Even Side Dungeon in Diablo 4 is home to a boss fight at its end, and in the Fractured Peaks starting area alone, there are 23 such zones to conquer. One of them, called Light Watch, plays host to a boss called the Den Mother. She is a Werewolf that can dish out massive damage, has a huge health pool, and debilitating attacks that can make her a significant damage check if your character is undergeared. We’ll cover all her attacks and how to beat her in this guide.
Related: Diablo 4 – How to Beat Vhenard
How to Beat Den Mother in Diablo 4
After traversing the Light’s Watch Dungeon near the center of the Fractured Peaks, you’ll find the Den Mother waiting in a large throne room. She’ll attack immediately, and while her attack list isn’t long, it doesn’t need to be, as what little she can do can chunk your health to nothing in a few strikes.
- Claw Combo. Den Mother swipes at you three to five times. The combo is relatively slow and easy to avoid, but she’ll stop if you get far enough away. Unbuffed, each swipe did about 1/5 of my health.
- Fast Claw Combo. A variant of the standard Claw Combo, Den Mother attacks twice before a brief windup that leads to a series of three to five attacks in quick succession. Run when you see the windup.
- Corruption Spreading Paw Slam. The Den Mother slams down her paws several times, creating more than a dozen pools of corruption on the ground. Entering these pools will do severe damage over time as long as you’re in one, and they make movement tricky.
- Summon Winter Hunter. After depleting her health by one-third and two-thirds, Den Mother will summon five Winter Hunter wolves. While not threatening on their own, their number, combined with the corruption pools likely to appear during these phases of the fight and the boss herself make things tricky.
I recommend keeping Den Mother at range whenever possible, and if you can’t manage that (as she’ll be constantly running up to you), invest in Barrier Skills. Ice or Flame Barrier on Sorcerer have been a godsend on my playthroughs, both providing immense value for relatively little mana cost.
Alternatively, as long as you stay on the move while playing a Necromancer or Barbarian, you can likely avoid the worst of her attacks while either spinning, Severing, or however else you’ve decided to deal damage. Don’t be afraid to use your potions, either, as you’ll get two each time you break one of her Den Mother’s damage thresholds. Should the boss prove to be too much, there’s no shame in coming back when you’re better equipped.
When you do defeat Den Mother, she’ll drop two pieces of gear, four piles of Gold, and a few healing potions (or she did for us, anyway). If you’re a Sorcerer, you’ll also get the Aspect of Conflagration, which increases the Burning damage caused by Incinerate by 20%. Not bad at all.
