[Guide] How to get the fifth boss cell, some basic info.

[krobloons]

How to get the 5th (fifth) boss cell

(Not sure if this belongs somewhere else? General discussion didn't feel right but I can repost it over there if that's where I should be. Thank you!!)

I've been playing this game a lot recently. Probably way too much. As a result, I managed to nab my fifth and final boss cell a few days ago. I was lucky that I had a few people to guide me in the right direction in a lot of cases, but I've noticed there's a distinct lack of information about the fifth boss cell. Maybe that's because I'm just not looking hard enough, so I apologize if that's the case. I decided I wanted to try and put a little bit of credible info out there for anyone who's looking to get into Hell, and a couple of subjective pointers that may or may not help you with your own run. I didn't do things the most efficient or effective way, I'm still kind of a noob to this game, having started playing it a little less than a month ago, and playing it almost completely blind, so please let me know if you see anything wrong and I'll correct it. I was also considering doing a small video to go over some of these details, but I don't know how necessary that would be.


I don't know if spoilers technically apply here, but I'll just throw it out there that the process to acquire the 5th cell is a bit different from previous cells, and as such something could be spoiled to you - if you don't want to know anything about a new area or new boss, then stop!

Hard facts about getting into the Cavern and acquiring the fifth boss cell:

• The fifth cell is acquired from the new boss, the Giant, found beyond the Cavern. The Cavern can initially only be accessed through the Graveyard, and requires you to run a key from the beginning of the game.
  
  
• As soon as you beat the Giant on 4BC, you will get the fifth boss cell permanently. That's it - you don't need to progress any further through the game from that point, so don't be afraid to use all of your flasks on the Giant. The Hand of the King is 100% unnecessary for progression in 4BC mode. (I think he has costumes, though)
  
  
• Once you've beaten the Giant boss once, you open up a 3BC door in the Slumbering Sanctuary that accesses the Cavern directly. I'm not 100% sure on this but I've heard there's also a door in the Forgotten Sepulcher that accesses the Giant's haven directly, also open once you've beaten the boss once.
  
  
• The key to the Cavern is in the blown-up door right after the starting gear area. You'll need to launch your Homunculus across the lava pit, hop up into a small room, activate a couple of pressure switches, then jump across a couple lava pits to grab the key. Try to avoid taking damage at this point if you're going to try this on a difficulty without flask recharge stations - don't be afraid to restart, the lava will probably cut your health in half.
  
  
• You lose the key every time you die, so don't forget to run back in and grab it - I wasted way too much time restarting runs because I realized by the time I reached the Ossuary, I was super keyless. Also - once you unlock the Cavern once, it stays permanently unlocked. I recommend doing a run through of the Cavern and the Giant boss at least once on 0BC.

If anyone can think of any other hard facts to add to that list up there, let me know. So that's what you need to know prior to fighting him. As for fighting him, I'll try to summarize his attacks as best as I can, but this is where I feel like a video might be helpful. If people actually think that would be a productive/helpful thing, I'd gladly put one together.

The Giant boss - a summary:

• New boss, completely new style. We've got another Conjuncitivius-style boss that takes up a good portion of your screen. He has two hands that produce a series of attacks, with a decent amount of wind-up time and some identifiable tells that you can learn over a few attempts.
  
  
• Smack the hands enough, and his eyeball pops out - you'll be able to jump on the hand that you brought to 0 HP and use it as a stand to wail away at the weak spot. You'll get maybe 5 seconds of wail-time before he sucks the eye back in, but if you pass a certain HP threshold, he'll do it early (seems to be something like 75%/50%/25% hp intervals or close to that)
  
  
• His fist attacks do about 10k per hit, with no damage reduction (or very little). I'm not sure about his projectiles but they are not significant.
  
  
• He'll introduce a new attack into his arsenal the first two intervals, so be ready.

The attacks.

1. Punch - one of his hands will clench, drop to the ground, and sweep across the arena. This attack can be dodged or parried.
   
   
2. Sharp shooty things - one of his hands will fire a barrage of projectiles in a pattern - either 3 vertical lines or a diagonally-oriented array. This can be dodged, and up until his 2nd phase, it is fairly easy to simply jump through the shapes. Parrying also works.
   
   
3. Groundpound - one of his hands will begin following your character around, raising into the air while doing so. It will peak and then fall onto the spot underneath, sending out a shockwave along the arena that will extend fully in both directions. The fist can be avoided by dodging to the left or right as the fist drops, then jumping diagonally away from the hand to avoid the shockwave. Neither of thesve attacks can be parried.
   
