This guide will help you learn how to defeat bosses in Thymesia. It explains the basics of a boss fight, what to look for, and how to react properly!
Types of Bosses in Thymesia
Thymesia features 2 main types of bosses: gigantic gimmicky fights and normal-sized super enemies. There are a couple bosses that don’t conform very well to this list.
Normal-Sized Super Enemies
The enemies in Thymesia come in different difficulty tiers starting with the weaklings that only take a few hits to defeat followed by the normal enemies that you’ll have to spend a bit longer fighting, but probably won’t need to use a healing potion for.
Then you have the much harder mini-boss enemies that don’t respawn when you are defeated that use special weapons and drop 
Alchemy Enhancers. You may need multiple healing potions to take those enemies down.
Most of the bosses in Thymesia are just a natural extrapolation along this line of difficulty progression where the bosses have even more health as well as flashier attacks and a slightly larger moveset than the mini-bosses. They may also have multiple phases denoted by additional studs to the right of their health bar.
These bosses also distinguish themselves from the rest of the enemies in the game by having an ultimate unparryable and uninterruptible attack denoted by a red telegraph flash rather than the usual green.
To avoid these attacks, you’ll need to run and dodge out of their range. The attacks hit hard, but don’t hurt as much as you might expect from such a special ability. So long as you have a decent amount of health, you’ll probably survive but need to use a health potion soon after.
The bosses tend to only do these attacks once or twice and never do them until they’re low on health, usually not even in the first phase if the boss has multiple phases.
Gimmick Bosses
These bosses tend to be gigantic and require you to think a little rather than react because you can’t hope to win without a bit of cunning.
They’ll usually have a specific weak point and some environmental hazard you can destroy. Their attacks are difficult to parry and dodge, but there’s a nifty series of 3 talents you can swap out for your deflection buffs that should help to mitigate most of the damage.
What to do with your Memory Shards before fighting a boss
Prepare to give up any 
Memory Shards (XP) you have on hand. Compared to other Souls-likes, it is a bit easier to go and pick up your lost XP that gets dropped in a boss room, but it takes a bit longer to earn them, so it’s still quite risky to have any on-hand.
If you’re close to leveling up, I highly recommend farming a little bit so you can level up before fighting the boss. Check if you have any 
Collection of Memories in your inventory to consume and turn into Memory Shards, they don’t give much in Thymesia, but any little bit helps to reduce the amount of time you have to spend farming.
Boss Rewards in Thymesia
Defeating a boss will give you a bunch of different rewards, though you’ll only get some of them for defeating the boss the first time. You can go back and replay boss fights by just playing through the appropriate sub-quest.
Forgotten Feather
Forgotten FeatherForgotten Feathers can be used to reset your attribute allocations (Strength, Vitality, and Plague). You’ll get a Forgotten Feather every time you defeat a boss, so if you want to respec and you run out, just go defeat a boss again!
Boss Core
Boss CoreThese can be shown to Aisemy and Emerald to get a bit more story information and unlock slightly different endings. There don’t seem to be any special secrets with these endings and they only differ in terms of a few paragraphs you can read after defeating the final boss at the Ocean of Memories.
Boss-Specific Skill Shards
Boss-Specific Skill ShardsEach boss has a unique Plague Weapon, so you’ll typically get some Skill Shards for defeating it. You’ll need to fight the boss many times if you want to obtain enough Skill Shards to fully upgrade the boss’ Plague Weapon.
Alchemy Enhancer
Alchemy EnhancerBosses have a chance to drop Alchemy Enhancers which are used to upgrade one of your health potions.
Memory Shards
Bosses drop a considerable amount of Memory Shards, practically as many as you’ll get from going through the entire area and often enough to let you level up on your own.
Tips for Fighting Bosses in Thymesia
How boss fights work in Thymesia
Like other Souls-likes, boss fights in Thymesia are a dance of openings. You attack, present an opening, the boss capitalizes and attacks, you dodge, then capitalize on their opening with another attack. Rinse and repeat. In Thymesia, poise and super armor are abundant, so there are many instances where both your and the enemy’s attack can go through.
Openings, Fear, and Greed during a boss fight
You have to decide what you’re going to do with every opening, either attack or drink a health potion, you basically never have time to do both. Depending on the health potion you’re using, you might even need to back off a bit to consume it.
It’s ridiculously tempting to heal immediately after you take a big hit from a boss, but you have to wait for your opening. Your health potions are finite. It does you no good to drink in the middle of a boss attack sequence only to lose all the health you just healed.
