BOSSES: ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights | Part III
In the first chapter I voiced my overall thoughts on Ender Lilies without spoiling anything, in the second one I’ve described all the areas of Ender Lilies and now it’s time to check out Ender Lilies’ Boss Fights. Once again, this is your one and only warning, if you do not want to get spoiled, just leave now and come back after you have played through Ender Lilies.
Combat in Ender Lilies
Almost all of your passive or always active abilities are dictated by the bosses you have defeated and the Spirits you have equipped. While combat in Ender Lilies is very simple on its base layer, you can make it rather intricate. By stacking combinations of spirits, spread across your two sets, you can absolutely dive a lot deeper into the combat mechanics of Ender Lilies. The thing is though, your first time through it will take a tonne of experimentation as you don’t even know what all of the available Spirits actually do and secondly, it’s not really necessary either. It is very possible, by design I would guess, to just run through Ender Lilies with just the boss Spirits. There are Spirits that will make things a lot easier, like the bird that will keep attacking at range, without any inputs from yourself. Or the block and counter type Spirits that allow you to dish out very high damage, for essentially parrying and punishing an enemy’s attack instead of dodging it. In the end though these are just bonuses and I can’t stress this point enough, they are not required. I think that’s a good thing and is probably one of the reasons why I enjoyed it so much.
Going forward in the footage you’ll see me use whatever combination of Spirits I had on hand at the time, but once again, you can absolutely just beat all of these bosses without anything but the boss spirits you have. Hell, if you wanted to grind out the patterns you could even go as far as to limit yourself to the Umbral Knight and go even beyond that with no damage challenge stipulations and what not, right? But that’s not the point! So whatever you see me use, is quite literally just what I had on hand at the time. By that logic, just use whatever you have on hand whenever you are up against any given boss Ender Lilies has thrown your way.
Bosses
I’ve mentioned this in chapter 1, but when you really look at how many boss encounters there are in Ender Lilies, you should really take all the optional Spirits into account as well. They are unique encounters; beefed and powered up versions of existing enemies with their own little quirks, presenting a mild challenge as you go about your way. There are story related tidbits tied to them as well, so it’s definitely worth beating all of them, even if you don’t care about the Spirits’ abilities.
Having said all that, I am still going to focus on the real bosses only. While there are only nine of them in total, I think all of them have been realised in a really nice way. They are challenging enough in Ender Lilies’ first playthrough. They give the right amount of feedback to figure out what you are doing wrong if you die and they also provide that ever so satisfying dopamine rush when you beat them.
Guardian Siegrid
Siegrid is the first boss and falls more in line with a tutorial boss. She puts up a good fight, as so far you have only been primed to fight slug like monsters, some mindless zombies and stationary shielded foes. As she does feel more like a tutorial boss, she does showcase a lot of what you should be expecting throughout your journey in Ender Lilies’ world. For one she showcases attacks that can hit behind her, attacks that stay on screen for a while, but at the same time leave her vulnerable from the opposite direction among a few other things. The most important thing she showcases are shifts though. Phase shifts in Ender Lilies come in two flavours, one is simply a percentage based behavioural change, which is usually preceded by some form of an invincible interruptor, that pushes you far away, or as is the case with Siegrid, a completely different form with a refilled health bar.
The latter is more style over substance for the most part, as the second health bar melts extremely fast and depending on how well you did in the previous phase, might not even pose a threat anymore if you still have enough heals to go around. As for Siegrid, she was only one of two bosses I beat on my first try, again it is a tutorial boss, but it still shows that even though I burned through my heals in the first part, I didn’t even need any in the second. For what it’s worth though, I think Siegrid is a great first boss fight. It teaches you a lot, it shows you a lot and then there’s also the spectacle of it all, including the introduction prior to the fight and cutscene after beating her.
The funny thing about Siegrid is that even though she has everything that the upcoming bosses have including, intro, outro, granting a passive, her Spirit is still treated like a normal run of the mill random Spirit for some reason. I don’t really know why.
Gerrod, the Elder Warrior
The fight against Gerrod, the Elder Warrior is split up into three phases.
