Treant is the second Great One boss in Once Human. This is a level 15 boss on Normal difficulty that you must defeat to progress the game’s story. The boss fight becomes very easy to beat when you know which weapon types to pick and the best places to find cover and shoot the boss from. That is why we have curated this guide, which entailed attack patterns and the best strategy to beat Treant in Once Human.

All Treant Attack Patterns

Unlike the Ravenous Hunter boss, Treant uses a variety of melee smash-to-ranged projectile attacks during the boss fight in Once Human. The boss arena is big, with ground and level one platform (broken bridges) at the left and right of the boss’s position.

The boss shakes the body and releases white orbs that slowly approach you. These are homing projectiles that will follow you for a short while. You can shoot these to destroy or lure them into a wall to break them.

If you are on the ground floor, Treant uses his giant legs to smash the ground. This causes a massive shockwave that bursts out in a circular AoE from the boss’s feet to further away. Jump over the purple shockwave, and you will not take a hit.

The bound woman at Treant’s back will charge and unleash a laser beam, which lasts for nearly five seconds. This attack deals a ton of damage if it consistently hits you. Hiding behind a cover such as a wall or nearby broken bus will allow you to completely block Treant’s laser.

Besides the boss, you will have lower-level enemies spawn in the area and tangled vines that will also deal melee and ranged damage.

Strategy to Beat Treant Boss 

The boss fight arena has a ground floor and two upper-level platforms on the east and west sides. The platform on the east has a bigger cover due to a broken bus and a larger bridge.

We recommend you hunker down near the bus with your party and use ranged weapons such as a sniper rifle or assault rifle. Otherwise, if you stay at the ground level, the boss will frequently release shockwaves, which are much harder to dodge. This will not be a problem when you are on the upper platform.

Treant is a level 15 boss, so you must approach the boss fight if you are level 13 or above. Besides the level, you must bring enough supplies to heal yourself and keep your sanity, hunger, and thirst bar full before entering the boss battle.

We do not recommend you solo the Treant boss fight in Once Human, not especially if this is your first time fighting the boss. Therefore, join a Hive and bring more players. Alternatively, you can start matchmaking and join a party if you are not in a Hive. You must at least have one more player to help you.

Boss Immunity

The boss fight starts when you destroy three vines located at three unique locations in the arena. Destroying all three vines will give you 120 seconds to assault Treant in Once Human. However, the boss will once again return to the immunity phase after the mentioned time has passed.

The tangled vines will grow back and you will be required to break these again to remove the immunity phase of Treant.

Weak Spot

The woman bound on the Treant’s back is the weakest spot of the boss. Hitting her from the ground is very hard. The boss will continuously face you, and the woman will not be an easy target for scoring critical hits.

Secondly, if you stay near the bus on the bridge, Treant will be forced to use the wailing woman’s attacks only, the laser and white orbs. This will give you enough room to consistently damage Treant’s weak spot and quickly kill the boss in Once Human.

So this is how you beat the Treant boss in Once Human. If you want more content for Once Human, check out our beginner guide and Deviations tier list.

Previous Boss: Beat Ravenous Hunter in Once Human

The main bosses in Once Human are called The Great Ones, and the Ravenous Hunter is the first one in the line. He is a level 10 boss that must be fought only if you are level 8 or above. Otherwise, your gear will be underwhelming, and you will die often. This guide lists all the attack patterns of the boss and the best strategy to beat Ravenous Hunter in Once Human.

Ravenous Hunter Boss Attack Patterns

Ravenous Hunter primarily has a big machine gun in the right hand and a pointy sharp blade in the left hand. If you maintain distance and shoot from afar, the boss will use the machine gun to deal damage. Alternatively, if you get too close to Ravenous Hunter, the boss will use the left arm to deal damage.

The boss’s body is made of yellow-goey material with skeletons inside. Sometimes, the boss spits yellow bubbles in all directions that deal physical damage.

