The massive size of the Elden Beast’s arena presents additional problems for melee characters, as you’ll have to spend lots of time running to get close. Below we’ll walk you through the fight and give you all the tools you need to defeat Elden Ring’s final boss, the Elden Beast, earning yourself one of the game’s six endings.
Elden Ring Elden Beast boss fight walkthrough
The Elden Beast appears in a cutscene after you defeat Radagon of the Golden Order, making this effectively a two-part fight. There is no Site of Grace or chance to heal, so you’ll need to defeat Radagon while conserving enough resources to battle the Elden Beast. If you’re struggling to get through Radagon without burning most of your flask charges, our Radagon boss fight walkthrough will help. The Beast itself uses several attacks and abilities that echo previous bosses. You may recognize Astel’s nebula swipe, Rykard’s sword-swinging patterns, and Placidusax’s cone of fire breath that almost reaches the Elden Beast’s back legs. However, the Elden Beast also has a variety of other Holy-damage spells, including long-range projectiles, floor effects, and the particularly tricky Elden Stars ability that follows you around firing off smaller star shards. Thankfully there are ways to deal with all of these, even if they aren’t immediately obvious. We’ll walk through our tips for each below.
How to beat the Elden Beast: top tips for success
Here are our top tips for victory in the Elden Beast boss fight.
1. Jump over the closing rings
A few times during the fight, the Elden Beast will fly up into the stars above your head, and release a spell on the floor while you’re distracted. Look down, and you’ll notice one or more golden rings closing in on you as the floor begins to shine and crack in a circle. You need to get out of this circle before it explodes, dealing a large amount of Holy damage. Your first instinct might be to roll through the enclosing rings, but dodging this spell is actually even simpler than that. All you need to do is run away from the center and jump over the rings to avoid them. Early in the fight, there will only be one ring, while later instances of the spell will have three. If you’re quick on your feet, you can easily avoid taking any damage from this spell.
2. Roll through Elden Stars, then run
The Elden Stars spell is the toughest part of this fight. With this ability, the Elden Beast fires a golden projectile that tracks its target around the arena, constantly firing off small golden stars. While a single star won’t do much damage, a stream of them can quickly overwhelm and kill you. Eventually, the main projectile explodes for another burst of damage. It is nearly impossible to avoid all damage from this spell, but you can at least avoid death. You can outrun Elden Stars for a bit, but it will eventually catch up. When it does, roll straight at it and then keep running in that direction. It takes a moment for the Elden Stars to pivot and keep following you. Any distance you put between you and the Elden Stars during that brief window can buy you time to heal, or prep for another dodge. You’re probably still going to get hit by a couple of stars, but you can avoid getting stuck directly under the center star this way.
3. Keep moving towards the Elden Beast
The Elden Beast is highly mobile despite its size, and the arena is enormous. Unfortunately for melee builds, that means you’re going to spend a lot of time chasing the Beast around. There’s really no way around this, so just keep moving towards the Elden Beast at all times. Remember your ABCs; Always Be Closing. Roll towards the Beast to dodge projectiles, run towards it when avoiding Elden Stars or the star rain attack, and try to roll in when it swipes with its sword. You’re only going to get damage in if you are constantly closing the gap.
4. Avoid status effects and Holy damage
Like Radagon, the Elden Beast has high Holy resistance, as well as immunity to the Blood Loss status. However, the Elden Beast is also immune to every other status effect in Elden Ring. While Scarlet Rot, Poison, and Frostbite are often supplemental, many builds rely heavily on Blood Loss for their damage. If you’re using Katanas or a weapon with the Blood affinity, you may need to change up your build. Unlike Radagon, the Elden Beast has no particular weaknesses, so any weapons without Holy damage and status effects will perform about the same.
5. Raise your Holy resistance
The Elden Beast deals loads of Holy damage with its various spells and abilities, so Holy resistance goes a long way. This is especially true when it comes to Elden Stars, which is bound to hit you a few times per fight without some luck. The Divine Fortification Incantation requires only 10 Faith, so most builds can equip a seal and activate it. The Holyproof Dried Liver consumable also helps, as does the Haligdrake Talisman +2, found near the Giant Crow farming spot in Mohgwyn Palace. That’s everything you need to battle the Elden Beast! It can be tricky to learn this boss’s patterns since it is hidden behind another boss, but once you’ve got it down things get easier. Make sure you check out our Radagon guide to simply that fight and save yourself some flask charges. If your build isn’t quite doing the trick, our guides to the best builds, weapons, and talismans in Elden Ring can help.
