I’m not much of a magic user in survival RPG Enshrouded. I carry a magic wand so I have a ranged attack ready if I run out of arrows, and I have a decent staff I can use to fling fireballs, but my build is more of a survivalist tank: lots of points in HP, stamina, and melee weapon damage, plus copper armor and a nasty sword. Magic and mana are almost an afterthought for me.
That makes it especially weird that a magic spell I collected during my adventures let me one-shot a couple of boss monsters that would have taken ages to fight with my usual weapons.
I’m not sure when or where I first found the spell, but it’s not unusual to open chests in dungeons or towers that contain magical ammunition (called staff charges) like fireballs and ice blasts you can equip with various magic wands and staves. At some point, though, I started finding a new type of staff charge called “Acid Bite.”
Note: Spoilers for two types of Enshrouded bosses below.
I didn’t even try Acid Bite for a good long while because, like I said, I rarely use ranged attacks other than arrows. It also didn’t look like anything special: the 84 damage it does is almost the same as the Fireball 2 spell I crafted, which does 85. They both require nearly the same amount of mana, but Acid Bite takes twice as long to cast, so I just never used it.
But while trying to take down a boss called a Vukah Brawler, a creature who appears to be part bull, part gorilla, and part Ford F-450 Super Duty, I wasn’t having much luck. My arrows were doing squat, my fire spells were doing even less, and I didn’t want to get in melee range because the Brawler was extremely angry and large. So, I switched from fireballs to Acid Bite, charged up my staff, and whipped a cone of green goo into the monster’s face.
I quickly spun around and ran away, and by the time I turned back around to face the boss again it was already in its death animation. I missed it entirely, but while my back was turned the Acid Bite was chewing through the boss’ HP like a dog snarfing up a breakfast sausage someone accidentally dropped on the kitchen floor. I watched the replay (below) and it’s ridiculous how quickly the Brawler’s health bar in the top right corner of the screen goes from full to empty.
It felt like a fluke, but later I found another Brawler boss and tried it again. Same deal: one good splash of green and the boss was kaput, folding up and falling on its face even more quickly than the first time I tried it. This spell is like a cheat code for wrecking bosses, especially for a non-mage or wizard build.
I checked around and other players have noticed just how OP the Acid Bite is, too, and they’ve used it on other boss types including the Fell Wispwyvern—apparently the toughest boss of the early game. Sure enough, one dose of Acid Bite was enough to kill it just as quickly:
It’s a head-scratcher, and I agree with players who think there’s a little something wrong with either the amount of damage the spell is doing or the utter vulnerability of Enshrouded enemies to acid. If I had to guess, this spell might be nerfed in an upcoming patch, so if you want to take down a bunch of boss monsters with no fuss and only a tiny bit of muss, better do it quickly.
I wish I could be more specific about where to find the Acid Bite spell, but it routinely shows up in loot in the northern areas of the map I’ve been exploring near Revelwood. It can also be crafted at the alchemist, apparently, if you have poison sacks, ammonia glands, goo, and dirt.
Note: you need to be pretty darn close to the enemy you want to use it on. The acid will lay down a wide cone but it doesn’t extend too far from your staff, and if it hits the ground instead of the enemy they won’t take damage from walking through it (unfortunately). On the plus side, getting close to a boss isn’t all that scary when you’ve got a staff full of acid and only need one shot.
