Bosses Overview
Four bosses haunt Ancients. Each is summoned at its own altar in the Boss Hub and fought alone in a private arena for some of the best loot on the server. Open /boss to pick one, check its difficulty and see which arenas are in use. The same menu holds Boss Mastery, the Boss Leaderboard, Talos and the RNG Meter.
The difficulty ladder
| Boss | Difficulty | Health | Unlocked at |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lamia | Easy | 4,000 | Fund tier I |
| Echidna | Moderate | 9,000 | Fund tier II |
| Thanatos | Hard | 16,000 | Fund tier III |
| Hephaestus | Very Hard | 25,000 | Fund tier IV |
| Uber bosses | Endgame | 100,000 | Fund tier V |
Access is gated by the Community Fund tier alone. There is no player level or prestige requirement, so the moment the server unlocks a boss, everyone holding a key can summon it. See Summoning a Boss for the full process.
Above the normal four sit the Uber bosses, a harder version of each fight, summoned at the same altars with their own uber keys once the Fund reaches tier V.
Getting a key
Each boss is opened with a single Boss Key, forged automatically once you collect 96 essences of that boss. Essence drops from shades and wraiths in private Polis runs, and higher Polis levels carry essence for harder bosses. Keys also drop from Mystery Boss Keys. There is no shop that sells them: boss keys only drop. One key, one summon.
The altar key is the only way a boss appears. Bosses can't be spawned outside their arenas.
Uber keys are separate relics. They aren't forged from essence and come from the Sacred Way. See Uber Bosses.
Solo fights
Every boss fight, uber or normal, is solo. Only the summoner enters the arena, deals damage and receives the loot. If you are offline at the moment of the kill, the loot waits in your /stash. Your first 10 normal boss kills each day roll double loot (the daily bonus, which resets at 11 AM PT).
Boss Mastery
Open Boss Mastery in /boss to track your season kills of each normal boss. Milestones at 25, 100, 250, 500 and 1,000 kills each add increased damage against that boss and reduced damage taken from it:
| Season kills | Increased damage vs that boss | Reduced damage taken from that boss |
|---|---|---|
| 25 | 2% | 1% |
| 100 | 4% | 2% |
| 250 | 6% | 3% |
| 500 | 8% | 4% |
| 1,000 | 10% | 5% |
Reaching 1,000 kills of a boss also gives a permanent title. Only normal kills count, the bonuses only apply to that boss's normal fight, and the kill counts reset with the season. Loot is not affected.
Talos
Talos is a construct that runs boss fights for you while you're busy, using your keys and Ancient Energy. It costs $1,000,000 to unlock. Open it with /talos or its button in /boss.
A word on the fights
Each boss has its own fight and its own ways to punish a careless player, so come geared and stay mobile. Bosses slowly regenerate if you stop hitting them and can't be slowed or stun-locked. The shared rules are on Boss Fight Mechanics. The patterns and the moment to back off are yours to learn in the arena.
This section covers each boss plus the shared systems behind every fight: summoning, fight mechanics, loot and drop announcements, Talos, the Uber bosses and their Avatars, the RNG Meter and the Boss Leaderboard.
Version history
v4.0.0 (Map 4)
- Hephaestus, Thanatos, Echidna and Lamia each have a new fight. Boss health is now 4,000 (Lamia), 9,000 (Echidna), 16,000 (Thanatos) and 25,000 (Hephaestus), with no hidden damage reduction.
- Boss fights are solo. Parties and party chat are gone.
- Added Boss Mastery: season kill milestones that raise your damage against a boss and lower the damage it deals to you, with a title at 1,000 kills.
- The Boss Shop is gone. Boss keys now only drop. Talos moved to its own
/talosmenu and is bought with money. - The boss hub is lit and dressed up, and each boss has a new altar and portal gate.
- Uber keys now come from the Sacred Way instead of Erebus Crates.
v3.0.0
- Boss summons are now gated by the Community Fund tier alone. The player level and prestige requirements on Echidna, Thanatos and Hephaestus are gone.
- Thanatos unlocks at Fund tier III and Hephaestus at Fund tier IV, each one tier earlier than before.
- Added the four Uber bosses, unlocked together at Fund tier V.
- Bosses can no longer be spawned outside their arenas. The altar key is the only summon path.
- Boss keys no longer force themselves back into one stack; a split you make sticks.
- Dying to a boss now respawns you at that boss's altar instead of at spawn.
- Boss abilities no longer lose most of their damage to armor.
v2.0.0
- Boss summons now use a player-level gate instead of Hunter rank: Echidna needs Level 60+, Thanatos Level 100+ (or any prestige), and Hephaestus Player Prestige II + Level 102. Lamia stays open as the introductory boss.
- Bosses now slowly regenerate when left alone. After 10 seconds without taking damage they heal 1% max HP per second.
- Bosses can no longer be slowed or stun-locked. Slowness sources don't stick and rapid fire no longer flinch-pauses them.