How to Defeat The Gardener in Lone Ruin

You never mess with gardeners. Not only are most home gardeners tough dudes, but they know exactly the kind of state you keep your yard in. That’s like peering into your soul. Woe to one who dares to trifle with a gardener, but if you have to do it, do it right. Here’s how to defeat the Gardener in Lone Ruin.

How to Defeat The Gardener in Lone Ruin

The Gardener is the first boss you encounter in Lone Ruin, located on the seventh level. He’s a big ol’ dude encased inside an equally big, gross tree, and based on how he greets you when you enter, he’s not thrilled about that. Get ready to deal with a tree temper tantrum.

Related: How to Defeat Kallamar in Cult of the Lamb

The Gardener is a completely stationary enemy, but he makes up for his lack of mobility with a variety of different attack patterns. At any time in the fight, he can launch out one of three types of shot patterns:

• Spinning shot: The Gardener creates a cross of shots and slowly rotates it around the arena for a few seconds.
• Wave shot: The Gardener creates a wide wave of shots in your direction and fires them all off at once.
• Erratic shot: The Gardener indiscriminately fires off shots around his entire radius.

Additionally, as the fight goes on, he may deploy root tentacles that pop up out of the ground. If you’re nearby, the tentacles will attempt to swat you away, and if you’re far, they’ll fire off quick lines of shots.

Fighting the Gardener

For fighting the Gardener, I’ve got two words for you: Boomerang and Blizzard. The Boomerang spell is perfect for the Gardener because he’s completely stationary; just fire it off and let it spin on top of him to deal continuous damage while you focus on avoiding his attacks.

If you picked up a Blizzard spell along the way, you can drop that on top of him as well for some extra fixed spot damage, plus a slowing cold effect. Movement isn’t a factor, obviously, but it slows his shots as well, which helps.

Remember that you can use your Dash to safely move through the Gardener’s shots, so long as you don’t end the dash inside one. Additionally, if you’ve got a Scythe in your last spell slot, you can swing it to erase any shots near you in a pinch. A Scythe is also good for clearing out any root tentacles that pop up.

Keep up the spot barrage, and the Gardener will go down with little trouble. Consider that troublesome weed pruned.

For more twin-stick roguelike shenanigans, check out our guides on the best items and mods for Enter the Gungeon. Visit our Facebook page as well for more guides and news.