How to Beat Thaos in Pillars of Eternity

Pillars of Eternity is a huge RPG with several areas to explore and numerous enemies to kill. Your reward for reaching the end of Obsidian Entertainment’s adventure is an epic final battle against Thaos, ultimate bad guy and the one preventing you from reaching 100 percent completion. The bad news is he wields the power of a god and has two minions that will attempt to crush your party during the final confrontation, but no worries. We’ll help you beat the final boss and bring peace to Dyrwood. 

Prepare for battle

Ideally you need to upgrade each member of your party to level 12, the max level in Pillars of Eternity. Do this and you’ll have more health, mana, focus, skills and spells. There’s a chance you’ll still have some grinding to do, so if that’s the case, head to Burial Isle and finish outstanding side quests.

When you’re done, rest the party. Visit Twin Elms or Caed Nua and sleep at the inn to achieve bonuses for Dexterity, Might and Constitution.  Now collect the right equipment. Hoard scrolls, potions and other items, but don’t bring traps into the battle because Thaos won’t give you enough time to set these devices. Finally, buy powerful weapons and the strongest armor in the game. Now you’re ready to destroy Thaos, so go to Burial Isle to kick things off. You’ll find Thaos near the pillar of Adra. 

How to kill Thaos

Thaos is the one behind the Hollowborn plague and it’s time to give this guy the ultimate beat down, but don’t take him lightly.  For starters he brings the two statues on the screen to life (Woedica’s Judge and Woedica’s Headsman), so now you must contend with three enemies instead of one.  

Tip: You can speak to Thaos before the fight begins, but you’re delaying the inevitable.

The good news is you don’t have to deal with the statues right away. Immediately go after Thaos, but stick and move to remain out of the statues’ range.  Furthermore, don’t go through all of your scrolls at the beginning of this battle. 

Pummel Thaos until he has roughly half of his health. When this happens he puts his soul into one of his buddies. You should respond by attacking the other statue, the one not under Thaos’ influence. You want to do this to quickly eliminate the weaker foe while guaranteeing that Thaos will have no choice but to return to his own body later on. 

Throughout the fight, separate your ranged party members as much as possible.  Putting them too close together risks losing these characters at once, especially if they get hit by AOE attacks. 

When you eliminate the statues Thaos will regain all of his health. That probably doesn’t sound comforting, but if you followed our advice to this point, now’s the time to unleash your spells and scrolls. Throw your strongest heroes, most likely the warriors, into harm’s way while keeping weaker party members far enough away from his attacks, but obviously close enough so they can deal some damage. This should be enough to take him down for good. 

Tip: At the start, you can also put two magic users on Thaos, then put teams of two on both statues.

Succeed and you determine Thaos’ fate, or more specifically, his soul. Choose from among the following options:

• Return it to the cycle.
• Rip his soul to pieces. “It was time you were granted peace.”
• Banish his soul to Breith Eaman
• Destroy all of the memories.
• Tear his soul apart. “You do not deserve to exist.”

With that out of the way, finish all conversations with your party members, then take care of the trapped souls. You can do the following:

• Send the souls back into the reincarnation cycle.
• Return the souls to the bodies they were intended for.
• Disintegrate these souls, thus ending them forever.
• Make the souls stronger.
• Let the souls reach Woedica.
• Send the souls to parts unknown. 

If you just started playing Pillars of Eternity, read Prima’s character creation guide, tips for survival and our walkthrough for all of the Act I side quests.

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This 512-page high quality Collector’s Edition book is a limited one-time printing. It’s meant to be a keepsake for the truest and most loyal fans whose names are printed in each book. The Pillars of Eternity Official Game Guide provides comprehensive training and character development strategies, complete walkthroughs, and detailed maps so that you can see and do everything! Reserve yours now, before they’re sold out!