This boss is found in the Ancestral Woods of Nokron, the Eternal City. A majestic spectral stag surrounded by the spirits of docile animals, this is definitely one of those boss fights that makes you wonder if maybe you’re the bad guy. If you’ve already faced the Ancestor Spirit in Siofra, this boss is essentially the same, but with more abilities (including the power to heal itself).
See tab 2, Ancestral Woods, in our Nokron walkthrough for details on accessing this boss.
General Tips
- The boss only has a couple of combo attacks that can’t be safely blocked, so shields are effective for this fight.
- Staying under the boss is generally the best way to fight it as a melee character.
- The boss can heal itself what appears to be an infinite amount of times, so while you don’t need to suicide into the boss, it’s important to be consistently damaging it.
- Make sure you’re getting damage in when the boss collapses (as part of its teleportation move) — even when the boss is mostly invisible, you can still attack its location to damage it.
Strategy
Since summons are available, taking advantage of them can only help you — this boss doesn’t seem staggerable, so just bring whatever summon you’ve upgraded the most. Because this boss has some wide attacks, don’t attack the boss while it’s attacking your summon — wait until it finishes its attack before attacking yourself (unless you’re using a ranged attack, of course, in which case fire away).
If you’ve used any of our other boss guides, this strategy should be familiar already: Use a 100% Physical Defense shield like the Great Turtle Shell or Beast Crest Heater, and hold block the whole fight. Now, this doesn’t mean you should never roll — in fact, your goal should be to learn the boss’s moveset, and try to use rolls to dodge all of its attacks.
However, as long as you’ve got a reasonable amount of endurance, you can take one hit from the boss, and almost all of its moves are a single attack — the only times you’ll be forced to roll are during his Antler Swipe Combo, Sheep Roll, and Kangaroo Hop. If you find you’re constantly getting staggered while blocking, you probably need to let your stamina regenerate between attacks/blocks by letting go of the block button. If you’re getting staggered with full stamina, you’ll need to either get more endurance, or give up on using a shield.
Melee characters will want to spend their time beneath the boss, ideally between its front and back legs. Very few attacks can hit you here, but the boss will frequently leap away and then attack you — when this happens, stay calm, hold block, and run back towards the boss.
Moving side to side (or otherwise positioning to avoid attacks) is still a good idea while blocking, since if you avoid an attack completely, it doesn’t cost you any stamina. Don’t forget you can run while blocking — this is a good way to get back under the boss without having to time a roll.
Ranged characters can instead move backwards to stay away from the boss (although being under the boss is definitely an option if you’ve got some powerful short-ranged spells). Unless you’re so far away that you’re almost out of range, you should basically always be trying to create more space between you and the boss. As with the melee strategy, you can hold block while the boss attacks, and roll only when necessary (or when you’re confident you’ve got the timing down).
Don’t be greedy with your spell-casting — make sure you never go below ~60% stamina. That way, when the boss prepares an attack, you can stop attacking, let your stamina get full, and then start holding block.
Because this boss can heal itself over and over, you’ll need to be somewhat aggressive. Make sure you always attack when it’s safe to do so, and the boss shouldn’t be able to get more than 2-3 heals off in the fight. The boss will often crumple into a heap and reform somewhere else — rush back over to it ASAP, but watch out for its spirit vapor that it frequently spews when it reforms.
Moveset
- Striding Spirit Vapor – The boss sprays spirit vapor out of its mouth and onto the ground while walking around. Easily avoided, but very damaging if you stand in it — it will remain on the ground for a little while after it lands.
- Leaping Spirit Vapor – The boss sprays spirit vapor out of its mouth while jumping through the air. Pay attention to where the vapor is, and close the gap (run towards the boss) while it does this.
- Spraying Spirit Vapor – The boss sprays spirit vapor out of its mouth in an arc (much like many dragon breath attacks). Unlike the other versions of this attack, you’ll need to actively run under/past the boss, or else away, in order to avoid getting hit by this.
- Kick – Only seen when there is a target behind the boss. The boss raises its front legs, then plants them and kicks with both back legs. You can avoid this by moving sideways or towards the boss’s front legs.
- Kick – The boss raises its front legs, then slams them back down, doing damage in an AOE.
- Antler Swipe Combo – The boss swings its antlers up to three times, with a decent delay between each attack. This is one of the only attacks you cannot safely block the whole time — you can block the first swing if you’re full stamina, but you’ll need to roll the second (and the third if you don’t get beneath the boss with your roll). Sometimes the boss will chain this after one of its sideways leaps.
- Antler Swipe – The boss rolls its head side to side, then puts its antlers low to the ground and quickly dashes forward, finishing by thrusting upwards with its horns. Best avoided by rolling through the antlers towards the underside of the boss.
- Antler Charge – The boss paws the ground and its antlers glow — it then lowers its head and charges forward, dragging its antlers on the ground before swiping upwards with them. Best avoided by rolling through the antlers.
- Leaping Slam – The boss leaps into the air, then jumps twice while in the air before slamming back down to the ground.
- Sheep Roll– The boss paws the ground, then its head and legs start to glow, and it curls up in a ball and rolls away and then toward its target. After passing once, the boss turns around and rolls one more time at his target. After rolling at its target twice, it slams its front legs down. Best avoided by rolling sideways or towards the boss.
- Kangaroo hop – The boss begins to glow and he gets up on his back legs. He then hops into the air and slams back down three times, before landing and slamming his front legs a final time. This one is pretty difficult to dodge, since there’s an awkward delay between the boss jumping and landing. You can block one safely with full stamina, but you’ll have to roll the rest.
- Soul Stifler (Heal) – The boss raises its head high, glows, and draws in energy, healing and damaging anything near it. When you see this move begin, you’ll need to quickly start rolling away.
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