   
4. Really Annoying Groundpound - not 100% sure if this is an attack he always has, or one that he develops as he goes on in the fight, but I feel like he's done it in all phases to me, so I would just expect it at all times. Occasionally, he will move his hand to the right side of the arena, then proceed to pound the ground every several feet across the entire floor. Each pound will create a shockwave. This attack is difficult to avoid and will just take practice.
   
   
5. Phase 2 - Laser Eye Trench - After getting his health down enough, he'll add this attack to his arsenal, and usually combine it with sharp shooty things. He'll create two laser beams from his eyes, aimed outwards from the arena, and swing them inwards, burning everything it touches. It will leave a small untouched area in the exact middle of the arena, so if you stand in the middle every time, you won't be touched. The issue becomes avoiding the projectiles from his sharp shooty attack while standing dead still in place - this is where parrying his projectiles becomes very important. You will have difficulties jumping around them.
   
   
6. Phase 2 - Sharp shooty circle - he'll raise a hand in the air and shoot projectiles in a circular pattern across the entire arena. Can be parried if you're not directly underneath them. Might not be a phase 2 attack, but I've only ever seen him do it once, so it's a unicorn to me.
   
   
7. Phase 3 - Falling stalactites - he'll put his hands together in the center of the arena and do a double ground pound, which creates a shockwave you'll want to jump over, and drops randomly placed stalactites all over the arena. If you stand on the edge of the arena on either side, you shouldn't need to move much, but you may need to occasionally jump out over the lava. It's really easy to get overwhelmed in this phase because he'll usually get at least one attack in there while these are falling, but standing on the edge of the arena will typically keep you safe.

Please let me know if I missed anything!

Finally, I'll end this post with some conjecture and opinion - stuff that I personally think could help you in your run, but that others may disagree with me on.

Tips and tricks:

• Legendary Forge - the big one. Upgrade it as MUCH AS YOU CAN. Get ++ maxed out, get some points into S grade. As long as you have at least 5% in your S grade forge, you can get S grade stuff. This will be 100% crucial to a successful run, and if you've made it this far without finishing the ++ forge, you're a god, now calm down and make the game a little easier on yourself, leave some tail for the rest of us.
  
  
• Custom Mode - tricky one, I won't go into this much because I feel like a lot of people may see it as almost cheating. Custom Mode, unlocked by killing an elite in the Ramparts, will let you pick and choose what equipment you can find in a run (among many other things). You can use this to toggle off every item that would hinder you in your progress - you can even go as far as to turn off everything but a few items, so that you just keep finding the same 3 or 4 things, over and over. It can drive you crazy, never seeing any fresh loot out there, so be careful.
  
  
• Brief enemy strats - There are a few problem enemies you’ll run into along your route, and I will say that shields will make most of them much easier. A couple of major ones to note, starting from the beginning -
  
  Kunai guys (invisible enemies) - use your homunculus to draw them to you, and attack where they’ll teleport to you. You can spam parry their projectiles sorta easily.
  
  Failed Experiments (Frankenstein) - they have a delay between when they teleport in and when they can attack - use it to wind up an attack on them. Can be kited easily. If you parry their 4-hit combo, he will pause and continue as though he hadn’t been parried, so careful!
  
  Bombers (flying steampunk guys) - try to bait them into a ground pound and dodge roll them, then wail away when they’re on the ground next to you.
  
  Arbiters (glowing hand projectile guys) - my least favorite enemy of all time. Don’t panic, try to homunculus them from range if you can, and parry them otherwise. Make sure you aren’t directly below the projectiles and that you are at and angle facing them. You can reflect the barrel they drop by simply parrying it before it explodes. Shields make these guys easier!
  
  Golems (huge guys in Sanctuary) - 2 powerful grenades will usually wipe them out. If they get sight of you, they will teleport you to them and deliver a punch that will typically drop you to 1HP. It can be parried, with nerve-wracking timing. Try to hit them hard before they see you and initiate an attack.
  
  Demons (flying imps) - they will start attacking you if you approach them regardless of walls or floors. Try to fight them one by one, bait them into a melee attack and then hit them hard. Projectiles can be blocked but can be risky.
  
  Big ol rock dudes in the caverns - they cannot be damaged from behind! Only the front! Keep it in mind, they aren’t ridiculously hard to fight but you’ll need to make sure you hit them head on.
  
