After a couple lightweight bosses, King Darius shows players why he is the king of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Similar to some of the other annoying bosses, what makes King Darius so fearsome is far hitting attacks, and massive punishments for any mistake. Thankfully, with the right tactic he is manageable, though don’t expect this to be an easy fight.
How to Defeat King Darius in Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
Basic Information
While it’s more than possible to win with no upgrades, it helps to return to Lower City’s The Haven destination. Here you can speak to a couple different venders and upgrade your gear. The latter is especially helpful as the right build can be surprisingly broken.
Since this is a Metroidvania experience and what you have access to will vary based off how much you’ve explored, we simplified the process by listing what we think are the best amulets.
Best Amulets
- Blade Dancer
- Void Blade
- Verethragna’s Wrath
- Turning Wind
- Will of Rostam
- Wolf-Bride
- Dragon King
- Mount of Damavand
Now it is not possible to wear all these amulets at the same time. We suggest picking and choosing based off your individual skill. Those who can dodge/avoid damage will want to build towards power, whereas those who struggle should go the defense route.
It also helps to note several of these have little to no value depending on the fight. As much as I love Blade Dancer, several bosses won’t allow you to perform the full combo. Likewise, with Void Blade and other damage boosting amulets it’s possible to hit a point where normal enemies die long before the combo happens as well. Still, it’s better than nothing.
Athra Surges should be Verethragna’s Smite, and Rashnu’s Judgment. These are two of the best for this boss, with the latter making things a lot easier.
King Darius Phase One
Given King Darius’ power, parrying attacks will simply push you back. It will also not stop him from attacking, so I strongly suggest avoiding them whenever possible.
The trick for this phase is to wait for ice attacks, grapple away from them, followed by punishing King Darius. It will take some time to learn the exact rotation, though once you got it down this phase should go rather quickly.
King Darius Phase Two
During the second phase King Darius drops the ice moves for fire attacks. For whatever reason I find he likes to do the rush across the screen, rush diagonally, ending with a downward slam with flame wheel attack a lot. Depending on your positioning he might do another aerial rush as well. This is actually good because it’s shockingly easy to avoid.
Simply jump, grapple, followed by juggling in the air away from his attacks, ending with a nice punishment when he attacks. I would typically use a rush if I had it to vastly increase my damage.
During this section he also has two blue attacks. One where he leaps in the air, and another where there is a brief animation. Getting hit by either in the wrong way will result in several unavoidable hits. Often times the one with a cinematic before it will result in death, as you’ll get overwhelmed and then punished with the attack you can parry to deal damage to him. I found the timing was really harsh and not worth bothering with.
King Darius Phase Three
For the final section King Darius will combine fire and ice to make things far more annoying. The big thing about this section isn’t avoiding attacks, as much as knowing the rotation. Very few openings are safe, and a lot of sections gain an additional punishment.
Like the aforementioned non-animated blue attack gets a follow up ice slam at the end that is easy to overlook and take damage to.
My main advice is to play it smart, try to avoid as much as possible, and hit him with your athra Surge whenever possible. It will take some doing, but with some luck you will best him and walk away from this fight.
