People have been making a lot of hay about how hard Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is. I, for one, love it, but I can’t deny that the DLC’s final boss is one of the hardest guys FromSoftware has ever made. And boy, do I feel better about my seven hours of attempts against him after seeing that co-op guardian angel Let Me Solo Her (maybe Him now?) also had a rough go of it before beating him today. Spoilers for Shadow of the Erdtree’s final boss ahead.
Let Me Solo Her had already started no-hitting expansion mid-boss Messmer the Impaler, but Promised Consort Radahn is just in a league of his own. After a two hour boss stream yesterday, Let Me Solo Her finally beat the man after an hour of streaming today.
The Final boss is kicking my butt rn pic.twitter.com/nf4htyip9TJune 29, 2024
He took a lot of the same mitigation measures I found myself using, despite also typically preferring fast roll dodgy guys: the signature jar helm is still in place, but otherwise Let Me Solo Her was rocking the super heavy, super tanky new Verdigris armor and a Carian Knight’s Shield to help against Radahn’s beastly, relentless attacks.
He had Radahn’s first phase on lock for some time, only running into issues on phase 2 when the “Young Lion” whips out his god lasers, teleport flurry attacks, and, of course, his weird, clingy boyfriend riding him around piggy back like they just got out of high school anime club or something.
Victory finally came thanks to the Scarlet Rot-inflicting Antspur Rapier, but even with that powerful status effect it was still a near thing, with a couple combos right near the end of Radahn’s health bar almost ending the run. “Holy crap, I am shaking,” Let Me Solo Her said after finally getting the guy.
When asked by his chat today whether he thought Radahn or Malenia was harder, Let Me Solo Her had a thoughtful response: He pointed out that the sheer, unforgiving brutality of Waterfowl Dance was this incredible challenge for the Souls community to figure out how to dodge consistently, a progress-blocking wall that comes up multiple times in her fight and demands you respond flawlessly.
With Radahn, it’s more a consistent level of aggression that never lets up, while no single attack of his quite matches the terror of Waterfowl Dance. Let Me Solo Her seems to be a fan overall, though: “This boss? He’s really something else. I’ll probably try to do it hitless at some point.”
Let Me Solo Her certainly cleared the thousands of Radahn attempts chalked up by mega streamer Kai Cenat, and we’ll see if he takes to co-op soloing Shadow of the Erdtree’s final boss in his usual fashion. For now, though, it looks like he still has a fair bit of the DLC’s map to explore.
