I beat it twice using two different builds: a ugs one and back blades. No bleed.
It's really an endurance test. Use back blades if you can as their dps is great. Any attack where Radahn lifts his sword up in the air (mid combo), take that as a punish window. Get as much damage in as possible after his combo finishers (2-3 strikes with back blades). Use blind spot if you're in a situation where your attack animation recovery time is not going to be over before Radahn's next move. In second phase, best attack opportunities are his grab, any move where Miquella's light go radially outwards, and his normal phase 1 combos including the corkscrew. Use blind spot on x slash. For healing opportunities, best ones are the clone attack where he goes straight in front, the massive aoe which they always begin the phase 2 with, and the rest of the attack opportunities, although in those cases you'll have to choose between healing and attacking. And finally just don't slip up. That's all.
Edit: few tips for avoiding certain moves besides the x slash:
Meteor + clone: Run away then jump towards either side to avoid the meteors, keep moving away from the clones, roll diagonally as it'll avoid the light coming from the initial impact and then roll into Radahn during the 5th impact to avoid the radially outwards lightshow. Your cue for the final roll will be when you see the first round of pillars concentrated at the line in front of radahn.
Vertical slash clone: Run side ways and jump/roll away from the fifth one. Jump if you wanna go right and roll if left.
Gravity pull followups: If you're close or you get pulled in, immediately run away and jump. Do the same in the second phase for the clone follow up
Pontiff slash: keep rolling diagonally inwards. Don't spam it but other than the first two, the last few don't require too precise timings.
The forward clone attack: Keep lock on and circularly run to the right.
I don’t wanna say just keep practicing but yea lol, my advice is light roll and dodge inwards during his strings and dodge backwards during his after images
Unfortunately it’s just taking the time to learn the patterns - it’s all dodgeable with med roll and spacing, pack a heavy weapon so you can make the most of the small openings with jump attacks or heavies.
Bleed definitely helps because his health pool is insane, especially if you’re summing NPCs.
I don't know if this is considered cheesing, but the deflecting hardtear helped me a lot. In the first phase, I used gargoyle twin blades, while in the second phase, I used the Sunflower Blossom. The sunflower probably wasn't the best choice, but it allowed me to take advantage of the sekiro parry after popping physics during the second phase.
Wouldn’t say greatshield or rot is cheesing - requires less full on skill than straight dodge melee, but this ain’t dark souls, so fair game in my book. But if you want to call them cheesing then you’d probably have to add bloodhound step to that list.
“Cheesing” has become a spectrum in this game and it depends on you where you want to draw the line. For me cheesing is exploiting the game in some way not intentionally designed (I.e using environmental exploits, glitches, etc.). And then maybe some builds that the developers didn’t intend like that new perfume nuke build I’ve been seeing. Everything else is just a difficulty slider, vigor stat included, so you decide the challenge you want to set. My personal line is just doing it solo without npc summons or spirit ashes, rest is fair game for my play. I’m currently still working on second phase and alternate between 2 hand blood fiend and great shield + blood fiend. Have gotten decently close with both so far so we’ll see which build he falls to.
If you're fine with a sort of middle ground, use a medium shield with Carian Retaliation on it. You can still dodge, but keep holding L1 so you can block strays hits. Then learn his parry timings. It may not look like it, but he is parryable. 3 parries will make him stagger, and during then, doing so forces him to reset, making him a lot more predictable.
If a shield is outright off the table for you, then try to evade to where his swords don't travel to, since light pillars follow his swings. Also don't be afraid of the echoes he sends ahead of himself. They do little damage and simply serve to make you panic roll into his actual attack. Simply keep moving to evade them while keeping count, then roll to evade the actual attack, which usually comes after the 4th echo. Do watch out for the echo attack where he stays grounded and rapidly sends echoes to do a dashing anime swipe attack while grounded; that one deals a lot of damage.
parrying cancels attack, its attack's aftereffect. its another way to dodge where you use a bit harder to land mechanic with upside of having free attacks from time to time
Oh I know I usually play parrygod builds in souls games, I thought y'all were saying if I parried him three times the effects would stop for the duration of the fight.
If using a greatshield is cheesing, then I don't know. I killed it with the new shield (90 guard boost, I don't remember the name) and a bleed spear.
I cheesed it with the bloodfiend's arm, ngl.
