How to Beat Radagon and the Elden Beast in Elden Ring

Radagon of the Golden Order has a fire negation of zero. The Elden Beast, which you fight seconds later behind the same fog gate, blocks 40% of fire. Radagon cannot be made to bleed. The Elden Beast shrugs off the whole list: both major wikis list it immune to every status buildup on their charts.

That is Elden Ring's final boss. Two health bars totalling 35,466 HP, which is 2,215 more than Malenia's two phases combined, with no Site of Grace between them and two resistance charts that disagree on almost every row. Bandai Namco's 2023 player-stats infographic, as reported by Den of Geek, counted 148 million attempts on Radagon alone, the fourth most of any boss it listed.

Here is what each half resists, the one damage type that works well on both, the holy-defense stack that both halves punish you for skipping, and what the patches have and have not changed. This is a fight guide. Where the finale sits in the run is in the boss order guide, and what happens at the statue afterwards is in the endings guide.

One fog gate, two fights, one set of flasks

The fight starts at the Elden Throne Site of Grace in Leyndell, Ashen Capital. Fextralife's route is the glowing wall you can enter once Hoarah Loux is dead. Walk into the light, sit through a cutscene, and Radagon is waiting on the Stone Platform, an oval with no obstacles that Fandom says you cannot fall off. Beat him and the Elden Beast rises out of his body. Die to the Beast and both wikis agree you start again at Radagon.

That structure sets four rules before you have swung once:

• Your Crimson and Cerulean charges have to cover both halves. Nothing refills between them.
• The Flask of Wondrous Physick is one drink for the whole encounter. It holds one charge per rest, and there is no rest between Radagon and the Beast. Decide in advance which half gets it.
• Spirit Ashes and multiplayer are allowed in both halves, per Fextralife. Its Radagon notes say Black Knife Tiche is durable enough to last through both fights, so an ash that survives Radagon is still useful on the Beast.
• Torrent is a Beast-only tool. Fandom's Elden Beast page says Torrent can be summoned there, unlike in the Radagon fight, and that it could not be summoned there at all before patch 1.12.

Combat profile: the two halves side by side

The HP figures match on Fandom and Fextralife. The stance numbers are the same ones in the stance-break guide, where the Beast's 150 is second only to Starscourge Radahn's 200. Defense, stance, parry rule and damage types come from Fextralife's combat data; Fandom confirms the Beast's 121 defense, 150 stance and that it cannot be parried, and says Radagon needs to be parried multiple times to stagger.

The number that matters most is the split. The Beast holds 62% of the total HP. Whatever you optimize your build for, optimize it for the second bar.

The two halves disagree about what hurts them

Both wikis print the same negations for both bosses. Lower means more damage gets through.

Three rows decide the fight.

Holy is 80% on both. A Faith build casting holy incantations is bringing the most-resisted element to both halves. Fextralife's boss pages say the same thing in plainer words: Radagon's lists him as strong against holy, and the Beast's tips call it extremely resistant to it.

Fire flips. Zero on Radagon, the best number on either chart. Forty on the Beast, the bigger health bar.

Strike is 10% on both. It is the one damage type within ten points of the lowest negation on both charts. Fextralife's Strike Damage page lists the weapon classes that deal it, including hammers, great hammers, flails, fists, whips and a handful of colossal weapons such as the Giant-Crusher and Great Club. Its Standard Damage page puts greatswords and colossal swords on the Standard side, which Radagon blocks at 35%.

The arithmetic: damage needed by type

Divide each boss's HP by the share of a hit that gets through and you get how much raw damage of that type it takes to empty the bar.

That table models negation only. It leaves out the defense step, motion values and weapon scaling, so treat it as a ranking rather than a damage forecast. Fextralife's damage page adds one thing worth knowing: defense is subtracted from each damage component separately, so a weapon splitting its damage across two or three types loses more of it than a single-type weapon does. That pushes further in the same direction as the table.

So the plan writes itself. Carrying one weapon, make it a strike weapon. Carrying two, put a fire weapon on Radagon and a plain physical one on the Beast, and keep both in your right-hand slots so the switch is one button press during the transition. A holy build is effectively playing at five times the HP.

