Loop Hero boss fight guide: The Lich

Feeling ready to fight the first boss in Loop Hero? Let’s hope you’ve been running in circles for a while, because this boss is not an easy one. As his name suggests, The Lich is a rather unfriendly undead who likes to destroy worlds. He will also try to destroy you, but don’t worry: This guide will help you defeat him.

A quick note: While it gets a lot easier to defeat The Lich once you’re more advanced in the game, this guide will show you how to defeat him early on. Follow these tips, and you can beat The Lich using only the warrior class and a few camp buildings.

Every building you need before fighting The Lich

If you hoped to defeat The Lich on your very first Loop Hero run, forget about it. This boss is quite strong, so you need to create a bunch of buildings in your base camp first.

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As a general rule, more buildings is always better. However, the following three buildings are essential in your fight against The Lich:

• Field kitchen. You will get 10% extra health when entering the campfire tile during a loop run.
• Herbalist’s hut. You’ll get three health regeneration potions that can save you in difficult times.
• Gymnasium. This unlocks special traits that grant you extremely helpful abilities during battle. It also unlocks villages, which heal your character before the boss fight starts.

The best cards to defeat The Lich

Before you start the Loop Hero run, create a deck that will send The Lich straight back to the underworld.

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Start with some enemy-spawning cards like spider cocoons (spiders) or graveyards (skeletons). Get some chrono crystals and meadows to place next to each other. This will increase your daily health regeneration from 2 to 6 HP per meadow tile.

Next, make sure you have a battle field card to spawn chests, and the beacon for increased attack and movement speed. Finally, don’t forget the oblivion card, which you’ll want when the boss battle starts.

Get rid of The Lich’s Palaces

Once you fill enough of the void and fill the gauge in the upper left of the screen, The Lich will spawn on the cozy campfire tile. He will be surrounded by Lich palace tiles. Every single one of these tiles grants him an additional 5% attack power and 5% health. Naturally, we want to get rid of those.

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One way to do so is by clearing the tiles using oblivion cards, so save them up from the start. Also, Lich palaces don’t spawn on occupied tiles. Place as many buildings (beacons, for example) as you can on the eight tiles surrounding the campfire.

Best equipment to defeat The Lich

Equipment rule number one: High armor stats are nice, but your secondary stats make all the difference.

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Evasion is by far the best secondary stat to counter The Lich. Equip items with evasion as a secondary stat, working toward at least 25% evasion before you start the fight. Health regeneration and vampirism are also good, but their healing isn’t as useful as the chance to avoid damage altogether.

Best traits to defeat The Lich

With the gymnasium camp building, you’ll start earning XP and unlocking traits. Because the three traits to choose from are randomly selected, pulling some good ones requires luck.

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These are the three most helpful traits to defeat The Lich:

• Blissful Ignorance. This can save you if you need to destroy Lich’s palaces. You’ll get a full hand of oblivion cards and regain 10% HP every time you use one.
• Article of Protection. This trait gives you a temporary HP shield worth 65% of your HP.
• Somersault. This warrior trait gives you a 35% chance to perform a counterattack during evade. It can be very useful, but only if your evasion is high (like we recommended above).

Boss battle time management

The Lich’s strength scales with the number of loops you’ve completed. The progression bar in the upper left corner of the screen fills up when placing tiles on the map, bringing you closer to The Lich. So, if you don’t want The Lich to get too strong, you can start the fight early by placing lots of tiles.

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On the other hand, it can be equally helpful to stall The Lich for a bit. For example, you might want to run more loops if your evasion stat is low. In that case, just stop placing tiles on the map until you have the desired gear. Balance these two strategies according to your needs.

You’re ready to take on The Lich. Let’s go give that bonehead what he deserves!