You’ll find this boss around the middle of the game. So by the time, you’ll reach her, there’s plenty of choice in your arsenal to fight her with. With that said, let’s teach her that there can only be one ruler of darkness.
Want to make the most of your life as a vampire (can you “live” as a vampire)? There are plenty of bosses out there to beat that make existence better. Here are two you should definitely beat;
- V Rising guide: Polora the Feywalker (Strategy & Location)
- V Rising guide: Putrid Rat (Strategy & Location)
Where can you find Leandra the Shadow Priestess?
Leandra the Shadow Priestess is located in the Church of the Damned. This is a remote and lonely place in the far northwest of the Dunley Farmlands, just beyond the Bastion of Dunley. It’s tricky to reach the area since the Dunely Farmlands have powerful fire archers and other types of warriors. Ideally, scout the area before you enter the Church of the Damned, so you can use the Vampire Waygate nearby. This lets you reach the Church of the Damned without having to fight off hordes of civilians in nearby settlements first – or having to track through the sunlight.
You can find Leandra the Shadow Priestess in the Church of the Damned.
Leandra the Shadow Priestess doesn’t move within the Church of the Damned area. She’ll always be standing near the altar at the top. If you have trouble finding her anyway, you can always find her by tracking her blood in the Blood Altar. If you can’t yet, it means your level is too low. Focus on a couple of lower-level bosses and upgrade your armor to unlock her.
Locating Leandra the Shadow Priestess is easy enough, but reaching her is a different thing altogether. In contrast to Polora the Feywalker or Putrid Rat, where you directly enter the actual battle, the Church of the Damned is filled to the brim with Skeleton Bishops, Necromancers, and other powerful undead foes. What’s worse – you can’t feed on them to restore your blood gauge. Even more than for other battles, preparation is key!
How can you defeat Leandra the Shadow Priestess?
Leandra is level 46 when you encounter her. For your best chances, I recommend your player level to be somewhere around that level too (46 or higher). You’ve quite the journey ahead of you. Make sure all your gear is at least iron level, and repair it if its durability is low.
Similar to your armor, you should make sure to use iron weapons. If you can, try upgrading your Iron Reaper to The General’s Soul Reaper. This weapon is extremely powerful and does additional damage to undead creatures – making your time at the graveyard a lot easier. In case you can’t get this specific reaper yet, a regular iron one will definitely do the trick. If your supply of iron is short, head for the Haunted Iron Mine in the Dunley Farmlands to increase your supply.
Healing is crucial in this battle. Vermin salves, hearts, anything that doesn’t cost you blood but does heal you is very helpful in this battle. Make sure you can teleport with it, too – otherwise reaching the Church of the Damned happens to be a bit harder.
The spells to make your life a lot easier
I mentioned before how you’ve got quite the arsenal of spells to select from at this point. However, I discarded most of them in favor of some basic ones. That’s right – blood spells are extremely useful when you can’t replenish your blood. They can heal you during the battle and give you just that little bit more stamina. Naturally, you’re free to pick whatever spells best suit your playstyle. However, based on Leandra’s moveset and her surroundings, the following spells will definitely help you.
- Chaos Volley launches two bursts of chaos magic that have some aim assist. When you hit the enemy, the spell deals 125% magic damage and lets the enemy experience chaos burn. You can get Chaos Volley by defeating Lidia the Chaos Archer, who roams the Farbane Woods, often near the Forgotten Cemetary and the Logging Camp.
- Blood Rite blocks melee and ranged attacks for a short duration. If you get hit while blood rite is active, you’ll regain some health and inflict 100% magic damage. This essentially serves as a counter.
- Veil of Blood lets you dash away from enemies. For a short while, you’re faster and harder to hit, but when you attack while it’s active you’ll do 25% additional damage, and – importantly – you’ll regain some health.
By the time you’re finished, your setup should look something like this:
Dodge and damage – that’s the device!
Now it’s time to start the mission. Hop through the nearest Vampire Waygate and pop out nearest to the Church of the Damned. The area isn’t enclosed or underground, so make sure it’s night. If your blood meter isn’t full, kill a local deer, farm animal, or lonely soldier to gain the blood you need. When you enter the area, you’ll find another boss first: the Undead Commander.
Your way to the top
If you’ve visited any cursed site in V Rising, you won’t be surprised that this one is full of necromancy. Undead Bishops are necromancing everywhere. If you engage them, which I recommend you do, focus your attacks on them rather than their minions. If you attack the minions, the necromancer will just raise more.
