Starscourge Radahn - Elden Ring Guide - IGN (2024)

Starscourge Radahn is a powerful Elden Lord who stalks the Wailing Wastes, and can be considered the boss of Redmane Castle. The battle against him is an interesting mix of fun and challenge, but can be a little tedious and random.

Check out our boss strategy guide below to learn more about how to bear this great foe:

Make sure you do one last upgrade and gear check before facing Radahn. Defense and Health will be two of your greatest assets against his powerful attacks that have potential to kill nearly instantly.

Starscourge Radahn Boss Fight Guide

Starscourge Radahn is a powerful Elden Lord who stalks the Wailing Wastes. The battle against him is an interesting mix of fun and challenge, but can be a little tedious and random.

The battle will begin the instant you spawn into the Wailing Wastes, and Radahn will begin firing powerful arrows at you right away. Wait until the moment just before the arrow reaches you, then dodge roll side to side. You need to do this a few times at the start of the fight, so keep your eye on him at all times.

The gimmick of this battle is that you get to summon a handful of NPCs to assist you in the festival. You will see their summon signs scattered all over the sand in front of you. Dash over to the signs and summon the NPCs in-between arrow shots until all of the possible allies have been summoned so that the real battle can begin. The allies you can summon include:

• Great Horned Tragoth, who wields a giant hammer
• Lionel the Lionhearted, who summons large groups of homing souls
• Okina, a samurai who uses fiery blood slice attacks
• Alexander the Iron Fist, the warrior jar you may have met earlier in the game
• Blaidd the Half-Wolf, another warrior you may have met earlier as part of Ranni's questline
• Patches (if you met and didn't kill him, though he'll take a few steps before deciding to quickly leave instead of fighting)
• Finger Maiden Therolina, who can be summoned near the top of the dunes and will invoke healing spells to try and bolster the group

Radahn will change up his strategy and start firing shotgun blasts of arrows as well as a homing rain of arrows. During this period just strafe around at a safe distance until your NPC army reach him and he switches to melee attacks. At this point you want to hop on Torrent and run in with the rest of your allies.

Mounting up for this battle isn't 100% required, but due to the incredible onslaught of his moves, it's highly recommended to stay mobile on horseback unless you are an expert at dodging rapid attacks.

This is where the battle becomes a little unpredictable. Radahn has many powerful wide reaching attacks, and he moves around incredibly fast. He will start lashing out at the various summoned NPCs, killing most of them with ease. It is during these periods of distraction that you want to dash past on Torrent and execute a hit and run.

Try and pick a weapon with good range and damage because you will only be hitting him once or twice per pass (Bleed doesn't hurt either). Try to mostly hit him in the back, as he will likely be attacking forward when trying to hit your summoned allies. Your goal is to never be the center of attention, and run away any time he turns to you. Stick around too long, and it's more than likely you'll be caught in a sweeping strike, stunning Torrent long enough that you won't be able to dash away in time to evade a killing blow.

Keep in mind that most of his attacks are multi-hit combos. His most punishable attacks are his double weapon overhead slams. He has 2-3 different ones so just keep an eye on him. Anytime you see him slam both his weapons into the ground is an opening to attack.

Just be careful of the purple charged blades, which result in a massive explosion when he pulls them back out of the ground. If you are lucky your allies may even hit him enough times to trigger a stagger, at which point you can hop off Torrent and get a powerful attack in.

You should also consider crafting tons of Rowa Raisins to feed Torrent during parts of the battle where you're not under attack. Losing Torrent in a battle like this can often spell instant death, and your mount doesn't always regen to full health when you die and respawn - so top him off before going back for another attempt!

Radahn also has a few ranged blade attacks to keep in mind, the first a volley of purple orbs that can be easily dodged by strafing. The second is a wave of electricity that runs across the ground, which you need to double-jump over with Torrent - and leaping over this dive attack can often give you a free hit or two.

When Radahn reaches 50% health he will leap into the sky, disappearing from the battle for about 10 seconds. Use this time to heal and look for any nearby summon signs, which will reappear for anyone who was killed during phase one. Keep an eye on the sky, because you will be able to see Radahn coming as he shoots back down to earth. At this point, you'll also get one more ally to summon who has been added to the mix: Castellan Jerren, the master of ceremonies for the festival who wields a fiery flamberge.

Note - You may only be able to summon co-operators so many times before their summon signs stop appearing among the dunes. This means you won't always be able to let them do all the heavy lifting for you - so getting in your hits where it counts can be crucial to victory.

In phase two Radahn gains some new tricks, but with your refreshed gang of summoned allies backing you the strategy remains mostly the same. His attacks become more powerful and gain wider ranges or more serious effects. You need to focus up and redouble your efforts here and not let the fight go long enough for Radahn to kill all your allies again, or use his powerful meteor summons which are both difficult to dodge and deadly.

All in all, this is a boss battle that can be considered at least partially luck based. If your summoned allies stay alive and do their job Radahn may never even look at you, letting you get free hits and staggers. But if he kills them all off with one or two combos you may be left running for your life. Once you've mastered the above mentioned patterns it will just come down to the number of attempts, so keep at it and eventually the festival will end with you the victor.

Killing Radahn will get you the Remembrance of the Starscourge, and Radahn's Great Rune. It will also trigger a cutscene that shows a meteor landing somewhere on the map, which will trigger a continuation of Ranni's questline...

Note: If Redmane Castle was devoid of enemies in your playthrough, or you simply want to be able to fight them once more, you can return to Castellan Jerren in the chapel behind the plaza to get some last dialogue from him that concludes the "festival" event, reverting the castle to its normal state full of enemies.