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Enhanced Ahzrak is the most difficult boss fight in Doom The Dark Ages, and this guide explains how you can defeat him easily.
The Slayer finally gets to settle his score with Prince Ahzrak in the most epic boss fight in Doom The Dark Ages. Ahzrak, the primary antagonist of the game, has been pulling the strings all along and even kidnapped Commander Thira to take her powers. The Slayer finally gets his chance to settle the score with him in Chapter 21, Final Battle. After you defeat an empowered Old One, an Enhanced Ahzrak will come down to fight you. However, this fight spans over three phases and includes a death that might make you shed a tear or two.
Enhanced Ahzrak is arguably the most difficult boss fight in Doom The Dark Ages. The enhanced demon will use new moves in each phase while retaining some of his older ones. Overall, you need to be a total expert with the parry mechanic and exercise extreme observation skills to defeat this demon. In this boss guide, we will explain how you can defeat Enhanced Ahzrak in Doom The Dark Ages easily.
Doom The Dark Ages Enhanced Ahzrak Boss Guide: Overview
Enhanced Ahzrak is an aggressive boss who will attack you relentlessly. This is one of those fights where your observation skills will come into play. Understanding the boss’s attack patterns is the only way to ensure victory. There are three phases to the Enhanced Ahzrak fight, where he also transforms to get wings from the second phase onwards. The key to this fight is always being very close to the boss. The Blood Bolt is an attack that you cannot parry or dodge at all, and Enhanced Ahzrak only uses it when you are at a distance.
Considering you are not playing on the special difficulty levels, the game will automatically save your progress after each phase. The most effective way to win this fight is to try and parry as many attacks as possible while always using your Shield Bash to get close to the boss. Keep parrying till you stun him, and after a few cycles, each phase will gradually end. In the final stage, as you defeat Enhanced Ahzrak in Doom The Dark Ages, the boss will escape, and you will have to fight him once again, this time in another boss fight where he joins forces with the Witch.
Enhanced Ahzrak’s Attacks in Doom The Dark Ages
As mentioned before, the fight with Enhanced Ahzrak takes place in three phases. In each phase, the boss gains some new moves that he will use, which you need to be prepared for. Here is a detailed description of Enhanced Ahzrak’s attacks in Doom The Dark Ages across all phases of this boss fight:
Phase 1
In Phase 1, Enhanced Ahzrak is the least aggressive. That said, the boss still has extremely heavy-hitting attacks that will deal a lot of damage. His appearance closely resembles that of a slender demon with protruding horns that seem to converge vertically. He does not have any wings or other features and mostly uses his Spear as the primary weapon.
Here are all the attacks that Enhanced Ahzrak uses in Phase 1 of his boss fight in Doom The Dark Ages:
- Dash-melee combo: The boss will dash forward with his Spear and hit you with a flurry of melee attacks with the Spear. The number of attacks can range from two to four, depending on how well you parry them. All of these attacks are green in color, meaning they are Hell Surge attacks. As such, you will be able to parry them if you time it correctly.
- Blood Bolt: Enhanced Ahzrak will only use this attack when he is at a range. This is a projectile attack that appears like a red/orange bolt, and you cannot block this. Using your shield to attempt a block or parry will result in you and your shield both taking more damage. The only way to escape this is by dodging it.
- Hell Surge Projectile: The other ranged attack that Enhanced Ahzrak uses is a normal Hell Surge projectile. You can easily parry this back to him and deal damage.
- Ground Spikes: An unpredictable attack that Enhanced Ahzrak only uses when you are at very close range. The demon will perform a sharp backstep, and blood-red spikes will emerge from the ground to deal damage. You cannot parry this, but you can block it with the shield.
- Spear Thrust: Enhanced Ahzrak will charge his spear with Hell Surge and then perform a quick thrust at you. This is a singular strike attack that you can parry to significantly increase your Stun Meter for the boss. Sometimes, he will follow up normal melee combos with a Spear Thrust attack as a finisher.
- Ground Slam: The boss will jump up and slam the ground with Hell Surge-imbued attacks. You can parry this attack as well.
- Melee Attacks: Enhanced Ahzrak will often follow up any of the attacks mentioned above with melee attacks, all of which will be Hell Surge attacks. If you time them correctly, you can parry each of them to build up the Stun Meter.
- Summons: Enhanced Ahzrak will often summon two red statues made of blood that will rush towards you. If they hit you, these will deal a significant chunk of damage. However, destroying these will give you armor and health.
Phase 2
After you defeat Enhanced Ahzrak in Phase 1, the boss will transform into a more fierce-looking creature. The boss will get a third eye on his forehead, and his horns will completely disappear to become bat-like wings forming from his head instead. Several eyes will also be visible at the rim of his wings. He will also gain wings on his back, and his overall height will increase slightly. In this phase, the boss fight is extremely fast and aggressive.
These are the moves that Enhanced Ahzrak uses in Phase 2 of his boss fight in Doom The Dark Ages:
- Phase 1 Attacks: Enhanced Ahzrak retains all the moves from his Phase 1 fight. Animations where he jumped in the air now seem like he is hovering in the air owing to his wings instead.
- Pillar Summons: In this attack, Enhanced Ahzrank will summon four fiery and spiky pillars in the arena. These pillars charge themselves and then throw out fiery cannonballs in all directions from them. However, they are also superheated, and you can easily destroy them with one throw from your Shield Saw. Destroying them also restores some health and armor for the Slayer.
