Bosses

Each region of the map in Rogue Legacy has its own boss, requiring various strategies and techniques to best them. Set behind massive doors, these bosses are meant to challenge your mental and physical prowess, offering challenges above and beyond that of a regular enemy. Each time a boss is defeated, the grey icon that symbolizes a boss room is turned a bright cyan, showing it has been defeated. A boss can only be defeated once in Rogue Legacy (excepting the non-traditional special rooms and items), and when each boss is defeated, massive amounts of gold is dropped in bags, coins, diamonds, and other trinkets. Additionally, a blue and gold chest is dropped which grants permanent status bonuses when opened.

Though each boss can be defeated at any time due to the open nature of Rogue Legacy, most players kill the bosses in the following order:

Khidr → Alexander → Ponce de Leon → Herodotus

This is mostly because of the base difficulty of the areas in which these bosses are found, and also takes into account the relative health and attack power of each challenge.

## Khidr (The Gatekeeper)

Khidr the Gatekeeper is the boss of the Castle, and is typically the first boss encountered. A large eyeball that sits in a square room with two platforms surrounding him, Khidr is also protected by two spiketraps to his sides and in the bottom corners of the room. He is impossible to hit from the ground due to his elevation, but the player can either jump or gain the Gigantism Trait to reach his level. He does somewhat low levels of damage in the form of red teardrop missles.

### Basic Attacks

Khidr has three basic attacks:

* Deploys four spiraling missiles that turn clockwise or counterclockwise, which forces the player to follow the pattern they move in;
* Sends out a pattern of bullets, with blank spaces in which the player can traverse or hide;
* Shoots evenly spaced bullets in all directions from it's core;

### How to Kill Khidr

The quickest but most difficult way to defeat Khidr involves using the Mage and his flameshield. This class/skill combination will drop the boss HP very quickly, but near the end, you are quite vulnerable, as you have to get close to deal lots of damage. Alternately, the slowest but safest method is by using the Barbarian, which can use it's excessive amount of health to absorb and "tank" most damage, while dealing middle damage yourself. Alternately, the Paladin is useful, dealing high damage, but one must be very careful to use the shield ability often in order to block the projectives. The most common approach for Khidr is the Shinobi or Hokage class, as their agility provides enough speed to negotiate the bullet patterns, allowing you to draw in close for three or four good hits between Khidr's attacks. Retaliation Runes are useful as always, but because there's nothing but the boss to defeat, Vampirism, Balance, and Siphon runes are useless.

Luckily, Khidr is a stationary boss, so most of the difficulty in this fight is going to be in dodging his ranged attacks. Dwarfism and Flight is useful in this regard, minimizing your hit box while allowing you to dodge, but using a Paladin or Shinobi is still the recommended method considering the specific risk of fighting Khidr.

## Alexander (The Forgotten)

### Basic Attacks

Alexander is the boss of the Forest, and is a large floating skull surrounded by pink flames. This boss, unlike the Khidr, will follow the player around the room, spawning enemies as he does so, making this a much more difficult battle than the first. He has three basic attacks:

* He chases you through the room, trying to touch you to cause damage;
* Alexander spawns small skulls to help him, cutting off your movement and causing damage on contact;
* Alexander sometimes stops, channels, and sends orbs in four directions;

### How to Kill Alexander

A good choice for defeating Alexander is the Spellthief, due to their passive which allows regeneration of mana when Alexander or his minions are hit. Likewise, the Lich is a good choice, as the Crow Storm spell is a pretty broad area of effect damage dealer. The Hokage is a decent choice as well, especially considering a giant Hokage can essentially mop the floor with Alexander, damage wise. The Vampirism, Balance, and Siphon Runes are extremely effective here due to the large number of minions, and the Haste Runes help to ensure you aren't trapped by his skulls or orb attacks. Essentially, any area of effect spell is effective against Alexander, and will help minimize the number of active enemies on the field at any given time, with the Blade Wall spell being especially effective. Make sure you watch the minions, as they are faster than Alexander, and can easily overwhelm you if you are not paying attention.

Your biggest foe in this battle is ATTENTION. If you're not watching both the minions and Alexander, you will get quickly and completely overwhelmed, so you MUST make sure you are aware of the location of everything, while also keeping an eye on your total health and mana to make sure you don't get dangerously low.

## Ponce de Leon (The Sentinel)

Ponce de Leon, or Ponce for short, is the boss of the Tower. He is a large fireball that sits in the middle of a large open room, surrounded by platforms and spike balls. This boss, like Alexander, will follow the player around the room, but thankfully does not spawn smaller enemies for you to deal with.

### Basic Attacks

Ponce has four basic attacks:

* Ponce will chase you around the room, causing damage on contact;
* Sometimes, Ponce will leave a large flame in his wake, which will stay for the amount of time it takes him to traverse the room;
* Occasionally, he will stop, glow, then rush at you much faster than usual. These can be done in succession;
* Though not truly an attack, the spike balls in this room are often used to his advantage by corning you or forcing your movement into them, causing constant damage;

### How to Kill Ponce de Leon

The Barbarian is a good choice due to his high health and damage, and the Shout class skill which will remove all the active flames in the arena. Likewise, both the Hokage and Spellthief are good choices, allowing you to cause relatively high damage while evading. The Dragon is a good choice because of your flight ability, but you have to make sure you can do enough damage in this class, otherwise you will be caught by his rushing attack. Because the only targets in the arena are the boss and spike balls, Vampirism, Balance, and Siponh Runes are useless, just like when you fought Khidr. Retaliation runes can help with the spike balls, removing them every time you hit one, but it is better to just avoid the balls altogether. This boss fight is extremely hard with Gigantism, causing your large hitbox to encounter flames constantly.

The best strategy is to use a "tank" class such as the Barbarian and just deal as much damage as humanly possible at every possible chance while avoiding EVERYTHING.

## Herodotus (The Infinite)

Herodotus is the boss of the Darkness, a massive light blue slim blob that is surrounded by platforms, and is above a floor lined mostly with spikes. Herodotus will chase and jump at you, and when it takes critical damage, it will split into multiple parts that must also be killed.

### Basic Attacks

Herodotus has three basic attacks:

* Bounces around the screen and chases the player, causing damage on contact;
* When he dies, he creates smaller versions of himself, and spawns an earth mage with each death of part of his body;
* The earth mages summon large rocks and hurl them at you;

### How to Kill Herodotus

The best classes for Herodotus are those with high strength or area of effect. Truthfully, any class that can cause high damage will do very well in this fight, but the best skill to use is Empowered Chakram. Because of the large area of effect damage for the Empowered Chakram, you can deal with the slim and then mass eliminate the smaller slimes as they spawn. The big thing here is to compartmentalize the fight - be very careful of how you deal with the slimes, because it is very easy to get overwhelmed very fast.