Just a compact guide for miners and other lavaland dwellers who are too intimidated to fight bosses. Just like learning any other job in ss13 fighting these guys is easy once you know it.
The guide will assume you use an accelerator, but every boss will have a melee addendum. I also advise you to take quadruple damage on your accelerator purely due to how bosses work - namely, you want to make the most use out of any openings. The real optimal DPS is quadruple cooldown, though. There are exceptions to this. Also, crusherâs validity is further discussed in the first section.
Updated for 2026
Why the Crusher Sucks
- Itâs big and two-handed.
- You canât carry it passively unless you sacrifice your bag.
- Itâs DPS is low and inconsistent. The damage is improved by upgrades but consistency is not.
- Boss melee timer exists.
- Cleaving Saw Exists
About 'Boss melee timer'
Every simplemob entity in the game has an inbuilt timer that determines when it makes a melee attack. Typically, an enemyâs opening is right after it moves, allowing you to quickly get in, melee, and get out without taking a hit.
For bosses, this is far more unreasonable. You must time your hit not only after the boss moves, but also when itâs actual attacks leave an opening. The bossâ melee attack is already devastating for most cases, and if you get hit with a regular attack you might be dead anyway. It will take you a long time to consistently learn this timing when nothing stops you from just blasting the bosses.
About Cleaving Saw
The cleaving saw does more damage than the crusher, fits in your belt slot, and hits in a radius with its open mode. It is simply better. A bleed detonation from the saw makes everything the crusher can achieve pathetic by comparison. The open saw two-hits watchers and three-hits goliaths, and kills legions instantly. Unless you have a rare tank build with insane healing, I advise simply using single open mode hits against everything, as it is enough to decimate your opponents. You can apply the same strategy as crushing against bosses, only you are walking in just for a single open mode hit, and not giving a fuck about backstabs. It is possible to get a bleed proc on all bosses, though.
About Challenge, Bragging Rights and Optimal Strategy
I will keep this extremely simple. As a miner, your job isnât just to play a challenging game. You have to get supplies to the station, and beyond that, plants, artifacts and artifacts to people who benefit from them, with various opportunities to majorly impact the round for everyone with what you find. If you want to fight every boss in hard mode, do it in a local instance. On a server with people on it, I thereby conclude that the only purpose of the crusher is to use it once on each boss for achievement collectionâs sake, since it actively slows you down and endangers you.
Thus, here is the optimal strategy for getting those achievements over with:
- Wait for a round with good sci on it.
- Walk up to sci and ask for god nanites, explain youâre crushing megafauna for reasoning. Itâs perfectly legitimate.
- KIll a drake normally. Or gum if youâre willing to crush him another round. Get the armor.
- Get like 5 cores and pens.
- Play extremely sloppily because you outheal most hits.
- Hit the bosses until they die.
- Congratulations. Get your beecoins and never use the crusher again.
Coremaxxing, or how I learned to love the Necropolis
A legion core is close to a full heal on lavaland. It also heals some niche effects like deafness or radiation. If you use two cores before the timer is finished, it inflicts legion disease, however, using two legion cores in succession is not a true death sentence. The final symptom of the disease turns you into a legion, but you can cure yourself before that - the cure for the disease is right there on lavaland. Thus, you can spam cores on yourself to your heartâs content if you are losing a fight hard, as long as you are ready to eat fruiting cactus and leafy mushrooms like a pig afterwards. Vitrium Froth, the reagent inside these, will cause the diseaseâs stages to lower and finally cure it.
If you cannot find these plants for the love of you, drop a pod, buckle yourself to the stasis unit inside, and start yelling. Preferrably at other miners, cargo, and paramedics in that order. Once they arrive, get them to kill you before transporting to the station so you donât become a legion on the way, then get cloned or brain-transplanted. For obvious reasons this is a last resort, since it means you not only had to use multiple cores, but also failed at curing yourself fast enough.
If you are getting rescued by someone particularly willing, you can give them a quest to gather cactus and leafy shrooms to cure you instead.
Hierophant
The Hierophant is designed to be fought immediately without upgrades. It deals mostly low damage and you can dodge all attacks without much issue. It gives you a great mining tool and perfect ores for starting out. I usually go for this guy first.
