Shadow of Erdtree
The difficulty in Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree is… something. Things start off very hard, then slowly get easier as you power up, and eventually, if you keep up with the Scadutree fragments, you can kill even tougher bosses in just a few tries.
Then there’s Radahn.
Shadow of the Erdtree’s final boss isn’t even remotely balanced, much harder than anything you’ve encountered so far. And I would argue in many ways that he was tougher on my class, wizard, mage, whatever you want to call it. Tarnished, which uses all blue spells. Because all the “easy” Radahn shelters I see are usually loaded with melee players with massive shields and one-hit turns. You don’t do that with spells.
So I beat him. It took forever and a lot of trial and error to build, but I beat it. Here is the procedure:
Statistics: Scadutree (19), Revered Spirit Ashes (9), Vigor (65), Mind (45), Endurance (35), Strength (20), Dexterity (40), Intelligence (85), Faith (15), Arcane ( 9)
Guns
Staff of Loss – This buffs Night Comet for 30% more damage plus scaling from item maxing.
Magic Hook Claws with Bloodhound’s Step – I know Bloodhound’s Step got nerfed and ideally you could have two staves for more damage, but I played 150 hours of this game using it as my main dodge mechanic and especially for Radahn I didn’t want to screw up my memory timing muscles . I was just trying to roll and there was a 0% chance of beating it like that.
Armor – The highest values ​​that still kept me at Medium load. I think this was the veteran’s armor for me.
Talismans
Blue Amber Medallion +3 – I found that having to dodge so much with Bloodhound’s Step was taking away from my attack mana, so I increased it dramatically with this one.
Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman – Probably most important as the ultimate negation of physical resistance, which is a ton of his attacks. I wouldn’t fight without it. Get it from the original map.
Holy braid – Supreme Holy negation, which a lot of his attacks in his second phase. It’s also a must for this fight. It is located in the upper right corner of the map in the Shaman Village and can be accessed via the O Mother emote by the statue near the Gaius fight.
Boltdrake Talisman +3 – He doesn’t have a lot of lightning attacks, but I thought there were enough for me to use.
Physics
Opaline Bubbletear – Shield early on so you can summon early and tank at least one of his initial attacks, mainly the storm spin he always does early on.
A cracked tear covering magic – Even if I only activate it forward, I like to try to get to phase 2 as early as possible by putting more damage forward. Getting through this stage quickly also means that your Mimic Tear may not have taken much damage.
Summon: Mimic tears. I swear to god it’s the only summon that can cover any distance in this fight. When I won, he survived until the end. One trick you can do here is to put Blessing of Marika in your potion rotation. Mimic Tear won’t use your normal potions, but will sometimes use them for maximum healing. Not every time, but sometimes, which can make it outlast you. I maxed about five different summons to +10 from heavy damage to tanks, nothing else even made it through half of the first stage. Every summon I tried except for Mimic Tear was terrible in this fight and they really need to squeeze health on everyone. I didn’t have either of the two NPC summons because I accidentally blocked both quest lines.
Spell: Night Comet – Yes, magic, singular. That was it. Mainly it wasn’t just because I used it all the time and it did a lot of damage with Staff of Loss, but because it would force your Mimic Tear to use it as well. Using even more good spells results in too much variability in what Mimic ends up using, and Night Comet does a lot of damage on Mimic and has a very low cast time unlike, say, throwing moons at him.
Defense item – I only used boiled crab for this. I used to do this whole dance with the Golden Vow, but I got tired of doing it before every fight and trying to find the time to activate it again. Managing too many consumables kept hitting me. But the crab has a short consumption time and you can use it between sets of moves.
Combat
Radahn Phase One – Here he only uses physical attacks or occasional lightning and one fire move. The most annoying are his multi-hit combos where you generally just want to stay away from him if possible so he misses with most. Sometimes at the end he adds one final swing that can catch you which is annoying.
Meteor Throw – Once you figure out the timing, it’s pretty easy to double dodge.
Spin Crash – It’s very easy to dodge if you see it coming and it’s not the first five seconds of the fight that you’re summoning
Gravity Pull – This sucks. The time window is so tight, many people think you can’t dodge it, but you actually can. I eventually realized that if I used the audio cue to do this, I would almost automatically dodge after being caught so many times. If caught, immediately backflip several times until the spikes stop sticking out of the ground.
Fire Slash – This is not a good move. It almost never hit me.
When to damage – Almost always when his focus is on Mimic Tear, which can get you 5-6 shots of Night Comet. You can get maybe one comet shot after most single turn dodges, but if you’re greedy you’ll get busted. I mostly used those windows for potions or crab.
Radahn Stage Two (75% Health): Skip this stage. This is brutal. Honestly, a bit of luck was involved.
A giant light meteor shower – Almost always starts the fight with this move. If you immediately start running backwards you can avoid him and at the end you will have a window where you can use some potions. Mimic Tear is an idiot and always gets hit, but at least it keeps him busy. I finally gave up though. I got as many shots from the Night Comet as I could and just attacked the blast, which in my holy defense was just one potion I gave myself to regain it.
Rush/Slash combo – Those are the bad ones. There are at least three of them that rush you, often shooting additional beams of holy light to catch you. Generally speaking, dodging towards him or slightly to the right could cause him to miss often. The final AOE holy blast he does in many of these combos I just avoided by basically being on top of him when he did it. I died to these combos more than anything else in this fight and dodging was like luck half the time because you can barely see what’s going on with all the holy beams everywhere.
Miquella’s kiss – This is a grab move that doesn’t hurt at first, but if Miquella charms you a second time, you’ll automatically die. There is a rune that negates it, but I wouldn’t bother with it since the grab isn’t that hard to dodge at least once in a fight. This is actually a good move for you because Miquella will often grab your mime tear and you can probably get five hits from night comet after the animation ends.
Old moves – Still does meteor throw and gravity. If you’ve reached this stage, you can now avoid them more consistently. I would use them as potion windows.
Giant 25% Health Meteor Slam – Once he gets that low, he jumps into the air and probably smashes to the ground five seconds later with a double AOE blast that practically covers the entire arena. This will probably kill you. I thought it was impossible not to get hit by it. But if you start running right if she jumps and doesn’t stop and hit a wall, you can get out of her range. But this might be the moment your Mimic Tear dies if it hasn’t healed itself. From there, Radahn will revert to his normal movement and will likely kill you with combos. If not, you win.
When to damage – That is, only a few times. First explosion before refueling. After Miquella kisses your mimic tear. When it comes to your Mimic Tear in general. You can risk one hit between movesets, but I don’t know if I’d bother using it for potions. The damage windows will be there, but survival is 90% of this fight. And life with Mimic Tear is very, very key.
Good luck, prepare to die.
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