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Great ones and how they fight
A great one is a boss of the open world: the lair bosses under the land, the great ones of the Deep's strata, the Skyreach's, and the last guardian of a scroll dungeon. They don't just hit harder than other Grown. Each one has moves of its own, and it warns you before it makes one. Watch the ground, get out of the way, and hit it while it is open.
The great ones of the bands below have fights of their own, written for each band (their pages tell them). Everything else on this page holds for them too: the wake banner, the warning sound, the boss bar and the spoils.
When one wakes
When a great one comes near you, its name goes across the screen, with where it is from (ASHMAW, a great one of the deep caves). Its bar at the top of the screen shows its life, with a mark at 66% and one at 33%.
Its moves
Every great one has three or four moves, picked by its body and its element. A great one of a kind always has the same ones, so once you have fought one you know what it will do. Before each move:
- the ground shows where it will land: a circle, or a lane for a charge, filling up until it lands;
- a warning sounds;
- the boss bar names the move (CHARGE!) and fills a little bar under it.
| Move | Who has it | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Crushing leap (Earthshatter for stone) | Grown that walk | A circle of 3 tiles appears under you. It crouches, leaps and lands on the circle after 1.2 seconds. Get out of the circle. |
| Charge | hounds, crawlers, serpents, dragons and storm Grown | A lane 16 tiles long runs from it towards you. After a second it charges down the whole lane. Get out of the lane, or put a wall behind you: a great one that runs into a wall is stunned. |
| Shockwave | oozes, golems, brutes, hounds and stone Grown | It stomps, and two waves run along the ground both ways. Jump over them. A wave stops at a wall or where the ground ends. |
| Plunging dive | Grown that fly | A circle under you. It rises and dives onto it. Get out of the circle. |
| Rain (Cinder rain, Hailfall, Blight rain, Umbral rain, Lightning strikes) | fire, frost, venom, shadow and storm Grown | Three to five circles fall round you (and one under everyone else near). Each leaves a pool for 5 seconds: frost slows, venom poisons, and every pool hurts while you stand in it. Don't stand in them. |
| Nova | every great one | It gathers its power (a ring round it), then throws a ring of bolts. Keep your distance, or slip between the bolts. |
How hard each one hits:
| Move | Damage |
|---|---|
| Leap, dive | half as much again as its blow |
| Charge | 1.3 times its blow |
| Shockwave | a little more than its blow |
| Rain | its blow, and its pool a third of that every half second |
A great one's blow is never more than 30% of the life of a player of its level.
Openings
The fight is a dance: dodge, then punish.
- After a leap or a dive it is exposed for 2 seconds. It glows gold, and the bar says EXPOSED.
- After a charge it is exposed for a second. A charge that ends in a wall leaves it stunned for 3 seconds: it reels with stars over its head, does nothing, and the bar says STUNNED.
- Exposed or stunned, it takes +50% damage from every blow, spell and arrow. A Hunter's stew (a farm dish, see cooking) makes your blows on it 30% harder still, and its pools hurt you 40% less.
It grows furious
- At 66% of its life it roars, a banner says it grows furious, and its moves come quicker.
- At 33% it fights for its life: its moves come quicker again, and after a leap a shockwave follows at once.
- Its brood still comes at 60% and 30% of its life, as before.
It comes for you
A great one is no longer a wall you can hide behind. It does not hit any harder for it: it is smarter.
- The hunt. If it has neither hit you nor reached you for 5 seconds (you are behind a wall, on a ledge, out of its reach), it rings the spot where you stand and, a moment later, lands there. The ring warns you, as its other moves do: step out of it. It never lands in rock, and a dungeon's guardian hunts only inside its own room.
- Left alone, it heals. Once nobody has struck it for 8 seconds, a hurt great one heals 2% of its life a second. Walking away to come back later starts the fight over; keep at it.
- It aims where you are going. A leap, a dive or a rain is aimed a little ahead of you when you run, not at where you stood.
- It chains its moves once it is under a third of its life: one move often follows another at once.
- It notices the healer. Drink a potion in its fight and it turns on you.
- It missed! A move it telegraphed that hits nobody leaves it off balance for a moment: IT MISSED! over its head, and it takes +50% damage, as when it is exposed. Its blows also wind up a little longer now (0.6 seconds), so you can read them.
- On a rift or crypt floor a great one walks round walls and chasms to reach you. If it cannot see you, or cannot come any nearer, for 4 seconds, it lands on you instead (IT COMES FOR YOU), and a ring of its that catches nobody leaves it off balance (IT MISSED!).
The spoils
When a great one falls, the killer gets its loot as always. Everyone else who fought it gets a share too: anyone who did at least 5% of the damage it took and stands within 60 tiles. A share is:
- half the gold the killer gets;
- one roll of its loot;
- a jewel half the time;
- its experience, if you were not already in the killer's group, which shares that anyway.
One time in eight a great one also leaves a Warding stone for the killer and for each who had a share: set in an upgrade from +8 on (two from +9), it keeps the piece whole if the try fails, though the piece still drops a level (see Crafting).
The chat tells you your share and how much of the fight was yours. The events' great ones pay by damage in their own way, as before.
Elites
Elites (the Grown with a star) have one move of their own: a leap, a charge, a shockwave or a dive, by their body. It comes every 11 to 14 seconds, telegraphed the same way. It is a little weaker than their blow, and after it they are exposed for a moment.
See also The Deep (lairs and great ones), The bands below, Dungeons and Might and temper.