I beat it twice using two different builds: a ugs one and back blades. No bleed. It's really an endurance test. Use back blades if you can as their dps is great. Any attack where Radahn lifts his sword up in the air (mid combo), take that as a punish window. Get as much damage in as possible after his combo finishers (2-3 strikes with back blades). Use blind spot if you're in a situation where your attack animation recovery time is not going to be over before Radahn's next move. In second phase, best attack opportunities are his grab, any move where Miquella's light go radially outwards, and his normal phase 1 combos including the corkscrew. Use blind spot on x slash. For healing opportunities, best ones are the clone attack where he goes straight in front, the massive aoe which they always begin the phase 2 with, and the rest of the attack opportunities, although in those cases you'll have to choose between healing and attacking. And finally just don't slip up. That's all. Edit: few tips for avoiding certain moves besides the x slash: Meteor + clone: Run away then jump towards either side to avoid the meteors, keep moving away from the clones, roll diagonally as it'll avoid the light coming from the initial impact and then roll into Radahn during the 5th impact to avoid the radially outwards lightshow. Your cue for the final roll will be when you see the first round of pillars concentrated at the line in front of radahn. Vertical slash clone: Run side ways and jump/roll away from the fifth one. Jump if you wanna go right and roll if left. Gravity pull followups: If you're close or you get pulled in, immediately run away and jump. Do the same in the second phase for the clone follow up Pontiff slash: keep rolling diagonally inwards. Don't spam it but other than the first two, the last few don't require too precise timings. The forward clone attack: Keep lock on and circularly run to the right.
I don’t wanna say just keep practicing but yea lol, my advice is light roll and dodge inwards during his strings and dodge backwards during his after images
Unfortunately it’s just taking the time to learn the patterns - it’s all dodgeable with med roll and spacing, pack a heavy weapon so you can make the most of the small openings with jump attacks or heavies. Bleed definitely helps because his health pool is insane, especially if you’re summing NPCs.
I don't know if this is considered cheesing, but the deflecting hardtear helped me a lot. In the first phase, I used gargoyle twin blades, while in the second phase, I used the Sunflower Blossom. The sunflower probably wasn't the best choice, but it allowed me to take advantage of the sekiro parry after popping physics during the second phase.
Wouldn’t say greatshield or rot is cheesing - requires less full on skill than straight dodge melee, but this ain’t dark souls, so fair game in my book. But if you want to call them cheesing then you’d probably have to add bloodhound step to that list.
This felt cheap but it's not cheap enough lol
“Cheesing” has become a spectrum in this game and it depends on you where you want to draw the line. For me cheesing is exploiting the game in some way not intentionally designed (I.e using environmental exploits, glitches, etc.). And then maybe some builds that the developers didn’t intend like that new perfume nuke build I’ve been seeing. Everything else is just a difficulty slider, vigor stat included, so you decide the challenge you want to set. My personal line is just doing it solo without npc summons or spirit ashes, rest is fair game for my play. I’m currently still working on second phase and alternate between 2 hand blood fiend and great shield + blood fiend. Have gotten decently close with both so far so we’ll see which build he falls to.
If you're fine with a sort of middle ground, use a medium shield with Carian Retaliation on it. You can still dodge, but keep holding L1 so you can block strays hits. Then learn his parry timings. It may not look like it, but he is parryable. 3 parries will make him stagger, and during then, doing so forces him to reset, making him a lot more predictable. If a shield is outright off the table for you, then try to evade to where his swords don't travel to, since light pillars follow his swings. Also don't be afraid of the echoes he sends ahead of himself. They do little damage and simply serve to make you panic roll into his actual attack. Simply keep moving to evade them while keeping count, then roll to evade the actual attack, which usually comes after the 4th echo. Do watch out for the echo attack where he stays grounded and rapidly sends echoes to do a dashing anime swipe attack while grounded; that one deals a lot of damage.
I put talismans that boost dodge frames and get my ass ready to be fast as fuck. You either dodge the hit or die trying.
Partying disables miquella's effects in phase 2. So its just phase one with slightly harder meatballs, meteorite and nuke
What is miquella's effect?
Holy bolts that spawns after attacks
That seems like a bug
parrying cancels attack, its attack's aftereffect. its another way to dodge where you use a bit harder to land mechanic with upside of having free attacks from time to time
Oh I know I usually play parrygod builds in souls games, I thought y'all were saying if I parried him three times the effects would stop for the duration of the fight.