Eternal Strands - Boss Guide

In this guide for Eternal Strands, we go through boss fight tips (work in progress).

Guide philosophy: This guide focuses on the minimum you need to do to expose and harvest each boss's Strand, rather than listing every weak point. Breaking additional parts may make a fight easier, but can also create unnecessary work or even interfere with harvesting.

General Notes

• With very few exceptions, stay on the boss. Bosses are generally less dangerous when you are clinging to them but sometimes they can end up killing themselves. Read specific entries below to know why.
• It's probable that on death, all points break and you get the remaining drops that would have come from breaking body parts anyway.
• So don't waste too much time hacking the boss hoping for drops.
• It's better this way since you don't have to figure out where drops fell while the boss was moving.
• For armor plating, the rule seems to be:
• Yellow: Can be destroyed or removed by destroying rivets.
• Green: Invulnerable, must be removed by some other means, usually the rivets holding it.
• Be careful about using fire or ice. According to in-game information, fire and ice can "temper" enemies to make them drop higher-tier materials, but they can also destroy lower-tier materials of certain types. It's not clear if destruction can happen to purple and gold tier materials that drop from bosses.
• Climbing is based on camera facing, not character facing.
  • This can make climbing around a boss confusing because the camera angle tends to change often.
  • For example, if a weak point is behind you, between your character and the camera, your character will simply reverse onto the weak point if you move backwards. This can be awkward if the weak point is something like a horn that will fall off, possibly taking you with it if you are clinging on to it. Instead, turn the camera around so that your character is now between the camera and the weak point. If you then move forward toward the weak point, your character will turn around to face it.
• Weaver's Grasp at rank 3 can rip off certain body parts such as the armor from some Arks without having to deal with rivets holding the armor in place.
• If an Ark is going to grab you:
• Try dropping from your climb immediately as a faster way to reposition. Only walking bosses grab so you don't have far to drop and they don't try to grab you if you are on the ground.
• You can also press jump to leap a short distance. Faster than regular climbing, although there's no guarantee of a glitch and you fling yourself off instead; that can happen in regular climbing.
• If you are grabbed by an Ark and crushed in its fist, it will drop you afterwards. But if you don't want to lose your position on the Ark, mash the Climb button to immediately cling to the hand before you drop too far. It won't crush you immediately again but you will probably take minor damage while at the hand.

Ark of the Stricken Earth

• The minimum is to reveal the Strand is to expose the chest.
• You need to hit the rivets on both shoulder plates to drop those. This exposes the rivets beneath the shoulder plates that hold the front chest piece in place.
• If you have Weaver's Strand level 3, you can just rip off the front chest piece right away.
• You can also just break the shoulder armor without having to hit the rivets.
• Rivets anywhere else are not necessary unless you want to expose parts you can damage with the goal of killing it.
• If you can make it up to the back of the head, you can often briefly stop climbing and stand at the base of the neck between its shoulders to recover Stamina.
• To avoid accidentally clinging to the headpiece instead of the shoulder pads, you can break the headpiece to get it out of the way.

Ashpeak Drake

• The minimum to expose the Strand is to break both horns and then let it fly. However, it will roll in flight to foil your Harvest, so break one wing to prevent that. If you break both wings, it cannot fly and the Strand won't be exposed.
• When it's not flailing, it's generally safe to stop climbing briefly and stand to recover Stamina, even while its flying.
• If it's in flight, Ice Wall on its body can encourage it to land.
• At mid-range, consider using Ice Wall on its mouth to at least slow it down from using its fire breath on you. Alternatively, run toward it, especially if you see its throat glow, which indicates that it's about to use its breath weapon.
• When you hear it breathe, immediately dodge. But keep running in case it's the sustained breath. Generally you can stay just out of the sustained breath weapon if you keep running.
• At close range, jump straight onto the head if you can instead of trying to flank it first.
  • If you are on its head, it can't use its breath weapon on you.
  • You're in position to break both horns and head for one wing. You might as well hack the smaller spines on the neck because they can make climbing take longer.
• If it uses its fire breath on the ground to try to burn you when you're on its back, use Ice Wall close to you to cool down the area.

Ark of the Living Flame

• All gems must be shattered: both calves, chest, left hand gauntlet, and staff.
• The exposed red gem on the staff is probably the trickiest to reach because the boss switches it from one hand to the other periodically.
• Instead, use Ensnaring Blast on the staff. It's easy to place the trap on the staff and then detonate it, destroying the gem.
• When its veins glow red, it's about to ignite that section in fire to burn you off. You can either keep moving or use Ice Wall on the area near you to mitigate the effect.

