Outriders: How to defeat the electrically-Altered Gauss

Outriders features an expansive boss system that starts at the Solar Tower during your first mission outside of Rift Town. 

At the tower, the electrically-charged Altered boss Gauss awaits you for your first boss fight. While Captain Reiner could technically be your first battle with a mini-boss, his fight lies in the side quest “A Bad Day”, so he’s not required. Still, you can check out our guide on how to defeat him if you’re struggling. 

In regards to Gauss, different strategies need to be used if you want to defeat him and advance in the story of Outriders. 

Defeating Gauss in Outriders

Gauss is the first boss in Outriders. (Picture: Square Enix)

Gauss is one of the few Altered in Enoch and uses deadly accurate electrical attacks to damage you and limit your ability to move around the battle area. His abilities are as follows: 

• Discharge Mine: Spawns a mine on your location. The mine will persist for a long time throughout the fight, and touching it will zap your character.
• Shock Shift: Gauss will teleport to another location on the map.
• Steel Wall: The boss will periodically shield himself from all damage by using floating metal shards. Once he’s done casting this ability, the metal plates will disappear.
• Metal Barrage: Several blue circles will appear on the ground. After a few seconds, shrapnel will rain down from the sky.
• Ball Lightning: Gauss will summon pairs of electric orbs that’ll float around the arena. If you get hit, you’ll get blasted away.
• Lightning Storm: By far Gauss’ deadliest ability in Outriders, this causes multiple lightning strikes to hit the ground. The storms will also move around the area.

Gauss randomizes these attacks but you can see them coming when he charges them up. An orange bar will appear above his head when he’s charging up and you need to use one of your Interrupt abilities to stop this from happening. Make sure you’re close enough when using the ability and Gauss won’t be able to get off most of these attacks. 

However, he can still deal some smaller attacks that can run your health extremely low in a hurry if you’re not careful. For example, if he casts Ball Lightning and Lightning Storm, then you’ll be severely limited in where you can go in the area and also won’t be able to shoot at him for very long without getting damaged. 

Gauss is a tough opponent but can be defeated with enough time. (Picture: Square Enix)

In most cases, you just need to get behind some cover and shoot at him with a long-range weapon, like an AR or sniper. Avoid the blue lightning spots on the ground that are bound to pop up by moving from cover to cover. The one thing you need to look out for when doing this is Gauss teleporting to you with Shock Shift and shocking you for big damage. If this happens, just retreat immediately and find a new, clean piece of cover. 

The Solar Tower becomes clear after you defeat Gauss. (Picture: Square Enix)

Using your abilities is the best chance to deal huge damage but it’s recommended to use them immediately after Gauss casts his own ability. This way, you know you can use your ability, back away, find some cover and then begin shooting at him once again.