Wild Hearts: Gritdog boss and weaknesses guide

Wild Hearts has numerous bosses and monsters for you to fight. Whether it be a ferocious tiger, or a devastating bird of legend, Wild Hearts has a lot of variety. One of these monsters you fight is the Gritdog, a massive otter-like creature that can conjure ironsand objects to help in its fight against you. If you’re struggling with the Gritdog boss fight, fear not. Here is our Wild Hearts Gritdog boss and weaknesses guide.

Gritdog boss fight and weaknesses in Wild Hearts

Gritdog attributes and weaknesses

The Gritdog boss, like every other Kemono in Wild Hearts, does have weaknesses on its body and elemental advantages/weaknesses. Here is a list of those statistics for you:

• Attribute: Earth
• Ailment Weakness: Poison
• Ailment Resistance: Ablaze
• Attribute Weakness: Wind and Wood
• Attribute Resistances: Earth and Fire
• Soft parts: Head
• Physical attack effectiveness: Lunge and Slash

If you’re unsure what the term “Soft parts” means, it’s the part of the Kemono that is the weakest. This means its head is its weakest place, so aim for the head when you can.

Screenshot by PC Invasion

Wild Hearts: Gritdog boss fight guide

The Gritdog is simple in terms of its move set, but it can be a pain to beat the first few times. The main thing to note is that Gritdog has very easily recognizable patterns for its dangerous ironsand crystal attacks. The ironsand crystal attacks always are preceded by the Gritdog going into the air or standing up, and having a black sand appear in the air around you before these crystals appear. 

Two of these attacks simply require two immediate rolls/dodges in order to avoid. You’ll notice Gritdog summoning the crystals where you’re standing, so roll away to stay safe. The other ironsand crystal attack is where the Gritdog fires crystals from its body in waves, but can be dodged at a distance. This is true for every one of the ironsand crystal attacks in this Gritdog boss guide: keeping your distance could be the key to victory here. 

Another attack the Gritdog has is to sit up and use ironsand to draw you in before hitting you. This attack is relatively easy to dodge purely because if you dodge or sprint away fast enough it can’t draw you in for the attack. If you’re using the bow or hand cannon here, this is a prime time to deal some big damage. As a ranged weapon user you can just take advantage of the time the Gritdog spends trying to drag you in to do some ranged damage.

As mentioned above, Wild Hearts boss difficulty can be alleviated by taking advantage of weaknesses, and Gritdog is no exception. Use poison as your ailment of choice, as well as wind and wood attributes. Avoid using fire, since Gritdog is resistant.

Physical attacks

The other attacks the Gritdog has in its repertoire involve lunging its body towards you. During these moments, the beast will roll, tail slam, belly flop, or charge. These attacks are all relatively easy to dodge, if a bit less predictable than the ironsand moves. The trick to dodging these attacks is to either keep moving, or to take advantage of the invincibility frames (i-frames) on your dodge. The sprinting dodge has a lot of i-frames and is handy for getting out of the way quickly from these attacks. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of i-frames, it simply means frames of movement where you’re invincible to enemy attacks. 

Enraged form

Finally, when the Gritdog enrages, its attacks become mightier. Not too much changes in this phase, but there are some additional moves such as the attacks that draw you in before the Gritdog tries to hit you with its hand. But most of the attack differences here are attacks with extra phases to them. For example, the ironsand crystal it can summon beneath you now has two crystals, so you have to dodge twice. This is actually relatively nice to see, because it makes the enraged form not that much different from the original move set. If you’ve mastered dodging its normal attacks, you should be fine during its enraged form.