Ask why a Radahn attempt fell apart and most players point to the meteor, the homing arrows, or getting overwhelmed mid-fight. Fair guesses — all three do kill people. But the actual first wall for a lot of first-timers isn’t the fight at all. It’s walking into an empty Redmane Castle plaza, because nothing told them the festival needs one of two specific triggers first — and getting the order wrong quietly skips part of Ranni’s questline. Here’s the trigger logic most guides gloss over, the phase 1 and phase 2 breakdown that actually matters mid-fight, and how to keep re-summoning allies from banners scattered across Wailing Dunes long after your first pick has died.
Quick Start: The Radahn Checklist
Do these in order and you skip most first-attempt mistakes:
- Pick one festival trigger on purpose — Altus Plateau grace or Ranni’s questline via Blaidd — see the decision tree below before you commit.
- Come in around Rune Level 65+, after Stormveil Castle and Raya Lucaria Academy — Radahn hits far harder before that point [6].
- Talk to Witch-Hunter Jerren in the Redmane Castle plaza to formally start the fight, not just walk through the arena gate.
- Grab 2–3 NPC summon signs from the plaza banners before stepping through the fog.
- Phase 1: stay mounted on Torrent and track the sky, not the ground, for Gravity Arrows.
- Phase 2 opens at roughly 50% HP with a meteor drop — start moving the instant Radahn vanishes, don’t wait to see where it lands.
- An ally dying isn’t the end of that summon — walk back to its banner and the sign will return.
Why the Festival Won’t Start
Radahn isn’t behind a fog gate you can just walk up to. The Wailing Dunes portal at Redmane Castle stays sealed until the Radahn Festival is active, and only two things flip that switch [1][4].
Reach Altus Plateau. Activating any site of grace on the Plateau or Mt. Gelmir — everything except the graces inside Volcano Manor — starts the festival immediately [4]. Ride Torrent past the pair of giants near the Grand Lift of Dectus exit, hit the nearest grace, and it’s live.
Or progress Ranni’s questline. Working through Ranni’s quest chain eventually leads to Siofra River Well, and informing Blaidd there about Radahn triggers the same festival — no Altus Plateau required [4].
Here’s the part almost no guide flags: these routes aren’t neutral alternatives, they compete for the same content. Trigger the festival via Altus Plateau before you’ve had that conversation with Blaidd, and every prior Blaidd interaction plus the opening stretch of Ranni’s questline gets skipped [7]. If you’re chasing the Age of Stars ending and want the full questline, the decision tree is simple — don’t set foot on Altus Plateau or Mt. Gelmir until you’ve found Blaidd at Siofra River first. Already triggered it the other way? You haven’t softlocked anything. Blaidd still shows up at Redmane Castle for the festival instead of Siofra River, and Ranni’s questline picks back up normally the moment Radahn is dead [7] — you just traded some earlier dialogue for the shortcut.
Are You Ready? Level, Gear, and When Not to Attempt
Radahn is a mid-game checkpoint boss, not an optional curiosity — most guides put the sweet spot around Rune Level 65 and up, reached after clearing Stormveil Castle and Raya Lucaria Academy first [6]. Walk in earlier than that and the fight isn’t just harder, it’s a different math problem: his Gravity Arrows and melee chains both hit hard enough to two- or three-shot an under-leveled build before you’ve learned a single tell.
Gear-wise, there’s no single correct weapon — magic and archery builds get a real edge here because Torrent lets you kite and cast while Radahn closes distance, something melee has to solve by staying glued to his legs instead [6]. Whatever you’re running, don’t attempt this fight without at least one ranged option in your kit; Phase 1’s Gravity Arrows punish anyone standing still to trade melee hits at range.
When not to attempt it: if you’re under Rune Level 60 with no ranged option and no summons queued, back off and grind Caelid or Liurnia first. This fight is built around attrition — yours, the boss’s, and your summons’ — and going in with none of the three stacked in your favor turns a learnable encounter into a coin flip.
Phase 1: Gravity Arrows and the Melee Chains
Radahn opens as an archer, not a swordsman, which catches players expecting a straightforward melee boss off guard. His signature Phase 1 tool is Gravity Arrows — shots that home onto your position and hit hard enough to knock you clean off Torrent if you eat one at range [1]. The counter isn’t distance, it’s movement: keep circling instead of holding a straight line, since the arrows track your position at the moment they’re fired, not your current one.
Once he closes in, Radahn chains up to four consecutive sword strikes in a row [1]. The mistake most players make is dodging the first hit and then panicking through the rest — the safer read is to count the swings and commit your dodge to the last one in the chain, since that’s the strike with the widest, most reactable windup. Getting greedy with damage between hits 1 and 3 is how melee builds eat the chain’s tail end.
The Meteor Phase: Radahn’s Transition and Starcaller Cry
Phase 2 begins once Radahn drops to roughly 50% HP [1][2] — both the Elden Ring Wiki and Eldenpedia agree on that threshold, so treat it as reliable. The transition itself is unmistakable: Radahn leaps, vanishes mid-air, and comes down as what the wiki catalogues as the Meteor Impact attack [2]. The moment he disappears is your cue — don’t wait to spot the landing shadow, just get moving on Torrent, because the impact radius is large enough that reacting to the visual telegraph alone often isn’t fast enough.
Phase 2 layers gravity magic on top of the Phase 1 kit rather than replacing it. Starcaller Cry is the one worth memorizing: Radahn crosses his swords, lets out a roar that pulls everything nearby toward him, and can follow up with a downward slam that detonates in front of him [1]. The pull is the actual danger, not the slam — getting yanked into range means the explosion is now guaranteed to connect. Dodge or sprint away the instant the pull starts rather than waiting to see if the slam follow-up happens. Collapsing Stars works the same way in miniature: gravity orbs that drift toward you and drag you closer the longer you stand near them, so treat any floating orb as a move-now signal, not a wait-and-see one [1].
