Protected

Protected is the boss variant of the Divine Shield regeneration buff. The boss starts with 1 stack of Divine Shield (Holy Shield) that regenerates at the end of each turn if broken. Its maximum health is reduced by 20% as a tradeoff. Divine Shield completely absorbs one hit of damage, meaning the first attack each turn deals zero real damage. The shield refreshes automatically, requiring your team to break it every single turn before dealing actual damage.

On bosses, the recurring Divine Shield is more impactful because the fight is longer and the shield must be popped dozens of times over the encounter. Each turn requires at least one wasted attack to break the shield before meaningful damage can land. This effectively reduces your team's damage output by one attack per turn for the entire fight. Protected bosses with healing or other sustain can recover health during the turns where most of your damage goes to popping the shield rather than dealing health damage.

Multi-hit abilities that break the shield on the first strike and deal damage on subsequent strikes are the best counter. Damage-over-time effects like Poison or Burn can pop the shield passively at the start of the boss's turn, freeing all your attacks to deal real damage. Have your weakest-hitting cat pop the shield each turn so your heavy hitters can follow up with full damage. The 20% health reduction means the boss actually has a smaller health pool, so once you establish a rhythm of efficiently breaking and then damaging, the fight goes faster than a normal boss fight would.