Want to know how to beat the Elden Ring Radahn boss fight? There are over 80 bosses, but few are as fearsome as Starscourge Radahn. Despite being torn apart by Scarlet Rot, the Demi-God still has enough strength to hold back the stars and defeat any warriors who dare challenge him in mortal combat.
Cursed to wander the Caelid’s plains forever, Radahn is one of the hardest Elden Ring bosses, capable of taking down anyone standing in his path. Numerous NPCs will tell you how dangerous he is if you haven’t attempted to fight him. You need to be prepared with one of the best Elden Ring builds and the best summons and weapons in the RPG game. We recommend our Blood Loss Samurai build for the Elden Ring Radahn boss fight, as he’s weak against bleed effects.
How to fight Radahn in Elden Ring
You won’t be able to fight against Starscourge Radahn until you bring together the Dectus Medallion, activating the Grand Lift of Dectus between Altus Plateau and Liurnia of the Lakes. The Radahn Festival begins once you use the Grand Lift for the first time, allowing you to challenge Radahn, but you’re free to continue with the rest of the game until you decide the time is right.
Depending on your build, Starscourge Radahn can be one of the hardest bosses to fight against due to his remarkably versatile move set. He can take chunks off your health from range, dealing massive amounts of damage with his gravity-powered bow and arrows. Up close, he doesn’t even need to use a weapon to kill you; he obliterates his foes by slamming his body into them.
Radahn is unlike any other Souls boss, forcing you to travel across the deserted Caelid plains before you can engage him in combat. Right from the start, he’s ready to pelt you with Gravity Arrows. Though there’s a large distance between you and Radahn, you can lock onto him immediately – we recommend doing this to track his arrows. The most consistent way to avoid his long-ranged attacks is to utilize the invincibility frames on your dodge roll, allowing you to evade any incoming damage.
While you can hop on your Elden Ring horse during this battle, we recommend waiting until you activate the first five summons signs directly ahead. You can activate these summon signs while riding Torrent, but you will have a much easier time avoiding the arrows using your dodge roll.
You want Radahn to spend most of his time firing arrows towards you at the beginning of the battle, giving your summons more time to make their way to the fight. The ideal time to arrive at the battle area is after your summoned friends reach Radahn, placing his attention on them instead of you.
Once Radahn’s health bar reaches 50% or lower, he launches himself into the air for a few seconds before plummeting down to earth as a meteorite. Use this small window to heal up and summon as many NPCs as possible. As he falls back onto the battlefield, get on your horse and ride away from the incoming blast. If you’re on foot at the time of impact, you’re almost guaranteed to die, as the attack is incredibly powerful.
Be aware of the gap between your character and Radahn during his second phase, as he routinely uses gravitation pulls to draw you in. Once you’ve dealt some damage to him up close, run away almost immediately to ensure you avoid his gravity attacks.
Starscourge Radahn melee strategy
When you finally reach Radahn, you should try to coordinate your attacks with your summons. Damage him with a constant barrage of melee attacks to break his poise, giving you a large window to land a critical hit. We recommend using a spellcaster as your spirit summon to deal damage while you and the summons fight up close.
Unless you want to learn all of Radahn’s attack patterns, you’re going to want to summon as many warriors as you can. Keep an eye on the number of warriors on the battlefield – you should be able to hop on Torrent and find more summon signs if too many characters end up dying.
Starscourge Radahn sorcery strategy
Mages should find this fight easier than their warrior counterparts, but not by much. The beginning of the fight is the same no matter what class you play, though mages need to wait for the summons to start attacking Radahn first. Radahn needs to be distracted to prepare your main attack: place the Terra Magicus sign on the floor before committing to your Meteorite spell. There’s a bit of RNG to this spell, but enough meteorites should fall on Radahn to force him into his second phase.
The same tactic doesn’t work as well during Radahn’s second phase, as his gravity pull attacks instantly stop you in your tracks. Switch to Rock Sling during this phase, taking care to avoid Radahn’s fast attacks. If you want to play it safe, you can ride Torrent and use the Magic Glintblade to deal a small yet consistent amount of damage.
Starscourge Radahn cheese strategy
The easiest way to defeat Starscourge Radahn is to attack him using the Rotten Breath incantation. You can learn how to acquire this incantation using our Elden Ring Dragon locations guide, though you need to put 15 points in Faith and 12 points in Arcane before you can use it properly.
Attacking Radahn using Rotten Breath afflicts him with Scarlet Rot, dealing a consistent amount of damage over time. If you can keep the summons alive, you can ride around the area waiting for Radahn to switch to his second phase. Attack him again with the incantation to trigger Scarlet Rot again, slowly draining Radahn’s health until he drops dead.
And that’s everything you need to defeat Starscourge Radahn in Elden Ring. This is among the trickiest fights in one of the best PC games, so remember that you can always respec in Elden Ring once you defeat Rennela, Queen of the Full Moon. It’s also worth going to the Elden Ring Divine Towers to activate a Great Rune before the fight – Godrick’s Great Rune, in particular, raises all of your attributes.