How to beat the Phantom Ganon dungeon boss without the sages’ help in Tears of the Kingdom

Screenshot via PC Invasion

In The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Phantom Ganon usually spawns as a brief overworld boss encounter after defeating a Gloom Spawn. But once you have beaten the main four regional questlines, you can do battle against a fully-fledged Phantom Ganon boss at Hyrule Castle, which essentially has you contending with five Phantom Ganons at the same time. Since you have the sage avatars at your disposal, you can let them distract at least four of the Phantom Ganons while you focus on just one.

If you ignore the fight in Hyrule Castle and go to face the final boss ahead of time, however, Phantom Ganon will show up right beforehand to fight you. You won’t have the sage avatars by your side this time around, but fortunately, the fight remains very doable even in this 1-v-5 scenario. Here are some tips and strategies on how to conquer this initially daunting challenge.

Fighting Phantom Ganon

Much like many other enemies in Tears of the Kingdom, the Phantom Ganons can all wield three different weapons: a one-handed sword, a spear, and a two-handed club. Unlike other enemies, though, the Phantom Ganons can all switch between these weapons on the fly, although they can only all equip the same type of weapon at any given time. Naturally, the Phantom Ganons’ attacks differ depending on the weapon type, so here’s a rundown of all of them.

Screenshot via PC Invasion

Sword Attacks

• Basic Swing – One of the clones readies his sword and executes a basic slash attack. It’s easy to see coming and counter with either a parry or a backflip for a flurry rush.
• Spin Attack – The clone charges up before letting loose a spinning slash similar to Link’s charge attack with a one-handed weapon. This has a more delayed timing compared to the basic swing, but countering with a well-timed backflip or parry will work just the same. Try reacting as soon as you see the clone begin to move from his charging stance. If you’re not used to the timing, you can always simply move away from the attack.
• Dashing Slash –  When the clone stands at a distance, he will often dash toward you before swinging his sword either vertically or horizontally. If he holds his sword to the side to swing horizontally, backflipping once he telegraphs the slash will trigger the flurry rush as usual. If he holds the sword above him for a vertical strike, sidestep for the flurry rush instead. Parries will stagger him no matter which direction he swings in.
• Teleporting Slash – This attack is exclusive to the full Phantom Ganon fight rather than the lesser Phantom Ganons found in the overworld. The clones will teleport to your location before hitting you with a standard horizontal slash, usually in succession. Aside from a slightly delayed timing, you can deal with this attack in exactly the same ways as the non-teleporting slash.

Spear Attacks

• Basic Stab – The clone will pause briefly before thrusting his spear to attack you. The telegraphing for this move is much more subtle than most of his other attacks, making it tricky to deal with at first. You can learn to spot the pause before sidestepping or parrying with some practice, but it helps to listen for the clone’s audio cue. Every time he executes this attack, the clone emits a growl beforehand, and if you react as soon as you hear that growl, you should avoid damage every time.
• Dashing Stab – Similar to the dashing slash with the sword, the clone will dash forward and thrust his spear once he reaches you. He doesn’t swing the spear in any different directions, so a parry or a sidestep will always work for this move.
• Teleporting Stab – Once again only found in this fight, the clones will teleport before performing the usual spear stab. Not much different with this one, so parry or sidestep like normal.

Club Attacks

• Basic Swing – The clone holds his club up to the side before swinging it horizontally. You can backflip or parry just like with the basic sword attack, but note that the club swing comes out a bit later than you might think.
• Jumping Slam – Rather than dash toward you like with the other weapons, the clone will leap into the air and slam his club down upon landing. You can see this one coming from a mile away, so either sidestep or parry as soon as the clone is about to land from his jump.
• Teleporting Swing – Behaves much the same as the other teleporting attacks, and since it’s a horizontal swing, a backflip or a parry will counter it just fine. Once again, be aware of the delayed timing of the swing.

Screenshot via PC Invasion

Dealing With Five Opponents at Once

The clones’ attacks aren’t too tricky to deal with individually, but of course, the real challenge comes with watching out for these moves when all five clones are active at the same time. Fortunately, while the clones can attack in relatively quick succession, they never attack at the same time. So simply watching for one of the clones to make his move and then reacting accordingly is often enough to stay safe. In general, though, flurry rushes will prove more effective in this fight than parries will since they allow you to safely deal a significant amount of damage to a clone without having to worry about being interrupted by another clone.

However, if you’re using a heavy two-handed weapon, try to avoid doing the full flurry rush combo when two or more clones are still active. The fourth and final hit of the two-handed weapon’s flurry rush combo has a significant amount of recovery time, leaving Link potentially wide open to a cheap hit from one of the clones before the player can act again. Because of this, I prefer to land only three hits when triggering a flurry rush or use a different weapon type altogether.

Second Phase

Not much changes in the second phase of the Phantom Ganon fight, except that one of the clones will occasionally stand back and slowly spread gloom across the entire arena. You will need to find space between the other clones’ attacks to stop him from doing this, which you can accomplish with an arrow or two. Normally, when the gloom-spreading clone is hit with an arrow, the gloom will retract a bit before continuing its spread, forcing you to hit him with another arrow. On the other hand, a single headshot will cancel out this attack altogether, so you should ideally try to land one in this situation.

These strategies encompass more or less everything you need to know to best the Phantom Ganon dungeon boss in Tears of the Kingdom even without help from your allies. This should leave you more than ready to tackle Ganondorf himself.