Wuchang Fallen Feathers: How to beat Vermilion Feathers Honglan

Wondering how to beat Vermilion Feathers - Honglan in Wuchang Fallen Feathers? If you thought the normal Commander Honglan was bad news, just wait until you face her second iteration in the endgame. Dubbed Vermilion Feathers - Honglan, this mutated version of the commander that kicked our butts early on is back and somehow even more annoying than before now that the Feathering disease has mutated her.

Vermilion Feathers - Honglan is a completely optional boss, however, so you don't need to defeat her in order to move forward in the game. But we recommend that you do so if you're trying to go for 100% in your playthrough or to achieve one of the 4 endings, since defeating her will nab you some solid rewards, including the excellent Echo of Honglan Feathering spell and the Ice Crystal, a new item you can give merchant Tao Qing. In this guide, we'll explain exactly how to beat Vermilion Feathers - Honglan in Wuchang Fallen Feathers, helping you put her down for the count once and for all.

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers - Essential Guide to Combat, Gear, and More

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How to beat Vermilion Feathers - Honglan in Wuchang Fallen Feathers

The first version of Honglan is a hard boss primarily because she occurs so early in Wuchang Fallen Feathers, forcing players to deepen their understanding of the game's skill trees and weapons systems or face annihilation. Not so with her second incarnation. By the time you reach Vermilion Feathers - Honglan, you'll be near the end of the game with a full arsenal at your disposal. Even though she's still very challenging, you can beat her if you tweak your setup and abide by the following tips.

Pile on the Burn

Burn is the most reliable and consistent damage type in Wuchang Fallen Feathers, and Vermilion Feathers - Honglan is highly susceptible to it. You'll obviously want to use the Bone Needle - Flame to temper your weapon with fire damage, but I also suggest equipping the following:

• Pendants: Demon Pendant, Sun Pendant
• Spell: Burning Flames
• Benedictions: Sheng - Burning Might, Fu - Burning Ignition, Ta - Blazing Burn

The Demon Pendant is great for increasing Fire damage at a slight cost of lower Physical damage. Meanwhile, all of the Benedictions make Burn much more potent at cutting down Honglan's health over time, making up for any minor reduction in Physical damage that you might suffer.

You can supplement these picks with other gear that matches your playstyle. For instance, as a One-Handed Sword user, I also wore the Eagle Pendant, which amplifies stab power.

Protect against Slash, Stab, and Feathering damage

Vermilion Feathers - Honglan alternates between sword strikes, shooting off energy slashes with her blades, and blasting you with Feathering magic from time to time. I found it relatively easy to dodge the Feathering spells, so my preferred equipement was a mixture of the Centipede and North General armor sets, both of which offer great protection against slash and stab.

If you're the opposite, try investing in the Clerical, Palace Maid, or Avian Hunter sets, all of which help minimise the damage that Feathering magic inflicts.

Backstab as she levitates

Vermilion Feathers - Honglan always begins the fight with the same attack, levitating in the air and summoning an array of red feathers to hit you. This is a prime opportunity for a backstab no matter what weapon you're using. Dodge behind her and smash her with a charged up heavy attack. The Obliterate will be instantaneous, and you can take advantage of the knockdown to slam into her a few more times.

As the combat continues, Honglan will prove to be extremely fast, but whenever she stops for a second to launch her feathers, repeat this strategy. At 50% health, she'll be surrounded by a red aura which will cause her to grow bigger wings. This is another good chance for a backstab, but if her Obliterate value isn't high enough, back off, as this is one of the few moments in the fight where you can reliably heal yourself - and Honglan will be much more aggressive in the remainder of the battle.

Be aggressive

Ideally, you want to keep Honglan's Obliterate value high so you can stun her and increase her accumulated Burn damage. This requires a certain amount of aggression and continuous attacking, which is tough to maintain, but doable if you have Ethereal Form or Evasive Maneuver at your disposal (more on those two below).

If you know what you're doing and stay on the offensive, you can actually beat Vermilion Feathers - Honglan in less than two minutes. Observe the following video, where I proceed to do just that. Also note the moments when I choose to heal, since as I hinted at before, those instances are few and far between in this fight.

Beating Vermilion Feathers Honglan in Wuchang: Fallen Feathers

Use Ethereal Form or Evasive Maneuver

The Ethereal Form spell (obtained from a corpse in Zhenwu Temple) is one of the most useful spells in the entire game, covering Wuchang with charms for a few brief seconds. If an enemy hits Wuchang when she's got the charms swirling about her, an auto-dodge will result, and you can continue spamming this dodge as long as you've got Skyborn Might. Evasive Maneuver, a weapon skill associated with Darkfrost Edge - the first One-Handed Sword you can find in Lightzen Temple - is the same as Ethereal Form, just contained within a single weapon.

Both Ethereal Form and Evasive Maneuver go a long way towards helping you dodge Honglan's seemingly endless hitstrings. It's fair to state that this fight is utterly maddening - her attacks seem to go on forever, and there are only small openings in Honglan's impeccable form. But go ahead and spam these auto-dodge options - doing so will at least ensure that you have a full stack of Skyborn Might available for when those openings do emerge.

If you've managed to defeat Vermilion Feathers - Honglan, give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back. That's one of Wuchang Fallen Feather's hardest bosses massacred! If you're having issues with other combatants, check out our boss list for the complete rundown. We've also got a list of tips and tricks, as well as explainers on the Inner Demon and Madness and Red Mercury systems. Last but not least, our guide on how to transmog will ensure that you look cool while fighting Honglan, and if you're in search of rare weapons and other items on your journey, why not see our guide on how to use Bamboo Shoots to appease a hidden merchant known as the Panda?