Metyr is the ultimate troll from Miyazaki, and a tough fight to boot. Well, glove. But we’ve got you covered on how to take on this monstrosity of fleshy digits.
Shadow of the Erdtree has taught us all a valuable lesson about the sickos at FromSoftware: Never tell them you like things; they will make you regret it later. Everyone loved Jar Alexander in the main game. Now we know too much and every jar in the game—even the happy-go-lucky-ones—is a Cronenbergian nightmare. Yay us.
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To wit, all our funny “try finger, but hole” jokes over the years. Hidetaka Miyazaki sat at his desk, nodded solemnly, said, “Aight, bet,” and put an exiled god-monster made of diseased fingers down a giant hole in the game, because this man has no respect for you, he does not sanction your buffoonery. The only respite is that thankfully, this thing ain’t no thing long as you walk in prepared.
Metyr’s Abilities
Metyr will start quite a distance away, and the second you drop into the arena will fire a sweeping laser at you on sight. Once you’re close enough, it’ll leap into the air and try to mash you into the ground with its head-thumb, one to three times. It might also do a quicker, low-damage shove with the smaller fingers upfront, or the larger ones on its side.
Occasionally, Metyr will reach into the horrible mass of squirmy fingers at its chest and spill them on you before it takes a leap, sometimes even spawning a couple of creepy, crawly sentient hands the size of a German shepherd. There’s also a big smash where Metyr rears onto its hind…fingers? Jesus this thing’s gross, have I mentioned that? The actual full-fledged arms up front can get involved in the action as well, either taking two quick swipes at you, or trying to smash you one after the other before coming down with a two-handed strike.
At the 50 percent mark, Metyr gets gravitational. It’ll spawn a black hole on its “tail” that pulses twice before going supernova. After that, it’ll start pulling gravity attacks out of whatever passes for an ass on a god made of fingers. It will spawn mini black holes from time to time that detonate on contact or after five seconds. It’ll shove its thumb-head into the ground and fire a laser for a big area-of-effect explosion. That’s all on top of two tweaks to Metyr’s basic moveset: the laser attack will now shoot three times instead of just a single sweep, and the big leap attack now adds a helicopter spin and hits for way more damage.
The cherry on top is its big desperation attack where it floats into the air, charging up magic before shooting a massive laser into the ground, circling the arena with it.
How to defeat Metyr - Phase 1
It should be pretty clear if you’ve come all this way that the entire Cathedral of Manus Metyr quest is heavily weighted towards rewards for magic users. As such, magic users are the ones who’ll have to work the hardest here, while aggressive, melee-focused folks can basically smack this thing around like the world’s most fucked up piñata. If you have a fully upgraded sword that inflicts Bleeding, you’re essentially just walking into this fight to collect a corpse. Still, no matter how you tackle this, some backup can’t hurt. When the fight starts, dodge Metyr’s laser, and then you have a bit of time to conjure up a Spirit Ash while Metyr moseys its way over to you. Once it’s within range, it’s showtime.
Melee users, your target is that disgusting mass of fingers along Metyr’s chest. Each of its melee strikes has an easily telegraphed tell, and they’re big, slow hits compared to a lot of the enemies in the game. Even its leap attack, though it does create an area-of-effect you won’t appreciate taking the full brunt of, has pretty easy timing to dodge back from. You won’t necessarily want to tank your way through everything Metyr dishes out, however, since those hits eat into your stamina quite a bit, and you’ll need that to be as aggressive as you can here. Pick a hit out of each of Metyr’s combos to roll through instead, save the shield for the hits from the smaller fingers and the sideswipes. It might not even matter, though. This thing bleeds like a stuck pig, and if you can go aggro enough as it recovers from each combo, especially with a Spirit Ash in the mix, the constant blood loss and stagger damage can end this fight in less than a minute. Your biggest worry is just being on the lookout for Metyr’s phase two starter, backing off when you see it start to float, and rolling forward through the explosion. After that, it’s pretty smooth sailing.
