Bastion Who Knows Where with 10 Idols (Best Spirits & Weapons)

The four Dreams give you two achievements each if you beat them with all idols invoked. Two of those idols, plus the fourth Dream, are unlocked in a New Game Plus mode.

As such, doing the challenge is only worth it after completing the main story. It’s also recommended that you attempt each dream using a controller, because the auto-aim generally makes things a lot simpler.

In the Dreams (a.k.a. “Who Knows Where”), you’ll fight against 20–30 waves of foes. The enemies aren’t new; you’ve faced every one of them in the story levels.

The difficulty lies in the idols themselves. Because they’ll each give your enemies various buffs:

10 Idols in Dreams
Idol	Enemy Buff
Hense	Increased damage
Acobi	Drops a bomb after death
Lemaign	Attacks slow down the player
Pyth	Faster movement and attack speed
Jevel	Greater damage resistance
Yudrig	Causes damage on contact
Roathus	Never drops health or black tonics
Micia	Regenerates health
Olak	Randomly makes attacks miss
Garmuth	Randomly deflects attacks

These can be grouped into four problems:

Using short-ranged melee weapons is risky because of Acobi and Yudrig.
Tonics are limited to your starting supply because of Roathus.
Enemies are faster and fiercer because of Pyth and Hense.
Enemies are more tenacious because of Jevel, Micia, Olak, and Garmuth.

The first one means the Hammer and the Machete aren’t good weapons to use in the Dreams. They’re fit for close-quarters combat, which is something you want to avoid.

Problem 4 also discourages use of weapons that rely on damage per second (DPS). These are the Pistols, Bellows, and Repeater. They’re dependent on their fast attack speed rather than base damage. Because of that, they’ll struggle against Olak and Garmuth.

All this points to only a few weapons worthy of challenging the Dreams.

You can also circumvent some idol effects by having the right spirits equipped – and we’ll cover all the best spirits & weapons for the Dream stages in this guide.

Best Spirits (Who Knows Where)

9 of the recommended spirits in the available slots at Lv. 9

Essential Spirits

Spirit	Price	Effect
Leechade	1000 fragments from the True Lost-and-Found	Recover health by damaging foes -66% Health tonic potency
Werewhiskey	Free with the Distillery	+100% Critical hit chance when below 33% health
Stabsinthe	400 fragments from the Lost-and-Found	Automatically retaliate when injured
Lifewine	Free with the True Distillery	Survive an attack that would’ve brought defeat

The number of spirits you can bring is equal to your current level.

If you’re underleveled, then you should at least have these four equipped. They’re vital in the Dreams.

They counter the most problematic idols, as well as enhance your survivability.

Leechade is a great workaround to Roathus. It’ll be your main source of health due to the lack of tonics. Dreams are more of a marathon than a race, and you won’t last long without a sustainable way to restore health. Leechade gives you this but also reduces your tonic’s recovery amount. That’s not a bad exchange since Roathus prevents tonics from dropping anyway.

Werewhiskey will come in clutch when you’re teetering near the brink of death. That happens more often than not, especially in the Stranger’s Dream. It also addresses the defensive idol effects — Micia and Jevel in particular. Critical hits can kill most enemies in one shot, moreso with weapons that have a high base damage. When they’re dead, then they can’t regenerate health.

Stabsinthe releases spikes in a small circle around you every time you take a hit. It’ll damage any nearby enemies, usually including the one that attacked you. This also counts as a trigger for Leechade’s effect. That means that you’re both hurting your assailant and alleviating some of your injury.

Lifewine can save you from death. If you get damaged and your HP reaches zero, you’ll survive the attack with 1 HP instead. This effect actually has a hidden limit: it activates only once. However, it replenishes itself every time you bring your health back up to full. With the other two spirits, you’ll be able to fight forever in theory. In practice, you still have to fight well to refill each Lifewine instance. It’s still better than dying though.

