Nintendo and Intelligent Systems have just released the new Cindered Shadows story DLC for Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Aside from just new story content, players will also get to play around with four new brand new characters and classes, and test their mettle in a series of tough battles. Here’s how to beat the Umbral Beast final boss in Fire Emblem Cindered Shadows.
Beating the Umbral Beast Final Boss in Fire Emblem Cindered Shadows
The final boss of the Cindered Shadows story DLC is none other than an Umbral Beast, a terrifying monster that can hit multiple allies at once, and easily one-shot your weaker teammates. If you’re not careful, it can also recover at least 20 HP each turn, dragging this battle out even further.
Not to worry, though, if you have a good strategy in place, you’ll be able to take out the final boss pretty easily.
At the start of the battle, the Umbral Beast will be situated right in the middle of the battlefield while your allies will start at the south.
The final boss follows a very set pattern: it’ll attack someone on its first turn, then it’ll use an AoE attack to hit anyone in its vicinity before teleporting to a random spot in the room. In addition to that, three illusory Aelfrics will spawn at the start of each enemy phase and if you don’t destroy them within your next phase, they’ll each restore 20 HP to the boss.
With that in mind, you have two main objectives for each phase. The first is to have your team take out all three Aelfrics so that the boss can’t heal up. After that, you need to have one teammate use a Gambit on the boss to get its attention. Finally, you need to move everyone out of harm’s way before the AoE attack.
Even though they don’t have a ton of HP, the illusions can be very dangerous if you don’t take them out with one hit. In our playthrough of Fire Emblem Cindered Shadows, we found that our magic users weren’t very effective against the illusions as they couldn’t take him out reliably with one attack, causing them to incur more damage.
Melee attackers are most effective against Aelfric, so characters like Byleth, Dimitri, Edelgard, Hilda, and Balthus will work great. That said, it can also be worth your time to have your magic users take out the illusions, as each one drops a Concoction upon death.
Concoctions and Vulneraries are pretty important in this fight as it can drag on for a while, and you most certainly won’t be able to heal everyone up reliably with just Linhardt, Balthus, and Yuri. Make sure everyone has at least one or two healing items on them.
As for using a Gambit on the final boss, any character with a high enough health pool will do. The final boss will usually deal about 30 damage, so as long as your character can survive that initial hit, and have enough time to move out of the AoE strike zone in the next phase, anyone will do. Yuri could also be a good pick if you’re feeling particularly brave; while his health pool isn’t that high, he has a good chance of dodging most attacks so he won’t even have to waste a turn healing up.
Using Gambits is vital here, as you’ll instantly break one armor tile, allowing the rest of your units to deal extra damage to that broken tile. Ashe and Claude can easily hit the weak spot at a distance, though you’ll need to be ready to heal them up after that.
Once this turn is up, the final boss will charge up its AoE attack, and you’ll need to get your squishier characters out of the strike zone in that same turn. The AoE attack will deal up to 20 damage to each character, so if your stronger melee attackers have enough health, you can actually have them continue to attack the boss in that turn, and tank the AoE attack before healing up later.
After the AoE attack, the boss will randomly spawn in another corner of the room, and the pattern will repeat until you take out all three of its health bars. The most crucial thing to take note in this battle is killing the illusions as soon as possible for your Concoctions, and using the Gambits to quickly break a tile. Keep at it, and you’ll eventually whittle its health down to zero.
That’s all you need to know about how to beat the final boss in Fire Emblem Cindered Shadows. Be sure to search for Twinfinite or check our guide wiki for more tips and information on the game. If you’re wondering how to unlock Abyss or start the actual DLC itself, we’ve got you covered as well.
