How to beat Black Bear Guai in Black Myth: Wukong
This could get beary hard.
Black Bear Guai is a Yaoguai King boss in Black Myth: Wukong, and the true and final form of the deadly Black Wind King from earlier in the game. Now that you've pursued him up to the summit of Black Wind Mountain, it’s time to fight him in his true form, and bring Chapter 1 of Black Myth: Wukong to a close.
The mountain summit, with temples ablaze around you, certainly makes for a more epic fight than the barely lit cave before. While still dressed in some of his monk-like garb, in bear-form, the Black Wind King is larger and more ferocious than before thanks to the element of fire. But you’ll also have learned some new tricks of your own since the last fight, so you can just as easily meet his match.
This guide will provide all the information you need on how to beat Black Bear Guai in Black Myth: Wukong.
On this page:
How to prepare for Black Bear Guai
Black Bear Guai is at the top of Black Wind Mountain in the area called Black Wind Cave (even though you’re technically outside of it). There’s a rest shrine right by the gate to the boss arena called Bodhi Peak.
If you haven’t already done so, it’s recommended that you complete the Three Bells quest from earlier on in the Black Wind Mountain region, including defeating Elder Jinchi. Not only will you unlock the ability to craft the highly fire-resistant Bronze armour set but you will also unlock the Fireproof Mantle Vessel. This is a new piece of equipment that's activated with the right trigger and clicking the left stick when your Qi meter is full, and the Fireproof Mantle will come in very useful for the second phase of this fight.
If you feel like you need to level up more and unlock more abilities with Spark points then it’s also worth returning to earlier parts of this area to explore and fight other optional Black Myth: Wukong bosses you may have missed or find all the Meditation Points since we are at the end of chapter one. Don’t worry if you don’t complete everything though as you will still be able to return to this area later.
How to beat Black Bear Guai
As with his previous form as Black Wind King, Black Bear Guai can cloud-step, wandering the arena as a cloud before rematerialising to ambush you. Of course, this time you can also cloud-step to avoid his tricks.
You’ll also be able to immobilize him, although you’ll want to be shrewd with when you use it given your limited mana. If you cast the spell while he is in cloud form it won’t have any effect, and if you immmobilize him while he’s leaping at you, he could be too airborne for your attacks to reach. In either case, it's a waste of mana.
The good news is that if Black Bear Guai tries a leaping attack, he takes a while to make impact so it’s relatively easy to watch and time for a perfect dodge to avoid getting hit. This can be when he leaps at you coming straight out of cloud-step or when he jumps up in the air and crashes down onto you. Take care with the latter by trying to back away because the camera might not track him while in the air, which makes it more difficult to tell when he’s going to come back down.
Otherwise, he will mostly attack with his bear claws, making big swiping combos, slamming down at the ground in front of him, and occasionally stomping his foot. These can all be avoided with perfect dodge, but you have to be careful with finding your openings to attack. Don’t counter until he’s finished a combo, although even then you’ll find you only have a small window to land a couple hits before he starts another combo. If he ends with a jumping body slam, that puts him on his back and gives you the biggest opening to either land a full combo that grants you a focus point or to land a focused heavy attack that should stun him and let you get in a few more free hits.
Second phase
When Black Bear Guai is down to half his health bar, he will switch to his second phase, which you will be able to tell because his arms will be surrounded in flames, which now means his attacks can build up burn damage on you.
He will also revert to Black Wind King’s annoying attack where he will assume cloud form and then charge at you a number of times, and there’s not much you can do but try to dodge it. But contrary to what we said earlier about not casting Immobilize on his cloud form, during this phase it will actually work to break him out of his cloud form while leaving him staggered momentarily for you to get in a free combo. Hopefully you’ve been saving your mana for this phase of the fight!
But given the long cooldown for Immobilize, you can at best only rely on it once or twice during this second phase, and will still need to be able to dodge his now more aggressive attacks while hoping you didn’t take too much of a beating in the first phase that you’re out of gourd uses.
There is however one solution that makes this fight considerably easier. If you have followed our advice and completed the three bells quest and equipped the Fireproof Mantle vessel, activating it now will nullify Black Bear Guai’s fire. While the effect is temporary, that should be more than enough time to take advantage of to take down a significant part of his health. If you also crafted and equipped the new Bronze armour set, that should also improve your defence and fire resistance.
We did also find that his second phase doesn’t always activate at half health. In one case, it only happened when he was down to his last 10% of health, but this is more likely an anomaly so you should nonetheless be prepared for this fire phase.
Black Bear Guai rewards
After you defeat Black Bear Guai, you’re treated to a lengthy cutscene as well as a sumptuous animated sequence that shows his backstory, a sign that you have completed Chapter 1 of Black Myth: Wukong!
You will receive your first Relic (Craving Eyes), which can be used to grant one of the following three buffs:
- Opportune Watcher - increases Focus gained from consecutive light attacks.
- Eagle Eye - massively reduces cooldown for Cloud Step when you successfully land a critical hit in that form.
- Keen Insight - considerably increases critical hit damage.
Of course, you will also gain the following rewards for your efforts:
- 1641 XP
- 990 Will
- 1x Flame Ebongold
- 5x Yarn
- 2x Silk
- 1x Stone Spirit
- 1x Yaoguai Core
- 1x Mind Core
You will also have a chance to examine a beautiful painting with various details you can zoom in on and discover more lore about the characters you had encountered. But once you’re ready to move on, it’s time to continue this journey and onto Chapter 2!