Creatures and Bosses

Every field is home to three or four kinds of creature, and every land has a guardian in a lair. The Monster Book in the menu records each creature you defeat: its level, HP, EXP, weaknesses, drops and home.

Field creatures

• Passive or aggressive. In the first lands, such as Dewdrop Slime and Puffcap in Sunpetal Grove, creatures leave you alone until you strike them. From Deep Whisperwood on, Thornpelt Wolf and most creatures after it attack on sight.
• How they move. Walkers stay on their platform. Hoppers bounce, like Magmaw. Fliers drift and swoop, like Gloomwing Moth. Walking creatures do not climb ropes.
• Touch hurts. Walking into most creatures damages you, even when they are not attacking.

Elements

Creatures may be weak to some elements and resist others. The Monster Book shows both. A weakness takes more damage, and a resisted element does less.

Creature powers

From about level 22, many creatures carry a power. The Monster Book and the creature's look give it away, and an enraged creature glows red.

Elites

On fields of level 20 and up, every 150 kills on the map call an Elite. Everyone's kills count. The ELITE bar by the minimap shows how close the next one is. An Elite is bigger and brighter than the creature it comes from, hits harder, carries one extra power, and gives far more EXP and lumens. It always drops gear and sometimes drops enhancement stones. If nobody beats it, it leaves after 10 minutes.

How rare is a drop?

Every creature's page lists its drops with a word, and the same word shows on the item's page under "Dropped by". The game does not show exact chances, so use the words to judge what an item is worth.

Who picks up the loot

• Field creatures. For a few seconds after the kill, the drops belong to the hero who dealt the most damage. After that, anyone may pick them up. Your party may pick up your drops too, and so may their pets.
• Map bosses give loot to everyone who took part, each their own drops at their own feet. See [Boss rewards](#boss-rewards) below.
• Bosses, Elites and the Crowned keep your drops safe while you are down. If you die, the drops stay yours while you make your way back, and for a few seconds after you return. After about a minute they are open to anyone.
• Creatures that fly do not drop their loot into the gap they died over. It is tossed onto the ground you stand on, close to you.
• Quest items are rolled for each hero who owes the quest and hit the creature, or whose party did. They drop at your own feet, for you.
• The Crowned gives loot to every hero who dealt a fair share of the damage. Each of them gets their own drops, so nobody can steal them.

The Crowned

A Crowned giant is a field's most imposing creature, grown twice the size and named. It rises on a timer, about every 40 minutes on every field from Sunpetal Fields up. Kills do not call it. Nearby heroes are told when it appears, and it leaves if nobody takes it down. If its time runs out while heroes are still striking it, it stays for the fight until nobody has hit it for 10 seconds, and never more than a minute past its time. The World Map shows each field's clock, and its BOSSES tab lists them all.

A Crowned is a real boss fight: minutes solo, less with a party. It drops extra gear, enhancement stones and Kaleidoscopes on top of its usual drops, and deal a fair share of the damage to earn your own rolls. It can also drop its own signature accessory, found nowhere else.

Map bosses

Each land's guardian waits in a lair reached from a field. The main story leads you to most of them. Lairs are open to everyone and the guardian comes back after a wait, shown on the BOSSES tab of the World Map. A weekly Hard version of each is covered in Boss Lairs.

If the main story sends you to a boss below its level, you fight a private copy that hits softer and has less health. See Quests and Story. The shared lair is always the full boss.

Boss rewards

Nobody has to fight over a map boss. When one falls, everyone who took part gets their own drops, rolled for them and placed at their feet, with the same safety a boss kill always had while you are down. You took part if you dealt a fair share of its HP, or if you are in the party of someone who did and were in the lair, fighting with them: the healer and the tank count, a hero parked in a corner does not. Your drops are sized for your own level, whoever landed the last hit. Boss EXP is shared by damage dealt, and a party shares it the usual way.

Each hero's first 10 map-boss kills of the day pay in full: your own loot and your boss EXP. The World Map's BOSSES tab shows the count ("Boss rewards today 4/10"), and each kill tells you where you stand. After the tenth, you can still join and help, and the kill still counts for your quests and your Monster Book, but the boss drops no loot for you and pays the EXP of one ordinary creature of its level. The count resets at the daily reset (UTC). A hero at 10/10 who helps kill a map boss sees "Daily boss rewards 10/10. Resets in Xh". Once you have claimed all ten, the BOSSES tab also shows when the count resets. Only open-world map bosses, the shared lairs on each channel, count toward the ten. Weekly Hard lairs, dungeons, raids, party quests and story boss fights never count and are never reduced by it, even at 10/10. Ten is more than a hero on one channel can take in an evening, so you will only notice it if you make a day of hopping channels after every boss.

The Glass Queen, the Hollow Sun, the Wreck Tyrant and the First Dark also enrage when low and grow a barrier, like the creatures above.

Reading an attack

Every creature attack winds up before it lands. A crouch, a charging glow, or a shape painted on the ground marks it. Learn the six kinds:

• Melee: a swing or bite in front of it. Step out of its reach.
• Shot: a projectile that flies out of it. Move out of its path.
• Area: a marked patch of ground that blasts. Leave the marked shape.
• Charge: it gathers itself, then rushes at you. Get out of its line.
• Slam: a heavy blow that shakes the ground near it. Keep your distance.
• Summon: it calls helpers. Decide whether to clear them or stay on the boss.

Boss attacks wind up for about a second or more, so a clear tell always comes first. Many hits can also inflict a status effect, which Status Effects explains.

The Unlit fields

Every Unlit field has a Crowned too. See The Unlit for the lands and The Long Shadow for the event that makes them rise faster.