When you deplete the boss’s health to 50%, he will no longer use the machine gun and equip an autocannon. This weapon fires a single-shot explosive projectile at you.

When the boss’s health drops below 30%, he will use a rocket launcher, whose warhead breaks into smaller silos, instead of the machine gun. He will not frequently fire the rocket launcher, and there is a bigger cooldown between the attacks.

Strategy to Beat Ravenous Hunter

The center stage in the Ravenous Boss Fight is cylindrical pillars, square-shaped structures, and platforms that you can use to duck behind for cover. Ranged gunplay will be the safe option for the boss fight, as there are plenty of options to cover and shoot from.

We recommend you bring a sniper rifle and assault rifle for the Ravenous Hunter boss fight in Once Human. This combination will allow you to switch between the guns depending on the distance from the boss.

Since this is a major boss fight, you must come prepared. Your sanity, hunger, and thirst should not be in a negative status and must be full when you enter the boss fight.

Additionally, if you have not joined a Hive, try to do matchmaking and find at least one more teammate for the Ravenous Hunter boss fight. One teammate will distract the boss. The other will shoot at the weak spots.

Boss Immunity

During the boss fight, Ravenous Hunter will teleport away from the center stage to the upper platform. You can shoot all you want, but none of the bullets will deal damage, as the boss will be immune. To break its immunity, you will need to destroy two pods that spawn at the left and right towers of the center stage.

Once you have destroyed both pods, the boss will teleport back to the center stage and will no longer be immune to damage.

Weak Spots

The Ravenous Hunter has the chest and head as the weak spot. The yellow-goey substance stretches from his center body all the way to the head. Hitting anywhere here, especially the head part, will cause a lot of damage compared to the head, hands, and legs.

This is how you can beat the Ravenous Hunter boss in Once Human. I recommend checking out our Once Human Deviations tier list and beginner’s guide next for more content.

Next Boss: Beat Treant Boss in Once Human

Once Human throws you into a vast world full of resources. You start with basic gear, and equipment and work your way to arm yourself to the teeth. While a lot is going on in the game, it is very easy to get lost in the mix and lose focus. This could lead you to waste more time than actually making progress. For this, we have listed the 10 best tips and tricks in this Once Human beginner’s guide that you should not sleep on.

Frequently Relocate Your Base

After completing the introduction mission, you will be teleported into the game’s vast world. While selecting a location to establish your base is important for the first time, it is not always super necessary to find the perfect spot.

After you have scouted a place, made your base, and acquired higher gear, equipment, and weapons, it is best to relocate after a while.

The late-game areas contain some of the rare resources that you will find yourself going to and fro from them to your base. Therefore, it would be wise not to stress too much about the starting location as you can relocate later.

Focus on Story to Unlock Features Faster

The top left corner of your display will highlight the most important tasks. Completing these will give you the resources and skill points to unlock more Memetics faster. Therefore, instead of chopping wood and mining copper ore every now and then, consider completing these tasks first.

Besides the in-game currency and XP boost, you will unlock new weapons, blueprints, motorcycles, and other features faster in Once Human if you focus on completing the Story missions/objectives first.

Don’t Overlook Side Missions and Objectives

Completing side objectives is important. It will give you some high-quality gear, materials, and XP. When you enter towns or strongholds, you will find a list of side objectives with a purple header. These mostly involve killing a certain number of enemies, finding a chest, or collecting a Mystical crate.

Craft the Crossbow Early

One of the most important tips we suggest in our Once Human Beginner’s guide is crafting the crossbow early on. While you get to craft the crossbow weapon in the intro mission, you must craft the Tier II or above crossbow once you have settled at your base. To do this, you must first build the Gear Workbench.

Once that station is up and running, go to the craft weapons section, and near the end of the weapons list, you will find the crossbow. Near the stats, you will various tiers. Go for the tier II crossbow.

Crossbow helps you worry less about running out of ammo. That is because the arrows can be recovered by going over a corpse you killed. Also, most enemies die easily from crossbow if you shoot them in the head.

