- Rewards:
380,000, Remembrance of the Saint of the Bud - Summons Available: Yes
- Boss Location: Church of the Bud, Ancient Ruins of Rauh
Romina, Saint of the Bud is a non-optional boss found at the end of the Ancient Ruins of Rauh. She inflicts everyone’s favorite status effect, but is arguably the easiest mandatory boss in the Realm of Shadow. Of course, that doesn’t mean she’s an easy fight — so this guide will do its best to make things easier!
General Tips
- Staying very close to Romina will cause some parts of her attacks to go over your head.
- Romina can be parried when she uses her poleblade.
- Romina has no resistance to Fire damage, and low resistance to the other damage types (20% resistance).
- Her threshold for inflicting Frost is also fairly low (Bleed is a bit higher but also quite useable).
- This fight can be hard for casters who want to cast slow spells at range — equip close range spells that can be cast quickly, or else make sure you can crank out damage while your Mimic Tear and the NPC summon are still alive.
- When she scurries away from you, after dodging her plunging attack, and the move where she rises up and creates butterflies in Phase 2, are all good opportunities to heal.
- If you find yourself consistently getting Scarlet Rot inflicted on you, your best bet is to simply use
Preserving Boluses. However, if you aren’t confident in your ability to find windows to pop the boluses, you can instead equip items the Ailment Talisman from Gravesite Plain, Mottled Necklace +2 from Rauh, or the 
Immunizing Horn Charm +1. Any equipment that increases your Immunity can also help. 
Flame Cleanse me is also an option if you’re a caster. Finally, you can pop Immunizing or Dappled Cured Meats — the White Meats last 2 minutes, so you can eat one before the fight starts. - Dryleaf Dane can be summoned just outside the boss arena.
Strategy
Melee
At this point in the game, you should have a fire weapon art, so pick your favorite and infuse it with Fire (or a Fire Art if you have enough Faith for it to do better DPS that way). Romina can be staggered, so if you have a fire weapon art that does good posture damage, this can be a good option, otherwise whatever is fastest to cast is safest — many weapon arts will add bonus fire damage to your weapon temporarily, which can help you remove the boss’ health bar quicker.
Because the boss can be staggered fairly easily, jumping heavy attacks are your best bet to punish if you have a big enough two-handed weapon. Otherwise, if you find you aren’t getting staggers, proccing status effects with R1s can be your go-to punish between combos. Frost is a great option, and bleed works too. Romina is nice enough to pause after most attacks, with the only chained combos being chained from the single slash attacks — any other attacks are safe to punish when they end, so long as you are close enough to her when her attack finishes.
Romina is a very tall boss, and because of this, some of her attacks can miss if you’re very close, so try to stand as close to her as possible, and try your best to roll towards her. If you’re close enough, you can often roll through the centipede section of her body (her left, your right) during attacks — doing so will cause you to avoid many followups, so it’s always worth trying to pull off.
Parrying Romina makes her fairly easy if you can hit the timing — her pole blade attacks can all be parried, but it’s best to only parry the attacks that aren’t part of combos that include the centipede head. She only requires one parry to be staggered, so compared to other bosses, she’s a great parry target.
Ranged
Ranged characters should definitely take advantage of the Dryleaf Dane summon available just outside the boss arena. Romina moves around a lot, so it’s best to wait to cast spells or fire your projectile until she’s recovering from something like the Plunging Strike, or else when she’s locked into an animation for a combo where she doesn’t move too much, such as the Curling Triple Swing. Resist the urge to call in your summon right away, and instead wait until Dryleaf Dane dies to use your Spirit Ashes. Romina has a number of attacks that can damage both your summon and Dane at the same time, so it’s best to save your ashes so you always have someone to pull aggro for you.
Romina does like to target the host, however, so you should consider melee spells or incantations, especially any fire-based Incantations you have available. Depending on the spells you’re using, the 
Radagon Icon might significantly speed up cast times, which can also be very helpful when trying to sneak spells in between rolls. If you run out of summons/spirit ashes, you’ll want to stick to the melee strategy and generally stay close to Romina. If you aren’t comfortable with any of the melee-range, faster spells, consider upgrading and equipping a melee weapon that scales with your chosen spell-casting attribute.
