Stellar Blade | Maelstrom Boss Fight Guide

After getting to know Xion City and its inhabitants, EVE continues her mission to save Earth and humanity in Stellar Blade by advancing to Wasteland, before finally entering Altess Levoire to collect the second Hyper Cell necessary to restart Xion City’s full capabilities. 

After defeating Quiel at Altess Levoire’s entrance, we are finally able to descend and explore the now defunct and infested underground lab. However, during our time here, EVE’s functions are malfunctioning, and she can only use Lily’s Ranged Weapon upgrade which is now present in Adam’s drone. Once we get to the heart of the facility, the main source of the Naytibas within Altess Levoire lies before us, and it is an Elite Naytiba, Maelstrom, a destructive and parasitic being that is capable of launching deadly projectiles against EVE.

With that in mind, this guide will help you destroy and liberate Altess Levoire from Maelstrom, by learning its weak points, the major attacking patterns that this Alpha Naytiba has, as well as how helping you to understand how to safely dodge its Death Beam and Test Subjects Rain from time to time. 

If you’re looking for more Stellar Blade articles on KeenGamer, then you can read them here through the link below:

• Stellar Blade Review | A Memorable Ride for Years to Come
• Stellar Blade | Quiel Boss Fight Guide
• Stellar Blade | Gigas Boss Fight Guide
• Stellar Blade | Abaddon Boss Fight Guide
• Stellar Blade | Best Early Skills to Unlock

What is Maelstrom?

Altess Levoire holds many secrets that should have been best forgotten, however, with EVE’s circumstances surrounding her missions on Earth, exploring this dreaded facility is a must, to help Orcal and more importantly, the people of Xion City to have a better living environment, this is why, she descends into the madness and confronts all types of Naytibas in Altess Levoire.

At the end of her journey, an Elite Naytiba awaits her. Its name is Maelstrom, the combination of the failed Test Subjects and Naytiba corruption, forming a gigantic lump that resembles a head that is capable of launching deadly missiles and even shooting out a Death Beam from the center of its head.

Maelstrom, the Heart of the Infection, is as dangerous as it looks since it can chuck out three different ranged attacks, as well as launch an ultimate move, which I name the Death Beam. Though challenging, this Boss Fight in Stellar Blade still offers a fair and rewarding ranged fight, which I will explain further in the next sections.

Heart of the Infection.

How to Successfully Defeat Maelstrom

Maelstrom, similar to Quiel, the previous Boss before it, also has no concrete phases in its Boss Fight, which differs from the initial Bosses within Stellar Blade, the Abaddon, and Gigas. More importantly, since the Altess Levoire section is special, in which you can’t use your regular Combo Attacks and Drone Scans within its walls, your best friend here will be your Ranged Weapons, using Adam’s drone as its mainframe.

Therefore, it is imperative that you at least upgrade the drone using Drone Upgrade Modules shortly before the Maelstrom Boss Fight, because you might need those juicy upgrades that will give you an edge when fighting the Heart of the Infection.

My recommendations for this include upgrading the Slug Size to 40 bullets, therefore giving you more time before you have to find Slugs from dead enemies, unlocking the Shotgun and Explosive Shells upgrade to provide a variety into your ranged arsenal, as the regular Slug sometimes can’t keep up against the Naytiba’s durability.

Use Every Tool You Have

Since Maelstrom forces you to use Ranged Weapons only, there’s a golden rule I followed here that might also help you against this Elite Naytiba: Don’t be afraid to waste your resources.  This means that for every bullet type you have, use them. Slugs, Shotgun Shells, Explosive Shells, Stingers Missiles, and Charge Blaster Railgun, you should use them to boost your chances of victory against Maelstrom, as well as block and negate some of its attacks before they can reach you, with the most notable being the Test Subjects.

Still, I’m recommending continuously using Slugs as your main offensive avenue, as most of the drops that you can gain in this Boss Fight are Slugs and Shotgun Shells, with the Charge Blaster Railgun being the rarest drop that Maelstrom can provide.