Unlock the Garage as Early as Possible

While the early-game means of transportation is running on foot, this changes when you unlock the Garage from Memetics. After setting up a garage inside your base zone, you can use it to craft a bike/motorcycle for yourself in Once Human.

The bike will come in handy to transport you from point A to point B easily. It will conserve your stamina as you will not be running too often. However, the bike will need fuel, and it will stop running if you run out of it.

Other than that, you will also need to look out for the physical health of the bike. Taking too much damage will also render the bike unusable and then you will be forced to do some repairs in order to start using the motorcycle again in Once Human.

Don’t Overlook Journey

Pressing your keyboard’s “J” key will reveal the Journey tab in Once Human. This showcases all the requirements you need to craft or make to advance your journey or story progression in the game. Each journey involves multiple steps, so completing each milestone will allow you to claim rewards such as skill points and XP.

For example, in the “Racer” Journey, you are required to build a motorcycle. The first milestone in this task is to build a garage. When you have built it, you can claim the milestone rewards.

Mod and Repair Your Gear

Your equipment, weapons, and gear come with a durability meter. This will start to deplete the more you use a particular item. For example, if you use the pickaxe too much to mine resources, its durability will fall significantly. Similarly, using a melee weapon too often, such as a baseball bat, will deteriorate the weapon’s durability in Once Human.

This can, however, be fixed by a simple method. If you craft the weapon or any part of the gear that needs repairs, walk up to the Gear Bench and press “H”, this will prompt the repair menu and showcase the gear requiring repairs.

Repairing and modding your weapons is the best way to be ready to take on any adversity in Once Human. However, if you loot a weapon in the open world and basically did not craft it yourself, then you will be unable to repair it.

Use Deviations to Your Advantage

This just might be one of the most crucial tips in our Once Human Beginner’s guide.

There are Combat and Territory Deviation types in Once Human that you can use to your advantage. The combat deviations help you strike the enemies you’ve engaged in combat with.

On the other hand, the territory deviations will help you gather certain resources based on their deviation type. They will also help you generate a massive supply of resources passively.

You can check out our tier list, which ranks all the best Deviations to use in Once Human.

Team Up Using Hive

It is always not an ideal situation where you play PvE games with your buddies. However, the world of Once Human demands PvE engagement with other players and working in synergy.

To do this, go to the Hive option and create or join one. This will allow you to fight tough bosses with other players in your team, and collecting powerful deviants would not be a bigger problem.

Manage Your Sanity

There are a couple of status effects your character has in Once Human. When you are inside your base, you get -an 80% modifier. Basically, all the status effects drain really slowly. However, this changes when you step outside the base, do chores, collect resources, get hit while fighting monsters, and more.

All of this contributes to the loss of Sanity. When you start to lose your Sanity, this will affect the rest of your status effects. For example, your maximum health will be reduced, and this will be visible by a blue bar on the right side of the health bar.

The fastest and the best way to recover Sanity in Once Human is to craft a bed and sleep on it. It will take a minute of sleep for your character to fully recover Sanity and remove the negative status effects.

These were all the best tips and tricks that we’ve got to offer right now in our Once Human beginner’s guide. As a bonus tip, we suggest you also optimize your in-game settings to improve the game’s performance. If you’re looking for teammates, I suggest joining Once Human Discord and recruiting allies there.

Lunar items in Risk of Rain 2 are unique and hard-to-get items that stand out with a blue outline. These items can be obtained and used on a melee or a ranged build, but each item comes with a set of benefits and drawbacks. You cannot pick the Lunar items blindly, as it could ruin the overall build. Therefore, this guide aims to give you quick knowledge about the effects of all Lunar items in Risk of Rain 2 so you can balance out the negative effects with the positive ones.

