Eternal Strands Guide: “A Sudden Gambit” Walkthrough & Surgeborn Herald Boss Strategy

Eternal Strands Walkthrough: A Sudden Gambit

Mission List (Tap to jump down the page!)

Boss Fight – Surgeborn Herald

 

After finishing Intertwined and set about moving into the final chapters of the game, we’ll now be onto our next mission, A Sudden Gambit.

You should be in Cassidan’s Hold to begin with if you’ve just finished the previous missions. If not, wherever you are, make sure you use the Loomgate and teleport back to base camp.

After the first cutscene, go and speak to Arekim at the back. In doing so, he will reveal that if we proceed further, we’re about to reach “An Event”. This isn’t a Point of No Return though, but it is a significant chapter that will see us facing a tough boss so do bear that in mind. At this point, it’s worth upgrading your powers (especially the Ice Wall) and crafting some good armour too with decent stats as the upcoming boss is pretty tough.

When you’re ready to go, speak to Arekim and choose to head off to Cassidan’s Hold. When you get there, speak to the Axle and it will set into motion some dialogue and a cutscene, leading into a big boss fight.

 

Boss Fight – Surgeborn Herald

The Surgeborn Herald is the toughest foe you will have faced so far. It’s a massive, towering force and it has some pretty tough attacks too. Its body is coated in armour and it wields a huge sword.

You want to watch out for Surgeborn’s various melee strikes, which include a sweeping attack and a triple-plunge, where it’ll drop the sword down three times. There’s also a swipe forward where the sword will linger for a few seconds before being dragged toward the big boss.

For the sweep attack, it’s a good idea to get very close to Surgeborn to avoid the worst, or rush out of the hit zone. You can also block the attack to minimize the damage as well.

As for the triple strikes, these are quite easy to dodge; simply move from side to side and roll if need be. The swipe forward is an opportune time to jump and cling to the sword, but you’ll need a lot of stamina for this. Surgeborn, unlike most of the other big foes, will more aggressively try and shake you off with less delay between shakes.

You’ll also notice that Surgeborn’s body has a mix of armour plates and ethereal shadows that are translucent and can’t be clung to. This is where your powers come in.

The game doesn’t tell you this but the aim here is to remove Surgeborn’s armour plates to reveal a larger area of attack, then use Ice Wall to freeze that section to make it solid.

Keep hitting with ice until you see the translucent body become solid and grey-white in colour.

When it does, you’ll be on a tight window so switch to Weaver’s Grasp and pick up rocks (or the removed armour plates on the ground) to  throw at Surgeborn Herald.

In terms of removing the armour plates, it really is up to you what strategy you choose. You can use your Bow if you’ve been upgrading that over the game, use Weaver’s Grasp to throw rocks at the armour, or try your luck and jumping on top of Surgeborn Herald and slashing with your sword like you would an Arkon.

There are a ton of Vitality Flasks dotted around the arena, and if you do happen to die, although you’ll have to restart the entire fight again, you will begin with the same amount of armour left on Surgeborn.

If you’re looking to fight from a distance, it also has several different long-range attacks too.

There’s a fireball strike, an ice-ball strike and a special shadow attack, which will lift you show an area of impact on the ground through which it’ll lift you up in the air and then slash at you with its sword. Use Weaver’s Grasp to throw the projectiles back, and be sure to run outside the area of impact for the shadow attack.

However, if you are caught in the shadow, make sure to block just before Surgeborn Herald tries to hit you with his sword in mid-air. This will minimize the amount of damage done to you considerably.

This will be a pretty long fight but be sure to use all the tools in your arsenal to take this guy down.

Thankfully, you don’t need to remove all of Surgeborn Herald’s health here, as when it reaches 50% health remaining, the fight will come to an end.

 

 

Upon defeating Surgeborn Herald, you’ll gain the trophy, Nobody Said It Was Easy, along with a nice cutscene too. This will then bring the mission to an end.

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You can check out our full walkthrough and game guide here!

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