Lies of P Boss Guide: How to beat King Of Puppets & Romeo

Boss Fight – King of Puppets

The King of Puppets is a tough foe and it has some pretty nasty attacks. It’s very weak to electric, so using your Fulminis Legion Arm, especially if you can upgrade it to do extra damage, is a definite bonus. Furthermore, any Electric Blitz you can add to your blade will be an additional bonus to chip away at its health.

Don’t use the Specter straight away either. Although it’s tempting, and we can farm Star Fragments from Malum District, the ingenuity with these games comes from learning the boss moves and reacting accordingly. It’s also very good practice for some of the fights ahead because there are some horrific monsters we need to fight later on.

For King of Puppets, it’ll almost always start the fight with two or three spinning punches down into the ground, one after the other. It’ll turn twice and then slam the floor with its right fist. It’ll pause for a second or so, and then do the same with its left fist, then either the left or right fist again.

Dodge-roll through these and slash once or twice, but it may take a while to get the timing right.

It also has straightforward swipes across the ground, and a wind-up punch where it’ll draw back and then slap forward with its fist. It also tends to move around the battlefield, using its two Doc Ock-esque claws to spring up and move around the arena.

King of Puppets also has a few special moves. The first comes from a spinning electric attack, where it’ll turn its body around, creating a tornado and then sending a shockwave out.

When King of Puppets hits 50% health, it’ll start to be a bit more aggressive, momentarily turning into a huge vacuum for a special shockwave blast.

It’ll also start moving around the battlefield faster, using its tentacles more to swipe the ground. If that wasn’t bad enough, it’ll also use a new splash damage move where it’ll hit the ground and then swipe the tentacles out . The idea here is to dodge away and get behind King of Puppets, slashing away at its rear end.

This second-half of the fight is far more difficult and it’ll take a while to get the hang of King of Puppets’ move-set. The flailing tentacles in particular are a menace, but the best chance to strike is just after the spinning punches (as these can be easy to dodge) and after the splash damage move. Eventually it’ll go down and you’ll beat this boss.

Boss Fight – Romeo, King of Puppets

Nope, it turns out King of Puppets was just the first phase of this fight. If that was hard enough, Romeo is by far one of the hardest bosses in the game and easily the worst we’ve faced so far.

100%-50% Health Strategy

You need to be getting familiar with dodge-rolling and using this alongside guarding in order to quell a lot of Romeo’s moves. If you have too great a distance between you and Romeo, he’ll easily plug the gap with some running moves and nasty burning attacks that will inflict burn damage on you.

He has a fair few different strike combos, along with a handstand Fury Attack that has a monstrous reach. Sometimes he’ll use this right after a spinning dive through the air, so be mindful of this.

In terms of combos, Romeo boasts quite a few, including a simple two-strike, an overhand hit which will cause his sickle to get wedged in the ground, a three strike and a five strike combo. He’ll also rush around the arena in semi-circles, igniting the ground with fire.

For the first half of this fight, get used to dodging through the one and two-strike combos. You want to keep as close to Romeo as possible if you can. The only time you want to back-up is when he starts using his fire move and running around the arena. And the Fury Attack hand-stand too.

50%-0% Health Strategy

Once Romeo is down to about 50% health, he’ll start increasing the intensity of his attacks, with horrific five and six strike combos. He’ll also ignite his sword on fire and go on a mad frenzy, hitting anything that moves. The idea here is to either dodge roll anticlockwise or clockwise, whichever you’re more comfortable with, through every single strike.

There’s quite a few so you want to make sure you have good stamina. This is especially important because Romeo is unpredictable with which combos he’ll use. Oh, and he also has a new Fury Attack where he’ll jump in the air and then slam down at your location. Be sure to dash out the way of this.

In terms of amulets, use the Puppet Damage and Stamina replenshers as a must. If you’ve upgraded your gear and followed the Quartz locations thus far, a good idea is to invest in equipping a third amulet, so you can get an edge in battle.

Try to deplete Fulminis during the King of Puppets fight because to be honest, it’s useless here. Puppet String is handy if you want to mix things up, but it’ll also make the first phase fight that much longer, and run the risk of using more Pulse Cells.

Make a habit of counting each of these combo strikes that Romeo inflicts, and if you can, get comfortable dodge-rolling through at least half of them. There’s ample opportunity to stun Romeo after these strikes (esp with the Stamina Amulet attached) and if you’re favouring a weapon that allows for faster staggers, it may be easier.

You want to bide your time with when to attack Romeo and don’t get greedy. One or two strikes at most unless he’s slightly staggered (evidenced by an animation of him holding his head) in which case follow up with a very strong attack if you can.

Good Ol, Reliable Shot Put

If all else fails here and you’re really struggling, head back to Malum District and stock up on Shot Puts and Saw Blades. The former has very strong opportunities to stagger and allow for a Fatal Strike, while the Saw Blades won’t miss and will strike for constant damage.

Hitting five sawblades back to back will whittle away Romeo’s health very quickly. A good idea, if you intend to do this, is wait for Romeo to get down to 50% health and then pelt away with these.

You want to favour dodge-rolling rather than guarding in this fight too, but Romeo’s flame-sword ability is a particular problem you want to try and deal with as quickly as possible.

When he lights his sword on fire, you can throw shot puts at him to stagger the move and prevent it occurring, or you can dodge-roll through the swipes, of which there are around 8 or 9 in total. If you get stuck in a flurry, you’ll almost certainly die. And do not try to guard against this!

Otherwise though, just keep plugging away and if you want to bring a Specter along, use a Wishstone to replenish Specter’s health during the Romeo fight so you can get extra hits in while his back is turned. Eventually you’ll defeat this difficult boss.