Adam the Firstborn

Adam the Firstborn is a Level 83 V Blood Shard Carrier. He can be found within Doctor Blackbrew's Castle on the western edge of Gloomrot north, above Trancendum Laboratories. To reach him the player will need two EMP's, one for the gate outside and one for the castle's door.

Abilities
Adam is an incredibly fast and aggressive boss, nearly always being within melee range of the player. This Combined with stage hazards, attacks that cover nearly the entire arena and a second phase make Adam an incredibly difficult fight, especially if fought alone. His attacks are as follow:

Note: Terms used for attacks are not official game terms.

Lightning Towers: The arena which Adam is fought within has eight lightning towers, two on each wall. Towers opposite one another create a continuous stream of lightning that deals damage and slows the player as long as they remain within it. A pair of towers can be deactivated by dealing sufficient damage to one of the towers. Adam will start the fight by activating all towers. Occasionally, Adam will reactivate a pair of towers. He can do this in both phases.

Phase 1
Dash: If the player is too far away from Adam, The Monster will dash towards them. This dash has no other effects other than moving Adam towards the player.

Slash Combo: Adam will slash in front of himself with his blade-arm, once to his left then once to his right. Each slash releases a rock wave projectile in the direction of the slash, dealing damage to the player. After the slashes, Adam will slam in front of himself, dealing damage in a line in front of himself. Three rock waves will be launched from the tip of Adam's blade in a cone.

Grab: Adam will step forward in an attempt to grab the player. If he succeeds, he will throw the player across the arena, dealing damage and stunning them when they land.

Stomp: Adam will stomp the ground, dealing damage around himself and releasing rock waves in a fixed pattern around himself.

Eye of the Storm: Adam will stop to conjure a thunderstorm, knocking nearby players back once he finishes. During the thunderstorm, lightning will strike across the arena, dealing damage to players. Adam will continue attack normally while the storm is happening.

Shield: Starting at around 80% health, Adam will quickly shield himself and knockback the player a short distance. While shielded, Adam can't take damage, move or attack. Hitting Adam while the shield persists will cause lightning projectiles to be launched around The Monster in seemingly random patterns.

Skewer: Starting at around 50% health, Adam will rapidly dash in front of the player then attempt to skewer them. If he's successful, he'll pick up the player and deal damage to them. Afterwards, he'll slam them to the ground beside him, dealing damage again and inflicting a short stun

No Escape: Starting at around 50% health, Adam will rapidly charge behind the player then slam the ground, affecting the area in a cone in front of himself. If the player is in that area they will take damage, get flung away from Adam and become incapacitated.

Lightning Field: Starting at around 30% health, Adam will take a moment to create four electric mines around himself initially. Afterwards, the mines will slowly spread across the entire arena, persisting for awhile. The mines will occasionally detonate, dealing damage around themselves without despawning. The player will continuously take damage for as long as they make contact with a mine.

Phase 2
After Adam's health is deplete, he will drop down for a moment before breaking his blade-arm, replacing it with a lightning arm and beginning phase 2. During this phase, Adam losses access to his Slash Combo, Skewer, Stomp and No Escape, keeping everything else while gaining new attacks.

Lightning Swipes: Adam will quickly swipe in front of himself, once to his left then once to his right, releasing lines of electricity as he swipes. Afterwards, Adam will rapidly dash behind the player and slam the ground, doing damage in a straight line in front of himself.

Helix: If the player is too far away from Adam, he will launch two fast lightning ball projectiles towards them that travel in a double helix pattern. Both projectiles deal damage and incapacitate the player if they connect.

Death Ray: Adam will take a moment to summon a death ray on top of the player. Shortly after spawning, the death ray will begin doing damage to the player as long as they remain within it's area of effect. The death ray will chase after the player and persist through Adam's proceeding attacks.

Storm Leap: Adam will leap into the air, summoning a thunderstorm as he leaps. As expected, lightning will continuously strike while the thunderstorm rages. Once the thunderstorm finishes, Adam will crash down on top of the player, dealing damage and incapacitating in a large area.

Other notes

 * 1) Adam's slashes and swipes reach both to his side as well as slightly behind him.
 * 2) Adam starts phase two at half health. Due to this, he also doesn't spawn additional healing orbs during this phase.
 * 3) The lightning towers can block Adam's projectiles.
 * 4) Adam's dash can sometimes make him dash behind the player.

Equipment and Abilities
The Bloodmoon Armour Set and an upgrade of the Blood Merlot Amulet is the best equipment for the fight. For weapons, crossbows are very hard to use during the fight due to Adam giving the player little time to fire due to him being so close all the time. However, the player may want to bring a crossbow as a secondary weapon to deal with the lighting towers from further away. Pistols don't run into this problem as much due to their faster firing and shorter range. In fact, pistols as well as greatswords can be great choices to deal with one of Adam's more problematic attack. Whatever weapon the player ends up using, it should be either sanguine or ancestral.

Hard hitting abilities with good range can be used to destroy the lightning towers and free up space for the player. Counters and blocks have less attacks to defend against due to Adam's very high count of area damage. That said, these defensive abilities are still useful to deal with Adam's melee attacks and should still be considered.

