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- The Clan Boss (the Demon Lord) is a boss your whole clan fights every day. Each attack costs one key, and the damage you deal in a fight decides which chest you win.
- There are six difficulties, from Easy to Ultra-Nightmare. Pick the highest one your team survives on, not the highest one you can unlock.
- The fight has no turn limit, but the boss hits harder every turn and from its 50th turn it ignores [Unkillable] and [Block Damage]. Every team eventually dies; your score is the damage you dealt first.
- Beginner teams win with [Poison], [Decrease ATK] and healing. Top teams are speed-tuned so [Unkillable] or [Block Damage] is always up when the boss attacks.
- Damage that is a percentage of the boss's max HP, [Poison] and [HP Burn] are all capped on it, so steady hits and debuffs beat big percentages.
How the mode works
You need a clan to fight the Clan Boss. The boss is the same for everyone in the clan, and its day starts at the daily reset, reported at around 10:00 UTC. Each battle uses one Clan Boss key. You earn about one key every six hours, which is up to four a day if you log in often. Extra keys can be bought for 100 gems, but most guides advise against it.
Your damage in a fight decides your chest. Every difficulty has several chest tiers, and the reward screen shows how much damage each one needs. Chests hold shards, skill tomes, gear, silver and gems; the higher tiers of the higher difficulties are the best regular source of Epic and Legendary tomes, though the odds are low. The Cruel and Immortal gear sets are Clan Boss rewards too.
For the daily routine around it, see your daily and weekly checklist.
The six difficulties
| Difficulty | Who it suits |
|---|---|
| Easy, Normal | Early accounts. A damage-over-time champion, a healer and a [Decrease ATK] are enough; you mostly need patience. |
| Hard, Brutal | Where gear starts to matter. You need enough accuracy to land debuffs and enough DEF and HP to live through the area attacks. |
| Nightmare | The boss hits very hard. Most teams here are speed-tuned or protected by [Ally Protection], [Shield] and healing. |
| Ultra-Nightmare | The top rung and the best chests. Most teams that do well use a tuned [Unkillable] or [Block Damage] setup, and a strong key is in the tens of millions of damage. |
What the boss does
The boss takes one turn at a time, and every one of those turns is called a boss turn. It repeats a fixed cycle of three attacks.
| Attack | What it does |
|---|---|
| Crushing Force | One champion takes a heavy hit based on that champion's max HP (DEF reduces it) and is stunned for a turn. The stun cannot be resisted. It comes once every three boss turns. |
| Area attack, tied to its affinity | Hits the whole team and places a debuff that lasts two turns (table below). |
| Crash Through (Void: Dark Nova) | Hits the whole team several times. Off Void, it also raises the boss's own ATK by 25% for two turns. |
Two passives drive the rest of the fight. Gathering Fury makes the boss deal more damage every turn, starting around its 10th turn and faster after its 20th, with no limit. From its 50th turn its attacks ignore [Block Damage] and [Unkillable], and every champion it kills gets a permanent [Block Revive]. The team dies within a few turns after that.
The affinity
The boss has an affinity, and it decides which debuff its area attack places on your team:
| Boss affinity | Debuff on your team (2 turns) |
|---|---|
| Void | [Poison], 2.5% |
| Force | [Decrease ATK], 25% |
| Magic | [Decrease ACC], 25% |
| Spirit | [Decrease SPD], 15% |
Void is neutral against every champion. The other three give a strong or weak matchup, which changes how often your hits land weakly.
The boss resets every day and always starts as Void. Once your clan has taken its health down to half, it switches to a random affinity for the rest of the day - and the random pick can be Void again. So the first keys of the day are always against Void; after the switch, check the Clan Boss screen before you pick a team.
What cannot hurt it
The boss ignores most crowd control and tricks. It is immune to Stun, Freeze, Sleep, Provoke, Fear and True Fear, Block Active Skills, Block Passive Skills, Petrification, Enfeeble, Berserk, increased cooldowns, turn meter reduction and Decrease SPD. A champion whose whole value is one of those adds little here.
Percentage damage is limited too. One tick of [Poison] or [HP Burn], and one hit that deals "a share of the target's max HP", is capped at a fixed amount, as the damage guide explains. It also cannot carry more than 10 debuffs at once, so ten [Poison] stacks would leave no room for [Decrease ATK] or [Weaken].
