Spiders: can’t live with them, can’t live without them. Most of the people you know probably roll up a newspaper at the sight of one single creepy crawly and smack it till it falls dead. Let us be the first ones to tell you that this is not a method that you can employ when taking on the monster of a spider referred to as the Hedge Broodmother in Grounded. Blunt-force trauma from a newspaper just ain’t gonna cut it.
The Hedge Broodmother is a boss creature found deep in the Hedge in a tunnel leading off the Flingman Disc that you will probably encounter a while after the Black Anthill Lab. Once the fight is triggered, players cannot leave or enter her lair until all players are dead, or the Broodmother is defeated.
The Broodmother also happens to be the very first boss to make its way into Grounded, but that doesn’t make her a pushover; far from it, in fact. Being the toughest creature to take down in the garden, the Hedge Broodmother requires a lot of preparation before you make your way into her lair.
Follow our guide on how to spawn and beat the Hedge Broodmother in Grounded to make your time playing the game a little more pleasant.
How to create bait for the Hedge Broodmother in Grounded
To make the Broodmother spawn in the location she is found in, you will need to get your hands on the correct bait that will lure her into battle, and this bait can only be made with the help of an oven, which lets the players create smoothies along with other recipes.
The oven itself has to be unlocked first, however. To make an oven, you will need three different items, which are:
- Four Boiling Glads (can be found on Bombardier Beetles)
- 10 pieces of Clay (can be found in wet areas)
- One Everburning Charcoal Chunk (can be found near the barbecue)
Once you have an oven on hand, you can go ahead and start making the bait for Broodmother. This giant mama spider loves smoothies, and the Broodmother BLT smoothie is what you will need to make to get her to spawn.
You will need three ingredients to prepare the Broodmother BLT smoothie, which are:
- One Thistle Needle (can be found in Spade Gulch and near the Giant Oak)
- Two Bombardier Beetle Parts
- Two Lady Bug Parts
Now that you’ve got the minimum requirements in place to have a face-off against the eight-legged baddie, don’t make the mistake of charging into battle just yet, unless you want to be the spider mama’s next meal. You’ll need to actively prepare for the daunting Hedge Broodmother fight in your way.
How to prepare for the Hedge Broodmother fight in Grounded
Here, we’ll discuss the best gear and general items you’ll want to carry along with you to the Hedge Broodmother boss fight.
Best gear for the Hedge Broodmother fight in Grounded
After equipping yourself with the sturdiest armor you can find, you will want to incorporate helpful mutations that will aid you in the Broodmother fight, specifically. Since she deals a ton of poison damage, adding on the Mithridatism mutation should help negate a large portion of the damage received from poison.
You’ll mainly want to focus on the weapon that you’re using for battling against Broodmother. The choice of weapon would depend if you’re fighting her solo or with a friend, but we highly recommend you to not tackle this boss solo.
While the Mint Mace can definitely put in the work in a solo run of the boss, it is best used when you have another player fighting alongside you, who would ideally be equipped with a long-ranged weapon to weaken Broodmother from a safe distance while you do most of the damage.
You should be dishing out tons of damage with the Mint Mace in any scenario, and if you tack on the Barbarian mutation to it, you should be able to make relatively quick work of Broodmother with clever battling strategies.
If you’re looking to craft the Mint Mace, all you will need is:
- Nine Silk Rope
- Eight Flower Petal
- Five Mint Chunks
One more point to keep in mind is that Broodmother is especially vulnerable to Spicy and Slash damage, so getting your hands on the Spicy Coaltana will do wonders for the battle too.
Next, we recommend that you carry the Splatburst and Bratburst grenades, as well as Gas Arrows along with you for the Broodmother fight. Broodmother will summon hordes of tiny spiders every now and then during the fight whom you will need to get rid of quickly before they overpower you, which is where these items come in, which effectively clear out the waves of smaller spiders.
Make sure you are effectively using the Splatburst grenade, however, as detonating the grenade close to the player will deal a lot of damage to you, which is something you definitely want to avoid. Only chuck these grenades onto the spiders when they are a safe distance away from you.
Best items for the Hedge Broodmother fight in Grounded
A couple of super useful items that will make your time slaying Broodmother are as follows:
- Attack and Stamina smoothies such as Boost Juice or Liquid Rage
- Combat-based meals such as Funguspacho, Omelant, and Spider Slider
- Quick healing with Granola Bars, Healbasa, or beefy smoothies
How to spawn the Hedge Broodmother in Grounded
Alright, looks like you’re well equipped to make your way toward Broodmother and take her down once and for all. If you have your Broodmother BLT smoothie with you, head to the Broodmother’s den which is situated inside the hedge next to the Apricop Punch-O.
Spot the zipline in this area and hop onto it, following the branches that lead you to the frisbee stuck in the hedge. Make your way to the right of the frisbee to find the opening of the Broodmother’s den.
Head inside to find an empty area with no enemies. Make your way into the nest and head towards the weird green fungi you find there. Here is where you are supposed to place the BLT smoothie, but don’t go ahead with that immediately.
Now is your time to make sure you chug down your most powerful buffing meals and smoothies as well as place the weapons and healing items that you plan on using onto your quick-select wheel.
Once you’re ready, place the Broodmother BLT smoothie into the green fungi and watch as the Broodmother descends down to engage you in battle.
Best strategies to beat the Hedge Broodmother in Grounded
The Hedge Broodmother boss fight can be divided up into three phases, and each phase calls for the player to employ certain strategies to overpower the boss at hand.
Phase one
The first phase of the Broodmother fight sees the spider use fully melee strategies. The spider’s most common attack is a bite, but it will often lunge at you as well. The lunge does great damage to the player but can be dodged. You will know when she is about to lunge at you when you see her sticking her abdomen upwards.
Broodmother will every now and then perform a little three-hit combo on you. While this is deadly, you can block these with your mace or shield and then proceed to attack her when it ends.
Phase two
When you have taken off about one-fourth of Broodmother’s health, her attacks begin to get more intricate with lengthier combos as well as reach, which means you’d have to adopt a more defensive playstyle. She will often jump to the center of the area and spawn tinier spiders, which can be taken care of by keeping a safe distance from them and killing them with projectiles like Splatburst, Bratburst, and Gas Arrows.
Broodmother will also emit an unblockable screech from time to time that stuns the players. Since you cannot avoid it, the best you can do is create as much distance between you and her before she stuns you; run away from her when you see her jump into the air and you should be far enough from danger.
Phase three
At around half health, Broodmother’s defenses increase, while changing her spawns from spiderlings to Orb Weaver Jr’s. The more of her health you deplete, the more Orb Weaver Jr’s she summons, maxing out at four per summon.
Take care of the Weavers as quickly as possible with arrows or melee strikes, since they are unlikely to group up enough for explosives to do the job, so you can get your focus back on Broodmother.
Make sure your combat tactics are up to standard, using moments of inaction from the boss’ side to heal yourself and your teammates and not being afraid to play defensively when Broodmother goes on the offensive. Use moments of vulnerability, especially after big attacks like the three-hit combo to chip away at the spider while taking care of her minions when she spawns them and you should be a Hedge Broodmother slaying machine in no time.
