The Forgotten General

Overview

The Forgotten General is one of the most secretive and challenging World Bosses in Crimson Desert. With 13,000 HP, it shares the highest health pool among all bosses in the game alongside Beloth the Darksworn. The Forgotten General wields a massive greatsword and wears a distinctive set of samurai-inspired plate armor. This reflects its origins as a legendary warrior revered by the people of Odeck Village. Unlike most World Bosses, the Forgotten General is hidden behind environmental puzzles and sealed passages, making simply finding the encounter a challenge in itself.

The Forgotten General fights with aggressive greatsword swings and powerful aerial dive attacks. It hits extremely hard and moves quickly for a heavily armored opponent, punishing passive play and forcing players to maintain careful spacing throughout the fight. This is widely considered an endgame encounter, and players should come prepared with high-tier gear, plenty of healing consumables, and a solid understanding of the parry and dodge systems before attempting it.

Lore

The Forgotten General was once a renowned military commander who guarded the territory of Odeck during a great war in Pywel's distant past. The people of Odeck Village still worship the General as their guardian deity, upholding the warrior's legacy with an air of grim determination that permeates the entire settlement. Every resident possesses the spirit of a hardened warrior, inspired by the General's deeds on ancient battlefields.

The armor once worn by the Forgotten General, known as the Odeck's Protector set, has become scattered across the world over the centuries. The plate reinforcements were designed to protect the wearer even amidst blizzards, and faint scars from ancient battlefields remain etched upon the silver plate of each piece. Players can find these armor fragments in hidden treasure chests throughout the game without ever confronting the boss directly, though defeating the General remains the most direct path to claiming the full set.

Boss Information

Stats

The Forgotten General has one of the highest stat pools of any boss in the game. Its 13,000 HP is tied with Beloth the Darksworn for the most health among all bosses, and its 800 Attack also matches Beloth; making both of them the most dangerous hits-per-second bosses in the game. The high Knockout value of 1,000 means landing enough consecutive hits can briefly stagger the General, but the window is rare and should not be relied on as a primary tactic.

Equipment

The Forgotten General wears a full set of samurai-inspired plate armor and carries a large two-handed greatsword, all styled after the Odeck's Protector armor line. These items are part of the boss's visual design and AI loadout, but they are not directly dropped as loot when the General is defeated. Players who want the Odeck's Protector set must collect each piece from hidden treasure chests found across Pywel (detailed in the Rewards section below).

Skills

The Forgotten General uses one passive skill that governs its combat behaviors throughout the fight.

How to Find the Boss

The Forgotten General is one of the most well-hidden bosses in the game. Unlike most World Bosses that sit in open arenas or clearly marked locations, the Forgotten General is sealed behind destructible walls and environmental puzzles that require the Focus Force Palm ability to access.

1. Travel to the area near Odeck Village in the northwestern reaches of the map.

2. Look for a cliff wall with a metal barrier blocking a cave entrance.

3. Use Focus Force Palm (L3+R3+R3 on controller) to reveal golden orbs hidden within the structure.

4. Destroy all three golden orbs to break the sealed passage and open the cave.

5. Enter the cave to find a treasure chest and the boss arena where the Forgotten General awaits.

Be sure to activate the fast travel point near the boss arena before engaging. If you run out of consumables or need to restock, you can quit out of the fight, resupply, and fast travel back without losing progress on the encounter.

Attack Patterns

The Forgotten General is a fast, aggressive melee fighter despite its heavy armor. It chains greatsword swings into multi-hit combos with short recovery windows, and supplements its ground game with dangerous aerial attacks. Learning the visual cues for each attack is essential for survival.

Strategy

General Approach

The Forgotten General demands a patient, reactive playstyle. Treat it like a duel rather than a brawl. The core loop is to bait an attack, dodge it cleanly, land one to three counterattacks, and then back off before the next combo begins. Greedy players who overcommit to damage windows will get punished by the boss's fast recovery and follow-up strikes. Parrying is effective against the greatsword combos but risky against the overhead slam and aerial dive due to their extreme damage. Stick to dodging for those attacks.

Parry and Combo

The most reliable strategy is to parry the General's greatsword swings, then follow up with a quick combo. A successful parry staggers the boss briefly, creating a safe window for two to three hits. After landing your combo, immediately disengage and prepare for the next attack. Repeat this loop throughout the fight. Heal with Grilled Meat while attacking during stagger windows to maintain your health without losing offensive momentum.