Debuffs worth bringing
| Effect | Why | Find |
|---|---|---|
| [Decrease ATK] | Cuts the damage of every attack the boss makes. Usually the most valuable debuff. | Champions |
| [Weaken] | The boss takes 15% or 25% more damage from every hit. | Champions |
| [Decrease DEF] | Lowers DEF by 30% or 60%. It stacks with [Weaken] because it is a different effect. | Champions |
| [Poison] | The main damage source for many teams. Up to ten can stack and each tick is capped. | Champions |
| [HP Burn] | Only one at a time, but a tick is large before the cap. | Champions |
| [Poison Sensitivity] | Poison ticks on the boss deal 25% more. | Champions |
| [Leech] | Enemies that hit the boss heal for 18% of the damage they deal. | Champions |
Debuffs have to land, and the boss's RES climbs with the difficulty to somewhere above 200 on Ultra-Nightmare. Debuffers need accuracy in that range; the accuracy and resistance guide shows how the roll works.
Buffs and protection
- Damage: [Increase ATK] and [Increase SPD]. Speed also decides how many turns you get (see below).
- Survival: [Increase DEF], [Strengthen] (15% or 25% less damage from every hit), [Shield], [Continuous Heal] and [Ally Protection]. The protector takes a share of every hit, including the stun attack, so it needs real DEF and HP.
- Stun control: [Block Debuffs] stops the stun; [Taunt] forces it onto the champion that has Taunt; a veiled champion cannot be picked for it.
- Counters: the boss's attacks can be answered by [Counterattack], which adds a basic attack at 75% strength per attack taken.
- Immortality: [Unkillable] stops a champion dropping below 1 HP; [Block Damage] prevents the damage altogether. Both end at boss turn 50.
Team types
| Type | The idea | Weak spot |
|---|---|---|
| Budget damage-over-time | [Poison] and/or [HP Burn], [Decrease ATK] and [Weaken], plus a healer or [Continuous Heal]. Lifesteal gear keeps the damage dealers up. | Slow; the boss's enrage eventually wins. Fine up to the middle difficulties. |
| Unkillable, speed-tuned | Two or more champions place [Unkillable] in turn, so every champion survives every area attack. Examples: Maneater and Skullcrusher. The rest of the team does damage and places debuffs. | Needs exact speeds, and the boss's stun and debuffs can break a tune. Stops working at boss turn 50. |
| Block Damage, speed-tuned | The same shape, but [Block Damage] prevents the damage itself, including the Void boss's poison ticks. Examples: Kyoku and Helicath. | Block Damage is short, so the timing is even tighter. |
| Counterattack | Champions with [Counterattack] turn the boss's own attacks into damage, backed by shields and heals. | Needs heavy sustain. |
Why speed tuning matters
Every buff lasts a set number of turns of its owner. For [Unkillable] to be on when the boss attacks, your champions must act in the right order relative to the boss and keep doing so, round after round. Speed tuning picks SPD values that make that order repeat. The maths is in Turn meter and speed.
It is also why gear swaps and a boss debuff to SPD can ruin a tune: one point can change who acts first. The free desktop app can play a team through the fight, so you can test a tune before spending keys.
Masteries and gear
Two masteries are close to standard on Clan Boss teams. Warmaster has a 60% chance of bonus damage of 4% of the boss's max HP, once per skill. Giant Slayer has a 30% chance of 3% of its max HP on every hit of a skill. Both are capped on the boss, so they pay a similar amount on every difficulty and reward champions that hit often. See masteries.
- Lifesteal heals 30% of the damage the wearer deals, a common way to keep a team alive. Community guides report that mastery bonus damage feeds it; test that on your own team.
- Stalwart cuts area damage by 30% and fits a team with enough healing.
- Speed, Accuracy and Toxic carry early teams. Cruel (ignores some DEF) is a Clan Boss reward.
Mistakes to skip
- Relying on a blocked effect. A team that wins by freezing or sleeping the boss is built on immunities.
- Counting on percentages. A skill that deals a share of max HP is capped here.
- Forgetting the stun. It lands on one champion every third boss turn; plan who takes it.
- Chasing a difficulty too early. The chest reward is the target, not the label on the button.