For ultimates, Raging Tempest's mix of defense and offense works great against Adam who will usually stay within the area of affect of the ultimate willingly, though the player should be careful where they dash when the ability ends. can also be used for damage, although the player will need to actively keep Adam within the area of effect.

The Fight
General Tips: The lightning towers effectively split the arena into an uneven 9x9 grid. Depending on which area you find yourself within, it will become much harder to dodge Adam if you don't deactivate the towers to make room or if you don't dash over the lightning beams to get to a more spacious space. It's advised to spend the begging of the fight to deactivate most if not all of the towers. After that, the fight becomes more manageable. However, the player should make sure to keep the towers deactivated. If not, the player will find themselves in situations where it will be incredibly hard to dodge Adam's attacks or even outright impossible to get out of a tough spot without taking damage. Lastly, Adam's attacks that displace or throw the player can be very dangerous while there are still lightning towers active as Adam can force you on top of the beams, often times stunning you on top of them.

Phase 1
Unmentioned attacks: Most unmentioned attacks have clear areas of effect that the player needs to avoid. Thusly, these attacks don't have much detail to go into.

Slash Combo: The attack can be completely dodged if the player keeps a short distance from Adam then moving to their left (Adam's right) when he performs the first swing, then the opposite direction on the second swing. After which, the player only needs to sidestep the slam as the rock waves will spawn behind the player if they keep close enough to Adam since the waves spawn out of the tip of his blade rather than himself. The player can also avoid this attack by making distance between themselves and Adam as he will not attempt to reposition once he starts the attack at which point the player should focus on dodging the rock waves that follow. Lastly, the player can also dash behind Adam to avoid the attack. However, unlike with other bosses who have attacks dodged this way, Adam can still reach the player with his wide swings, even if he doesn't see you. You should also wait for Adam to start his slam before attacking as he can turn very quickly to hit you. Any attack in this combo can be countered or blocked.

Grab: The grab can be walked away from and sidestepped, albeit this is rather. Thusly, the safest way to avoid getting grabbed is using your Travel Ability or other similar effects, such as the second ability of the greatsword or pistols. The grab is Adam's longest stun and will do a lot of damage if he decides to toss you on top of a lightning tower's beam. However, if you do get grabbed and land near a tower, it will take Adam a few seconds to reach you again, time which could be used to deactivate a tower. The grab CANNOT be countered or blocked.

Stomp: Adam's stomp doesn't have an indicator as to where it will deal damage. If the player stands a modest distance away from Adam then the initial stomp will be avoided. If the player isn't sure of the rock wave pattern it is fairly safe to use a counter or block to avoid being hit by them.

Eye of the Storm: The lightning bolts are obvious to dodge. However, the initial cast of this ability can prove dangerous as well depending on your positioning relative to Adam as this can knock you backwards into the beam of lightning towers. As such, keep a distance from Adam by the time he is casting or angle yourself in such way that going straight backwards wouldn't go into a lightning beam in the case that one is nearby.

Shield: Since the shield makes it impossible to interact with Adam directly, the player should start damaging the lightning towers while the shield holds. The player should also be careful if they have any projectile that lingers such as a reaper's second ability as it will trigger the shield to fire bolts once it is applied.

Skewer and No Escape: These two attacks are being addressed at once because of the fact that they can be easily confused with one another. Avoiding this generally comes down to reaction time due to the speed Adam performs the attacks. Generally speaking, dashing backwards or using similar effects will dodge both attacks. As for specifics, Skewer can sometimes be sidestepped but it can also be countered or blocked, while No Escape can be dodged by walking towards Adam and slightly to the side after he dashes behind you.

Phase 2
The time Adam takes to get back up should be used to deactivate any lightning towers that may be currently activated

Lightning Swipes: While the initial two swipes could be dodged similarly to the first phase's slashes, they are much faster and harder to see where exactly they will hit, making this unreliable. As such, making distance with your dash, countering or blocking these swipes is the best choice. As for the slam it should be sidestepped. Notably, this slam cannot be countered or blocked.

Helix: Due to the speed and odd pattern of the two projectiles, it can be very hard to dodge this attack using only your movement. As such, it is advisable to keep close to Adam if the player doesn't want to deal with this attack. With all that said, the attack can be dodged by staying within the gap that will be formed in the double helix pattern of the projectiles.

Storm Leap: You CANNOT dash out of the area of effect that comes about when Adam crashes down or counter it. You can however use the dash's immunity time to avoid the damage or use other similar effects. If, however, you have no such effects, DO NOT use your dash during the thunderstorm even if it means getting hit by a lightning strike as you will not have it back up in time and Adam crashing down does more damage. However, for this attack specifically,  could be a good choice to give you at least one dash before Adam crashes down.

Soul Shard
Drops a the first time it is slain. Once planted in a player's territory it gives them access to a powerful 2 hour buff - Soul Shard of the Monster:


 * +50 sun resistance
 * +10 physical power
 * +5% to melee attack speed