Elden Ring Starscourge Radahn boss fight: how to beat General Radahn
Use these tips to beat General Radahn
Need help beating Starscourge Radahn in Elden Ring? General Radahn's strength is legendary in the Lands Between, and the boss fight against him in the heart of the Caelid Wilds is nothing less than spectacular. Which is good, because the chances are you'll be so outmatched by him that you'll be seeing that same spectacle again and again for quite some time.
With the help of this walkthrough, however, we can shift the balance of power a little more in your favour. Check out our top tips below on how to defeat Starscourge Radahn, covering every part of the fight in detail.
Elden Ring Starscourge Radahn boss fight walkthrough
Starscourge Radahn, also known as General Radahn, is one of the five major shardbearers of Elden Ring - the offspring of Queen Marika who fought for the shattered shards of the Elden Ring during the war known as the Shattering. He can be found in the vast desert on the east coast of the Caelid Wilds, and is only accessible through Redmane Castle on the far southeast corner of Caelid.
Radahn is a legendary warrior, and even with the help of several powerful allies, you'll have to be very careful, patient, and powerful in order to best him in combat. Below you can see how I managed to defeat Radahn. After that, keep reading to learn our top six tips and tricks for making the fight against Radahn much easier.
Starscourge Radahn boss fight video walkthrough:
How to beat Starscourge Radahn: top tips for success
Here are our top tips for succeeding in your fight against Starscourge Radahn:
- Switch quickly from on foot to horseback during the run towards Radahn
- Let the summoned allies hold Radahn's attention
- Use a weapon that inflicts bleed
- Back off and heal during Radahn's AoE attacks
- Get behind Radahn's legs and use heavy attacks to stagger him
- Prepare for Radahn's meteorite phase transition attack
1. Switch quickly from on foot to horseback during the run towards Radahn
The fight against Starscourge Radahn begins with a long run up to the General while he rains bow attacks down upon you from afar. The single-shot arrows are easy to avoid on foot, but near-impossible to avoid on horseback. By contrast, the rain of arrows is much easier to outrun on horseback than on foot.
So when you see either of these attacks coming, switch to the correct form of transportation to give yourself the best chance of avoiding damage. Against such a powerful foe, you really want to avoid taking damage until at least you've engaged him in melee combat.
2. Let the summoned allies hold Radahn's attention
As you run towards Radahn, be sure to tap each of the summon signs on the ground in front of you, because each one summons a warrior ally to aid you. Together they can do a fair bit of damage to Radahn, but the main benefit is that Radahn has so many enemies to distract him, so he won't spend all his time targeting you.
This allows you to more easily get close and deal damage. But you should still keep an eye on everything that Radahn is doing, because he is capable of pulling off several spinning attack combos which can hit everything around him. So even if he's targeting someone else, you could still be in the line of fire.
3. Use a weapon that inflicts bleed
To make this fight much easier, you should equip (and upgrade) a weapon which inflicts bleed. I opted for an Uchigatana, as it deals a good amount of damage and has good range, while also inflicting bleed with every strike.
General Radahn is quite susceptible to bleed, and as you can see from the above video, I used it to deal a huge chunk of damage to his health bar towards the end of the fight, severely reducing the amount of time I had to fight him during his more dangerous second phase.
4. Back off and heal during Radahn's AoE attacks
Radahn is fond both of sweeping sword-strikes and ground-slam attacks which create small gravitational shockwaves in an area around him. Fortunately, these attacks have fairly long wind-ups, and if his attention is focused on one of your summoned allies rather than yourself, you should feel very safe to back off and heal during these moments.
5. Get behind Radahn's legs and use heavy attacks to stagger him
Radahn can be staggered without too much difficulty, particularly with the help of your allies all attacking him at once. You can speed along this process by getting behind his legs where it's safest, and using heavy attacks to take large chunks off his invisible posture meter at a time.
The trick, of course, is getting that close to Radahn without taking damage. The key is to not be intimidated by him. His attacks look fearsome, but they can be dodged through without too much difficulty. You'll need to back off when he does one of his ground-slam attacks, but otherwise you should try to maintain the offensive by constantly closing the gap between you and dealing heavy attacks to his legs.
6. Prepare for Radahn's meteorite phase transition attack
Unless you have the damage output to kill Radahn very quickly, you'll likely find that at a certain point after at least half his health is gone, Radahn will disappear. After a few seconds, he will then crash back into the arena as a giant meteorite with a massive area of effect attack.
If there are several allies left standing, he almost always aims for them, looking to wipe them out and turn this into a one-on-one fight. Given this, I found it a good idea to distance yourself from your allies as much as possible the moment Radahn disappears. That way, if he goes for them you're not in the line of fire; and if he goes for you, you can use Torrent to get out of the way without accidentally redirecting Radahn towards your allies.
Using the above six tips and tactics, you should find your fight against the great Starscourge Radahn in Elden Ring becoming quite a bit easier than before. However, Radahn is just one out of over 200 boss encounters in Elden Ring, so be sure to check out our Elden Ring boss locations guide to find out where they all reside. You can also check out our Elden Ring walkthrough for more general information on how to progress. Also, now that you've defeated Radahn, you can progress much further through Ranni's questline, so I'd urge you to check out our Elden Ring Ranni quest walkthrough for more details.