As you progress through the various regions in Hades 2, you may encounter special, incredibly strong enemies before you reach the bosses. Always ♔protecting upgraded versions of the regular god Boons that you'll want to collect throughout Melinoe's journey, these minibosses are well-worth taking down. While it takes aౠ while to learn their patterns and nail their fights, it's time well-spent.

Root-Stalkers are minibosses encountered in Erebus, the first region of the route to the underworld. These nature-based fiends are capable of pumping out very high damage,🍎 but a few key tips will have you pulling them up by the roots in no time at all.

How To Beat Root-Stalkers

A fight against a Root-Stalker will begin with you pitted against two different entities. You have the main Root-Stalker in the centre of the arena and a thorned vine that can travel underground.

Both enemies in this fight begin with armour, so you won't be able to interrupt their attacks with attacks of yo👍urꦫ own until you get rid of it.

The first step in this fight is to take down the thorned vine. This thing has one basic move: a swinging attack that deals damage in a small circle around it. It can also 🎶dive under the ground and start following you if you're far awa🃏y.

Once the thorned vine reaches you underground, it will pop up and immediately perform its attack, so be wary of its location until you kill it.

Once you manage to whittle its shield away, you can focus on interrupting its attacks and killing it quickly without worrying about the whipping attack.

While you're dealing with the thorned vine, you'll also have to tak🐬e care to avoid the Root-Stalker's attacks:

• The Root-Stalker's main attack is a constant stream of thorns that it blasts out from its hands. This stream will follow you at all times. To avoid this, move to the edge of the arena and sprint around it in a circle - if the vine is still alive, take care not to run right into it, or you might get caught by its spinning attack.
• The Root-Stalker can also summon a large circle of vined terrain. This will be indicated by a purple circle before the terrain is changed, so stay out of it. While walking or dodging into this circle will not deal damage, it will root you in place for a while, making you an easy target for the Root-Stalker's stream of thorns.
• If you get very close to the Root-Stalker, it can perform a quick swiping attack with its claw. This is easy to see coming, so dodge away or through the boss.

The best time to damage the Root-Stalker is right after it has finished a thorn stream attack, as it will take a few seconds to recover.

Once you learn the timing of this attack, the end of the thorn stream is a perfect time to use the Moonstone Axe's blocking Omega Special attack. Soak up th💧e attack and respond immediately. This is a great tactic for the usually slow weapon.

In short, the general rhythm of this fight will proceed as fꦦollows:

1. Take care to avoid both the Root-Stalker and the partner vine while taking down the vine's shield.
2. Destroy the vine quickly once its shield is down, staying wary of the Root-Stalker.
3. Focus on the Root-Stalker's shield, attacking only when it is safe to do so in-between its moves.
4. Once the Root-Stalker's shield is down, finish the fight by quickly eliminating its small health bar.

Once you've le꧒arned this general rhythm, this enco𝓡unter should be very easy to cope with.