One wrinkle on the Beast: Fextralife notes the arena water gives both you and the Beast +10 fire absorption and -10 lightning absorption. That puts the Beast's lightning negation at 30%, about 31,610 effective HP for a lightning build. Still worse than physical's 24,586. It also pushes the Beast's fire negation to 50%, about 44,254 effective HP, so the fire row above flatters a fire build on the second bar.

Status works on Radagon, and nothing works on the Beast

Radagon resists poison, scarlet rot and frostbite at a first-proc buildup of 617 on Fandom or 627 on Fextralife, rising to 917 and then 1,374 after each proc. He is immune to hemorrhage, sleep and madness. The Beast is immune to all of them.

That makes bleed and frost builds lopsided:

• Bleed gets nothing from its status in either half. Fextralife's Elden Beast page points Arcane builds at the Occult affinity, which trades the ailment for physical damage the Beast actually takes.
• Frost works on Radagon only. What a frost proc does is in the status effects guide. On the Beast you are back to raw damage.

Black Flame is the elemental tool that carries across. Fandom's Black Flame page puts its burn at 2% of the target's maximum HP plus 20, over two seconds. That is about 287 HP per burn on Radagon and 463 on the Beast, and Fandom lists reduced rates only for Shadow of the Erdtree bosses. The fireball itself is fire damage, which Radagon takes at zero negation. Fextralife recommends Black Flame against both halves.

Radagon: the hammer, the spears and the grab

Fandom splits Radagon into three phases. Phase two begins after he loses some health and opens with Gold Breaker, a leaping slam. From there he teleports, throws spear volleys and adds a holy shockwave to his stomp. Phase three starts below half health: he teleports to the centre of the arena, slams his hammer three times, and teleports much more often. All of his gold attacks deal holy damage.

The grab is the one to respect. Fextralife says it can kill from full health at 50 Vigor, even in Lionel's Set with damage-reduction talismans on.

Two things work in your favour. First, the opening. Fextralife says you can run in at the start and land one or two hits, and Fandom's explanation is that his AI does not turn aggressive until he has taken a certain number of steps. Second, stance. Radagon's 120 is breakable, Fextralife says it can break up to three times in the fight, and he can be parried. Fextralife singles out weapons with quick guard counters, and each break is a critical-hit window.

The Elden Beast: a chase on open water

The second arena is a wide sheet of shallow water with invisible walls. Fandom says the Beast regularly swims away or submerges and resurfaces, so a lot of this fight is closing distance. That is where patch 1.12's Torrent change earns its keep, and it is why Fextralife recommends the Green Turtle Talisman for the stamina you burn chasing it on foot.

The opening is the same trick as Radagon's. Fextralife says the Beast usually starts with a golden flame breath, and running behind it avoids the breath and buys a few hits.

The Beast cannot be parried, and its 150 stance is still breakable. Fextralife points out that enough stance damage at the right moment can stagger it before its first cast of Elden Stars, an attack Fandom calls quite dangerous.

For a Spirit Ash, Fextralife recommends the Mimic Tear here and Black Knife Tiche for both halves, and calls the max-HP reduction from Tiche's Blade of Death quite helpful here. The Spirit Ashes guide covers both.

The golden rings

Twice in the fight the Beast flies into the air and drops a golden ring around you that closes in and then explodes. Both wikis give the same counter: jump over the ring as it closes in, rather than rolling through it, then keep running away from the blast. Fextralife adds that the ring itself does no damage but stuns you briefly, and that you should drop lock-on when the Beast takes off.

The second time it makes three concentric rings. The wikis do not agree on when. Fandom puts the first ring at around 80% health and the triple ring at around 30%. Fextralife's strategy section says 70 to 80% and 30 to 40%, and its attack table says around 50%. Watch for the Beast taking flight rather than watching its health bar.

Elden Stars, and the grab

Elden Stars is a golden orb that follows you, firing smaller orbs, until it explodes, and the Beast can swing its sword while it is running. Fandom's counter is to circle the Beast counter-clockwise until the orb runs out.

The other answer is the Crimsonwhorl Bubbletear. Its description says it turns incoming damage into healing, except physical damage, and Fandom calls it one of the only known ways to avoid all the damage of the Beast's homing projectile attack. It is also your one Physick drink for the whole encounter, so it only belongs in the flask if Elden Stars is what keeps killing you.

