Boss Rush – Black Shrine Guide

Introduction

Unlike previous regions, the Land of the Morning Light does not have traditional grind spots, instead, there are 9 different bosses you can challenge and defeat. This system is called “Boss Rush” or “Black Shrine”, and there is a kill-time leaderboard for the fastest time record.

Currently all the bosses are defeated solo. At Calpheon Ball 2022 Pearl Abyss did mention that the bosses can also be defeated in co-op with your guild. With the guild versions having different attack patterns and mechanics from the solo version. However this is currently not the case, and it is likely there will be more updates to Boss Rush in the future, since some difficulty levels are not unlocked yet, and you can currently only obtain 3 Jewels of Light (even though the UI suggests we can obtain more).

How to Enter/Exit Boss Rush

Each boss must be unlocked first by completing the relevant Story Chapter from your Land of the Morning Light Storybook. After facing the boss for the first time as part of the story, you will be able to challenge them again.

The Boss Rush/Black Shrine menu can be accessed by going to the ESC Menu > Adventure (F5) > Black Shrine.

Select a boss from the list on the left side, then click the arrow button to get a ping location to the boss. Once you are at the boss location, you can press the “Start Battle” button from the Boss Rush menu to begin the fight.

If you die to the boss, you will automatically exit the Boss Rush. You can also leave early by pressing ESC, bringing up a pop-up box that will ask if you want to leave the fight.

Difficulty Levels and Weekly Limit

The boss fights are designed to be challenging and intense, and there are up to 10 levels of difficulty for each boss, with new mechanics or attack patterns introduced as you climb to a higher difficulty.

Currently, you can only challenge up to level 7, and level 8+ will be unlocked at a later date to allow time for players to become more familiar with the bosses.

Any class can challenge up to level 5 difficulty straight away, but to reach level 6 and higher, the difficulty must be unlocked one by one. When the first player in each class clears a level for the first time, a message is displayed for all players to honor the achievement. This player then unlocks the next level for all players in the same class.

In addition, you can only obtain rewards for defeating up to 5 bosses per week. This is for the entire family and resets every Sunday at 00:00 UTC.

• The weekly limit is consumed every time you successfully defeat a boss, at each difficulty level. For example, if you defeat a boss at level 5, that will consume 1 weekly limit, and defeating the same boss at level 6 will consume another weekly limit.
• If you successfully defeat the boss, the number of defeated bosses will not be consumed again if you challenge the same boss again at the same level.
• The number of defeated bosses is only recorded if you successfully defeat the boss, and is not consumed if you fail or choose to leave the boss fight.
• If you have consumed all 5 of your weekly limit, you can still continue to challenge the boss, and your kill-time leaderboard ranking will still update.

Boss Attribute System

Each boss has one of 3 “attributes” allocated to them (eg. Sun, Moon, Earth) and the attribute the boss has, shows which type of elemental the boss has a weakness to.

In the Boss Rush UI, you can see which attribute is allocated to which boss and you can also access the Attribute Menu.

Here you can invest “Jewels of Light” into the different attributes, giving you additional stats against bosses with the same assigned attribute. The additional stat bonuses gained through the Attributes only apply to the boss that has that attribute.

For each invested Jewel of Light, you gain 50 AP and 100 DP in the Attribute. Once the Jewels of Light are invested into an Attribute, you can allocate them further to refine which stats you want to focus on. Click on the Attribute icon, to focus on that one Attribute. You will have a set amount of points to spend depending on the number of Jewels you have invested. For every 1 Jewel you invest, you gain 3 stat points. You can then choose to invest these stat points in damage (AP) or defense (DP). For each invested stat point, you can gain 1 AP or 1 DP.

You can reset stats and Jewels at any time for a small silver cost:

• Resetting your Invested Jewels costs 2,000,000 silver
• Resetting your invested stats costs 500,000 silver

List of Bosses

Below is a list of all 9 bosses and their weak attribute type.

