This two-phase boss fight is the game’s finale, and is therefore appropriately epic. Unlike most two-phase boss fights, Elden Ring’s final battle has two separate bosses — you first face Radagon, who you may recognize from the release trailer. Once he’s defeated, you’ll have to take down the Elden Beast in order to gain access to Marika and the game’s ending(s). The fight as a whole is long and difficult, but we’ve got a number of suggestions to make it much easier!
Faith builds can cast Lord’s Divine Fortification to massively mitigate the boss’s Holy damage. Builds with at least 10 Faith cast Divine Fortification, which isn’t as powerful but still negates a significant portion of the boss’s damage. Holyproof Dried Livers are also very effective.
The bosses are very resistant to Holy Damage and immune to Bleed, so choose your loadout accordingly. Radagon is moderately resistant to all other damage types except for Fire, which he takes full damage from. The Elden Beast is resistant to all elemental damage types, but only slightly resistant to physical damage.
Strategy
Prep
Because Radagon and the following boss, Elden Beast, both do primarily Holy Damage, it’s worth respeccing to 27 Faith and grabbing the Finger Seal from the Twin Finger Maiden Husks so that you can cast Lord’s Divine Fortification. If you plan on using the Mimic Tear, you can optionally commit to a full respec and make Strength your primary damage stat — you’ll need at least 30 so you can equip the Erdtree Greatshield (or the Haligtree Crest Greatshield if you have it, though it requires 36 Strength). If you really don’t want to respec, make sure you can craft Holyproof Dried Liver (you’ll need the Missionary’s Cookbook [6]).
You don’t have to use the greatshield, but by summoning the Mimic Tear while you have one equipped, it will be able to stay alive much longer. Even though you aren’t going to use it (you can unequip it after summoning), make sure you have the stat requirements for it so that it’s effective on your summon. You can also put Raw Meat Dumplings and the Uplifting or Ironjar Aromatics in your Quick Slots — all you need is one in your quick slot when you summon, and your mimic will use both items to keep itself alive. If you prefer to use Black Knife Tiche or another summon besides the Mimic Tear, you can just want to get the 27 Faith for the incantation and otherwise keep your build the same.
By leaving healing and defensive consumables in your Quick Item slots, the Mimic can keep itself alive much longer
Optionally, since the Elden Beast is fairly resistant to all elemental damage, and Radagon is weak to Fire, you can equip two weapons: one with Fire damage and one with the Heavy affinity (assuming you have the materials to upgrade the Heavy weapon). Use the Fire weapon vs Radagon and then swap to the Heavy weapon vs Elden Beast. Flame of the Redmanes is a great Ash of War for the fight against Radagon — although after the nerf it no longer staggers as well, he does takes full damage from fire. You can also use it on the Elden Beast, although it takes a ton of hits to stagger it, and it’s often hard to get it to stay still for that long.
Finally, note that the Elden Beast is immune to all status effects, so builds designed to inflict Bleed, Rot, etc., will need to respec or otherwise adjust their approach.
Click a section below to expand it and see strategies and tips for fighting each boss!
Before you even enter the arena, you have a choice to make: you can cast Lord’s Divine Fortification before you enter the arena, or you can wait until after you’ve summoned your spirit ash and try to cast the buff on your summon as well — wait until Radagon is focused on your summon, then stand nearby and cast the buff.
When the fight starts, Radagon will turn and slowly walk toward you — you can usually get off three Flame of the Redmanes (or another strong attack) and stagger him before he can attack.
Ideally you’ll roll to avoid Radagon’s attacks, but you can use something like the Erdtree Greatshield instead — with some kind of Holy Damage reduction running, you should take little or no chip damage from his attacks (make sure you upgrade your shield if you want to use this as your strategy). The only exception to this is the Leaping Holy Bolt attack — when Radagon jumps into the air with a gold lightning bolt in his hand, you’ll want to roll forwards to avoid it, as it can easily stagger you and the followup damage will land.
Wait for Radagon to be paying attention to your summon and then attack him, ideally with jumping heavy attacks and while two-handing your weapon, or else with your most cost-effective ranged attack. Radagon can switch targets mid combo, so you should try to wait until his combo or attack finishes before attacking him yourself. While you should focus on avoiding damage while Radagon is targeting you, it’s OK to attack at the end of his combos — his combos that end with holy-infused attacks generally give you time for a leaping heavy attack, while his normal physical damage combos offer a smaller window.
Avoiding Damage
Radagon’s melee attacks are slow and clearly telegraphed, and you can roll to avoid them. You should always roll forwards and attempt to end up behind Radagon, since many of his attacks leave a glowing spot on the ground that explode after a delay.
You can jump over his Holy Stomp, but you cannot jump the damage from his Leaping Hammer Slam, as it does an AOE around him, and needs to be rolled.
Similarly, you can jump over the Triple Hammer Slam (where he does large AOE in a cone three times) as long as you’re far enough away from him — but only the initial impact! When there is the glowing ground that erupts, you need to get off of it or else time a roll for when it erupts, as you can’t jump the explosion.
One of the deadliest moves is his Hammer Grab — it’s clearly telegraphed, as he pulls his missing arm back and it starts leaking holy energy. You can roll through it, but the easiest way to avoid it is just to sprint away from him to avoid the grab, and then jump when he brings his hand down to avoid the AOE.
When he does the Leaping Holy Bolt attack, you can roll fairly early and get out of the target area, since its tracking is poor — roll a few more times to avoid the bolt’s delayed explosion.