The Beast has a grab of its own, which Fextralife calls Divine Punishment. Its left hand glows gold before it sweeps in. If it connects, you are hoisted onto a giant Rune Arc and impaled with golden spears. Fextralife's counter is to dodge, or run, to the left.

Holy defense: both halves hit you with it

Radagon's gold attacks and the Beast's golden attacks deal holy damage, so holy negation is a defensive investment that pays in both halves.

The stacking rules are the usual ones, and the buff stacking guide has the full system. Only one Haligdrake Talisman can be worn at a time. The two incantations and the liver are all Body buffs, so they replace each other, and they also replace Flame, Grant Me Strength. A holy-defense buff costs you that attack buff for its duration. Fextralife confirms the talisman stacks with the spells and that the liver does not.

The numbers multiply rather than add. Fandom's formula for Lord's Divine Fortification works out as 1 - (0.80 x 0.40) = 68% less holy damage with the +2 talisman, before your armor's own holy negation is counted. The liver or Divine Fortification with the same talisman comes to 1 - (0.80 x 0.65) = 48%. Fextralife says Lord's Divine Fortification, the Haligdrake Talisman and light armor with good holy negation can reach about 70%.

For the physical half of their damage, Fextralife recommends the Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman against both bosses. What else competes for those four slots is in the talismans guide.

What patches have actually changed about this fight

Every entry naming either boss that I found in the official notes from 1.02 to 1.17:

• 1.04.1 (26 April 2022): fixed a bug that kept the Elden Beast from working properly "under certain circumstances", listed as a sub-item under a fix for some bosses dying at unintended times. The entry gives no numbers.
• 1.12 (20 June 2024, alongside Shadow of the Erdtree): added the option to summon Torrent in the Elden Beast fight.

Those are the only two. Fextralife's Elden Beast page says the boss was nerfed in patch 1.04 for New Game Plus cycles, but Bandai Namco's 1.04 notes, dated 19 April 2022, contain no Elden Beast entry; the nearest they come is an unspecified line about "other enemy and weapon balance changes". The only Radagon on that page is the incantation Radagon's Rings of Light. Treat the nerf note as unconfirmed by the official notes. None of the notes I could open from 1.13 through 1.17 names either boss. The 1.14 "Final Boss balance adjustments" section is about Shadow of the Erdtree's final boss, which is a different Radahn fight entirely.

New Game Plus barely moves their health either. On Journey 2, Radagon gains 14 HP and the Beast gains 22, though both go from 121 to 146 defense. The New Game Plus guide has the full ladder.

After the last hit

The Beast pays 500,000 runes and the Elden Remembrance, which Finger Reader Enia trades for Marika's Hammer or the Sacred Relic Sword. The Remembrance rewards guide has both stat lines. Then you are standing at Fractured Marika, where the ending is chosen, and that is the endings guide's territory.

Quick Action Checklist

• Budget flasks for both halves. There is no grace between Radagon and the Beast, and the Wondrous Physick gets one drink for the whole encounter.
• Do not bring holy. Both halves sit at 80% holy negation.
• One weapon: strike. It is 10% on both charts. Two weapons: fire for Radagon (0%), plain physical for the Beast (10%).
• Leave bleed at home. Radagon is immune to hemorrhage, and the Beast is immune to every status. Frost only works on Radagon.
• Black Flame carries across. Its burn is 2% of max HP plus 20, about 463 HP a time on the Beast.
• Stack holy defense legally. Haligdrake Talisman +2 plus one Body buff (Lord's Divine Fortification, Divine Fortification or a Holyproof Dried Liver) comes to 48 to 68% less holy damage before armor.
• Respect Radagon's grab. Wait about two and a half seconds after his arm glows gold, then roll into him.
• Whistle for Torrent on the Beast. It has been allowed there since patch 1.12, and it is not allowed against Radagon.
• Jump the golden rings and drop lock-on when the Beast takes flight.
• Circle counter-clockwise against Elden Stars, or spend the Physick on a Crimsonwhorl Bubbletear if that attack is what keeps killing you.