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Preparation
Recommended Skills
- Qi Boost (x4)
- Swift Rise
- Full Control
- Breathing Exercise
- Enhanced Talisman (x2)
There aren’t many skills that make Lady Ethereal substantially easier, which is good because you’ll be fighting her almost immediately after you beat Jiequan. I haven’t been grinding while writing this guide, so the only new skill that I could grab before starting the fight was the fourth, and final Qi Boost. That’ll be a nice bit of extra damage for a Qi Blast, since we’ll be using Full Control for this fight. Otherwise not much has changed over my recommendations for Jiequan.
Qi Boost: we now have the full 5 charges of Qi. This is great for Lady Ethereal as she becomes completely inert whenever you attach a talisman to her. This means that we can unleash an extraordinarily powerful 5 charge Qi Blast on her using Full Control. Don’t worry if you only have 4 Qi charges by this point in the game – Full Control will still do a boat load of damage whenever you manage to pin down Lady Ethereal.
Swift Rise: I feel like a broken record at this point, but grab Swift Rise if you haven’t already. It allows Yi to recover faster from a knockdown, which will prevent you from being combo attacked to death.
Full Control: one of 3 different talisman styles. This one allows the player to choose how much Qi they use on a Qi Blast based on how long they charge the blast after attaching a talisman. Of the 3 styles, Full Control does the highest burst damage, but it also takes the longest time to use. Luckily, Lady Ethereal stops moving whenever you attach a talisman to her, which means Full Control is the perfect way to cash out during every opening throughout the boss fight.
Breathing Exercise: this will allow you to recover internal damage after performing a successful perfect parry. It’s not strictly required, but it does make more intense boss fights (like this one) a lot less spooky by reducing the amount of internal damage that you’re sitting on at any given time after a few perfect parries.
Enhanced Talisman: A (roughly) 25% damage increases to Qi Blast for each skill. Probably the least essential skill on the list, but is very nice to have.
Recommended Jades
- Quick Dose Jade
- Hedgehog Jade
Quick Dose: Still the MVP, and my goto Jade of choice. This speeds up the use of your Healing Pipe by roughly 40%, which allows you to use it more liberally throughout a fight. It’s an absolute must have Jade if you’re struggling with a boss fight, or Nine Sols in general.
Hedgehog: One of the best damage boosting Jades against bosses, provided you can reliably perfect parry. Hedgehog applies internal damage onto anything after you perfect parry a melee attack. This can really add up over the fight since Lady Ethereal spends a LOT of time attacking, so it should help us to better chip down her health whenever we get an opening.
If you haven’t unlocked Hedgehog yet, you get it by giving Shuanshuan the Unknown Seed (found in the Agricultural Zone) and GM Fertilizer (found in the Transmutation Zone). The Hedgehog Jade can then be obtained by climbing the giant plant in the Four Season Pavilion.
Recommended Equipment
- Cloud Piercer S/X
- Level 6 Healing Pipe
- 4 Max Health Upgrades
- 4 Pipe Vials
- 2 Computing Unit
- 2 Azure Sand Magazines
This is the exact same list of recommendations that I gave for Jiequan because no new areas open up between his and Lady Ethereal’s fight. Ergo, there isn’t anywhere to obtain additional Jin unless you’ve gone out of your way to farm it.
If you’d like an explanation of what each of those does, or why I’ve decided to go with this particular configuration of equipment then please click here to read about it on Jiequan’s page.
How to Fight Lady Ethereal
The biggest asset for this fight is patience. Lady Ethereal spends most of the fight attacking Yi, so you’re naturally going to spend a lot of time on defense. Regardless, her nearly endless barrage of attacks is a lot less intimidating once you know what you’re looking at, and how to defend against it with perfect parries.
Phase 1
I highly recommend taking your first few attempts against Lady Ethereal slowly during this phase. She has a very low amount of health during phase 1, but it’s the ideal place to learn, and practice perfect parrying each of her attacks. Once you can perfect parry everything in phase 1, you’ll have a much easier time with phase 2 and 3.
Overview of Phase 1 Attacks
| Attack Name | Short Description |
|---|---|
| Crimson Slam | Lady Ethereal appears above Yi, and briefly charges a crimson attack before slamming into the ground. |
| Double Strike Combo | Lady Ethereal appears on either side of Yi before lunging forward to perform 2 quick, consecutive strikes. |
| Sweeping Attack | Lady Ethereal appears in the corner of the screen on either side of Yi before diving toward him with a single strike attack. |
| Three Projectiles | Lady Ethereal creates 3 homing projectiles, and fires them at Yi one after another. |
| Crimson Projectiles | Lady Ethereal summons 3 evenly spaced crimson projectiles, which travel horizontally across the screen. |
| Homing Projectile | Lady Ethereal summons a purple ball that will endlessly chase Yi around the screen. Yi can Tai-Chi Kick to destroy the projectile. |
| Crimson Thrust | Lady Ethereal charges at Yi using a crimson strike. This can be countered with a Tai-Chi Kick. |
As always, here is what all of that looks like in-game, plus how to perfect parry each attack:
Tips for Phase 1
Okay so, to reiterate, if you’re struggling with Lady Ethereal then use phase 1 as a place to practice. Her attacks come out much slower during this phase, and that makes it a lot easier to practice your parry timing. Once you can consistently parry all of her attacks (at least, the ones that can be parried) then you can move onto phases 2 and 3.
Don’t forget that you can parry while you’re airborne. This will allow you to parry attacks coming from either direction. This can be especially useful while fighting Lady Ethereal since she teleports around the stage between her attacks.
Also, while you can perform an Unbounded Counter to deal with Lady Ethereal’s Crimson Slam, I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s far easier to simply dash left, or right instead.
Otherwise, phase 1 is mostly about getting familiar with what all of Lady Ethereal’s attacks look like, and practicing your parry timing.
Phase 2
This is where I have to break the pattern that I’ve been following throughout this guide because phase 2 is just phase 1, but now there are multiple clones of Lady Ethereal attacking you. If you took the time to practice parrying all of her attacks in phase 1 then you should be good to go in phase 2. Being able to perfect parry is a big part of getting through phase 2 of this fight.
Overview of Phase 2 Attacks
Please see table from Phase 1.
One thing to note here is that Lady Ethereal can’t use several attacks simultaneously. She uses them 1 after another. This means that you can always defend yourself – you just need to parry, jump, or dash with the correct timing.
Also, Lady Ethereal follows a pattern while attacking: she’ll always alternates which side she’s attacking from during phase 2. That means if she just attacked from the right-hand side of the arena then her next attack will be from the left-hand side of the arena.
The one exception to this pattern is if she uses the Crimson Slam, which causes her to appear above Yi. However, she’ll return to her right-left pattern immediately afterwards (unless she does several Crimson Slams in a row).
Even though phase 2 has all of the same attacks as phase 1, I’ve still strung together a video showing each of the attacks that she can use.
Tips for Phase 2
I already gave my most sage piece of advice in the tips for phase 1, but it bears repeating: if you’re struggling with phase 2, then take your time practicing in phase 1. Lady Ethereal doesn’t gain any new attacks here, so if you can perfect parry every attack in phase 1, then you can perfect parry every attack in phase 2.
Don’t forget that aerial parries defend you regardless of which direction you’re facing. Performing aerial parries is the easiest way to focus on your parry timing without having to worry about which direction Lady Ethereal is attacking you from since she’ll be alternating which direction she attacks you from throughout phase 2.
I did this fight multiple times looking for a tell that allows you to verify which of the clones are fake, and which is the real Lady Ethereal. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any pattern to it.
As you’ll see from the above video, or the example fight, I tend to attack all of the clones to verify if they’re the real Lady Ethereal. If they disappear after 1 attack then it was a fake. If she sticks around then it’s the real Lady Ethereal, and you can lay into her with a 5 charge Qi Blast.
Also, if you attach a talisman to the real Lady Ethereal, she’ll continue to be temporarily stunned, which will cause all other clones to stop attacking. This means you can be extremely aggressive with your counterattacks throughout phase 2.
Remember to remain patient, and calm. Phase 2 looks really intimidating, but it’s just phase 1 at a slightly faster pace. Take your time, and you should be able to best Lady Ethereal.
Phase 3
You’re almost there – I think this phase is actually easier than phase 2, but only once you know how to deal with Lady Ethereal’s new attacks. I died so many times to the Crimson Bomb attack until I learned how to avoid it.
Overview of Phase 3 Attacks
Lady Ethereal gains 2 new attacks in phase 3, and no longer disguises herself as a clone. You’ll always know when she’s on screen, and can be attacked with a talisman.
| Attack Name | Short Description |
|---|---|
| Crimson Bomb | Lady Ethereal appears at the top of the screen, and charges up a massive crimson bomb. 2 clones spawn on either side of Yi, and perform sweeping attacks, before the real Lady Ethereal slams the bomb into the stage, shattering the entire arena. |
| Charged Sweep | Lady Ethereal appears above Yi and begins charging up a sweeping attack. 2 clones will appear on either side of Yi, and perform crimson thrust attacks, before the real Lady Ethereal unleashes the sweeping attack. |
And here is what that looks like:
Also, note that Lady Ethereal will also send an army of clones at you like she did in phase 2. They’ll be a little faster here, but you’ll always know when the real Lady Ethereal has attacked you because she’s no longer disguised.
Similar to phase 2, if you attach a talisman to Lady Ethereal, she’ll be stunned and all of her clones will disappear.
Tips for Phase 3
For the Crimson Bomb, air parry both of the sweeping strikes, and then immediately dash left, or right. This should allow you to evade the attack with the few frames of invulnerability that are on the dash, while also giving you a perfect window to counterattack as you fall through the floor into a newly formed boss arena.
For the Charged Sweep, you’re going to need to parry the attack from Lady Ethereal while you’re still airborne. You’ll want to parry just before Yi touches the ground. That’s not really a trick, but it might help if you were struggling to parry the attack. For what it’s worth, I’m not able to parry it consistently myself, but I still got through the fight fine.
Don’t forget that Lady Ethereal’s clones stop attacking if you attach a talisman to her. This means you can counterattack whenever she makes an appearance on screen.
Again, remain patient, and stay calm. If you follow the advice above then Lady Ethereal’s new attacks won’t be too challenging to deal with, and you’re already familiar with everything else that she is capable of doing.
Example Fight
Here’s an example fight where I put the different tips from this guide into practice against Lady Ethereal. Honestly, the hardest part of the fight is learning to perfect parry all of her attacks. Once you can do that, she becomes a lot more manageable. And phase 1 is the perfect place to practice those parry timings, so don’t rush it if you’re struggling with phase 2, or 3.
Don’t forget that it’s also important to take breaks too. You might find that you’re able to demolish Lady Ethereal after a good night’s sleep since your brain will have time to digest the fight, and better prepare you to fight off this demonic woman.
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Frostilyte Writes 