Champions & Bosses

#Pack leaders

Every pack has a leader: a bigger, tougher version of its kind with more life that hits harder than the rest. Leaders are much more likely to drop gear than ordinary monsters, so it's always worth finishing them.

#Champions

Now and then a pack is led by a champion. You can't miss one: it glows gold, and it has a name of its own, like Ashmaw the Cruel or Gloomfang the Hollow.

Champions have 3× the life of an ordinary monster of their kind, far more than a normal leader, and they carry one affix:

#Champion packs in the wilder lands

From monster level 25, a champion's pack fights like it: every monster in it shares the champion's affix and hits 100% harder than an ordinary pack. An Extra Strong pack hits hard all round, and in a Fire Enchanted pack every body bursts when it falls, so a careless melee fight in the middle of one can end in a chain of blasts. Pull champions on their own, keep your life high, and step out of the rings.

#Modifiers: projectiles, thorns and auras

Past the early fields, champions (and some pack leaders and bosses) also carry modifiers on top of their affix: Projectiles volleys, Thorns that bite back, and auras (Might Aura, Frost Aura, Holy Fire Aura, Conviction Aura) with a coloured ring on the ground. See Monster modifiers for what each does and how to fight it.

#Why hunt champions

A champion pack is worth several normal ones:

• Champions drop 1 extra item on top of their normal roll, and their items lean towards better rarities.
• They're much more likely to drop Chaos Ember and Ashen Shard crafting orbs.
• They have a far better chance of dropping a pet than ordinary monsters: 1 in 50 instead of 1 in 350. See Pets.
• A tiny few carry a summon-granting unique from their region. See Summons.
• Slaying champions counts toward Champion Breaker.

#Bosses

Bosses are the big fights. Every lair ends in one, the Ashen Depths has an Echo of the Warden every few floors, every Ember Rift ends with its guardian, world bosses roam the wild regions, and the Ashen King waits at the top of the Ember Throne.

#How bosses fight

Every boss shares the same deadly pattern, so once you learn one, you're ready for the rest:

1. The slam. The boss winds up and a burning circle appears on the ground in front of it. When the wind-up ends, everything inside the circle takes a heavy hit. Step out of the circle.
2. The fire ring. Every few attacks, the slam also sends a ring of fireballs flying outward in every direction. Stand where the gaps are, or keep your distance so the gaps are wider.
3. The call. When the boss drops to half life, it calls a group of its minions around it. Deal with them fast, or at least keep them from pinning you in a corner.

From boss level 25 (the later lairs, every boss in Nightmare, the deeper Echoes and the Ashen King), bosses fight dirtier:

4. The eruption. Every few attacks the ground glows under every hero in the fight, aimed a step ahead of where you're heading. A moment later it erupts, harder than the slam. Change direction or dodge out; standing still is the one wrong answer.
5. The enrage. Below half life the boss attacks faster. Save your cooldowns and potions for the second half.

Bosses can't be knocked around or stunned for long, so you can't lock them down the way you can a normal pack. They hold their ground, too: walk into a boss (a lair boss or a world boss) and you stop against it, where a normal monster would be shoved aside.

#Nowhere to hide

Big as they are, bosses squeeze down the narrowest corridors and round every corner to get at you, so ducking into a hallway won't save you. Stand somewhere a boss truly can't follow and it doesn't wait politely:

• It leaps. A glowing circle marks where it will land, right next to you, and it comes down with a slam. Get out of the circle.
• It hurls fire. Where there's no room to land, it throws fire at your feet instead. The ground glows first, so keep moving.
• It resets. Stay out of its reach for long and it gives up, walks back to its throne and heals to full. While it walks home, your blows do nothing.

Every monster works the same way on a smaller scale: it walks round rocks, pools and walls to reach you, and one that can't reach you at all soon gives up and goes home to heal. Dragging a boss far out of its arena ends the same way.

#What bosses drop

A boss fight is the richest roll in the game:

• 2 rare items, every time. Each one has a 0.3 chance to be one of the boss's own uniques instead.
• One more roll for its own uniques on top of that (0.35, or 0.55 in Nightmare). Bosses never drop another boss's uniques, or random world uniques: each boss guards its own set, listed with exact chances on its page. See Uniques.
• Identify Scrolls, gold, a pile of bones, and a good chance of crafting orbs and a Hollowing Awl.
• A chance at a rune: every lair boss keeps one of its own. See Runes & Sockets.
• A chance at the boss's pet.
• A small chance at a summon-granting unique from certain bosses.

In Nightmare, bosses also drop Emberstone and their region's sigil.

#The way home

A boss slain in a lair, on a Depths boss floor, in Nightmare or on the Ember Throne leaves a Homeward Gate beside its body: a blue soulfire arch that takes anyone in that lair or on that floor, your whole party included, back to the region's town. See Homeward Gates.

#The Ashen Warden

The The Ashen Warden is the boss of the ashlands. He doesn't wait in a lair: you call him.

1. Collect three Warden Key Fragments. They drop from tougher monsters (pack leaders are the best bet) and from treasure chests in the Ashen Depths.
2. Take them to a Crafting Bench and forge them into a Warden's Key.
3. Walk to the Warden's Altar, far north-east of Emberfall, and offer the key.
4. The Warden rises in his arena. Anyone nearby can join the fight, and he grows tougher for every hero who does.

Beating him earns the Slayer of the Warden achievement and its title, and he guards the Little Warden pet and the Ghostfang Collar.

Echoes of the Warden also haunt the Ashen Depths, guarding the stairs every 5th floor. The deeper the Echo, the stronger it is and the better it drops.

#World bosses

Some bosses don't wait in a lair or at an altar: they wake on their own, out in the wild regions, and everyone online is told. Anyone can join, and everyone who helps gets their own loot. See World Bosses.

#Lair bosses at a glance

Name	Zone	Level	Boss Name
The Old Mine	Ashenvale	9	Foreman Grisk
Cinderweb Hollow	Ashenvale	11	Mother Cinderweb
The Glass Sepulchre	Sunscorch Desert	15	Vashti, the Glass Witch
The Sunken Tomb	Sunscorch Desert	18	The Tomb King
Raider Hideout	Sunscorch Desert	22	Gorrash the Raider Chief
The Drowned Grotto	Mirefen Swamp	26	Grotmaw the Bloated
The Drowned Belfry	Mirefen Swamp	28	Mirelash, the Three-Throated
The Rat King's Warren	Mirefen Swamp	31	The Rat King
The Slag Pits	Cinder Wastes	37	Brakka, the Slag Colossus
The Forge of Ruin	Cinder Wastes	38	The Forgemaster
The Obsidian Spire	Cinder Wastes	44	The Cinder Lord
The Wyrm’s Roost	Rimefall Highlands	53	Vaelthrix, the Rime Wyrm
The Frozen Hearth	Rimefall Highlands	56	Hrimvald, the Rime Jarl
Lanternmere	The Gloamwood	66	The Weeping Mother
The Ember Throne	Ashenvale	70	The Ashen King
The Hollow Barrow	The Gloamwood	72	Morrowthorn the Antlered

See Lairs for each lair in detail.