General Tips
Paladins' shields can mitigate enemy attacks, especially if you have a big enough mana pool to absorb multiple hits. In my opinion, this class is not that great for boss fights unless you're having a hard time with another class due to some deficiency (many classes only start being viable after multiple upgrades) or unless you're just looking to come into the fight with a decent amount of health but can't or don't want to use a Barbarian instead.
Barbarians' large health means you can usually tank multiple attacks from a challenging boss so long as you come in with full health when facing them. Their shout is also very handy for clearing away projectiles if you have the mana to spare.
Assassins' mist form is fantastic for going invulnerable just long enough to dodge a short attack, though make sure you have enough mana to use it effectively.
Hokages' default stronger attacks can be useful if you don't have a high critical hit chance when using other classes, and their replacement technique special ability can teleport you out of a sticky situation if need be.
Spellswords' enhanced spell special ability can do a great deal of damage to a boss provided you can also get within melee range of them or some underling to regain mana through quick sword swipes in between magic spells.
Dragons' unlimited flight is useful for any boss where a lot of dodging is required, though beware their frail health as they can die very easily if the boss hits for a lot of damage.
When in doubt, grind! With the exception of the Obol remix bosses, every boss can be tackled with a stronger character at a later time. You're not guaranteed to be able to defeat a boss the first time you meet them, so if you feel it's too hard just come back later after acquiring more upgrades and better equipment. (Remember that Calypso's Compass rooms can be sought out to unlock better blueprints than you normally would have access to, which can give you a decisive edge if bought and used.)
If you don't care about the gold loss, using the architect is a great means to quickly attempt a boss again, especially since you can just teleport straight to them with full health and mana from the starting room's teleporter. Sometimes your current class or equipment setup won't be ideal for a boss, but so long as you can run to their room, you can always repeatedly lock down the same castle with the architect until you get the class and equipment setup you want. Spelunkers are particularly handy for this as you can tell where a boss room is with them because their spot on the map will always show two treasure chests very close to each other.
Mini-Bosses
This section will cover strategies and tips for all the game's mini-bosses. You are never required to fight any mini-boss, but doing so will reward you with a treasure chest filled with either a blueprint or a lot of gold.
Note that mini-boss rooms show up as purple question mark bonus rooms on the map, meaning you can generally easily keep track of them if you want to come back later or are using a Spelunker that reveals map details like that. Also note that mini-boss rooms always appear to be laid out the same way in terms of size and entrance.
Barbatos And Amon (Two Giant Black Sorcerers)
Difficulty: ★★★★☆
These guys are the hardest mini-boss in my opinion, especially if they decide to spam their earth or fire attacks. Basically, they're a pair of huge sorcerers that can use enhanced versions of any of the elemental sorcerer enemies' spells. Since the ice attack can get caught on the walls, floors, and ceilings of the large room they're always in, it's the easiest to avoid. The fire and earth spells are much trickier though due to their huge range, especially if they both sorcerers decide to do the same spell at the same time, very likely trapping you unless you can pull off some smooth moves. It is highly likely that you'll have to suffer damage at some point in this fight, so the Assassin's mist form for brief invulnerability or just having a high amount of health (with the Barbarian or Paladin classes for instance) is probably your best bet.
Example of a melee and the knife spell strategy:
Example of how to dodge their various screen-covering attacks:
Berith And Halphas (Two Giant Green-Yellow Skeletons)
Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆
These guys are not too difficult, with the main challenge coming from the fact that the arcs for the bones they throw are random, meaning that sometimes their attacks will be easier or harder with no real pattern. This mini-boss is best handled by either being extremely close or extremely far. The bone arcs are such that you can usually avoid most attacks if you stand right next to one of the skeletons and wail on them from that tight melee range. You may have to dodge a few random short arc attacks here and there, but on the ground I'd consider being right next to one of them the safest spot. Things become quite a bit more challenging once one of the pair is dead. The other enrages and throws many more bones with few safe spots. If you can manage to get in close you may still be able to whack away at the last one in close range, but it can be tough (though you can use temporary invulnerability after damage to close the gap if you got hit by one of its many bones). One way to mitigate this is by making sure the remaining skeleton is near dead by the time you kill the first one, because then you only have to deal with the enraged state for a short while. Alternatively, repeated use of the knife or chakram spell can take out the last one from a distance while you're completely safe from the bones.
