Original article: Last month's Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is, to say the least, brutally difficult — even by FromSoftware standards. Of all of its arduous battles and encounters, though, none are quite as formidable as the expansion's final boss. With a ridiculously meaty HP pool of 46,134, resistances to nearly every damage type, and a lethal moveset with deadly combos and narrow counter-attack windows, many players agree that he's the hardest in Soulsborne history.
Even a boss as challenging as this one, though, isn't safe from Elden Ring's cheesiest, most powerful strategy: stacking a ridiculous number of buffs in order to deliver one ultrapowerful attack that hits so hard it's capable of smiting the game's toughest big bads in a single hit. A few players have managed to one-shot him with this tactic in the past few weeks, but by far, the most impressive kill I've seen is one from Elden Ring content creator Ainrun that was shared on Sunday afternoon.
You can bear witness to the masterfully executed deletion by watching the embedded clip below, in which Ainrun stacks 18 damage buffs (yes, 18) with a smorgasbord of consumable-fueled, self-inflicted status effect procs and carefully timed hotswaps to different talismans and armor pieces that provide temporary bonuses under certain conditions. He then waltzes into the boss' arena, activates the Royal Knight's Resolve skill, and perfectly times a charged heavy attack with his Fire Knight's Greatsword that lands right as Promised Consort Radahn flies in, stabbing him for a jaw-dropping 93,598 damage — that's just over double his total HP, and just under 100,000 — and vaporizing his entire health bar. Even his Phase 2 transition cutscene couldn't save him.
This was the maximum damage i could achieve on Radahn using all the new buffs available in the DLC + base game buffs. I could cross the 100k on weaker bosses but I couldnt figure out how to get to 100k+ on radahn. Maybe another time 🥲July 21, 2024
I've watched the clip several times now, and have pieced together all the different buffs Ainrun used for the glorious takedown. To help you if you'd like to see if you can pull it off, I've listed them below; note that you'll need items like Frenzyflame Stones, Lulling Branches, and Raw Meat Dumplings as well as a weapon with the Seppuku Ash of War on it to proc Madness, Sleep, Poison, and Bleed on yourself, respectively.
- Aged One's Exultation (+20% after Madness proc)
- Madding Hand (+7.5% after Madness proc)
- St. Trina's Smile (+20% after Sleep proc)
- Sacred Bloody Flesh (+14% w/ Bleed proc)
- Bloodboil Aromatic (+30%)
- Commander's Standard Ash of War (+20%)
- Mushroom Crown (+10% after Poison proc)
- Kindred of Rot's Exultation (+20% after Poison proc)
- Poisoned Hand (+7.5% after Poison proc)
- White Mask (+10% after Bleed proc)
- Kindred of Blood's Exultation (+20% after Bleed proc)
- Axe Talisman (+10% to charge attacks)
- Spiked Cracked Tear Physick (+15% to charge attacks)
- Two-Handed Sword Talisman (+15% with two-handed weapons)
- Spear Talisman (+15% with Pierce attacks against attacking enemies)
- Red-Feathered Branchsword (+20% when below 20% HP)
- Rakshasa Armor Set (+8%)
- Royal Knight's Resolve Ash of War (+80% to next attack)
The reason why this works is because buffs in Elden Ring often stack multiplicatively, leading to some truly absurd damage numbers if you can time things so lots of them are active for a single, all-powerful strike. FromSoftware tried to balance this by only allowing you to have one buff of a specific type active at once, but crucially, that limitation does not apply to temporary bonuses gained from talismans and a select few weapons and armor pieces. Thus, Ainrun was able to combine all of those buffs with rapid hotswaps, then supercharge all of it with the Royal Knight's Resolve skill that increases the damage of your next hit by a whopping 80%.
It's also worth noting that Radahn has a weakness to Pierce damage (it's his only true vulnerability throughout both phases of the fight), which is what the Fire Knight's Greatsword's heavy thrusting attack deals. He got hit in the middle of his opening move, too, proccing the Spear Talisman's buff.
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"This was the maximum damage I could achieve on Radahn using all the new buffs available in the DLC + base game buffs," wrote Ainrun in a comment under the clip on social media. "I could cross the 100k on weaker bosses but I couldnt figure out how to get to 100k+ on radahn. Maybe another time." Personally, I'm just amazed the damage can get this high at all.
Since Elden Ring's 1.12.3 patch nerfed busted Perfume Bottle weapons, players have been resorting to other methods for their cheesy one-shot antics. Ainrun's strategy is the highest-damaging one I've seen, but as YouTuber Titus Actual — fittingly called "Dr One Shot" — shows in the video embedded above, you can get easily get the job done with Shadow of the Erdtree's new Priestess Heart dragon transformation and the Ancient Dragons' Lightning Strike spell as well. The Impenetrable Thorns sorcery is as busted as ever, too, capable of proccing Bleed on some bosses multiple times in a single cast.
The Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is finally here, and it makes one of the best Xbox games and best PC games of all time even better. It's out now on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and Windows PC for $39.99.