Moveset
Phase 1
- Centipede Swipe – The centipede clacks its claws and turns its belly towards you, then swings itself in an arc. Unlike most of the attacks listed here, being close won’t protect you from this, so you’ll have to roll as the body nears you.
- Centipede Double Bite – The mouth of the centipede opens and rears back, then clacks its claws and plunges forward, then does a followup attack a moment later. Dodging towards Romina and through the centipede’s body will let you avoid the second bite easily, but make sure you’re standing by the scorpion tail, otherwise you’ll need to dodge both bites.
- Single Slash – The boss briefly raises her weapon behind her head, then slashes down with it. After slashing, she’ll scuttle away, giving you a chance to heal or use an item. If she inflames the blade, the attack is almost the same, but she often won’t scuttle away, and might chain into the Triple Slash. An easily parried attack.
- Triple Slash – Starts like the single slash, but the blade is always inflamed, and its followed up by an overhead slash, then another slash from the side.
- Bites and Slashes – The boss inflames her blade and the centipede head positions itself next to her (on your left), then the head strikes towards you and Romina quickly follows with two slashes. The head then stabs at you a final time and Romina does one more slash. If you dodge through her as centipede strikes, you’ll end up behind Romina and the rest of this combo will all whiff.
- Double Slash – Romina inflames her blade and briefly holds it behind her head before striking twice. The first attack for this one has a very generous parry window, and a long, obvious windup.
- Leaping Double Slash – Romina inflames her blade and holds it behind her head, then jumps forward and slashes, followed by another slash in the opposite direction. You can roll both attacks, and the timing on the second one allows for a (relatively) easy parry. If you roll towards the boss during the first swipe, and roll again in that same direction, the second slash will simply miss you.
- Spiral Double Slash – The boss turns away from you and leaps into the air, inflaming her blade. She then spins twice in the air, slashing at you each time she rotates. Dodging towards her is once again ideal, as you can sometimes be missed completely if you’re beneath her.
- Curling Triple Swing – Romina curls her body around herself, then swings the nearer section at you while rotating — this repeats twice more. If you roll backwards from the first two attacks, the third shouldn’t be able to reach you. You can also roll directly into her past her right side, dodging through the first two attacks at the same time.
- Plunging Strike – Romina flies into the air, then aims her stinger at you before plunging down. Dodge in any direction after her stinger glints.
- Stinger Strike – The boss’ stinger rears back, then plunges towards you, doing damage in a small area around where it lands. If you’re close enough to Romina, this attack will simply miss, but it’s best to roll towards her anyway, as the AoE can catch you by surprise.
- Roll – Romina jumps up and rolls into a ball, then rolls towards you. She’ll do damage upon rolling and landing, so roll away initially, then roll through her when she gets close during her roll. When she uncurls, the centipede head will swing towards you, and she’ll slash you right afterwards. If you rolled towards her when she rolled past you, and you stayed relatively close/in front of her, this slash will miss (otherwise you’ll have to roll again).
- Centipede Grab – Romina spins her poleblade, then points it at you — as she points it, the centipede head will strike. If you’re right in front of her, this should whiff. If you are hit by it, you’ll be grabbed, stung, and infused with rot, so roll towards her when she points.
Phase 2
Romina keeps her Phase 1 moveset, and adds a few moves:
- Butterfly Storm – Once the boss reaches ~59% HP or less, she will slowly spiral into the air, creating a storm of butterflies around her that damage and inflict rot. Once you’ve dealt enough damage, try and stay away from her, as it’s impossible to avoid damage from this attack if you’re close. This attack can also occur throughout phase 2, with the additional effect of a line of butterflies aimed at your position — sprint or roll perpendicular to the boss to get out of their AoE.
- Flying Triple Swoop – Romina leaps into the air and inflames her blade, then slowly swoops down and slashes you. She swoops down again near where she ends up after the first attack, then after a delay, spirals towards you a final time, leaving a trail of butterflies behind her that explode after a moment. Stay close to her when this attack begins and dodge forward, and the first strike should miss, and if you were far enough beneath Romina, so will the second. The third attack should be dodged diagonally towards her so that she overshoots and you’re in a good position to step out of the butterflies.
