How do you defeat Romina in Elden Ring? While most bosses in the Land of Shadow are optional, Romina Saint of the Bud is not. She comes with incredibly powerful attacks and can inflict the ever-dreaded scarlet rot status fairly quickly. Thankfully, she has a few key weaknesses that make this fight not as tough as some.
If you’re struggling in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree, the best thing you can do is find all Scadutree Fragment locations, as the rare items mitigate incoming damage and increase your damage output. However, summoning a Spirit Ash also helps a lot, so seeking out all Revered Spirit Ashes locations will ensure your Mimic Tears and Black Knight Tiches can take a few more hits.
Where to find Elden Ring Romina Saint of the Bud
You’ll find Romina in the Rauh Ancient Ruins, accessed from hanging a left from the Storehouse, First Floor Site of Grace in the Shadow Keep. There’s an elevator that leads down to an area filled with the grotesque, fleshy jar monsters. At the very back of this area you’ll find a long bridge that leads to the West Rampart Site of Grace, and beyond it, the vibrant Rauh Ancient Ruins.
Romina is located in the Church of the Bud at the very back of this sprawling area, up an elevator near the Ancient Ruins, Grand Stairway Site of Grace. Once you’re in a room full of scarlet rot and the red Kindred of Rot, you’re in the right place. Climb the central staircase and take down Hornsent if he invades you. Beyond, you’ll find the Church of the Bud, Main Entrance Site of Grace and a fog door that leads to Romina.
Once defeated – and if you defeated Messmer, the Impaler previously – you’ll be able to advance the Shadow of the Erdtree story.
How to beat Elden Ring Romina Saint of the Bud
Before walking through that fog door, it’s best to prepare your equipment. Having a handful of Preserving Boluses or the Flame Cleanse Me incantation available will help mitigate scarlet rot if she manages to build it up on you. This will only occur if her weapon is glowing pink. Otherwise, she mostly does physical damage, so equipping a talisman like the Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman or eating a Boiled Prawn purchased from Blackguard Big Boggart from the base game will go a long way. More importantly, you should have the highest Scadutree level possible. We found Romina with Scadutree level 13, which was more than enough. If you’re below level 10, explore the world some more before taking her on.
The key to defeating Romina is learning how to dodge each of her attacks. With a centipede head, a scorpion tail, and a long poleblade weapon, it can be quite difficult to learn how to avoid all three. By and large you should stay close to Romina and roll into her body to avoid most of her attacks. This includes her grab attack with her centipede head. Furthermore, when Romina is in the air you will see a small pink flash before she strikes – this is your key to dodge forward. That said, she has three attacks that you should avoid differently:
- She will spin twice in the air while spinning her weapon. Here, you have to roll to the left or back from her.
- Romina will curl into a ball and roll around the arena. At the end, she’ll leap toward you and slash; you must dodge right or back within a very short window.
- At under 50% health, Romina will leap in the air and summon an aura of butterflies; here, you want to roll back from her and run before the butterflies explode.
Otherwise, Romina is susceptible to building status on her. The most effective is frostbite, however we found success with causing her to bleed.
You can also summon Dryleaf Dane to assist you here, though his summon sign is hard to spot to the right of the fog door. He’s not great at dealing damage on her, but he can help stagger her and draw her aggression.
Romina Saint of the Bud melee strategy
Melee builds will have an easier time with Romina as sticking close to her midsection is the best way to take her down. Learning her attack patterns and dodging into her for most of them will reveal openings to get a whack or two in with your weapon of choice. For strength builds, it’s possible to quickly stagger Romina by hitting her with heavy attacks – some of which you can charge. For dexterity builds, you’re going to want to use these opportunities to build some kind of status on her like bleed. Regardless, be mindful of the three moves mentioned above as they’re the most likely to punish a melee character.
If you use a Spirit Ash to assist you here, be mindful of who Romina is targeting as her attacks have extremely wide hitboxes, so even if she’s locked onto your summon she can sweep and hit you.
Romina Saint of the Bud ranged strategy
We wholly recommend builds using sorceries or incantations that are melee ranged, such as the Carian sword spells or Dragonclaw, as Romina is extremely aggressive and covers distance quickly. Otherwise, you’re going to want to use Dryleaf Dane or a Spirit Summon to draw aggression. As usual, the classic Mimic Tear or Black Knight Tiche work well here; however, if you complete Jolan’s quest, the Jolan and Anna Spirit Ash give Romina two targets to track. Check out our Elden Ring Jolan quest guide to learn how to get this powerful summon. It is possible to chip her down with a quick spell like Lightning Spear, but it’s not something we recommend.
With Romina distracted, you’re free to cast your most powerful spells with long windup windows. Consider using frost-based attacks to deal the most damage, like Adula’s Moonblade. She can change targets incredibly quickly so be mindful of how close you are to her when you begin casting.
Romina Saint of the Bud cheese strategy
There isn’t a tried-and-true way to cheese Romina Saint of the Bud. Your best bet to do so ties in closely to the ranged strategy: wait until her attention is on Dryleaf Dane or a Spirit Ash and cast powerful spells like Comet Azur to melt her health pool. This strategy requires a bit of patience as she’ll frequently return her attention to you after you cast a spell.
We found great success with using the Borealis’s Mist dragon incantation with Radagon Icon talisman equipped to lessen its casting speed, only closing distance to get a couple whacks in with our sword before running away until she returned her attention to Dryleaf Dane. It only took us two attempts to defeat her with this strategy.
With Romina defeated, you need to head on over to our Messmer the Impaler boss guide because you’ll need to beat him if you haven’t already. With Romina and Messmer down, you’re approaching the end of the Shadow of the Erdtree, and once you finish, you might want another Soulslike game to play. Thankfully, we’ve got a list detailing all the best Soulslikes on PC.