Clay Dunestrider

Armor | 20

The **Clay Dunestrider** is a Boss Monster introduced in Risk of Rain 2. Being a Boss, the Clay Dunestrider may be encountered after initiating a stage's Teleporter Event. It can otherwise spawn naturally during higher difficulties.

## Environments

* Other Environments with the Artifact of Dissonance enabled

## Skills & Behavior

### Primary: Clay Pot Barrage

The lid on top of the Dunestrider's pot shakes for 4 seconds and then launches 11 clay pots at its target every 0.2 seconds with an additional end lag of 2 seconds at the end. All of these timings scale with attack speed. The clay pots travel at 50m/s and upon impact they explode in a radius of 5m with no falloff and inflict the debuff. The clay pots can be blocked by .

The pots aren't particularly accurate, adding 0.2 spread bloom with each shot. They each deal 100% damage and have a proc coefficient of 1.0. The skill has a cooldown of 10 seconds.

### Secondary: Rolling Tar Balls

The Clay Dunestrider extends its legs to raise itself up over 3 seconds, before dropping 3 balls of clay out from the bottom of its pot every 1 second. Both of these timings scale with attack speed. These balls roll across the floor with a velocity of 30m/s and home in on targets. Upon impact or after 10 seconds, they explode in a radius of 8m with linear damage falloff. This attack has an end lag of 3 seconds which scales with attack speed, during which the Dunestrider lowers itself again.

These balls can also be blocked by Defensive Microbots.

Each ball deals 200% damage and has a proc coefficient of 1.0. The skill has a cooldown of 20 seconds.

### Special: Recover

The Clay Dunestrider plants itself into the ground and opens its lid. Tar tendrils will then latch onto all entities within a 50m radius - players and enemy monsters alike - and drag them towards the pot's center while slowly siphoning health from all affected entities. Once something is sucked close to the Dunestrider, the siphoning effect is amplified greatly. The tendrils will break if the latched entity dies or escapes more than 50m away from the Dunestrider. If all tendrils have been broken, or the Dunestrider has spent 15 seconds in this state, it will end the attack with an end lag of 1 second.

Each tether starts siphoning after 0.3 seconds upon latching onto an entity for 3.33% damage every 1/3rd of a second. This attack has a proc coefficient of 0.0 and cannot crit. The entity is dragged towards the center with a speed of 6m/s and if it is within 10 meters, each tick does 33.3% damage and ticks every 1/6th of a second.

The Dunestrider heals for 100% of the damage it deals, but since it can siphon from a large number of entities, the heal effect can be much stronger than the damage it deals to the player. In addition, it gains the  buff during this attack, making it extremely difficult to kill until the attack is over.

The skill has a cooldown of 60 seconds.

### Behaviors

1. **Use special on friendlies**: the Dunestrider must be within 50m of an ally and have less than 25% health.
2. **Use special on enemies**: the Dunestrider must be within 50m of a player and have less than 25% health.
3. **Use secondary**: the Dunestrider must be within 20-60m from its target and have less than 75% health.
4. **Use primary while strafing**: the Dunestrider must be within 50m from its target and the skill doesn't have to be off cooldown.
5. **Use primary while approaching**: the Dunestrider must be within 50-100m from its target and the skill doesn't have to be off cooldown.
6. **Chase**: no requirements.

## Loot

*Main Article: Mired Urn*

If the Clay Dunestrider is the Teleporter Boss, there is a 15% chance for the Uncommon item (that drops as a reward for defeating the Clay Dunestrider) to be replaced by its Boss item, the .

