Sauvojen tuntija
Sauvojen tuntija (listen 
) (or Connoisseur of Wands, also known as bridge boss, pit boss, or wand boss) is a flying miniboss that is found in the chasm east of the Lava Lake. It will only appear after you have passed through the middle section of the nearby Orb Room, and then return to the chasm, after which the Connoisseur will spawn underneath the bridge. It is possible to enter and exit the orb room in ways that prevent it from appearing.
The Connoisseur of Wands is also spawned by Monstrous Powder.
Behaviour
The Connoisseur of Wands is arguably the single most dangerous enemy in the entire game. It attacks using a wide variety of spells, some of which inflict 
Polymorph, 
Blindness, 
Neutralized spells, or 
Teleportitis. It also summons floating wands that cast one of several random spells.
It is resistant to most types of damage and nearly every status effect. It is capable of digging through all terrain using its body, in a similar manner to that of the Lukki. Once it starts chasing you, it is quite persistent and will not stop until you run far enough away.
Attacks
- An all-around blast of many polymorphing projectiles, which home and accelerate towards you. Being hit by one of these projectiles while already polymorphed will instantly kill you, as with any other attack.
- An all-around blast of many blinding projectiles, similar to those fired by the Sokaisunmestari.
- An all-around blast of many wand-disabling projectiles, similar to those fired by the Maadoittajamestari.
- An all-around blast of many teleporting projectiles, similar to those fired by the Siirtäjämestari.
- Spawns a random wand, which fires at you several times before disappearing. This wand can fire one of several randomly chosen spells, such as Bouncing Burst, any of the Magic Missile variants, any of the Firebolt variants, and more. The fire rate of the wand depends on the spell it uses, firing weaker spells faster, and firing stronger spells slower. This wand can also copy spells.
Diminishing damage protection
The Connoisseur of Wands starts with a 0.1 damage multiplier on its hitbox. Every 40 frames (~0.6 seconds) it will add 0.35 to that damage multiplier, until it reaches 1.0.
Whenever Wand Connoisseur takes damage it sets that multiplier to 0, so then after 40 frames it becomes 0.35 and you can damage it again. After another 40 frames it becomes 0.7 and then after another 40 frames it becomes 1.0 again. Any damage during that recovery will set the multiplier back to 0 again. Some things ignore that damage multiplier and will deal damage regardless (for ex. Plasma Beam/Plasma Beam Cross/Plasma Cutter).
That interaction is the main reason why rapid-fire wands as well as trigger-payload wands aren't great against this boss. If the trigger deals damage, the damage multiplier will be 0 on the frame that the payload is supposed to hit The Connoisseur.
Rewards
Upon being defeated for the first time, the Connoisseur of Wands will disintegrate, drop two wands, tier 5 non-shuffle and a tier 6, and a Full Health Regeneration. On following kills it will no longer drop the Full Heal. Additionally, it will drop two destructive unlockable spells, Matosade and Meteorisade, which will be permanently unlocked for you.
Combat Tips
- Make generous use of cover; the amount of spells it puts out make it very hard to simply dodge its projectiles, even from far away, and you will most importantly want to avoid getting polymorphed. Move to another piece of cover quickly if your current shelter is destroyed.
- The Snowy Depths, with its multiple sections of disconnected terrain, is an ideal battleground for this. Just be sure to clear out the biome of enemies beforehand.
- If you are capable of using the spell often, Black Hole can be used to create cover on demand. This can be especially effective when done through Extremely Dense Rock, as the Connoisseur's explosive attacks will not be able to destroy this cover. However, it will still be able to burrow through the rock with its body.
- Due to the shield it will summon upon being hit, it is advised to fight it with a slower, higher damage-per-hit wand, as opposed to the more popular rapid fire wands. Spells To Power in combination with any spell that casts many projectiles, such as square barrier, is extremely effective, however, it takes almost no damage from Spells To Power with Freezing Gaze. It is also immune to Freezing, so it cannot be instantly killed by any melee attacks.