Though you should be able to handle this mini-boss with any class, three classes in particular are recommended. The barbarian class can tank the bones they throw, allowing you to repeatedly use the invulnerability time to close the gap and swipe at them with wild abandon. The assassin class can briefly toggle their mist form on and off to avoid a colliding bone without having to move, and their higher critical hit chance can make the fight go by faster. The dragon class can use the top center of the room as a safe spot while flying and between throws they only need to fire off a blast or two by ducking down before immediately returning to the safety of that alcove.
Example of a melee-centric strategy:
Example of effortlessly killing the enraged second skeleton with a long-range spell:
Botis (Giant Black Corrupt Knight)
Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆
Botis is only difficult if you can't dodge his ground-based attacks, but otherwise he's a piece of cake. Vault and flight runes / equipment pieces are handy for getting above him for the purposes of dodging or just pogoing down attacks, with those abilities being most useful during the three long charges that are very difficult to avoid if remaining on the ground. If you can stay above him when necessary any class should be effective, though dragons with their infinite flight can be entirely out of harm's way so long as they take care to dodge the multiple sharp wind strikes that can still hit them.
Example of a melee-centric strategy:
Example of a repeated down attack strategy:
Example of how to handle Botis even if you can't vault or fly much:
Sallos (Giant Doomtrait)
Difficulty: ★★★☆☆
The main challenge of Sallos is his huge hitbox that can deal collision damage to you. His plus pattern sphere attacks are very easy to dodge, but you might have a hard time dodging his bulky mass. Vault, flight, haste, and dash runes / equipment pieces can be useful, but aren't strictly necessary so long as you can guide him around in a predictable circle. Sallos will only ever randomly appear in bonus rooms with the giant picture portraits that talk about details of the developers' other games. If you're not sure, you can tell whether or not you're going to have a Sallos in such a room by pausing the game and checking to see if enemy details appear below the portrait like they would for other enemies. Since Sallos basically acts just like a large Doomtrait, just about any class can take him out so long as they can dodge well.
Stolas And Focalor (Two Giant Black, Moving Flowermons)
Difficulty: ★★★☆☆ or ★★★★☆
These guys can be pretty challenging as it's not easy to dodge their attacks whilst you are within striking distance. The ideal situation is to have a character with the chakram spell (available to many classes) and use it to damage both of the plants at the same time (jump/fly, fire chakram horizontally away from the plants, and drop down to have it boomerang back across the screen). However, the axe, scythe, and fire wall spells can all work decently too with proper positioning. Spellswords can be particular handy for their enhanced spell special ability to quickly deal large amounts of damage to the plants in an effort to end the fight sooner. Assassins can quickly toggle mist form on and off to avoid any plant spit that gets too close to them. Barbarians can tank their damage while standing atop the plants' high platform and just attempt to melee them to death before losing all health. Additionally, Barbarians benefit by being able to shout away the plant spit.
Example of a Barbarian King/Queen melee and shout strategy:
Example of how to use melee and knockback to your advantage:
Normal Bosses
This section will cover strategies and tips for all the game's normal bosses. In order to see the credits and move on to a New Game Plus, you must defeat all the bosses in this section. You can tackle them in any order, but it is recommend to do them in the order of the average difficulty of the area that they dwell in. Killing a boss will reward you with gold and stat boosts.
Khidr (Castle Hamson)
Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆ or ★★★☆☆
Khidr is the first boss you face and very well may be the catalyst for you having to get better at strategic play real quick as he's a notable step up from the lowly enemies you were dealing with in the Castle Hamson area. Considering that he dwells in the least difficult part of the Castle, he's the hardest boss relative to the average enemy difficulty of his area. A big challenge with Khidr is that you're unlikely to have much useful equipment or runes or even character classes when you initially face him, so you may have to try to suceed with your limited starting arsenal of equipment and abilities. Staying near the bottom of the arena can give you more space to avoid his random pattern spray attacks, and it's especially useful if you have a character with the P.A.D. trait as you can even safely stay on the spike trap corners of the claustrophobic arena. You're likely going to have to move to a different spot when he does his clockwise or counterclockwise radial spray though. If you have to go over him you can either vault, dash in mid-air, or use a down attack to pogo off of him while moving towards safety. Since his arena is so small, just about any spell can be useful against him with a minimal amount of aiming. If you're having trouble, don't be afraid to grind for upgrades, faerie chest runes, and new equipment.
Example of a level 1 Knight with the axe spell defeating Khidr:
(720p HD video courtesy of Gativrek.)