All Lunar Items

Here is a complete list of all 22 Lunar items, including the four pieces of equipment and their effects in Risk of Rain 2

Effigy Of Grief (Equipment)

Effigy of Grief moon item in Risk of Rain 2 creates an area-of-effect that slows and reduces the armor of all entities within a 15m radius, and this includes players as well. With this equipment, you can place up to five Effigies, and as you move on to placing the sixth one, the first one will be replaced.

Using the Effigy of Grief is best if you are running with the ranged characters. However, you will get some poor results if you get this equipment on melee builds.

Spinel Tonic (Equipment)

The Spinel Tonic boosts all stats for 20 seconds. However, the downside is that you get a 20% chance of gaining the Tonic Affliction debuff afterward, which reduces your character stats by 5%.

On the surface, this Lunar item looks powerful but over time weakness your character. However, with the 57 Leaf Clover, this chance drops to 4% so there is still some room and opportunity to utilize the Spinel Tonic equipment and dish out high damage output.

Helfire Tincture (Equipment)

Helfire Tincture surrounds your character in a blue flame that lasts for 12 seconds max. This fire inflicts the hellfire debuff on all characters within a 15m radius.

If you can escape the circle or radius quickly, you can use the equipment to your advantage. Therefore, fast-moving survivors like Loader, and MUL-T can get benefit greatly from Helfire Tincture. However, the debuff deals damage five times per second and lasts for three seconds, so the slow-moving characters can die easily if they have this Lunar equipment.

Glowing Meteorite (Equipment)

Glowing Meteorite Moon item in Risk of Rain 2 rains meteors for 20 seconds, and it damages everyone, including you and your allies. Each meteor deals 600% damage but this damage falls off in the late-game due to no scaling factor.

This Lunar equipment is very useful for crowd control, especially during the boss fights when you have loads of enemies spawned on you. But you need fast-moving survivors. Therefore, the best characters for this item are Loader and Mercenary.

Visions of Heresy

Visions of Heresy Lunar item in Risk of Rain 2 replaces your primary skill with Hungering Gaze, and fires tracking shards that stick to enemies and explode after a second. This item is very lethal as it deals 120% base damage of your character on enemies.

Overall, the Visions of Heresy Lunar item shines the best when used with the ranged characters as it enhances on-hit item procs. Therefore, we recommend you pick Loader, Mercenary, or Acrid for this item.

Transcendence

Transcendence converts all your health into regenerating shields, leaving you with just one hit-point. This is a very high-risk-high-reward item, as you will heavily rely on the shields only that regenerate, and if you deplete these, you have no protection.

This Lunar item boosts your maximum health by 50%, but healing items do not work at all. This is why the Transcendence item is best for mobile characters like Acrid.

Strides of Heresy

This Risk of Rain 2 Moon Items replaces your utility skill with Shadowfade. The Strides of Heresy item makes you temporarily invulnerable, enhances movement speed by 30%, and heals you for 18.2% of your maximum health.

This Lunar item may seem overpowered, but it is not, as the close-quarters characters are best for this item only. You will put yourself in grave danger if you equip this item with a slow-moving character like Captain.

Stone Flux Pauldron

Stone Flux Pauldron is a double-edged sword item. This Lunar item doubles your health but halves your movement speed.

While the speed reduction is permanent and may seem like a severe drawback of equipping the Stone Flux Pauldron Lunar item, certain characters like Loader can negate this drawback with their increased movement speed.

Shaped Glass

Shaped Glass turns your character into a glass cannon build by doubling your base damage and at the same time, halving your maximum health.

This playstyle is not for the beginners. Sure, you can kill enemies easily due to a 2x damage boost from the Shaped Glass, but you also die easily due to a reduced health bar. Therefore, this Lunar item is ideal for ranged characters but risky for those in melee or close combat.

Purity

Purity Lunar item decreases all skill cooldowns by two seconds, and at the same time, it introduces an extra roll for negative random effects to your build. This Lunar item is beneficial for builds that rely heavily on luck to negate the downsides.

