Slay the Spire 2 has finally arrived in early access, bringing a completely fresh rogue’s gallery. These terrifying bosses do an impeccable job of replacing the familiar foes of the original game.
Since the Mega Crit’s game has a roguelike nature, knowing a boss’s gimmick beforehand is an effective way. This will let you curate your deck efficiently and survive the climb.
In the current build of Slay the Spire 2, there are 12 distinct bosses. Act 1 has two biomes: Overgrowth and Underdock, with six bosses. Acts 2 and 3 currently have one biome each (The Hive and Glory) with three bosses in the early access.
Act 1 Bosses (The Overgrowth Biome)
1 Vantom
Vantom starts the battle with a frustrating buff called ‘Slippery.’ No matter the card, each attack only consumes one charge and deals exactly 1 damage until the shield drops.
To defeat Vantom, players will need to build decks with low-cost, multi-hit attacks. This will quickly burn through the Slippery charges. After which, players need to unleash their high-damage heavy hitters.
2 The Kin
This is a trio boss fight consisting of Kin Priest and two Kin followers. The followers deal high melee damage while buffing their strength. The Kin Priest, on the other hand, hides in the back, applying nasty Frail and Weak debuffs to players’ characters.
The important thing in this fight is not to get tunnel vision and go after the Kin Priest. The safest route is to burst down the low-HP Followers first to reduce incoming damage. This will allow you the time and space needed to take down the Kin Priest.
3 Ceremonial Beast
The Beast uses a powerful ‘Plow’ buff. This buff permanently increases its attack power by two every single turn. Once the Beast’s health drops to 150 HP or lower, it becomes stunned and loses health. However, when it wakes up, it applies the ‘Ringing’ debuff. This brutal debuff limits players to playing only one card per turn.
You must understand a simple thing in this boss fight: it’s a pure DPS race. The Ceremonial Beast’s ‘Plow’ damage buff will scale out of control; hence, you need to deal 100+ damage as soon as possible. In the ‘Ringing’ phase, players need to use the highest-value cards for that single allowed play per turn.
Act 1 Bosses (The Underdocks)
4 Waterfall Giant
This is a tricky boss fight with an exceptional gimmick, which will make you lose even after slaying the boss. It buffs itself with ‘Steam Eruption’ early on. The buff determines a massive amount of delayed damage that it will inflict upon death.
Players shouldn’t blindly kill the Waterfall Giant. Once the Giant is reduced to 0 HP, it doesn’t die immediately. Instead, it detonates on the next turn. Hence, players must have a handful of high-block defense cards ready to survive the final explosive blast.
5 Soul Fysh
Soul Fysh starts the fight by shuffling ‘Beckon’ cards into your draw and discard piles. If a Beckon card is in your hand at the end of your turn, you take six unblockable damage.
Apart from this, as the fight progresses, the Soul Fysh gains the ‘Intangible’ buff. This will reduce all incoming damage to 1 while also making the player vulnerable.
Players need to spend any energy type to play a Beckon card and put it into their hand. Efficient energy management is the name of the game in this boss fight. The entire focus should be on not ending the turn holding a Beckon card. This will save massive burst damage for the turns when the Fysh’s Intangible buff drops.
6 Lagavulin Matriarch
This boss fight will make veterans of the prequel game a bit nostalgic. The Lagavulin Matriarch starts the battle asleep with 12 armor. Once awake, she aggressively debuffs your Strength and Dexterity while buffing her own.
Firstly, players need to break her armor while she sleeps! This will make the Lagavulin Matriarch wake up and finally be vulnerable to actual damage. However, now that the battle has properly started, she will now attack you to be a bit more cautious with your own attacks.
Since she severely nerfs direct attack and block scaling, sources like Poison, Orbs, or status-effect builds will be highly useful for this boss fight. As they completely bypass Strength and Dexterity modifiers.
Act 2 Bosses (The Hive)
7 The Insatiable
The Insatiable has a massive health pool! On top of that, the boss casts “Sandpit” on turn one. It initiates a strict four-turn countdown until you are instantly devoured and killed.
Players must use the “Frantic Escape” cards added to their deck to extend the instant-kill countdown. However, every time the Frantic Escape card is played, its energy cost increases by one.
This boss fight then becomes a balancing act! Players must aggressively balance spending energy on escaping the sandpit versus dealing enough damage to kill the boss with its massive health pool.