Magic users, on the other hand, will actually need to think this through a little more. All the defensive strategies mentioned before still apply, and Metyr is still pretty easy to predict and roll through, but the trick here is figuring out how to land an effective hit. Metyr is fairly magic resistant, meaning most of the fastest spells can do only chip damage. However, due to its sheer size, just about any spell/incantation that shoots through Metyr’s enormous hitbox (e.g. Meteorite of Astel or Comet Azur) can melt that sucker down in no time. But timing’s a problem, and Metyr hits just hard enough where getting smacked out of charging a spell can put you in a precarious place. Any talismans that can cut down on charging time will be a big help.
For this reason, if you’re bringing a Spirit Ash, run with one that’s a group of tiny enemies that can annoy and distract Metyr enough where you can run backwards, just about mid-range, and fire away without catching any strays from whatever Metyr’s trying to do to your Spirit Ash friends. If you’re one of those folks who likes to go into boss fights solo, your best shot is when Metyr rears back. Get enough distance when you see it, and you’ll have your spell up and running when it lands, hopefully having done a massive chunk of damage with whatever you fired, and hopefully whatever it tries next keeps them in position.
How to defeat Metyr - Phase 2
Phase two, with its many gravity attacks, will involve some careful positioning and timing before you can fire off anything lethal, and the floating gravity bombs in particular can be a persistent annoyance if you try to be on offense when you should be looking for empty spaces to stand in safely. It’s time for patience. Look for the moves with long recovery times (the rearing attacks, the double-handed slam) and stay at just enough of a distance—about 20 to 30 feet away seems to be the sweet spot—where you can capitalize without Metyr catching you with its laser. Metyr’s helicopter spin is also an easy dodge, but the area-of-effect is pretty expansive. Run, don’t roll.
If you’re using the right tools, Metyr might not even get a chance to pull off that Death Star beam attack, but in the event it does and the rotating beam gets close, there is a narrow band of safety between the beam and the area-of-effect energy around Metyr. It’s tricky to roll through, but it can be done. If you’re a melee player and Metyr gets to pull this off, any weapon with Bloodhound Step can just straight-up teleport through the gap. The good news is, if you got that far, Metyr is close to death anyway. Finish the job.
Your reward for victory is 420,000 Runes. Like everything else with the Cathedral of Manus Metyr quest, however, the rest of the rewards largely favor the magic users. The Remembrance of the Mother of Fingers gets you either the pretty excellent Staff of the Great Beyond, or the Gazing Finger, which is Metyr’s hideously misshapen thumb-head as a very mid Colossal Weapon.
Epilogue
That’s not the end of the matter, however. If you head back up to the Cathedral’s Site of Grace (and maybe spend your Runes in case of a catastrophe), then go back to Count Ymir’s throne, you’ll have to explain to both Jolan and Count Ymir what happened down there, and by explain we mean, “they’re both pissed at you, please kill them.” Don’t worry, they’re not terribly tough or tricky fights, though Jolan’s Ash of War ability shouldn’t be trifled with. Afterward, Ymir will drop some really freaky sorcerer garb that buffs finger spells. Poor Jolan will be dying against her pillar, but if you picked up the Irises of Grace or Occultation in your travels, you can actually squeak out a sort of “happy” ending for her.
Talk to her, and you’ll get the option to give her either one of the Irises. The Iris of Occultation just gets you her Sword of Night, but the Iris of Grace turns her into a Spirit Ash. That’s the option you want. Once you have that, head to the Hinterlands, and go to the Shaman Village. At the back-end of the village, near where you picked up the Golden Braid, if you look down the edge of the cliff you’ll see a narrow path leading to some grassy ledges which will bring you down to an upper floor of Rabbath’s Rise. There’ll be a puppet version of Jolan’s sister, Anna, laying at the end of the platform. Interact with the puppet, agree to usher Anna into the Spirit Ashes, and you’ll have reunited them, making it so both sisters fight with you when you summon them. And they lived happily ever after. Sorta.
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