The First Descendant: How to Beat Pyromaniac

The Pyromaniac is a boss in The First Descendant that, true to its name, does constant fire damage to you and your allies. This boss has become very notorious in the community as players all over are complaining about how hard it is to kill. Although the boss is not very complex, it has some special resistance that makes it so difficult.

But worry not, with this guide we hope that you will also be able to beat the Pyromaniac in The Fist Descendant.

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How to Beat Pyromaniac in The First Descendant

Guide for defeating the Pyromaniac (Image via NEXON)

Choose the right character:

• Select a descendant with strong ability DPS (damage per second).
• Good options include Bunny (laser), Jaybird (turrets), or characters with powerful grenades, punches, or slams.

The Pyromaniac is not a gimmicky boss like the Hanged Man in The First Descendant. It is just a massive HP sponge that you need to DPS down as soon and effectively as you can. So the best classes of this boss classes with his ability DPS and moveability.

Optimize your build:

• Focus on power and skill attributes.
• Invest in stats for cooldown reduction or cost reduction to spam abilities.
• Prioritize HP, defense percentage, and heat resist stats.

As suggested by the name, pyro does a lot of fire damage so make sure you have enough protection against heat. You will need to spam DPS abilities very often in this battle to plan your loadout according to that.

Spam your DPS abilities on it (Image via NEXON)

Understand the boss mechanics:

• Pyromaniac has 80-90% resistance to firearm damage.
• He has zero resistance to ability damage.
• The boss inflicts strong burn effects, especially with his flamethrower.

This Boss doesn’t have much defense or HP but it’s hard to kill because of its high Firearm damage resistances. Your DPS abilities are your best way out.

Combat strategy:

• Avoid staying in front of the boss to dodge his frontal ground slam attack.
• Use diagonal jumps to avoid the sides of the ground slam attack.
• Dump your ability DPS into the boss when he's not targeting you.
• Rinse and repeat this process, alternating between avoiding attacks and dealing with damage.

Keep moving, and never stop while you are around the boss. Pyromaniac can melt your HP bar in a second. Keep moving and keep dealing with damage.

Watch for enrage phases:

• The boss enrages at below 10% shield, 60% HP, and 10% HP.
• Enrages can be delayed by destroying armor pieces.
• During enrage, the boss will jump into the air and drop players from the sky.
• Save your second jump for when you're closer to the ground to prevent heavy landing damage.
• You can also grapple away mid-fall for additional safety.

The Enrage state is dangerous. Save your double jump when you are falling from the sky when it throws you away. Once landed run until it stops spamming its attacks.

Staggering it is your best shot (Image via NEXON)

Utilize stagger windows:

• The boss staggers at 60% shield, 75% health, and 25% health.
• Use these windows to push your DPS and delay enrage phases.

The Staggers are your live savers. Try to stagger the Pyromaniac in The First Descendant right before it gets enraged to delay the enrage mode and deal more damage to its HP.

Avoid chainrings:

• Don't step into the chain rings on the ground.
• Use grapples wisely to avoid them.
• Getting hit by multiple rings can stack heat damage and potentially burn you to death.

Pyromaniac will be summoning fire chains around you. Try to avoid them as much as you can. They may not deal much damage at first but once the burn starts stacking, you will be dead before you know.

Focus on ability damage:

• Unless your weapons are fully upgraded, they likely won't do enough damage compared to your abilities.
• Consistently use your most powerful abilities to deal maximum damage.

As mentioned before, focus on ability damage instead of firearm damage to down this boss.

Some tips

• Try to push past the 25% health stagger threshold quickly.
• If timed well, you can potentially kill the boss before his final 10% HP enrage phase.
• Keep moving to avoid attacks and manage your heat levels.
• Use health pickups and cooldown management to maintain consistent DPS output.
• Communicate with your team if playing in a group to coordinate attacks and survival strategies.

Finally, follow these tips to survive longer on the battlefield and eventually down the massive fire-crazed colossus.

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Check out our other guides on The First Descendant

• The First Descendant tier list: Best characters to play
• How to get and open Amorphous Material in The First Descendant
• The First Descendant Gley build, how to get, skill modules, and more
• The First Descendant Thunder Cage build: Best Modules, unique trait, and more