In Thymesia, you’ll always get the effects of your health potion if the animation is able to finish and you won’t consume a potion until the animation is complete. However, the different health potions are completely balanced around how long that animation is, and the longer the consumption animation, the rarer the opening.
Towards the end of the fight or during a long opening, it’s super tempting to try and finish the boss off right now rather than wait for the next opening. Don’t get greedy! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten greedy, trying to get just one more hit in only to get defeated and have to do the whole fight again. You have to resist the urge to get one more hit in.
How to decide on Healing vs Attacking in a boss fight
You can almost never attack and heal in the same opening unless the opening is super long (in which case you might be giving up a lot of damage) or the boss is entering a new phase.
I recommend prioritizing healing if you’re a single hit away from getting defeated by the boss or you can take full benefit of your health potion. Don’t waste your potions on only healing half of what they’re capable of.
If you’re getting defeated in single or even two hits from full health from most attacks, you’re not a high enough level for that area and should come back later or reallocate some of your attribute points to Vitality away from Strength or more likely Plague.
How to evade attacks
You have 3 options in Thymesia to help you evade attacks: parrying / deflecting, interrupting (feathers), and dodging. There’s typically an ideal option for every attack.
Parrying and Deflection
Before we go further, I want to clarify that parrying and deflection mean the same thing (at least in the context of this game). Parry is the common name for this mechanic, but deflection is the term used in Thymesia.
You press LB / L1 / F right before an attack lands and Corvus will swing his dagger. If you are successful, you’ll block the damage of the attack, causing a luxurious clanking sound as well as some sparks to fly while dealing some wound damage (lower the white health bar) to the enemy. As an added bonus, you’ll get to stay in range of the enemy, allowing for quicker follow-up attacks.
If you are unsuccessful, you’ll take the damage, so it’s risky. Deflection doesn’t normally work against critical attacks (green flash telegraph) unless you take a specific Talent.
Interruption and Feathers
When you see a green flash along the target tether paired with a sound effect, the enemy telegraphing that they’re about to do a critical attack.
Critical attacks cannot be parried (unless you take the associated talent), so your main way to deal with them is using your Feather Attack by pressing LT / L2 / LCTRL. The timing is basically the same as parrying, though I’ve found it doesn’t always work correctly, or at least as you might expect.
The timing is more about having the feather make contact during the actual animation rather than while the green flash is active. If you are successful, your opponent will get knocked backward, become stunned for a brief moment, and take a bunch of wound damage.
This is one of the best times to use a healing potion because you know they won’t be doing anything for a few moments. You may also have time to do a Predator Claw, especially if you take the talent.
Please note that Feather Attacks do not interrupt normal attacks.
Dodging
When in doubt, dodge! Dodging is the safest and easiest option, but it doesn’t generate any sort of offensive advantage for you. You can dodge by pressing B / ⭘ / SPACE.
The goal of dodging is to just get out of the way of the enemy’s attack so it won’t hit you. Since it creates some distance between you and your opponent, you’ll have fewer options as a follow-up attack, though there are talents you can take that will offer more options.
Creating distance can be a good thing because it means your enemy will take more time to get into range with one of their own attacks, giving you an opening where you can use a healing potion.
How to identify openings
You will need to get familiar with the telegraphs for different attacks and attack sequences. The sooner you can identify the attack, the more time you’ll have to determine the correct way to evade it and begin your counterattack.
Thymesia doesn’t really feature any ridiculously convoluted attack sequences like Malenia’s Waterfowl Dance from Elden Ring. It’s more about just deciding between deflecting, interrupting, and dodging.
The hardest attacks to deal with are usually the ones that require a boatload of parries to get through and in those cases, your best bet is to just identify that they’re about to happen and dodge, block, or use the shield Plague Weapon if you have it rather than try to parry every single hit.
Remember to take a break
If you’ve been going at it for a while and you’re just spinning your wheels in the mud, not really getting the boss’ health bar lower than you have before with almost every pull, especially if you feel a bit exhausted, take a break.
You start getting sloppy and picking up some bad habits without realizing it. Taking a short break, like getting out of your chair and taking a drink of water can help you to clear your mind.
When you come back, you may find that you’ll get further than ever before after the first or second attempt as you are refreshed and your brain has had time to process your practice as you remember what you’re supposed to do and forget the little mistakes.
You can find other helpful Thymesia Guides here on VULKK.com. Have you checked out these yet?
