Room Battle quest. Therefore, whatever you have been doing to deal with Champion Weald up to this point will help to get you through this:
- Bleed
- bonus DMG against Eldritch and Human
- ways to debuff the heavy DODGE of Crones, Ghashers, and Viragoes
- PROT to get your frontliners past the heavy beatings being Marked will produce
- anti-Disease measures in Camp: Plague Doctor, the Grave Robber's Snuff Box
- possibly Rallying Flare to clear Marks
- a party that can get itself back into position easily in case of the Corrupted Giant's Confusion Spores, the push effect of the Hateful Virago's Putrifying Breath, or the Acolyte's Eldritch Push/Pull
- DMG debuffs for Fungal Crawlers and Corrupted Giants
- heavy Blight resistance

While your Provisions will mostly be your standard pack for Weald trips, there are two different details to consider:
- you will want to stock up with Bandages for the Lumberjack
- you will need at minimum three Shovels to fully navigate this map

There are two major factors differentiating this quest from your standard walk in the Weald:
- the map layout for this dungeon is static,
- although the enemies and Curios you find will be RNGed, their locations, as well as the locations of Traps and Obstacles, are static

Be aware that things that affect enemy encounters in the game, like DLC and certain other mods, can also affect this quest; for example, I have the Falconer class installed in two of my saves, and because one party member in one of my test runs had the Marked by the Flock Quirk, I did run into a team of Talon Brigands as a Room Battle. Though untested, I imagine that Crimson Court enemies (if the Infestation level's high enough), as well as the Shieldbreaker's snakes post-nightmares, can also appear here.

The Curios found seem to be biased towards Ancient Coffins and Traveler's Tents, so most of the time you'll have to roll the dice if you're aiming to gather loot (neither of these can be treated with any Provision). I have also found Pristine Fountains, Shallow Graves, and Left Luggage here.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1881533973

Note the map on the above screenshot.

From the staring point, you can head north or south: the one room north only has a Curio, so no point in going that way unless you're actively looting or are a completionist. Head south to a room with a Curio. The path splits east and west from here.

If you head west:
- you'll be brought south through a Thorny Thicket, a Curio, and a Hallway Battle
- a Room Battle with Curio immediately after the above Hallway Battle
- you'll head south and then east in the ensuing hallway, with two Curios and another Thorny Thicket
- a Room Battle, and then the path goes north with a trap in the next hallway

If you head east:
- you'll be brought south and then farther east, through a Hallway Battle and Trap, and then a Room Curio
- the path splits again, going north and south; you'll have to go north first to complete the quest
- the north hallway features a Thorny Thicket, Curio, and then a Room Battle with Curio (the Room farthest east on the map)
- you'll head back the way you came afterward, going south past the Room Curio from earlier and through a hallway with a Curio
- the next Room Battle, and then a short hallway heading west

No matter which path you take, you will have to trek through at least some of the other path to handle all these Room Battles and complete the quest. Personally, I would go east initially, as doing so, and going south for those two Room Battles at the bottom of the map later, allows you to get through this with just two Shovels, if you're looking to save a bit of money. Both paths, if followed as described above, will eventually leave you in a Curio Room more or less in the center of the map.

I believe the mod's creators strategically placed this Curio Room, without a battle, as an optimal Camping spot, as your main target is very close by and, no matter which path you chose, any buffs you place on your party at this point will last you just enough to tackle the Lumberjack and then clean up any remaining battles, assuming your buffs last for four battles.

Whether you Camp or decide to save the Firewood for later, when you're ready, head west. The hallway turns north almost immediately, but before you can get too far...

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1881548643

As you can see, the Lumberjack is a pretty hefty, beefy boy, with only slightly less (11) HP than the Formless Flesh in non-Stygian difficulty. He occupies two Ranks and has two actions per round, which will become important when considering half of his attacks. He has solid Stun and Move resistance, although the Move resist is irrelevant since he does not summon any addtional enemies. He is moderately prone to Debuffs and equally weak to Bleed and Blight. Although ACC is always a consideration when dealing with most of the Weald, it's less important against the Lumberjack; he actually has slightly less DODGE than the average Champion-level enemy. He comes into battle with a built-in debuff preventing him from using his Flicker of the Axe attack.

