The Destroyer



The Destroyer is a massive, godlike being from another dimension, and the final boss in Borderlands. It is a mass of flesh with a huge, glowing eye, a massive mouth, and several tentacles. The Eridians imprisoned the Destroyer within the Vault thousands of years previously at the cost of their entire civilization, in order to prevent the monstrosity from consuming the universe.

The Guardian Angel knows of The Destroyer and that it is what awaits those who open the Vault, but it chooses not to share this information with the player, possibly because it fears the player will chicken out of trying to open the Vault if the player knew there was a hideous, godlike, extra-dimensional monster waiting instead of fame, power, riches, and/or women. The Guardian Angel appears to want to use the player to defeat the Destroyer once and for all.

Combat


The Destroyer does not move throughout the battle. He has multiple weak spots, his eye, the glowing spots on the tentacles and his mouth/tongue. The Destroyer has a truly prodigious amount of health, as befits an extra-dimensional, godlike being of destruction.

At the beginning of the fight, and throughout the battle, The Destroyer will sprout a set of purple tentacles with glowing orbs near their bases. These tentacles throw purple, explosive spikes that can arc over cover, thus it is imperative to destroy these tentacles when they appear. They can be destroyed by shooting the glowing orbs near the bases of the tentacles.

The Destroyer will also lash out with its reddish tentacles. These can't be destroyed, unlike the purple ones, but these attacks are fairly obvious and easy to avoid, and only happens occasionally in any case. More often it will lift its red tentacles into the air and slam them into the ground, releasing a shockwave that launches the player back. This can be avoided by hiding behind any of the stone pillars that litter the battlefield.

As the battle progresses, The Destroyer will also unleash a concentrated blast of pure energy from its glowing eye. You can hear The Destroyer charging this beam before it uses it. This is a very damaging attack and is difficult to dodge, but it can be avoided by hiding behind most of the rocky pillars. This attack is used very often as a follow up to its tentacle slam (see above), so be sure to avoid both, or you may be knocked away from cover by the tentacle slam and unable to reach it again when it unleashes the beam. The beam attack also has a large amount of knock-back, so if you attempt to stay in the back of the area, out of range of its tentacles, there is a good chance that the beam will knock you off the cliff behind you if you do not find cover quickly. If you are behind cover and still see the beam, don't worry, it is not piercing the stone (unless you see yourself taking damage). For some reason the beam appears to pierce the stone even when the damage is stopped. This is likely a bug.

If you're down for the count, look above and to the left of The Destroyer. Rakk sometimes spawn in the sky here and are good targets for a Second Wind.

If you'd like to save some time, find where the tentacles wrap around the pillars of stone, and melee away (or use a shotgun). It'll take a while, but it's a lot faster than playing hide and seek with The Destroyer.

You can also move to the right side of the area and simply jump over the tentacle, follow it up to the middle of the creature (preferable duck) and shoot/melee away. This way The Destroyer will miss pretty much all attacks (besides the slams but they barely do any damage, though an hp regenerating shield is advised).

After a substantial amount of damage, The Destroyer will finally be defeated. Enjoy the ending and go on to Playthrough 2!

Glitches
Pertaining to the battle

A glitch exists where players are sometimes able to walk onto the platform that The Destroyer sits on, passing through its model-texture, and thus are able to walk inside its body. This is not a very significant advantage, however, since the projectiles it fires can still reach and harm you, as do any internal movements made by its tentacles. Also, all damage dealt to The Destroyer is still done on the surface of its model-texture, so you would still have to aim at particular areas, such as its eye, if you wanted to deal a critical hit. The only real advantage this glitch has is if you have a highly inaccurate gun, or explosive weapon, and want to deal flat damage to it without the chance of its tentacles getting in the way.

It is unconfirmed whether or not its eye beam attack can still hit you in this glitch.

Pertaining to Death

If you are knocked over the cliff in the back of the area, or simply jump over it of your own accord, (both of which will result in death), The Destroyer will have the same amount of health as it did before you died. This is contrary to a normal, bleed-out death, where The Destroyer will have full health once you respawn. The same situation has been reported to happen when both players die from normal, bleed-out deaths on co-op mode.

Bugs
In my game (more reports on forums) when my game frozen in the middle of battle, and when I have returned after loading, there was no Destroyer to beat, and last quest is broken now. Mission is accomplished, but you can not turn in nor do anything except run around the level map. Other reports talk about teleporting away in the middle of battle for ammo, with the same result, or being killed by the destroyer the way he throw you over the edge of cliff, then exit game to save money for reconstruction, again with the same result.

'''Beware! Do not exit game or The Vault map in any way until The Destroyer is dead! It can ruin your game.'''

Workarounds found so far:

Exiting the area does not definatly glitch the area because I left for ammo but I still completed the quest. Still I wouldn't reccomend it.
 * Connect to friend's game and kill destroyer in multiplayer.
 * Hexedit savegame. How to do it is described here:Borderlands discussion on Steampowered games