How to beat the Doormaker boss in Slay the Spire 2

The Doormaker in Slay the Spire 2 is a multi-stage boss fight in Act Three that's pretty frustrating to deal with. Unlike most enemies, the Doormaker is reluctant to stand and fight you head-on. You can’t attack it right away, and instead have to take down an enemy before you ever get a chance to deal damage to your real target.

Between the Doormaker's narrow window of vulnerability and the distracting reinforcements it keeps summoning, here’s the best way to beat the Doormaker.

Defeating the Doormaker's Doors

When the boss battle begins, the Doormaker doesn’t appear on the field. Instead, it summons a proxy enemy called a Door that you have to defeat first. This so-called "door" (which looks more like a floating pile of rubble) is sort of a mini boss, with 155 health and some really punishing attacks that'll hit you for 15-30 HP a turn, which can be one powerful swing or two less powerful hits at once.

Due to its relatively sizable health pool, I'd advise picking skills coming up to the fight that give you a high shield immediately. For the likes of the Defect, that could be Boot Sequence, or moves like Iron Wave (which attack and give shields) for Ironclad.

If you see the Door at low health near the end of your turn, you are often better off waiting until the start of the next one to actually finish it off. The second it's finished, the Doormaker comes out, so more efficiently using energy to get a couple more swings in is a good way to stop the Doormaker's buffs from going out of control.

The Doormaker is actually worse than the Door, and buffs itself and its Doors, so getting a few powers in, or stat buffs, is not a bad idea early on. The Door is a pain to get through, but preventing singular attacks at the start with the likes of Buffer can be quite effective. Get used to the Door, as it will be back after you defeat it.

When the Doormaker appears

Once you destroy the Door, the Doormaker finally appears, but it doesn’t attack straight away. Instead, the boss arrives stunned for one full turn, giving you ample opportunity to sling high-damage attacks or combos without the need to block. Otherwise, this is a good move to offload that energy into powers and buffs.The more you can capitalize on this stunned turn, the better, because after the stun turn ends, the Doormaker begins fighting back.

Coming with an eye-watering 489 health, the Doormaker is a major pain to blast through, and you will need a lot of firepower. You want to pick your cards carefully coming up to this fight, loading up quick heavy attacks. It buffs itself over time, so it's not the kind of boss that's good for wars of attrition.

The Doormaker attacks for two turns, dealing around 30 HP each in a single player mode run on the first turn and 40 on the second. Once these attacks are finished, the Doormaker disappears again and summons another Door, this time with 20 more health than the previous one.

The big problem with the Doormaker is that it buffs both itself and its Doors with extra power as it leaves, so you effectively have three turns to swing at them every time they appear, before having to fight a more powerful door. Speed is the priority here, so it's one of few boss fights where the Defector doesn't kick butt. Instead, Silent and its smattering of free attacks and constant card draw, or the Ironclad, with their brutish attacks and buffs, take them down a little easier. Before this fight, loading up on attack-heavy potions and aggressive relics is a boon too.

You will want to try to take down the Doormaker in three to five stages. That gives you between nine to fifteen turns to do 489 damage to it. Practically, that works out to somewhere between 20 to 40 damage a turn. It can be easy to become entirely overwhelmed by the Doors and their powered-up attacks alone. The trick to defeating the Doormaker is less like nimbly reaching through your purse for a set of keys and more like kicking the door a whole bunch until it comes off its hinges. Take that, Doormaker.