## Tips

* Players with poor mobility and sub-par movement skills must avoid the Clay Dunestrider while it is attempting to heal itself. While players are generally able to maintain their distance from the Dunestrider if they backpedal, getting fully caught by the boss will result in them having to wait until the attack ends before they regain control of their movement - assuming they don't die in the process.
* If multiple Dunestriders are present and the player lacks mobility, it might be wise to focus one at a time. The pulling effect of Life-Draining Tendrils can stack, and with lesser movement, it can become inescapable.
* It only takes a one or two movement items to be able to comfortably dodge both of the Clay Dunestrider's clay ball attacks (particularly jumping perpendicular to direction of the balls with ), even at close range. If the player doesn't happen to have any movement items when encountering one, it's wise to stick to high ground to avoid the Rolling Balls attack. Be mindful, however, that simply standing atop a rock won't necessarily be enough to avoid the attack; there are situations where the level geometry is just shallow enough to allow the balls to roll up and across them.
* While the Dunestrider's life drain can be a source of frustration, it can also be an opportunity to inflict heavy damage upon the boss. Despite the large armor increase for the duration of the attack, the boss's health can still be whittled down if the party is proactive and makes an effort to kill all nearby monsters before the boss gets the chance to suck them in. This will greatly reduce the amount of health the Dunestrider ends up regaining.
	+ If the party has a large number of crowd control items, such as  or , it may be advantageous to allow a large number of monsters to be consumed before killing them all at once.
	+ If the player doesn't have enough dps to kill the Dunestrider, they can hedge their bets by getting it as close as possible to 25% health and waiting until it raises to do the tarball attack. This gives the player a lot more time to do damage before the siphoning begins as long as they are confident they can avoid the tar balls.
* Since the Dunestrider's life-draining attack involves the boss healing itself, the Dunestrider is one of five enemies (the others being the , the , , and 's fourth phase if the player has healing items) that can be meaningfully affected by the Malachite  debuff.
	+ This can be accomplished if the player has obtained and equipped , summoned a Malachite ghost using the , or defeated a Malachite Elite while holding the . It is also possible for a Malachite enemy to damage and debuff the Clay Dunestrider if the Artifact of Chaos is enabled, although this is unreliable.
	+ Even if the Dunestrider becomes unable to heal itself, it is still capable of using its tendrils to damage everything around it and gain massive armor. It will become easier to kill without its healing but is just as dangerous nonetheless.

## Lore

```
$ Transcribing audio... done.
$ Resolving... done.
$ Outputting text strings... done.
Complete!

<Click> There are no landmarks in site. I am surrounded by infinite desert. <Click>

<Click> I’ve run out of rations… and no one is responding to my transponder. I may be doomed if I don’t find a way out of these dunes. <Click>

<Click> I see something in the distance… some large creature. I may be in luck yet. <Click>

<Click> Oh... my eyes deceived me. It was not a creature… but a herd. There was more than one. Many more.

Hundreds of enormous creatures, moving as a mob– and each one the biggest beast I have ever seen. These striders resembled… enormous spiders, or hermit crabs, in a porcelain shell, with legs dark like tar.

Between the sound and the sand, the entire herd bounded past me without realizing – moving at incredible speeds on their long legs. Were they fleeing… or migrating? I still can’t believe… what a terrible place. Get me out. <Click>

<Click> I still have no food. <Click>
```

## Version History

Early Access Content Update 5
* Major Content
	+ Added New Monster Lore Entry: Clay Dunestrider
* Quality of Life
	+ Reduced the audio levels of the Clay Dunestrider

Early Access Artifacts Content Update
* Gameplay Changes
	+ 🌧Improve accuracy of hurtboxes

PC Early Access Patch (Build ID No.4233443)
* Bug Fixes
	+ Fix Clay Dunestrider's Tarball attack not networking its position correctly

Early Access Scorched Acres Content Update
* Gameplay Changes
	+ Add standable platform on Clay Dunestrider’s pot body
	+ Increase inner “mulch” radius from 5 to 10 to compensate for new collision
* QOL
	+ Set up Clay Dunestrider corpses to properly disappear over time

## Trivia

* The Clay Dunestrider may be related to the Clay Man, a monster in the original Risk of Rain who is also in Risk of Rain 2 code.
	+ The pots thrown by the Clay Dunestrider look very similar to the Clay Man's pot, further establishing the relation.