Alexander (Forest Abkhazia)
Difficulty: ★★★☆☆ or ★★★★☆
Alexander is the second boss and makes heavy use of constantly spawned underlings. Hopefully by now you've unlocked some more classes and runes, as certain ones can dramatically impact the fight. Alexander's collision damage and large plus pattern spheres are pretty easy to dodge, so you likely don't have to worry too much about that so long as you don't let yourself get cornered. The real challenge is keeping a handle on the many little skulls that he keeps spawning in, as they can be overwhelming if you don't thin the herd fairly regularly. Additionally, whenever you're killing the little skulls you're not actually hurting Alexander, meaning you have to balance killing the underlings and still hitting Alexander from time to time to avoid dragging out the fight. He's stationary when performing his large spheres attack, so if he's near the ground or a platform it can be a great opportunity to get a few whacks in then. The class you use for this fight doesn't really matter, it's more about runes and equipment in my opinion. I highly recommend having one or more vampire runes as they can be used to regain health from the many easily killed little skulls. Siphon runes or the spellthief/spellsword class might be handy too if you're using a lot of magic, but you can get by with mostly melee. Vault and/or flight runes can be very useful for getting away from both Alexander and his little skulls.
Example of a mid level (though somewhat overpowered) Paladin with the knife spell defeating Alex:
(720p HD video courtesy of Gativrek.)
Ponce De Leon (The Maya)
Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆ or ★★★☆☆
Some people have trouble with Ponce, but I personally consider him the easiest normal boss of the game, especially compared to the Maya area he dwells that might give you some trouble as the enemies can be notably trickier than both the Forest and Castle. If you can handle constantly kiting this boss while still getting a few hits in here and there, it really should be straightforward and easy. The lingering flames Ponce leaves behind disappear roughly in the amount of time it takes to make a circle around the arena, so you can totally avoid getting hit by them by just sticking to a circular route the best you can. Unlike Alexander, there's nothing you can really use siphon or vampire on, so those runes / equipment pieces are basically useless. Retaliation runes / equipment can be quite useful here though, especially to help you clear out some of the normally invulnerable spike balls if you happen to get hit by one. Vault, flight, and dash runes / equipment can help you get around the arena and avoid Ponce's charges. The class you use doesn't really matter, though note that Barbarian Kings / Queens can use their Fah Ro Dus shout special ability to clear any nearby flames. Since Barbarians also have a lot of health to take the punishment that Ponce may deal, they can make a fine choice for you, but are not strictly necessary.
Example of a mid level Barbarian Queen with the chakram spell defeating Ponce:
(720p HD video courtesy of Gativrek.)
Herodotus (The Darkness)
Difficulty: ★★★☆☆ or ★★★★☆
Since Herodotus is just a giant slime, he's not that hard of a boss and is certainly far easier than the Darkness area he dwells in. If you feel like it, you can totally just try to run through the Darkness area to his boss room teleporter so you don't have to really deal with the tough enemies there. The Spelunker can be particularly handy for this since their special map will hint at the location of this boss and their headlight will light up the dark as well. As for the boss itself, I recommend you try to avoid breaking him into too many pieces right away. Try to strategically minimize the number of slimes you have to avoid all at once by taking care of one "branch" at a time. If you stay near the top of the arena, the only challenging part will be dealing with the earth sorcerers that spawn every time a piece of Herodotus splits. Vault and flight runes / equipment pieces can help tremendously with avoiding the attacks of the earth sorcerers while also allowing you to get close enough to kill them. The dragon class makes this battle particularly easy, as its flight allows you to dodge the slimes easily and basically ascertain that you'll never get hit by earth sorcerer attacks. Having the P.A.D. trait for your character is quite useful as that allows you to safely go on the floor of the arena to dish out some damage to lots of stragglers at once without fear of triggering one of the many spike traps there. If you're cautious and meticulous, Herodotus is not that hard, just time-consuming.
Example of a mid level Barbarian Queen with the axe spell defeating Herod:
(720p HD video courtesy of Gativrek.)