Handling the Aerial Dive

The aerial dive is the most dangerous attack in the fight and the one that kills unprepared players most frequently. When the Forgotten General leaps into the air, do not panic and dodge immediately. Instead, watch for the second midair repositioning dodge. Once the boss completes that second midair movement, hold the dodge button to perform a long roll. This timing is consistent and reliable once learned. Practicing this dodge pattern is the single most important skill for this fight.

Range Management

Staying at medium range is the sweet spot for this fight. Too close and you will eat greatsword combos with little reaction time. Too far and the General will close the gap with lunging thrusts or aerial dives on its own terms. At medium range, the boss tends to use its overhead slam and standard combos, which are easier to read and punish. Let the boss come to you rather than chasing it around the arena.

Recommended Preparation

Gear

Equip the highest-tier armor you have available, ideally with Abyss Cores that provide Damage Reduction. Defense is far more important than Attack for this fight, because the Forgotten General's hits can kill in one or two strikes without adequate protection. Consider wearing armor sets like Frostcursed Armor or Shadow Armor if you have them available. Refine your equipped armor as much as possible to maximize its defensive stats.

Weapon

Any weapon type works, but fast weapons like One-Hand Swords pair well with the parry-and-combo strategy since they allow quick hits during short stagger windows. Heavier weapons deal more damage per hit but require longer focus on each attack animation, which is riskier against a boss this aggressive. Two-Hand Swords can work if you limit yourself to single heavy attacks during punish windows rather than attempting full combos.

Consumables

Bring at least 100 Grilled Meat to the fight. The more healing you carry, the more mistakes you can afford. Grilled Meat can be consumed while attacking, so use it liberally during damage windows to keep your health topped off. If your supply runs low, quit out of the fight, restock at a nearby merchant, and fast travel back to the boss arena.

Stats

Invest heavily in Health and Stamina before attempting this fight. A larger Health pool gives you more room to survive hits that you fail to dodge, and a larger Stamina pool ensures you always have enough energy for emergency dodges. Damage output is secondary to survival here; a long, slow fight where you stay alive is far better than an aggressive one where you die repeatedly.

Rewards

Defeating the Forgotten General rewards players with pieces of the Odeck's Protector armor set, a samurai-inspired plate armor collection with strong defensive stats and built-in Abyss Gear slots. The set is one of the most visually distinctive in the game, featuring angular silver plate with battle-worn scars and red tassels on the helm.

Odeck's Protector Armor Set

The Odeck's Protector set can be obtained either by defeating the Forgotten General directly or by finding individual pieces hidden in treasure chests scattered across the world. Each piece is sealed behind environmental puzzles that require Focus Force Palm to access. Below are the known stats and locations for each piece.

Comparison to Similar Bosses

The Forgotten General shares the 13,000 HP ceiling with Beloth the Darksworn, making both of them the tankiest encounters in the game. However, the two fights play very differently.

Overwhelming Being Classification

The Forgotten General is classified as an overwhelming being, a tier of boss that sits above standard World Bosses in terms of difficulty and reward quality. There are three overwhelming beings in Crimson Desert: the Forgotten General, Beloth the Darksworn, and Ator, the Antumbra Archon. Each one is gated behind specific questline prerequisites and offers unique endgame armor and weapons upon defeat.

Quest Prerequisites

Unlike most World Bosses, the Forgotten General cannot simply be walked up to and fought. You must complete a specific questline before the boss becomes accessible. The required steps are:

1. Complete the Odeck tribe questline, including the quest The Black Bears and the Red Smoke.

2. Defeat Torandis the Ashen at the Volstein Ruins, Star, and Verheim Ruins.

3. Return to the Odeck area. The quest "Slumbering Soul" will trigger, leading you to the boss arena.

Precise Location

The Forgotten General is located in the northwest of Pailune. Travel to the mountain waypoint near the river and follow the river northwest until it ends at a crevasse. The boss arena is at the bottom of this crevasse. Once you arrive, the quest "Slumbering Soul" triggers and the fight begins.

Stun-Lock Strategy (Bow Build)

The Forgotten General is unique among the three overwhelming beings because it can be infinite stun-locked. Unlike Beloth the Darksworn and Ator, the Forgotten General does not have resistance to repeated stagger, which means a properly timed rotation of stun abilities can keep it locked down for the entire fight.