Phase 2 comes to an end when Enhanced Ahzrak supposedly injures the Slayer severely by driving his spear through his abdomen. Your trusty Cyber Dragon comes to the rescue, who manages to deal a fair amount of damage to the boss. However, Enhanced Ahzrak drives his spear through Cyber Dragon’s neck, which leads to its demise. This enrages the Slayer, and the boss fight proceeds to the final phase.
Phase 3
Enhanced Ahzrak’s appearance does not change in Phase 3 of this boss fight in Doom The Dark Ages. That said, he gains some new attacks yet again and is the most aggressive phase of this entire boss fight sequence.
Here are all the moves that Enhanced Ahzrak uses in Phase 3 of his boss fight in Doom The Dark Ages:
- Phase 1 Attacks: In Phase 3, Enhanced Ahzrak still retains most of the attack combinations from Phase 1 of the boss fight.
- Phase 2 Attacks: Enhanced Ahzrak also retains his Phase 2 attacks, like the Pillar Summons.
- Six Pillar Summon: A new attack that Enhanced Ahzrak gains in phase 3, is that the boss will fly up into the air and will vanish from sight. Instead, six pillars will be summoned at the perimeter of the arena. These pillars are stationary, but each will shoot one Hell Surge vertical projectile attack at the Slayer. You can parry these easily, which will also destroy the pillar that shot the attack. Each parry will also heal you and grant you some armor. However, if you get hit by these, you take a significant amount of damage.
- Radial Spike Attack: Another new attack in Phase 3 is that several spikes will rise from the ground where Ahzrak is and move outwards towards the edge of the arena. There will be three back-to-back waves of this attack, and each will have one Hell Surge-imbued spike that you can parry back to the boss and increase his Stun Meter.
- Quadruple Spear Thrust: The same Spear Thrust attack, but Ahzrak does it four times in a row in Phase 3. You can parry all of these as well.
Once Phase 3 ends, you end up in a cutscene where you finally defeat the boss and take away the powers that he stole from Commander Thira. However, Prince Ahzrak will escape. You will be able to finally battle him once again in the next and last chapter of the game, Chapter 22 Reckoning.
How To Defeat Enhanced Ahzrak in Doom the Dark Ages
To defeat Enhanced Ahzrak in Doom The Dark Ages, you need to be extremely wary of the boss’s attacks and parry all attacks as much as possible to stun him and deal finishers. If you are not a seasoned Doom player, this fight might take a while to get past, since there are three phases. However, once you are accustomed to all the new attacks that the boss uses in every phase, you should be able to beat him without too much trouble. Health management is also important; however, Enhanced Ahzrak has enough attacks that can heal you.
Here is the basic gameplay loop that you should look to achieve to defeat Enhanced Ahzrak in this Doom The Dark Ages boss fight:
- Try to always force close-range combat to prevent Enhanced Ahzrak from using his Blood Bolt.
- The boss will often get away from you by jumping back or flying in the later stages. Use your Shield Bash to instantly close the gap between the two of you.
- Use weapons like the Super Shotgun or the Pulverizer to deal a lot of damage whenever you can.
- For Phase 1, focus on parrying all attacks to build the Stun Meter. Finally deliver the finisher move in a glory kill-like manner.
- Find out the locations where the health and armor packs are in the arena. In case you are in a dire scenario, sprint and jump to these to heal yourself. That said, the boss might take this opportunity to finish you instead.
- When Enhanced Ahzrak calls his summons in Phase 1, focus on shooting them down to instantly heal a large chunk of your health. Do not try to block these.
- In Phase 2, once again parry all attacks from the boss. You should also use your Shield Saw to throw and break all Spikes as soon as possible. You do not want to wait for these to charge and throw out fiery cannonballs. If these hit you, a significant chunk of your health will be lost.
- When Phase 3 begins, you will immediately be hit with the Six Pillar Summon attack. Keep your senses sharp and notice which Pillar has the green glow, and be ready to parry the attack back. You must parry these back, as it will heal you and break the pillar. If you are hit by these, more than half of your health will vanish in a single strike.
- Try to predict when Enhanced Ahzrak will use his backstep. The Ground Spike attack almost always follows this up and is the most unpredictable attack that this elite boss has in his arsenal.
Best Weapons and Skills To Defeat Enhanced Ahzrak in Doom The Dark Ages
Ideally, you want the fight with Enhanced Ahzrak to be close-ranged at all times. As such, weapons like the Super Shotgun or Skullcrusher Pulverizer are the best to defeat the Enhanced Ahzrak boss in Doom The Dark Ages. You can use long-range weapons to do chip damage from time to time, but it also puts you at the risk of being hit by the unblockable Blood Bolt attack.
Here are the best weapons that you should use to defeat Enhanced Ahzrak in Doom The Dark Ages:
- Super Shotgun: All skills upgraded.
- Skullcrusher Pulverizer: All skills upgraded.
- Rail Spike Shredder: All skills upgraded.
- Plasma Cycler: All skills upgraded.
- Melee: Dreadmace.
- Shield Rune: Heaven Splitter.
Ideally, the Super Shotgun is the best choice since it deals massive damage when you upgrade this weapon to the maximum level. The Skullcrusher Pulverizer is also a great choice, since it can also deal a lot of damage. If this gun is also upgraded, its empowered mode can deal excess damage, which will work to your advantage.
Thank you for reading this boss guide on how to beat Enhanced Ahzrak in Doom The Dark Ages. We provide the latest news and create guides for Doom The Dark Ages. Also, watch Deltia play on Twitch or visit his YouTube channel!
