Where Winds Meet: How To Beat The Iron-Blooded Prince

The Hexi-Jade Pass in Where Winds Meet has given us more to do within the free-to-play action game. Outside of exploring this new and mysterious location, you’re able to track down and fight the new boss introduced in this update. The first step to fighting the Iron-Blooded Prince boss is to start the Whitecrown Fortress questline in the eastern portion of the map.

Getting to The Boss

Once the Whitecrown Fortress quest is nearing completion, you will be brought back into the fortress for one showdown. Here you’ll be tasked with placing some military flags just outside of the boss arena. When all of them have been gathered and placed down, you will then be able to face off with the Grand Protector of Anxi, who is also the Iron-Blooded Prince.

Fighting the Grand Protector of Anxi

As with many other boss fights in the game, there are going to be a couple of different phases to the fight, with the first being the easiest and allowing you to capture the rhythm of battle. It's here that you’ll have some time to understand the boss’s movements and timing with most of the upcoming attacks that you’ll see throughout the rest of the fight. Many of the attacks during this portion of the fight are going to be ones with a long windup that lead into a combo attack that can change the properties of the final attack in the chain.

His recovery frames are also something you can abuse while he’s in the middle of a combo if you’re comfortable with staying up close to him during his attacks. The animations are quite long in comparison to many other bosses, so you can stick near him and attack in between each of his hits during a combo. A tactic like this requires you to be very familiar with parry timings and breaking the boss’s stance gauge.

Grand Protector of Anxi Attacks

There are a total of twelve attacks that he can perform during phase 1. Almost every attack has a slow wind-up, with a few exceptions. First among these are attacks that have a red or gold glint to them. During phase 1, you’ll notice that the combos of the boss have a surprising variety to them. They are designed to trip you up if you aren’t keeping a keen eye on the boss. There isn’t a set pattern for what his unblockable or parriable attacks will be, so you’ll need to pay close attention. His moveset will have some attacks that will combine an attack that can be parried with another attack that cannot be parried. So you have to keep a watchful eye out for the red or gold tint that his moves are going to give off before striking.

If you’re struggling with this aspect of the boss in particular, try to keep your distance from him while he’s in the animation where the wind kicks up dust around him. This will allow you to respond to his bigger combo during phase 1. You’ll be able to dodge a little easier with this setup, and you can still make your way to him during the recovery of the attack to deal some solid damage.

He will also be able to summon a fellow soldier who will briefly join the fight and try to defend his leader. When this soldier does enter the arena, you have to make a fairly difficult decision on where you’re going to stand and how to proceed forward. From here, you’ll need to be much less aggressive and focus on parrying two enemies at once. However, you can kite the soldier mob away from the boss and parry his attacks while in a safe spot, which also ends up depleting the boss’s stance gauge as well. But if you choose to stick close to the boss, you can potentially parry both at once, gaining even more stance breaking if you do pull it off.

Facing Off Against the Iron-Blooded Prince

When phase 2 kicks off, you’ll be met with a new form and an additional moveset on the boss, with his name now displayed as the Iron-Blooded Prince. His attacks will now also be imbued with lightning, and he will start using delayed attacks regularly. These delays are used in his aerial and bow combos, making it harder to be consistent for this half of the fight, forcing you to choose between a carefully timed dodge or parry.

For this phase, the boss will now have fourteen new moves, with one of them a finale move that doesn’t actually do any damage. A rule of thumb for this part of the fight is to delay your parries and dodges for as long as possible on your end. The timing is very tight for this phase, and you’ll want to be as close to perfect as possible.

Iron-Blooded Prince Attacks

At the start of phase 2, the Iron-Blooded Prince will jump into the air and hurl a lightning spear at you. While he is mid-air, you’ll see a brief golden glint on his weapon before it is thrown your direction. Following this, he will land where the spear was thrown and then perform a jumping sweep attack towards you.

Three of these attacks are also going to include his bow. For these, you’ll need to be on your toes and wait for the delayed attacks he’s going to throw out. The first attack will result in him jumping into the air, shooting three arrows at you, followed by a delayed fourth arrow at the end. His second bow attack is when he dashes forward, enveloped by lightning briefly, and shoots an unblockable arrow at you. The final bow attack will be when he takes a low pose, shooting three arrows at you quickly while he is on the ground, and immediately dashing forward with a large spear swing attack.

From here, the rest of the attacks are going to be mostly reliant on his spear, with a majority of them being lightning-based attacks. They’ll result in him quickly dashing forward, slamming down from a jump, or wild sweeps in front of him. These aren’t particularly hard to deal with, as they have reliable timing to dodge or parry the attacks. Make sure you stay on your toes, as these are always in a random order and can still be delayed to try to cause some chaos on the battlefield.

When at the end of the line, he will shoot a charged lightning arrow into the sky to mark the end of the encounter. As long as you’re careful and can survive the onslaught of delayed attacks from the Iron-Blooded Prince, you’ll get to the end of this fight in no time at all. He doesn’t have any notable weaknesses or resistances, so any weapon you prefer will handle the job as long as you’re comfortable with it.