Phase 1
In his first phase Gerrod will mainly utilise his jumping down smash attack, as well as slowly walking towards you to swing his mace. It’s all heavily telegraphed and easily reacted to, the thing that will most likely get you in the beginning is the range of his attacks. His down smash isn’t actually the dangerous part, it’s the AoE that it creates. The swings of his mace also reach a lot further than you might think at first. One more thing he has in his arsenal is what seems to be an invincible back dash. Gerrod was the first encounter for me where I started to focus much more on his stamina instead of his health bar. In my earlier failed attempts I didn’t really pay any attention to it, so whenever I depleted his stamina and should’ve been going ham on him, I was backing off instead, as I was still expecting him to attack. By the time I got back to him, he would be getting off the ground again and I had missed my chance. As soon as you get used to the range of his attacks, this first phase should be over relatively quickly though.
Phase 2
After you cleared about 30% of his health bar, he will signify a phase shift and gain new tools. He can now ground pound without jumping into the air, the difference is that this grounded ground pound actually shoots out full screen projectiles that run across the entire stage. The second move he now has access to is an uppercut style move, that has a bit of a wind up, as if he’s charging it. It’s pretty strong and reaches quite far. He still has all of his other moves from phase 1, but other than the ground projectiles the fight doesn’t change much. Just keep chipping away at him to get him to activate his third phase.
Phase 3
When he has about a third of his health left, he will change into his third phase. He only gains one new move from what I can tell, which is a ludicrously fast shoulder barge type of attack, but even though that’s the only new attack, he will still act very differently from before. For one, he will do his aerial ground pound up to three times in a row now, without a gap in between them. He is a lot faster in general, which also seems to be the whole idea behind third phases in Ender Lilies I’d say, there’s very little downtime between moves. You will just have to find your openings and exploit them to the best of your abilities. Throw whatever Spirits you have at him and keep attacking him with Umbral Knight at the same time. My victory over him was a rather close one, but a win is a win.
Dark Witch Eleine
The fight against Eleine is one of the weaker ones in Ender Lilies I’d say. It’s still fun and enjoyable, but for a boss as cool looking as this one, I think a little more variation to her moveset would have been nice.
Phase 1
The first thing you have to keep in mind when fighting her is that her, stamina bar is made out of Papier-mâché. While I also kept track of that in the fight against Gerrod, it is literally the only thing you need to worry about against Eleine. She’s always airborne and shoots two cones of three bolts at you that you can avoid quite easily, or she’s firing a fast moving homing sphere, which is also not that hard to get away from. So when you empty her stamina gauge, she’s not only susceptible to an onslaught of your Spirits, she also falls to the ground, making said onslaught even more potent.
Phase 2
In the second phase she can create tornadoes that essentially act as walls for you. This attack, if you can read it early enough, is highly exploitable. Whenever I could, I tried to use Siegrid’s aerial attack and put it right on top of Eleine as she was creating the tornado, dealing a decent chunk of damage. The other addition to this phase is that she can now fire a second homing shot in quick succession to the one she was pestering you with in her first phase.
The tornado can create some much needed tension, but it’s rather gimmicky and it’s only scary the first couple of times you see it. Once you are aware that it happens, that you can still avoid her projectiles without any problems and that she’s highly vulnerable while she’s creating that thing, the second phase shouldn’t take you too long to get past either.
Phase 3
This is where things get a little more frantic. In Eleine’s third phase she will now teleport on top of you after every time she’s fired off a set of projectiles and then use her… tentacles? Vines? A melee attack, yeah let’s go with that, she will use a melee attack to hit you with. She will also move to the center top of the screen and shoot some type of bullet hell pattern at you. Don’t worry though, it’s not that hard to avoid, even the first time you’re seeing it. This phase, even though it does feel more frantic at first, actually opens her up to a lot more damage. She seemingly doesn’t use the tornado anymore and her melee attack has a lot of recovery to it, meaning that you can really punish her for using that.
The third phase can definitely catch you off guard, considering the slow pace you were forced into in the first two phases, but Dark With Eleine shouldn’t take you too long to take down. As you can see I still had both health and heals to spare.
Guardian Silva
Don’t let Guardian Silva’s appearance fool you. This fight is nothing like the one against Siegrid, well apart from one thing I guess. In my opinion she actually is a combination of elements taken from Gerrod and Eleine. This is most likely also the first boss fight where your reflexes and reaction times are going to get challenged.
Phase 1
In Silva’s first form she swings her hammer twice, and at times also changes the direction she attacks before she revvs her hammer. She can just dash into you and also has a total of three different projectile based attacks. Silva can jump back, hover above the floor and shoot off her projectiles. For the other ones she basically just goes higher, shoots and will then either fall down or dash horizontally. Simply dodging and maybe even using counter type spirits seemed to be the best approach for me in this phase.
