McFluffin has been playing and making content for Last Epoch since Alpha. He has also been a Community Tester since the implementation of the program, which has allowed him the opportunity to provide feedback to Eleventh Hour Games on pre release builds since 2020. With degrees in both science and philosophy, McFluffin enjoys applying the analytical processees he's learned to build making, efficiency, and a better understanding of the inner workings of the games he plays. Despite all of that, his favorite thing to do is be weird on Twitch while hanging out with his friendly and welcoming community. Shade of Orobyss is a unique fight in the Monolith of Fate. Instead of requiring stability to fight him, he can show up on any timeline as an Echo. Killing him either increases or decreases the amount of corruption for the timeline depending on how far he was from the center and how much corruption the Timeline already has.
He has the largest skill set of any boss in the game and selects a small number of them for each fight, providing a different challenge every time you face him.
In this guide we cover the rewards, boss mechanics, and provide a strategy for defeating this boss.
Rewards
Shade is unlike other Timeline bosses in his reward structure. While he does have his own pool of uniques he does not offer any blessings, instead providing the player with Corruption for the Timeline that increases difficulty but also rewards.
Corruption
The Corruption mechanic provides a way to 'juice' a Timeline by increasing health and damage of all enemies in the Timeline but also increasing Item Rarity and XP gained. The amount of corruption received is determined by three factors:
- How far away Shade spawns from the center of the Timeline.
- How many times you've killed the Timeline Boss since you last fought the Shade.
- How much Corruption you have in other Timelines.
Shades farthest from the center provide the most Corruption, while Shades near the center can give negative Corruption. Killing the timeless boss provides Gaze of Orobyss, a resource that increases the Corruption from the next Shade you fight (provided the Shade has positive Corruption). All Gaze is lost if you die to the Shade. He also provides a bonus if you have higher Corruption in other Timelines, allowing you to increase the Corruption of lower timelines faster.
Find out more how the Shade affects Corruption in our Monolith Beginners Guide, Empowered Monolith Guide and Advanced Monolith Strategies
Uniques
Shade can drop 5 different Boss exclusive Uniques:
- Siphon of Anguish is a common drop. It can drop from any Shade regardless of Corruption.
- Stymied Fate is an uncommon drop from level 60 or higher Shades. it can drop at any level or Corruption. Drop rates are improved by corruption.
- Apathy's Maw is an uncommon drop that requires a level 65 or higher Shade with at least 50 Corruption. Drop rates are improved with higher Corruption. We recommend farming this on Empowered.
- Shattered Chains is a rare drop that can only be found in Empowered with at least 120 Corruption. Drop rates are improved with higher Corruption.
- Omnis is a very rare drop that can only be found in Empowered with at least 200 Corruption. Drop rates are improved with higher Corruption.
See the Monolith Timeline Guide for more info on Corruption.
Boss Mechanics
Shade's mechanics are unusual. Instead of having a set list of skills he has a pool of skills to draw from and will use a select number during any fight. This makes each fight feel different from previous ones and also creates a challenge to learning the fight. However, his skillset is not completely random. For each fight Shade will drop skills following this structure:
- Both skills from one of five Damage Types (Fire, Lightning, Cold, Physical, Poison)
- Three Void Skills
- One Movement Skill
- Basic Melee Attack
Below we have broken up the skills into their corresponding types to clarify what combinations you may be dealing with.
Fire
Flamethrower
Shade creates a ball of fire in front of him. After a short period he creates a cone of fire in the direction he was facing that does moderate damage.
Starburst
Shade creates three balls of fire on the ground in random positions throughout the arena. These balls have a dark circle around them and after a period of time the balls burst, doing high Fire Damage within the area of the circle.
Lightning
Lightning Bolt
Shade channels for a short period and then fires a single bolt of lightning in front of him, doing moderate Lightning Damage.
Spark
Shade channels and then after a short period releases four balls of lightning that travel in random directions. Each ball Shreds Lightning Resistance and does moderate Lightning Damage that increases in damage over its duration.
Cold
Orbiting Comet
A large number of projectiles circle Shade from multiple distances away, dealing high Cold Damage that increases over its duration. Comets do not circle within Melee Range of Shade.
Frozen Ice Storm
Shade fires a slow moving, high Cold Damage projectile that grows in size and increases in damage over its lifetime.
Physical
Blood Effigy
Shade creates a copy of himself in the center of the ring. The copy does not move but deals Physical Damage to the player that increases over the duration of the skill. Effigy will not despawn and must be killed, meaning its damage will eventually increase to certain death if it isn't dealt with.
Blood Orb
Shade spawns three orbs that seek out the player and explode on impact, dealing high Physical Damage. They will eventually despawn if they do not reach the player in time.
Poison
Poison Puke
Shade rears back and then fires a conal projectile in front of him that does high Poison Damage, increases in damage over its duration and applies Poison.
