Beating the bosses

Eleven fights. Every one of them telegraphs before it commits and leaves a recovery window afterwards where it cannot act. That window is when you hurt it. If a boss feels unreadable, watch one full cycle without attacking; the pattern is always there.

Phases change what a boss does, not just how much health it has left. When one changes, stop and watch again.

1. Dalek: The Derelict of Skaro

Three phases. Patrols and strafes, then rises and starts dropping mines, then sweeps a beam across the arena.

The beam is the whole lesson: standing still is the mistake. Keep moving and punish the recovery after every volley. Reward: Dalek Plasma.

2. Cyberman Commander: Steel Ascension

Slow, heavy and it never stops walking toward you. In phase two it armours up and takes noticeably less damage, which means the answer stops being damage and starts being spacing. The shoulder charge is telegraphed hard; dash through it, not away from it. Reward: Cyber Dash.

3. Sontaran Commander: War of Sontar

Armoured at the front and delighted to be here. The vent on the back of his neck is the weak point, and the sprite shows it whenever he turns. The entire fight is getting behind something that does not want you behind it. Use the jet slam recovery to cross him. His shield reflects everything, so stop shooting into it. Reward: Gravity Pulse.

4. Ice Warrior General: Red Ice

A tank. High armour, slow attacks, enormous damage. The sonic cone punishes anyone who tries to out-range it from the front, so fight from above or from the side. Phase two frosts the floor and stopping stops working; phase three raises pillars that break your line of sight, and those can be used as cover both ways. Reward: Cryo Shot.

5. Zygon Commander: The False Earth

It splits, and while any copy is standing the real one takes nothing at all. Shots produce a spark and an obviously wrong sound. You can find the real one by elimination, or use Perception Pulse the moment it splits and end the guessing instantly. Reward: Perception Pulse.

6. Vashta Nerada Swarm: Shadow Library

It has no body. It cannot be hurt at all unless it is lit, and it spends the fight eating the lamps. Photon Burst is the answer: it exposes the swarm for a couple of seconds, and that window is your only damage. Phase three turns the lights off entirely. Reward: Photon Burst.

7. Silence Priest: Silence

It takes back what you just did. Its memory wipe hides the HUD and rolls the visible health bar back up. The damage still counted. You just cannot see that it counted, and watching the bar climb is the point.

Keep attacking through it. Once you have Temporal Memory the bar snaps back to the truth and the trick stops working. Reward: Temporal Memory.

8. The Master: The Master's Clock

Everything he does lands on the same four beats, and so does the music. Count them. Once you hear it, every telegraph in the fight becomes predictable.

Phase two shrinks you, which makes you faster to move but no harder to hit. Phase three burns regeneration energy in expanding rings; find the gap rather than trying to out-damage it. Reward: Time Core.

9. Davros: The End of Time

Hovers, summons Daleks to hold the floor, throws lightning, and raises a force field that reflects. Clear the summons first or the arena fills up. The reality charge has a long wind-up and fills the room with rings. The gap is always there, and it always moves.

10. Cyber-Controller: The End of Time

The biggest sprite in the game and the heaviest hits. Cable grabs pull you in, the conversion beam sweeps, and blocks drop from the ceiling with a warning marker on the floor first. Watch the floor, not the ceiling. Pure attrition; use the checkpoint before it and go in with full health.

11. The Weeping Angel: The End of Time

You cannot shoot it. Do not try.

It is frozen for exactly as long as you are looking at it, and looking means three things at once: you are not mid-blink, the room is lit, and it is actually on screen. Lose any of those and it crosses the room.

The bar on screen is not its health, it is paradox progress, and it fills by watching. Standing close and watching is worth far more than watching from across the room, which is the tension of the whole fight.

The blink meter drains while you watch and refills while you look away. When it empties you blink whether you wanted to or not, which will always be at the worst moment. You can spend a blink deliberately. It is shorter than the forced one and refunds meter. Choosing when to be blind instead of having it chosen for you is the skill here.

Later phases add obstacles that force your camera off it, a second Angel, and blackouts. Photon Burst is what answers a blackout.

It ends with the Time Core, which folds the chamber's light into a loop until the Angel is looking at its own image. An image of an Angel is itself an Angel, so it holds itself still, permanently, by its own rule. Nothing is killed. It simply never moves again.

Boss Rush

Unlocked by finishing the story. All eleven fights back to back, each one in the arena it was designed for, on one health bar that carries between rounds, with every ability available. Losing costs you the rush and nothing else: no death is recorded against your campaign and no progress is touched.