  
  
• Scrolls - Survival is probably the best bet for a successful run. You've got a pretty healthy amount of melee and ranged weapons to pick from, as well as Powerful Grenades (which can carry you through 95% of your run), Tonics (which can carry you through the last 5%), and a pretty good amount of HP to boot. I recommend aiming for just under 30 Survival by the end of your run, with 4-7 points in Brutality and Tactics. My winning build was 4-5-29, or something right around there.
  
  
• Mutations - there are a lot of flavors here, so I'll just make my strong recommendation for Extended Healing (Survival) and Emergency Triage (Colorless). The effects stack, and you get an 85% instant-cast HoT flask that grants 3 secs of invulnerability. Combine that with the mutation that makes cooldowns diminish with every parry (forgot the name ach) and a Powerful Grenade, and you can basically spam 'nade him every time he throws out projectiles. There are certainly a lot better mutations, and if you're going into the fight extremely low on HP, you could give Masochist a whirl.
  
  
• Equipment - So this is where I feel like playstyle and comfort level comes into play a lot, and a lot of people will find success with different setups. My winning build was very un-synergistic - Explosive Crossbow for early game and Giantkiller for late game (I found one in the Slumbering Sanctuary and equipped it before leaving), Rampart shield, 1 Powerful Grenade and 1 Tonic. Nothing special on the necklace. Giantkiller was dealing maybe 45k on crits, not 100% sure on that though.
  
  
• Explosive Crossbow/Giantkiller - Early game, you can just lay into everything with the Xplosive Xbow and as long as your survival is up to snuff, you'll have very little troubles. Add Powerful Grenades to the mix and you shouldn't be taking damage unless you do a silly thing, or get really unlucky in some capacity. Lategame, grab a Giantkiller when you start seeing them level 9 and above. This weapon always deals crits to bosses and elites, and reaches the damage cap pretty fast.
  
  
• Rampart Shield - Holy crap this thing's so good. 3 sec invuln shield every time you parry. So basically, every time the Giant does a punch attack, you get a 3 sec invuln shield. Very helpful. Runner-up for good Giant shields: Punishment, Bloodletter shields.
  
  
• Prwful Grenade/Tawnic - Grenades will one-shot everything if your survival is high enough. Two grenades with even limited survival will carry you all the way to the end, and make certain trouble enemies much, much easier. If you find a tonic in the Cavern, TAKE IT WITH YOU. Maybe even nab one from the Slumbering Sanctuary if you feel comfortable roughing it in the Cavern with one bomb, but that can be a less-than-fun time. Powerful Grenade has a large enough radius to hit everything in the Giant fight that can be hit at all times, so it's basically free damage at the press of a button. Tonic gives you a 3 sec invuln shield and a pretty substantial heal with high survival (can be as effective as a flask), which gets refilled every time you use a flask. If you weave it into your flask healing well enough, you can maintain a safe HP pool for the majority of the fight (assuming you take damage of course).
  
  
• Route - Promenade > Ossuary > Black Bridge > Slumbering Sanctuary >3BC Door to the Cavern
  
  
• Playstyle - slow. Go for the 30 streak in Prom, the 60 in Ossuary, and try to no-hit the Concierge. Look for challenge runes and take every one you can. Take every cursed chest, but slow down once you hit the Sanctuary, and only take chests when you're 100% certain you can clear a curse easily. Map ahead in the Sanctuary and Cavern - there can be lots of troublesome traps and mobs that can surprise you and put your run down fast. The Ossuary can be pretty safe to get cursed in, but you'll need to be careful of those sentinel statue things. 2x Powerful Grenade with about 14 Survival in the Ossuary will make it a cake walk, with basically no ranged enemies to worry about.
  
  
• The Giant Fight - Every time you block a punch, swing on a hand. When you pop his eye out, get a 4-hit combo going with the Giantkiller, the 3rd and 4th hits do tremendous damage. If you get dropped below 50% HP, pop your Tonic, and if you get dropped below 50% again, pop your flask. You may need to do this a little sooner depending on your HP pool. His attacks hit for close to 10k, so use your best judgment. Take the fight slow - don't move too much, read his attacks and respond to them. He doesn't pull any fake-out stuff, he's very cut-and-dry and if you can learn his moves, you can control the fight pretty well. Take advantage of Rampart's invulnerability - you can get a few free hits on a hand every time. The lava hits really hard, but I'm pretty sure his hand hits harder, so take that into account - and if you have the Masochist perk, "trap" damage is capped at 10% your life bar, and I'm pretty sure it works on lava, so that's a possible mutation selection. Practice this fight on 0BC if you need to, and get it to a point where you're able to parry his attacks without thinking in the midst of his stalactite rain.

