Erma, the Mad Scientist
Boss · Chapter 1: The Cult Leader
Erma is a two-stage fight. She opens riding an armored armadillo, and that opener is thin: the mount tuning carries 135 HP, so it breaks fast and mostly exists to teach her missile timing. The real fight starts when she boards her golem.
The golem is a 1,890 HP fixed emplacement with two 100 HP hands and a stagger resist of 999, so nothing you do interrupts it. You take the hands apart, bait the head laser, and hit the core when it exposes. The game files also carry a separate scripted rematch version of Erma at 2,000 HP.
Missiles land on warning markers. In both stages this is the constant background threat; the markers never lie, so treat them as the floor plan.
The two hands attack independently and body-block your lines to the core. Each has 100 HP; killing one opens a safe angle.
The golem head charges and fires a sustained laser sweep. The charge-up is long; use it to reposition, then punish through the recovery.
Bullet sprays from the golem's mounts, layered with slower sub-shots so two wave speeds cross each other.
The golem places totems that add their own fire to the pattern. They die fast and should die first.
After its big attacks the core opens. That window is where the fight actually happens; everything before it is survival.
In hard mode every boss also draws from the pool of 10 modifiers listed on the bosses page, from flat HP and defense gains to elemental resists and ignoring your defense or evasion.
Defeating Erma for the first time adds these to the item pool: