The Unfathomed is the final boss of the stronghold The Sunken Cell.
Etymology and Anatomy
The Unfathomed gets its name from the word unfathomed (Not fully explored or a water body of unknown depth), as it is found inside a sunken laboratory in deep waters. It is a monstrous fury created by doctor Harken in a massive Shaper facility beyond the northern shore of Bastion.
The Unfathomed only has one very elongated arm where heavily modified seals are attached to it. Some of these seals protrude out, and they all glow red. Whenever the Unfathomed attacks, these seals glow purple.
Just like other furies, the Unfathomed is very likely made from Shaper corruption of humans and fauna and fusing them into one. The Unfathomed’s dons a helmet on its head, which is slightly broken on one side. Because it only has one arm with 3 digits, its gait seems barely balanced. Its legs are long, and feet resemble bird talons.
Narrative Involvement
A Shaper ruin, converted into a lab called the Sunken Cell housed abominations and chimeras, all experiments of the Dominion Arcanist Dr. Harken. This facility was identified by Corvus as the one where the device used to overwhelm the cenotaph was made. They also found that the Dominion wanted to take control of it and claim a hidden secret—something called Harken's Monster.
When the Freelancer and their team traversed through the Sunken Cell, it was crawling with monsters. However, Harken’s Monster was nowhere to be found within the cell, so the Freelancer had to travel from the bottom of the cell to its surface through a conduit filled with upwards flowing water.
After defeating several Dominion enemies, fighting chimeras, stopping a cataclysm from starting, silencing a echo receptacle relic to unlock a Shaper door, the Freelancer reached the upper-most level of the Sunken Cell.
The Vortex in the Sunken Cell
This level had a massive swirling vortex of water and in its middle was dry land. Through the vortex entered a massive fury with only one arm. Its body glowed red and it could create Shaper Gates to summon elementals, and Shaper orbs. This was Harken's monster, The Unfathomed.
Fortunately, the Freelancer defeated this creature, perhaps putting it out of its misery. The Dominion did into get their hands on this monster. Sev thanked the Freelancer for stopping the creature on behalf of Corvus, mentioning that he didn't know what would have happened if this monster went into the hands of the Dominion.
Encountered Expeditions
At least one The Unfathomed can show up in the below list.
Encounter Locations
The following places are all the locations where The Unfathomed can be found, either physically or in the lore. They may not be always found there, but have a high chance of being found in these locations.
Behavior and Abilities
The Unfathomed behaves very similarly to any Dominion Fury, however, it is much more dangerous and can cause some Shaper activity like summoning gates and Shaper orbs.
- Entropy Shot: The Unfathomed releases a volley of slow-moving electrified shots that can do damage over time if a javelin comes into its contact. They can put a javelin under the electrocuted status.
- Projectile Burst: The Unfathomed summons an orb that shoots rapid moving purple electric beams.
Entropy Shot and Projectile Burst
- Melee Warp: The Unfathomed can randomly teleport itself to a javelin and thwack it, possibly doing a one hit knock out.
- Melee Trail: The Unfathomed rapidly swings its arm from left to right dealing massive blast damage.
- Melee Chain: The Unfathomed pounds the ground around it rapidly dealing large impact blast damage to anyone around it.
- Gates Summons: The Unfathomed summons shaper gates, which in turn spawn Storm Elementals.
- Air Orb: The Unfathomed summons intensely charged Shaper orbs spread out in a circle within the arena. These orbs can jet out one Entropy Shot at a time.
- Teleport: The Unfathomed can teleport to short distances away from it.
Hidden Attributes
The Unfathomed has two hidden attributes:
- Healing Crystal: The Unfathomed creates a darkly colored crystal barrier around it. This barrier is nearly invulnerable to any kind of damage.
- Crystal Destroyed: If the Unfathomed is forced to come out of its crystal before it tries to heal itself, then the crystal is destroyed staggering it for a short duration.
Strategy
The Unfathomed has 4 health bar pips. The combat with it is divided into 4 phases. Its weak points are the protruding seals on its arm and neck.
Overview
The Unfathomed has 4 health bar pips. This means the fight is divided into 4 phases. Each phase works similarly, but with minor modification in how they end.