This isn’t true when he jumps and holds his arm sideways to toss a line of bolts — or with most of his attacks, which have excellent tracking. Usually, you need to time your rolls carefully.
At ~50% HP, Radagon will do a large Stomp attack, and will now begin Teleporting. He does damage in a moderately sized AOE when he reappears. Holding block can defend against this, otherwise you’ll need to time a dodge roll to avoid taking damage (assuming he teleports near you). His Triple Hammer Slamalso only seems to appear after he does his initial stomp.
There is a window between killing Radagon and the cutscene for phase 2 in which you can cast buffs and flask, so take advantage of it to get Lord’s Divine Fortification on you and your summon again.
This fight is as much an endurance test as anything else, since the Elden Beast loves to swim away from you — mentally prepare yourself to spend 5+ minutes each time you face this boss. Your goal the whole fight is to get behind the boss, as this ensures you can freely attack without worrying about getting hit by its sword. You still still need to pay attention to what the boss is doing, as it has spells that, although slow to cast, can reach you when you’re on the boss’s butt.
As with Radagon, you can definitely use a shield — it’s actually even more effective here, since the Elden Beast gives you enough time between swings of its sword to get a lot of your stamina back. However, it also has many spells where you can’t block the entire cast, so you should do your best to learn how to dodge them.
The Elden Beast can be staggered, so stick to leaping heavy or charged heavy attacks. It’s also worth noting that four casts of Flame of the Redmanes will stagger it, although it can be difficult to cast it that many times without the boss swimming away.
With all the particle effects it can be tough to tell when you’ve staggered the boss — watch for it to rear backwards, as well as for the tell-tale orange sparkles, which you can fortunately see them through the boss
It’s up to you whether you find it easier with the camera locked or unlocked (although you should lock on when it dives so you can track it underwater) — you’ll need to keep an eye on what the boss is doing in order to avoid getting surprised by a spell.
Avoiding Damage
Many of the Elden Beasts spells have a huge area of effect, and so it can be very difficult to avoid taking damage from them. Fortunately, since you’re following this guide, you’ve got your Haligdrake Talisman +2, Pearldrake Talisman +2, and Lord’s Divine Fortification (or a Holyproof Dried Liver) active, which will significantly mitigate your damage taken. It does physical damage with its normal sword attacks, but the swings are clearly telegraphed and easy to block or roll through — do watch out for the ocassional third, overhead swing it will do, as it lands on its belly and you’ll need to get out of the way or perfectly time a roll to not get hit by it.
The boss almost always starts the fight with its Holy Fire breath attack — you’ll need to run sideways and towards the boss to avoid it if you’re far away. Otherwise, getting all the way behind the boss is how to stay out of the fire. You can avoid the Starry Mist (which doesn’t do damage, but causes explosions on its path after a delay) the same way.
Starry Mist followed by Holy Fire
Ocasionally, the boss will look like it’s going to cast Starry Mist, but instead does a Slam into the ground, causing AOE — roll or block to avoid.
The Sword Plunge is most dangerous when you’re in front of the boss, but can be tanked with the Erdtree Greatshield fairly effectively. The AOE on the final explosion is large, and can even hit you when you’re behind the boss, so block or time a roll.
Sword Plunge
Sometimes the boss do a Sword Combo, where it will stab three times with the sword instead, and follow the three tabs with a final, delayed swing. Most builds can’t block the full combo, so roll each stab instead, and try to get closer to/behind the boss. It’s third sword attack is its Holy Arcs — the boss epowers its sword and swings it towards its target, sending out a projectile each time. The further away from the boss you are, the later you need to roll this attack. For it’s fourth sword attack, it empowers its sword and, after a long delay, does a Runic Slash that has a huge AOE. To avoid this, you need to get very close to the boss, so start running towards it when you see it powering up its sword and then roll as it swings.
The Holy Needles attack is identifable by the boss stretching out its wings and emmiting sparks, plus the “veins” in its body lighting up. To avoid, run in a diagonal line, and try to run straight. Note that it can also cast this while gliding away from you on the surface of the water, or while flying.
Holy Needles
The Cosmic Explosion is easy to see coming as well, since the boss spins and creates a starry mist — run directly away from the boss to avoid.
Cosmic Explosion
Sometimes when the boss spins, it will instead fly up into the air and cast Holy Rings — the rings shrink and damage you as they pass through you, and after a delay, everything in the rings explodes. You can roll through the rings, but the most important thing is getting out of the circle before it explodes. When you see the spell is being cast, pick a direction and try to run in a straight line.
Holy Rings
The boss ocasionally does a Grab attack — I couldn’t capture footage of it because it’s so rare, but here’s what it looks like. You’ll want to roll much later than the person in the video does, a moment after the boss brings its hand forward — moving to the left side of its body can also help you avoid this attack.
Another fairly rare attack is Elden Stars — the boss summons a golden glowing orb that emits smaller golden projectiles. It’s homing, so you have to avoid it for the duration. You can run away and avoid most of the small projectiles, but you’ll need to roll when the larger golden orb gets near, and it eventually explodes.
Since this is the last boss in the game, it’s designed for characters that are level 140+, so if you’re struggling with this fight and you haven’t done all of the game’s optional content, you might want to take a break and go clear some of the areas you haven’t finished yet.
Unabashed FromSoftware fanboy still learning to take his time with games (and everything else, really). The time he doesn't spend on games is spent on music, books, or occasionally going outside.
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