Optional Spirits

Spirit	Price	Effect
Hearty Punch	325 fragments from the Lost-and-Found	+1 Chance to carry on if defeated Damage surrounding foes if defeated
Bull Brandy	500 fragments from the True Lost-and-Found	+15% Damage resistance
Black Rye	Free with the True Distillery	+2 Black tonic capacity
Bastion Bourbon	300 fragments from the Lost-and-Found	+2 Health tonic capacity Health tonics fully restore health
Mender Mead	250 fragments from the True Lost-and-Found	Recover health by counter-blocking
Cham-Pain	1500 fragments from the True Lost-and-Found	+25% Damage -1 chance to carry on if defeated
Graver Gimlet	750 fragments from the True Lost-and-Found	+5% Chance to turn zealous after defeating a foe While zealous, gain +200% damage for 3 seconds

All of these are great supplemental spirits. If you have extra slots, then pick any of these that fit your playstyle.

You can go for the defensive ones if you prefer to play it safe.
Or on the other hand, better offense can help you defeat foes faster.
You can even do a bit of both for a more moderate approach.

Note: Contradicting effects will cancel each other out or settle on the middle ground. For Hearty Punch and Cham-Pain, they’ll add up to a whopping 0 chance to carry on. Meanwhile, Leechade and Bastion Bourbon will meet halfway. Tonics won’t heal all your HP, but they still restore a larger amount than the -66% potency.

Best Weapons (Who Knows Where)

Weapons for Every Situation

You’ll need a weapon that can deal a massive amount of damage in one attack.

This is due to Garmuth and Olak. Their effects can proc on every hit, which can be frustrating when using a rapid-fire weapon.

The Calamity Cannon seems like a good bet, but its firing mechanic’s unreliable. That leaves you with one other weapon that fits the bill: the Galleon Mortar.

Galleon Mortar

Recommended upgrades for the Mortar

The Mortar makes all Dreams ridiculously easy. It has the second highest normal attack damage after the Calamity Cannon.

But it has four things that make it better:

It can do Power Shots while the Cannon can’t. These shots can exceed the latter’s damage output.
Mortar strikes can arc over obstacles. This lets you attack enemies while you’re hiding behind cover.
The Mortar can get the widest blast radius of all weapons. (With the right upgrades, that is). It’s great for dealing with crowds and clustered enemies. This also makes it the best weapon for kiting.
It can somewhat get around Garmuth’s effect. This idol may make your attacks ricochet or detonate off of your target without harming them. For the Mortar, its bomb will bounce off of a Garmuth’d enemy, and then fall and explode near them.

The only minor downside is that you’ll need its “Stonewall Propellant” tier 5 upgrade.

It gives you immunity to your own blasts. Without it, a Mortar strike can hurt you if it explodes near you. This will happen a lot because of how persistent foes are at closing in on you.

Weapons for Dealing with Armor

The Dreams (except for the Kid’s Dream) feature creatures of the Wilds. These have armor on certain parts of their body.

You can aim for their vulnerabilities, but it’s easier to deal with them using weapons that can ignore armor.

The Flame Bellows can do this by default. However, there are 2 better recommendations to look into:

Army Carbine

Recommended upgrades for the Carbine

The Carbine has the better base damage of the two, but it’s slow to fire. You’ll need both of its aiming speed upgrades for it to become feasible.

Even then, the Kid operates it like a bolt-action rifle. It requires reloading after every shot.

However, it does have excellent precision and range.

Brusher’s Pike

Recommended upgrades for the Pike

The Pike has a good balance of damage, reach, and speed.

It also doesn’t need reloading, so you can keep poking a foe with it until they’re dead.

You might throw it as a projectile weapon, but that isn’t quite as useful as its thrusts.

And since you already have the Mortar for your ranged needs, you can stick with using the Pike for melee instead.

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Louie Nelson Zafico

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As a frustrated otter who dreams of getting published, Louie instead wastes his life cuddling his cats. He spent his childhood playing Suikoden, grew up with Total War, and matured (somewhat) with EU4. He hopes to someday find a geopolitical JRPG with the 4X systems of a Paradox game.

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