Blaze Slayer Guide: Tier 1 to Tier 4

Blaze slayer isn't as hard as it used to be. Asxent recently redid it from scratch to show that it's actually really simple. If you've progressed decently through the game, this might be your sign to start. This guide works for both Ironman and normal profiles.

Gear at a glance

Use the Vanquished equipment set from Tier 1 until Blaze 6.

Tier 1

Tier 1 is mainly there to teach you the basics before the Blaze-specific mechanics begin, so you don't need anything crazy.

Gear

• Armor: Necron Armor with basically any decent melee weapon, or Aurora Armor with a Hyperion.
• Equipment: the Vanquished set. Its full set bonus is incredibly powerful.
• Moody Grappleshot: make sure to get one. It lets you lasso blazes and deal double damage to them, which becomes especially important later at the cheese spot.
• Magical Power: at least around 500.
• Utilities: nothing major besides your normal healing items, if you need them.

How to beat Tier 1

The main mechanic is Immolate: the Inferno Demonlord damages you constantly throughout the fight, and the damage gets stronger as its health gets lower.

At 50% health it also uses Demonsplit, splitting into Quazii and Typhoeus before eventually reforming into the main boss.

Do this boss a few times until you unlock the first tier of daggers. Once you have the Firedust Dagger and Twilight Dagger, you're ready for Tier 2.

Tier 2

This is where you start investing in a real Blaze slayer setup.

Gear

• Armor: at least Burning Crimson, with a Warden Helmet. The Warden Helmet is great for damage and incredibly affordable.
• Equipment: stick with the full Vanquished set. It's a really strong mix of damage and survivability on the Crimson Isle, and you can keep using it until much later.
• Weapons: your first set of Blaze daggers, the Firedust Dagger and Twilight Dagger.
• Magical Power: at least around 800, using the Silky or Strong power.
• Pet: consider a level 100 Legendary Blaze. On the Crimson Isle it's extremely strong damage-wise, and can compete with a level 200 Golden Dragon backed by hundreds of millions of coins in the bank.

Utilities

You need:

• Overflux
• Wand of Atonement
• Hyperion
• Wither Cloak Sword

A Re-heated Gummy Polar Bear is also great whenever you can use one, since it gives an extra 10 Combat Wisdom.

The Wither Cloak becomes especially important from Tier 2, because this is where Fire Pillars are introduced.

Attributes

These attributes are extremely good for Blaze and worth leveling as much as possible:

Spawning the boss

Use an RCM setup to one-shot groups of blazes until you're close to the spawn threshold. Then use your Moody Grappleshot to lure the last blaze to wherever you want the boss to spawn. You can spawn it however you like, but this makes positioning the boss much easier.

How to beat Tier 2

Tier 2 introduces probably the most important Blaze mechanic: Hellion Shields. From here on, the boss cycles through four attunements, and each dagger handles two of them:

• Attacking with the wrong attunement reduces your damage by 99%.
• The shield switches after eight valid hits.
• Right-click to swap your dagger's attunement.

The other new mechanic is Fire Pillar. In the second half of the fight, the boss can throw down a pillar that explodes if you don't deal with it. You can technically destroy pillars with a Wisp, but for this progression, just follow the SkyHanni notification and learn the Wither Cloak timing to tank the explosion.

Once you can kill Tier 2 consistently, move on to Tier 3.

Tier 3

If the rest of your profile is strong enough, you can kill Tier 3s with the Tier 1 daggers (Firedust and Twilight).

Gear

• Armor: keep your Crimson setup and Warden Helmet. Start looking toward Fiery Crimson with Habanero Tactics IV as your main long-term armor.
• Equipment: keep the full Vanquished set. It's still extremely good here, and there's no major reason to replace it yet.
• Weapons: keep your Firedust and Twilight Daggers, and start using a Ragnarok Axe during the demon phases. The demons are usually where weaker setups lose a ton of time, so using the Ragnarok Axe before you damage them makes those phases much faster.
• Magical Power: at least around 1,200 before you seriously grind Tier 3.
• Pet: your Blaze, or a strong Golden Dragon setup, depending on your profile and budget.
• Utilities: replace the Overflux with a Warning Flare. Keep using the Wand of Atonement, Hyperion and Wither Cloak Sword, plus a Re-heated Gummy Polar Bear when you have one.

