This page details how to find and kill The Winged Horror, one of the Soul Shard bearer bosses in V Rising. We’ll cover how to reach The Dreaded Peak in Farbane Woods, how to defeat the boss including an overview of their attacks, and recommended weapons / abilities for the fight.

Where to Find The Winged Horror¶

The Dreaded Peak¶

You’ll find The Winged Horror at The Dreaded Peak, which is located in the far east of Farbane Woods, just south of the Hallowed Mountains. To reach the platform where the boss dwells, you’ll need to use Bat Form to fly up to the area. This means you will need to kill Nightmarshal Styx The Sunderer first, who provides Bat Form as a reward. The platform where The Winged Horror waits is exposed to the sunlight, so you should aim to fight this boss at night. There are places where you can take cover from the sun on the platform, but given the chaotic nature of the fight, it’s best to avoid a day fight at all costs.

How to Defeat The Winged Horror¶

Attacks¶

Charge

This charge attack is similar to the charge from Gorecrusher the Behemoth, but the boss is protected from frontal damage while charging and it ends in a chaos damage explosion.

Meteor Shower

This attack can take two forms. The first can occur as a stationary shower, where the boss will hover on one spot as it rains down meteors of chaos damage. The second involves the boss flying over the platform as it rains down a greater number of meteors, with red circles indicating where they will fall. This second form will also end in the boss charging down at you from above. There will be pools of chaos fire on the ground for a significant period after this attack.

Ice Shards

This attack usually consists of the boss firing 5 ice shards from any part of its body, in any direction, often preceded by a spin animation. The attack can also occur with many more shards which are fired in every direction, making it much more difficult to avoid. If the shards hit you, more will fire in different directions from the same set of shards.

Chaos Bolts

This attack consists of the boss firing numerous chaos bolts in an arc in front of it. It will be difficult to avoid these, but it’s possible with some precise movement.

Chaos Wing Bolts

This attack is similar to the one above, with the main difference being that the chaos bolts are fired from under the wings of the boss, as it pushes you back with the force of the wind generated by them.

Strategy¶

Although the platform for this fight can become fairly cramped rather quickly due to the spread of chaos fire, the boss moves slowly enough for you to be able to dodge most attacks successfully. This becomes even easier when you realize that the boss only has five attacks that it will use consistently throughout the fight, rather than there being new attacks introduced at specific phases of the fight.

The result is that you can quickly learn all of the boss attacks, and how to avoid them. The charge attack from this boss is significantly easier to avoid than the one from Gorecrusher the Behemoth. The boss will lower its head and stomp the ground a few times before charging, giving you plenty of time to get out of the way once you recognize the animation. The charge will also only be performed once, and the boss will take a couple of seconds to recover after each charge. You should use this time to inflict high-damage attacks, especially those which require a stationary enemy.

The Ice Shard attack will be difficult to avoid if you’re close to the boss, but it becomes easier the further away you are from it, since you can see exactly where the relatively slow-moving shards are heading. The only trouble is that the boss can cast these shards at any time, sometimes with very little warning in the form of an animation. However, whenever the boss is going to cast numerous ice shards in every direction, it will usually perform a quick spin, so you can look out for this and begin moving backwards once the animation begins.

The Chaos Bolt attacks are more easily evaded than the Ice Shards, since they move significantly slower and the animation which precedes the attack is much more visible. The boss will lower its head and move it from side to side, as you begin to see chaos fire emit from its mouth, before casting the regular Chaos Bolt attack. The winged version occurs when the boss stands on its two hind legs and begins beating its wings. There’s no use trying to get close to the boss at this time, as the power of the wind generated by the wings will force you back, so you might as well back up and try to avoid each bolt as it comes hurtling towards you.

The meteor shower is another easy attack to avoid, especially since the areas where the chaos balls will land are indicated by small red circles. All you need to do is stand in between these circles to ensure that you don’t get hit as the bolts come raining down. You may find that you need to dash out of the way if you become surrounded however, since once the shower is over the surface around you will continue to burn for a significant amount of time. The main thing you want to be doing is ensuring that you have a route out of a chaos fire pit on the ground, giving you enough room to evade the other attacks. All the while, you can be using high-damage magic attacks to whittle down the health of the boss, while including the occasional weapon attack.

Recommended Weapons¶

This boss is fairly similar to the fight with Gorecrusher the Behemoth, for the most part. The main differences are that it moves much slower on the ground, and it can fly in the air. The latter point is almost mute, since it becomes immune to damage while not on the ground. However, given that the boss is slower, that gives you more time to use the special abilities of a Reaper, Spear, or Crossbow, without having to worry as much about them not hitting the mark. The Howling Reaper is just as useful here, since it can sustain melee damage on the boss as you stay back at a safe distance, giving you the time and perspective to anticipate special attacks from the boss.

The A Thousand Spears skill will inflict a lot of damage if you can flank the boss and ensure that every strike hits, while the Harpoon skill is a decent backup if you’re too far away for a sustained melee attack. The spear is also one of the fastest weapons in the game, allowing you to execute a few swift jabs before you need to vacate an area. However, the lack of Area of Effect damage and the precision required to wield the spear means that you’ll need to strike accurately each time, while the Reaper is more forgiving with a greater AoE range.

Ultimately, as with many other bosses, kiting with a Crossbow is a highly viable strategy here, since it gives you the most amount of time to view the boss animations, and therefore anticipate a special attack. As for the Reaper, the Rain of Bolts Crossbow skill has sufficient AoE to ensure that even if you miss slightly when casting the attack, at least one hit will land, and likely two to four of the five bolts fired from this skill. Snapshot is perfect for inflicting a quick last minute attack before you move out of the way of an attack, and the basic bolt attacks from the Crossbow provide a reliable source of damage regardless.

Recommended Abilities¶

As with any setup, the above are intended for a specific playstyle against this boss, but any may be replaced based on preference. The old reliable Chaos Volley is virtually irreplaceable for most fights, due to the high amount of damage it inflicts for a basic skill. You’ll want to be casting this at every opportunity to sustain the Damage over Time effect, but also to capitalize on the massive amounts of damage it inflicts with each strike. Chaos Volley also has excellent range, allowing you to cast it from most parts of the platform while still being able to hit the boss. The Chaos Barrage Ultimate is essentially a more powerful version of Chaos Volley, which allows you to inflict even more damage over a longer period of time. The only catch with this skill is that it has a fairly long cast time, but so long as you time it well, while the boss is stationary, you should be able to make every hit.

The Purgatory skill is particularly useful for this fight, since it will allow you to quickly heal from any stray chaos fire that you might stumble into while running around the platform. If you can time it properly, it will also allow you to inflict explosive damage on the boss at the end of the animation, assuming the boss walks over it at the time of the explosion. Veil of Chaos is useful here for the double dash ability, giving you a second chance to escape a high damage attack if the first dash didn’t quite get you to safety. It will also cause explosions as your phantoms disappear, inflicting 50% magic damage if the boss is near.

The Winged Horror Rewards¶

You’ll receive the following items / abilities upon defeating The Winged Horror: