Domains is the endgame activity Ubisoft dropped with Title Update 1.1.11, and it wasted no time turning Naoe and Yasuke’s carefully built loadouts into scrap metal. If you’ve been following our coverage on ingametor.com, you already know we’ve been picking apart these Animus-bent arenas boss by boss, and this time the target is Eamon Hathaway, better known in-game as “The Super Templar.” He’s the corrupted boss waiting at the end of the earliest AC Shadows Domains challenge levels, and while he’s not the hardest fight in the mode, players still get wrecked by him because his kit punishes button-mashing harder than almost anything in the base game.
Before we get into the fight itself, it’s worth watching how a high-challenge-level run actually plays out from start to finish, since the pacing, modifier stacking, and Daisho clears look very different once you’re past level six. Check out AC Shadows Domain #6 | The Broken Sky Guide Walkthrough below for a full look at what a later-stage run demands.
Who Is Eamon Hathaway and Where to Find Him
Eamon Hathaway shows up as one of the three corrupted, Animus-altered bosses you can be routed toward once you clear all four Samurai Daisho on a given map. Unlike the open-world Templar bosses tied to the Shinbakufu storyline, Hathaway only exists inside AC Shadows Domains he’s a simulation construct, which is why his moveset borrows animations from several late-game enemy archetypes stitched together. Players running lower Challenge Levels will see him most often, since the boss pool narrows as difficulty climbs and rarer corrupted bosses start showing up instead.
Eamon Hathaway’s Attack Patterns
The fight opens with a slow, telegraphed greatsword combo that’s easy to punish, and that’s exactly the trap. Once he drops to roughly two-thirds health, Hathaway starts weaving in an unblockable dash-grab that tracks your dodge direction, meaning the reflexive sideways roll that works on nearly every other Domain boss will get you caught here. The safest read is a backward dodge timed just as his weapon starts glowing, which sidesteps the grab entirely and opens a free heavy-attack window.
His second phase adds a ranged Templar rifle volley layered on top of the melee combos, and this is where most AC Shadows Domains runs fall apart, because players keep treating him like a pure melee target. Break line of sight behind the arena’s stone pillars when you see him shoulder the rifle, then close the distance immediately after the third shot there’s a hard-coded reload delay you can exploit every single time.
Best Build and Gear for the Fight
Kusarigama builds that lean on cooldown reduction handle Hathaway well, since his openings are short but frequent. If you’d rather see how a bow-and-ability loop trivializes a comparable Domain boss, our guide to defeat Momochi Sandayu breaks down the exact Tidal Wave rotation that shreds through Broken Sky’s corrupted encounter, and a lot of that same cooldown logic carries over here swap Tidal Wave for a stagger-focused ability and the loop still works.
Yasuke players shouldn’t sleep on this fight either. His heavier weapons ignore some of Hathaway’s poise resistance entirely, which shortens the second phase considerably and removes a lot of the rifle-volley annoyance since you’re closing distance faster than Naoe can.
Modifiers That Change the Encounter
At higher Challenge Levels, AC Shadows Domains modifiers stack in ways that genuinely change the optimal strategy against Hathaway. The “Like a Prayer” modifier, which surrounds you with a damage-over-time field, turns his already tight dodge windows into something far less forgiving, so budget an extra healing item or two if it rolls on your run.
Cooldown-reduction modifiers, on the other hand, are a gift here, since Hathaway’s fight rewards spamming your best stagger ability on cooldown rather than saving it for a single burst window.
Tips for Clearing AC Shadows Domains Consistently
Across every AC Shadows Domains run, the habit that separates clean clears from repeated deaths is patience during Daisho clears. Rushing the four Daisho with Naoe’s stealth kit before switching to Yasuke for the boss arena, rather than trying to brute-force everything with one character, saves gear durability and keeps your ability cooldowns fresh going into the Hathaway fight.
Engraving your gear to the highest level available also matters more in Domains than almost anywhere else in the game, since the mode was specifically tuned to punish undergeared loadouts that coasted through the main story.
Eamon Hathaway isn’t the flashiest name on the Domains boss list, but he’s a solid benchmark fight if your build can handle his rifle-and-grab combo cleanly, you’re in good shape for whatever the later Challenge Levels throw at you. For more breakdowns like this one, our full library of AC Shadows Domains guides on ingametor.com covers every corrupted boss we’ve encountered so far, updated as new challenge tiers get cleared.
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