The Tomb Lord appears in numerous Diablo 4 side dungeons, and he can be quite tricky to deal with, especially if your class build is more effective at dealing damage at close range. He's great at limiting your visibility and movement options, all while sending minions to chip away at your health.
If you've come across the Tomb Lord in your Diablo 4 adventures but are having trouble figuring out how to deal with its various abilities, this guide will explain exactly how they work and it will give you some tips as to how to deal with them.
The Tomb Lord Phase 1
In the Tomb Lord's first phase, it will use two main abilities to damage and disorient you. The first is a sort of vacuum vortex that it shoots out as a projectile. The Tomb Lord will fire it at your vicinity, after which it will remain active on the terrain as an AoE for a handful of seconds.
If you're caught in this vacuum, you'll receive damage over time and lose visibility of your surroundings; everything will go dark. This can be particularly dangerous, as you'll lose track of the incoming mobs and therefore won't know where to aim or run away.
The Tomb Lord also spawns bone walls around the terrain, making it difficult for you to maneuver around the mobs and vortexes. Be sure to use your evade(s) very deliberately. Do your best to save them for when the vortexes come, as, this way, you'll be aware of your surroundings and won't give the mobs even a second to get the upper hand on you.
The Tomb Lord Phase 2
Once you bring the Tomb Lord down to half its health, it enters phase two. Here is when things get intense. The incoming mobs never stop, of course, so you're always going to be dealing with that. But now, the vacuums the Tomb Lord fires move and chase after you, so even if you evade the initial projectile, you're going to have to keep moving to avoid them.
Furthermore, in phase 2 the Tomb Lord gets a bit more creative with its bone walls. It will create a circle of destroyable walls around you, trapping you inside, and if you don't escape them in time (five seconds give or take), the area will explode for massive damage. Do your best to save your cooldowns/resources for this situation, in order to damage the walls and escape the circle as quickly as possible, because you do not want to be caught inside it when it explodes.
The Tomb Lord will switch it up sometimes, and create a smaller circle of bone walls around itself, exploding after a similar amount of time. If you're running a melee build, keep an eye out for this and try to weave in and out from time to time to not get caught here, as the damage is just as bad.