How to Beat Radahn in Elden Ring: Full Boss Guide

On 17 March 2022, patch 1.03 nerfed Starscourge Radahn. Nobody meant to. Bandai Namco's own fix note, shipped 4 April 2022, says it outright: the balance pass in 1.03 had "unintentionally reduced" the power of some of his attacks, and the follow-up patch existed specifically to put it back. That is an unusually direct origin story for a boss fight, and it sets up the number that belongs at the top of this guide: 0. That is Radahn's own negation value against Pierce damage — the only zero on his entire resistance chart, in a fight built around arrows, a horse, and gravity magic rather than the one damage type that goes through him completely unblocked.

This is a fight guide, not an access guide for the wider game — for where Radahn sits in the critical path and why Rennala is the gentler alternative for your second Great Rune, the boss order guide already covers that ground.

The two Radahn fights, and this guide is mostly about the first one

There are two bosses wearing this name, and they share almost nothing except a face.

Starscourge Radahn is the base-game shardbearer, fought in Caelid during a scripted multiplayer event called the Radahn Festival. He is optional — a second option for your second Great Rune, alongside Rennala — and this guide is mostly about him.

Promised Consort Radahn, later Radahn, Consort of Miquella, is Shadow of the Erdtree's final boss: a different arena, a different moveset built around Holy light and bloodflame instead of a bow and gravity magic, and mandatory if you want to see the DLC's ending. He gets his own section near the bottom, because the two fights do not overlap enough to cover in the same breath.

Getting into the Radahn Festival

The fog gate does not just sit open in Caelid. Per Elden Ring Wiki, the fight only becomes available once the Radahn Festival begins, and that requires one of three separate triggers: activating a Site of Grace in the Altus Plateau, asking Blaidd the Half-Wolf about Radahn at Siofra River, or asking War Counselor Iji about Castellan Jerren. Any one of the three is enough — you do not need all of them.

Once it starts, the arena is the Wailing Dunes, a wide sand basin in Caelid with Radahn standing on the tallest dune at the center. Torrent is available for the whole fight unless you have summoned other players, which matters, because closing distance on a mounted, bow-wielding demigod on foot is a bad way to spend a boss attempt.

The nine champions, and why six is the real ceiling

The Festival's actual gimmick is not the arrows — it is that nine named NPCs are available to summon from signs scattered around the dunes, and up to six can be active in the arena at once. A used sign vanishes, but each champion has more than one sign, so a dead ally can usually be re-summoned rather than being gone for good. The full roster, per Elden Ring Wiki: Alexander, Warrior Jar; Blaidd the Half-Wolf; Castellan Jerren (phase 2 only); Finger Maiden Therolina; Great Horned Tragoth; Lionel the Lionhearted; Okina; Patches (who disconnects the moment he arrives and contributes nothing); and, since the Tarnished Pack added her, Knight Leontiel.

That last name is worth pausing on. Our own coverage of the Tarnished Pack's contents covered the two new starting classes, the three Torrent skins, and the two new invasion events — Bandai Namco's own FAQ table did not break out individual world additions like this one, and Knight Leontiel joining Radahn's roster is exactly the kind of granular change that table was never going to list. She is a real, verifiable addition all the same: she is in the current moveset data as a Tarnished Pack-exclusive summon, not a base-game one.

Combat profile: HP, defense, stance, and the one negation at zero

Two things worth flagging before the moveset. First, unlike Malenia, whose 33,251 HP is split into two separate phase pools, Radahn's 9,572 is one bar — there is no fresh health pool waiting at the phase transition, only a new set of attacks layered onto whatever is left. Second, that stance value of 200 is not a typo: it is the single highest number in our stance-break breakdown of any boss in the base game, which is one more reason this fight leans on chip damage and summons rather than a stance-break plan.

What actually hurts him

Radahn's negation and resistance numbers, checked against Elden Ring Wiki's own combat data:

That 0% on Pierce is the standout. Every other damage type on his chart is blocking at least a tenth of what lands; Pierce gets nothing knocked off at all. A thrusting weapon or a piercing Ash of War is doing full, unmitigated damage, while Standard and Slash attacks are giving up 10% of theirs per the table above.

Status buildup thresholds tell a similarly lopsided story:

Scarlet Rot's threshold of 243 is the lowest number on his entire chart — lower than his own bleed and frost thresholds, and dramatically lower than Malenia's 1,481 or Mohg's 653 for the same status. Elden Ring Wiki's own strategy notes call him "extremely weak to Scarlet Rot," and the arithmetic backs it up: a single successful proc takes a meaningful chunk of his 9,572, and a second proc early in what remains of the fight tends to finish it. The Antspur Rapier, which builds rot on every poke, is the wiki's own suggested pick for exactly this reason. If you would rather do it from a distance, three or four hits of Rock Sling from the Meteorite Staff — the S-rank Intelligence catalyst sitting in Caelid from the first few hours — is enough to bring him to his knees without ever entering sword range.

Phase 1: the bow, the horse, and the gravity magic

You spawn some distance from Radahn, who opens immediately with ranged pressure — before he ever draws a sword.