Overall, this is pretty much the only strategy you need to win against Maelstrom in Stellar Blade. The gimmick of being only able to use Ranged Weapons means that there’s no need to watch for Perfect Parry or Perfect Dodge timings, nor do you need to be careful of sudden melee attacks from Maelstrom, though I will still provide some key elements of Maelstrom’s major attacks and weak points in the next section of this guide.

Plastering the Battlefield with Test Subjects.

Beware of Maelstrom’s Projectile Attacks

As I’ve said earlier, fighting Maelstrom means focusing on dishing out everything you have while also dodging and repelling whatever Maelstrom can conjure against you. From my observation during the Boss Fight, I can conclude that the Maelstrom has three major attacks that pose a threat to EVE. These are Death Beams, Homing Missiles, and Test Subject Barrages (These are the names that I use as I’ve found no official sources that delve into Maelstrom’s attacks, and this is done to explain everything easier).

Death Beams are the strongest attack that Maelstrom can dish out against you, and although it doesn’t one-hit kill you, this attack is potent enough to reduce EVE’s health by 25%, even after obtaining several Beta Cores to boost her HP. However, there is a fatal flaw that you can take advantage of to evade the Death Beams: Maelstrom is always charging up its Main Head for several seconds before launching a Death Beam, and you can see the image below regarding this charge window.

Once you see that, however, don’t run off like a headless chicken, as Death Beams track to your current location. Instead, wait until the last second before you run or Dodge to a side to successfully evade the Death Beams, thus helping your Rechargeable Tumbler’s economy to be more efficient.

A Sign of Certain Death.

Moving on to the other two attacks, the Homing Missiles and Test Subject Barrages, are also deadly but easy to counter. Homing Missiles are slow and have an incredibly obvious trajectory that you can practically dodge Maelstrom’s Homing Missiles every single time, thus reducing this attack’s threat to a mere inconvenience for EVE during the Boss Fight. You can see an example of Homing Missiles in the second image below.

Meanwhile, the Test Subject Barrages are slightly different. This attack is more unpredictable and more frequent than Homing Missiles and they do pose a threat for EVE, as the Test Subjects themselves can crawl to her location and explode, killing themselves while also trying to damage you. The main takeaway from noticing Test Subject Barrages is to see how Maelstrom launched its gigantic lump of flesh and corruption.

If it’s coming from above, then it will be Homing Missiles. However, if the Maelstrom uses its lower hands, then it will be the Test Subject Barrages. Understanding the difference between these two projectiles will be key to ensure your safety in this Boss Fight.

Target the Weak Points

Maelstrom is a unique Boss, not only because this is a battle of guns, but it’s also because, unlike previous Bosses, Maelstrom’s Weak Points are there right from the get-go, meaning that we can deal some substantial damage to its HP right off the bat. When the battle begins, Maelstrom has three minor Weak Points that surround its Main Head which is also acting as its Major Weak Point. Therefore, for the final section of this Stellar Blade guide, my recommendation for all players when fighting Maelstrom is to always target its Weak Points to kill the Elite Naytiba for good.

Maelstrom’s Three Minor Weak Points.

As its name suggests, Maelstrom’s Weak Points are weak, therefore, shooting them with Slugs several times will do the job just fine. Once you expose its Major Weak Point, you only have a small time window to damage it before Maelstrom closes it, so unleashing several Slug shots followed by Stinger Missiles is the optimal way to do so.

However, during the middle part of this Boss Fight, Maelstrom’s Weak Points increase from three nodes to five, meaning that you will have to target more Weak Points before you can successfully carve out its Major Weak Point, thus further inflicting damage against it.

After doing this cycle several times, the Maelstrom will finally lose all of its life force and get destroyed, thus opening the path for EVE to retrieve the second Hyper Cell necessary to rebuild Xion City, ending this grueling yet unique Boss Fight in Stellar Blade.

And that’s all you need to know to end Maelstrom, the abomination that festered Altess Levoire for years and retrieve the second Hyper Cell to continue forward in Stellar Blade.