Core Rotation

The stun-lock combo relies on chaining three abilities together with spirit food consumption between each cycle:

1. Bow Focus Shot (fire-imbued): Enter Focus mode with your bow and fire a Focused Charged Shot imbued with fire. This triggers Volcanic Eruption and Flames of Judgment, striking the boss with two separate stagger sources.

2. Turning Slash (fire-imbued): While the boss is staggered, switch to melee and perform a fire-imbued Turning Slash. With the Vow of the Dead King weapon and Gray Soul Howling (obtained after Chapter 9), this becomes a devastating fire super hit that extends the stun.

3. Spirit Food Chain: Eat spirit food (such as grilled meat, which restores +38 spirit from Delesyia tavern, or harvest rolls at +34 spirit) between slashes to refill your spirit bar. This lets you immediately perform another Turning Slash or fire another bow shot.

By repeating this cycle, you can keep the Forgotten General permanently staggered from start to finish. The boss never gets a chance to use its aerial dive or greatsword combos. This makes it significantly easier than the other two overwhelming beings, provided you have the gear and consumables to sustain the rotation.

Preparation for the Stun-Lock Build

• Gear reinforcement: Reinforce your armor at the Bloomwood Ranch anvil for bonus defense (+6 defense, +10, +4, +4 across pieces). Use the Grindstone at the Hernand City Smith for +6 attack.

• Spirit food: Buy the best spirit food from the Delesyia tavern. Grilled meat stays give +38 spirit; harvest rolls give +34 spirit. Stock up heavily.

• Palmar Pills: Craft these at Shadow Whisper Cave. They revive you with 30% HP but full spirit, giving you a second chance if the combo drops.

• Bow setup: Use a backer bow with +2 critical rate (total 8 crit, or 16 with Necklace of Lightning).

Reward Details

Defeating the Forgotten General rewards two key items:

• Oddex Protector Plate: The signature armor piece from the Odeck's Protector Plate Set. This is the direct drop from the boss fight itself.

• Awakened Spirit Spear: A powerful spear with 36 attack and 3 critical rate. It also comes with the Judgment of the Soul skill. For comparison, the Vow of the Dead King has 35 attack and 4 critical rate, making the Awakened Spirit Spear a competitive sidegrade with higher base damage but slightly lower crit.

Unlock Path (Pailune Questline)

The Forgotten General fight is gated behind a long Pailune faction questline. Track progress under Journal > Faction Quest > Pailune. You must first reach at least 15 out of 27 Pailune Militia reputation, which is earned by completing every relevant Pailune quest except the bounties. After that, a chain of tribal quests unlocks the final step that leads to the boss arena.

Each tribe must be liberated in order. Skipping or ignoring a step will stall progression, so follow the sequence below.

Location (General's Tomb)

The boss is fought inside The General's Tomb, located at the northwestern point of Silver Wolf Mountain, just west of the town of ODC. The tomb does not appear as a liberated location until after the Forgotten General is defeated, and the encounter itself is not available at all until the full Pailune questline above has been completed.

Stats (YouTube Guide Reference)

A trusted boss guide cites slightly different in-database values than those captured elsewhere in this article. Both sets are kept here for completeness. According to the guide, the General has the same HP pool as Beloth and actually hits harder than either of the other two Overwhelming Beings.

Fight Mechanics (Illusion System)

The Forgotten General is widely considered the hardest boss in the game among the three Overwhelming Beings. Her signature mechanic is that she spawns an illusion of herself partway through most of her attacks, turning a single-hit tell into a doubled-up strike. For example, during a two-sweep spear combo she summons one illusion for each sweep, so the damage window is effectively twice as long as it looks.

As soon as you see an illusion spawn, dodge roll immediately. Her moveset is technically parryable, but the illusions break your timing and frequently interrupt parries, so pure parry play is very risky here. Unlike many Crimson Desert bosses, she also cannot be safely kited with ranged shots: there are no projectiles to throw into Nature's Snare or Nature's Retribution, so this fight is almost entirely a pure-skill duel at medium range.

Key Tells and Punish Windows

Spacing is the single most important skill. Do not stand directly under her, or the illusion tied to her attack will hit you at the same time as the real one. Circle her at medium distance, close enough to punish but far enough to react to her tells.