Brennig Glasstail

• Required weakpoints: Nose Horn, Chin Spike, Mane on the head, Spikes on front knees, Scale on Tail.
• Charge in especially if it's facing you and climb onto the head so it can't use its ice breath on you and you are in position to attack its nose horn right away.
• To burn the Mane, use the fire arrow ability from your Flame Bow (from Dredger's Mire, in the Warden's Roost).
• If you try it with Drake's Breath, which seems like it should work better, pulse it instead of using a sustained burn.
• The mane doesn't actually have a hit box and attacks go right through it. Often when the head is broken, the mane should burn up as well.
• It needs to be Stunned to expose the Strand.
• Dismount and run around near the head until it rears up to headbutt. Dodge roll into it to avoid most attacks.
• Because it doesn't have its Nose Horn, when it rears up to head butt, it will stun itself (and sometimes break its Chin Spike, if you haven't already broken it).

Highland Iceclaw

• When you encounter it and can see the health bar, you will notice that its Strand is already revealed when it is airborne. So you just need to get onto the boss and Harvest it.
• Break only one wing so it can't roll in the air and foil your Harvesting attempt.
• If it is still close to the ground when you try to Harvest, it will drop down to the ground in a slam and foil your attempt. Break the legs to avoid this or wait till it can't do this (high in the air, too long to drop before you finish Harvesting).
• If you get shaken off, look for cover and keep moving until it lands. Using Ice Wall on it can encourage it to land, presumably because of the added weight.

Rehnland Sledgewyrm

• If there's good non-destructible cover, this boss is quite safe to stay at range from and you can therefore try sniping the scales.
• At range it's main attack is to pick up some stones and fling them at you, but it generally holds them in the air for a while before it throws and you can try dodging if you are in the open.
• Most of its powers are close-range, to blast you away or hit the area with a kinetic explosion (for a lot of damage).
• Once you have Weaver's Grasp strong enough to just pull the scales off, it's probably safer to stay at range and take cover when necessary, and climb on only to pull off the last hard-to-target scales. Depends on how much cover you can get in the area.
• The minimum to expose the Strand is to break the scales off the tip of the tail.
• However, it will keep shaking you off whenever you try to harvest unless you break off all the scales/frills.
• If you are on the boss when it has items ready to throw at you, there are two things you can do (other than just try to survive):
• Start Harvesting and it will abort to throw you off instead.
• Climb under its belly for cover.
• If the boss is low on health, you might want to leave and run for cover so the boss doesn't hit itself and kill itself.

Ark of the Winter Tide

• This Ark isn't holding anything in hand so it aggressively tries to grab you for a crush.
• Smash all ice pieces to expose the Strand. It will be on the Right Elbow so try to save that for last in order not to have to climb there.
• Once all ice pieces are destroyed, it will regenerate them shortly, hiding the Strand again.

Ark of the Forge

• High Fire Resistance is good here because there will be fire everywhere and on the boss as well.
• The shoulder plate has to be removed to access the Strand and properly reveal it, but you don't need to do this first.
• You need to wait until the boss does a special hammer attack.
• The boss will heat up all its armor and ignite.
• Shortly after, it will roar and slam the ground three times in a semicircle, not directed at you specifically.
• To fairly safely wait for this boss sequence, cling to the hammer handle.
• The boss will not grab you there.
• You are generally away from any flaming parts.
• The boss frequently tries to shake you off, so in between Cling prompts try to stop climbing briefly to recover your Stamina.
• When the boss starts slamming is hammer, you will probably be knocked off and take a lot of damage if you are still on the hammer. To avoid this, you can drop off when the boss starts roaring and get to a safe distance and anticipate where the hammer will finally land and be stuck on the ground.
• If you prefer to just stay on the ground, the boss can fairly easily be kited by getting behind it whenever it attacks, such as by running or dodging between its feet.
• When the three-slam sequence is done, the hammer is on the ground and soon extends glowing knobs on the sides of the hammer head. Break those and the Strand should reveal on the shoulder.
• A bow might be better than trying to jump on the hammer to use melee. This lets you avoid fire around the hammer and also you don't have to climb around wasting time.
• If you take too long the exposed parts will retract and you have to wait for the next opportunity.