Note: If a javelin’s thrusters overheat, it is possible to cool them by standing beside the swirling vortex. At first, the Unfathomed starts with Entropy Shots, then Projectile Bursts, and the melee attacks follow them. When the health bar is reduced by one pip, it shields itself using its Healing Crystal barrier. During this time, it can either perform Gate Summoning or Air Orbs.
The Unfathomed in its Crystal Barrier
The Unfathomed remains inside its barrier for 15 to 18 seconds. This barrier is nearly immune to all damages. If the Gates or Air Orbs are destroyed before the Unfathomed comes out of its barrier, then the Crystal Barrier is destroyed. This in turn staggers it causing it to remain idle for a short duration. This is a good opportunity for attack.
Note: Only certain abilities that are capable of inflicting 100 acid status to enemies can inflict damage to the Unfathomed when it is inside the barrier. The Interceptor’s Deathstalker Blades and the Colossus’ Venom Storm are good examples. Any time the Unfathomed raises its arms to perform a non-melee attack, then its protruding seals begin to glow purple. Since these seals are its weak points, attacking them when purple does 2.5 times the damage to the boss.
Each time the Unfathomed is going to attack, it does a roar. If someone is not paying attention, this is a cue to get away from the Entropy Shots or Projectile Bursts. These two attacks are long range and can do a devastating amount of damage. (Projectile Burst even more so, because one hit can also stagger the javelin a little).
The Unfathomed’s Weak Points Glow Purple before an Attack
Once the beam-like purple attacks have stopped, the Unfathomed goes into melee mode. Its favorite seems to be Melee Trail where it keeps flailing its long arm sideways fairly rapidly. Then it immediately switches back to its two beam attacks. Then it goes back to melee’ing. The most dangerous melee the Unfathomed has is Melee Warp, where it randomly teleports to any one javelin and has a high possibility to thwack them to their downed state.
Each time the Unfathomed comes out of the barrier, it will perform Melee Chain, where it continuously pounds the ground under it. Then it goes back to its purple beams.
Note: The Unfathomed can randomly teleport itself in short distances, which may irritate someone trying to do sustained damage.
Combat
The Combat proceeds in the same way during all phases: Beams and Melee attacks, with random teleportation.
The Unfathomed Summons Gates
At the end of the first phase, the Unfathomed summons shaper gates before entering its crystal barrier. These gates summon Elite Storm Elementals (in all 6 difficulty levels). These Elementals, being elite can be quite tough to defeat, and their attacks can easily strip away shields and damage javelins. But the focus must be on destroying the 5 gates that are summoned. If the gates aren’t destroyed, then the elementals keep spawning.
Note: Elementals can also be farmed for quick ultimate charge. Since they have a higher health pool than their standard counterparts, it is relatively easy to prime and detonate combos on them. At the end of the second phase, the Unfathomed summons 6 Air Orbs. These intensely charged shaper orbs are resistant to all type of damages. They can also fire a single shot of Entropy Shots. When Entropy Shots land anywhere (javelin, air, or ground), they linger around to do damage over time for a short duration.
At the end of the third phase, the Unfathomed summons the 5 shaper gates and 6 Air Orbs before shielding itself in its barrier. It is tougher this time, but still possible to counteract all these entities.
In the fourth and final phase, when the Unfathomed only has about 10% of its total health, the Unfathomed will start continuously doing every attack it has. So, damaging it from a distance is a good strategy as the attacks done by the Unfathomed are random.
Note:If the combat becomes too intense there are several ways to take cover: Metallic structures hang from the top and several rocky or Shaper-like structures are spread out on the ground. Keep an eye out for the Entropy Shots when taking cover on the ground, as they can land on the covers to do damage over time
Trivia (May Contain Spoilers)
- During Echoes of Reality mission What Harken Wants, the Arcanist mentions that furies are unstable creatures.
- Unlike a regular fury, The Unfathomed only has one arm, and can also make loud roaring vocal sounds.
- An early concept art of The Unfathomed (See Gallery) had a different design with two arms, but was scrapped due to timing constraints.
- The concept may be added to the game someday according to Christian Dailey.[1]
- The ability names are taken from the datamined files. They may have been slightly modified to avoid confusion with other in-game names.
Gallery
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