The cheese spot

From Tier 3, start using the cheese spot outside the Smoldering Tomb. It lets you avoid some of the more dangerous boss mechanics much more easily until you have stronger gear. The video shows exactly where it is.

How to beat Tier 3

This is where the mechanics get significantly more annoying.

• Instead of one Demonsplit, the boss now splits twice, at roughly 66% and 33% health. Use your Ragnarok Axe to speed up the demon kills.
• Once the boss reaches its final third, Fire Pits can start spawning around you. They give you a short warning before becoming active.

Keep grinding Tier 3 until you're ready for Tier 4.

Tier 4

This is where survivability gets much harder. Your biggest concern is True Damage.

Minimum gear

• Armor: Infernal Crimson with a Warden Helmet. While you're on the Tier 2 daggers, swap your Crimson Chestplate for a Sorrow Chestplate during the final phase, especially around the second demon phase. The Sorrow is there for its True Defense, because True Damage is one of the biggest killers in Tier 4.
• Equipment: keep using the Vanquished set until Blaze 6.
• Weapons: at least the Tier 2 daggers, Kindlebane and Mawdredge, plus your Ragnarok Axe for the demon phases.
• Magical Power: keep raising it beyond 1,200. To fight Tier 4s comfortably without relying on elevated-ground cheese spots, you'll eventually want around 1,600.
• Pet: your Blaze, or a Golden Dragon with at least 500 million coins in the bank, depending on your progression. Eventually, consider a Legendary Wisp for faster spawning.
• Utilities: Warning Flare, Hyperion, Wither Cloak Sword, Ragnarok Axe and Re-heated Gummy Polar Bear.

Dagger enchants

• All T6 enchants, with Smoldering V.
• Normally Swarm V, but depending on Chimera prices, Chimera can be extremely strong too. For reference, Chimera II can outperform Swarm V.

How to beat Tier 4

Tier 4 takes everything from the earlier tiers and raises the survivability requirement substantially.

• Keep dealing with Hellion Shields, demon phases, Fire Pillars and Fire Pits as before.
• Spam the Hyperion for its shield. The absorption and damage reduction make a massive difference to surviving.
• In the difficult final part of the fight, swap into your Sorrow Chestplate if you need to, and make heavy use of the Hyperion's shield.
• Keep using the cheese spot until your setup is strong enough that you don't need it anymore.

Keep grinding Tier 4 until you reach Blaze slayer level 6, where some of your biggest upgrades unlock.

Blaze 6 and beyond

Final daggers

At Blaze 6, start working toward the final daggers, Pyrochaos and Deathripper. They deal much more damage and heal you much more, so you'll rely on the Hyperion much less, and eventually you won't need the Wither Cloak Sword at all.

Other upgrades

• True Defense: upgrade to the Alert Flare and get a Hamtek Radio. Both are great sources of extra True Defense and make your Tier 4 kills much faster and more consistent.
• Helmet: once you have the final daggers, replace the Warden Helmet with an Infernal Crimson Helmet or a Crown of Avarice.
• Enchant: run Habanero Tactics V on all your armor pieces.
• Equipment: this is finally where you replace the Vanquished set. Asxent's Blaze equipment is the Rift Necklace, David's Cloak, Primordial Belt and Demonslayer Gauntlet. The Demonslayer Gauntlet in particular is an extremely good piece.

Fighting Tier 4 anywhere

With stronger equipment and the final daggers, you can fight Tier 4s in basically any open, above-ground area without nearly as much trouble. Have a Re-heated Gummy Polar Bear active so the surrounding blazes don't constantly hit you.

To fight Tier 4s comfortably without elevated ground or cheese spots, aim for at least:

• Chimera III on your daggers
• all the important T6 enchants
• around 1,600 Magical Power
• the final daggers
• strong endgame Blaze equipment

At this point you don't need to focus nearly as much on healing, because the daggers themselves give you much more sustain.

Blaze 7 and making money

• The only final upgrade is an SOS Flare, at Blaze slayer level 7.
• Blaze 7 also unlocks the High Class Archfiend Dice as a drop. It's the main money-making drop from Blaze slayer, which gives you a real financial reason to push toward Blaze 9 if you want to grind Blaze for money.