The Ballast King
Boss · The Soulsea · band D, The Foundations
Where The Ballast King waits
The Ballast King holds the gates at depths 49,400, 50,000, 50,600, 51,200, 51,800 in The Soulsea, sharing the zone's 100-depth gate rhythm with The Shepherd of Souls and Warden of the Drowned Fleet and The Ten Thousand and The Bronze Fathom and Maw of the Soulsea.
What The Ballast King is
The Ballast King is a Brute: it swings a mace, and the body asks for the guard shell, armor against a heavy blow, stalling — it wards off blows from afar and hooks you in. As a boss it wears the type's defences at 35%, carries no status of its own, and enrages below half health: it hits harder and moves faster.
The Ballast King by the numbers
The card at each gate — health, damage per swing, armour and the modifiers it rolls — straight from the game's spawn table. On the floor the boss leads with 60% of the card's health and 60% of its damage, before the road's own pressure.
What those modifiers do
OF FLAMING DEATH- leaves a pool of fire where it falls
CHILLING- Turns 30% of its physical damage into cold
MANGLING- +35% chance to cause bleeding
OF SHOCKING DEATH- leaves a pool of lightning where it falls
EXPOSING- every blow cuts your resistances by 15 for 4 s
SUNDERING- every blow cuts your armor by 30% for 4 s
STORMSHIELDED- +75% lightning resistance (capped at 75%)
PIERCING- penetrates 25% of your resistances
RETALIATING- strikes back at once when one blow takes more than 8% of its health and you stand within 2.5 tiles
THICK-SKINNED- Overwhelm and armor you ignore count at half
SHOCKING- +35% shock chance; a quarter of its physical damage becomes lightning
VAMPIRIC- heals 1.5% of its maximum health with every blow it lands
DRAINING- you recover half as much: leech, regen, recoup
OF FRENZY- gains a Frenzy charge on every hit it lands: 4% more damage, +15% attack speed and +5% movement each, up to 3
OF CHILLING DEATH- leaves a pool of frost where it falls
ENRAGED- builds 2 Rage with every blow it lands, up to 50; each point is 1% more damage
OF HASTE- the pack within 4.5 tiles moves and swings 30% faster
ROTPROOF- +75% chaos resistance (capped at 75%)
Modifiers are rolled per depth and are the same for every player. Bosses always carry at least 3 and never a pace modifier (SWIFT, BRUTE), so a boss's swing rhythm is its own; of the seals only the walls — BLOODLESS, INERT, ASHEN, ETHEREAL, DENSE — ride a boss. The full list is in Enemy modifiers.
At its first gate The Ballast King leads with 32,738,464,459 health, against 32,009,599,824 for the leader one floor above, and swings every 1.25s.
What a gate floor is
A gate is a floor like any other, with the boss leading its last pack. Nothing below it opens until the floor is cleared. A lost floor costs nothing; you can fight it again. How a floor is fought is under Combat.
Fight The Ballast King — play free