Boss Icon	Boss Name	Attribute
	Golden Pig King (금돼지왕)	Sun
	Eoduksini (어둑시니)	Sun
	Changui (대창귀)	Sun
	Bari (바리)	Moon
	Songakshi (손각시전)	Moon
	Bamboo Legion (죽엽군장)	Moon
	Sangoon (산군)	Earth
	Gumiho (구미호)	Earth
	Duoksini (두억시니)	Earth

Preparing for Boss Rush

All of the boss fights are around 5 minutes long (whether you defeat the boss or die), so popping buffs can feel like a bit of a waste.

It is much more important to make sure your Attributes are correctly applied for the boss. Even in the earlier levels (3-4) players found a huge difference in difficulty and found the fights much easier when their Attributes were correctly assigned.

If you do decide to use buffs, make sure you pop the buffs before entering the boss fight, since you cannot use consumables once inside.

Below is a quick example checklist of buffs you may want to use:

Checklist before you start
PVE Artifacts and Lightstones	Make sure you swap to PVE Artifacts and Lighstones if you frequently change them for PVP.
PVE Crystal Preset	Make sure you swap to your PVE Cyrstal Preset if you frequently change your crystals for PVP. If you are unsure what crystals to use for PVE, check out our example builds in the Crystal Preset Guide
PVE Skill Addons	Make sure you swap to your PVE Skill Addons if you frequently change your addons for PVP.
Church Buffs	Collect the AP church buffs from the priest: Obtained from priests in some towns/cities: locations Costs 3,000,000 silver for 2 hours, or 10,000,000 silver for 5 hours.
Vell’s Heart	Make sure your alchemy stone is turned on and recharged.
Exquisite Cron Meal	Buy or make the Exquisite Cron Meal. Cooking Recipe: Serendia Meal x3, Special Arehaza Meal x1, Kamaslyvia Meal x3, Ancient Cron Spice x1
Perfume of Courage	Perfumes are optional but may help you clear the hardest levels.
Giant’s/Frenzy Draught	Use either Giant’s Draught, or Frenzy Draught if you feel you are lacking DP since it has a higher HP regen.
Villa Buffs	Collect the [Body Enhancement] Villa buffs from your tent.
Krogdalo Horse AP buff (if available)	If you have the Krogdalo Wind Horse set, you can use the roar skill to gain an AP +5 buff for 60 minutes.

Boss Fight Rules and Mechanics

After entering the boss room, you will not be able to use potions or other consumables, so you cannot heal if you take damage.

Instead there are green orbs around the edge of the boss room, and if you hit these green orbs with a skill, you can recover HP.

The locations of the orbs seem to always be the same, so you can memorize exactly where they are.

At the beginning of the fight, the orb will start small, and if you don’t hit it, the size of the orb will grow larger. The larger the orb becomes, the more HP it will recover.

In the image below, you can see the difference between the smaller (left) and larger (right) orb.

Rewards and Boss Kill Leaderboard

First Clear (Adventure Log) Rewards

The first time you complete a boss at each difficulty level, you can obtain a reward bundle from the new “Boss Encyclopedia Adventure Log“.

When completing all bosses at each difficulty level, you also gain family-wide permanent stats. Below is a list of all the rewards you will get once completing Books 1 – 7:

• All Accuracy +20
• Max HP +12
• Max Stamina +12
• Weight Limit Increase +10LT

Weekly Leaderboard Rewards

When you successfully defeat a boss, your kill time is recorded in a leaderboard against other players. The Boss Rush rankings are applied to each class separately, and not to your entire family, and also only compare with characters that are the same class. For example, if you complete a boss on a Warrior class, your ranking will be compared with other Warriors only.

Since the boss weekly limit is not consumed if you challenge the same boss and same level, you can challenge yourself to improve your kill time freely, and the boss ranking leaderboard will update your best kill time.

These leaderboard rankings are updated at 00:00 every day and each week on Sunday at 00:00 the leaderboard is finalized.

Rewards are given to all players who successfully completed the boss. However, there are different tiers for the rewards, and the reward you obtain is based on your kill speed and ranking.

• You must claim your reward box before the following Sunday at 00:00, otherwise the reward will be forfiet.