Bloodborne: Shadow of Yharnam boss strategy

This article explains how to kill Shadow of Yharnam in Bloodborne, following on from Cainhurst Summons and unlock more runes.

If you're interested in more advice, our complete Bloodborne walkthrough and for the DLC our The Old Hunters guide and walkthrough can help.

This next boss battle with the Shadow of Yharnam features a trio of dark clerics. One of these guys prefers to use magic in battle and will shoot fireballs at you. For the majority of the fight, this attack will consist of three such projectiles being fired in a conal area right in front of the boss - occasionally a single one will be fired directly ahead. The next cleric uses a sword to deliver fairly primitive attacks, while the final cleric has a sword, a candle, and the ability to also fire off magical attacks.

How to kill the Shadow of Yharnam

The most important thing to do if you want to survive this fight is to keep moving, as it frustrates the attacks of all three opponents. Avoid locking on to your target altogether, or - if you must - just focus on the magical user so you can spot projectiles coming your way. As long as you're moving around and dodging the ranged damage and the boss itself, you should be fine.

Just be aware that when one of these clerics die, the other two will gain power. The guy with the sword, for example, is granted greater melee striking range, followed by the power to summon snakes when his second friend dies. The trick is to get each of them down to a little bit of health each, before killing the three of them as quickly as possible.

If you're struggling to keep each enemy's health even with the rest, focus on killing the main magical guy first, then the cleric with the candle, and then the remaining enemy holding the sword. It's a lot easier to dodge this latter cleric's sword swipes when he's juiced up, but don't wait too long to kill him - he'll keep summoning more and more snakes as long as he's alive.

However you choose to approach this fight, just keep moving at all times, but remain close enough that you can deliver an attack when you have the stamina to do so. You should aim to have your stamina bar at around 50 per cent full when going in for an assault, so you can do some meaningful damage during these opportunities.

It's worth packing a fast weapon for this fight too, as you only have a small window of opportunity to get your damage in. Slower weapons just take too long to connect - it's a decent challenge though if you fancy making things harder for yourself!

Once you've finished killing all three of the clerics, you'll be rewarded with the Blood Rapture rune. When you equip this, all of your critical attacks with grant you 200 HP - not bad. Make sure you light up the Forbidden Grave lamp in the centre of this area, then go through the door and along the path.

Just keep your eyes peeled for what's going on to your right as you travel a long. When you get to a brick wall, you'll be attacked by a Tree Mutant after passing the next tree along. It's not a particularly tricky fight, but it's worth being prepared for it nevertheless. Keep heading along the path, take the Madman's Knowledge from the corpse, then switch on the Byrgenwerth lamp before entering the new region.

- Our walkthrough continues with a guide to surviving the Byrgenwerth region of Bloodborne.

- Return to the index page for more sections of our Bloodborne guide.

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