Mercurial Rachis

Mercurial Rachis spawns a Ward of Power randomly, buffing damage by 50% for all characters inside. This affects not only you and your allies but enemies also.

There is a certain level of high risk associated when you use the Mercurial Rachis Lunar item. You can potentially overpower a boss’ damage and can be killed in one-shot.

Therefore, the best case use of this Lunar item is while playing with the ranged characters like the Huntress and Railgunner who can strategically utilize the ward’s area without being overwhelmed by enemy mob.

Light Flux Pauldron

The Light Flux Pauldron is a Lunar item from the Survivors of the Void DLC. This item is perfect for high-attack speed builds, even with less damage per hit.

The Light Flux Pauldron Lunar item basically halves cooldowns while trading it for halving attack speed. This is best for skill-focused survivors such as Acrid and Loader. However, it will make a build highly unstable if you use it on survivors like the Railgunner or Huntress.

Hooks of Heresy

Hooks of Heresy is like a dark spirit that clings to your chosen survivor’s secondary skill. Consider picking this Lunar item if your secondary skill needs a boost before picking up Hooks to try out Slicing Maelstrom.

This Lunar item skill fires an area-of-effect projectile that heavily damages and immobilizes enemies in an area, making it effective for debuffing items.

Gesture of the Drowned

Gesture of the Drowned significantly reduces the equipment cooldowns but automatically triggers them as soon as they are ready.

This Lunar item effect is especially beneficial for equipment that provides passive bonuses, such as critical hit rate maximization, healing enhancements, or stat boosts. Otherwise, without passive stat bonuses, you will get very limited use out of this Lunar item in Risk of Rain 2.

Focused Convergence

Focused Convergence amps up the teleporter charging time by 30%. On the flip side, this Lunar item reduces the teleporter zone size by 50%, making it increasingly hard for you to stay inside it and keep the charging going.

This Lunar item is suicidal for ranged build characters. However, melee-build survivors like Captain and Mercenary will benefit greatly.

Eulogy Zero

The Eulogy Zero item is from the Survivors of the Void DLC and gives a 5% chance for spawned items to become random Lunar Items. While this is an excellent item to collect all the Risk of Rain 2 Moon Items or to complete the item Logbook, the tradeoff is not worth it.

Lunar Items are powerful but can destabilize your build if you keep on hoarding them blindly. You must only pick the Eulogy Zero Lunar item if you want more Lunar items without actually spending the Lunar Coins.

Essence of Heresy

The Essence of Heresy Lunar item replaces your special skill with Ruin. When your survivor deals damage, the Ruin stacks up for ten seconds. After that, activating this skill causes all accumulated Ruin stacks to explode, dealing significant damage to your target.

While this is a powerful Lunar item, stacking Essence of Heresy extends Ruin’s duration but, at the same time, it also increases the cooldown.

Egocentrism

Egocentrism is a Survivors of the Void DLC Lunar item that spawns homing bombs and deals significant damage to targets. For every 60 seconds, it converts one random item you carry into a bomb.

This Lunar item can potentially destroy your whole build, as you do not get to pick which item gets converted into a bomb. Therefore, go for this Lunar item if you have lots of items and their stacks.

Defiant Gouge

Defiant Gouge turns every shrine activation into a combat encounter, which is great if you want to farm gold after defeating enemies at the shrines.

However, when you stack more Defiant Gouge Lunar items, you will get to face an increased enemy difficulty. This eventually becomes a drag as you near the end-game and wish you never got the Defiant Gouge item in the first place.

Corpsebloom

Corpsebloom lunar item doubles the healing you receive, and at the same time, it also spreads it out over time, maxing at 10% of health per second.

While this is much-needed for characters like REX, who heavily rely on passive healing items, it generally reduces the healing efficiency of your survivor over time. However, if you pair this Lunar item with a Rejuvenation Rack, it will buff the healing you receive.

