The Iron Marshall is the second boss in Valor Mortis. You come across him near at the end of Chapter 3: Rendezvous, while you are searching for Louis in the Fallen Village. This fight does come after quite some gap from the first fight – and that is a pattern you will get used to as you progress through the chapters ahead.
Your first boss fight against General Lothaire at the end of Chapter 2 was a gruelling two-phase fight, and to answer the question right off the bat – no, this one is not. Iron Marshall has only 1 phase, and here is how to emerge victorious against this boss in Valor Mortis.
Preparations before the Iron Marshall Fight
Melee Weapon: The Rapier works best. While you will not be parrying in this fight – relying completely on dodges, there is a weakpoint on the boss’s back that the Rapier can take advantage of. However, the difference between the melee weapons available so far is not very high – so feel free to go with the weapon of your choice.
Firearm: Open with the Pistol, then switch to the Blunderbuss. The Pistol lines up the explosive barrel shots better, hence.
You would have found a bunch of upgrade materials, and it is likely that you would not have upgraded the Blunderbuss. Fast travel to the Abandoned Church, and get the upgrades on your melee weapon of choice and the firearm.
Key Skill Tree Nodes: Ensure that you have upgraded the increased damage from melee hits, and melee hits extracting more Nephtoglobin.
Amber: As far as Amber is concerned, I would recommend picking up from the following:
- the Bottomless Well so that Nephtoglobin refills faster,
- Tomorrow’s Promise that grants Health regeneration over time on using Flask.
- Transmuted Persistence, which restores Recoverable Health when using Transmutations.
- Volatile End for increased damage from explosives.
Strategy for the Iron Marshall fight
Opening Move: Use the three explosive barrels to get its health down by 20-25% right away. The Iron Marshall is a slow, lumbering giant, and you will have enough time to line up a shot as it walks past the barrel, and then moving on to the next one. This is also where the Volatile End Amber will come into play, and if you have it equipped, the damage inflicted here will be even higher.
The strategy here, in a nutshell, is to dodge, then use Fire Transmutation to deal constant damage, then dodge it’s attacks, and then land in melee hits to fill up Nephtoglobin, and repeat. Hence, also the recommendation to use Bottomless Well as Amber.
The Iron Marshall’s attacks come in slowly, but they hit very, very hard. Hence, it’s best not to attempt parry or be anywhere within it’s range when it is swinging the weapon.
It’s moveset is a combination of vertical slams, or horizontal swipes. It’s horizontal swipes can cover a wide distance, since it also takes a step forward when doing the swipe; so stay well away from the hitbox. The vertical slams will generally be 4 in number, and the horizontal swipes will be 2, so once that is done, you can quickly go in and do your damage – either the melee hits, or Fire.
Sometimes it will do an upper cut also from the weapon, and that attack comes out pretty quickly without much warning in advance.
Always ensure that your health is 70-75%+ when you go in to attack, so that just in case one of the swipe or upper cut attacks hit you, you still have some health left. A single hit can wipe off 40-50% of your health bar, so keep that in mind.
Use a Flaming Whetstone to continue the Burn tick damage and whittle down it’s health faster. Also, if you do manage to get behind the boss, you will see it has a big weakspot. Get in a couple of hits here with your Blunderbuss, and your job is pretty much done.
On defeating the Iron Marshall, you will get 7000 Catalysts, and the ability to use a Grappling Hook. This opens up new traversal paths across those blue nodes that you may have seen earlier, but not been able to do anything about.
