Primordial Guardian Inceptus Boss Guide

One of the big challenges in Borderlands 4 is the Primordial Vaults. By finding the three Vault Key Fragments in a specific area, you will be able to open the vault and do a gauntlet of fights, leading up to a boss fight. For The Fadefields region, you will be pitted against the Primordial Guardian Inceptus, who can be quite tough, especially at lower levels. Make sure you’re fully prepared before entering the Vault, though, as the entire thing can be quite challenging.

Arch of Inceptus Tips and Tricks¶

Before you enter the Vault, make sure you have a nice group of weapons in your arsenal. You’ll definitely want some Shock and Incendiary damage for the boss, but you’ll be facing a lot of Order troops inside the Vault, prior to the boss. While you could theoretically go in as soon as you drop into the open world, it might be better to wait until about level 15+ before settling in. Thankfully, if you die on the way to the boss, you don’t have the whole instance reset, as any enemies you kill along the way will still be gone. You’ll have to contend with three different groups of enemies before reaching the boss.

In between each set, there will be a waypoint, in case you die, so you won’t have to run all the way back. Always go for the Overwatchmen and Wardens first, since they can spawn in new enemies as long as they’re alive. If you feel like you’re running out of ammo often, increase your carrying capacity via the SDU menu. There will also be small chests around the arenas to help you keep your ammo counts up. After the third wave, you will be right before the last jump to reach the boss, with some vending machines there to replenish your ammo.

Primordial Guardian Inceptus Attacks¶

Inceptus has quite a number of attacks in its arsenal, with most of them being used throughout the entire fight. It only introduces one new attack a little later during the first phase, then can add on to a few attacks in the second phase.

• Tail Stab: Inceptus will charge up its tail while it’s on the ground and attempt to stab you with it. If it hits you, then you will be launched into the air and the boss follows up with another attack. This move hurts a lot and should always be dodged by using the sideways dash.

• Tail Sweep: The boss lunges forwards and will do a sweeping motion with its body, trying to hit you with its tail. You can double jump over this to avoid all damage. Note that sometimes, in the second phase, it can follow this up with a second sweeping attack.

• Tail Smash: Usually when you’re far away from the boss, it will jump towards you and slam its tail right in front of its body. This move can be hard to dodge, but the sideways dash can be helpful here.

• Homing Spores: Inceptus will release a bunch of spores while on the ground, which will gradually move towards you. These are essentially bombs and you can shoot them (one bullet) to destroy them.

• Acid Pools: Probably Inceptus’ worst attack in the first phase. When it clings to the ceiling, it will release some acid balls that hit the floor and form acid pools. Standing in these will severely damage your character, so you want to avoid them at all costs. They will eventually disappear and it seems like the boss doesn’t use these in the second phase.

• Ceiling Stab: While Inceptus is on the ceiling, it will attempt to stab you with its tail, similar to the ground one. There’s no follow up strike, though, so you only get hit once if you get smacked with it. A sideways dash can prove useful here.

• Cocoon: At a certain threshold in the first phase (half of shield remaining, then a second time right when shield is depleted), the boss will shield itself in a cocoon, with the entire floor becoming acid. Use your grapple to latch onto the nodes in the air to get off the ground. This will allow you to shoot the green spots at the top of the cocoon to eventually release the boss.

• Tail Ground Stab: Only seems to start using this after it uses the Cocoon once. The boss will put its tail into the ground, then it will come up from underneath it. It does this about twice during the first phase, but will add on a third during the second one.

Primordial Guardian Inceptus Boss Strategy¶

The first thing you will want to do is pretty much ignore the fodder enemies during this fight, as they shouldn’t really bother you at all and you’ll need them in case you get downed, for a Second Wind. Maybe the only ones you want to kill are the ranged enemies, since they can be annoying and might prevent your shields from regenerating. Inceptus has two health bars, a shield that that indicates the first phase and the regular health bar for its second phase. As you attack the boss from the start of the battle, you’ll notice you’re not doing a whole lot of damage.

That’s because the boss is heavily armored and won’t take much damage, especially during the first phase. Not too long into the fight, you’ll see grapple points appear on the boss. Use your grapple on those points to make a big green bulb appear, which you can strike for critical hits. Of course, they only stay open for so long before sealing shut and there is a short period before you can open the same one again. Also, you can only seemingly have one or two of the pods open at a time. To make things a lot more difficult, Inceptus moves around quite a bit, so getting a good amount of hits off on the critical spots will be hard.

That being said, the main goal of this boss is to get used to its attacks and try to always dodge them. One of the main ones to keep an eye out for is the Tail Stab, where Inceptus charges up the tail to try and stab you with it. If it connects, you will always take a second hit and combined, both attacks deal major damage to you. Avoiding the first part should be easy enough by doing a sideways dash (press Circle/B and either side direction to do this dash), which means you don’t see the second part. You will want to do this same dash maneuver when you see the boss jump from far away to do the Tail Smash.

One of the worst parts about the first phase is dealing with the Homing Spores and Acid Pools. The Homing Spores are more of an overwhelming feeling, but it only takes a single bullet to destroy them. The Acid Pools are a lot worse, as they linger on the ground and simply stepping in them can cause you a lot more damage than needed. Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can really do about them, since you need to concentrate on the boss, so you’re more than likely going to take damage from them. They’ll disappear on their own, though, so they will eventually go away.

Once you bring Inceptus’ shield to about half, it will climb on the ceiling and cover itself with a cocoon. You won’t be able to damage it with conventional means, plus you have more pressing concerns with the floor being covered with acid. If you look toward the outer edges of the ceiling, you will see some little plant balls that you can grapple to, which is what you will need to do to get off the floor. While you’re up in the air, you will see some green spots on the top portion of the cocoon. They are your targets, so shoot them as much as possible, while still maintaining your air time with the grapple.

Eventually, Inceptus will emerge from the cocoon and the battle will continue, with one new attack being thrown into rotation now, the Tail Ground Stab. When you get the shield portion of its health down to pretty much nothing, it will do the cocoon thing again, after which, the second phase will begin. At this point, it appears that Inceptus stops using the Acid Pools and will stick to the other attacks. You also won’t see the Cocoon anymore, either, so the second phase is actually much easier in terms of managing things.

You still need to watch out for the Tail Stab, as well as the additional sweep on Tail Sweep that can sometimes happen. Additionally, the Tail Ground Stab will also have an extra poke out of the ground, so make sure your shields and health are always full. At this point, if you have an incendiary weapon, use it, but it’s not sorely needed like with the shock weapon for the first phase.

Once you finally bring down Inceptus, pick up any loot it drops that you want, then grapple the purple orb to go to the next area. There, you will be able to interact with an orange orb to get an upgrade to your Glide ability. There are also two red chests next to the purple orb at the end, which will bring you back to just before the ramp for the boss fight. If you want to fight Inceptus again, pay the Moxxi’s Encore thing, but for now, you can take the gate off to the side to return to Kairos.