Revision 7

Overview

Marni's Excavatron is a mechanical boss found in Karin Quarry within the Hernand region. The machine was originally designed by Marni, a genius inventor from Delesyia, as a tool for quarrying stone and ore. However, the Bleed Bandits seized the quarry and weaponized the device to maintain their grip on the mine, which had long belonged to House Roberts. Players encounter the Excavatron during the Stolen Quarry segment of the Estate in Dismay quest chain, where Kliff is tasked with liberating the quarry. Before reaching the Excavatron, you must first complete the "First Trial of Trust" and "Troubled Count" objectives, then deplete the quarry's occupation bar to 0% by defeating the Bleed Bandits throughout the territory.

The Excavatron stands roughly twice Kliff's height. It resembles a figure in a diving suit with two massive spinning drills mounted where its arms would be. Those drills were built to chew through solid rock, so they deal devastating damage to anything that gets in the way. Liberating Karin Quarry is required to unlock the Greymane camp fast travel point, making this a fight you cannot skip during main story progression.

Boss Information

Attack Patterns

The Excavatron has a small but punishing moveset. Every attack hits hard enough to take off a large chunk of your health. The fight rewards patience and careful positioning rather than aggression.

Strategy

Recommended Equipment

Sword and shield is the recommended loadout for this fight. The shield lets you block the Excavatron's drill strikes, which is critical for surviving the moments between your stagger windows. Bring upgraded armor (visit a Grind Stone and Anvil beforehand) and plenty of healing food.

Force Palm: The Core Tactic

Force Palm is the single most important ability in this fight. If upgraded to Level 3 (the Expertise node), you can chain three consecutive Force Palms. Each one costs 5 Spirit. The third palm fills the Excavatron's Yellow Bar by a large amount, staggering it into a lengthy immobilized state. While staggered, unload your best melee combo. Back off when it recovers, use Focus to regenerate Spirit, and repeat.

The critical timing window: when the Excavatron's drills begin to glow, it is preparing to dig underground. If you close the gap quickly and land a Force Palm at this moment, you cancel the Burrow attack entirely. This eliminates the most dangerous part of the fight.

Using Turning Slash

The Turning Slash ability is effective for dealing HP damage during attack windows. Each time the Excavatron commits to a drill attack, dodge away during its animation, then immediately follow up with a Turning Slash. Keep your combos short (one Turning Slash, then back off) to avoid getting caught by a follow-up. Combining Turning Slash with Force Palm lets you deal both poise damage and HP damage efficiently.

Shield Blocking

Many of the Excavatron's attacks can be blocked with a shield, including the Drill Charge (when it places both drills on the ground and lunges forward). Shield blocking drains stamina fast, so use it as a safety net rather than your primary defense. If you run out of stamina while blocking, the next hit will stagger you and likely lead to a follow-up you cannot dodge. Keep a stamina buffer and switch between blocking and dodging as the situation demands.

Dealing with Bleed Bandits

Several Bleed Bandits fight alongside the Excavatron during the encounter. If you have access to Damiane, her AoE abilities are effective at clearing them out so you can focus on the machine. Otherwise, group the bandits and deal with them quickly before returning your attention to the boss. Getting hit by a bandit while dodging the Excavatron's drills can be fatal.

General Tips

• The Excavatron's biggest weakness is its slow turning speed. After any attack, it takes roughly two seconds to recover and reorient. Get behind it whenever possible for increased damage.

• Do not overcommit to combos. One Turning Slash or a short combo per attack window is safer than trying to squeeze in extra hits.

• If you are running low on Spirit for Force Palm, focus on Turning Slash alone. One well-timed Turning Slash per attack cycle is enough to win.

• The Excavatron spends a lot of time underground during combat, which can make the fight feel longer than it actually is. Stay patient.

Combat Stats

The following stats are sourced from the official game database. With only 578 HP, the Excavatron has relatively low health compared to later bosses, but its Attack of 16 combined with its large hitboxes means individual drill strikes remove a significant portion of a player's health bar per hit. The Knockout threshold of 400 is the key stat to understand: landing enough poise-damaging abilities (especially Force Palm at Level 3 Expertise) fills this bar and triggers a stagger window. The Fatal rating of 5 confirms this is a standard-difficulty encounter.

Equipment and Skills

The Excavatron's equipment loadout reflects its identity as a repurposed mining machine. Its primary weapon is the Excavatron Fist, a Fist-type weapon that powers both drill arms. Its upper body is protected by the Excavatron Chest, and its lower body by the Excavatron Legs. These three pieces form the complete Excavatron equipment set. Defeating the boss does not drop the chest or legs pieces, but the drills are repurposed into the Mining Knuckledrill reward item.

The Excavatron has two passive skills. Boss Small Human is the behavioral AI archetype that governs how smaller humanoid-scale bosses act in combat, controlling how they track the player and recover between attacks. Min Hp Percent 5 Do Not Use Groggy is a hardcoded mechanic that prevents the Excavatron from entering a Groggy (full stagger) state once it drops below 5% HP. This means the standard strategy of chaining Force Palm staggers is slightly less effective in the final phase, and players should switch to sustained damage output to finish the fight.

Rewards

Defeating Marni's Excavatron completes the Stolen Quarry objective and returns control of Karin Quarry to House Roberts. You receive the following items:

Lore

The Excavatron was built by Marni, an inventor whose mechanical creations appear in several locations across Pywel. Marni's workshop is referenced in other questlines, and the Excavatron is one of several machines that bear the inventor's name. Marni apparently designed the device purely for stone and ore extraction, but its drilling apparatus proved just as effective against people.

The Bleed Bandits captured Karin Quarry from House Roberts and used the Excavatron to enforce their control over the mine's workers. By the time Kliff arrives, the quarry has been under bandit occupation long enough that the local workforce lives in fear of the machine. Destroying the Excavatron is as much about breaking the bandits' hold on the workers as it is about winning a fight.

Tips

• Never try to parry the Excavatron. None of its attacks can be parried. Use dodging and shield blocking instead.

• Watch for the ground disturbance particles that appear 1 to 2 seconds before the Excavatron surfaces from a burrow.

• The Excavatron cannot change direction mid-charge. Sidestep at the last moment for a large window to attack its flank.

• When the area dims, the Excavatron will surface, dive back underground, and repeat a total of three times. Keep dodging through all three eruptions before counterattacking.

• Clear the Bleed Bandits early. Getting hit by a bandit while dodging the Excavatron's drills can be fatal.

• If you are dying frequently, consider leveling up with side content before returning. The quarry's liberation progress is saved, so nothing is lost by leaving and coming back stronger.