Phase 2
She does have a phase 2 transition, but honestly I couldn’t really tell if anything changed, or was added to the fight. She might be faster than in phase 1, but I might also just be imagining that. For what it’s worth, other than the little interruption she causes to “transition”, nothing really changes how you interact with her, so just keep at it.
Phase 3
Just before you’re about to kill her, she’ll transform into her fully blighted form. This is the one thing that harkens back to Siegrid’s fight, the actual form change. At this point the fight changes drastically. She can now summon pillars of flame which work as an AoE around her, which is heavily telegraphed, but as it covers such a wide area it might still be tough to actually get out of the affected area. She dashes towards you a hell of a lot more and she also has a jumping leap attack now. She also fires a giant fireball that gains velocity fast as it travels towards you. The animation reminds of a makeshift Hadoken, +1 for style! As she doesn’t have a hammer anymore, she will now also just swipe at you. As I found it easier to deal with her at range in this form, that move didn’t really cause too much trouble. Her constant dashing and leap attacks though can be a little worrisome.
This boss fight was definitely the most enjoyable fight so far and I would even go as far as to call it my second favourite encounter in Ender Lilies. Now that you’ve defeated her, you also gain access to Last Rites, which is a meter to the left of your spirit loadouts. Once full, your boss spirits can unleash a powerful attack, which will empty the bar again. Don’t worry too much about the specifics and just think of it as situational burst damage.
Ulv, the Mad Knight
The speed increase that we’ve seen with Silva’s attacks is still present and is something you should really get used to going forward.
Phase 1
In his first phase he will at times just randomly jump around the arena. Maybe there’s a point to it, but it seemed completely random and pointless to me. As for his actual attacks, he tends to keep swiping away at you. A left right combination kind of attack, during which he can change the direction he’s attacking towards. He can also backdash after his first swipe and then jump forward into a ground pound, which creates a rather far reaching AoE in front of him. The last attack he has available to him in this phase is a forward lunging dash punch.
Phase 2
Phase 1 is rather easy to deal with, it’s phase 2 where the bulk of my problems started to pile up. He now has a ranged attack that will be placed right on top of where you are at the time he initiated it. It’s really as simple as dashing away, but as you’re on the lookout for his other attacks as well, that’s sometimes easier said than done. He now also has a very large shockwave type of projectile that’s travelling along the ground that he can send your way.
Phase 3
He always seems to start his third phase with a flaming pillar attack, unlike the ones Silva was using in her blighted form, his’ are more spread out and move away from him. Something that has never hit me is this charged up punch of his, so I am not actually too sure what it does exactly; but it is a thing. Other than that the only other attack that’s new here, at least as far as I am aware of, is an upgrade to his shockwave projectile, as he can now either shoot two of them in quick succession, or go for the ranged attack that he places on top of you. That last one is kind of dirty, as if you respond incorrectly you will get hit.
All in all Ulv is the kind of fight where it’s really just the speed that increases throughout the phases. You might not even realise that some of his attacks are specific to any of his phases. While it is neither a bad nor a boring fight, he is just another amalgamation of previous bosses. The ground pound AoE stuff and projectiles are just modified versions of Gerrod’s, whereas the dashing and flaming pillar attacks are modified versions of Silva’s attacks. The dash attack might also be chalked up to Gerrod’s repertoire if you wanted to though. Again, not a bad boss fight, just not all that exciting in the grand scheme of things.
Hoenir, Keeper of the Abyss
I thankfully beat Hoenir on my first attempt. He isn’t difficult, nor did I get lucky, it’s just the lowest point of boss fights in Ender Lilies unfortunately. I am gonna rush through these phases on this one, I hope you don’t mind.
Phase 1
In the beginning he will keep spawning these teleporting executioner type blighted, while shooting projectiles at you and dashing away from you if you get too close to him.
Phase 2
In phase 2 it’s much of the same, but he can create some type of push away mini tornado kind of thing that will fling you across the arena. It doesn’t do damage to you mind you. He also has an aerial projectile move that shoots downwards, which looks neat, but isn’t really all that threatening.
Phase 3
Phase 3 includes your usual speed increase, but he’s also getting more aggressive now and actually goes after you for once. For new moves he gains a screw attack now, which he keeps spamming ad nauseam.
Now his third phase is a little tricky, as his constant spam of his screw attack can be hard dodge at times. For the majority of the fight you’ll still be tasked with clearing out the random executioner blighted though and then just deal with him at the end. This is probably the one and only boss fight in Ender Lilies where I would say it’s not only badly executed, but not fun either.