8 Knowledge Demon
This boss fight will force you to make agonizing choices. Whenever it applies a debuff, you must manually choose your poison. Here are the debuffs that you have to pick from:
- Taking end-of-turn damage
- Capped at playing three cards per turn
- Losing primary energy resources
To win this battle, players need to tailor their choices based on their deck archetype. For example, if playing a combo-heavy infinite deck, take the damage penalty to keep your card draw high. If playing a heavy-hitting, high-cost deck, take the three-card max per turn penalty.
9 Kaiser Crab
It will be a multi-target fight that will keep you on your toes. The Crab’s main body and two claws: the Crusher (left) and the Rocket (right). If one claw is destroyed, the surviving claw instantly gains 5 Strength and 99 Block for one turn.
Players need to focus entirely on the right ‘Rocket’ claw first. Since that claw deals significantly more damage compared to the Crusher. Keep in mind that area-of-effect cards are the king in this battle, and players must use them as often as they can. Once both claws are destroyed, the Crab’s main body simply retreats, granting a victory.
Act 3 Bosses (Glory)
10 The Queen
The Queen has a terrifying mechanic, ‘Chains of Binding’, which restricts players to only playing one of the first three cards drawn that turn. Apart from that, she also applies 99-turn Frail and Weak debuffs.
The Queen is also accompanied by her minion, the Torch Head Amalgam. It will hit up to three times a turn and acts as the primary damage dealer.
The Amalgam will flee if the Queen dies. However, its damage is too high to ignore. Players must first heavily debuff or control the Amalgam’s attack power. Only then should players focus on the Queen. Players will have to endure her card-locking mechanics while chipping away at her HP.
11 Doormaker
The fight starts against a literal door that constantly buffs its strength. Once the Door is destroyed, the Doormaker steps out. The Doormaker hits players with a massive attack, buffs the Door’s maximum HP by 20 points, and retreats back inside.
Simply put, this is an endurance battle of attrition. Before its attack, the Doormaker remains stunned for a turn. This will be your best chance to deal damage. However, you must pack high block to survive the Doormaker’s devastating entrance attacks. Apart from that, you will have to take down increasingly tanky doors each time they reappear.
12 Test Subject #C8
This is the ultimate multi-phase final boss. Test Subject #C8 starts with just 100 HP but uses ‘Adaptable’ to revive stronger (200 HP, then 300 HP) upon death.
Test Subject #C8 has three distinct phases:
- Phase 1: Gains 2 Strength every time a Skill card is played
- Phase 2: Adds Wound cards to the players’ deck every time they take unblocked damage
- Phase 3: Gains ‘Nemesis,’ whereby it becomes Intangible every other turn, reducing all damage to 1, and adds Burn cards to your discard pile.
Any single strategy cannot defeat the final boss! Players will have to be adaptable to face Test Subject #C8 in different phases. In Phase 1, players must hold off on spamming Skill cards. In Phase 2, ensuring a perfect block against the boss’s attacks is paramount. During Phase 3, the timing of the players’ ultimate burst damage combos must be perfect. These should land exactly on the turns when Phase 3’s Intangible shield drops.
Here are all the bosses in Slay the Spire 2 with their locations, biomes, and HP.
| Boss Name | Location (Biome) | Starting HP |
|---|---|---|
| Vantom | Act 1 (Overgrowth) | 173 HP |
| The Kin | Act 1 (Overgrowth) | Priest: 190 HP / Followers: 58 & 59 HP |
| Ceremonial Beast | Act 1 (Overgrowth) | 252 HP |
| Waterfall Giant | Act 1 (Underdocks) | 250 HP |
| Soul Fysh | Act 1 (Underdocks) | 211 HP |
| Lagavulin Matriarch | Act 1 (Underdocks) | 222 HP |
| The Insatiable | Act 2 (The Hive) | 321 HP |
| Knowledge Demon | Act 2 (The Hive) | 379 HP |
| Kaiser Crab | Act 2 (The Hive) | Main Body: Invincible / Claws: Crusher (199 HP), Rocket (189 HP) |
| The Queen | Act 3 (Glory) | Queen: 400 HP / Amalgam: 199 HP |
| Doormaker | Act 3 (Glory) | Door: Starts at 90 HP (Scales up) / Doormaker: 489 |
| Test Subject #C8 | Act 3 (Glory) | 600 HP Total (100 / 200 / 300 HP phases) |
How many bosses have you conquered in Slay the Spire 2? Do you have a better strategy to defeat a particular boss? Let us know in the comments.