Ark of the Nova

• The boss can also shoot beams that create a mine that detonates (but has no suction). These can go through any cover.
• It cannot use this while you are clinging to it.
• If it loses sight of you, it typically tries to shoot your last known location until it runs out of shots (three?)
• These beams are followed by using its Scopes (the flying turrets above the boss).
• When there's a coloured halo over your head, it means the boss is going to shoot at you from a Scope.
• If you are on the boss when it shoots its Scopes, you can crawl underneath to its chest and be shielded from some of the damage.
• The boss can kill itself trying to shoot you when you are on it, or taking splash damage from each shot.
• It appears each Scope can fire three times and it will keep shooting once it starts firing. It also doesn't seem to care much about trying to get line of sight to you as long as it can shoot you with its tail beam (which ignores barriers).
• Sometimes after firing its Scopes it will take a long flight. If you are on the ground, it can go very far away. No need to chase it as it will come back as long as you still see the Health Bar and are "in combat" with it.
• According to the instruction from the Codex you need to remove all armor pieces and then wait for six Scopes to spawn and it needs to be in the air.
• Yellow armor pieces can be hacked off.
• Green armor pieces need to be removed by breaking off the rivets. If there are no rivets (e.g., on the wings) they are invulnerable.
• Mane does not need to be removed to break the rivets that hold the neck plates. The rivets are on either side of the neck.
• If you hide under the back plates for cover, the turrets shooting at you can damage them for you.
• Once you have taken off all pieces, if it has six Scopes the Strand should reveal.
• The boss starts with three when you first arrive on the map and doesn't add more until you engage it.
• When it is on the ground and spins its headpiece, it is summoning another Scope.
• If it has less than six, dismount and look for cover to just wait out the boss. It appears you must be "in combat" (see the health bar) with the boss for it to add Scopes.
• It can take a couple of minutes before the boss adds a Scope. When it has five and starts to spin its headpiece for the last one, quickly rush to mount it so you'll be in position between its wings to Harvest as soon as the Strand is revealed.
• The Strand might not reveal immediately after the sixth Scope is added.
• Since you need to wait for the boss to have all six Scopes, if it starts shooting at you while you are on it, you can consider dropping off and going for cover and coming back later to finish breaking off armor parts.
• You can harvest more than three Strands but it is not clear what their purpose is.

Surgeborn Herald

First Story Encounter

• Ascending Strike from the Kinetic Two-Hander or the Stargazer Two-Hander can be used to get you out of the vacuum from the mines that it throws. It can also launch you high so you can hopefully grab hold of the boss but this is harder than it sounds.
• When it shifts its sword to its other hand it's about to cast a spell. The kinetic bombs are planted on the ground but the Frost and Fire Mines are flung at you and have a suction effect. It's best to use Kinetic Strand to catch and fling the Mines back to do more damage easily than you can at range.
• Oria says to freeze its body but the lowest sections cannot be frozen and the upper parts (chest to around where the thigh should be) don't stay frozen long.
• The easiest way is Frost Mine that will detonate right away. Ice Wall crumbles too quickly and cannot remain to sustain the cold.
• I found that I still couldn't reach high enough with a jump and just took tangle damage from the lower body. Ascending Strike can get you high enough to try to grab and start climbing but it's pretty chancy.
• The lower section cannot be targeted at all (your Ice Wall reticle shows you cannot even fire your Ice Wall at it or through it).
• The Frost Bow does not inflict any freeze at all with its tracking bolts so you still need to use Ice Wall or Frost Mine.
• Once the body is frozen, those sections can be damaged. Molten Barrage can be easily pasted to its body without much aiming.
• Does not seem like you cannot harvest the Strand here (?) because of the cutscene triggering at around 50% health that requires it to be alive.

Second Story Encounter

• If Surgeborn adds come at you, use Weaver's Grasp to just fling them at the boss. If they get in the way of boss attacks, they can be harmed.
• Get to the sides where there are elevated platforms and take cover behind one of the indestructible pillars.
• They block the dangerous sword thrusts.
• If the boss puts a Kinetic Bomb at your location it won't be able to smash you with the sword when you are flung up.
• When possible attack the boss with Frost Mine to make its body parts vulnerable then your bow or Molten Barrage.
• You could use Kinetic Stream to try to grab the boss and hack off parts but generally this is quite tricky.

Repeat Fights

• While fighting the boss, if you don't want to climb onto it (which isn't necessary, apparently), try to find something tall and indestructible to block its sword swings and any mines you can't intercept with Weaver's Grasp.
• Reduce boss health to zero. Boss won't die but Strand will be revealed.
• Frost Mine and arrows on the grey frozen parts seems to work well.
• Gum up the free hand so it can't grab. It doesn't appear that you need to paste it to anything, just put Ice Wall on the hand.
• Use Kinetic Stream to quickly get to the boss's face and Harvest.
• It explodes after you Harvest it so try drop as soon as you finish getting the Strand and/or have a Vitality Potion ready.