About halfway through the Veteran bosses so far. Swine King was stupid easy with a HM and GR dodging. Guard Dog is such a great skill. Necromancer was pretty much just as easy as he was on Apprentice when you sport enough back rank damage. Prophet was sort of easy due to several lucky dodges on his Predictions. Siren wasn't bad although having your own Helion buff up then swing on you is pretty scary.
Hag for some reason really gave me trouble though. That stupid pot takes two to three hits on average without Level 4 Gear and Skills. The fight drug on and on and on because I'd only get a chance to hurt her every other turn when I maxed out on damage or critted the pot. If she'd used her healing move more, I would have been hosed. Then again, getting your face Tenderized every round right as your guy comes out of the pot is bad too. Even with damage trinkets I can't seem to get that pot down in 1 hit unless it's a crit.
Not looking forward to the Flesh and the Crew. Flesh can be randomly obnoxious with the right combos of heals, stuns and damage, while the crew basically requires you kill the chain holder in one turn or he heals to full, which leads you to sometimes waste actions because you can't possible kill it or do anything else useful that turn. It's slightly less worse than the Hag because at least you can dodge or resist your way out of the attack. We'll see though. My damage parties are starting to get really strong. I haven't taken two healers in forever. Junia's Head + Book of Sanity or what have you makes the Occultist godly, and the Vestal pretty decent at higher levels. I suspect the Brigand 16 Pounder might be kind kinda nasty too if the Matchman is all beefy.
Had a fun first fight against the Crew. Man At Arms had been getting hammered the whole level, got Resolve Tested during the fight. Busts out with Powerful. The Crew keeps trying to anchor him, and he just keeps shouting like "I will not fall for your darkness!" You just get a warm fuzzy when you actually get a Virtue during a boss fight.
I have to make myself drag a Jester along on missions. I'm just not impressed. Solo/Finale leaves him really exposed, and you can't really buff his damage that well. The Bleeds are ok but Blight is just straight up better damage, faster. The stress heal is about all I find him useful for. So when you're down to the bottom of the barrel trying to get a boss fight completed before you level past it, and you take the Jester, it's a pretty big hit to your DPS. His miraculous dodging just never seems to pay out when I need it to and he's one bad crit away from serially fucked without a big heal. I'd rather have a Grave Robber.
And speaking of GR...I used to poo-poo her but man, Thrown Dagger is just nuts. Between its base damage, accuracy buff and crit rating, it's like the strongest ranged attack in the game short of Arbalest buffed crits. The damage is so good I rarely use the Blight Darts. They simply don't keep up in damage, not even over several turns. She pretty much puts the Highwaymen to shame.