Johannes And The Fountain (Tutorial)
Difficulty: ★★★☆☆ or ★★★★☆
Johannes is basically an enhanced version of the human characters you control, being able to dash, sword swipe, lay down blade walls, and launch unique multi-knife and multi-axe spells. Depending on what attacks he chooses Johannes can be quite easy or quite hard, you just have to try to deal either way. A knife spell of your own is handy here as Johannes will frequently be on the ground within the knife's horizontal trajectory. The Hypergonadism trait for knocking enemies back is very handy, because if Johannes stays within melee range you can basically juggle him with multiple melee swings that'll knock him back and cause him to just move forwards towards you again (unless he casts some spell instead). The Ambilevous trait can be handy too so that you can still launch spells at him while running away. Johannes hits hard, so if you can tank some of his punishment, using retaliation runes / equipment pieces can pay handsome dividends in terms of damaging him back. (You get some food after the fight, so you should be able to recover some health at least.) Since vampire and siphon runes won't do anything for you here, a mix of two to four retaliation runes with the remaining ones being flight, vault, and/or dash runes seems like an ideal setup. (Equipment pieces with special traits can also be used instead to free up more runes for whatever you're deficient on.) Personally, I've not had much success with dragons or mages in this fight, though paladins, hokages, assassins, barbarians, and spellswords all have their advantages if used here. Note that Johannes is phase one of a two phase fight, leading into The Fountain immediately after.
Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆ or ★★★☆☆
In my opinion, The Fountain is much easier than Johannes once you get the attack patterns down, which is good news since you're required to fight him as the second phase of two in the Johannes boss battle. Chicken and potions are dropped after Johannes dies, so it's highly recommend to collect them to replenish you for dealing with this second phase. The Fountain only has four distinct attacks: a strong melee swing, raising a line of spears out of the ground, a vertical blade storm, and a horizontal blade storm. The melee attack is not a problem if you stay out of melee range when you can. The spears are easy to handle with vaulting or flight. The blade storms are the hardest to dodge, though the vertical one is not too bad since you can see safespots easily if you're near the floor. It may be difficult to thread the needle with the horizontal blade storm at times, but only having to possibly tank one of four attacks makes the fight not too bad. As with Johannes, a mix of retaliation, vault, flight, and/or dash runes / equipment pieces are ideal. If you have the mana, the knife or chakram spells can be quite handy here to hit The Fountain from a distance so you don't have to risk getting hit by its powerful melee attack.
Example of a high level Shinobi with the blade wall spell defeating Johannes and The Fountain:
(720p HD video courtesy of Gativrek.)
Obol Bosses
This section will cover strategies and tips for all the game's extra hard obol bosses fought with set characters. You are never required to fight any of these, but doing so will reward you with the powerful Traitor class if you can kill all of them. You can tackle them in any order, but for the sake of consistency I'll list them in the order that the normal versions were in. Killing an obol boss will reward you with a medallion piece, but it's only a cosmetic reward.
Note that before you're able to fight any one of these bosses, you'll have to collect their Obol from a Spiritual Shrine as well as make sure that the regular version of the boss is already defeated so that a translucent blue boss door appears in the relevant place instead of the normal wooden boss door. It seems like the Obols are a possible shrine gift only after defeating the boss for the first time, so bear that in mind if you're having difficulty receiving them (they appear to have a high but not guaranteed chance of coming from any shrine when available). Once the appropriate Obol has been given to Charon with your next character, the availability of the harder version of the boss remains unlocked from then on. As an additional note, you may attempt any of these bosses as many times as you like since death in their virtual arenas does not end your run. However, also note that grinding, upgrading, runes, and any sort of equipment are not factored in when fighting the new bosses as you'll always be playing a character with fixed abilities, health, mana, equipment, runes, etc.
Also, unlike the other Obol bosses, the Traitor's Obol does not become available after defeating the original verson of Johannes (because the game ends afterwards and can only continue in a New Game Plus where the bosses are reset anyway). Instead, you need to defeat all four of the other Obol bosses before this Obol can appear as a gift from the Spiritual Shrine. You can tell if you've completed an Obol boss already by the relevant boss door remaining shut and by the defeated boss emblems in the starting room glowing green instead of the normal blue.
Neo Khidr (Castle Hamson)
Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆ or ★★★☆☆
Neo Khidr is not too bad of a first extra hard boss, as the fight is very similar to the original Khidr fight, though the patterns are a bit harder and faster this time around. The key to this fight is making use of the spellsword character's enhanced blade wall to heavily damage Neo Khidr whenever you can, also getting in the occasional melee strike to regain mana for more spell casts. Dashing, vaulting, and down attacks can be all useful at points depending on what attack Neo Khidr is doing, but if you focus on staying near the bottom of the arena and spamming blade wall you can end this fight fairly quickly.
Example video:
(1080p HD video courtesy of Dragon.)