- Damage Field ignores its shield, offering an alternative way to fight it.
- Staining yourself with Berserkium, or going
Invisible through Invisiblium or the Invisibility perk, will make the Connoisseur of Wands stop approaching you (its summoned wands will still target you). - It summons more wands to retaliate against taking damage. Attacks that rapidly hit it, such as Damage Field, will turn the fight into a bullet hell; if you don't have Ambrosia to prevent damage or the Teleport Bolt spell for easy getaways, this will certainly lead to your death.
- The Projectile Repulsion Field perk is borderline necessary for fighting the Connoisseur if you can't get to cover quickly. Getting hit by any of its polymorphing or blinding blasts is almost guaranteed to result in the end of the run - this perk, preferably in combination with an Energy Shield spell, will make those attacks much easier to avoid.
- The Personal Gravity Field spell can be used to cause all but the fastest projectiles, mainly those fired from its wands, to stick around and orbit the boss. This renders the bosses polymorph, blinding and silence attacks almost harmless. Depending on the loadout of its wands this can also make it deal massive damage to itself. While wands that always cast Personal Gravity Field can be found, this is very rare, and it is more efficient to use some variation of Greek Letters such as Alpha or Omega to make the spell unlimited. Alternatively, you can use a note spell based wand to cast it for free.
- Due to the wands it summons occasionally copying spells used against it, self harming spells such as Omega Disk Projectile, Omega Black Hole and Plasma Beam can be very effective against it.
- It can hurt itself with its own explosions from its Magic Missile and Firebolt attacks. It's possible to lure it next to terrain and wait for it injure itself with its attacks, although its tendency to eat through terrain can make setting such a trap somewhat difficult.
- An Emerald Tablet can provide a useful and sturdy obstacle to detonate the spells close to it, but it will sometimes destroy the tablet just like the surrounding terrain. See #Exploit below.
- Well-timed usage of Explosive Detonator can also be effective.
Trigger areas
The areas that trigger the appearance of Sauvojen tuntija can be avoided.
While no longer as easily avoided without spells as it used to be, the spawn trigger can still be evaded by digging under the orb room entirely. Note that this will require a digging spell capable of cutting through the extremely dense rock and brickwork in your way.
You can also turn Invisible with Invisiblium or the Invisibility perk, or polymorph yourself with any variant of polymorphine or other means, to prevent the trigger's activation.
Parallel Worlds
In Parallel Worlds, Kolmisilmän kätyri (listen ) (or Three-eye's Minion) can be found anywhere on the surface, along with the shadow version of Ylialkemisti. These pink-shaded copies do not drop anything besides gold.
Dark Gourd Moon
Completing the Dark Gourd Moon quest will spawn 10 buffed versions of the Kolmisilmän Kätyri.
Exploit
- This method no longer works in the Epilogue 2 Update, as Sauvojen tuntija will erase a large circular area of blocks around itself as soon as its pathfinding fails to find a valid path to the player.
The "bridge boss cheese" was a semi-reliable method to kill the Connoisseur of Wands just by hiding from it in a certain way.
To learn how it was done, either:
- See a detailed guide at The new Bridge Boss cheese (google doc) by twist,
- Or use the game-mod ABBC GIGACHAD TRAINING (steam workshop) by WUOTE,
- or the following videos for the original method:
Trivia
- Due to its appearance, it has often received the nickname "Squidward".
- Occasionally, world generation can spawn a sort of "cave" that can lead you into the orb room Sauvojen tuntija is guarding without triggering the boss. However, picking up the orb then going to that orb room later will spawn the boss, so be careful.
Soundtrack
While fighting Sauvojen tuntija, the music from track 5 of Noita Official Soundtrack vol. 3 titled Noises All Around Us[1] is played.
References
History
- Apr 8 2024:
- The boss now erases a large circular area around itself if it cannot path to you, preventing cheese.
- Added holy damage multiplier of 0.4.
