Genshin Impact - How to beat Raiden Shogun (weekly boss)

Raiden Shogun is one of the most popular playable characters in Genshin Impact, who doubles up as a boss who can be fought on multiple occasions. Her Electro attacks, coupled with her ability to quickly zap around the arena make her a formidable opponent.

Once Raiden Shogun’s story quests are completed, she can be repeatedly fought as a weekly challenge underneath Narukami Shrine. Naturally, Raiden Shogun remains a challenging foe who can easily one-shot your characters with certain attacks. However, with the right approach she is definitely beatable, allowing you to snag some neat weekly rewards.

Here’s our full Raiden Shogun boss guide, explaining exactly how to beat Raiden Shogun in Genshin Impact.

How the Raiden Shogun boss fight works

The first step of our Raiden Shogun boss guide is to explain exactly how this battle transitions from one part to the next.

Raiden Shogun has various different phases, which will recycle when certain conditions are met. Here’s how the phases work:

Phase 1 is her human phase where Raiden Shogun will alternate between Sword and Polearm attacks

During this phase, a small circular rage meter will gradually fill up underneath her health bar regardless of how much damage is done
Phase 2 will activate when the circular meter is full, turning Raiden Shogun into the Baleful Shadowlord form
During this phase, Raiden Shogun will have a new purple shield meter which gets depleted by her taking damage or attacking you. Eventually it will deplete on its own but it’s quicker if you also deal her some damage

When the shield is broken, Raiden is stunned for a long time giving you a lengthy period to attack
Raiden Shogun will then revert to phase 1 (Sword/Polearm attacks) and the rage meter will start building up again. If you have not beaten her by the time it fills, she will return to the Baleful Shadowlord form

Usually the battle will be won when Raiden is stunned after the Baleful Shadowlord form, or during her second Sword/Polearm phase. However, it’s technically possible for these phases to keep recycling over and over.

Best party to beat Raiden Shogun

The party you choose is largely going to depend on who you have pulled in the gacha system. It’s therefore a bit pointless recommending individual characters. Instead, we suggest the following:

Your main DPS can be any element, but we recommend a character who has ranged attacks
A healer to keep your health topped up due to Raiden Shogun’s dangerous attacks

A Cryo character to help whittle down Raiden Shogun’s shield during the Baleful Shadowlord phase
An Electro character to destroy Flowers of Remembrance in the second phase and prevent a one-hit kill

All of these conditions can be satisfied with a F2P team, but if you are using the gacha system there are many five-star characters who will be most effective. Raiden Shogun herself is a terrific character to use, acting as a strong DPS with the Electro element.

How to beat Raiden Shogun in Genshin Impact

Raiden will start with either a Sword or Polearm, which each have a handful of different attacks. Regardless of which weapon she begins with, Raiden will zip around the arena, teleporting next to you and attacking. Here are the main things to keep in mind if you are going to take down Raiden Shogun.

During Phase 1, keep your distance and briefly counter

Raiden Shogun has a lot of melee attacks that have a wide area of effect. She will tend to strike quickly, and follow up with combos that cover a large area around her.

Not only that, but Raiden Shogun also strikes with many different projectiles. Generally, these are simple enough to avoid as long as you are relatively far away and can see them coming.

Aside from a few specific attacks, your general approach should be to back off her until you can see she has fully completed her attack animation. This will give you a chance to move in and strike a few hits before quickly dashing backwards out of her melee range.

She can teleport close to you when you get out of range, so stay on the move and get ready to dodge. When you avoid her initial melee attacks, always dash a few more times to make sure her AOE lightning storms don’t reach you either.

Attack the dummy that shoots the X-shaped attack

When Raiden splits into four, they will all start blasting projectiles at you. To deal with this, you must attack the real Raiden Shogun a few times.

You can tell her apart because her sword-projectile will be X-shaped whereas the others will be normal vertical slashes. Quickly pan the camera as they attack so you can see which is the right one. Moe quickly and attack them repeatedly to bring an end to this attack. The correct shape is depicted in the picture above.

As a bonus, this will also stun Raiden Shogun for a considerable period of time. Let loose with your Elemental Reactions and you will be able to take off a chunk of Raiden Shogun’s health bar.

Don’t get greedy because she can easily catch you in a counter-attack when she recovers.

Destroy Magatsu Electroculi quickly

There will be multiple occasions when sizzling orbs called Magatsu Electroculi will appear on the floor with a large ring that indicates massive AOE damage is about to hit. This hurts a lot, and you must destroy the orb to prevent the attack. This can be done with a character of any element, so switch to your quickest party member and take it out.

On the first occasion, there will only be one orb to worry about. However, next time there will be three. You will not have enough time to destroy all three orbs so just destroy one of them and then stay out of the purple circles to avoid the explosions from the other two.

When there is only one orb, the attack will be followed by another brief period of stun where you can damage Raiden Shogun considerably.

During Phase 2, focus on survival

When Raiden Shogun’s rage meter has filled (which will happen automatically, even if you aren’t dealing damage) she will transform into the Baleful Shadowlord. This changes up her attack patterns and grants her a purple shield bar below her health.

