After spending roughly 40 hours slamming my face into Messmer and Promised Consort Radahn in Shadow of the Erdtree, I had to admit my comfy NG+ build wasn’t cutting it. I tested a half-dozen setups at level 160-170, respec’d more times than I want to admit, and eventually landed on six builds that consistently killed the DLC’s nastiest endgame bosses without relying on perfect play. If you’re stuck in the late game of the DLC, this is everything I wish I’d known earlier.
Before any of these builds feel good, you need a solid baseline. A lot of my early frustration came from trying “meta” weapons while ignoring core survivability.
Here’s the foundation that worked across all six setups:
With that base set, let’s get into the specific builds that actually carried me.
This was my MVP for aggressive fights like Rellana and Messmer. The Horned Warrior’s Sword acts like a paired curved sword but lets you block with L1 in its stance, which saved me more times than I can count.
Target stats (≈ level 160):
Key gear: Horned Warrior’s Sword (main), Erdtree Seal (off-hand for buffs), medium armor (I used Leda’s set mix) with >50 poise. Talismans: Erdtree’s Favor +2, Green Turtle or Viridian Amber, Ritual Sword Talisman for max HP damage, and Shard of Alexander if you’re using an Ash of War.
How to play it: Pre-buff with Golden Vow + Flame, Grant Me Strength. Use L1 stance-blocks to shave chip damage while fishing for openings, then unload jump attacks and running L1s. The breakthrough for me was treating this like a semi-defensive duelist, not a pure glass cannon. If you see your stamina at half or less, back off; running dry while blocking will get you guard-broken and deleted.
Where it shines: Messmer’s quick chains and Rellana’s mix-ups become manageable when you block selectively instead of panic-rolling everything.
I swapped to this for bosses that hated being locked down, like big beasts and humanoids with long recovery windows. It feels fragile at first, but once you learn the rhythm, it melts HP bars.
Target stats (≈ level 155):
Key gear: Carian Regal Scepter or best Int-scaling staff, light armor (anything that keeps you in light or medium roll), Magic Scorpion Charm, Graven-Mass Talisman, Radagon Icon (faster cast), plus either Primal Glintstone Blade or FP-boosting talisman. Flask: use a magic-shrouding tear + stagger/poise tear if you have it.
Core spells: A gravity spell (e.g. Collapsing Stars or Meteor-type) as your stance breaker, plus Adula’s Moonblade and a cheap filler like Great Glintstone Shard. Open with Ranni’s Dark Moon on slower bosses to shred their magic negation, then spam gravity to stagger and finish with Moonblade.
Common mistake (I made this a lot): overcasting and dying with a full flask bar. Respect your recovery frames-cast twice, roll, reposition, repeat. On my successful Radahn kill with this build, I focused on never chaining more than two long casts unless he was fully locked in an animation.
When a boss didn’t give me time to buff or cast, I swapped to a hyper-mobile bleed build. I used Milady and reverse-hand/Backhand-style blades with bleed affinity, but the core idea is the same: fast, evasive, and relentless.
Target stats (≈ level 155–160):
Key gear: Milady or Backhand Blades with bleed affinity, light armor (I kept equip load <40%), Lord of Blood’s Exultation, White Mask if you have it, Millicent’s Prosthesis or Rotten Winged Sword Insignia, and a stamina talisman like Green Turtle.
How to play it: Think “hit-and-run blender.” Abuse your dodge windows and weapon’s quick strings. The breakthrough for me was stopping big combos after 2–3 hits-land a short chain, roll away, then re-engage. With bleed, you’re playing for proc timing, not raw hit count. On human-sized bosses, one or two good jump-L1s into a short combo is often enough to pop a bleed and chunk their bar.
This build is amazing for aggressive bosses where staying directly under them (like the final phase of Radahn) lets you constantly pressure their legs and force staggers.
I pulled this out for encounters where I wasn’t sure what I was walking into. Being able to pivot between magic beam, flame sweep, and basic melee made learning new bosses much less painful.
Target stats (≈ level 150):
Key gear: Sword of Night and Flame, medium armor, Erdtree’s Favor +2, Carian Filigreed Crest (skill FP reduction), Godfrey Icon (boosts charged spells/skills), and a general damage talisman (e.g. Ritual Sword).
Gameplay loop: Use the beam against slow, long-range bosses and the flame sweep against groups or aggressive rush-down enemies. The trick is to treat the weapon art as a punish tool, not a spam button. Watch for big recovery windows-think after huge lunges or AoE slams—then step in, cast beam or flame, and immediately roll cancel. For chip and stance pressure, rely on regular light/heavy attacks to conserve FP.
This build carried me through exploration and mid-tier bosses while I was still figuring out what the DLC wanted to throw at me next.
When I got tired of being one-shot by weird combos, I leaned into this high-poise monster. It’s slower, but it turns many bosses into trading partners—and you win the trades.
Target stats (≈ level 165):
Key gear: Blasphemous Blade (main), heavy armor (Bull-Goat or equivalent), Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman, Erdtree’s Favor +2, Shard of Alexander, and either a poise talisman or HP regen effect. Flask: one HP-boosting tear + one fire-boosting tear if possible.
How to play it: Two-hand the Blasphemous Blade, spam its weapon art as your primary offense, and don’t be afraid to block or face-tank lighter hits. The lifesteal from kills doesn’t matter much in pure boss fights, but the raw damage and range on the weapon art absolutely do. The main adjustment I had to make was patience: one art, roll, reposition, repeat. Overcommitting into fast bosses will still get you punished.
This is my “I’m done playing nice” build. It’s all about charged heavies and staggering anything that moves. It felt especially good against large enemies and humanoid bosses weak to stance breaks.
Target stats (≈ level 155):
Key gear: Cragblade or similar heavy weapon with Heavy affinity, greatshield if you like blocking, full heavy armor, Great-Jar’s Arsenal, Dragoncrest Greatshield, Axe Talisman (boosts charge attacks), and Shard of Alexander.
How to play it: Lock on to legs or midsection, walk (don’t sprint) toward the boss, and fish for big charged heavies or jump attacks. Two or three good hits usually put bosses on the ground, letting you land criticals. The mistake I made early was spamming light attacks out of panic; once I committed to fewer, stronger swings timed after obvious whiffs, this build started trivializing things like big beasts and knights.
Buff stacking without dying: The sweet spot is usually two major buffs (e.g. Golden Vow + Flame, Grant Me Strength or a Perfume) cast right before you pass the fog gate. Inside the arena, rebuff only after you’ve knocked the boss down or created serious distance—don’t try to “squeeze one in” after a random dodge.
Quick menu setup: Put your main buff incantation, perfume, and Physick on the same side of the quick item bar so you can cycle them by feel. On controller, I bound spell switching and item cycling to feel comfortable under pressure; on PC, seriously consider rebinding camera reset and dodge to what feels natural for you.
Performance matters: A stable 60 FPS made a bigger difference for my dodge timing than any single talisman. On PC, drop shadows or resolution before accepting dips below 60. On PS5/Xbox Series, use Start → System → Display → Performance Mode so your roll timings match what you practice.
If you pick one build that matches your playstyle and give it a solid 3–5 hours of focused practice, you’ll feel a huge difference. Shadow of the Erdtree’s endgame is brutal, but once your stats, gear, and buffs are all pulling in the same direction, those “impossible” bosses start dropping fast. If these setups carried me through Messmer and Radahn, you can absolutely make them work for you too.
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