Gwen Kraber Crimson Desert: How to Defeat Her and Get the Frozen Wings Plate Armor

Gwen Kraber is found in the Fortracine fortress, northeast of Hernand, and is part of the Ancient Tree quest chain linked to the Celeste House faction. It's a boss accessible relatively early, but it severely punishes the slightest timing mistake, especially if you ignore its ice lance patterns.

Unlocking the Ancient Tree quest

Before you can set foot in Fortracine in boss fight mode, you need to check off several boxes on the Celeste House quests side. There's no getting around it!

• Progress to at least 9 out of 20 quests in the Celeste House faction
• Mandatory completion of: Hounds of Hell, Legendary Wolf, Queen of the Silk Citadel and Abandoned Factory

Once these conditions are met, the Ancient Tree chain unlocks and gives you access to the quest that leads directly to Gwen Kraber.

Clearing Fortracine: the pre-match

Fortracine is a multi-tiered area packed with soldiers. Dozens of them. They tend to group together, which makes them ideal targets for a good old aoe attack: the Infinite Arrows abyssal gear combined with explosive arrows does the job in a few seconds on enemy clusters.

Note

If you clear the area before reaching its summit, Gwen Kraber may briefly appear while you're clearing, then disappear to wait for you higher up in the camp. This isn't a bug, it's her normal behavior.

Keep reducing the percentage of remaining soldiers down to zero. Only then does the boss fight truly begin.

Gwen Kraber's patterns to know

Gwen Kraber is fast, aggressive, and her ice lance kit is more varied than it looks. Here are her attacks:

• Long-range thrusts - deceptive range, don't underestimate the distance.
• Ice lance charge - dodge sideways or forward, never backward. She'll freeze you if you take the hit.
• Clone attack - replicas rush at you immediately after being summoned. No time to catch your breath...
• Lance + clones combo - lunge, summon, chain of hits.
• Lance + final sweep combo - same structure as the previous one, but ends with a sweep instead of a thrust.

What kills players here is the speed of execution. Gwen Kraber doesn't wait for you to finish reacting before launching her next combo, so this fight is very fast-paced!

Strategy to defeat her quickly

Her health bar is short compared to other bosses in the game - the real challenge is reaching the punish window without taking too much damage. The most reliable method: let her attack, dodge or block every hit, then counterattack. It's a rhythm dictated by her, not by you.

Perfect dodges briefly stagger her and open a window for 1 to 2 hits. Heavy attacks can stun her. And if you're unsure which way to dodge her ice charge: sideways or forward, never backward.

For damage output, weapons equipped with the Orb of Ator or Raven's Pursuit - among the best abyssal gear in the game - melt her down very effectively. She doesn't have enough of a health pool to withstand a well-honed weapon for long.

Rewards: the armor and the spear

Once victory is confirmed, two rewards drop immediately:

• Abyssal Artifact
• Frozen Wings Plate Armor

But that's not all. As soon as you pick up the abyssal artifact, a new objective triggers: find Gwen Kraber's equipment. Head to the nearby wooden shelter. There you'll find the Frost Fang spear, with the following stats:

• Base attack: 18
• Attack speed bonus: level 2
• Attack bonus: level 2
• Abyssal gear attack speed
• Abyssal gear Spirit Flow level 1

For a boss accessible as early as the mid-game of the Celeste House faction, the loot is solid - especially the Frost Fang spear if you're playing a speed-oriented spear build.