The Sleeping Daoist World Boss is one of the nastier skill checks in Qinghe. He stays on his donkey most of the time, spamming projectiles and surprise kicks that delete big chunks of health, and then drags you into a foggy dream arena where everything hits harder and is harder to read.
Handled correctly, though, this is a fight you can slow down and control instead of trying to out-DPS.
Sleeping Daoist location in Qinghe
Sleeping Daoist is a World Boss found in Sundara Land, in the Qinghe region. More precisely:
| Region | Sub-area | Landmark | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qinghe | Sundara Land | Jadebrook Mountain | Between two Waypoints in the middle of Jadebrook Mountain |
You can approach from nearby Boundary Stones like Gourmand's Grove or Path of Karma and then ride or glide over. As a World Boss, he stands in the open world; walking up to him starts the encounter.
Recommended level, build and companion
Sleeping Daoist can be cleared around level 40 with weapons and armor around level 30, but the fight feels much fairer if you bring tools that line up with his weaknesses.
| Category | Recommendation | Why it helps |
|---|---|---|
| Mystic Art | Cloud Steps | Lets you jump in after projectile strings to deal HP and Qi damage when he’s briefly exposed. |
| Inner Way | Evening Snow | Synergizes with ranged setups and sustained chip damage. |
| Weapons (ranged focus) | Vernal Umbrella / Soulshade Umbrella | Keep damage uptime while staying out of melee, where his yellow and donkey kicks are hardest to dodge. |
| Defensive tool | Inkwell Fan with Jadewind Shield | Blocks many wind projectiles from a distance, giving breathing room to recover and plan counters. |
| Healing / sustain | Panacea Fan | Healing is debuffed against bosses, but repeated casts still let you sustain a long, patient fight. |
| Companion | Yi Dao | Brings stagger and healing; helps control the boss while you reset, especially in phase two. |
Try to keep Yi Dao healthy during the first phase by drawing aggro yourself. Companions carry their remaining HP into the dream arena, and having Yi Dao alive there makes the second half noticeably less punishing.
Core strategy for Sleeping Daoist
Sleeping Daoist is built to punish greed and messy movement. The consistent plan looks like this:
- Fight at mid to long range most of the time.
- Bait projectile strings, then parry them to shred his Qi gauge.
- Use Cloud Steps prompts to close gaps only when they appear, land a short combo or finisher, then disengage.
- Stay away from his back to avoid the instant gold donkey kick.
- In phase two, assume every ranged pattern can stunlock you if you miss one parry, so prioritize survival over damage.
Think of the encounter as a loop: force projectiles → deflect to break Qi → trigger finisher → back out, heal, and repeat.
Sleeping Daoist phase 1: moveset and counters
On Jadebrook Mountain, the boss rides his donkey and mixes short melee bursts from the mount with ranged attacks from his weapon.
| Move (phase 1) | Visual tell | How it works | Best response |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic wind projectiles | Daoist swings weapon; white projectiles fly out, usually in 2–4 shots. Often starts running away first. | Long-range pressure; feeds his main zoning plan. | Stand at mid-range and parry each projectile. Successful deflects chip his Qi quickly. You can often trigger a Cloud Steps prompt right after a volley. |
| Triple Stomp | Donkey rushes straight at you, then jumps and slams three times. | Fast sequence of three ground slams; heavy damage if you eat the chain. | Either time three parries in rhythm, or roll sideways out of each individual stomp. Don’t panic roll; the spacing is regular. |
| Tailwind Combo | Short bursts of wind at close and mid-range, followed by a sweeping tail / hair strike that flashes red. | Multi-hit string ending in a red counterable attack. | Parry or dodge the first four hits. When the final red hit flashes, aim for a perfect parry to trigger a counterattack. |
| Fart Blaster | Donkey turns its rear toward you, tosses piles of dung, then sweeps with a wide gas cloud. | Area denial in a broad cone behind the mount. | Step or dodge to the side out of the cone; you can also parry the hits if your timing is solid, but it’s safer to reposition. |
| Horseplay Combo | Forward lunge stomp, then a flurry of punches, ending with a rear kick. | Rushdown string that punishes anyone too close in front. | Backstep out of range of the first stomp, then circle around. If trapped, parry the hits in sequence and create distance after. |
| Double Tailwhip | Daoist’s hair extends, whipping twice at long range. | Two fast, linear strikes with good reach. | Side-dodge the line of attack, or parry both hits back-to-back. Don’t try to roll through them late; they travel far. |
| Charged Headbutt (red) | Donkey’s eyes and head glow red; short charge forward. | Quick gap closer that deals heavy stagger. | Perfect parry to trigger a counter, or dodge sideways at the moment of impact. |
| Rock Throw | Donkey stomps; rocks float up around it before being launched. | Six stone projectiles fired consecutively. | Parry each rock like his normal projectiles, or move laterally and dodge in rhythm. Jadewind Shield does not block these. |
| Golden Donkey Kick (gold) | Donkey flashes gold and immediately lashes out behind. | Non-parryable kick that sends you flying and can delete a run in one mistake. | Never linger behind the boss. If you see the gold flash and you happen to be there, dodge diagonally away and to a side; do not try to block. |
During this phase, his most abusable moments come right after ranged strings. When his last projectile has left his hand, you often get a Cloud Steps prompt. Use it to vault onto him, deal both HP and Qi damage, then immediately reset to mid-range before the donkey starts another close-range chain.
