Lies of P boss weaknesses and types, explained with data

Four types, four weaknesses

The Boss mode grid sorts every boss into one of four types, Stalker, Carcass, Puppet and Reborner, and gives each of them one main weakness: Fire, Electric, Acid or None. These are the enemy families and elements of Lies of P itself; the world of Lies of P introduces them without spoilers. Here is how the 29 bosses split.

Taken one at a time, the two columns look fairly balanced. Crossed with each other, they are anything but:

Three rules follow, and they hold for every boss in the game data:

• Stalkers have no elemental weakness, and they are the only ones. A boss listed with None is always a Stalker, and every Stalker is listed with None.
• Carcasses fear Fire, with a single exception: Puppet-Devouring Green Monster, weak to Electric. The game drops the hint itself in a message players can read along the way: “Carcasses are weak to fire.”
• Puppets split between Electric and Acid, while Reborners lean heavily toward Acid. The lone exception is Door Guardian, a Reborner weak to Fire.

Only seven of the sixteen possible type and weakness pairs actually exist, and two of them hold a single boss each. Those two outliers are worth remembering, as the last section of this guide shows.

Every boss by weakness

What each element does in Lies of P

The Weakness column reflects a real mechanic. Each of the three elements builds up its own status ailment, and the game's tutorials spell out what each one does:

• Fire builds up Overheat. Both your character and monsters take more Fire damage and suffer continuous Fire damage. Monsters also recover HP more slowly, while your own Guard Regain recovery decreases. Fire Resistance slows the gauge.
• Electric Blitz, shown as Electric in the grid, builds up Electric Shock. Its victims take more Electric Blitz and Physical damage. On your side, it continuously damages your Fable slots; on monsters, it increases Stagger damage. Electric Blitz Resistance slows the gauge.
• Acid builds up Decay. It raises the Acid damage taken, wears down your weapon's durability while dealing Acid damage over time, and increases the Destruction damage monsters take. Acid Resistance slows the gauge.

A Purification Ampoule removes Overheat, Electric Shock and Decay, along with Corruption. Against a boss, it pays to bring the element listed as its weakness: that is the damage it handles worst, and the status ailment adds its own penalties on top.

Bringing the right element

Lies of P offers several ways to deal elemental damage:

• Elemental weapons. Among the 51 weapons in our data, 2 deal Fire damage, 2 deal Electric damage and 2 deal Acid damage; the other 45 have no element. All six elemental weapons scale with Advance.
• Legion Arms. Flamberge carries Fire, Fulminis carries Electric and Pandemonium carries Acid.
• Abrasives, such as the Fire Abrasive, are consumables that temporarily imbue your weapon with an element.
• Special Grindstones, such as the Flame Grindstone, are fitted to your Grinder and triggered by using it while guarding. They temporarily imbue your weapon as well, but they are fragile and cannot be used often, so save them for the fights that matter.

The weapons guide and the Legion Arms guide go into more detail on each item.

Main game and DLC do not look alike

The 8 bosses of the Overture DLC follow a different pattern from the 21 bosses of the main game. Half of them are Carcasses weak to Fire, two are Stalkers, and the remaining two, a Puppet and a Reborner, are both weak to Acid. Not one of them is weak to Electric. In the main game, by contrast, Stalkers and Puppets dominate, and Fire is the rarest weakness.

In practice, once the DLC cell tells you the answer comes from Overture, Electric is ruled out and Fire becomes the likeliest weakness. If the answer comes from the main game, think of Puppets and Stalkers first.

Bosses by chapter

The Chapter column completes the picture. Overture bosses use that campaign's own chapter numbers, which start again at 1, so the table flags the chapters that include DLC bosses.

Using Type and Weakness in the daily puzzle

Because the two columns are linked, each one tells you something about the other. A few deductions come almost for free:

• You guess a Carcass weak to Fire. Type gray and Weakness green: the only boss weak to Fire that is not a Carcass is Door Guardian. Type green and Weakness gray: the only Carcass not weak to Fire is Puppet-Devouring Green Monster.
• You guess a Puppet weak to Electric. Type gray and Weakness green: the answer can only be Puppet-Devouring Green Monster, the one boss weak to Electric that is not a Puppet.
• You guess a Reborner weak to Acid. Type green and Weakness gray: the answer is Door Guardian. Type gray and Weakness green: the answer is one of the three Puppets weak to Acid.
• You guess a Stalker. Its Type and Weakness cells always turn the same color, since every Stalker, and only Stalkers, have no weakness. Together they ask a single question: is the answer a Stalker?

Combined with the Chapter and HP arrows, these shortcuts often settle the game by the second or third guess. The full method, with the openers that split the field best, is in the best first guess. To see every boss with its stats, open the boss codex.