Prep + General Plan
If youâre adequately used to fighting this thing, thereâs no prep aside from having a single core or pen just in case. If youâre new, take off your mining suit and put your oxygen tank on your back instead, and bring ointment (use your pockets). Hierophant gives you plenty of openings to get a cheeky heal in during the fight.
Attacks
- It passively slowly moves towards you, but will never melee you, instead it releases a radial pulse. The pulse can be walked through with good timing. Itâs also not high-damage. If you see a pulse coming, you can just run back.
- Chasers only vaguely track you. If you hate them, just run around the arena and they wonât do much. Itâs possible to dodge them on reaction in order to get more hits in, but just timing them out is fine.
- Its cross attack is scarier than it looks. You do not have to react based on the type of cross, moving one tile left/right and simply holding up/down will dodge both the cardinal and diagonal crosses. Same for the opposite.
- The teleport attack does a lot more damage than anything else. If you have to choose between getting hit by it and a chaser, choose the chaser. Donât lose a leg. Itâs even possible for hierophant to double-hit you with this if youâre next to it, in which case you are likely dead. Always prioritize avoiding this by just not standing still, it is incredibly easy to avoid.
- It can release a big radial pulse even if you arenât next to it. When it does, it always releases multiple (3 usually). Donât get baited into running in after one pulse. Just stay away for this attack.
- The teleport spam attack is the easiest attack for damaging the hierophant, as you simply dodge it by moving. If you are worried about its attacks, you can simply run from them and wait for the teleport attack, use it to smack hiero around, and repeat.
Melee
- Meleeing the hierophant is best done by approaching and hitting it right after it moves a square, then stepping two squares back. This is easily repeatable. Resonator, Saw and Crusher all function the same way. It is possible to simply saw the boss to death however by spamming it and form switching the saw, unless your race has burn vulnerability.
- If the hierophant is aligned to you vertically/horizontally, and you move one tile in the other cardinal direction, hiero will move to track you. This exposes it to an easy backstab with the crusher.
- Hierophantâs last moved direction persists during teleport spam, crosses and triple chaser attacks. Use for repeat backstabs.
Other uses for the boss
- Hierophantâs huge radial attacks mean that it can be lured around lavaland to effectively mine for you. Just donât get gibtonited.
- Hierophantâs attacks will aggro other entities that arenât bosses. You can get it to fight goliaths and watchers, farm tendrils and purge swarmer nests among other things. You will have to lure it so that it hits them with an attack though. Hiero will not attack other bosses.
Things to look out for
- Hierophantâs attacks will briefly slow you. This is normally of no consequence, only lasting a split second, but if you are stuck inside a chaser combined with another attack, you might just get multi-hitted for heavy damage. Your one goal is to minimize successive hits. Do not tank the Hierophant unless you have the saw.
- If thereâs gibtonite around the arena, Hierophantâs attacks might detonate it and knock you down if you are too close. This usually also requires the gibtonite to be both extremely close and high-powered. Just clear the perimiter before fighting it.
Blood-Drunk Miner
The BDM, for short, is a glass cannon enemy that chases you around very quickly. Notorious for being incredibly easy to cheese once you have some upgrades, but able to be killed immediately as well with a little preparation.
Prep + General Plan
Upgrade your mining suit with goliath plates. Two is a safe amount. Get three if your race has brute vulnerability. The rest falls down to how many heals you bring.
If fighting normally, all you need is to ensure there is a large area for you to run around in. Anything with a loop works. The miner chases you while shooting. You never want to let him melee, instead just shuffle around while running while shooting him back.
If cheesing, walk up to him, smack him, and tank it out, healing if necessary. Now that resonators are round-start in the base, there is no reason not to grab one and apply 13 hits to him, which always kills him. Upgraded armor, a pen, and a core is enough to guarantee a flawless fight. Realistically, even the armor is enough if youâre a human.
Attacks
BDM shoots his accelerator at you from a distance while constantly chasing you. He can teleport to catch you off-guard, and he can saw you in melee range. His closed saw does almost no damage. His open saw hits like a truck. Note that you can, in fact, dodge his accelerator, and should always try to.
Melee
Itâs possible to fight this boss normally with melee, but generally counter-productive due to his pattern which shoots you often when you step back. It is genuinely better to just stockpile heals and tank him. Crusher has less damage than resonator, meaning that you will need even more heals. Consider eating a few cacti before the fight.
