Tales of Arise: How to Defeat Lord Vholran

Tales of Arise has some absolutely thrilling boss fights, but perhaps the most theatrical and difficult of them all is the fight against Lord Vholran. He is an absolute menace to fight and despite being relatively easy seeming off the bat, he quickly becomes one of the toughest enemies you’ll face as his multi-phase battle requires a ton of planning, resource management, and timing in order to emerge victoriously. Here’s how to defeat Lord Vholran in Tales of Arise.

Preparation

The name of the game with this fight is resource management and in order to do this will, you have to first acquire some resources. Luckily, there are tons of high-powered enemies in the area and they all drop tons of valuables that lead to a ton of Gald when sold. When you gather up enough Gald, it’s time for some upgrades.

First, load up on Life Bottles, Lemon Gels, and Orange Gels. This is going to cost a lot so you should be ready to grind a bit before being able to go in fully loaded. Once you’ve got the items, you are going to need some accessories.

The key to the Lord Vholran fight is dodging and at this point in the game, you should be pretty good at it, so the physical defense should not be a huge point of emphasis here. Focus on the accessories that give elemental defense as Lord Vholran has a myriad of elemental attacks that can absolutely destroy you in short order. In addition to your accessories, make sure you have close to the best weapons available as we want to deal as much damage as we can in a short amount of time.

Phase 1

Do you like multi-phase boss fights? Well, do I have a fight for you then. Right off the bat, you’re going to notice that this fight isn’t all that tough. Lord Vholran comes at you with a few different physical attacks, but they are all completely telegraphed and very easy to dodge. What makes this all the more simple is that he focuses on one character at a time, so you should be free to heal or revive as needed as you can always just run away from the action.

Aside from the physical and Arte attacks, Lord Vholran has in store, he also has a Mystic Arte which he can fire off multiple times. This causes gigantic water fountains to sprout from the ground all around the battlefield. At this point, go to your Strategy menu and create one that just demands your team to run away and do nothing. This should have them get out of the way of the attack and you can switch to your normal strategy right after it happens.

Stick to the plan here and dodge the physical attacks as they come and you should not only get out of this fight without trouble, but you should also need to use very little resources as Lord Vholran’s first phase is a shockingly easy walk in the park. Sprinkle in fire Artes when you can and wail on him with Boost attacks and you’ll knock him off balance constantly, opening a ton of room for big damage attacks.

Phase 2

You had your fun with phase 1, and I hope you went through it pretty carefully and conserved your items because phase 2 is a whole different ballgame. After Lord Vholran goes completely nuts and blows up half his castle, it’s time to fight him in his Sovereign state. This is Bandai Namco’s way of saying ” HA Gotcha!” because this fight is going to be really rough.

I really hope you have some CP leftover or some Orange Gel’s in handy because Lord Vholran’s attacks are heavy-hitting in phase 2. This is where your elemental defense is going to come into play. In case you didn’t take the above advice, losing this fight on purpose will launch you from the character menu and you can make the accessory change there and launch right back into phase 1.

Lord Vholran is going to attack with ice and lightning-based attacks here, and the most dangerous of them is Finis Aerernam which functions as another Mystic Arte for him. During this, a gigantic ice sword is summoned and crashes into the ground and when that happens, ice shards start firing out of the ground. Dodge constantly when this happens and you will be able to avoid pretty much all of the damage.

There are several elemental attacks that are going to be shot at you at this point, and in order to negate the inevitable damage they will cause, have Rinwell cast Sharpness on everyone. Yes, this will drain your CP, but it’s worth it and if you have enough Orange Gel you’ll be fine. You can also cast a barrier if you’d like, though Sharpness is far more effective here.

Once you’re all prepped to withstand the onslaught, unleash as many fire Artes as you have. You can change each character to only use fire Artes if you wish and this will make characters like Shionne unleash constant fire Artes which should do tons of damage.

At a certain point in the fight, Lord Vholran will cast Ice Meteor. Channeling his inner Sephiroth here in more ways than one, this summons a giant meteor that slams on the ground. Thankfully, you can see where it’s going to land from a marking on the floor, so you can either dodge out of the way or try for a perfect dodge if you’re brave.

In terms of who you should play as here, it’s a matter of preference. I went with a combo of Alphen and Dohalim as they are my top damage dealers. If you’re going Alphen, use as many of your Flaming Edge attacks as you can, just be careful as you’ll be draining your health as you use them. Dohalim is a beast in this battle as he can heal, resurrect and destroy Lord Vholran’s mobility with his Boost Attack. If you’re going to use him, hang back and start firing off your best Artes. Chances are, he’ll be too busy attacking your other party members to pay you any mind and it’ll be easier to get off healing spells this way.

This fight is a marathon, so if you find yourself using too many healing items early on in phase 1, it’s not the worst idea to just reload and try again. The key is getting through phase one unscathed so you can be fully stocked for the real fight in phase 2.

Tales of Arise is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.