Bark Vader

Bark Vader is the Tier 3 Forest boss in Megabonk, and he’s one of the hardest encounters in the game. He’s notorious for removing your weapons, healing through shield mechanics, and forcing players to juggle pylons while under constant pressure. Beating him takes planning, strong execution, and a willingness to adapt.

General Strategy

Phases

Bark Vader generally has two phases, a DPS and a pylon phase. The pylon phase activates at every 25% health threshold, where he'll become immune to damage, gradually heal, and the player needs to to charge three pylons to deactivate them and make the boss vulnerable again. The boss will lock all but the player's starter weapon, and after each pylon phase the next one will unlock.

Attacks

• Trailing roots - small AOE zones that will trail the player, keep moving or stay airborne.
• Tracking roots - a single large AOE zone that will explode where the player will be if they maintain their current trajectory, switch direction.
• Cone roots - three lines of small AOE zones that originate from Bark Vader, move away and either in between on outside of them, or jump over them.
• Blue orbs - very high speed, but pause after each move. Get them to hit the ground, hide behind a pillar, or keep moving.
• Red orbs - moderate speed, but track the player directly. Get them to hit the ground, hide behind a pillar, or keep moving.
• Yellow orbs - high speed, but spawn high and move in an arc directly at the player. Keep moving and they'll hit the ground.
• Spawn adds - behave like the normal Forest bosses, but with low health. If you made it this far, they'll probably die incidentally.

Hints and tips

• No matter what build you run, the boss is a health sponge and the invulnerability windows make this fight more about survival than particular offensive builds.
• The weapon lockout means that some characters (Amog, Vlad) will have a much tougher time dealing damage to the boss. Try to stack alternative damage through items for these characters, like Moldy Cheese, Cursed Doll, and Thunder Mitts.
• While invulnerable, lifesteal and on-hit healing (Demonic blade, Slurp Gloves) do not work, and the adds spawn too rarely and with too little health to be a consistent source of healing. High armor and either regeneration or shield are advised for survivability.
• All attacks are dodge-able with constant movement, so enough movement speed can be an alternate form of defense.
• The pylons do not count as charge shrines, thus Beacon will not help.
• When going for pylons, try to clear any active red and blue orbs before jumping up to the platform. Attempting to dodge the orbs and the roots at the same time in the pylon's area is very difficult.