The first pinnacle boss of Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is Rellana, Twin Moon Knight, an elite fallen Carian princess that now serves Messmer. After fighting through Castle Ensis, you’ll begin the perilous showdown against Rellana’s dual greatswords.
This is the first challenging encounter in Shadow of the Erdtree, so here is how to beat Rellana, Twin Moon Knight, and some tips to survive the encounter.
Where to find Rellana, Twin Moon Knight in Shadow of the Erdtree
You can find Rellana, Twin Moon Knight at the end of Castle Ensis. After getting around the hammer-wielding Great Black Knight and going up the lift, you will reach the Castle-Lord’s Chamber Site of Grace.
From here, head up the stairs to the right and you will see the Rellana fog gate immediately to your right.
Rellana, Twin Moon Knight boss strategy
Let’s start with the obvious recommendation. If you’re having trouble with Rellana, you can always level up or find and consume more Scadutree Fragments and Revered Spirit Ashes. This will overall increase the damage you do while negating some of Rellana’s damage.
With the obvious suggestions out of the way, let’s dive into Rellana and her moveset so you know how best to deal with her. Rellana is a two-phase encounter, so we will break down each phase separately. It’s also important to note that by default, Rellana has high Magic Defense, making this a challenging encounter for pure magic users. However, she is weak to Lightning Damage, so feel free to use spells like Lightning Spear, Lightning Strike, and Honed Bolt. This is the best way to beat Rellana, Twin Moon Knight in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree:
Rellana Phase 1 Strategy
In Phase 1, Rellana focuses primarily on her fluid melee attacks with her dual-wielding Light Greatswords. Most of her attacks in Phase 1 are sweeping and slashing combos, meaning she will dash toward you, slash, and then roll into a sweeping attack or two.
The best way to counter her Phase 1 melee attacks is to dodge behind her while she executes these combos, as the follow-up attacks will not be able to easily connect with you. Her sweeping combos can quickly become overwhelming, so if you attack Rellana while she’s in her combo, make sure it’s a quick attack, and then you get back to dodging.
Most of her melee combos alternate between each weapon as Rellana slashes at you, but all end in a final swing where she swings or thrusts both of her Light Greatswords at you. Use this to your advantage to know when best to focus on dodging and when to take the opportunity to try and get an attack in.
Alongside her melee attacks, Rellana also has two abilities:
Glintstone Arc
When there is some distance between you and Rellana, she will briefly channel and then slash her sword, sending a Magic Damage-dealing Glintstone Arc at you. Her Glintstone Arc has two forms: one, in which she slashes once and sends a larger and wider Glintstone Arc at you, as seen above. Her other, she slashes three times quickly that sends three pulses of thinner Glintstone Arcs at you.
Thankfully, you can simply roll through the Glintstone Arc to negate taking damage from it. When Rellana sends slashes a Glintstone Arc your way, dodge roll forward through the Glintstone Arc to avoid damage and set up the opportunity to followup with a counter attack.
Glintblade Phalanx
Rellana has another ability that she can use in Phase 1, called Glintblade Phalanx. Like Glintstone Arc, there are two variations of Glintblade Phalanx. The first variation of Glintblade Phalanx occurs when Rellana makes a downward arc motion across her legs. This causes Rellana to summon Glintblades that immediately fire at your location.
The second variation is when Rellana makes the arc across her chest instead of her legs, summoning the Glintblades. The blades hover near here for a brief period of time before firing at you. She often follows this up by dashing into a melee combo, so it’s best to wait until you completely avoid the Glintblades before countering Rellana.
Rellana will occasionally cast both variations in quick succession, which immediately sends Glintblades at you, followed by another wave shortly after.
Rellana Phase 2 Strategy
As Rellana enters Phase 2, she imbues her Light Greatswords with Magic and Fire. As she weaves her sweeping combos, she will occasionally imbue her left-hand sword with Fire which she follows up with spinning explosive attacks. You’ll want to make sure to dodge through this combo as if you’re hit, it can be difficult to recover before dying.
She can also imbue her right-hand sword with Magic, causing her to perform two full 360-degree sweeps before slamming the Light Greatsword down at you. The attack animation hits pretty much the entire arena, so you’ll need to perfectly time your dodge roll through this attack.
Twin Moons
In Phase 2, Rellana also gets a new ability called Twin Moons. When this is cast, Rellana summons two orb-like moons that float into the air before smashing down at you creating two massive Area of Effect (AoE) explosions. Immediately after, Rellana also crashes down at the same location dealing massive follow-up damage.
This is a pretty annoying ability to deal with. When you see Rellana casting Twin Moons, your best bet is to quickly run away from her and the Twin Moons, that way you can better see and time your ability to dodge roll through all of the blasts from this attack.
Rellana boss fight tips
Here are some extra tips to assist you with the Rellana boss fight in Shadow of the Erdtree:
- Don’t bother summoning the two NPCs, Dryleaf Dane or Needle Knight Leda. Neither of these summons deals much damage and is quickly disposed of by Rellana. However, summoning them greatly increases Rellana’s Health which can make the encounter much more challenging as opposed to easier.
- Collect to Scadutree Fragments. Rellana is the first formidable foe you will encounter in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree. Don’t be afraid to go and collect some Scadutree Fragments to boost your damage against Rellana and decrease the damage she does to you.
- You can parry Rellana’s Light Greatsword combos. If you are good at parrying, you can actually learn the parry timing on her melee combos. If you’re able to parry her successfully twice, Rellana becomes vulnerable to a follow-up Critical Attack.
