Special Individual Interception: Blacksmith

Written by Jay

Published on: 2023-03-19

Updated on: 2025-03-13

“A special individual who captures and remolds Nikkes into Rapture parts. It’s time to avenge the countless Nikkes who have fallen prey.”

Blacksmith does 2 main things until you’ve dealt enough damage to the 7th tier of rewards worth of damage. He will send out several slowly travelling bombs that target units, and then fire 3 sets of shots with his 2 guns that can target 1 or 2 units at the same time.

You must deal with the bombs first, more than a few that hit a unit will generally deal enough damage to kill them instantly if you don’t have OL gear and/or enough investment in your units.

• You can deal with them in a few ways, having an AOE based burst will kill all of them instantly and allow you to deal damage
• Having a Rocket Launcher units (or multiple) can break all the bombs relatively easy
• I-framing the bombs using the cover (less reliable as it can target multiple units at the same time)

The gunshots hit 3 times on whomever they target, it is completely random whether they decided to target one or two characters.

• You have time to react to the gunshots, if you are ever uncomfortable in taking the shots, force cover your units. Your shielding is limited, so unless you have cover healing, you can only take so many.
• Bringing a healer can help offset some of the damage you take over the course of the fight, understanding and experimenting with how much damage you can take vs how much you heal can significantly speed up the time you have to clear the interception.

Going with a buffing support, 3 damage units and a healer is the most consistent way of negating some RNG behind Blacksmith’s attacks.

This is definitely a fight best done on manual (at least for targeting) if your burst cooldowns all line up to where you want them to be.

At the tier 7 of rewards, Blacksmith’s next attack will be a leap to the furthest point in the area and 3 circles will show.

Not breaking the circles will lead to an AOE attack that will more than likely kill your team and end the run, so make sure you are prepared for this.

• The order of Blacksmith’s attacks are also switched, he will jump forward and a short delay similar to when he spawns the bombs will happen, but he will instead fire his guns the same way.
• An extra attack will be added, he leaps back and throws out a pair of tentacles that attaches to a random unit, stunning them. 2 circles appear on the screen, failure to destroy the circles will result in that unit dying.

You could consider the above a “Phase 2” portion of the fight, something like Blacksmith’s final attempts at killing you. The final push to clear can be a hectic one, as all of his attacks are all centered around his change.

Example runs