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Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree difficulty is…something. Things start out really hard, then slowly get easier as you load up, then eventually if you keep up with the Scadutree shards you can kill even harder bosses in just a few tries.

Then there is Radan.

The final boss of Shadow of the Erdtree is far from balanced, much, much harder than anything you’ve encountered before. And I would say in many ways he was harsher on my class, wizard, wizard, whatever you want to call it. Tainted who uses all blue spells. Because all the “easy” Radahn clears I see are usually reserved melee players with massive shields and one hit stagger. 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. This is how:

statistics: Scadutree (19), Revered Spirit Ashes (9), Vigor (65), Mind (45), Endurance (35), Strength (20), Exterity (40), Intelligence (85), Faith (15), Arcane ( 9)

weapons

The staff of loss – This is to buff Night Comet with 30% more damage, plus scaling from maxing the thing.

Magic hook claws with a hound step – I know Bloodhound’s Step gets nerfed and ideally you could use 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 muscles time of memory. I tried to just roll and there was a 0% chance of beating him that way.

Armor – The highest values ​​that still held me at medium load. I think that was the armor of a veteran for me.

Talismans

Celestial Amber Locket +3 – I found that I had to dodge so much with Bloodhound’s Step that it drained my mana for attacks, so I increased it dramatically with this.

Greatshield Dragoncrest Talisman – Probably the most important as a negation of the highest physical resistance, which is a ton of his attacks. I wouldn’t be fighting without it. Get it from the original map.

Holy braid – The highest holy negation that his charges from his attacks in his second phase. Also a must for this battle. Located in the upper right corner of the map in Shaman Village, accessible via O Mother emote at the statue next to the Gai fight.

Talisman Boltdrake +3 – He doesn’t have a lot of lightning attacks, but I thought he had enough to use it.

Physic

Opaline Bubbletear – Shield right at the start so you can summon early and tank at least one of his initial attacks, mainly the thunder spin he always does right at the start.

Cracked tear covering magic – Even if I only activate this from the front, I like to try to get to phase 2 as soon as possible by dealing more damage from the front. Getting through this phase quickly also means that your Mimic Tear may not have taken much damage.

Summoning: Mimic tear. I swear to God this is the only summon that can go any distance in this battle. When I won, he had survived to 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 this to max heal. Not every time, but sometimes, which can make him outlive you. I boosted probably five different summons to +10 ranging from high damage ones to tanks, nothing else survived even halfway through the first phase. Every summon I tried except for Mimic Tear was terrible in this fight and they really need to massively increase the health of all of them. I didn’t have either of the two NPC summons because I accidentally blocked both quest lines.

Spell: Night Comet “Yes, a spell, singular. That was it. Mainly it wasn’t just that I used him all the time and he did a lot of damage with Staff of Loss, it was because he would force your Mimic Tear to only use him. Casting even other good spells leads to too much variability in what the Mimic will end up using, and Night Comet does a lot of damage to the Mimic and has very little cast time, unlike, say, throwing moons at him .

Defense item – I only used boiled crab for this. I used to do this whole Golden Vow dance, but I got tired of doing it before every fight and trying to find time to reactivate it. Managing too many supplies kept hitting me. But Crab has a short time to eat and you can use it between movesets.

The battle

Radahn Phase One – Here he only uses physical attacks or random lightning and one fire move. The most annoying are his multi-hit combos where you usually if possible just want to stay away from him so he misses with most. Sometimes he adds one last swing at the end of it that can catch you, which is annoying.

Throwing a meteor – This is pretty easy to double dodge once you know the timing.

Spin failure – Very easy to avoid if you see it coming and it’s not the first five seconds of the fight when you summon

Gravitational pull – This one is nasty. The window of time is so small that many people think you can’t avoid it, but you actually can. I eventually figured out that using an audio cue for it would almost make me dodge automatically after being caught so many times. If you get caught, immediately dodge back several times until the spikes stop sticking out of the ground.

Fire Slash – This is not a good move. I almost never got hit by it.

When to damage – Almost whenever his focus is on Mimic Tear, which can get you 5-6 shots per Night Comet. You can get maybe one comet shot after most dodges for individual moves, but if you get greedy, you’ll get busted. I used these windows mostly for potions or crabs.

Radahn Phase Two (75% Health): Screw this phase. This is brutal. To be honest, there is a bit of luck involved.

A giant light meteor shower – He almost always starts the fight with this move. If you start running back right away, you can avoid it and you’ll have a window at the end to use some potions. Mimic Tear is an idiot and will always get hit, but at least it will keep him occupied. I eventually gave it up though. I got as many Night Comet shots in as I could and just settled the blast which with my holy protection was just one potion to drink to get it back.

Rush/Slash combos – These are the bad guys. There are at least three of them that rush you and often shoot extra beams of holy light to catch you. Generally speaking, dodging towards him or slightly to the right can cause him to miss often. The final AOE light blast he does in a lot of these combos I only dodged by being on top of him when he did it. I died more from these combos than anything else in this fight, and dodging felt like luck half the time since you can barely even see what’s going on with all the holy beams everywhere.

Michela’s kiss – This is a grapple that doesn’t hurt at first, but if Miquela charms you a second time, you’ll die automatically. There is a rune to negate this, but I wouldn’t bother since the grab isn’t that hard to avoid at least once in a fight. This is actually a good move for you because Miquela will often grab your mime tear and once the animation ends you can probably get five or more hits on Night Comet.

Old moves – He still does meteor throw and gravity pull. If you’ve gotten to this phase a lot, you may now be able to avoid them more consistently. I would use them as potion windows.

Giant 25% Health Meteor Strike – Once he gets that low, he’ll jump into the air and probably five seconds later crash to the ground with a double AOE blast that practically covers the entire arena. It will probably kill you. I thought it was impossible not to hit me. But if you start running exactly when he jumps and don’t stop or hit a wall you can get out of his range. But this may be the point at which your mimic tear dies, unless it has healed on its own. From here, Radahn will go back to his normal moveset and probably kill you with combos. If not, you win.

When to damage – Namely, only a few times. Before tanking the first burst. After he, Michela kisses your mimic tear. When he goes after your Mimic Tear in general. You can risk a single hit between movesets, but I don’t know if I’d go to the trouble of using it for potions. The damage windows will be there, but survival is 90% of this fight. And you living with Mimic Tier is very, very key.

Good luck, get ready to die.

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