Alexander The IV (Forest Abkhazia)
Difficulty: ★★★★★
This is the hardest boss fight in the entire game, because you have to make heavy use of all or nearly all of the abilities given to you with not that much health to spare. As with the original Alexander fight, the little skulls are handy for refilling your health and mana, though note that they spawn in much higher numbers and can very easily overwhelm you unless you're careful to thin the herd as much as you can without getting injured. Speaking of injury, if it's unavoidable (and it may be sometimes), it's better to take damage from the spikes or the skulls as they don't hurt as much as Alexander. The really tricky part of this fight is that it's difficult to actually get hits on Alexander consistently, as you have far less usable room and are likely going to spend a lot of time dealing with the little skulls while Alexander positions himself. The ideal time to hit Alexander is when he pauses to do his plus pattern large spheres attack, and if you can position him well you can either just stand on a platform or do repeated vaults in the air while getting some precious hits in. Don't forget to use your replacement technique and quantum translocator teleportation abilities. The replacement technique is most useful for getting past the spike wall in the middle of the arena so that you can go to the other platforms for skull farming or for luring Alexander. The translocator is not strictly necessary but is handy as an emergency teleport in case Alexander comes in at a bad angle and is likely to trap you. I like always putting the translocator shadow on the starting platform as it tends to be safe or at least safer to teleport there when you're in a bind on the other side of the spike wall. You have a lot of vaults available, so you may have to use them in seemingly bizarre ways (like jumping just above the floor spikes before doing a replacement technique past the spike wall) to avoid damage at times.
Example video:
(720p HD video courtesy of Gativrek.)
Ponce De Freon (The Maya)
Difficulty: ★★★☆☆
Since I consider the original Ponce de Leon not that hard, this fight is not that bad either in my opinion. The biggest challenge is that the lingering fire stays much longer now, meaning a simple repeated circular pattern around the arena is no longer sufficient. You're going to have to make creative use of your vault and dash runes to survive, as you only have three barbarian king shouts to clear fire and only five hits to suffer before you're dead. The best time to hit Ponce is right after a charge, as you can usually smack him two or three times consistently once you get the timing down. You can also quickly turn, whack, and turn back occasionally while running, with the dash helping you gain some distance on him if need be. The fight is not that hard, you just have to endure while taking care to avoid the highly damaging flames. Fortunately you don't have to worry about any stray spike balls this time at least.
Example video:
(720p HD video courtesy of Gativrek.)
Astrodotus (The Darkness)
Difficulty: ★☆☆☆☆ or ★★☆☆☆
This is a very easy fight, even possibly fun and cathartic if you can handle the dragon class well. Since your dragon fire doesn't need to recharge (it's 0 MP for this fight) and since each slime piece can take damage immediately and doesn't have any invulnerability time, you can basically play this fight like the arcade game Asteroids and mash the attack button whilst flying around and dodging the slime pieces that home in on you. If you wish you can meticulously take out branches of slimes as in the original Herodotus fight, but mashing the attack button to get the fight over quickly is perfectly sufficient so long as you can dodge the smaller pieces decently.
Example video:
(720p HD video courtesy of Gativrek.)
The Brohannes (Any Boss Door After Traitor's Obol)
Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆ or ★★★☆☆
If you've got a handle on the regular Johannes fight, this really shouldn't be that hard, especially since you fight two easier versions of Johannes while playing as the very powerful and unique Traitor class. Juggling either or both Brohannes backward with melee swipes as in the original Johannes fight is still a good tactic, and while I personally don't find the multi-axe spell all that useful, the multi-knife spell combined with the large mana pool of the set character means you can get a lot of damage in quickly with that. You don't even have to worry about facing any kind of new The Fountain in this fight, so if you're good enough to defeat the crazy hard Alexander IV as a prerequisite for unlocking this fight, you can probably handle two easy Johannes.
Defeating The Brohannes means you've beat all the Obol bosses, and your reward for that hard effort is the unlocking of the powerful and unique Traitor class as one of the possible classes for future character generations. Taking a Traitor into the normal Johannes boss fight will unlock an achievement, show you altered opening dialogue, and likely make the fight much easier as spammed multi-knives can rapidly drain his health.
Example video:
(720p HD video courtesy of Gativrek.)
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=213943327
More Rogue Legacy guilds
- All Guilds
- Add or Remove Character names
- Ultimate Guide para Rogue Legacy en Espaol
- Rogue Legacy Achievement Guide
- Rogue Legacy Achievement Guide (RU).
- Ultimate Guide to Rogue Legacy
- Rogue Legacy: Family Survival Guide
- Character Class and Trait Guide
- Special Items
- Rogue Legacy