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The Butcher is a fun Easter Egg in Diablo 4 for fans of previous games. You will likely see him multiple times during your playthrough, each time synced to your current level. This means that fighting the Butcher never gets easier, but there is a way to beat him.
Hopeful Butcher slayers will need to think fast on their feet, ducking and dodging his disabling attacks. Successful players will be rewarded with a number of rare loot drops, including a unique weapon.
Updated by Abigail Angell on June 25th, 2023: We've clarified that The Butcher's Cleaver is not a Guaranteed drop, and added a table to better display the rewards for defeating this boss.
Where To Find The Butcher
The Butcher is a random spawn in dungeons. There is no guaranteed way to trigger an encounter with the Butcher. Completing dungeons frequently will increase your chances that he spawns. Once the Butcher has spawned, he will follow the player relentlessly until he is defeated or the player dies. If the player dies, he will simply despawn, vanishing from the dungeon.
How To Beat The Butcher
Since the Butcher is a randomly spawning enemy, you cannot really prepare for him. The only warning of his arrival is a shout of "Fresh meat!" However, you might keep an Elixir on your person to decrease the evade cooldown or increase your armor. Elixirs do not take up space in your normal inventory and can be quickly consumed when he spawns for a bit of help.
Boss Fight Strategy
When the Butcher spawns, you'll want to kite him. He is an enemy that cannot inflict significant damage outside a limited melee range, and he moves very slowly. If the player is outside of melee range, the Butcher will attempt to use one of his gap-closing abilities such as Hook or Charge, but these can be dodged.
His high HP means that you'll need to dance around him for quite some time, pushing your reflexes to the limit, but there are ways to make dodging his gap-closing abilities easier. In an ideal scenario, lead him to an area of the dungeon with many walls and corners, and then exploit these to dodge his stunning attacks.
To deal damage while staying out of harm's way, damage over time, area of effect, and ranged attacks are all good options. For characters without these in their kit, your only option will be to run in, hit him a couple of times, and then dodge out of the way of his slice before doing it again.
The Butcher's Health & Stagger Bars
Like most boss enemies in Diablo 4, the Butcher has multiple phases on this health bar and a stagger bar.
The arrows on his health bar indicate changes in the boss' behavior. Once each arrow is reached the Butcher's health bar, his attack pattern will speed up slightly, and he will drop two health potions (on veteran difficulty).
The Stagger bar, in contrast, slowly fills and provides players a way to use their CC abilities without simply stun-locking powerful enemies. When crowd control abilities are used on a boss, instead of becoming immediately affected, they instead receive progress on a stagger bar. When the stagger bar is full, the Butcher will pause his attacks for about ten seconds, allowing players the chance to really unleash on him.
The Butcher's Attacks
The Butcher has a somewhat limited attack pool. However, these attacks are very effective. These are his attacks explained, beginning with the most dangerous.
Charge
Once a player gets out of the melee range of the Butcher, there is a chance he will charge forward, hitting them with his belly and causing the Stun Crowd Control effect. While the attack itself doesn't do too much damage, being stunned in melee against the Butcher is very likely a death sentence.
This attack travels in a straight line but is very fast. If you decide to move away from the Butcher, use terrain or a zigzag pattern to avoid this attack.
Headbutt
This is another stunning attack, although this one is only performed while your character is in melee. The Butcher puts his head down to telegraph the attack, allowing nimble players the chance to dodge out of the way.
Cleaver
This is the Butcher's basic attack and his main way of doing damage. He will slice his cleaver at you in a short-range arc. This won't immediately kill you, but the damage can add up quickly and force you to blow through your health potions.
The wind-up on this attack is significant, meaning you can dance in and out of range to land a couple of hits before dodging out of the way. As an added bonus, staying near the Butcher will reduce the number of unique attacks he uses significantly.
Hook
The Butcher sometimes whips his meat hook at fleeing players instead of charging, dragging them back in. This attack does moderate damage and inflicts the stun effect. However, you won't get pulled all the way into melee range, and can often dodge the follow-up attack if you evade as soon as possible.
Shout
Finally, the Butcher has an AoE attack that slows players. He most often uses this attack against fleeing players whom he cannot currently hit with a Charge or Hook. The slow on this ability is pretty severe, but you can continue to outpace him with most builds due to his slow attack pattern.
Rewards For Beating The Butcher
When the Butcher is successfully defeated, he will drop boss-level loot. Each time you defeat the Butcher, expect a few of the following rewards (rolled randomly).
|
Item |
Rarity |
|---|---|
|
The Butcher's Cleaver |
Common (but not Guaranteed) |
|
Unique Items |
Maximum of 1 (rare but possible) |
|
Legendary Items |
1-3 (higher drop rate than Elites) |
|
Gold |
Guaranteed, Level Synced |
|
Gems |
Common |
The Butcher's Cleaver is really the highlight here — it's an amazing two-handed Barbarian weapon with a Lucky Hit power to slow and fear enemies by up to 70% and sizable damage numbers.