Toxic Spread
Shade creates several Poison pools in front of him in a line formation that do high Poison Damage. The damage increases over the duration of the skill.
Void
Concentrated Burst
Shade creates several conal AoEs originating from his body. After a short period these explode dealing very high Void Damage.
Circle of Death
Shade creates several large AoE circles that explode for moderate Void Damage in quick succession. The circle farthest from Shade is created first while the one closest is created last.
Bursting Void
Shade creates a large circle at the player's feet that quickly explodes, dealing moderate Void Damage.
Crystal Crush
Shade creates a large crystal over his head and quickly slams it down in front of him, dealing moderate Void Damage.
Black Hole Decay
Shade creates three lines of Black Holes that project outward from his body. Each Black Hole does high Void Damage that increases over its duration.
Absorbing Meteors
Shade becomes a black hole that pulls in meteors from off screen and absorbs them. Each meteor can hit the player, dealing moderate Void Damage.
Mini Black Holes
A large number of small Black Holes appear from off screen and slowly seek out the player. If a Black Hole touches the player it will explode after a short duration, dealing moderate Void Damage.
Melee Attack
Shade swipes at the player in Melee Range, dealing low Physical and Void Damage. He will always have access to this skill regardless of what other skills he has.
Falling Meteor
Shade creates a very large meteor in front of him that slowly falls to the ground, dealing high Void Damage that increases over its duration.
Exploding Black Hole
Three black holes are created at random places in the arena that deal high Void Damage and increase in size and damage over their duration. When they expire they explode and fire projectiles in a star pattern that deal low Void Damage.
Void Rift
Shade forms a ball of Void and then fires it at the player. The projectile deals high Void Damage. Upon reaching the end of the arena, the projectile is teleported through a rift back into the arena and targets the player a second time.
Void Meteor
Shade shouts 'The end comes!' signaling the start of this attack. Shortly after, a very large meteor flies across the arena in a telegraphed direction, dealing extremely high Physical and Void damage. This will one shot most builds!
Summon Tentacles
Shade summons three Tentacles which have a line shaped Melee Attack that does moderate Physical and Void damage and also has high Stun Chance. The Tentacles can be killed.
Summon Eyes
Shade will summon five Eyes that will continuously fire a beam of moderate Void Damage at the player at the same time. The Eyes can be killed.
Piercing Void
Shade quickly fires a projectile at the player that does low Void Damage.
Movement
Dark Warp
Shade warps from his current position to nearby the player.
Oblivion Leap
Shade leaps towards the player's current position. Upon landing he slams the ground, dealing moderate Physical and Void damage.
Oblivion Dash
Shade runs at a high speed towards the player, dealing low Void Damage if he collides with the player.
Void Reform
Shade explodes his body at his current position and reforms it on the player's position, creating a second explosion. Each explosion deals moderate Void Damage.
Void Rush
Shade slowly moves towards the player's position with a large Void Barrier in front of him. The barrier Deals moderate Void Damage.
Modifiers
When you go into a timeline boss fight, you carry any modifiers that are active from running echoes. Some of these modifiers can be especially dangerous, while some can actually bring value with little or no downside.
Avoid These Modifiers
- Critical Strike Avoidance - If you're a Crit based build and have sufficient Crit to be noticeable.
- Enemies have +X Critical Strike Chance - avoid these if you don't have capped Critical Strike Avoidance.
- Enemies have a chance to Dodge - any builds that rely on Hitting the enemy (including DoT builds that apply Ailments on Hit) should avoid this modifier (except for Rogues with Focus Fire).
- Enemies heal if they have not been damaged recently - There are skill combinations that make it much harder to maintain damage on Shade for any builds that don't apply ailments.
- Frenzy and Haste + Enrage - Individually these are manageable (although you may still want to avoid them if you can). Together they can make a boss very difficult to deal with as they significantly speed up the mechanics of the fight. Don't take these unless you're comfortable with the mechanics and confident that the additional speed of the fight won't be a problem.
- Increased X Damage (i.e. Physical, Elemental, Void)- Since there's no way of knowing ahead of time what version of Shade you get it will always be risky to increase a particular damage type. Shade always has Void Damage so you can be sure it will scale some of his abilities.
Take These Modifiers
- Anything that affects Rare enemies - Bosses are not considered Rare enemies, so those modifiers do not apply to the encounter. However, the rewards do. This is an easy way to boost the value of a fight for any build without increasing difficulty.
- Enemies have +X Critical Strike Chance when Crit capped - If you're Crit capped, then this modifier provides no extra difficulty.
- Critical Strike Avoidance on a DoT build - DoTs can't Crit, so this won't matter.
- Enemies have a X% chance to receive a Glancing Blow when hit on a DoT build - Similar to Crits, Glancing Blows only apply to Hits.
