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Diablo 4 has a wonderful campaign in 6 Acts for players to enjoy, but for many, the end-game content is where it's at. The end-game has a variety of challenges, such as Capstone Dungeons, Seasonal Challenges, and World Bosses. Ashava The Pestilent, one such world boss, is a disease-ridden behemoth with a hefty bag of loot for those who can beat her.
The trouble is, beating her and getting those rewards is no simple matter. World Bosses are meant to be a pinnacle challenge and are not always available. Read on for tips on when and where Ashava spawns, tricks for fighting a World Boss, and a breakdown of all of Ashava's abilities.
Preparing To Fight Ashava
Before farming a World Boss, you'll need to gear up for the fight, locate a spawning World Boss, and gather a group of players. Each World Boss has different builds that work best for them, so knowing who you will be fighting is important.
Damage Type
When fighting a World Boss, it is heavily suggested to up your resistance to their primary damage type. This can be easily done with Elixirs, and you can also use gear with relevant resistance if it is available.
Ashava does physical damage and poison damage. Gear with poison resistance, and an Elixir of Poison Resistance or Iron Barb will serve you best in this fight. If you have a build heavily reliant on poison damage currently equipped, you may also want to consider a respec to an alternative.
Spawn Time & Location
Ashava spawns on a hidden world boss schedule and can spawn in any one of the five World Boss arenas found in Sanctuary. When seeking her out, players should keep an eye out for a marker on the map over a World Boss Arena. This indicates a World Boss will soon spawn and tells you which one will appear if hovered over. You can also look at the animation of the boss portal to tell if Ashava is the one spawning - her portal is greenish in hue and has bony spines around the outside.
If you are not seeing markers for World Bosses, this could be because you haven't yet beaten the main campaign. Players who haven't beaten the campaign can still take part in the fight if they arrive in time, but will not be motivated on the world map of any World Boss spawns.
Number Of Suggested Players
World Bosses are intended to be a multiplayer experience similar to a Raid in an MMO. Ashava, like most World Bosses, is nigh impossible to beat in the time limit with fewer than five players. Conversely, her health and damage will scale with more players in the fight, so there is also a point where too many participants can make things more difficult. The sweet spot appears to be between 10 and 15 players.
How To Beat Ashava The Pestilent
Ashava is a World Boss, which means that she has powerful attacks and more health than your average boss. In order to successfully defeat her, you will need to keep an eye on certain special mechanics.
Health Bar
Ashava is a World Boss with a middling amount of Health but lots and lots of armor. The result is that your attacks won't do as much damage to her as you might expect. In addition, there are three phases in this fight, marked with arrows. As Ashava's health gets lower, she will enter new phases and become more aggressive.
Stagger Bar
Ashava has a Stagger bar directly below her health bar. Hitting her with crowd control effects such as a Sorcerer's Ice abilities will slowly fill this bar. Once the bar is full, she will fall down and stop attacking for about 12 seconds. Staggering is particularly important when fighting Ashava because her unique mechanic involves disabling some of her most powerful attacks.
Unique Mechanics
Ashava The Pestilent has a unique mechanic tied to her stagger bar. When she is staggered, she will lose one of her arm blades and a sizable chunk of armor. Stagger her twice during the fight to severely hinder her ability to damage you and make her more vulnerable to attacks.
Time Limit
World Bosses such as Ashava are only above ground for a limited time. From the moment the boss spawns, a timer for fifteen minutes will begin. If the timer expires before players successfully kill Ashava, then she will retreat below ground. This is considered an event failure and results in no rewards.
Abilities Of Ashava The Pestilent
During the fight against Ashava, she will use an impressive arsenal to scatter and damage players. Here are each of her abilities ranked from most to least dangerous.
Poison Breath
Ashava's Poison Breath is one of her most threatening abilities. Not only will it melt through your health bar, but its area of effect is quite large. This can make it difficult to dodge if you find yourself in her path. To stay clear of this ability, it is best to be behind or underneath Ashava.
Swipes
The other main threat of the fight will be Ashava's swipes with her massive claws. These are mid-range attacks that can one-shot players. To limit the effectiveness of this attack, you need to be either very close to her or very far away. Watch for her to raise her arms to know when this one is coming.
Ashava will only do partial damage with this attack if the arm being used no longer has a claw, so staggering her can nerf this attack drastically.
Ground Pound
Sometimes, there will be an orange circular outline that appears on the ground. This indicates that Ashava is going to pound the ground with her fists. If the hand she uses still has its' claw, then the damage to this attack is massive. However, the ability to knock off her claws and the relatively small area of the attack means it is not usually a major threat.
Bite
Occasionally Ashava will target a player with a bite. This is telegraphed by her rearing back a little to dash forward. The bite's hitbox is a rectangle going outwards from Ashava, so make sure to dodge sideways rather than backward.
Jump
If none of the players are easily targetable in Ashava's current position, she will bend down and launch herself into the air to reposition. The direction she will go is telegraphed by whether her right, left, or both legs bend. Try not to be in the location where she will land, as this will deal sizable damage and CC your character.
Rewards For Beating Ashava
Beating Ashava will result in a number of rewards, including a Legendary Item, gems, a Scattered Prism, and a rotating weekly reward called Ashava's Spoils. In addition to these items and crafting materials drops, players will receive a large amount of gold and experience scaled to their current level.