Brittle Crown

Equipping the Brittle Crown Lunar item gives you a 30% chance to get gold at every hit. However, the downside of this item is that you lose gold if you take a hit.

This Lunar item is best when you want to earn gold to unlock chests early in the run. However, it is risky for a tank or melee to build characters as you are very easy to get hit. Ranged survivors like Huntress and Railgunner benefit most due to easier dodging.

Beads of Fealty

The Beads of Fealty in Risk of Rain 2 have no immediate effect, yet it is an important Lunar item if you want to unlock a new ending. This will happen if you have the item in the inventory and then you obliterate yourself at the Obelisk.

After that, you will not die, and the run will not end. Instead, the game will transport you to a unique area where you face the Twisted Scavenger, a hidden final boss with four variants. When you defeat this boss, you earn 10 Lunar Coins and also unlock a special ending.

We hope you found our list of all Lunar Items in Risk of Rain 2 helpful. If there are any new Lunar Items added in future updates, we’ll be sure to add them here and keep this list updated.

The First Descendant gives you the option to pick a starting character at the beginning. After that, there is a very long grind to unlock each and every playable Descendant. This guide lists all the material costs that you need to put towards research in order to unlock all characters in The First Descendant.

How To Unlock More Descendants

After picking the starting Descendant, you will be stuck with him/her for a long time. Bunny will be one of the first characters you will get to unlock quickly in The First Descendant, as her missions start right after the intro mission.

Other than that, you will need to interact with Anais and check if you have the following required items available for each character to research and unlock:

• Enhanced Cells
• Stabilizer
• Spiral Catalyst
• Descendant Code

All Materials Required To Unlock Characters

All characters that you unlock in The First Descendant will require the four items we have listed above. Each item for a unique Descendant costs some material. We have listed here a complete list of material costs and how to get for each Descendant so you can unlock and play with them.

Bunny

Gley

Freyna

Sharen

Blair

Jayber

Lepic

Viessa

Ajax

Valby

Kyle

Yujin

Enzo

Esiemo

To unlock the Ultimate Descendant characters, you can either grind and collect their materials or simply buy them with money in The First Descendant.

Ultimate Lepic

Ultimate Viessa

Ultimate Gley

Ultimate Bunny

Ultimate Ajax

This is all you need to know in order to unlock all the characters in The First Descendant. If you want to read up on them in detail, here’s a detailed guide explaining The First Descendant characters. You can also spot their rankings against each other in our The First Descendant Tier List.

Leveling up your Descendant is as important as ranking up the Mastery in The First Descendant. Without the higher level, you will struggle to take down tough enemies and will die easily. This guide explains how to get Mastery XP and rank up in the game.

How To Rank Up Mastery

Mastery Rank is achieved by playing main or side missions, raising a gun’s proficiency, or leveling up your Descendant. All of these factors contribute towards earning the Mastery XP.

The Mastery Rank is visible below your Descendant level when you explore the ‘Inventory’ menu screen. As you accrue more XP, the bar will fill and eventually turn into a ‘Rank Up Available‘ message over the XP bar.

This means your Descendant is now ready to rank up to the Mastery level.

What To Do After ‘Mastery Rank Up Available’ Message?

You cannot rank up from the character inventory even if you see the ‘Rank Up Available’ message. For this, you will need to go back to Albion.

Once you are at Albion, visit the Arche Factor Manipulator on the East side. You can find a hand-print icon on the Albion’s map. You will find a giant mechanized hand beside the activation terminal.

Interact with the Prime Hands activation terminal and hover over the on-screen options and a shortcut scene will play. The mechanized hand will strengthen your Descendant as he or she ranks up the Mastery level.

Why Mastery Ranks Are Important

Mastery Rank benefits your character’s gear by increasing the following elements:

• Descendant Module capacity and slots
• Weapon Module capacity and slots
• Equipment inventory slots
• Consumable Inventory slots
• Shape Stabilizer inventory limit slots

Check out our The First Descendant tier list to decide which characters you should level up first. We also have a guide on XP and Mastery farm that you’ll find essential in leveling up your descendant.

