Romina, Saint of the Bud is a mandatory boss in Shadow of the Erdtree.
Overview[]
Romina is one of the many victims of Messmer the Impaler's crusade throughout the Realm of Shadow, with her church being burned to the ground.[1] During that time, she held the Bud in speechless and in silence.
Afterwards, she discovered a divine, but twisted element and weaved it into the Scarlet Rot.[2] Through unknown means, she transformed into a parasitic creature, a hybrid of a centipede, scorpion and butterfly, while the Bud she held was converted into a poleblade that became Romina's signature weapon.
Boss Fight[]
Romina is not an optional boss as it must be defeated in order to burn the Sealing Tree and reach Enir-Ilim.
Phase One[]
Romina is a distinctive opponent whose weaponry are her poleblade, centipede fangs and a scorpion stinger. It is important to have a balanced strategy of both offense and defense but it is advantageous to be more aggressive in battle.
When fighting her, focus on her central human body as well as her centipede fangs and scorpion stinger, which act as her arms. These parts move independently, allowing her to launch multiple simultaneous attacks, such as swinging her spear while her stinger strikes from another direction. Her attacks include Heavy Spear Thrusts, Sweeping Stinger strikes, and Biting Fangs.
However, her most common opening move is her Centipede Sweep, where the centipede part of her body will swing from right to left. It can be dodged by rolling forward. This will let you get close to Romina to deliver a full heavy attack. However, you have to be aware that she may follow up by dashing quickly and swing her poleblade, which can be avoided by rolling to the left or backwards.
- Stay as close as possible to Romina, as some of her sweep attacks won't hit you at point-blank range. Being near her also makes her attack pattern more predictable. For instance, after her usual opening attack, closing the distance with a dodge roll will cause her follow-up attack to miss if you are right beside her.
It is important to always look at Romina's poleblade, as when it glows red, this shows that it has become enchanted with Scarlet Rot. If hit with the enchanted weapon, it will cause a Scarlet Rot build-up. Always be wary of her weapon status. One of the combos that she does with her enchanted weapon, is the Leap Combo where she starts with a poleblade sweep, an overhead attack, and then she jumps high in the air, and then plunges her weapon down. In order to dodge this, you can either:
- Roll to your left for a sweep attack
- Roll forward (slightly forward to your right) when she wings the overhead attack.
- Pay attention when Romina's poleblade will flash pink for a brief moment then roll forward at that exact moment.
When the leap combo is dodged properly, you can deliver a couple of free hits while she recovers. This combo also has a variation where Romina would skip the 3rd part of the attack and will just do an enchanted weapon combo. She also has another basic move where she makes 3 quick sweepingmovements with her poleblade without enchantments. Finally, she can also do the Rolling Attack where she will curl up into a ball, and then roll around the arena. After she finishes rolling, she will then slam the ground and do a swing with her poleblade. This can be initially avoided by getting out of her way by either dodging or sprinting away. Lock the camera onto her to see where she is going. At the end of the roll, roll to the right to dodge both of her attacks. Then, you can retaliate with a heavy attack.
After she finishes a combo, quickly counterattack to take advantage of the time where she will be briefly vulnerable. While powerful, her attacks have high recovery times, allowing you to dodge and immediately counter. When she begins a combo, dodge her attacks by rolling to the side or towards her to close the distance. Immediately after dodging, counter with heavy attacks to break her poise. Frequent usage of jumping and heavy attacks is recommended as it can stagger her, leaving her open to further attacks.
One of her special moves is the Double Spin 360 Combo, where she will lift up her human body as her weapon glows red, and will do 2 full spins while swinging her poleblade. After performing this move, she will pause to recover. This move can be dodged by rolling to the left, then dodging to the left again after a slight delay. This move usually causes Romina to end up at a far position from you, but she will take time to recover and you can do at least 1 light attack or a jump attack if you sprint up to her.
Phase Two[]
After her health drops to 50%, she will immediately transition to her second phase; her attacks remain the same, but she now has the ability to conjure butterflies that will explode like bombs after a short period. She will be seen with pink butterflies circling around her, and after a brief period will cause a whirlwind in the small arena. Romina then follow up this move with more butterflies in the outer area of the whirlwind that will randomly explode throughout the area. To dodge this move, start sprinting away as her body lights up with pink hue, then, if you can outrun the AoE, you can just stand at the edge and you will not get hit. If you get caught, you can spam roll until you get out of the AoE. As the fight goes on, Romina will likely redo this move again, but with a shorter preparation. So you will need to react quicker to get out of the exploding butterflies.
Romina at first seems like you must wait and punish with a typical melee build. She has a glaring weakness of being weak to animations that shift the players' hurt box down to low profile common moves she performs, such as her double glowing spear lunge and swipe move. A perfect example I found was using Dryleaf Arts, the Heavy attack naturally low profiles many of her spear-swiping moves. During my run I found it more beneficial to be aggressive rather than defensive, staying on her inner right side up front will negate a lot of her attacks with a dodge as needed. I ran frost to add the slow to her animations which was a plus but not needed in fighting her. The low profiling and staying on the offensive to break stance to heal as needed or deal big damage was enough.
Dialogue[]
Gallery[]
Notes[]
- Romina's appearance is a possible call-back to arachnid-centaur women in previous FromSoftware games: Quelaag and Najka from the Dark Souls series.
- With her title of Saint, poleblade, and pale complexion, Romina is also reminiscent of Aldrich.
- The chanting in Romina's boss soundtrack is reminiscent to that of Malenia's in Phase Two.[3]
- Romina is the only mandatory boss in Shadow of the Erdtree to have no cutscene nor dialogue.
- In the game's internal files, she is named "ScarletCorruptionWarrior".[4]
- Romina has cut dialogue, which is fully voiced.[5]
References[]