The fantastic Rogue-likeDead Cellsis filled with different biomes, enemies and a wide variety of different weapons. However, the main challenge in the game will often come in the form of the bosses, and while there aren’t that many, the one you are most likely to struggle with is The Hand Of The King.
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Considering every run will start from the beginning down in the cells, it can be quite a test of endurance and skill just to get to the boss fight, so it’s all the more useful to have a few tips and tricks up your sleeve.
How To Get To The Boss
Both the King and The Hand Of The King can be found in theThrone Room.
There arethree separate areasthat will lead you to the boss fight:
However, theDerelict Distilleryis only unlocked as a route to the Throne Room after you have already been there, and theGuardian’s Havenis a route only accessible throughDLC content. This means that your most common route of getting to the boss fight will be through theHigh Peak Castle.
Once you enter the High Peak Castle biome, you will need to kill at leasttwo elite enemies, which will each drop aCastle Keythat can be used to unlock the gates blocking off the exit.
Boss Moveset
The Hand Of The King will use aSymmetrical Lanceas his main weapon, which is good at hitting wide areas, making it difficult to dodge some attacks. He also has plenty of other tricks up his sleeve.
Phase One
For his first phase, his moves are pretty limited.
He has one attack where he will throw out a total ofsix bombsall aimed at you, and will explode very quickly.
This attack can be dealt with easily enough as the bombs can beblocked,parried,deflected, anddodge rolled, making them an easy enough attack to avoid as long as you pay attention to all bombs.
He also does asweep with his lancein this phase, but there is a noticeableaudio prompt of him groaning, giving you ample time to prepare before he performs the attack.
After you take out about15% of his total health bar, he will start tosummon a wide range of different enemies, that will change with each run of the boss. The Hand Of The King isinvincibleduring this section and will move away from the arena so that you have an opportunity to deal with all the enemies before he returns to the fight.
Make sure youkill these enemies quickly. If you are too slow, he will return to the fight, and you will have to fight him and the remaining enemies together.
Some of the possible enemies that he is more likely to summon include; theInquisitor, theDisgusting Worm, and theGrenadier.
Once you increase the difficulty of the game, the fight will immediately start in phase two.
Phase Two
For this second phase, The Hand Of The King willkeep all the previous moves from the first phasebut will add several more attacks to his moveset.
A lot of these new moves are heavy swings and charges coming your way. The main thing to focus on is to not get pushed back into thespike trapsat each side of the fighting area, and the most effective way to dodge the attacks and deal damage is tobait out an attack and then jump behind him to punish.
With that being said, he does a three-hit combo with his lance, where the second attack will hit both in front and behind him, so be careful not to get caught out on it while trying to punish his attacks.
There will also be a point wherethree red flagswill fall from the sky. You will havesix seconds to destroy them, otherwise, they will explode in a decently large area and do a lot of damage if they hit you.
attempt to destroy all the flags, but The Hand Of The King will still be fighting you whilst this happens, so it may be easier to just destroy two and then evade the final flag.
Once he reaches about40% of his health, he will summon enemies once again, but this time there will betwo elite enemiesthat will vary again with each run along with the other enemies. However, like the first time, the boss will not attack you and you will have some time to clean the stage before he returns to the fight.
Final Phase
There is onlyone new attackadded for this final phase, along with a slight variation for his charge attack where he will simply do it a second time.
For his new attack, he will move to the centre of the arena and jump into the air as he charges up the attack, slamming to the ground, sending rocks flying, and dealing massive damage to you.
The main way to avoid this attack is byblockingas itlasts a little too long to be able to jump or roll through. If you have any abilities that give youextra healthor make youinvulnerable, this will be the attack to save them for.
Tips and Tricks
One of the hardest things about the fight is howcompactit is. There is barely any room to escape The Hand Of The King, however, you’re able to also use this to your advantage.
Having weapons and effects that leavepoison cloudsorfire on the floorwill be incredibly useful as theystack quicklyand will easily hit the boss. Of course, attacks that have awide AOEare all going to be effective, allowing you to just shoot your attacks without having to think as much about aiming, allowing you to focus more on staying alive.
You can also have traps like theCleaverto do constant chip damage to him.
Hischarge attack will destroy any items on the floor, so try to save your items for after he has charged.
Shields are incredibly usefulfor blocking a lot of his attacks, including the massive attack in his final phase, and a lot of his attacks can beparriedas well.
Always stay on the move. His attacks come out fast and you need to be able to react quickly to evade them, attempt to work in some dodge rolls whilst in the air to give yourself that little edge in manoeuvrability, as it is a decently long fight and you do not have a lot of health, and the Hand Of The King is so aggressive it can be hard to find an opening to heal up.
Rewards
After this gruelling battle, you will unlock the ability todetach your head from your body, allowing you to access a few more areas of the world and unlock some more items to use for future runs.
As for rewards, you will get hisSymmetrical Lance, which you can use on the following run, and you will also get theTeluric Shockpower skill.
There are alsosix different outfitsthat you can unlock from the boss. You can get five by beating it on eachBSC difficulty level, and you unlock another by beating itflawlessly.
Once you beat the boss, it isnot the end of the game, there is still a lot more to uncover by increasing the BSC and the true ending is still a way away.