The clusters of weapons stuck in the sand around the arena — the same debris the summon signs hide behind — will each block one arrow before breaking, which is the intended use for them: advance from cluster to cluster rather than crossing open ground. Once you close the distance, he holsters the bow and switches to his twin swords, and the rest of his kit is shared between both phases:

Phase 2: the meteor, the boulders, and three named AoEs

Once his HP drops below 50%, Radahn slams both swords into the ground, launches himself skyward, and vanishes for several seconds — a genuine window to heal and re-summon anyone who has died — before crashing back down as a fireball in an attack Elden Ring Wiki lists as Meteor Impact, capable of instant-killing anyone caught in the blast. Landing also grants two new tools:

Everything from the Phase 1 melee table still applies here too, now interleaved with these three. The meteor dive can be dodged on horseback; the four boulders that follow it can one-shot a build without a greatshield if you stand still. Past this point the wiki's own advice is blunt about the trade-off: engaging directly gets riskier as the fight goes on, and leaning on your remaining summons to soak the AoEs while you strike in the gaps is a more reliable route than trying to out-trade him.

The fall-death cheese the wiki documents outright

Two shortcuts exist and Elden Ring Wiki names them without hedging. Lure Radahn to the cliffs in the far north of the Wailing Dunes and he can fall to his death. Alternatively, positioning yourself at the southern shore right as his phase-2 descent begins can cause him to crash into the ocean on the way down. Neither is guaranteed on a first attempt — hitting the exact geometry takes some luck — but both are real, verified routes to skipping most of the fight rather than community folklore.

What patches have actually changed about this fight

Every official patch note that touches Starscourge Radahn by name, checked against Bandai Namco's own archive:

• 1.03 (17 March 2022) — a general balance patch that, per the fix note that followed it, unintentionally reduced the power of some of Radahn's attacks.
• Regulation 1.03.3 (distributed 4 April 2022, on top of App Ver. 1.03.2) — the entire patch is one line: "Fixed a bug in the balance adjustment of the boss 'Starscourge Radahn' in update 1.03, in which the power of some attacks was unintentionally reduced." Contemporary reporting at the time (Dexerto, ComicBook.com) said the fix restored his damage but that the reduced hitboxes from 1.03 were never separately addressed — that specific claim comes from outside coverage rather than a Bandai Namco patch note, so treat the damage restoration as confirmed and the hitbox detail as reported rather than officially stated.

No patch since has renamed or renumbered anything about the base-game fight. The DLC's own final-boss version, covered next, got a very different kind of patch entirely.

The second Radahn: Promised Consort Radahn in Shadow of the Erdtree

Miquella's chosen consort is the last boss of the expansion, fought at Enir-Ilim's Gate of Divinity after both Mohg and Starscourge Radahn are dead — the DLC's entry requirement applies to this fight the same way it applies to everything else in the Land of Shadow. Per Elden Ring Wiki's own combat data, he carries 46,134 HP as one continuous pool, pays out 500,000 runes on the kill — the same tier as the base game's true final boss — and drops the Remembrance of a God and a Lord alongside the Circlet of Light.

Nothing about the moveset carries over cleanly. Gravity magic is still there, but it now shares the kit with Bloodflame slashes that inflict Hemorrhage and, once his health passes roughly 65% and the fight moves into its second phase, sweeping Holy-infused attacks pulled straight from Miquella's own arsenal. The one mechanic worth knowing before you walk in: a successful grab attack in phase 2 charms you, and a second successful grab while charmed is an instant kill. Miquella's Great Rune — the Scadutree Avatar's drop, and otherwise a stat-less curiosity — exists for exactly this fight, and using it clears the charm.

The patch history here runs in the opposite direction from the base game's. Patch 1.14, released 10 September 2024, opens its notes with a section literally titled "Final Boss balance adjustments" for Shadow of the Erdtree, and it is not one change: the action pattern at the start of the fight was altered, some attacks had their damage reduced, some attacks had their stamina damage reduced, some non-weapon attacks had their range reduced, and the visibility of some attack effects was improved. Screen Rant covered it at the time as history repeating itself — the same publisher nerfing the same character's face for the second time in the game's life. Unlike the base game's 1.03.3 fix, nothing in the patches since 1.14 has walked this one back.

Quick Action Checklist

• Trigger the Festival through any one of three routes: a Site of Grace in Altus Plateau, asking Blaidd about Radahn in Siofra River, or asking Iji about Jerren.
• Advance cluster to cluster behind the weapon debris in the Wailing Dunes rather than crossing open sand — each cluster blocks one arrow before breaking.
• Summon aggressively. Six of the nine named champions can be active at once, used signs come back, and Knight Leontiel is a Tarnished Pack-exclusive tenth face on that roster.
• Bring Pierce damage if you can. It is the only 0% negation on his entire chart.
• Rot him if you have it. His 243 buildup threshold for Scarlet Rot is the lowest number on his sheet — an Antspur Rapier or a few casts of Rock Sling does most of the work.
• Use the vanish window in phase 2 to heal and re-summon before Meteor Impact lands, and keep a shield or distance ready for the four boulders that follow it.
• Do not confuse this with the DLC fight. Promised Consort Radahn is a separate 46,134 HP boss at Enir-Ilim with a Holy/Bloodflame moveset and an instant-death double-grab — Miquella's Great Rune is the counter to the charm.