How I Beat Every Major Boss in God of War Ragnarok: Armor Picks, Loadouts & Timing

The first time I fought the Berserker King I lasted maybe thirty seconds. His opening combo caught me mid-dodge, the ground slam deleted my health bar, and I sat there staring at the reload screen wondering what just happened.

That was on Normal.

After 200 hours across both PS5 and PC, I've fought everything this game throws at you, sometimes badly, sometimes competently. Here's what I learned about each major boss, what gear I used, and the timing tricks that actually matter.

Hrolf Kraki is not a boss. He's twelve bosses stacked in a trench coat.

The Berserker King has twelve phases and each one introduces a new attack pattern layered on top of the previous ones. By phase 8 he's spamming a stomp that deals massive damage and the only reliable counter is freezing him mid-animation with the Leviathan Axe's Frost Awaken (hold R2).

The stomp has a visible two-second windup, he lifts his left foot higher than his right, which sounds like a stupid detail but that visual cue is the difference between dodging early and dodging late. Dodge left, never right. His follow-up swing has wider tracking on the right side.

I ran the Steinbjorn Armor Set for this fight. The chest piece drops from Slaguth (a level 5 mini-boss in The Crater, Vanaheim, you need four dragon claws to craft it). Each piece gives 90 defense and 15% health regen on hit. The chest perk, "Rage of the Fallen," heals 8% of your max HP per Runic attack landed. During this fight I was healing roughly 1,200 HP per combo, enough to straight-up ignore about 70% of his chip damage.

For the relic, Hilt of Forsbrandr. You get it from a favor in Alfheim. It slows time after a parry, and since Hrolf telegraphs his blue-ring attacks with a distinct shoulder dip, you should be parrying constantly. Parry the first three hits of his seven-move combo, pop the relic, and unload a full Runic rotation during the slow-mo window.

Spartan Rage timing is everything. Save it for phase 8. That's when he introduces the ground pound spam. If you've burned your rage before then, you're dead. I went with Wrath, the single-target burst variant, because it interrupts his stomp windup instantly.

One weird thing that helped: his hitbox on the unblockable spin is not a full circle. If you dodge toward his left shoulder (your right), you'll phase through it. Counterintuitive but it works maybe 80% of the time.

Gna tests your patience more than your reflexes

The Valkyrie Queen sits at level 9 with roughly 40,000 HP on Normal. She teleports constantly and mixes melee sweeps with bifrost projectiles that stack a purple health debuff. If that debuff fills up, your health bar turns purple and the next hit kills you regardless of how much HP you had.

Radiance Armor is specifically designed for this fight. You get it from completing all six Muspelheim trials, it's 75 defense per piece with 25% faster sprint speed and 10% bifrost resistance. The full set cuts bifrost buildup by about 60%, which means a full projectile volley that would normally purple-bar you now leaves you with half the debuff bar.

Her bifrost attacks have a pattern: she fires three projectiles in sequence, and the third one homes slightly. Block the first two with the Dauntless Shield, dodge the third. During her cooldown window after the third shot, use the Blades of Chaos with the Whiplash Runic, hits for around 4,500 damage when your Runic stat is above 200.

When she goes airborne, don't shoot arrows. She has a counterattack that triggers specifically on projectile hits while she's in the air. Wait until she lands, then engage.

Her wing sweep is unblockable but has a 1.5-second telegraph, she pulls her right wing back further than the left. Dodge forward through it, not backward. If you dodge backward she clips you with the follow-through.

My kill time was about four and a half minutes with the Steinbjorn set (I value survival over speed). Could be faster with Surtr's Scorched but one missed dodge ends the run.

Odin is more about arena awareness than raw damage

The final boss has roughly 250,000 HP across his phases. His fire circles deal area damage and his raven summons swarm you if you don't clear them fast.

The Draupnir Spear is the key here. When he summons ravens, throw spears into the ground in their flight path and detonate (hold R2 for two seconds). The wind explosion clears the entire wave in one go. Way faster than trying to shoot them down with arrows.

Before this fight, if you've collected all 48 Odin's Ravens, you unlock the Raven's Gaze relic which deals 5,000 damage to Odin every 15 seconds. That's 20,000 free damage per minute, almost 10% of his health bar just from the relic. I cannot overstate how much this trivializes the fight.

His ultimate attack is a full-arena AOE. Surtr's Scorched Armor from Muspelheim gives enough fire resistance to survive it with about 30% health remaining. If you're running a squishier set, you need to interrupt the windup with a Runic attack, Hel's Touch on the axe has a fast enough animation to land before the fire lands.

The early bosses nobody talks about

Bjorn (the bear at the start) teaches you a lesson the game never explicitly states: dodging sideways beats dodging backward every single time. He charges three times in phase one. Dodge left on the first charge, hit his flank during the two-second recovery window. At 50% health he roars, that roar is unblockable but the Guardian Shield's parry stuns him for four seconds if you time it right.

The Huntress in Alfheim teleports every five seconds. A green shimmer appears at her destination about half a second before she materializes. Throw the axe at that shimmer and you'll interrupt her reappearance, leaving her staggered for a full combo.

Most boss guides focus on the endgame fights, but honestly? If you learn the parry timing on Bjorn and the teleport-tracking on The Huntress, the rest of the game's combat rhythm clicks into place.

And don't sleep on your shield upgrades. They're cheap, Hacksilver and a few common mats, and a leveled shield makes more difference than five armor levels. The Dauntless Shield at max level has a parry window that feels like easy mode compared to the base version.