Fire Knight’s Greatsword is a colossal sword in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree that scales with strength, dexterity, and faith stats. Like most weapons, you will need to defeat certain enemy types for them to drop weapons or armor, and it is the same case for Fire Knight’s Greatsword. This guide explains how you can get Fire Knight’s Greatsword in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree.

Fire Knight Location

To get Fire Knight’s Greatsword, you must repeatedly kill Fire Knight enemy types in the game. Typically, you will find various types of Fire Knights in the Shadow Keep region, each carrying unique single and double-handed weapons.

However, the chances of getting Fire Knight’s Greatsword from killing any Fire Knight is low. You will need to repeatedly defeat the enemy type that actually wields the Fire Knight Greatsword.

‘Storehouse, First Floor’ site of grace is the nearest point where you will find a Fire Knight wielding the Greatsword. Take the lift that you took before to reach here and go down. Farm the weapon here by killing the FireKnight repeatedly, and you have a high chance for Fire Knight Greatsword to drop.

Fire Knight’s Greatsword Stats

Before you can use Fire Knight’s Greatsword in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree efficiently, you must meet the following minimum requirements to wield it:

Weapon Skill

The Fire Knight Greatsword comes with the Stamp (Upward Cut). As with most colossal swords, this is a powerful weapon skill, especially against human-sized enemies. Strike an enemy with this skill, which will throw him away, dealing a lot of damage.

This skill is especially useful while fighting with Knights with shields and heavy weapons. You can control the one-versus-one fight by throwing them in the air. The weapon’s skill costs 5 FP; when you chain it, another 8 FP is consumed.

Check out our guide on how to transform into a dragon in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree. Or if you’re in the mood to test out your newly acquired Greatsword, I recommend visiting one of the remembrance bosses in the game.

The First Descendant gives players a choice of picking one starting character before the intro mission begins. You can see an overview of what each character does, but to help you decide which one to pick, we have this guide for you. This informative article explains all starting characters and their active and passive skills and tries to hint which playstyle will suit you so that you can make an informed decision in picking the best starting character in The First Descendant.

All Starting Characters

The First Descendant features the following three starting characters for you to pick up:

• Viessa
• Ajax
• Lepic

You will get locked out of picking any other character except for the starting one. You can start to buy or unlock more characters after completing the intro mission but that will take a long time. Therefore, it is important to select the best-starting character that suits your playstyle or approach toward the main and side missions in The First Descendant.

Why Pick Viessa?

Viessa uses the Chill attribute and freezes enemies at will. She plays as a Debuffer in a team and can control the crowd using her ice-based attack projectiles and zone-control attacks.

If you like to attract too much attention yourself, dividing and conquering the crowd, you should pick Viessa, as her icy powers not only look cool but deal a lot of damage, too.

All Skills

Should You Pick Ajax?

Ajax is the tank that uses Void Energy to soak the most damage in a squad. Using his various active skills, he can provide various types of shields/barriers to protect himself and his squadmates.

If you want to play as a support tank character in The First Descent, then Ajax is the best starting character for you.

All Skills

Should You Choose Lepic?

Lepic is the DPS character who uses the Fire attribute. He is the one-man army that can potentially destroy mobs and melt tanky foes easily.

Most of Lepic’s skills involve buffing his damage and skill ATK. If this playstyle interests you, then you should definitely pick Lepic in the game.

All Skills

These were all the best starting characters in the First Descendant. If you’re keen on learning about the other characters, check out our full guide on all the characters and their skills in The First Descendant. We’ve also got a tier list ranking all the characters of the game that you can check out.

If you’re encountering the out of video memory error in The First Descendant, we’ve also got an error-fix guide on that too.