Her most reliable punish window is the combo she performs alongside her illusion that ends with a leap slam. It is relatively short and easy to read. Stay near her, roll into or past her during the combo, and counterattack as the final leap slam lands. One of her other signature tells is a sideways spear held in a guard pose, which signals that she is baiting a parry. If you swing at her while she holds that stance, she will parry the hit and counter into a combo with an illusion spawn. Wait her out and do not blindly attack into that pose.

Waves of Illusions Handling

At set points in the fight she disappears and sends waves of illusions sprinting across the arena, with small gaps between each wave. She sometimes uses a reduced single-wave version while still fighting you directly. There are two reliable ways to survive this phase.

• Tuck into the tree or bush in one corner of the arena. Illusions never spawn in that spot, so it functions as a safe pocket for the entire sequence.

• Use Pogo Palm (the double jump from upgraded Force Palm) combined with Aerial Roll to glide into the air. She cannot hit you while you are airborne, which gives you time to read the wave timings and reposition for the next real attack.

Optional Exploit (Kuku Watcher Pack)

A known bug-or-exploit reported in the community involves the Kuku Watcher Pack sentry bots. While the pack is summoned in the arena, the Forgotten General can enter a repeating jump loop that lets you free-cast damage on her with little risk. Desummoning the sentries ends the loop. The interaction is not officially confirmed as sentry-caused, but it is commonly cited as a last-resort strategy for players struggling with the fight.

Rewards (YouTube Guide Reference)

The same guide summarises the drops below. Some of these items are also listed elsewhere in this article; this table restates them in a quick-reference format along with extra notes the guide author added.

Recommended Preparation (Overwhelming Being Build)

The guide recommends the same general build for all three Overwhelming Being fights. Arrive with your best refined weapon, a jewelry loadout focused on attack, crit rate, and spirit (necklace slot in particular), and a full skill kit. Mandatory skills include Focus Shot leading into Focus Charged Shot, Force Palm upgraded to three palm strikes, Focus Mode upgraded for parrying, Keen Senses for counter and dodge, Nature's Snare, Nature's Retribution, and Aerial Roll. Even though ranged play is limited in this specific fight, these tools are valuable during positioning breaks and for the other two Overwhelming Beings.

Stock consumables heavily before the run. Bring food for healing, Palmar Pills and Refined Palmar Pill for emergency revives, spirit-restoring food, Wild Ginseng for a window of no spirit cost, and Skyroot for a 4-second no stamina cost window. Pop any elixirs you have at the start of the fight, since the game refreshes them if you die and restart the encounter, so there is no reason to save them.

Tips

• The aerial dive is the most lethal attack. Master the timing: wait for the second midair dodge, then hold the dodge button to long roll.

• Parry greatsword combos for safe counterattack windows, but dodge the overhead slam and aerial dive rather than attempting to parry them.

• Bring at least 100 Grilled Meat. You can eat while attacking during stagger windows to heal without losing damage uptime.

• Activate the fast travel point outside the arena before engaging. If you run out of supplies, quit out and fast travel back after restocking.

• Prioritize Defense and Damage Reduction on your gear over Attack. Surviving hits matters more than dealing damage quickly.

• Stay at medium range. Too close and you will eat combos; too far and the boss closes the gap on its own terms with lunges or dives.

• Do not overcommit after dodging an attack. Land one to three hits, then back off. The boss recovers faster than you expect.

• You can collect all five pieces of the Odeck's Protector armor without fighting this boss by finding hidden treasure chests across the map.

• Consider investing skill points into Health and Stamina before this fight. A larger Stamina pool ensures you can always perform emergency dodges.

Trivia

• The Forgotten General and Beloth the Darksworn share the highest HP value in the game at 13,000, making them the two tankiest bosses.

• The Odeck's Protector armor set is described as reminiscent of a "great samurai warrior," reflecting the game's blend of Eastern and Western medieval aesthetics.

• The Forgotten General is one of the few bosses in the game that can be completely bypassed. All of its associated armor pieces are available as open-world treasure chest finds.

• The people of Odeck Village worship the Forgotten General as their guardian deity, and the village's warrior culture stems from the General's legacy.

• The in-game descriptions on each Odeck's Protector armor piece contain fragments of the General's backstory, referencing ancient battlefields and harsh weather conditions.