The mod description, and more pertinently the descriptions of the Lumberjack's trinkets, should give a hint as to how he operates: his aim is to Bleed and Stun you to death, though he has a couple of other tricks up his non-existent sleeves, and his deadliest attacks are actually a two-part combo of sorts.

The Lumberjack uses:
- Blunt Blow: hits Ranks 3 & 4, moderate DMG, Stuns and a Bleed Resist debuff
- Flagitious Carnage: hits Ranks 1 & 2, moderate DMG, Bleeds and a Healing Received debuff. This attack ignores PROT
- Grind the Axe: the 1st half of his combo, the Lumberjack grants himself a 30% DMG buff, Riposte, and removes his Flicker of the Axe disable; this also clears any debuffs you have given him
- Flicker of the Axe: the 2nd half of his combo, the Lumberjack...well, flicks his axe, a full-party AOE for weak DMG (which becomes moderate DMG due to the Grind the Axe buff), Bleed, and also Shuffles. Using this skill disables it once again, until he next Grinds the Axe
- Execution: essentially a DD-style Fatality, only usable on targets on Death's Door; it ignores Guard and Blocks and Stealth and bypasses Death's Door checks, so as long as it doesn't miss, it's an auto-Deathblow on its victim. Therefore, the only way to avoid certain death is to simply have high enough DODGE

- having two actions and having such low Bleed/Blight resists makes the Lumberjack prime DOT fodder; I beat him the first time using a Bleed-heavy squad of Vestal/Houndmaster/MAA/Flagellant, which also is excellent for draining the preceeding dungeon of its blood as well. Plague Doctor is highly recommended, as she can help deal with Disease from the rest of the dungeon beforehand, drown the Lumberjack from both ends of the DOT spectrum with an offensive Bloody Herb/Blight-based trinket build, and cure Flagitiuous Carnage (FC) Bleeds. Hellion is also excellent, as both of her Bleed skills can hit from Rank 1 and she bring herself back into position should she be shuffled from Flicker of the Axe (FotA) via Breakthrough
- whether playing with only vanilla classes or adding some modded classes into the mix, the AOE nature of his offense means AOE healing is optimal; Vestal is therefore the recommended cleric for this quest. If modded classes are used, go with the Druid, Grove Tender, Seer, etc. Acolyte of Sun can be used as well, but is a secondary choice due to how lackluster his toolkit is for the dungeon prior. Because you need to act very quickly when someone hits Death's Door (due to Execution), it is better to bring faster healers than slower ones, so slower healers like the Condena, or Vestals with SPE-reducing Quirks, are to be avoided. If someone in your party has a self-heal, they should bring it into this battle just in case
- Lumberjack has a more drawn-out strategy in mind than his muscular frame would suggest: lower Bleed resist of your backliners with Blunt Blow (BB), potentially bring them up front with FotA, and then slaughter them with FC. It is therefore important for your backliners to pack Bleed and Stun resist, if you have room for both; this being the Weald means the Fortifying Garlic and Ancestor's Handkerchief are excellent choices for protection. The Flesh's Heart is great for anyone in the party, but mainly works for your tank if you bring one along
- much like the Shambler, Hag, Siren, Viscount, and Miller--Shambler in particular--being completely AOE-oriented and dual-action means that Riposte utterly slices, crushes, and humbles the Lumberjack. If anything, he's hit even harder than the Shambler is, because there's no PROT to cut through, and his mediocre DODGE offsets the lower ACC inherent in most Riposte skills to a degree. I beat him the second time with a Riposte squad of Highwayman/Dragonslayer/Duchess supported by a Druid, but for vanilla classes, a Highwayman plus an Man-at-Arms or two works too (keeping in mind that the MAA is great in general for the Weald). If you go this route, unlike mentioned earlier, you will have to put some attention into ACC with gearing your party. Riposte is also cool as it allows you to deal damage when he has his own Riposte active without reprisal
- as a Size 2 Human enemy with no minions to divert attention away, Marking teams can do very well against the Lumberjack; the Bounty Hunter in particular can have fun against him. Buffed prior with Planned Takeover and This Is How We Do It, holding Vvulf's Tassel, hampered less by FotA's Shuffling than most other classes...you can imagine how quickly that can turn the tide of battle in your favor
- the Houndmaster's toolkit means he is comfortable in either Bleed or Marking parties, and his capacity to be useful in any Rank makes him arguably the best overall class for this miniboss
- perhaps I got lucky in my test runs, but ACC seems to be a problem for the Lumberjack's arsenal; though untested, a heavy DODGE squad might work pretty well against him. It has been pointed out to me by A Slightly Startled Seal that all of the Lumberjack's attacks have lower-than-normal ACC for Champion, which provides more evidence for this type of team being an option. This also raises the possibility of including the Antiquarian in such a party, as between Invigorating Vapours, Flashpowder, and Get Down!, along with her DODGE trinkets, she can quickly render the party untouchable. Raising DODGE should be prioritized over debuffing the Lumberjack's ACC, due to GtA and his two actions/round making it difficult for such debuffs to stick
- the Lumberjack has a capacity to stack Grinding the Axe (GtA) boosts, since the DMG buff lasts enough that he can get a FotA in, then simply GtA again. This can lead to a terrifying scenario of +60 DMG in his favor for a round while he tees off on you with an attack or two. Because FC ignores PROT, the onus is on your tanks to either be high-HP classes (Leper or Crusader or HP-oriented Men-at-Arms) or the Flagellant, who doesn't mind getting hit hard and then striking back with his low-HP skills
- I personally find dancing parties to be tough to master, but they may be good for this quest in general: they'll be safely able to ignore the Shuffling from both Confusion Spores as they navigate the dungeon, and FotA during the battle itself, while simultaneously keeping the pressure on the Lumberjack once his Riposte wears off. I'm picturing Jester/Occultist/Grave Robber/Shieldbreaker as a team that can dual-function as Dancing/DOT stacking, but cannot give any advice on this from personal experience

