A purple triangle whose drones hunt on their own over a huge area, split in two when they die, and multiply the longer nobody shoots the boss. Wraithspire is the boss you can't safely leave for later.
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. Its three barrels are drone spawners |
| Drones | Starts at 8. 25 HP, 23 damage per hit, 280 px/s. One new drone every 1.7 s while under the cap |
| Swarm growth | +1 to the cap for every 6 s the boss goes without being hit by a bullet, up to +10 (18 drones) |
| Hunting area | Anything within 2,200 px of the boss |
| Split on death | A dying drone becomes 2 fragments (3 while enraged): 12.5 HP, 11.5 damage, 322 px/s, gone after 6 s. Fragments don't split again |
| 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 | None with a wind-up. The growth and the split are its whole kit |
| Healing | 0.1% of max health per second, only after 4 s without damage |
| Kill reward | 28,000 score to the killing hit |
| How it spawns | Fifth in the boss rotation, after Juggernaut |
Wraithspire starts small. Eight drones, no gun, a kiting boss that keeps its distance. If you meet it early it looks like the easiest boss in the game. That's the trap.
Every 6 seconds that pass without a bullet hitting it, its drone cap goes up by one, to a maximum of 18. It rebuilds toward that cap at one drone every 1.7 seconds. A Wraithspire left alone for a minute has more than twice the swarm it spawned with. Only bullets stop the clock. Damage from drones, traps and ramming doesn't reset it. And resetting it doesn't take drones away. It only stops new ones. A swarm that has grown to 18 stays at 18 until you kill it down.
The drones don't sit close to the body the way other drone bosses' do. Each one hunts on its own anywhere within 2,200 px of the boss. It goes for whatever is closest to it inside that area, tanks and shapes alike. They move at 280 px/s. A level-45 tank on a normal-speed class tops out around 245 px/s even with Movement Speed maxed, so you can't outrun them and you can't snipe the boss from somewhere they can't follow.
Then the split. When one of its original drones dies, it breaks into two fragments. They're smaller and weaker, with half the health and half the damage, but they're 15% faster and they go straight back to hunting. Fragments disappear after 6 seconds and never split again. So killing a drone doesn't remove a threat straight away. It trades one strong drone for two weak, fast ones for six seconds.
There isn't one, and that's the first thing to know. Every other boss telegraphs its big move with a coloured wind-up glow. Wraithspire has no move to telegraph. Nothing it does has a wind-up: the swarm just grows, and the drones just hunt. If you're waiting for a purple glow before you react, you'll be waiting for the whole fight.
What you can read is the swarm itself. Count it. Eight drones means it's fresh or someone has been keeping it in check. Anything past twelve means it's been left alone for a while and the fight is going to be long. The other thing to read is where the drones are sitting. Because they go for the nearest thing, a drone hovering on a shape isn't coming for you yet. A drone that's between you and every nearby shape is.
Shoot the boss first, and keep shooting it. Every bullet that lands resets the growth clock. A stream of hits keeps the cap at 8, and 8 drones is a manageable fight. Landing one hit at least every 6 seconds is enough to stop the growth. It doesn't have to be your full attention.
Fight the swarm with bullets too. Bullets deal double damage to drones, so a drone's 25 HP goes fast, and a fragment's 12.5 HP dies to a single bullet from almost anything. Classes that spray are the best answer here, because the split turns one target into two and a spray catches both: Deluge, Autovolley, Hexfire and Octant all cover the angles a split swarm comes from.
Build for it. Reload and Bullet Damage kill drones and fragments, and Max Health is worth more here than against any other boss because some drone hits are going to land no matter what you do.
Drone classes and trappers fight Wraithspire badly, and not only because of its swarm. Their damage doesn't stop the growth clock. A Hivelord can chew on the boss for a minute and it'll still grow to 18. If you're on one of those, bring someone with a gun, or leave it.
Snipers lose their usual edge. Warden and Conjurer can be fought from 700 px because their drones stay close to home. Wraithspire's don't. You'll be dealing with drones at any range, so a Nightfall with slow reload is going to take hits between shots.
The hunters pick the nearest target to each drone, not the boss's target, so a group splits the swarm between its members naturally. That's good: nobody takes 18 drones at once. Give one player the boss and let the rest handle whatever drones come their way. One gunner who keeps hitting the boss is all it takes to stop the growth for everyone.
At 1,800 HP Wraithspire enrages once: a shockwave that shoves everyone within 360 px and deals 12 damage, then a pulsing red aura. For 60 seconds it moves 22% faster, and every original drone that dies splits into three fragments instead of two. Killing a drone during the enrage briefly triples the number of things chasing you.
The enrage also starts the hazards: four damaging zones every 3 seconds within 130 px of the player the boss is targeting. They hit for 10, last 5.5 seconds and they're solid. Against a swarm boss this is nasty, because the hazards take away the room you'd use to back off while you shoot fragments.
The right response depends on the swarm. If it's small, push through, because the boss is already half dead. If it's grown, stop killing original drones for a moment and shoot the boss, since every drone you kill now is three fragments. The enrage ends after 60 seconds and doesn't come back.
Other bosses: Warden · Conjurer · Bulwark · Juggernaut · Nemesis · Leviathan