Thief Shadower Bossing Guide

Great guide still, looking forward to your NT1+2 update

Some notes,

At Papulatus we use assaulter to move up the platform, not avenger. At higher levels you will be falling down significantly less to the point where using assassinate on the top platform will result in faster Pap solo's than a Rav solo. If you want to put in the effort you can stand at the middle lamp on the platform so you don't constantly take touch damage but can still barely reach even when it gets knocked back. Then boomerang step when the attacks come in if you're not stuck in nate.

This is one of my favourite bosses to run as there's barely any prequest, it's fast/profitable and there's a fair bit of optimisation you can do. I think most shads don't like running it though. Also, spamming BS from the next platform severely cuts your dpm so unless you are very afk (or very low avoid/unmaxed nate) I would not recommend.

When the first body goes down you can cast one BS to grab it's attention and spam nate after. Works every time, very safe and no movement required.

For CWK thief boss and JC you can jump BS after them if they jump out of range to slightly increase your dpm, this has the added benefit of being able to avoid JCs 1/1 if you time it right.

For Zakum I often found it better to smoke the bottom instead of the top during arms but that depends on your party composition. Bonus points if you jump smoke on the left side so you can reach the entire bottom plus the middle left arms where warriors will usually be.

During zak body you can use your charged nate slightly closer towards zak and dash left to avoid taking touch damage, turn around and hit nate without having to walk closer. It's hurtbox is quite a bit longer than it's hitbox which makes this possible.

For Horntail you can start body phase cleaving tail, right arm, legs and wings by doing jump BS under the left arm. This will give you a bit less damage on the left arm which is nice if you are trying to keep it at high hp for the biggest part of the run. If you are not too comfortable in that position you can atleast go there during your smoke breaks. Alternatively if the heads are cancelled you can nate+BS the legs and tail which doesn't risk you getting flung to the other side activating right arm.

This is just my experience, other shads likely have somewhat different experience.

 

its time?

 

After all the skill changes recently, Assassinate spam has become the go-to combo for many bosses. In these cases, the question is no longer whether to DS+Nate, or Nate+BS, but when to just Nate, and when to Nate+Dash.

Before continuing, I would first like to confirm:
If you use Nate and you can proc the Dash, does this 100% mean that your Nate hit the mob/boss? I ask this because in most bossing scenarios, it's very hard to tell as a new Shad whether I'm hitting the boss or not, and I hold Left/Right to check if the Dash procs. If it does, I assume my Nate is hitting the boss. Is this correct?

I'm a Shadower new to bossing (only did ~15 runs as Corsair on Zak before this), and already the guide has been immensely useful.
Also, I was able to apply Soblet 's tips on Zak to my own playstyle:

• If I have HB and/or I'm confident (e.g. low ping), I will Nate+Dash left-right directly inside of the body
• If I'm not confident, I can still Nate+Dash on the side of the body like Soblet mentioned, and it just takes 1 extra keypress to turn around after each Dash
• I also start my first Nate+Dash after WC or casting Smoke outside of the body, ensuring that I never take a single instance of body touch damage, as I am already invincible while Dashing into the body

Now on to my questions:

1. I recently started doing Krexel. I see that Shads Nate+Dash on the Left Eye, but not on the Right Eye. Why is that?
   • I find that if I stand at the usual Right Eye position (just left of the Right Eye) and jump down once, I was able to Nate+Dash left and right just below Right Eye very consistently. And because my Dash procs every time, I assume the Nate+Dash is hitting the Right Eye. Is this correct?
   • One of these days, I aim to just enter Krexel on my own just to test this out.
2. At Zakum, Assassinate always hits Zakum's body even with Summons around. Until 2nd or 3rd body, where some Summons are older (spawned before body), so Assassinate targets them instead. This causes me to take body touch damage if a Summon flies to me and my Assassinate targets it.
   • I've been trying to mitigate this by killings mobs during 2nd and 3rd body's Weapon Cancels.
   • Is there some other method or usual practice Shads do to mitigate this?
3. At Papulatus, I'm facing 2 issues:
   • When I stand on the left edge of the top-left platform (with the NPC), I take constant touch damage. If Shifter and Stance doesn't proc, I get knocked to the LEFT, off the platform. When I stand in the middle, I get knocked to the RIGHT, also off the platform. I tried holding down the Up key during Nate, but I don't catch the rope either. What am I doing wrong?
   • I tried multiple times to use Assaulter to get up to the platform, but when I jump and Assaulter, I simply dash towards bottom-right onto the floor, instead of top-right onto the platform. What am I doing wrong?

That's all my questions for now.
I've been having a blast bossing as Shad (arguably more fun than Corsair), and it always feels-good when I use a perfect Smoke (low range due to low levels) or end a run using so little potions.
Any feedback, tips, or answers to my questions are much, much appreciated.

P.S. What are your keybinds like? I'm so curious xD

 

It's been a long time since I actively did content on my shad but for what I remember/know;

1) I don't really know why people dash 1 eye and not the other, except for the "default" position left from the 2nd eye has no KB so its just very easy to just... do nothing and not having to reposition.Also Nate can't Dash without a target, so unless you clearly see it doesn't hit (watch for hit lines, nate ones aren't THAT hard to miss unless theres BM with hurricane spam) I would assume it does.

2) You're right, Nate (and any other single target) goes by spawn order, so the only way to make sure Nate hits B2/3 is by clearing prev body spawns ASAP, either you doing it your self, or bish using Gene, either way works.

3) Shifter can't "proc" because it's no longer a passive skill, you will have to activate this your self. Holding Up key in hopes of catching a rope during KB is not going to do much unless you get knocked back in between 2 Nate cast's as you'd be mid animation. There's nothing really you can do about it but I my self felt like I was getting knocked off a lot less on the right end of the platform as you get hit less often. And as for Assaulter Jump back up, this only works from the far left corner, as the Assaulter Dash is longer than the plaftorm it self.

Thats for as far as I know, anyone can feel free to correct me if theres something I said wrong.