When you have downed the Lumberjack, he automatically drops one of his two Trophies; which he drops is random:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1881646007

Bear in mind that the quest isn't over yet: if you continue north in the same hallway, you have one more standard Room Battle to clear; of course, if you haven't looped around to the other path you didn't take earlier, you have to clear the Room Battles there too. This is an argument in favor of hanging on to your Firewood until after the Lumberjack battle, in case he has laid a beating on your party; since the prior Curio Room is very close by, it's a simple matter to backtrack a few steps and Camp, then make the final push. Stress from backtracking shouldn't be an issue unless you brought in a bunch of Stress from the prior battles, as the Lumberjack can only induce it through crits.

When you finally beat the quest, as noted in the mod description, you then have a low chance of running into the Lumberjack again during any Champion Weald quest, which gives you the chance to beat him again and net his other Trophy trinket; the same strategies as noted earlier apply. Following the tradition of the Fanatic and Mother Talon, you will know if he spawns in your chosen quest when he graces your dungeon loading screen.

- A Slightly Startled Seal for granting me permission to write my first Steam forums guide: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/id/slightlystartled/
His playlist of mods, if you find this one to be fun: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1358805026
- Dismas for helping with the art for this mod: though we haven't spoken yet, I hope he's also happy that someone took this much interest in some of his work: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/id/dismas_reynauld/
- the regulars on the Darkest Dungeon Discussion forum for being helpful and welcoming enough that I had the nuts to even consider writing this; also for giving me near-constant pointers on how to keep this game interesting
- Worldie Feard, for introducing me into this game and, in his words, "creating a monster" who has subsequently spent way too much time on it: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/id/world_tm
- mrbunnyban, nerdcommando.gamestudios, and Longfriend Timefriend for creating the most enjoyable and informative DD guides I've used to this point; I don't want to say I ripped off their templates for writing these when writing this, but I certainly tried:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=531230648
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1093978802
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=612579203
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=528626502
- everyone who has created a New Class mod in the Workshop: I don't bother to try this mod if your work doesn't extend the replay value of this game for me, by like, forever until the sequel comes out. You all are the real Champions & Legends!