SoraHoshina
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Last Updated on August 14, 2025 by SoraHoshina
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For those who don’t know, Stygian Onslaught is a new end-game mode that was added in Genshin Impact version 5.7. The gist is to bring 3 teams against 3 different bosses, and defeat them within 2 minutes. There are also 6 different difficulties, but only the first 3 difficulties will give you Primogems (so you don’t have to fry your sanity trying to complete the highest difficulty and frankly – whales territory.
In version 5.8, Stygian Onslaught is updated with new bosses – Tenebrous Papilla, Battle-Hardened Tent Tortoise, and Battle-Hardened Pipilpan Idol. This guide will only covers until the Fearless Mode AKA the 5th difficulty, as the Dire Mode is extremely hard for F2P (near to impossible) and I don’t want to encourage people to sacrifice their sanity for a weapon skin that can expire after a month.
Tenebrous Papilla in Stygian Onslaught 5.8
*This guide is based on the Fearless Mode (Difficulty 5)
The Tenebrous Papilla you’ll be facing is Type II – they can change form into these enemies and use some their skills for a short time: Maguu Kenki, Primo Geovishap, Cryo Hypostasis, Electro Hypostasis, Hydro Hypostasis.
The key mechanic here is their 150 points Void Ward (the white shield bar under its HP bar). You need to break the Ward by filling the bar using certain number of Elemental attacks. Once the Ward is broken, the enemy will suffer a high amount of DMG based on the DMG absorbed by the Ward and will then enter an extended state of disarray.
TLDR: Even with the Void Ward, simply treat it as the enemies HP and do your normal rotation as the boss will suffer damage from the damage absorbed!
Aside from Elemental attacks, Nightsoul-aligned Elemental attacks have greater Ward-breaking efficieny. They will also further increase the damage the enemy takes when the Ward is broken. So if you have any Natlan DPS, bring them along so you’ll have an easier time completing this chalelnge.
If the shield is not broken after a long time (1 minute into the fight), the boss will do its Ultimate “Hatefully Beseech the Dark”: after a brief delay, it will release a massive AoE strike that will instantly knock out your active character (even i-frame couldn’t save you from this). If you break the Void Ward before this strike, you can prevent it from being unleashed.
Recommended Characters for Tenebrous Papilla
As mentioned before, Nightsoul-aligned Elemental attacks does better than normal Elemental attacks. Thus, having a Natlan DPS is better and will make the battle more smoother. Of course, if you’re doing the challenge in lower difficulty, using normal team without Natlan DPS is good enough.
Team example:
1) Burning Team: Kinich + Emilie + Bennett + Xiangling/Mavuika
2) Melt Team: Mavuika + Bennett + Citlali + Xilonen
3) Airborne Team: Chasca + Citlali + Bennett + Xiangling/Furina
Battle-Hardened Tent Tortoise in Stygian Onslaught 5.8
Similar to the Papilla, the Tortoise boss also has a special shield mechanism (Fury). After receiving 1 damage, it will increase 3 points for the Fury bar, while -4 points for every second if it didn’t receive any damage. When the Fury bar reaches 30 (aka full bar), the boss will summon a 32 points Electro shield.
TLDR: If you attack too fast, it can create an extremely strong Electro shield. You can either use low-frequency damage dealer or use a Freeze team to delay shield activation.
There are two strategies here: Either you use low-frequency damage dealer like Mualani Vaporize to avoid the boss from creating the shield. Or you can bring a Freeze team so whenever the Fury bar is filled, you can delay the shield creation by freezing the turtle.
Recommended Characters for Battle-Hardened Tent Tortoise
If you’re looking for slow attacker, then Mualani would be the best character for the job. But other than her, you’re bound to activate the Tortoise’s shield.
1) Vaporize Team: Mualani + Kazuha + Xiangling + Zhongli
2) Melt Team: Mavuika + Bennett + Citlali + Xilonen
3) Freeze Team: Skirk + Furina + Escoffier + Shenhe/Yelan/Rosaria
3) Mono-Pyro Team: Arlecchino + Bennett + Xilonen + Zhongli
Battle-Hardened Pipilpan Idol in Stygian Onslaught 5.8
Pipilpan is a new Local Legend in Genshin Impact 5.8, and it is addicted to Electro/Lunar-Charged. And yes, we got another boss with a SHIELD. This time, right off the bat, the boss will create multiple hats and hide within one of them, then rapidly switch the position of these hats. After a certain number of switches, if the hat that conceals the entity takes Electro/Lunar-Charged damage, the boss will temporarily stop the hat-swapping actions.
Now, how to spot the right hat?
The first one would be keeping an eye out on Pipilpan right before it turns into a hat. Once it does so (you can see the hat having a face and moustache), make sure your eyes follow that specific hat and you should be good.
For the second method, if you somehow missed the right hat, look at the Electro AoE attack that it will do. The real hat would have a golden circle unlike other hats that don’t have any.
When the ‘shield’ is broken, the more Hydro/Electro/Electro-Charge/Lunar-Charged DMG it receives beforehand, the higher the DMG the boss received when the hat breaks.
TLDR: Even when it’s just a hat, unleash everything you have (especially Electro-Charged and Lunar-Charged) as the boss will still get the damage once the hat is broken.
Recommended Characters for Battle-Hardened Pipilpan Idol
As mentioned countless times, you need Electro-Charged for this boss. Lunar-Charged is optional, but it definitely makes the battle much easier. Don’t worry though because even if you don’t have Ineffa, you can still complete this challenge.
1) Neuvillette + Furina + Ororon + Ineffa
2) Varesa + Ororon + Furina + Xianyun
3) Raiden + Yelan + Furina + Jean
4) Clorinde + Yelan + Ineffa + Xilonen
Stygian Onslaught 5.8 Showcase
Sora is a content creator focusing on gacha games in BrandAnime. Aside from playing all the gacha games to a worrying extent, she also streams on her YouTube and Twitch channels (SoraHoshina). If she got bored, then she will write a guide. Yes, write a guide, not anything else that normal people do.