Knight Captain Julius
This is by far my most favourite boss fight in all of Ender Lilies. It starts off rather uneventful, but the info you have about Julius’ past, the music, and the phase shifts, are really just an amazing package overall.
Phase 1
His first phase really is a little underwhelming though. He does a poke, a horizontal sweeping attack and he dashes into position to keep doing the two aforementioned moves. There’s not much else to it I am afraid.
Phase 2
As soon as phase 2 starts however, you can see him charging up. That’s a new attack. After the charging animation, he zooms across the screen horizontally. It’s easily avoided, once you have seen it a few times and you’re accustomed to how long he charges up, but be prepared to get hit by that thing a few times. Out of the air he also has a diagonally dashing attack now. He can do it relatively low to the ground, but as it has quite a bit of windup to it, it’s not a difficult attack to deal with. He still has his normal poking attack as well of course, but his sweeping attack has been upgraded and now has some type of tornado-aura to it. That aura can also damage you from behind his actual attack and as with all tornado type things we have seen so far, it sends you flying across the screen.
Phase 3
This is where things get real. As soon as phase 3 starts you see him charging once again, but this time it’s not the dash attack, nope, it’s a beam cannon style attack and it looks amazing! The very first time I made it to phase 3, I was taken out by that thing almost instantly. He now has the ability to follow up his normal poking attack with a second poke. The sweeping attack is also a little more dangerous during the third phase as he will now do a short dash to go straight into that attack. As it reaches behind him thanks to the tornado aura and the sweeping arc itself reaches quite far in front of him, this attack can now actually cause some problems.
Not gonna lie, I might have gotten a little cocky there.
-"This is going great for a first attempt. It's way too easy. Alright let's see what happens in phase 3 then…"-
Death happens in phase 3, just that and immediately! 😂 #ENDERLILIESQuietusoftheKnights #EnderLilies pic.twitter.com/yEPptW8snM— Sasa (@kazuyasasa) July 25, 2021
As per usual the difficulty in phase 3 comes from the drastic increase in speed. His attacks can feel relentless at times and the only respite you really get is when he does the beam cannon attack. On top of all of that he has a decent amount of health and his phase 3 starts much earlier than you might be accustomed to, at around 40% of his life bar. So not only does he have a lot of health, but his most dangerous phase lasts for almost half the fight.
When all is said and done he is not that hard a boss if you were to go at it again. It’s the type of boss that gives you a lot of trouble the first time you do it, but he also has highly predictable patterns and thus simply memorising his moveset and how far his reach is, should be enough to really destroy him. Once again, I think this is the best fight in all of Ender Lilies, but there are still two more bosses to discuss.
Miriel, the Beloved
The Miriel boss fight is actually a rather unique encounter at this point, as she doesn’t move from her position. She’s on the left, you’re on the right and it’s your job to close the distance to damage here. That’s the boss fight in a nutshell, it’s a simple premise, but she does have options to make life harder for you of course.
Phase 1
In her first phase she will throw projectiles, which she launches upwards to have them rain down on you. There are gaps between them, so you can avoid them if you’re keeping a close eye on them. She also rolls exploding balls at you on the ground though. They will explode after a short period of time, which gives you enough time to avoid them, but she can aim them, meaning she can roll them to the edge of the screen or towards the center. This isn’t random, it’s based on your location, so that’s something to keep in mind. When you are in close range she also has the ability to strike you with her arms, this attack hits twice, the first goes further horizontally, while the second covers the vertical space in front of her. It looks very simple, but I found it quite difficult to avoid that attack consistently when you’re also dodging the ball on the floor or the raining projectiles, if not both at the same time. Lastly she has a roar that doesn’t damage you, but will send you back to the edge of the screen.
Phase 2
In phase 2 she can now shoot out claws from the ground, which will occupy the space you were on at the time she initiated it. Her striking attack can now be done as a single attack. This might seem like a bonus for you at first, but it also opens up her options to go into another attack that much quicker. Everything else from phase 1 is still being thrown into the mix here.
Phase 3
Her projectile rain gets a significant upgrade in phase 3, as she will now shoot it much more horizontally and with a lot more projectiles. This one can be quite difficult to deal with, if you’re not right in front of her already in my opinion. She can spam her claws out of the floor attack now, up to four times in quick succession I believe. I haven’t seen her do it more than that at least. That attack does a lot of damage if it hits and she does so many of them without a real break in between, it can actually get rather scary if she decides to keep going back to that move.
