On an elevated plateau in the Rauh Base, you’ll find a lone mausoleum with a man-bear dwelling inside. Red Bear is a unique humanoid-tarnished boss that has an interesting moveset. He isn’t the toughest mausoleum boss, but he will be more difficult for certain builds. Let’s go over the tips and strategy for bagging this bear.
General Tips
Parrying works well against this boss.
He has long combos that are best avoided by back rolling or by staggering him with power attacks.
He doesn’t have a lot of poise; light attacks won’t stagger him, but most power attacks will.
He has an intriguing bear head roar attack, dodge away to avoid taking damage. This is also a good time to do ranged damage.
You can try to do damage to him when he backs away to heal with the flask (he’ll only heal once).
Strategy
When you first traverse the mist, Red Bear will appear in his ghostly form. This arrival animation takes a little time, and is a good opportunity to hit him with a big spell for casters. You’ll immediately notice that the boss uses claws to attack you (hence the name). He likes to do long combos where he dips and slashes a lot. The safest route is to roll backwards from these combos. Rolling into him, or sideways, will usually result in him catching you with a claw.
Melee
The easiest way to deal with this boss is to parry his attacks. The critical attacks do massive damage, and what’s more, using a shield is a practical defense against his lighter combos. The best shield for parrying is the Buckler, but all lighter shields work okay.
Parrying devestates this boss
If you didn’t bring a shield (and are too lazy to hoof it back from a site of grace), then using power attacks is your best bet. The trick with this is to time your power attacks so you don’t get caught in the boss’s combos, or to catch him while he’s rolling.
You also don’t want to get too greedy with power attacks. His counters are fast enough that he can start wailing on you with a combo in between your attacks. Get your hit in, then get out. This applies less if you have a bulkier build, and can tank more of his hits. You do still want to be cognizant of the Blood meter that his attacks will fill, though.
Ranged
This boss fight is much more tedious when using a ranged build. This is mostly because those builds tend to be more fragile, and his quick attack combos are hard to avoid. As is often the case with tarnished fights, you want to use spells that are hard to dodge; these will hit the boss more often. Here are some examples of quick spells that can’t be easily avoided:
Your two main opportunities to hit him with ranged attacks will come at the end of his combos (after you dodged backwards, of course), and when he uses his Bear Roar attack. The bear roar will go on for a while, but he will shorten it if he sees a ranged attack coming.
At about half health, he will try to heal, which is a good time to put on the pressure
The last thing that you’ll want to keep in mind is his flask heal. For ranged players, this is an excellent time to do some damage. If you can keep hitting him and preventing him to heal while he’s trying to pull out his flask, you can rack up the damage.
Moveset
Jumping Claws – The boss jumps in the air, then comes down on top of you while swinging his claws at the ground. Either roll forward to melee quick attack him, or roll backwards to try for a ranged attack. If you’re a little further back, then you can do your own jumping power attack to counter.
Lunging Claw – Red Bear lunges forward and slashes his claw across your chest. This move is fast; roll any direction to avoid. Not the best move to counter as his recovery is quick.
Double-claw Maul – The beast-man puts all fours on the ground, then leaps at you and rips each of his claws at you, one after the other. Roll backwards to avoid, and counterattack when he lands.
Full Maul Combo – The boss comes at you with a flurry of claw attacks, then ends the combo with a double-claw maul. Keep rolling backwards to avoid the attacks. Can also interrupt the combo with a power attack. Counterattack when he lands.
Roar of Rugalea – The boss’s head takes the form of a bear, and he lets out a big roar that does area-of-effect damage. Dodge backwards two times to be out of the attack’s range. This is a good attack to counter with ranged attacks, but he will shorten the attack when ranged attacks are incoming.
Gale Claw to Combo – The boss takes a big swipe that is enhanced with storm damage. If he hits you, then it will turn into a three-attack combo, ending with a double-claw bear hug. Dodge any direction to avoid. The one single swipe is not a good move to counter as it has a quick recovery. If he does the full combo, the end of the bear hug is a good opportunity to attack.
Kelson is a spud head from out west. He is most happy when holding a milky tea with too much honey and playing a sprawling role playing game or reading a fantasy novel. His video game tastes vary but his main genres are looter shooters, RPGs, and real time strategy games.
80,000, Red Bear’s Claw, Fang Helmet, Iron Rivet Armor Set
