Last updated: 5 July 2026

Borderlands 4 Subjugator and Thol the Invincible Raid Boss 2 Guide

Subjugator and Thol the Invincible is Borderlands 4's second raid boss, added free in the May 28, 2026 update alongside UVH Rank 7. Unlike the campaign's story bosses, this is a dedicated endgame dual-boss encounter built around a choice: which of the two you kill first determines which arena and which set of mechanics you fight through in the final phase. This guide covers how to unlock it, every phase, elemental weaknesses, and what it drops.

01How to Unlock Subjugator and Thol

Subjugator and Thol the Invincible requires completing the main story campaign first. Once you have, a new side mission called "Brothers in Harm" becomes available at a Bounty Board in any Faction HUB Town — pick it up there to start the questline leading to the fight.

Getting to the fight: fast travel to the Wyclef's Reprieve safehouse in Idolator's Noose, in the Fadefields region, then head south. Follow the path until you reach the Lair of the Subjugator, where the encounter begins.

This is free content — no paid DLC is required, unlike some other Borderlands 4 endgame activities. It was released alongside Patch 1.7 and UVH Rank 7, so you'll want to be pushing into the higher Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode tiers before attempting it seriously.

02Phase 1: Subjugator

The fight opens with Subjugator, a Warden-type flying enemy comparable to the story boss Horace. Subjugator has a shield health bar rather than a standard health bar, and four giant Order Ocular Observers positioned in each corner of the arena periodically fire beams that recharge his shield.

• Deal with the Observers first: you can destroy them outright to stop the shield recharge permanently, or simply shoot them mid-beam to interrupt a recharge in progress. Destroying them is the more reliable option in a longer fight.
• Green prisms: Subjugator can place protective green prisms at marked points in the arena — these block your line of fire and should be destroyed or avoided rather than fought around.
• Adds: Subjugator summons drones throughout the phase, plus two Synth Soldiers that can be used as Second Wind targets if you go down.
• Weakness: Subjugator himself is weak to Shock and Radiation damage; the Ocular Observers are weak to Corrosive and Cryo — bring both damage types if your build allows.

03Phase 2: Thol

Once Subjugator's shield is fully depleted, Thol takes over — a large, slow, heavily armored boss that trades Subjugator's aerial mobility for raw durability.

• Sentinel Tower Guards: four of these surround the arena, creating damaging shock waves and projecting bubble shields that block ranged damage to Thol. Prioritize destroying them to open up sustained ranged windows.
• Adds: three High Order Protectorate enemies respawn continuously through the phase — clear them steadily rather than letting them stack up.
• Weakness: Thol is weak to Corrosive and Cryo damage in this phase.

Every phase of this fight includes Ammo Geysers scattered around the outer ring of the arena — use them to top up before committing to a burn window rather than running dry mid-fight.

04Phase 3: Both Together — The Choice That Matters

After Thol's health drops, Subjugator and Thol fight simultaneously. Both are weak to Incendiary damage during this combined phase, making it the moment to swap to a fire-element weapon if you're carrying one.

This phase ends when you kill one of the two bosses — and which one you kill first determines the entire final phase:

• Kill Thol first: Subjugator survives, becomes supercharged, and the fight moves to the Heaven Arena. He rises into the sky and you fight him from floating platforms.
• Kill Subjugator first: Thol survives, becomes supercharged, and the fight moves to the Hell Arena. He slams through the floor, pulling you down into caverns beneath the arena and casting off his armor.

There is no objectively "correct" order — it comes down to whether your build handles a mobile aerial fight (Subjugator surviving) or a tankier melee-adjacent brawl (Thol surviving) better. If you're farming for a specific drop tied to one boss, kill the other one first so the survivor is the one whose supercharged form you fight last (each boss's dedicated loot is tied to it specifically, not to which arena you end up in).

05Phase 4: The Supercharged Survivor

4A — Supercharged Subjugator (Heaven Arena): Subjugator alternates between a gigantic form and his normal size, and becomes an elemental eater — he regenerates health based on whichever damage type you're currently dealing him, and the healing type changes mid-fight. Watch his current elemental state and switch your damage type off whatever he's currently absorbing.

4B — Supercharged Thol (Hell Arena): Thol becomes gigantic and sustains his tankiness by continuously spawning Cloaked Troops (which grant him shields) and Synth Troops (which grant him armor). Clearing these adds quickly is the only way to stop his defensive scaling from spiraling — Thol himself remains weak to Incendiary damage in this phase.

Both supercharged forms hit significantly harder than phases 1–3. Treat the phase transition as a hard checkpoint: top off ammo at the Geysers, use your strongest cooldowns, and don't commit to a burn rotation until you understand the current elemental/add-spawn state.

06Loot: What Subjugator and Thol Drop

Subjugator and Thol the Invincible has a curated, boss-specific loot pool separate from world drops — every item below is confirmed to drop from this fight, with the individual boss noted where the drop is dedicated to one of the two rather than the pair:

• Jail-Broken Gatling (Pearlescent Ripper SMG) — grants stacking fire rate, damage, and recoil-control buffs per hit. The rarest confirmed drop from the fight.
• Lockjaw (Legendary Torgue Assault Rifle) — sources differ on whether this is a dedicated Thol drop or shared between both bosses; treat the exact dedication as unconfirmed.
• Shammy Kablammy (Legendary Tediore Pistol) — dedicated Subjugator drop.
• Flak Cannon (Legendary Vladof Heavy Weapon) — dedicated Thol drop.
• Collector (Legendary Order Shield) — dedicated Subjugator drop.
• Five Vault Hunter class mods — one for each of the five Vault Hunters currently in the loot pool (Amon, Harlowe, Rafa, Vex, and C4SH), earned as a Silver Reward for clearing the fight within 7 minutes. Note that C4SH is a paid DLC character (Story Pack 1), not a base-game Vault Hunter; a sixth class mod is planned alongside Story Pack 2 in Q3 2026.
• Active Fire Firmware (Tier 3) — grants bonus damage for precisely timed charge-weapon shots.

As with other Borderlands 4 endgame content, dedicated drop chances scale up with your UVH Rank, so pushing further into Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode before farming this fight meaningfully improves your odds. See our legendary farming guide for the general mechanics behind dedicated drops and UVH scaling.

The fight also has a time-based Silver Reward: clearing it within 7 minutes unlocks the Vault Hunter class mod drops on top of the standard loot pool — worth attempting once you can clear the fight reliably and want to push for extra rewards on the same run.