You can't just outshoot the bosses in Stalker 2. Faust, Scar and Korshunov all have protection that soaks any damage until you do one specific thing. Faust needs his four psi beacons broken, Scar has to be lured to a console so you can switch a neuroprogrammer on, and Korshunov wants headshots, not rounds into his exoskeleton. Below is every fight step by step, plus the six mutants people get stuck on most, from the controller to the pseudogiant.
- Who you have to kill depends on who you sided with
- Faust on the Comm Center roof: beacons first, then him
- Korshunov: aim for the head, not the exoskeleton
- Strelok: shoot when he stops moving
- Scar: lure him to a console and switch his shield off
- Controller and burer: two mutants that kill more players than the bosses
- Poltergeist, chimera, pseudogiant and bloodsucker
- What patches changed, if you're watching an old video
Nearly every guide out there was written in December 2024, before patches 1.2 and 1.4 reworked Korshunov, Strelok and the burer quite a bit. This one covers everything up to 2.0.6. Update 2.0 and its hotfixes left the base game's boss balance alone and only fixed bugs.
Who you have to kill depends on who you sided with
Everyone fights Faust, because his fight comes before the story splits. The other three depend on your route, meaning the three conversations that decide the ending (we break those down in the endings guide). Side with Strelok and you never fight him. Side with Spark and you never fight Scar.
| Boss | Ward | Spark | Strelok | Doctor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Faust | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Korshunov | no, Richter instead | yes | yes | yes |
| Strelok | yes | yes | no, he is your ally | yes |
| Scar | yes | no, he is your ally | yes | yes |
There is no fight with the Doctor himself. In "The Last Wish" you only choose whether to shoot or lower the gun.
Faust on the Comm Center roof: beacons first, then him
The real Faust fight happens on the roof of the Comm Center in the Duga area: in "Happiness for Everyone" for Spark, in "Once More unto the Breach" for the Ward. He shows up earlier during the Duga assault too, but you can't kill him there, and both sides fall back. Game8's boss page says the Duga Substation, but Game8's own mission pages, the Russian wiki and GSC's patch 1.4 note all say Comm Center, so go with Comm Center.
- Before the roof. On the Spark route you can't save once you enter the Comm Center until you reach Faust, so restock in the lower room before the roof. On the Ward route Game8 suggests wearing the helmet with the Suppressor that Dvupalov builds in "In Search of Past Glory".
- Three beacons on the roof. While they stand, phantoms keep coming and Faust regenerates through any damage. The clones are illusions and you can ignore them: no psi-block or helmet helps against them, only breaking beacons does. GameRant uses a shotgun on them.
- The fourth beacon is on his hip. It glows red right before it pops. After that Faust can finally be hurt.
- His psi grab. It yanks your camera and throws off your aim. Game8's advice is to stay close to him so it hits less, but use the roof cover against the Monolith gunfire. Heal often while the beacons are up.
The nastiest trap is at the very end. After the fight Skif hangs from an antenna and Faust offers his hand. Don't take it: "Accept help" means he lets go and you die. Pick "Climb up yourself". The mission pays nothing, but in the next one you take Faust's pendant from his body, the key to the Visiograph.
Korshunov: aim for the head, not the exoskeleton
The colonel waits in "Down Below", in the Foundation control centre under Prypiat, on the Spark, Strelok and Doctor routes. He is the most buffed boss in the game. Patch 1.1 openly raised the difficulty of the fight, and 1.2 improved his AI, shield and armour and retuned his health. If a video of the fight was recorded on 1.1.2 or earlier, it is easier than what you will get.
He wears the Operator exoskeleton, and body shots barely register. Shoot his head: that breaks the shield and stuns him for a moment. Then walk up close for a short melee cutscene. How many rounds of this you need isn't clear even to Game8, whose single page says both "twice" and "one more time". The Russian wiki describes two: the first time Skif wrecks his left arm, the second time an ally steps in. On the Spark route that's Richter, who dies and gives you the opening, on the Strelok route it's Degtyarev. The allies also tie up the Ward troops, and on the Spark route Richter warns you when you drop below a quarter of your health.
Two things before the fight. Entering the tunnel from the Polissya Hotel or the cafe basement cancels every open side quest and ends free roam, so it is a point of no return. And per the wiki the hotel route is much easier, the worst thing in there is a controller. Afterwards you loot Faust's pendant, the Beast machine gun and the colonel's pistol. On the Ward route you fight Richter and his Sparkers instead: his men are armoured, he isn't, and grenades help against the group.
Strelok: shoot when he stops moving
The fight takes place in the teleporter hall at the Generators. On the Ward and Spark routes the first transfer fails, you go to check, find a dead comrade next to a booby-trapped teleporter, and Strelok appears behind you. On the Doctor route he jumps into the teleporter after a scuffle on the roof and turns hostile at the Generators.
First he zips and teleports around the hall. Only fire when he stops, or you're just shooting walls. In the second phase he starts spawning anomalies, so stay on the side of the room without the electric one. Don't get close: he has an artifact attack that knocks you back into a get-up animation. Older guides make it sound like all he does is dash, but that was before patch 1.4, where GSC fixed him "dashing too often" and he now shoots more. There's a locker room before the hall; on higher difficulties, make a manual save there. Loot the Heart of Chornobyl artifact from his body. On the Doctor route you can't go on without it.