Things to watch out for
So, when you smack this boss, he usually retaliates with closed saw hits unless you walk away. This makes him incredibly easy to tank, possible even with unupgraded armor. However, sometimes, based on timing, he can open his saw and do his full damage. In this case, you can either start running and convert to a normal fight, or, if you just brought enough heals, tank him anyway and win. A jaunter (or cubes) can also provide an instant escape.
Other uses for the boss
Nothing.
Ash Drake
Statstick boss. Extremely easy attacks that hit like a truck. Fireproof armor or extinguisher required unless you plan to dodge perfectly. Kills new players, gets laughed at otherwise. Can catch you off-guard.
Prep + General Plan
Have a large, open area ready, enough to walk around the drake and change directions without getting meleeâd by it. Hiero arena works as long as you donât get cornered, which might take getting used to.
You will be maintaining distance at your PKAâs range if using it, or waiting for openings with melee. Simply knowing how to dodge its attacks is all it takes.
If you get set on fire and arenât fireproof, use an extinguisher aimed at a wall/rock and stand next to it for a moment for consistent extinguishing. A legion core also instantly extinguishes, even if you wonât heal from it.
Attacks
- Drake will fire three-way flames towards you. The middle flame always aims at you, two others go to its diagonals in that direction. This attack is easiest to dodge if the drake is horizontally/vertically aligned to you, since you only take one step away to the side, and thatâs it.
- Drake will cause fire to rain down combined with the attack above. This is clearly marked on the ground. Just donât stand in the crosshairs. Might catch you off-guard with bad RNG.
- Drake will vanish and its shadow will appear over you. This attack makes lava spawn under you with a reasonable delay. Simply moving all the time is enough to dodge it. At the end, the drake lands and immediately performs the three-way flame. This attack creates an opening (more on this later).
- For its first phase 2 attack, the drake fires flames radially in all directions three times. This attack looks impressive, but the only flame that matters is the one directly facing you. The first and third uses branch out after a bit, meaning that you are safe standing still a bit away from the drake. The second use aims towards you, so just sidestep it. One can also simply move behind any rocks for cover. This attack creates an opening.
- For its second phase 2 attack, drakeâs shadow will appear over you again and trap you in an arena. It then marks a square you have to move in, covering other squares with lava. You can survive this attack if fireproof or fast on the healing and extinguishing, so donât be too scared, just be ready to react if hit. It will do this thrice before landing in the middle of the arena, which does hurt. This attack creates an opening.
Melee
Use attacks that make openings to get easy hits in. An opening denotes a period during which the drake cannot melee you and does not use other attacks. Openings occur after the drake uses its lava attack, arena or radial flames. This is enough for roughly five melee hits, though six can be done if you are fast. The crusher is much worse, as usual, so go for two hits only with it. One can also carefully hit the drake between its usual attacks, but avoiding its melee is unreliable. Four saw combos are enough to kill the drake. Two can be done immediately after an opening, meaning that the entire fight can be brought down to waiting for the lava attack, then surviving a single phase 2 attack.
Other uses of the boss
The drake can smelt things for you with its flames, without destroying any ores. It can also create terrain with its arena attack. Itâs usually better to just RCD lava or abyss, but a madman could theoretically use it for this.
Things to watch out for
The drakeâs melee attack is devastating, and its flames still damage you even if you are fireproof. Tanking the drake without immense armor and immense heals to boot is impossible. I recommend only trying if you have the saw. The drake also has a niche enrage mechanic, supposedly triggering when it kills someone. In reality, this mechanic can randomly jumpscare you sometimes; it makes it spam flames and move much faster for a while. Just run if you see it, then continue the fight later.
Bubblegum
Big numbers, challenging attacks, but very straightforward and a fun fight with no gimmicks. Has a deadly but rare bug.
Prep + General Plan
- Have a big area ready to run through. Not necessarily an âarenaâ, just lots of space to move through. Clear the space of gibtonite and avoid single-tile passages as they might kill you.
- Bring heals if you care.
- If you are an actual crazy person, bring a janicart with a buffer and speed potion applied. I have never seen this done but itâs simply an incredible thing to do.
