Elden Ring Starscourge Radahn boss guide

Starscourge Radahn is going down

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Depending on which ending you’re going for in Elden Ring, at some point it’s possible that you’ll find yourself facing off against the dread Starscourge Radahn, also known as General Radahn. He’s a complete beast of a man, and while the fight is really tough, you at least have to be thankful that you’re not this guy’s tiny horse. If you’re struggling to beat this boss, then have no fear. We present our Starscourge Radahn Boss Guide to make the job that little bit easier.

Starscourge Radahn boss guide

There are a few different strategies that you can employ, but due to the way this boss works, they’re effectively the same whether you’re using bows, magic, or swords. There’s also a cheese strategy that we cover at the very end, just in case you really don’t want to have to work too hard for this fight.

Getting ready for the fight

Make sure that you’ve got good magic and physical defense for this fight, as Starscourge Radahn uses both damage types frequently. You should also make sure that you’ve spoken to as many NPCs as possible up to this point in the game because they’re going to come in extremely useful here. As the fight starts, Radahn will be miles away from you and will start firing huge arrows which have a good chance of one-shotting you when they hit, so make sure you practice dodging out of the way. For now, you shouldn’t approach the boss. Instead, head towards the nearest glowing banner, and summon the NPCs waiting there.

At this point, you should skirt the edge of the arena, heading for more NPC summons, and dodging arrows. Don’t try and get on Shadow, because his I-frames aren’t enough to dodge the arrows and you’ll just end up dead. Eventually, one of the NPC summons will reach the boss, and he’ll put away his bow to start using his swords. At this point, you can safely mount your horse and approach him. If you try to approach him before one of the summons does, he’ll start firing off volleys of regular arrows that are pretty tough to dodge, so this approach works best.

Proper battle time

Now settle in for the long haul. Your best bet is to wait for Starscourge Radahn to be distracted by one of your summons, then get in there and attack. If you’re using some form of ranged attack this will be a bit easier since you can just hit him a bunch from a distance, then run away when he aggros on you and wait for someone else to draw his attention. If you’re using melee, just remember not to get greedy. Run in on Shadow, pull off a few hits, then run out again.

You’ll also have to make sure that you’re re-summoning the NPCs as they die. You 100% need there to be NPCs fighting Radahn at all times, or he’s going to notice you and at that stage, it becomes a much harder fight. As soon as you notice someone go down, get on Shadow and go and revive them immediately. The glowing banners are scattered around the entire arena, and it’s random which one the summons will show up at, so you might have a bit of a ride on your hand.

Second stage

At the start of his second stage, Radahn will shoot down from the sky like a meteorite, which will almost certainly kill you if it hits. The best strategy here is to pick a direction and ride that way as fast as possible. Once he lands, he’ll gain a few more attacks and do more damage, but mostly your strat should stay the same. Keep riding around the arena, summoning NPCs, and getting in hits while you can. Being ranged in this stage is much easier than melee, as it’s nearly impossible to dodge his AOE attacks if you have to get close enough to actually hit him.

Starscourges Radahn Boss cheese

If you want a much easier fight, then the safest option is to use Scarlet Rot, since he’s very susceptible to it and it takes ages to go away again. You can try and use something like the Antspur Rapier, or even some Rotbone Arrows, but the easiest to use is the Rot Breath spell that you get from the Catherdral of Dragon Communication. Take a dragon heart to the church in Caelid and you can trade for rot breath. It requires some minimum faith and arcane input, so you might have to level up.

During the fight the strat is the same as what we detailed above, keep summoning folks, but as soon as the boss is distracted you can use your killer move. Go behind him and cast the spell, holding down the cast button until your FP won’t go down anymore. This should start Radahn’s health going down, and it’ll keep going down until he enters his second phase. Just keep summons up to draw aggro and then reapply the spell in phase 2 and the boss is as good as dead.