How to defeat General Radahn in Elden Ring
In this Boss Fight Guide, let’s discuss how to defeat General Radahn in Elden Ring. This mountainous and awe-inspiring General is one of the most difficult bosses in the game.
Despite being an optional boss, defeating him is required for a certain ending. Doing so also grants you some pretty great equipment including weapons and an armor set.
The ‘Cheese’ method
Because of his fight against Malenia, General Starscourge Radahn is now sick with the Scarlet Rot. He’s a mindless monster because of this condition. If you feel like using one of the cheesiest methods to defeat this giant, you can use his illness against him.
If you use Rot Grease on your weapon to inflict Scarlet Rot buildup on Radahn, you can easily kill him. He’s immensely weak to this status abnormality and you can kill him very quickly using Scarlet Rot. If you’d like to keep a safe distance from Radahn, you may use Scarlet Rot arrows on him with a bow or a crossbow.
The other (and easiest) way to kill him is to use Rotten Breath. This incantation is a Dragon Communion type of incantation. You must visit the Church of Dragon Communion and unlock this incantation by using one Dragon Heart. If you didn’t know, you can obtain Dragon Hearts by defeating dragons around the Lands Between.
In order to effectively utilize the Rotten Breath incantation, you must have at least 15 points in Faith and also 12 points in Arcane. Also, you should probably know that this incantation was nerfed substantially with a patch, and it’s not as effective as it was in the previous version of the game. But because of Radahn’s general weakness to Scarlet Rot, this incantation is still quite useful. Rotten Breath doesn’t inflict raw damage, but instead, it inflicts Scarlet Rot. And that’s just what the General is weak to.
If you’re really having trouble with this boss, using this method will grant you an easier win.
Summons
You cannot summon any of your Spirit Ashes for this fight, but there’s a good reason. The fight is not known as the Radahn Festival for nothing. And you don’t celebrate festivals by yourself, because that’s awfully selfish.
Radahn Festival is a great, big celebration where worthy champions get together and attempt to give this overwhelmingly powerful General his much-deserved rest. In a way, this is more of a final farewell to a hero than a downright assault against a villain.
Anyway, you can summon a total of eight characters to join you in your battle against the General. These summons include Blaidd the Half-Wolf, Iron Fist Alexander, Lionel the Lionhearted, Okina, Patches, Great-horned Tragoth, Castellan Jerren, and Finger Maiden Therolina.
Seven of these aspiring champions will do their best to aid you in your fight against General Radahn. One of them, that being our beloved Patches, will simply nope out of the fight as soon as he sees what he’s going to fight. You can summon these characters as many times as you’d like in this fight. So, if a few of them dies, you may summon them again.
Summoning them can be somewhat tricky because Radahn uses his gigantic Lion Greatbow to fire Greatspears at you with rattling speed. This is where our trusty steed Torrent comes in. You can summon him for this fight as long as you don’t use Co-Op summons. Do your very best to avoid Radahn’s arrows and run around the battlefield to summon your allies.
Getting hit with one of the arrows (or greatspears, if you prefer more suitable terms), you’ll be knocked to the ground. Be very careful.
Attacks to watch out for
Radahn performs a wide variety of powerful attacks that will kill many of your allies before the fight ends. These include many Gravity Magic attacks that will draw you closer to him. He also performs the Starcaller Cry where he roars like a lion and draws each of you to him before dealing heavy damage with a follow-up attack.
His attacks consist of wide sweeps and overwhelming strikes that will knock you and your allies down to the ground. But with their help with distracting the general, you will be able to get his health down to 50%. Now, you’ll be facing an even more powerful Radahn in the second phase of this battle.
After getting his health to half, Radahn suddenly leaves the battlefield by leaping up into the air. This is like the drawback of the ocean’s water before a tsunami because, in a while, Radahn will launch himself from the air to the battlefield viciously like an air-to-surface missile. He will literally turn into a meteor and as he strikes the battlefield, a huge explosion will occur and this may kill or significantly weaken many of your allies and you.
So, there’s nothing to do except summon Torrent and run away when Radahn leaps into the air. The first time I fought him, I didn’t even know what hit me until there many of my allies and I faced an incendiary end.
In the second phase, Radahn will also summon meteors that will fly at his targets. These meteors will chase you and you will have to dodge them effectively.
Also, he will leap backward for a moment and launch himself at you with a spinning attack that’s debilitating. Use Torrent to get away or dodge this attack.
You must watch out for the above-mentioned attacks and continue your assault patiently and calmly while performing evasive moves to avoid those attacks. You might have to fight him a few times more than you’d like in order to defeat him, but the rewards and the thrill of the battle will be well worth it.