Your plan is simple. Hit Bubblegum during its charges. When itâs between attacks, align yourself to it horizontally/vertically so it moves away instead of dodging diagonally, making it easier to hit during this as well. Make good use of your openings, memorize its attacks, donât get cornered. If youâre standing on blood, keep moving. Thatâs it.
Attacks
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For its first phase 1 attack, Bubblegum spawns slaughterlings, potentially teleporting to blood at the same time. Instead of fighting them, simply run away so they are off-screen, and they will not pursue you. Wait for Bubblegum to approach you and then continue the fight. If you trigger the slaughterlings, a single hit destroys them, making them prone to cleaving saw, spammy PKA and hiero. Generally avoid actually dealing with this attack and always try to just avoid it by stepping back.
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For its second phase 1 attack, Bubblegum will mark your location, then dash towards it. It repeats this three times. As of a recent update, its indicator is one off, and it dashes a single square further in its chosen direction. Gum can be hit during this attack, and there is an opening after the third charge.
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For its first phase 2 attack, Bubblegum will spawn three clones around you while it also teleports, then all of them move towards the marked location in the center. Bubblegum will repeat this attack a few times. Simply move to a direction not occupied by a clone. Just moving diagonally all the time is enough in a big area. If you are in a single-tile tunnel, this attack might be undodgable. Bubblegum always performs a regular triple charge after this attack.
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For its second phase 2 attack, Bubblegum will spawn a lot of clones in a large circle around you, then they all move towards the center. This is basically a quick time event and requires a quick and precise dodge to an unoccupied space that isnât in a cloneâs path.
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For its third phase 2 attack, Bubblegum performs its regular charge while some clones perform their own, with their own paths, usually from the sides. Simply run away from the marked areas towards a space with no clones in it. There is enough time to fully avoid all marked areas and all hallucinations if you keep moving. You can still hit gum easily during this attack if you are focused enough.
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Bubblegumâs first universal mechanic is becoming enraged. While enraged Bubblegum chases after you instead of retreating between attacks, moves faster, and takes no damage from ranged hits. All you have to do is keep your distance when this happens. He can be enraged during regular attacks, in which case it simply makes him invincible to ranged and doesnât otherwise change them.
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Bubblegumâs second universal mechanic periodically tries to attack anyone standing on blood remotely. If you keep moving, this attack will always miss you. This means that if you are fighting gum in one set location instead of running through lavaland, you will also have to add constant movement to your strategy.
Melee
Bubblegum can be meleed during its charges, of which only the triple charge is reliably safe enough to hit him during. Immediately after the triple charge, he also has an opening during which you can get one hit in. The crusher actually manages to be a very strong weapon against this boss, because single strong hits is its specialty. If using saw, do not try to get bleeds in - itâs a pipe dream. Just use open hits. Resonator can also work during the opening, but will miss the force during charges.
Other uses of the boss
Bubblegum has a very long aggro range and keeps charging after you. This makes him incredibly reliable for a way to blow up the syndicate base/shuttle, as all that is required is running to it with gum in tow, then waiting for a bullet to inevitably hit him. One can even leave him next to the base and jaunter away. At best, turrets will be gone there. At worst, base is exploded in a minute.
Things to watch out for.
Bubblegum has a bug which occurs only on incredibly long rounds. The bug is rather funny, and can even be considered a âhard modeâ of the fight. It makes bubblegumâs charges cover an immense distance, and happen instantly. If you want to take on bubblegum after he unlocks the flash step technique, make sure to be as prepared as you possibly can. This is the hardest fight on lavaland and not fair at all.
Colossus
A gimmick boss that relies on being patient and using openings from his lament and judgment attcks. Generally encourges being at mid-range, and is annoying to melee.
Prep + General Plan
Since the colossus will be firing death bolts in a massive area around him, gibtonite will detonate and knock you the fuck out without a doubt, so a very, very large area should be cleared for him. Alternatively, one can simply keep distance during his attacks, even if behind cover. Being careful pays off. Luring him to hierophant arena can make the fight very easy. I advise bringing a full cooldown PKA for this fight.
Attacks
Colossus announces his attacks before doing them. This is actually rather problematic, since you want to be very far from him when he does attacks, meaning you will not hear what he announces! This is why a big open area is arguably better than running from him. Colossus has no openings. He can always melee.