Her defence will be considerably boosted so you will not deal much damage. Instead, your objective now is to reduce the purple shield bar. The shield meter will slowly deplete on its own when she attacks you, but will also be reduced if you land some hits yourself. This is a good time for your Cryo character, who will be more effective at whittling down the shield.

I would recommend continuing to dash away from her and keep your distance, so you can quickly move away from her slashes and AOE follow-ups. Other than Raiden’s general attacks, you’ll need to watch out for a couple of hands that crush you and several other Electro blasts that cause circular attack indicators on the floor.

As long as you are dashing a lot whist keeping an eye on the floor, you should be able to dodge these.

Counter her downward sword slash and stay behind her

Your best chance to hit back in phase 2 will come when Raiden Shogun lines up the ranged sword attack that creates a wide purple line on the floor to indicate where it will strike.

As long as you are keeping your distance, this is another fairly easy one to avoid as the attack takes a while. Get to the side of it and flank Raiden Shogun, getting behind her. If you are fast enough you will have a good chance to get in a few hits. She will likely follow up with some melee swipes, but if you stay behind her and keep dashing around, you can actually avoid these and land a flurry of your own attacks.

As always, don’t get too greedy and focus on surviving this phase. The shield meter will keep coming down of its own accord as long as you hang in there. If you are struggling to read her attacks, then simply wait for this one for your sole opportunity to strike and otherwise keep dodging everything else.

Break the Flowers of Remembrance with Electro attacks

When Raiden absorbs energy and disappears, a Flower of Remembrance will appear and a message will prompt you to destroy it with Electro attacks. If you do not destroy it in time, it will likely be a one-hit kill.

Immediately switch to your Electro character and smash the Flower as quickly as possible. This will create a shield around you which will block Raiden Shogun’s devastating attack. Unfortunately, Raiden will not be stunned after this.

There isn’t a huge amount of time to destroy the Flower of Remembrance, but Electro will do the job quickly. You’ll also get a decent amount of warning as Raiden Shogun absorbs the energy for a while before the Flower of Remembrance appears.

Jump and dash to avoid the Electro rings

When Raiden Shogun’s purple shield bar is nearly depleted, one of her final moves of this phase will usually be to summon three enormous Electro spears, which will fire energy rings along the floor. Attacking Raiden Shogun whilst the spears are present is ill-advised, since it’s so important to keep an eye on the energy being shot from the spears.

These do a lot of damage, but you can avoid them by either dodging through them or jumping over them. Get as far away from Raiden as possible and the first few rings are quite easy to dodge. This is with the exception of the final attack, when all three spears will shoot energy at the same time.

The best way to avoid these is to dash through the first ring before immediately leaping over the next one. This should move you forward far enough to avoid all three rings together. If you survive, the purple shield is usually nearly gone by this point. Hang in there and get ready to strike.

Attack her immediately after her Baleful Shadowlord form

Once Raiden Shogun’s shield has been fully depleted and you have survived the three electric swords, she will be stunned for nearly 20 seconds! You will also regain all of your energy and Raiden’s defence will be reduced.

This is your chance to finish her off. Even if she is on half-health, you should have a chance of completely blasting down her health bar. Throw the kitchen sink at her with as many Elemental Reactions as possible.

If you fail to finish her, then she will simply revert to the same attack patterns as the first phase. As mentioned above, Raiden’s rage meter will start building again so you should try to finish her before it fills up. The last thing you will want is to deal with the Baleful Shadowlord phase again.

Repeat the same tactics as the first phase to whittle down the final part of her health bar and complete the challenge. Wait for the dummies and the Magatsu Electroculi which will prompt her to be stunned again when you destroy them.

Can you beat Raiden Shogun with a F2P team?

Yes. You can definitely take down Raiden Shogun with free-to-play characters only. I would recommend these characters you should use:

Traveler (Geo) as your main DPS, using ranged Geo attacks

Lisa (Electro) as your healer who will also break Flower of Remembrance
Xiangling (Pyro) as another DPS option who is quicker at destroying Magatsu Electroculi
Kaeya (Cryo) as an optional shield depletion character for the second phase

Geo Traveler is a solid character to use here, as they have the ability to strike from range. Xiangling is also a strong damage-dealer who can take out the Magatsu Electroculi orbs and deal damage when Raiden Shogun is stunned.

Lisa will need to be substituted in to destroy the Flower of Remembrance in the second phase, but otherwise can heal when needed. Meanwhile, Kaeya can use his Cryo attacks during the Baleful Shadowlord phase. However, this is not strictly necessary if you are more comfortable with Xiangling or Geo Traveler.

With four different elements covered, you will still be able to inflict the main Elemental Reactions during the stages where Raiden Shogun is stunned.

Conclusion

Beating Raiden Shogun is all about keeping your distance and staying out of her range as much as possible. Stay on the move, keep a close eye on the attack indicators and deal the bulk of your damage when Raiden is stunned.

With the right setup, you should be able to combat her most dangerous attacks and deal significant damage when she is incapacitated. Keep chipping away as you counter her standard combos, but never get too greedy as she can quickly spring back into action and seriously hurt you.

That’s how to beat Raiden Shogun in Genshin Impact. She is a formidable foe, but like any boss she can be defeated by learning her attack patterns and knowing when to strike back. For more Genshin Impact tips and guides, check out the content below.