A crimson pentagon that fights with square drones and, every few seconds, dumps a whole extra wave of them at once. Conjurer is a timing fight: it's dangerous for eight seconds, then it isn't.
Server defaults. Boss damage can be raised by up to 12% at spawn when one player is far ahead of the lobby.
| Health | 3,600 |
| Body radius | 32 px |
| Contact damage to you | 16.8 per tick while touching, 30 ticks a second |
| Gun | None. All five barrels are drone spawners |
| Standing swarm | 16 square drones, 25 HP, 23 damage per hit, 280 px/s. One new drone every 1.5 s until it has 16 |
| Movement | Keeps about 700 px from the nearest player, at 109 px/s. Wanders at 78 px/s with nobody near |
| Notices you at | 1,600 px |
| Signature move | Summon surge: starts when you're within 900 px |
| Surge wind-up | 0.8 s, green glow |
| Surge size | 8 extra drones at once (13 while enraged), each lasting 8 s |
| Surge cooldown | 6 to 8 s (about 3.2 to 4.2 s while enraged) |
| Healing | 0.1% of max health per second, only after 4 s without damage |
| Kill reward | 26,000 score to the killing hit |
| How it spawns | Second in the boss rotation, straight after Warden |
Conjurer has no gun at all. Its standing swarm is 16 square drones that orbit close to its body, and the surge adds eight more in one go. With a surge out it has 24 drones in the air. Each drone hits for 23. A tank with 190 HP, which is what a normal class has with all seven Max Health points, dies to nine of them.
The detail that makes Conjurer different from Warden is that surge drones expire. Every drone from a surge dies on its own 8 seconds after it appears. The standing 16 don't expire, but the extra wave always does. That gives the fight a rhythm: a surge, eight seconds of pressure, the swarm thins back to 16, then the next surge. The cooldown is 6 to 8 seconds, so waves can overlap by up to two seconds, but there's always a point where the extra drones run out.
Like every drone boss, Conjurer's drones pick their own targets. Each one goes for whatever is nearest to it within about 400 px, shapes included. When nothing is in reach they orbit the boss. The surge wave spawns in a ring right against the body, so it starts out in orbit too, and only fans out when something is close enough to hunt.
When the surge starts, Conjurer slows almost to a stop, turns to face you, and glows green. A green ring shrinks in toward its body over 0.8 seconds. When the ring closes, eight square drones pop out around the body in an even circle. The pop is obvious. The glow is your warning.
Conjurer only starts a surge when the nearest player is within 900 px. Past that, it just kites and lets the standing swarm orbit.
The useful thing to know about the tell is where the wave ends up. It appears about 50 px from the boss and hunts within about 400 px of itself. So the fresh wave threatens anyone within roughly 450 px of Conjurer. If you see green and you're inside that, back out. At 700 px, the distance Conjurer wants anyway, the wave has nothing to hunt and orbits until it expires.
Play the rhythm. Push in and shoot between surges, back out when you see green, and wait for the wave to expire before you push again. You don't need to kill surge drones, because they die on their own. Every bullet you spend on a drone that was going to vanish in four seconds is a bullet not spent on the boss. That's the opposite of Warden, where drone kills stick because the swarm rebuilds slowly.
The standing 16 are different. Those rebuild at one every 1.5 seconds, so it's worth killing the ones that come at you, but don't chase them.
Any class that reaches 700 px can fight Conjurer from its preferred distance and never enter drone range. The sniper line does this best: Nightfall reaches past 700 px with no Bullet Speed points at all, and Horizon gets past 900. Bullets stop on the boss, so build Bullet Damage and Reload first.
Conjurer kites and surges against the nearest visible player. In a group, the closest player decides where the fight is. Have that player call the green glow and back out while the others keep shooting from range. A wave that finds nobody within reach is wasted.
Spray classes are worth bringing if the group insists on fighting close. Deluge and Autovolley put out enough bullets to shred 25 HP drones as they come, which lets a close-range teammate stay in.
Bosses and their drones can't target a tank that has fully faded out. A stealth class fades after standing still for 10 seconds and is invisible from then on until it moves. That makes Steward an odd but real option here: stand still, fade out, and send your drones at the boss while it has nobody to surge at. Moving breaks it instantly, and your drones still lose penetration on every hit against the boss, so max Drone Penetration first.
At 1,800 HP Conjurer enrages once. It knocks everyone within 360 px back and deals them 12 damage, gets a pulsing red aura, and its next surge comes within half a second. For the next 60 seconds the surge cooldown runs 1.9 times faster, each wave is 13 drones instead of 8, and the boss moves 22% faster.
This breaks the rhythm. Surges now come every 3 to 4 seconds and each wave still lasts 8, so two enraged waves are in the air together on top of the standing swarm. The quiet window is gone. At the same time, hazard zones start erupting around whoever Conjurer is targeting: four at a time every 3 seconds, within 130 px of you, 10 damage each, lasting 5.5 seconds. They're solid, so they can box you in against the swarm.
What still works is distance. Enraged waves hunt the same 400 px as normal waves. If you were fighting from 700 px, the enrage mostly costs you the hazards. If you were fighting close, get out as soon as you see the red aura, and either finish it from range or wait out the 60 seconds. The enrage never comes back that life.
Other bosses: Warden · Bulwark · Juggernaut · Wraithspire · Nemesis · Leviathan