- Lament fires off crosses, aimed in cardinal directions and diagonally, alternating between the two. You can decimate the colossus with a PKA during this attack.
- Retribution fires a shotgun attack in your direction. This will almost certainly instakill you if you are near him, but being about a screenâs distance away makes it an easy dodge. Jump boots also trivialize it.
- Wrath fires shots all around him. This is an RNG attack with random openings. Even if far away, bad RNG can decimate you. This attack requires being behind cover, or lucky.
- Judgment fires off shots in all directions in a spiral pattern. In phase 2 he does two spirals at the same time. This attack is actually very easy to dodge from a distance since you simply take single steps to the side every time a bolt appears. You can get a shot on him every time you dodge, if you want to be fancy.
- Die. This attack will spam bolts everywhere and kill you. It is only performed at very low health, but leaves a massive opening afterwards. To avoid this attack, having a good sense of his health helps, because all you need to do is flee, then return before the opening is over. A few shots will kill the colossus. And yes, he can still melee during this âopeningâ.
Melee
Very annoying, and makes the fight take ages. You will be getting a single hit in after he makes an attack, then running back. With a saw, you can actually fully combo him during lament as well, though it is tricky. Taking melee damage against colossus is inevitable, so you should have the best armor possible ready, as well as heals. You can hit him after he moves, but sometimes this timing is simply too inconvenient because you want to avoid his ranged attacks as well. Overall, not a fun time.
Cheesing the boss (and uses)
The colossus can be fought easily by luring him into the hierophant arena. From there, get to one of the 2x2 squares and just let him loop around it, while taking potshots with a PKA whenever you feel it is safe, such as between attacks or during lament. As long as you loop the square and keep your distance, nothing can hit you, not even the final âdieâ attack. One can also just exit the arena at any time safely.
The only use colossus has is mining in an area, or blowing up the syndicate base at range, which you should use a jaunter for so you do not die from the explosion.
Legion
A battle of patience, the legion takes a very, very long time to kill, and is coded to be annoying. It is not difficult, however.
Prep + General Plan
You must have a clear route throughout lavaland. The way the legion kills you is by trapping you after you lose your path. This is the number one cause of all legion deaths. As long as you have a clear path, you will win. Making a path straight from its bridge to below is incredibly easy (with an RCD) and the best way to do this. If you have wings, you can also just go to the far left of the map and use the lava river which spans the whole thing. Load up your PKA with four cooldowns or three and the offensive explosion - this is the only true use for this mod. Bring hierophant too if you have it, it helps a lot.
The entire fight is just you running from the legion, slowly, while blasting it to kingdom come with your PKA (and/or hiero).
Attacks
- Retreats and spawns skulls. Legion does this when you approach. It will keep retreating over and over if you keep going after it. This is bait.
- Spins and chases you, meleeing if it reaches you. Legion does this when you retreat, or when you hold your ground. This is the attack during which you hit it.
- The legion splits on death a few times, which can quickly bring the fight from easy to unbearable unless you have a clear path to keep retreating down, as noted earlier.
Melee
Open saw still deals huge damage to the legion, and can instakill the smallest skulls it splits into, but legion has no openings, requiring quick hits during its spinning chase. Crusher is a nightmare. The same strategy implies, but it simply does not have the damage or consistency to deal with this fight. I highly advise getting a stockpile of pens, cores, nanites, chems and everything else you can think of, because this is not only annoying, but extremely unfun with the crusher. Bright a lighter as well, for bleeding.
Other uses of the boss
Legion has a massive aggro range, making it a good way to fuck up the syndicate base as usual. Since it moves rather slowly, one can tell exactly when a turret aggros it, at which point you can run away. Legion has no mass-destruction attacks, meaning it can disable syndicate turrets without blowing the base up, making it uniquely useful. It will also chase any agent it sees inside.
Things to look out for
Other mobs can fuck you up during this long fight, doubly so for other bosses. Storms can fuck you up if not fireproof since the fight takes ages. Of course, getting cornered is death. Bring a jaunter to survive if you fuck up!
Swarmer Beacon
An annoying stationary mob that spawns swarmers constantly. These will eat away at lavaland and destroy structures and tendrils. They will steal your loot, eat alien tools or other treasure, and leave traps everywhere. This makes the boss a priority target that should be destroyed immediately when you see the hungry signal on your GPS. If it is too far away, it genuinely warrants random-dropping the shuttle to rush them. The swarmers are the threat. The beacon only spawns them and alerts them.