- Enemies have a chance to Dodge on a build that uses a DoT skill - Ailments generally need to Hit to be applied, so don't take this if you're relying on Hits to stack your DoTs. However, some skills have the DoT tag, meaning they don't Hit. DoTs can't be Dodged, so your damage is unaffected.
Boss Strategy
Due to the nature of how Shade chooses his skills it's impossible to come up with a general strategy for every encounter. He's a single phase fight and has all of his abilities available and at full strength from the start. The key to defeating Shade is knowing which of his abilities are the most dangerous and learning to avoid them. We cover the skills to watch out for along with some general strategies to deal with them, broken down by damage type.
Fire
Flame Thrower can be tanked, but Starburst is deadly. The circle telegraphs are hard to see and can overlap. As soon as you see the three balls of Fire on the ground identify where the circles are and move away from them until they explode.
Lightning
Lightning Bolt can be tanked. Spark can also be tanked at first, but becomes more powerful over its duration and it is possible to get hit by multiple Sparks in quick succession. When Shade first creates the Sparks start looking for a safe spot away from them quickly.
Cold
Both Orbiting Comet and Frozen Ice Storm can be deadly due to the increased damage they receive over their duration. Frozen Ice Storm is easy to avoid since it moves in a straight line. As soon as Shade uses it move away from the area. For Orbiting Comet you need to stand in melee range of Shade to avoid the projectiles. This can be difficult to maintain when dealing with his other attacks. Fortunately the comets aren't very dense so there are openings but if you do have to move out to avoid something make sure to get back in melee range quickly or else trying to dodge comets and Shade's other attacks together can quickly overwhelm you.
Physical
Both Blood Effigy and Blood Orbs are dangerous abilities that need to be accounted for whenever Shade uses them. Blood Effigy has unavoidable damage that ramps up quickly so it needs to be killed immediately. Blood Orbs seek out the player and can explode all at one or in quick succession. They can be dealt with either by avoiding them for long enough that they explode away from you or by taking out one at a time so that the damage is manageable.
Poison
Both Poison Puke and Toxic Spread are deadly and kill you quickly. The best strategy for dealing with a Poison Shade is to continuously strafe around him throughout the fight. Doing so will prevent either skill from being dropped directly on top of you.
Void
- Shade's most dangerous skill is Void Meteor which has a short telegraph and will one shot most builds. In order to reliably avoid the meteor, listen to what Shade says. If he shouts "The end comes!" be prepared to run or use a movement ability to get out of the telegraph. The direction of the meteor is random, so you need to really pay attention in order to determine which way to move and get out in time.
- Concentrated Burst is a dangerous skill but easy to avoid. The challenge is when he uses multiple abilities stacked on top of it. Concentrated Burst significantly decreases the size of the arena, so you need to keep track of his other abilities and make sure there's an area of the arena you can move to that will avoid Burst as well as his other abilities.
- Black Hole Decay is a quick killer for anyone who stands in it. Fortunately it's easy to avoid.
- The damage from Absorbing Meteors isn't especially high, but players who can't consistently avoid the meteors run the risk of being hit by multiple meteors in quick succession. The risk of being hit is higher the closer you are to Shade. When he uses this skill stop attacking him and give yourself some space to dance around the meteors.
- Mini Black Holes are similar to Blood Orbs, but there are a lot more of them and they have a short delay before they explode. The best way to deal with them is to set off a few at a time by running right through them without stopping. This will cause them to explode behind you. Rinse and repeat until all of the Black Holes are detonated.
- Falling Meteor is deadly to anyone who stands in it. Move out of the way until it expires.
- Exploding Black Hole has two components, but only one Black Hole is dangerous so don't stand in it. The projectiles do very little damage.
- Void Rift does a lot of damage for such a quick reaction skill. When he fires the projectile look for the rift in the arena and strafe around it and at a distance to avoid being hit by the projectile when it comes through the rift.
- Summon Tentacles and Summon Eyes aren't difficult on their own, but they can stack with other abilities and overwhelm. Kill them quickly to avoid having too much to worry about.
- All of Shade's movement abilities are not very threatening and only used when the player is out of melee range. Oblivion Leap, Void Reform, and Void Rush all have telegraphs that can be easily avoided.
Summary
- Shade of Orobyss must be killed in order to 'juice' a timeline by increasing its corruption. Decreasing corruption is also accomplished by killing him.
- He has his own set of uniques, most of which have a corruption requirement to drop.
- Shade has 30 skills he can draw from, choosing only a few for each fight.
- He also chooses an additional damage type to go along with Void Damage, and two of his skills are drawn from that damage type.
- Given how many damage types Shade can pull from what resistances you need is directly tied to which version you get. You always need Void Resistance and you never need Necrotic Resistance. Everything else is luck of the draw.
Video
Coming soon!
Credits
Written by McFluffin.
Reviewed by Lizard_IRL, Aristotelian.
Changelog
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