Scar: lure him to a console and switch his shield off
Scar waits at the Generators, in the neurolab where stalkers' bodies sit at the neuroprogrammers: in "The Last Step" on the Ward route, in "Let No One Leave Unsatisfied" on the Strelok and Doctor routes. Trading shots with him head-on goes nowhere, he has a psi screen and the EM-1 rifle. The only way through:
- The small room on the left before the fight has ammo, grenades and medkits. Take everything.
- Each of the three consoles is wired with a tripwire. Crouch and disarm it before you run up.
- Lure Scar close and press the red button. If he's too far away, the screens do nothing. His shield drops for a few seconds: go for the head.
- Run to the next console and repeat, at least three times.
Sources disagree on who's running around with him. The Russian wiki says Monolith on the Ward and Doctor routes and zombies on the Strelok route, Game8 says zombie soldiers, and the patch notes mention both. Clear them first if they block your way to a console. Patch 1.2 improved Scar's aim, so you still need the pillars between consoles. Afterwards take his EM-1 and the Altered Toast artifact.
Controller and burer: two mutants that kill more players than the bosses
Controller. Hits you with a psi bolt from range, sways your view and drains health up close, nearly always has zombified stalkers around it, and can make you see attackers who aren't there. Since 1.2 it has a roar, but since 1.5 walls block it, so cover finally works. In the story you meet it at least in the Waste Processing Station basement in "Hot on the Trail", at the psi beacon on the Swamps pumping station, in Lab X5 and on the way to the Foundation. Order of business: the zombies first, because they flush you out of cover. At range, a scoped rifle to the head; up close a shotgun, rifle or grenade, but fast. Psy-block takes the edge off its attack a lot; without it, close the distance right away.
Burer. Fires any gun lying nearby with telekinesis and rips yours out of your hands. Pick it up at once or it will shoot at you, and emptying it in advance doesn't help. After its first round of attacks it wraps itself in a blue shield, and nothing gets through, so wait for it to fade and go for the head. Grenades are no longer a plan: since 1.2 they don't hurt it through the shield, and since 1.4 it catches them and throws them back. The point-blank shield kill was closed in 1.5 too. Keep to mid range with a rifle. Before 2.0 it could kill you instantly on Stalker difficulty; that's fixed.
Poltergeist, chimera, pseudogiant and bloodsucker
Poltergeist. Aim at the moving glowing orb. Shoot objects it lifts and the throw is cancelled; a twinkling sound and a glow warn you before each throw. It comes in normal, electric, fire and poison flavours, and the anomalies of the last three vanish when it dies. If it runs, chase it, or it hides again. You can't lure it into anomalies anymore, that was closed in 1.2.
Chimera. Huge health pool, big leaps. Don't fight it in tall grass and strafe away from the jump. The first one, on the way to the Clear Sky base during an Emission above Rookie difficulty, is easiest to just outrun on energy drinks, and since 1.2 it backs off after losing some health anyway. Standing on a car roof stopped working in 1.6, when its behaviour was improved.
Pseudogiant. Mandatory in Lab X3 during "Legends of the Zone", where a companion helps; if he runs out of ammo or loses sight of it, the quest can stall until you reload a save. Find high ground it can't reach. Game8 recommends the Saiga D-12 with slugs or expansive darts, plus the Dnipro, the Gauss gun and the RPG. Good news from 1.6: it has less health, and its ground slam no longer hits you in the air, so you can simply jump the stomp.
Bloodsucker. Watch for the shimmer, sidestep the lunge and shoot while it's visible after attacking. Shotguns are best, and Game8 rates the Saiga D-12 above the rest. Back into a corner and don't run, its scream slows you down. Anti-bleed artifacts make the fight much easier, and bandage afterwards.
What patches changed, if you're watching an old video
Nearly every popular video was recorded on the early versions, and in three cases that matters. Korshunov is much tougher now. Strelok dashes less and shoots more. The burer catches grenades. Everything else got easier (the controller and burer lost health in 1.0.1, the pseudogiant in 1.6) or stayed as it was. If one fight simply won't give, Update 2.0 added Custom Rules difficulty, and you can tune it to taste. Against mutants, artifacts with bleed and psi protection pay off.
A word on ammo, plainly: no guide and no GSC note says whether to bring AP or expansive rounds for a given boss, and Steam forum opinions split. The logic is simple, AP for the armoured Korshunov and expansive for unarmoured mutants, but that is my reasoning, not a tested fact.
Sources
GSC patch notes on Steam: 1.0.1, 1.1, 1.2, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 2.0. Series wiki: Faust, Down Below, Strelok, Controller, Burer, Poltergeist; Russian wiki quest pages for routes and mechanics. Game8: Faust, Korshunov, Strelok and Scar, pseudogiant, bloodsucker. GameRant, Faust, GameRant, burer. TheGamer, every mutant. Video by COMEDY STYLE GAMES. Screenshots from Steam and GSC news, a spread from the official art book.
