How to Beat Astel, Naturalborn of the Void

Astel has medium resistance to all elemental types and status effects, but poison and rot can be inflicted without too much extra effort than usual. However, the best strategies include aiming for the head. With all strategies, when you first enter the fight, you will need to dodge the laser beam at the last minute. Similarly, the meteor storm at about 60% health can be avoided by repeatedly dodging to the left, avoiding all hits.

Strategy 1: Melee

Staying close to Astel's head is important. It has three types of attacks, each of which can be uniformly dodged in a specific way.

Any biting attack, indicated by Astel's mandibles quivering or glowing purple, can be avoided by getting underneath his head and neck, where you can continue dealing some damage. The same goes for tail slams, indicated by a raised tail, and tail stabs, indicated by the tip of its tail quivering like a rattlesnake.

Astel's downward slam gravity shockwave attacks can be avoided by moving backwards away from Astel until the coast is clear, and then moving in again to continue the assault.

Astel's swiping nebula arm attacks that leave a trail of cosmic energy can be avoided by dodging the initial swipe forward and getting underneath Astel's head and neck to avoid the following explosion.

As long as you stay aggressive and keep dealing damage to Astel's head, this fight will go quickly. You will even get multiple opportunities to perform a critical attack against the eye peering out from Astel's skull, since the head also takes very high posture damage.

Having a high-damage Ash of War on your weapon can make this go very quickly. The Lion's Claw Ash of War on any large weapon will deal massive damage if it connects on Astel's head. Similarly, jump attacks when dual wielding large, high-damage weapons, twinblades or curved swords will shred Astel's head very quickly.

Strategy 2: Caster

Astel can be trivialised by an Intelligence caster by use of Rock Sling, a high-damage spell of multiple projectiles that deals physical damage instead of magic damage, meaning Astel resists it less as it is. This also deals very high posture damage, locks onto Astel's head nicely, and doesn't take too long to cast, meaning it will be perfectly capable of shredding Astel before it has chance to do much at all.

An alternative method is Spiral Shard, which deals multiple ticks of damage the longer it is in contact with an enemy, travelling through them. Large enemies like Astel are perfect for this. You can charge Spiral Shard for more damage, so using the Godfrey Icon in combination with magic buffs such as the Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear and Magic Scorpion Charm will make short work of Astel.

Finally, as with all bosses, Night Comet is very strong, can be charged for more damage, and is buffed by having one or two of the Staff of Loss equipped. This is fast to cast and deals tremendous damage for how simple it is - just be sure to use all of the aforementioned magic-damage buffs.

Strategy 3: Madness

This one is a bit more of a gimmick, but incredibly effective if you can pull it off. It is capable of slaying Astel and many other bosses in one spell cast, but you'll need a few things to pull it off.

1: Unendurable Frenzy: This is the focus of this approach - it is a Frenzy incantation that deals incredibly damage, can be continuously cast, and builds Madness up on the player, meaning you will need high Focus to cast it for long.

2: Cerulean Hidden Tear: This will be needed to consistently cast the Unendurable Frenzy incantation at no cost, meaning you can nuke Astel down quickly.

3: Focus-Boosting Gear: The Clarifying Horn Charm +1, Spiralhorn Shield, Corhyn's robe, Mushroom arms and legs and Great Hood will all boost Focus the most, but if you don't have access to these, anything with a high Focus boosting stat will help.

4: Golden Vow: This is a valuable buff that will increase your damage output and resistances. This will help to put Astel down before the Unendurable Frenzy incantation is finished.

5: Flame, Grant Me Strength: Increases the damage of fire attacks. This will help with Unendurable Frenzy, which deals very high flame damage.

6: Frenzy Seal: Use this in the off-hand and don't cast with it; it will still boost the damage over Unendurable Frenzy.

7: Erdtree Seal: This is the highest faith scaling seal, and will help you deal more damage.

8: Flame-Shrouding Cracked Tear: This will boost your overall fire damage output, which will increase the damage of Unendurable Frenzy by a lot.

9: High Faith and Mind: Having high Faith will increase your overall damage output, and having high Mind will boost both your Focus and your mana pool, meaning you will be able to cast Unendurable Frenzy for longer.

Once you have this build set up, all you need to do is buff up, enter the fight, avoid the laser beam, and wait for Astel to perform his leaping swipe. Then start casting Unendurable Frenzy while locked onto Astel's head, moving yourself slowly to make sure Astel is taking as many hits from the projectiles as possible. This will absolutely melt Astel's health, will likely stun it, and will end the fight quickly.