Red Bear is an optional boss in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree. Hearing its name one might think it’ll be an encounter with a bear, but it’s actually a humanoid boss. He drops an exceptional armor set and a unique weapon that makes visiting and defeating him worth the time. This guide explains how to reach the Red Bear, the attack patterns, how to beat him, and the rewards you will get for the endeavor.

Red Bear Location

The Red Bear boss is located in the Northern Nameless Mausoleum. To reach here you will need to find the Spiritspring that can help you reach new heights while riding Torrent. However, the Spiritspring will not be accessible, and you must first break a certain rock to enable it.

From the ‘Castle Front’ site of grace, you will find this Spiritspring if you go North. Circling from the west of this location will reveal a white crystal-like rock, and breaking this will allow you to use the Spirintspring that will take you up the cliff and reach the Red Bear boss’s location.

How To Beat Red Bear

Red Bear is one of the Great Enemy Bosses in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree. He is an optional encounter that gives you a full armor set, a weapon, and a lot of runes if you manage to beat him.

Attack Patterns

Best Strategy

Most of the Red Bear’s attacks can be blocked, except for the Bear Roar spell, which deals a lot of poise damage and will eventually hit you once the stance is broken. If you are a ranged build character, then you must maintain distance, cast a spell, or use a ranged weapon to strike the boss and repeat the process.

For melee build characters, you must focus on blocking the Red Bear’s attacks first and strike after. His attacks are fast, so parrying him will be difficult.

Rewards

You will get the following rewards after defeating Red Bear in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree:

• 80,000 runes
• Red Bear’s Claw
• Fang Helm
• Iron Rivet Armor
• Iron Rivet Gauntlets
• Iron Rivet Greaves

If you like fighting optional bosses, you’ll love fighting the Golden Hippopotamus and the Blackgaol Knight in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree.

The Golden Hippopotamus is an optional boss in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree. Regardless of your end-game build, this boss hits hard, and you will have little to no space to strike back. This guide explains how to find and defeat Golden Hippopotamus in the game.

Golden Hippopotamus Location

You can reach Golden Hippopotamus after crossing the ‘Shadow Keep Main Gate’ site of grace. Exploring the location will lead you towards an elevator that stops at a big area in front of you covered with water.

As soon you enter this location, Golden Hippopotamus will wake up from sleep and come rushing at you, triggering the boss fight.

How To Beat The Golden Hippopotamus

Even though the Golden Hippopotamus is an optional boss, it is a very strong foe to beat. Most of the boss’s attacks hit hard and likely will kill you in two hits. Learning about the attack patterns should give you enough knowledge to take the fight head-on, counter the moves and emerge victorious.

Attack Patterns

Best Strategy To Beat Golden Hippopotamus

Beating the Golden Hippopotamus involves distracting. This can be achieved by bringing a summon with you or using a Spirit Ash such as the Mimic Tear.

An upgraded Mimic Tear will be much more helpful. All of your endgame gear, including weapons, shields, stats, and other items, will be used by Mimic Tear in the battle, aiding you side by side in defeating the Golden Hippopotamus.

Additionally, a 100 percent physical damage negation shield is a must-have for the Golden Hippopotamus boss fight. This is a large-sized boss in a small room. Dodging most of its AoE attacks is hard, but blocking them is very easy. Therefore, always run with a shield when you attempt the boss fight, regarding of your build.

When your summon has the boss’s attention, use this moment to deal as much damage as possible. After that, the boss will focus attention on you, and this is the time to soak all the damage by blocking.

Rinse and repeat this process, and the Golden Hippopotamus will be defeated in three to five minutes.

Rewards

Defeating the Golden Hippopotamus in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree will give you the following rewards:

• 200,000 runes
• Aspects of the Crucible: Thorns
• Two Scadutree Fragments

Check out our ranking of other bosses in Elden Ring Shadow of Erdtree DLC that drop remembrance. If you’d like to finish the DLC as quickly as possible, here is the order of Shadow of the Erdtree major bosses you need to beat to finish the DLC’s story.