However, you’ll also be dealing with a bit of a rarer boss, the Undead Commander. This is a powerful foe that deals quite some damage – and has quite some range for said damage! I’d even argue he’s borderline harder than Leandra herself.
Whenever the Undead Commander raises his scythe, get ready to stay out of direct range.
The trick to fighting him is to be behind the undead foe at all times. Most of his attacks don’t reach behind him, so you can get up close and grind his health down from there. Be aware of his one AoE attack, though (Area of Effect). Once he raises his scythe into the air, dodge out of the way to avoid a possible hit.
After you defeat the Undead Commander, you get the aforementioned General’s Soul Reaper recipe as a reward, in case you don’t have it yet. Heal up and make your way to Leandra the Shadow Priestess to finally take her on.
Fighting Leandra the Shadow Priestess
Let’s engage! Leandra is standing near an altar, with some gravestones and Undead Bishops around her. The gravestones in her boss arena provide cover against her attack, while the Bishops are annoying nuisances that spawn skeletal minions – you should definitely take them out first. She uses a couple of different attacks in her attack pattern.
- Her most common attack is assassin spawn. She summons shadowy ghosts, that rush towards you and despite their low health, deal much damage. She will spam a ton of those, and they can be tricky to dodge. Use counters and veils to get away from them.
These assassins hurt! Save your counters and dodges for when they’re around.
- She can also fire shadow ball projectiles at the player. This can either be a single bolt that travels in a straight line, or she can charge up her staff and shoot three bolts, which diverge from one another at close range and reconverge at long range.
These are admittedly a lot easier to dodge. Pay attention to whether she throws a single bolt or three, though.
- By far her most annoying attack is the one that gives you temporal blindness. Leandra turns your screen black. While you’re blinded and barely able to hit her, she uses her shadow powers to summon a group of ghosts. This one is tricky to dodge, so make sure you have your Veil of Blood and your Blood Rite available to dodge or counter any creature you couldn’t dodge regularly.
Leandra isn’t the strongest with decent armor, but she can still pose quite a challenge. The main problem is the summoners – she summons creatures, there are skeleton bishops around her – it’s like a summoning summit. Naturally, you want to attack the summoners rather than the creatures they spawn. Since Leandra starts standing still, this is a perfect window of opportunity to use your strongest attack (an ultimate for example) right off the bet and get some good old damage in. As you dodge her attacks, take out the Skeleton Bishops. You’ll find that your reaper is extremely effective. Its throwing function lets it deal consistent damage in a specific place, while you can dodge away from Leandra or some Skeleton.
After you’ve dealt with the Bishops, focus exclusively on Leandra. The reaper still deals massive damage, both when you throw it or when you slash with it. Stay up close and personal if your spells aren’t on cooldown. If she summons an assassin that you happen to be in front of, use your Blood Rite to counter it and regain some health, or your Veil of Blood to escape it. When you don’t have those spells, use Chaos Volley to deal damage from a distance and throw your reaper repeatedly. The trick is not to do anything hasty. Keep dodging, find your openings, and use them to their maximum advantage. After grinding her down, the Shadow Priestess is no more, and we’re the undisputed rulers of the night. For now, anyway.
What are your rewards?
Once you beat Leandra the Shadow Priestess, you’ll get the following rewards. First of all, you get to use a jewelcrafting table now! It will serve you well – the jewels have some very powerful properties that make your vampire a lot stronger. That’s not all though. You’ll also get a specific jewelry recipe, the Scourge Pendant, which you can fill with all kinds of gems once you’ve crafted it. As the name suggests, you’ll need a specific kind of stone to craft it. Scourgestone, to be precise. Once you beat her, you can start making it!
Loved Leandra the Shadow Priestess’ moves? Then I have great news – you can now use some of her moves! Specifically, her Spectral Assassin move. This is an illusion vampire power that has you send out your own little shadow demon to slash the enemies for some nice old damage! Furthermore, you get now summon Skeleton Priests directly in your castle. So if you’re ever in need of some bones or grave dust, Leandra’s got you covered.
Your next step is to get the gems for the actual jewels. You can find regular gems, but you can also craft them out of raw ones. You’ll need a gem cutting table though – and for that, you need to defeat Terah the Geomancer. I hope you found this V Rising guide helpful! Leave a comment for suggestions, comments, or simply if you want to share your battle strat or which jewelry you like best!