Summon Cycling: How to Never Run Out of Allies
This is what makes Radahn structurally different from almost every other boss in the game: instead of one Spirit Ash and whatever player summons you brought, eight named NPCs scatter their signs across banners throughout Wailing Dunes, and most of those signs come back after the NPC dies [1]. You’re not managing one life bar of help — you’re managing a rotating roster.
Blaidd the Half-Wolf is the priority pick if he’s available: he brings the highest survivability of the eight and, per a dedicated ranking of the fight’s summons, he will almost always make it all the way to the end of the encounter without dying [3]. Alexander the Warrior Jar is the one exception to the re-summon rule — his sign does not respawn after he falls, and he dies automatically during the phase 2 transition regardless, so treat him as a one-time Phase 1 cooldown-soaker rather than a fight-long ally [1][3]. Finger Maiden Therolina skips combat entirely and casts Great Heal Miracles instead, functioning as a free flask charge if your own healing is running thin [3]. Patches, notoriously, flees the moment he’s summoned and contributes nothing — summon him only if you’re deliberately clearing his sign to make room [3].
One thing worth flagging honestly rather than picking a side: sources disagree on how many summons can be active on the field at once. Eldenpedia states six [2], while a dedicated summons-ranking guide states five [3]. Neither is an obviously more authoritative source than the other on this specific number, so the practical takeaway is the same either way — you’ll always have more than the usual one-summon cap other Elden Ring bosses allow, and running two or three simultaneously is realistic no matter which figure is exactly right. Don’t burn every sign on your first push; hold one or two in reserve near a banner so you’re not caught relying on a single ally through the transition into Phase 2.
Which Approach Fits You
| If you are… | Priority |
|---|---|
| New to the fight | Trigger via Altus Plateau if you’re not deep into Ranni’s quest yet — it’s the faster, simpler path. Summon Blaidd first every time he’s up, and don’t chase damage during his Phase 1 melee chains; just survive them. |
| Casual, want the kill and move on | Stack summons aggressively — Blaidd plus Therolina for sustain covers most of the fight’s damage and healing needs without requiring precise dodge timing on Starcaller Cry. |
| Hardcore / minimizing attempts | Solo or near-solo with a ranged/magic build so you control positioning instead of relying on AI allies; punish the Phase 1 melee chain’s fourth hit specifically, and treat every Collapsing Stars orb as a forced repositioning cue, not optional. |
| Completionist chasing Ranni’s full questline | Trigger only via Blaidd at Siofra River — never activate an Altus Plateau or Mt. Gelmir grace first, or you’ll skip earlier Blaidd content you can’t get back [7]. |
What You Get for Winning
Defeating Starscourge Radahn pays out 70,000 runes, the Remembrance of the Starscourge, and Radahn’s Great Rune [1] — one of the handful of Great Runes the game requires before the endgame. The Remembrance trades at the Roundtable Hold for either the Starscourge Greatswords or the Lion Greatbow, covering both a melee and ranged build option depending on which reward you’d rather build around.
FAQ
Can I trigger the festival by accident while exploring?
Yes — this is the most common way players end up confused about their Ranni questline progress. Any site of grace on Altus Plateau or Mt. Gelmir (Volcano Manor’s graces excluded) starts the festival the moment you activate it [4], even if you were just passing through. If you’re specifically trying to preserve Ranni’s earlier Blaidd content, treat every unfamiliar grace on the Plateau as a trap until you’ve had that Siofra River conversation.
Do I need to fight Radahn to finish Ranni’s questline?
Yes, and there’s no way around it — his death is a hard gate for the Age of Stars ending regardless of which trigger route you used to reach the fight. The only thing the trigger order changes is how much of Blaidd’s earlier dialogue you see beforehand, not whether the fight itself is mandatory.
Is it worth summoning Alexander if his sign won’t come back?
Situationally, yes. He hits harder than most of the roster and can soak a Phase 1 combo that would otherwise land on you, even knowing he’s a one-time use before the Phase 2 transition kills him automatically [1][3]. Treat him as a Phase 1 cooldown-eater, not a fight-long teammate, and you won’t be caught off guard when his sign doesn’t reappear.
Why do guides disagree on the maximum number of active summons?
Because the two most detailed sources on this specific fight genuinely disagree — Eldenpedia lists six active at once, a dedicated summons-ranking guide lists five [2][3]. Rather than presenting one as fact, the honest move is what actually matters for strategy: either number is well above the single-summon limit most other Elden Ring bosses allow, so the real takeaway — keep more than one ally alive at a time — holds regardless of which exact figure is correct.
Sources
- Starscourge Radahn — Elden Ring Wiki (Fextralife)
- Starscourge Radahn — Eldenpedia (eldenring.wiki.gg/wiki/Starscourge_Radahn)
- Ranking The Summons In The Starscourge Radahn Fight — TheGamer
- Redmane Castle — Elden Ring Wiki (Fextralife)
- How do you start the Radahn Festival in Elden Ring? — Dot Esports
- Elden Ring: How To Beat Starscourge Radahn — DualShockers
- Blaidd — Elden Ring Wiki (Fextralife)
Verified against current live-service Elden Ring mechanics as of August 2026. FromSoftware has not issued base-game balance changes to Starscourge Radahn recently — the patch activity affecting a boss with a similar name applies only to Promised Consort Radahn, the separate Shadow of the Erdtree DLC final boss, not this fight.
I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.