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Part : The ■■ of a ■■

Well, I know we decided to go to Glaivend Basin to search for clues about where Heldalf might be, even though he's almost certainly not *still* there, but I dunno. Maybe I want to poke around a bit. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Wooof, nothing good happening around here lately. This presence can only mean one thing...

(Keep an eye on the map). There's only one red dot near the cliff (not on the path to Rose's Crucible).

Now there's another! Wiggy. That kind of trickery...

Heldalf... We have the spiritual powers, we can operate freely even within his domain... I think it's time we finish this. Broken Light

So, uh...the final boss eh?

This is quite a rumble if you wanna finish the game early. Heldalf is resistant to all four elements, but he's not resistant to Void attacks. You might think that unarmatizing, therefore, is the way to go. I would rather disabuse you of that notion. It is really hard to fight him unarmatized, because he has very high stats and 70k HP, meaning this is not gonna be a quick fight. Remember, armatization also combines the attack and arte attack of the two characters, so it means more damage overall. For obvious reasons, not all of this fight will be in the above video. It was seriously like 35-40 minutes long. This also has to be done by *this* moment in the plot. Much further in the story, particularly a big story moment coming up, and this won't be available.

To beat Heldalf, you'll have to learn how to sidestep his attacks and keep a steady stream of BG coming. This one, Lion's Howl, is quite difficult to sidestep, and frankly, I wouldn't try it.

In spite of my getting hit here, this move is a lot easier to sidestep. Basically, wait for him to slam his fist into the ground, wait about...2 seconds or so, then sidestep. Because this attack hits all around him, not just where the stalagmites are popping up, this will count. You'll get used to the timing eventually. Or at least, I hope so.

What you see here describes about...12-15 minutes of gameplay, just very, very slowly whittling Heldalf down with Water Form, because it's the safest and even despite the fact he resists Water, he still gets staggered a fair bit by it. Once you build up 4 BG and can launch a Mystic Arte, well, why not? Rose is gonna be taking a nice nap for the vast majority of this fight.

Once he's around 50% HP, he'll add in these next two attacks. First one's easy to sidestep after he teleports forward, whereas the other one is also fairly simple to dodge, but it does come out quickly, so be ready. He'll also gradually start getting more aggressive, chaining numerous attacks together, with the reasoning that even if you're good at dodging one, more than that might throw you off. He can also do short teleports forward to surprise you with how much distance he can cover. Just keep it cool. And after another 10-12 minutes...

Oh, he'll also add in Karmic Stance. If he goes into that stance and he takes any kind of hit, including seraphic artes, I believe, he'll throw up a whirlwind around him for damage. Water form hardly has to mind it.

His final attack, when he is *very* low on HP (like, under 10%) is this doozy. Hellfire Release is either harmless or basically impossible to reliably dodge, depending on where you are in relation to him when he begins the animation, assuming you don't stagger him in time. In addition to Heldalf himself charging, the streaks he creates to his left and right will also do a lot of damage, and, as I say, I could never find a consistent time to dodge this one. You also can't block it because it's a red !! attack, so uh... I say just sidestep and hope for the best.

Just to give you an idea of the crazy range of that thing. Still, though, you're so close. Keep it cool, keep yourself healed, and keep doing damage, and you'll beat him eventually. Considering everything up to this point, and this move...beating him back in Biroclef Ridge is even worse than I thought. I have no idea how you even go about it. Remember, you don't even have access to seraphim back then. You also can't heal because of the status effects on you, which also means crippling status effects the entire fight. The only way I could see it happening is if you were playing this on PC, you gave Sorey and Rose max stats, max level, the best equipment, play on Easy, the works. Even then, I wouldn't go to Vegas with odds on you.