The Lifer is a difficult boss to find and an even harder one to defeat in Wuthering Wave’s Rinacista, thanks to his unique location and his various buffs. Here’s a walkthrough on how you can find and defeat it.
Where to find the Lifer in Wuthering Waves
The Lifer is at the center of the massive maze located at the heart of the Fagaceae Peninsula zone, within Oakheart Highcourt. This location makes up most of the entire zone in size, and it is difficult to navigate, especially since some illusionary trickery is involved with reaching the center. More on that soon.
Upon laying eyes on this huge maze, your first instinct might be to use the Flight Utility tool to soar over the walls. Unfortunately, those illusions I just mentioned will prevent you from doing so: you’ll get to the center, but reach a dead end every time. Instead, you have to enter the maze at its designated entrance and follow the breadcrumb trail laid before you to get to the proper center.
Navigating the maze
Begin by heading to the Fagaceae Peninsula, Oakheart Highcourt Resonance Beacon. Teleporting to it puts you directly in front of the correct entrance.
You’ll know you’re in the right place if you see this ominous-looking statue in front of you.
Make your way through the entrance behind the statue and interact with the stone tablet before advancing further.
The tablet talks a bit about the lore of the maze, but the important part is in parenthesis: you need to follow the path of tablets littering the maze to reach the Lifer in the middle.
Once you’re done looking at the tablet, advance past it, following the pathway. Do not take the leftmost detour area.
You want to continue to head toward the inner section of the maze for now, so make sure the path you take is doing just that. You will likely encounter several enemies on your way, so take care of them as they appear. Keep following the path until you reach the next stone tablet on the ground, then interact with it.
This is where things can get confusing. The path to follow now is cut off thanks to three Overflowing Palettes in the area, which you must solve to progress. Make a mental note of how you reached the tablet before proceeding.
Now, the first Overflowing Palette is at the top of the tree above the maze, in the center platform it holds up. Climb the tree (or use Flight) until you reach the platform itself.
The last two Overflowing Palettes are located outside the maze entirely, in the towers overlooking and surrounding it. Enter the tops of each and solve the puzzle in the middle.
Once all three Overflowing Palettes have been solved, you will get a cutscene depicting the return of color to the area. Gameplay-wise, golden swirls will surround the entire area above the maze, allowing you to use Flight indefinitely as long as you stay within the golden track. This is the key indicator that you’re ready to enter the inner section of the maze and face the Lifer.
Return to the tablet you left behind earlier. Head back through the main entrance and retrace your steps if you’re having trouble navigating back to it from above. From the tablet, head left and take the first left turn you come across.
The moment you take the turn, head right and follow the path around. Do not continue left once you’ve cleared the walls surrounding the turn. Follow the path around and take the next right you come across, heading toward the innards of the maze.
Ignore the next left turn and walk past the maze door on your right until you reach the second left turn in the area. You’ll know you’re in the right place when you see another stone tablet near you.
Interact with the tablet, then follow the path leading away from the center of the maze. Once you hit the back wall, take the next right.
From here, follow the path all the way around until you see the next stone tablet you’ll be interacting with. You’ll know you’re in the right place if the area is lit with golden light.
Follow the path toward the golden light, making your way to the final stone tablet. Beyond it lies an open doorway leading into the heart of the maze’s depths. Step through, and you will find yourself face-to-face with the Lifer.
How to defeat the Lifer in Wuthering Waves
The Lifer is an extremely powerful enemy in Wuthering Waves, thanks to the ridiculous amount of buffs he can access at any given time. However, before you can face it in a fight, you’ll need to play its game first.
The game is an odd combination of Tic-Tac-Toe and chess. The Lifer controls the white pieces while you control the black ones. Your goal is to line up your pieces. You can either beat the Lifer at its game to reap the rewards—a tough task that will likely require several attempts—or the tried and true method of combat. After a few rounds of failure playing the game, you’ll be given the option to fight it out directly instead.
Selecting this option will initiate direct combat, but before you do, notice that the Lifer has 300% Enemy Strength. This means that fighting it now will result in a very difficult encounter you will likely lose. However, you can weaken him significantly by disabling most of its buffs.
How to turn off the Lifer’s buffs
Disabling the Lifers’ buffs is directly tied to playing its Tic-Tac-Toe game, though your goal is not to win this time. If you look around the Lifer’s room, you’ll notice several doors, including one behind it. These doors all lead to different previously inaccessible areas of the maze. Some also lead to locations where you can remove a buff from the Lifer. You can determine which doors lead to areas tied to the Lifer’s buffs by using Sensor and following the purple path it reveals.
These doors can be opened by lining up your black piece with any of them. Doing so will open up the initial door and clear a full path to the outer portion of the maze to an area that was not accessible to you before. You can do this for any of the doors at the center.
Once you’ve opened a door, follow the path all the way to the back and look for a terminal in the area.
Interacting with the terminal will let you disable a number of the Lifer’s buffs. You may need to find a key piece around the area with the terminal before you can do so. Each terminal has one, located in the same room.
Fighting the Lifer
Once you’re satisfied with the number of buffs removed from the Lifer, you can engage him in combat and defeat him pretty easily. Ignoring the buffs, the Lifer is just an empowered Chop Chop, with an extremely similar move set.
Of course, if you’re looking for a challenge, you can also engage the Lifer with all of his buffs enabled. This will require a lot of firepower and constant DPS, as the Lifer will heal himself if you take too long to deal damage. He is also extremely durable, able to tank some of the most powerful attacks in the game with ease.
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