Aether Horror Fight (Industrial Outskirts)

This page will explain everything you need to know about the second Aether Horror fight, and the third and final boss fight, taking place in the last level of the Industrial Outskirts.

## Indicators

This guide will use certain types of indicators to list the possible attacks of the Aether Horror. Here is a list of what to expect:

Align your weapon with the indicator
Move in real life in the direction the arrow is pointing
If you stay within the area, you will be damaged. Move in-game to avoid the attack
These indicators are shown from a top-down perspective

## First Round

In the first phase, Aether Horror will mostly attack you in close quarters.

Below is a list of what attacks to expect while battling with the Aether Horror during this round:

*(note: this is incomplete at this stage)*

In addition to these attacks, Aether Horror will also sometimes leap up into the air and land to do a spike AoE attack that covers the entire area. You have to dash over to Aether Horror's position and critical strike it to interrupt the attack. This is the only attack of this kind that Aether Horror will do, so as soon as it leaps into the air, be ready!

To beat this round, deplete one of Aether Horror's health bars (or two on nightmare).

## First/Second Round Transition

After depeleting its health enough, Aether Horror will leap up onto its platform and alternate star-shaped AoE attacks and fireball attacks. It will do:

3 AoEs / 4 Fireballs / 1 AoE / 2 Fireballs / 1 AoE / 4 Fireballs

Here is what the AoE attack will look like:

The fireballs work identically to spellweaver attacks, so are just a matter of blocking or critical striking in the indicated direction. Note that the final AoE in the sequence comes very soon after the fireballs, so be ready to dodge it!

Aether Horror will come back down after this, so all that is required to move on to the second round is to survive these attacks.

## Second Round

Aether Horror will begin the second round with a cluster of circular AoEs around it. These AoEs go off at different times. The center one will always go off first, so you can stand in the area of an outer AoE waiting for that, then dash towards Aether Horror to attack it before that outer AoE goes off. Alternatively, you can just put a lot of distance between the Horror, so that you are out of range of all the AoEs. Sometimes Aether Horror will do this attack twice in a row, so don't get caught off guard! Here is what this AoE will look like from above:

In this round the Horror will alternate between close combat and ranged fireball attacks. It will also start to use some different AoEs against you. Here is a list of AoEs to expect:

It is particularly important to manage your dashes during this phase, as Aether Horror is very evasive, so it is easy to use a lot of dashes reaching it, and then get stuck in an AoE.

To beat this round, deplete one of Aether Horror's health bars (or two on nightmare).

## Second/Third Round Transition

After depleting its health enough, Aether Horror will leap onto its platform and spawn in enemies in a circular pattern around the top of the arena. While you are fighting them it will also spawn star-shaped spike AoEs at your position.

Which mobs it will spawn in depends on the difficulty level.

Relaxed: 1 spellweaver, 2 husks, 1 knight

Challenging: 1 spellweaver, 2 husks, 1 empowered knight

Relentless: 1 spellweaver, 2 husks, 1 empowered knight

Nightmare: 2 spellweavers, 2 empowered knights

A good strategy is to take out the spellweaver as soon as possible. Position yourself near the side of the map on the left, where the spellweaver will spawn (two spellweavers spawn at both the left and right on nightmare, so either side is fine there). After the mobs are summoned, Aether Horror will almost immediately do an AoE. Dash outside that area towards the spellweaver, and dispatch it. On nightmare, focus on taking out the other spellweaver next. This can be difficult so it is a particularly good time to use supers like soul burn or empowered strike to take it out, or like void trap, stasis strike or concussive blast to get the empowered knights out the way and give you an opening to attack the spellweaver.

A lot of attacks happen at once during this round, so it is important to be patient and prioritise defense over offense. Avoid using dashes to reach enemies, especially using builds that have fewer dash charges, so that you don't run out and get stuck in an AoE. Try to avoid the temptation to take a hit so you can finish a guard break or a combo, as these can easily stack up during this fight. As soon as an AoE indicator shows up, look around for an opening and dash there. After the spikes are summoned, it is safe to dash back to the enemy you were fighting and finsih it.

Take out all the other mobs before starting to deplete the empowered knight's health, so that you don't have to deal with its empowered combo at the same time as dealing with other enemies. The same applies to nightmare: completely finish off the first empowered knight before allowing the second one to reach its empowered phase.

To move onto the the Third Round, take out all of the enemies.

## Third Round

You are close now, Champion! The Aether Horror will begin the third round by powering up and going all-out in a desperate combo. This is a difficult one to deal with, especially if you are not expecting it.

The empowered combo itself ends in a spike AoE around the horror, so make sure to keep a dash to evade with if necessary.
Alternatively, it is also possible to interupt this attack by using certain supers against the horror.

In this phase, the Aether Horror will no longer use ranged attacks, but will attack with more speed and aggression. You will face the attacks from the first round again. Aether Horror will also use a lot of spike AoEs against you.

To beat this round, deplete all of Aether Horror's remaining health.

## Victory

After you take out all of the Horror's health, it will reveal its heart. Take it, and crush it! Congratulations, Champion!

## Tips and Advice

* Dashing forwards covers more distance than dashing backwards, so to preserve dashes it is often preferable to turn around and dash forwards away from an attack, rather than dashing backwards
* When the Horror leaps back down from its perch into the arena, standing in the area it intends to land in will result in it hitting you and pushing you back. This does not deal any damage to you, and will give you a lot of super charge.

## Trivia

* The area in which this fight takes place appears to be a Runeforge.