This fight is reminiscent of the Great Jar Summons — Fia’s champions include AI using the builds of real players, along with some familiar NPCs. This fight can be challenging, but we’ve got general tips for you, a strategy that makes it much easier, plus a trick to make Fia’s champions a lot weaker!
General Tips
- Putting the Carian Retaliation ash of war on a shield allows you to parry spells, which is quite useful against Rogier in Wave 2 and caster NPCs. The sorcery version can also be effective.
- Using the Marionette Soldier Ashes causes the NPCs in this boss fight to roll constantly, making it very hard for them to attack.
- The Gravity Stone Fan is an effective tool to use against the third wave, since it can hit all three enemies if you run in a circle until they’re all close together.
- Equipping a shield with good Magic resistance allows you to block Rogier’s melee attacks — doing so will momentarily stagger him, and you can counterattack. (It’s also useful to block his spells if you aren’t confident in your ability to dodge them).
- Carian Slicer is a very effective option for mages, since it will stunlock all of the enemies in this boss fight, and won’t be dodged like ranged spells.
Weakening Fia’s Champions
One of the things that makes this fight difficult is that many players minmax their builds — if you aren’t doing the same, you may find the NPCs in this boss fight overpowered. Fortunately, you can stop the game from using actual players’ builds by simply playing offline. While in game (not on the title menu), go to the Network tab of the settings menu, set the “Launch Setting” to “Play Offline”, then quit to the title menu.
If you’ve done this correctly, you should see “OFFLINE” in the bottom right of the title menu. You can now hit “Continue”, and when you enter this boss fight, you should find that the NPC invaders are much weaker and have more basic and limited setups.
Strategies
For the first two waves, you should conserve resources as much as possible — depending on the summon you use, you can choose to save it for the third wave, but most can survive the first two waves if you’re aggressive enough. Below, general tactics and tips for all three waves are listed — the subsequent sections cover a couple of ways to handle the third wave of this boss fight.
Marionette Soldiers
If you’ve been using our guides, you’ll have already picked up the Marionette Soldier Ashes in the Academy of Raya Lucaria. If you haven’t, they’re a 30 second run from the Church of the Cuckoo site of grace, so go get ’em!
These guys are a pain in the butt when they’re aiming at you, and they prove equally effective against the Tarnished champions of Fia. By summoning the Marionette Soldiers, you’ll force all of the NPCs in this boss fight to roll constantly, significantly lowering their DPS, and making it easy for you to attack them or drink from your flask.
Summon the soldiers on the far side of the arena from where Fia’s Champions spawn, immediately after killing Rogier (your foes spawn on the side of the arena with the waygate). Immediately engage them when they show up — you don’t want them to get close to your summons. Keep an eye on the marionette soldiers, and if any of Fia’s Champions get close to them, make sure you fall back to defend them.
Gravity Fan Chunks
If you’ve fought either of the Fallingstar Beasts, you should have a good number of Gravity Stone Fans in your inventory. These are very effective in this fight, since they are hard to avoid and can hit all three NPC summons in the third wave at once. Try to run in a circle around the arena until all of the NPCs are close together before using to ensure you get maximum value from each fan.
While you can use this strategy after summoning the Marionette Soldiers, the NPCs will be rolling a lot and may dodge these attacks. Instead, it’s best to summon your tankiest or highest DPS summon when using the Gravity Fan Chunks.
There are almost certainly more solid strategies for defeating this boss — let us know in the comments if you found another easy way to defeat Fia’s Champions!