Twitch streamer wudijo has done the unthinkable and beaten Diablo IV’s big world boss, Ashava the Pestilent, (mostly) by himself on the hardest difficulty. I’m stunned, especially since the dragon is already a tough challenge to face.
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German Twitch and YouTube streamer wudijo is known for playthroughs and making guides for various action-RPGs like Last Epoch and Path of Exile. Wudijo’s bread-and-butter content, though, is the Diablo series. He’s put over 9,000 hours into Diablo III, covered Diablo Immortal updates, and shared helpful Diablo II farming tips. In short, think of wudijo as the Master of Hell, having gone through Sanctuary multiple times just to see how hot it is. So, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to see him treat Diablo IV’s first world boss, the dragon queen Ashava, like a chump during last weekend’s open beta.
Locked and loaded, going in alone
In a March 26 YouTube video, wudijo showed just how he slaughtered Ashava. The world boss—located on the eastern side of the map—spawns at select intervals, giving up to 12 players just 15 minutes to descale the dragon queen. 15 minutes was all the time wudijo needed, though. With almost all of his gear being Legendary, including a crossbow that deals 457 damage and two bladed weapons that deal about 200 damage each, wudijo made relatively short work of Ashava with his Rogue. The moment Ashava climbed out of the gaping mouth in the ground, wudijo was all over her like…well, scales on a dragon. He pelted her with arrows and dodged her chomps to quickly whittle her health down. It’s impressive to witness, particularly because he fought her alone.
Wudijo
As the music ramped up, the battle become more intense. Ashava, pissed as she probably was to be getting bested by just one dude, switched up her moves. She did ground slams, puked up poison that pooled on the floor, and used her massive wingspan to do wide-ranging sweep attacks, all in an attempt to put wudijo in the dirt before he did her in. Except it was far too late.
The solo kill on Ashava was “ruined”
While wudijo did defeat Ashava the Pestilent largely on his own, a random Necromancer did show up to get a couple hits in on the dragon’s last two percent of health. The help was appreciated, I’m sure, but as wudijo said during the video, the player “[ruined] my solo kill.” That’s fair. He worked hard for it. That said, Wudijo ran into the world boss again immediately after killing it. However, another Necromancer came out of the woodworks to help with just one or two attacks before dipping out of the fight like the coward they are.
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The most impressive thing about the basically solo kill, though? The difficulty wudijo played on. There are different world tiers in the game, settings you can change that dictate how hard enemies are and the rewards you get for killing them. While there appear to be four available, only two were playable during Diablo IV’s open beta. Wudijo played on World Tier 2, meaning enemies hit hard but you also gain more gold and XP. On top of the world tiers, there’s also Hardcore Mode, a sort of permadeath setting in which your created character dies forever if they fall in battle. So, not only was wudijo playing on World Tier 2, he also had Hardcore Mode active during his fight with Ashava. In other words, if he made just one wrong mistake, wudijo’s Rogue would’ve been clapped to oblivion and he would’ve had to start that character class all over again. That is what leaves me stunned. Not just that he solo’d her, but that he did so on the hardest difficulty. It makes me wonder if we have a Diablo IV legend in the making…
Kotaku reached out to wudijo for comment.
For a game that required crunch to finish, Diablo IV seems to be looking really good—if the betas are anything to go by. I know I’m stoked to jump back into Hell when the game comes out on June 6. I just won’t be playing on Hardcore.