Almost every endgame mode rotates an elemental weakness on a weekly or seasonal timer, so team-building here is really about keeping two or three element cores usable rather than one perfect squad. Effect names, mechanics and unlock points are the game's own, reworded; the recommended approach is loadoutgg's read.
Reading the weekly rotation
Boss Battle, Power of Calamity, Guild Boss, Simulation Gate and Workshop of Brilliant Light all change which element the boss is weak to on a timer. Before you build for a mode, open its info screen and read the current weakness — the whole point of the mode is to answer it.
Elemental weakness roughly doubles the damage that element deals into the boss, and hitting a weakness also builds the boss's stagger far faster. An off-element S-tier hunter usually loses to an on-element A-tier one in these modes.
This is why the Best Teams page is organised by element: each is a self-contained core (DPS + stacker/breaker + support) so you can field whichever the rotation calls for. Aim to have two elements built before you chase a third.
Boss Battle
The core hunter damage check: one target, a fixed HP bar, three hunters plus Sung Jinwoo, and your score is how fast you bring it down. Reward tiers are damage thresholds, so this is the mode your whole roster is aimed at.
Each rotation names an element the boss is weak to — bring that element's full core. It's also the cleanest place to test a new hunter or build: the boss barely moves and the run is short.
What to bring: the on-element core from Best Teams. Push the Advancement nodes and signature weapon on your carry before you widen the roster — Boss Battle rewards depth of investment in one hunter more than breadth.
Power of Calamity (formerly Power of Destruction)
A Sung Jinwoo showcase, unlocked after Chapter 14. You fight as Jinwoo with three support hunters, across three difficulties — Awakening Flame (Easy), Burning Grudge (Normal) and Immortal Condemnation (Hard). It has moved to a seasonal system where the bosses Ennio (Pitch-black Flame Ennio) and Cthulli take turns, and each season rotates two elemental weaknesses. The notes below are for the Ennio fight.
The fight is an arm-break loop: at the start Ennio's head can't be hit — only his arms. Destroy both arms to force the Break state, then attack the head. When Break ends the head's HP fully restores and you're back to breaking arms. On higher difficulties the arms slowly heal unless you finish them, so wide AoE that hits both arms at once is what carries the run.
Around 120 seconds in he summons a Scorching Lava Stone Guardian. Kill it quickly with Break or Elemental Accumulation pressure — if it lives past its timer, Ennio casts Flames of Destruction for heavy team-wide damage.
Ennio is immune to damage proportional to his current HP (so %-max-HP nukes do nothing), immune to Freeze, and uses Berserk to raise his Attack.
What to bring: this is the mode that justifies pouring player weapons, Blessing Stones and shadow promotions into Jinwoo. Run a Break-tagged player weapon plus a raw-damage one in the season's element, a shadow general that buffs damage, and support hunters whose skills hit wide.
Workshop of Brilliant Light
The tiered raid-boss mode, unlocked after Normal Chapter 25 Episode 9. Three Monarch raids rotate: the Monarch of White Flames (Baran), the Monarch of Transfiguration (Yogumunt) and the Monarch of Steel (Rockpasa). Each raid favours an element and clearing a tier gates the next.
Between the main fights you clear Blessing stages and pick one Blessing from three — stacking buffs like +Ultimate damage, +Basic/Core damage, extra Dash charges, or flat Attack. Single-enemy Blessing stages hand you a stronger Blessing outright. You can reroll the offered Blessings three times (first free, then 100,000 gold each), and the reroll cost resets each time you take one.
Because it's element-locked and tiered, this is the main reason to build a second full element team — but follow the announced rotation rather than guessing, and don't rush a team for an element the current tier doesn't want.
Clearing Tier 10 unlocks Hall of the Monarchs.
Simulation Gate
A seasonal roguelike, unlocked after Normal Chapter 20. Three hunters only — no shadows, no Remnant Power — through 30 tiers of rising difficulty. Two elemental weaknesses and two 'algorithms' apply each week (for example a Boosting Algorithm that raises your Elemental Accumulation and a Throttling Algorithm that cuts your Max HP).
Each tier is 11 stages you route through yourself: Normal / Enhanced / Special Battles that hand out Codes (stacking buffs) of varying rarity, Episodes for bonus rewards, and System Maintenance nodes to revive dead hunters, upgrade Codes and buy Collection items.
It leans on roster breadth more than a single carry — you want several usable hunters in the week's element, not just the core three, because losses stick until a Maintenance node. Rewards are seasonal, so clear as far as your roster reaches each season.
Guild Boss
A weekly guild-wide damage race. You attack with Sung Jinwoo and six hunters, split into two teams of three (Jinwoo is on team A). Team buffs only affect that hunter's own team, but floor effects — a zone a hunter drops, for instance — help whoever stands in them. Shadows and Remnant Power are disabled.
Every time the boss dies it fully heals and comes back with higher stats, so this rewards building an element out past the core three to around six usable hunters. Three elemental weaknesses rotate each week; join a new guild and you sit out that week's boss.
Once you register a score with a hunter, that hunter is locked out of your later formations for the week — so field your weaker on-element hunters first and save the best for last.
A few hunters have a Guild-Boss-specific niche: Kang Taeshik (SR) carries a team damage-increase passive that earns a slot on Dark Guild Boss weeks, for example. Check a hunter's page for that kind of note.
The current boss and its weaknesses are on the mode screen — read the boss passives too (bleed, berserk, revive-once, freeze/bleed immunity are common) and bring status effects it isn't immune to.
Hall of the Monarchs
Added in the 27 August 2026 update and opening 3 September 2026: progressively harder bosses scored on a mastery system, on a two-week seasonal cycle.
It unlocks only after you clear Workshop of Brilliant Light Tier 10, so treat it as a late-account target — build your primary element team and Sung Jinwoo first.
Gates and dungeons
Gates are the material economy, entered with Dungeon Entry Keys (100 recharge daily). Blue Gates drop weapon-enhancement and artifact-enhancement mats plus skill scrolls; Purple Gates drop shadow mats (Abyssal Fragments, Shadow Skill Scrolls, Traces of Shadow, Marks of Time); Green Gates drop Rune Fragments, Powder of Blessing, Designs and Melding Cubes. Difficulty tracks Sung Jinwoo's level and can't be set manually.
Once you clear Normal Chapter 3 you can sweep Gates for their rewards without playing them, spending daily Sweep Points. Spend entries on whatever your current carry is bottlenecked on — usually weapon-enhancement gear early, artifact chips later.
Encore Missions are repeatable story-boss re-runs with their own reward track; clear the current set whenever it rotates in.