Shadowpelt is the boss in Borderlands 4, who proves to you that, despite how powerful your guns are, they only work if you hit the target. The challenge in this fight goes beyond surviving deadly attacks. It involves hunting an invisible enemy. You can come to this fight prepared, which is important considering you might have to return to it whenever Shadowpelt appears as the weekly big encore boss.
To help you arrive at this fight ready, we prepared this Borderlands 4 guide explaining how to defeat Shadowpelt, where to find it, and the rewards you receive from this encounter.
Shadowpelt location in Borderlands 4
You will find Shadowpelt in the Whistler’s Maw abandoned Auger mine in the Cuspid Climb region (check our interactive map of Kairos to know how to get there). This tricky quadruped is the final boss of this dungeon, and you need to defeat it to earn all the rewards that completing mines gives you. Although the boss arena is at the end of the dungeon, the path to get there is not in plain sight.
In the first area, climb the broken ladder and turn left. Enter the tunnel and follow the only available path. When you reach a wall with two wood boxes in front of it, break them to reveal a small opening through which you can access the rest of the dungeon.
The next room has several manglers to fight. Clear the area and head northwest to find the path you must follow. When you reach a room with a large frozen rock in the middle of it, use your backpack to glide to it and, after you land, use the grappling hook to jump to the upper part of the area.
From this spot, glide to a platform to the south, above an area marked by a red light. Open the vent tunnel to find the room with the vending machines that antecedes the boss arena.
Shadowpelt’s moveset
Like Bio-Bulkhead and other minor bosses in Borderlands 4, Shadowpelt has a simple moveset composed of only three attacks. The general rule to deal with Shadowpelt’s moveset is to be in constant movement and save dashes for emergencies. The boss is fast, and the fact that you can’t see it makes the ability to quickly reposition a key factor in this fight.
Now, here’s a brief explanation of each move the boss performs:
- Single electric sphere: Shadowpelt constantly charges a sphere of electricity with its tail and throws it at your current location. Even when the boss is invisible, you can see the sphere growing, helping you prepare to dodge the attack, but don’t run or dash before it actually throws it your way. You do want to get far from where the sphere is landing, because it explodes on impact and deals damage to anything within its impact zone.
- 360º wave of spheres: When Shadowpelt is not throwing a single sphere, it is jumping to places and shooting multiple spheres to every direction around it. This is one of the moments to track the boss’s location, since Shadowpelt’s body is always at the center of this wave. Avoiding this attack is possible by jumping at the right moment or being far away enough that you can pass between a couple of spheres.
- Shockwave: We can consider the shockwave as a variation of the wave of spheres, because Shadowpelt jumps to a place (usually right where you are) and a blue shockwave comes from the location. In our experience, jumping over it works, but you must jump at the right moment. There are also situations when Shadowpelt uses the wave of spheres after a shockwave.
Your main concern during this fight is actually seeing when Shadowpelt is going to use the abilities above, because of its energy shield, which turns the boss invisible.
While in this state, Shadowpelt won’t take damage (there will be a blue bar above the health bar), and can’t be tracked by grenades or rockets with the trait that would usually allow them to follow enemies. You still need to hit Shadowpelt to impair its shield and disable it for a short period. To deal with it, you want to, before the fight, be sure to check your arsenal and see if you have any gun capable of causing electric damage. Any type of damage is capable of destroying it, but energy shields are weak to electric damage.
To spot Shadowpelt’s location, there are some tips. You can vaguely distinguish its silhouette in certain moments, so keep your eyes open. However, the best way to find the boss is through its attacks.
You should always consider the moment when Shadowpelt’s shield breaks as your burst window. You want to hold your strongest guns, secondary attack, and skills for when the shield is down. Prioritize shotguns, pistols, and submachine guns since they tend to have a high fire rate. It doesn’t take long for Shadowpelt to get its shield up again, so every shot counts.
Depending on your active skill, it might be a good idea to pop it when the shield is about to be destroyed, but not after. For example, when playing Rafa with the Peacebreaker Cannons, you want to activate them before Shadowpelt becomes susceptible to damage, to not waste time with the animation.
Another general note about this encounter is that small manglers will constantly spawn in the arena. Although they are meant to be killed when you’re in Fight For Your Life mode, they can be quite annoying. Try to always kill a few of them, otherwise they will start to be a problem.
Shadowpelt rewards
Like most bosses in Borderlands 4, defeating Shadowpelt can reward you with guns and pieces of equipment. We haven’t obtained any legendary guns from it ourselves, so we’re not sure which ones you can earn from defeating Shadowpelt.
Since Shadowpelt is the final boss of the Whistler’s Maw abandoned Auger mine, by defeating it for the first time, you will have completed this dungeon. Doing so gives you 40 SDU tokens. At level 40 in the Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode rank one, we received 2,873 experience points from killing the boss.
Do you need more help with Borderlands 4? For those who are new to Kairos, check out our beginner’s guide before you get started and our best classes guide to find the right one for your playstyle.
If you want to have fun with your weapons, be sure to read our guide on how to get more SDU tokens. We know that traversing the immense map of Kairos is a challenge in itself, so you should prioritize unlocking a vehicle, as well as fast travel points. And if you’re already enjoying the endgame of Borderlands 4, don’t forget to check the weekly reset time for all current challenges.