Healing is limited in boss fights, so treat every lull after a stagger or finisher as a chance to drop a Panacea Fan healing ring, drink a potion, or let Yi Dao top you up. Sleeping Daoist is less aggressive than many other Qinghe bosses, which gives you enough windows to “play slow” and recover.
Sleeping Daoist phase 2: dream arena and new attacks
Once his first health bar breaks, he pulls you into a white-fog arena. The camera, contrast, and harder-to-read visual effects are part of the difficulty spike.
All of his previous moves remain in rotation, but his projectiles now carry smaller, trailing shots behind them. In most cases, a single well-timed parry still knocks out both the main projectile and its follower, but the timing penalty for missing goes up sharply: one mistake can get you stunlocked by the full pattern.
| Move (phase 2) | What changes | How to respond |
|---|---|---|
| Enhanced projectiles | Every main wind shot carries extra, smaller bullets behind it. | Hold mid-range and time parries so that your deflect catches both layers. Avoid panic-dodging backward into unseen trails; commit to either deflecting or clean lateral dodges. |
| Overgrowth Slam | Donkey jumps and slams, sprouting tangled branches / roots in a circle around him. Sometimes performed twice in short succession. | Watch the jump and the circle on the ground. Either roll out of the area before the roots appear or parry the impact. Stay ready for a second, smaller repeat circle right after. |
| Double front swipe | Daoist performs two wide hair / weapon swipes in an arc in front. | Simple to handle by dodging sideways out of the arc. Parrying both hits is possible but risky if you’re misaligned with the swing. |
| Heavenly Wind Combo (gold finisher) | Series of distant projectiles, then he suddenly lunges in with a diagonal gold swipe. | Parry or sidestep the projectiles as usual, but once you see him commit to the gold lunge, dodge straight backward; the finisher cannot be parried. |
| Donkey stampede | He jumps onto a tree while portals open at the arena edges; herds of spectral donkeys charge through. | Watch where portals appear. Move to lanes without portals, or reposition so stampedes pass beside you. When in doubt, standing directly beneath his perch is often safer than being in front of a portal. |
| Fog burst projectile shower | He rises into the air, gathers fog, then explodes into a wide spread of projectiles that fan toward you. | Time a dodge at the last possible moment as the wave reaches you to avoid most of the spread, then parry any straggling shots aimed at your position. |
The second phase also makes missed parries much more punishing. Players frequently get stunlocked when they fail one deflect in a long projectile string. The safest rhythm is:
- Stop manually running around when a big volley starts; focus entirely on timing parries or clean rolls.
- Keep your camera slightly zoomed out and centered on the Daoist rather than the donkey’s feet so you can read new patterns starting.
- If you’re unsure which version of a string is coming, break lock-on briefly and sprint sideways to reset, then re-engage when it’s over.
Yi Dao shines here: his staggers can interrupt some of the boss’s nastier follow-ups, and his healing lets you patch over the occasional mistake without burning every potion early.
Rewards for defeating Sleeping Daoist
On your first clear, Sleeping Daoist drops a set of rewards that matter both for progression and for Qinghe completion.
| Reward | Quantity | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Echo Jade | 20 | Valuable currency for various upgrades and systems. |
| Character XP | 12,000 | Direct experience for your character. |
| Qinghe Exploration | 50 | Contributes to Qinghe region exploration progress. |
| Medicinal Tales | 3 | Resource used in medicinal or storytelling-related systems. |
| Zhou Coin | 8,000 | Standard currency for purchasing and upgrading. |
| Esoteric Revival: Tome | 1 | Special item tied to higher-end progression. |
The boss can be fought again for practice and additional materials, but the first-kill bundle is the big spike in value and a meaningful push toward finishing Qinghe’s boss checklist.
Why Sleeping Daoist feels so punishing—and how to make it fair
Players often bounce off Sleeping Daoist even after clearing other Qinghe world bosses. The reasons are pretty consistent:
- His yellow and gold attacks have short or misleading tells, especially from the donkey’s rear.
- The second phase’s white fog makes projectiles hard to see, and the added follow-up bullets amplify every mistake.
- He has a huge effective health pool once you factor in Qi armor and phase transitions, so rushing him down rarely works.
The way through is to lean into how his kit is built rather than trying to play around it. Staying out of melee range turns the fight into a parry exam, and he fails that test much faster than you do if you consistently deflect. Tools like Jadewind Shield, ranged umbrellas, Yi Dao, and Panacea Fan all pull the encounter toward that safer rhythm of chip, stagger, finish, retreat.
Once that loop clicks, the old man and his donkey go from “unfair” to “grindy but predictable”—and you walk away with a major Qinghe world boss off your list.
