The Hand of the King

The Hand of the King is currently the second last of the seven bosses present in the game. He is found in the Throne Room.

Damage on a single hit is soft-capped at 15% of Hand of the King's maximum health.

Phase 1

 * Lance Sweep: Makes a groaning noise, then after a noticeable delay sweeps the lance upward with a decent range.
 * Bomb Flurry: Throws pairs of bombs three times, for a total of six bombs. These have very short fuses and will explode soon after hitting the ground.

Mob Phase 1

 * At approximately 85% boss health, summons a large ice platform and mobs on both levels, along with one Elite (with no elite skills).
 * During this time the Hand of the King is completely invulnerable and will appear semi-transparent floating in the air, but will not attack.
 * The types of elite enemies summoned vary. The Inquisitor, the Grenadier, and the Disgusting Worm are most often summoned, but the Scorpion, the Cleaver, the Lacerator, and the Slasher can also appear.
 * The Hand of the King immediately returns on-stage as soon as all elite enemies are dead, even if normal enemies are still alive (or Disgusting Worm bombs haven't exploded yet).

Phase 2

 * Retains all the attacks from phase 1.
 * Replaces Lance Sweep with a three-hit melee combo. Makes a groaning noise. Like the Symmetrical Lance, the first and third attacks only hit in front while the second hits both in front and behind.
 * Jab and Rock Pound Combo: Unlike the 3-hit combo, makes a much more muted noise. Makes a single fast lance jab (which can be parried or rolled as usual), then jumps towards the player and makes a rock shockwave, which can be avoided by jumping only.
 * Charge: Jumps backwards, then runs across the arena. Does damage, and has a pushing effect that can push you off the platform into the sides of the arena; if you don't jump with good timing you can easily fall into the spikes for a lot of extra damage (unless you use Masochist). Will also destroy deployable skills. Parrying this move will damage the Hand of the King and turns off the hurtbox of the attack, but doesn't interrupt it, so he will continue to charge and can still push you off the platform.
 * Rally: Three flags will drop down from the top of the arena. After 6 seconds (if not destroyed) they will explode in a large area, inflicting high damage. Like the Kamikaze bat explosions, these can be parried.

Mob Phase 2
Occurs at approximately 40% boss health. Same as the first mob phase, but includes two elites, one on each platform.

Phase 3

 * Retains all the attacks from phase 2.
 * Charge now happens twice in a row, going across the arena and then immediately back across the other way.
 * Gains Supercharged Rock Pound (in addition to the normal jab rock pound combo). Walks to the center of the arena, jumps in the air noticeably charging energy, then creates several rock pounds covering the entire ground for a long while, doing tremendous damage and knockback if caught in it. Best dodged using the side ice platforms.
 * Downward knock will go for all ground, but not only 1/2 of the land.

Defense

 * Has a shield that reduces the effect of projectiles (from the front).
 * This includes all bows.
 * Resists controlling effects such as freeze, frost slow, and stun (less freeze time, and less time slowed down). Does not affect other forms of DOT.

Vulnerabilities

 * The arena is fairly tight and compact; Using this to your advantage you can:
 * Use weapons that constantly create poison clouds.
 * Use items like the Cleaver and Swarm to constantly chip away at him.
 * Swarm's short cooldown and its scaling allows it to be viable with Brutality and Survival builds.
 * Use oil and fire grenades underneath him (as fire damage will stack quite considerably)
 * If he is ignited, the Oiled Sword can do high damage to him.

Viable Weapons/Skills

 * Grenades and AoE damage seem to allow for large damage numbers.
 * A shield can be used to parry the majority of his attacks.
 * Skills and weapons that repel grenades like the Shovel, Flashing Fans, Wave of Denial, Magnetic Grenade or Tornado can nullify his bomb flurry, and 6 reflected grenades can do decent damage.
 * The Parry shield and the Spite Mutation can improve this even further.
 * As he delivers blows rather quickly, the Vengeance mutation can wok well with brutality builds, increasing your damage significantly against the boss while potentially cutting off a major part of his damage in his combos, especially if you can't parry them.

Fight plan
Melee and dodging.
 * Here is a strategy from Feculator: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1338096063&tscn=1526086696.
 * Phaser can be very useful in dodging the boss' attacks. Also, in the case of some weapons, mashing the attack button in midair allows you to stay in midair for a couple of seconds. This helps you dodge the ground slam attacks (even without using the small platforms) as well as his two- and three-hit combos. This is demonstrated in this video
 * The Wolf Trap can be useful to lock the boss in place for a short time, giving the chance to do considerable damage with other weapons.
 * The Rampart shield with its unique effect can help greatly in dealing with the boss' two- and three-hit combos. If you successfully parry the first hit of the combo, the barrier will protect you against the remaining hits and possibly other incoming damage in a few seconds.

Lore
A series of quotes while entering the Throne Room and the Guardian's Haven give some background about the Hand of the King:

Before entering the Guardian's Haven, it is explained that he and the Giant had a strong dislike towards each other, to the point they often disagreed on everything. Despite this, the one point they could agree on was that nobody liked the Alchemist.

"''The Giant didn't like the Hand of the King, and the Hand of the King didn't like the Giant. But they did agree on one point: nobody liked the Alchemist.'"

Furthermore, entering the Throne Room explains that very little is actually known about him, even questioning what he eats, if anything at all.

"''The Hand of the King has lived here as a recluse for a very long time... No one really knows what he eats.'"

Occasionally, a statue depicting the King alongside the Hand of the King can be found in Stilt Village.

"''Another statue of the King, accompanied by a guard... ...and a very big one, at that. A little too big, maybe?'"

Gallery
TBA