Her third phase is all in all luck based in terms of what moves she goes for, but the fight, while a little different at first, is quite fun and not really all that hard. She can catch you off guard though, so keep that in mind.
Blighted Lord
This is it, the final boss battle. The end of Ender Lilies, everything you’ve done so far, all the bosses you’ve slain, the blight you have purified, the relics you have collected, it’s all for this final encounter. Unfortunately though, if you’re anything like myself and cleaned out the map before coming here, this last boss fight and that’s both forms, is little more than a joke. You are way too overpowered, or the boss way too underpowered. I died on my first attempt, but had a good idea after just that one attempt, what I am looking for. So I set up my spirits and relics to hard counter whatever Fretia would throw at me.
The Problem
I am not actually going into the individual phases for this boss. The reason for that is that literally almost all attacks this boss has, are null and void by what you have to do to attack the boss itself.
First up, Blighted Lord is a stationary boss just like Miriel and that big glowing heart in the middle there, that’s where you need to focus your attacks on. This means, your target never really moves to another part of the screen. It will always be at this location and you don’t have to worry about any other areas. Furthermore, to reach that spot you are most likely going to have to be airborne. Blighted Lord can summon Abyss monsters and they would be scary, considering how much their projectiles hit for, but they also spawn at a perfect place for you. You can usually get rid of them without even stopping your assault on the heart. She also has shockwave attacks, on the ground, that travel across the stage. Well, you’re not on the ground, so honestly I didn’t even take note of this particular attack until I rewatched my recorded footage. She can ram the claws of her wings into the ground, which turns a lot of the screen into a hazard zone. Pop quiz: Where do you think the safe zone is when she does that attack? That’s right, at her heart. Her roar attack that pushes you away is unfortunately useless as well, as her recovery time is so long that you could make it back to her heart twice, before she gets to do something else. The one attack she has that can be dangerous is an exploding spark in the center of the screen which she doesn’t do until the final phase I believe. It would be quick enough to catch you off guard, but as you’re literally ignoring 90% of her movesets, giving your undivided attention to her heart, you will always be able to react to that move without any extra effort.
Her second form does put up a little bit more of a fight, as she can now rain down very large projectiles that do really hurt if they touch you. The frequency at which she spawn the abyss monsters is more rapid and she can now chain her attacks a little quicker too. I’d like to say that this at least keeps you on your toes, but that is definitely the wrong phrase to use here, as the fight is virtually unchanged from her first form. Your main goal is still to stay airborne and to go after her heart, which is, as before, the safest place to be on the entire screen. She has a lot less health than she did in her first phase and at the 30% mark she stops fighting altogether. So really, her second form technically speaking is even easier to deal with than her first one, as it’s over that much quicker.
Missed Opportunity
Julius, Miriel and Blighted Lord are essentially all optional boss fights, but ending A doesn’t really count in my opinion, so really it’s just Blighted Lord’s second form that I would truly classify as an optional boss fight. I can forgive that the first form is too weak, I did clear out the entirety of the map after all, collecting all the upgrades and relics Ender Lilies has to offer. As for the second form though, you are pretty much expected to have explored everything to even get access to the relic to reach the second form, so why is that second form still this weak? The majority of the bosses in Ender Lilies required you to at least take note of what they’re doing. Hoenir is the exception of course, but you learned their patterns and granted none of them were difficult, but I at least didn’t steamroll them.
I really think that Blighted Lord’s second form is truly a missed opportunity. The second form looks so cool and they could’ve done so much with it, making it more mobile than the first form, shifting the position of the heart, forcing you to be on the ground more often and in harm’s way. The latest update to Ender Lilies was just applied and you now have access to Boss Rush and New Game+. I had hoped they would’ve made some changes to this boss fight, and while I haven’t tried NG+ yet, the boss still plays exactly the same from what I can tell. So even now, after the update this is a very disappointing final boss. Just for the record though, Hoenir is still my least favourite encounter in Ender Lilies.
Closing Words
It’s a bit of a shame that this segment had to end on a downer like that, but the design of the final boss really seems more like an error. Something that needs to be fixed, which they haven’t done yet. In any case, the boss segment has turned out to be quite long, so l am going to end it here. What were your favourite and least favourite boss fights in Ender Lilies? Let me know in the comments! See you next time.
