Wan Jun "Coppermaul" — Boss Guide
Okay so Wan Jun aka Coppermaul is one of the two bosses they showed at Gamescom 2025 and honestly he's probably the first real skill check you'll hit in Phantom Blade Zero this dude is a gigantic humanoid thing with a sledgehammer that's like the size of a small car I'm not even exaggerating it's ridiculous, the fight takes place in a quarry arena with these destructible pillars you can use for cover during his phase three desperation attacks and I've died behind those pillars so many times it's not even funny, anyway when you kill him he drops the Bashpole which is a greatsword-class weapon they confirmed during the Gamescom demo drops right from his corpse after the kill and tbh it's one of the best weapon drops in the game
Here's the thing about Coppermaul that gets literally everyone killed, he looks slow because he's huge but ngl he is NOT slow his attacks have these enormous wind-ups followed by sudden devastating acceleration and the most common death in this fight is dodging during the wind-up then getting smacked during your recovery frames when the hammer finally comes down, patience kills Coppermaul and panic gets you killed by him that's pretty much the whole fight in one sentence, you gotta stay calm
And honestly this is one of those fights where you'll die like 20 times before it clicks and then suddenly you're dodging everything and wondering why it ever seemed hard, it's kinda weird how that works
Phase One: The Hammer
Coppermaul basically has three attacks in phase one and they're all dangerous in their own way, the overhead slam is where he raises the hammer above his head and holds it for what feels like an eternity I mean seriously you'll think the game froze or something, then he brings it down in a vertical strike with a shockwave and the hammer itself is a one-hit kill on Sha-Chi Master difficulty while the shockwave does about 40% of your health and knocks you down which is still brutal, dodge the hammer to the side never backward because the shockwave travels forward in a line so dodging sideways avoids both the hammer and the wave, timing wise you gotta wait for the hammer to start moving downward not during the wind-up not when it's at the highest point but when it starts moving that's when you dodge and if you dodge even a fraction of a second early you're dead plain and simple
Then there's the horizontal sweep where Coppermaul swings the hammer in a wide arc at chest height and this is a Brutal Move with the blue flash so parry it, the parry window is pretty generous because the sweep is slow and a successful parry staggers him for about three seconds which is honestly the longest stagger window of any boss in the game imo, this is your primary damage opportunity and every sweep he throws is basically free damage if you're ready to parry and you know what it feels so good to land
So the stomp is where he raises one foot and stomps creating a circular shockwave and this isn't a Brutal or Killer Move it's just a regular attack that covers a wide area around him, dodge backward twice to clear the radius, tbh the stomp is his fastest attack and it always catches players who get too aggressive in melee range I've been caught by this so many times I can't even count
Phase Two: Dust Clouds
At 60% health Coppermaul slams the ground and fills the whole arena with dust clouds that reduce visibility to about two character-lengths and this is the fight's signature mechanic, you can't see the hammer wind-ups clearly anymore so you have to react to sound cues and partial animations through the dust and it's honestly kind of terrifying the first time you see it because everything you learned in phase one suddenly feels useless
The horizontal sweep becomes the most dangerous attack in phase two because you can see the blue flash through the dust but you can't see the hammer's position clearly enough to judge the parry timing and that's what gets people killed over and over, the solution is pretty simple though the sweep always comes after he takes two steps toward you so if you see him take two steps through the dust get ready to parry, it's one of those things that seems impossible until you know the trick
Because the overhead slam gets a new property in phase two it now creates three shockwaves instead of one each traveling in a different direction, the safest movement is to dodge diagonally forward past Coppermaul which puts you behind him where no shockwaves travel and you can just wail on him for a second or two, the Hybrid Flex build is honestly the best choice for this phase because Dragon Fire charged shots let you deal damage from the edge of the dust cloud without committing to melee range where the stomp punishes you and trust me you do not wanna be in melee range during this phase
Also something nobody tells you is that the dust clouds don't affect his stomp hitbox at all, the stomp still has the same radius and the same timing and if you're relying on vision you'll eat it every time, you gotta feel the rhythm
Phase Three: Desperation
At 25% health Coppermaul enters desperation and his attacks gain fire damage leaving burning patches on the ground that persist for about 15 seconds, the arena pretty much shrinks as more and more of the floor becomes hazardous and this is where the destructible pillars become critical because standing behind a pillar blocks the hammer but the pillar breaks after one hit and there are four pillars in the arena so that's four free hammer dodges but after that you're on your own, it gets intense
In desperation Coppermaul adds a fourth attack which is a running charge that covers the entire arena he lowers his shoulder and sprints at you and this is a Killer Move with the red flash so dodge into it for Ghoststep, the timing is more forgiving than it looks tbh because the charge has a long active window and you want to dodge when he's about two character-lengths away, I've missed this dodge so many times but once you get it down it's actually one of the most satisfying Ghoststeps in the game
But the winning strategy for phase three is just patience honestly wait for the charge Ghoststep it land your 3 to 5 free hits then reposition behind a pillar, wait for the next charge, don't chase him don't engage during his regular combo strings just wait for charges and punish them, the fight takes longer this way but you'll survive and that's what matters, you get the idea
Drop: Bashpole (guaranteed first kill). Greatsword-class weapon with the highest stagger damage in the game. Its Power Surge, Earth Splitter, is a massive overhead slam with a shockwave that hits everything in a wide cone. The Bashpole is the best secondary weapon for aggressive builds because its charged heavy can chain-stagger bosses that are already vulnerable. Fully evolved at +4, it gains a Mastery Skill that causes shockwaves on every charged heavy, not just the Power Surge.