Prep + General Plan
Put cooldown on your accelerator and shuffle around to dodge swarmer shots. No special arena is needed, just patience to not rush in and get blasted to shit. Two hits from a yellow swarmer will knock you out. Having the hierophant helps for long range attacks, but meleeing swarmers is a very poor idea. One can still crush the beacon itself for an achievement, after all swarmers are gone.
Attacks
- Yellow swarmers have fast diagonal movement and rush you, knocking out in two hits, then they teleport you, potentially into a spider den where you die.
- Blue and red swarmers shoot you with disablers and lasers. They can shoot their comrades by mistake.
- The swarmer beacon alerts all swarmers to go to its location once hit, and periodically spawns them. Donât get caught off-guard by a spawned yellow swarmer.
- Swarmers create traps and barricades. These are annoying to shoot, but easy to destroy.
Melee
Crush the beacon itself for the achievement, donât even try crushing the swarmers themselves. Any other melee (and crusher itself vs swarmers themselves) is pointless!
Other uses of the boss
Swarmers will eat away at iron, but leave other ores around, making the swarmer horde technically helpful. They can also bridge over lava, but their bridges slow you down! One can also farm the beacon for bluespace crystals if some form of very creative containment is established, such as holobarriers.
Things to watch out for
The swarmers can become too difficult to manage if left alone for too long. If you see this as a latejoin miner, you should genuinely ask security to come with you, or mine a bit and bring a full combat mech along. Also, they will eat everything. Also, if you lose, they can teleport you into the spider den of your base or the syndicate base. Clear out the spiders in advance to avoid a cheap death, if you think youâre prone to losing.
Loot
Tierlist
Top Tier - Anomalous Crystal
High Tier - Cleaving Saw
Good Tier - H.E.C.K. Suit and Drake Armor
? Tier - Hierophant Club
Bad Tier - Divine Vocal Cords.
Shit Tier - Dragon Blood
Dragonâs Blood: This shitty item turns you into a lizard that canât wear shoes, or into a skeleton. Both of these races are ass, though for very different reasons. The skeleton at least has utility. If you actally get lucky, you will get the third effect, which makes you lavaproofâŚexcept this is something xenobio can already do for you, or you can just get wings. Overall, sell this thing.
Drake Armor: This armor is strong on lavaland, fireproof, stormproof, and lets you eat and drink. Itâs good. Itâs also debatably a worse modsuit, but has no speed loss.
H.E.C.K. Suit: This is slightly better than drake armor from what I remember, does not let you eat or drink (but you can just lower the helmet briefly), and looks much cooler if painted. Despite bragging rights, it is also debatably a worse modsuit, but also has no speed loss.
Divine Vocal Cords: This sells for a lot. Other than that, it has situational combat use for the person implanted with it. Most effects are incredibly weak. The best effect is the push, since it can slam into a wall, and that slam is a normal slam instead of being ultra-nerfed. It also has good roleplay use, but that is seldom-seen.
Hierophant Club: Sells for a lot. Outstanding item that scales with health, safely aggroes or detonates gibtonite, and paramedics like the beacon teleport. People are salt over this thing very often, so I do not bother.
Cleaving Saw: The best weapon on lavaland. Thereâs no reason to ever avoid this.
Anomalous Crystal
Varied effects ranging from useless to incredible. Do not bump into the crystal until you know what it does!
⢠Shoots a death bolt up. Extremely high object damage. Kill the AI with this or break into places easily. Otherwise, sell.
⢠Turns whoever walks into the crystal into a clown. Includes permanent rename and clumsiness mutation, along with a full strip and set of clown gear. Luckily, you are immune after this happens once. Can be used to clown on an antag (heh) but otherwise, sell this.
⢠Red shimmer that instantly revives and full-heals every corpse in its radius, as a shadowperson. Defeat death with this, forever.
⢠Pinging sound which makes the crystal a ghost beacon for lightgeist respawns. Lightgeists are friendly mobs that speak slime and heal injuries, infinitely, on touch.
⢠Pop effect that resets an item to its original state if in the popped tile. The âpower of infinityâ is key to endless money, chems, points, healing, and much more.