Kill the boss, get the fifth boss cell, and then go do something to relax, because You've Earned It.


(i just threw this together and didn't bother proofreading because my wrists hurt from all that typing holy crap, ask me for clarification if anything doesn't make sense)

[Gonna_Fly]

for the door in the cavern to open the Giant boss room, once you open it one time, it's stay unlocked forever.

[krobloons]

Originally posted by Gonna_Fly:

for the door in the cavern to open the Giant boss room, once you open it one time, it's stay unlocked forever.

Thank you for the confirmation!

[schuelermine]

Hey, why don't you just post this as a guide? Steam has that feature.

[Lurkin Pink]

I will try this. I don't want to be dirty and cheat, or use Custom Mode (I want my achievements darnit), and every run is always fun as long as I can at least get out of the Prison Depths/Corrupted Prison. But...this feels impossible, and I know it's not. Before reading this, it felt mostly hopeless, leaving everything up to luck because of my pride.

Thanks for giving me hope. I won't stop until I get to show off those late-game achievements.

[Gatebase]

Originally posted by Wand3r3r3:

I don't want to be dirty and cheat, or use Custom Mode (I want my achievements darnit)

Custom Mode itself does not disable achievements, only certain settings. I left the gameplay settings untouched, but I made heavy use of item restrictions. The only thing important is that you need to have 20 or more active items (mutations don't count) enabled or you can't get achievements. I did all my achievements from 1 BSC up on Custom Mode with exactly 20 items enabled. It feels a tiny bit cheap at times (example: if you allocate your 20 items so that only 1 ranged weapon is enabled you get a choice of 3 of your main weapon at every shop - it's a massive boon in terms of getting upgrades and good synergies), but I honestly think the game is balanced around this (you unlock Custom Mode through ingame progress after all and 4 BSC with the teleporting enemies is cheap/cheaty itself).
It's your decision, but I just want to let you know that you're making the grind to the 5 BSC achievements a lot harder on yourself.

I actually agree with most of the guide, it has held up pretty well. I used a survival build with a Heavy Grenade as well. As a second item (since you can't run two of the same anymore) I would recommend is Giant's Fist. It's completely OP to one-shot dangerous enemies through walls. If you took long enough you could perfect every single level with it without any danger to yourself (that would get boring, but the Fist is invaluable in a pinch or to clear curses or maskers).
For routing I would also recommend to go to Prison Depths. There's no reason to skip a colorless item and a scroll if you want to make endgame progress.

Good luck, you can do it!

[bobhome2]

Originally posted by Wand3r3r3:

I will try this. I don't want to be dirty and cheat, or use Custom Mode (I want my achievements darnit), and every run is always fun as long as I can at least get out of the Prison Depths/Corrupted Prison. But...this feels impossible, and I know it's not. Before reading this, it felt mostly hopeless, leaving everything up to luck because of my pride.

Thanks for giving me hope. I won't stop until I get to show off those late-game achievements.

Hang in there. The Giant felt so hard when I first fought it, but I fight it basically every time now. It's a much more predictable, well-paced fight compared to TK. Just get some practice in, and you'll be fine. :)

[Darth Bokeh]

Re: The "Really Annoying Ground Pound" and "Sharp Shooty Circle"

During the fight you'll see the giant clench one of his hands into a fist for a few seconds but not attack with it - when he's doing that he's charging up that hand.

If you look at the giant's shoulderguards, you'll see and 3 indicators on each - these show you how much each fist is charged.

When a fist is at max charge (all 3 indicators on a shoulder are lit), he will perform a special attack with that shoulder's fist at the time he usually charges it.

The "bullet hell" or "sharp shooty circle" attack always comes from the left hand (your left, not the giant's left hand which would be on your right).

The "really annoying ground pound" attack always comes from the right hand.

After performing the special attack, the fist's charge will go back down to zero and the cycle will start again. So it's a pattern of charge 1, charge 2, charge 3, special attack, charge 1, etc.

If you want to prevent these attacks you need to reduce that fist's health to zero (so his eyeball pops out) before that attack. Think about which of the 2 attacks you have the most difficulty with (for me, it's the right fist's really annoying ground pound), and favor damaging that hand when you have the opportunity.

If you're Survival, using a shield, and parrying his bullet attacks and punches, the Spite mutation can help a lot.

The red falling crystals' damage is apparently considered trap damage, so can be reduced by Masochist.

[Polarcherry79]

Do you have to kill the giant again on your 5bc run? or can you go via any route to beat the last boss on 5bc before accessing astro lab etc?