Devil May Cry 5 Boss Guide (All Bosses)

Devil May Cry 5 contains lots of Boss Fights. This DMC5 Boss Guide will walk you through the best tactics to defeat every boss. Below they are listed in chronological story order. Some of them appear multiple times throughout the game, such as Urizen the prologue boss and main antagonist.

Prologue – Urizen Boss

The Prologue boss is guarded by a red crystal. First you must destroy the crystal to hurt him. This is best done with the revolver. Charge up the revolver by holding / . On first try this can be pretty tough so you may want to try it later after upgrading some skills and getting more health. You will have to evade the boss attacks quite perfectly. He uses blue spheres that slow you, red lava balls that hurt you, a laser beam that whips across the whole area, and energy beams that come from the floor. Just keep walking sideways at all times and shoot the crystal from afar. When the crystal is destroyed you can attack the boss. Beware he repairs the crystal and you only have a few seconds to attack. Be sure to get close to him just before destroying the crystal to not waste any attack time. On human you can beat him in 2 rounds, on Devil Hunter in 3-4 rounds. If your health depletes only once you get a cutscene and the fight fails. If you finish it you get the secret Prologue ending.

Mission 01 – Qliphoth Roots Boss

One of the easiest bosses in the game. It only attacks with its tentacles but can also spawn single enemies. Just shoot it from afar with the revolver if you want to play it totally safe. Alternatively, get in with melee attacks when its arms aren’t about to attack. When the arms move it’s about to launch an attack so get away quickly.

Mission 02 – Goliath Boss

The Goliath has a ton of health but it’s relatively slow. Again, you can do it the cheesy way and simply use the revolver from afar to minimize risk. Slow but effective! Hold / to charge up 3 destructive shots, it does more damage per second than shooting quickly. If you want to do it the “fun” way you can lock on to the boss and melee him from behind. Whenever he moves his arms press   + / to evade immediately. When timed correctly he won’t hit you. Just stay behind his back. You can also double jump in the air and do air attacks behind his back. The Overture Devil Breaker also does a good deal of damage.

Mission 03 – Artemis Boss

This is a flying boss and one of the harder foes in the game. It will use mostly laser attacks but also has two little drones that can attack you. The drones are less the problem. You can either ignore them or shoot them (they have very little health and are quickly destroyed). When you shoot them, beware the boss will spawn new ones and the old drones turn into seeker mines to hunt you down and explode near you. I would just ignore the drones since they aren’t a big threat anyway. Grab on to the boss with + / + . Then do midair attacks / . When the boss flies away, run after it and repeat the midair attacks. The Gerbera devil breaker is useful here to perform in-air stunts and quickly jump after the boss when it flies away. When the boss goes up to the ceiling and shines a circular light on the ground you must quickly defeat the two drones and use them as grappling hooks to get up to the boss and strike it down. Otherwise it will charge up a powerful areal attack. After this part the boss gets stronger and will charge at you. Always double jump to escape its path and carefully repeat the previous midair attack tactic.
As before, you can also do it the cheesy way with the revolver but due to this boss’s heavy focus on ranged attacks it’s actually easier and quicker to fight it in melee combat. Most of the attacks will miss you when you’re in the air next to the boss.

Mission 04 – Nidhogg Boss

There are two ways to hurt this boss: destroying one of the tentacle arms, or attacking it directly. The best way is to focus on the boss directly since destroying the tentacles doesn’t cause it much damage. The boss is the parasite-man in the middle of the screen. What works really well is to buff Griffon with + / + . Then its ranged attacks turn into lightning strikes from above. What makes this so effective is that the lightning hits the boss as well as the tentacles. So you can bring down all tentacle arms quickly with this. After all 3 arms are destroyed the boss will get stunned for a moment. Luckily the attacks are quite easy to evade in this fight and the boss doesn’t do a lot of damage.

Mission 05 – Elder Geryon Knight Boss

This fight will be rather tricky the first time, due to the boss being able to wipe both of your demon pets simultaneously. When he charges up an area-wide attack, retreat to get your pets away from him. What really helps here are the Griffon Vigor 2 & Shadow Vigor 2 skills but at this point in the game you probably won’t have them yet. When your pets’ health gets low summon Nightmare with , it instantly recharges the health of both your pets. If you manage to do this fight without Griffon or Shadow going down you earn the Pet Protection trophy. Keep your Nightmare for when the pet health gets low. The boss attacks are easy enough for you to evade since your pets will take most of the heat in this battle.

Mission 06 – Scrap Demon Boss

This boss is a big walking crab. First you must attack any of the weakspots on its legs. Once the weakspot is destroyed it will turn into a blue grappling point. Grapple it to be catapulted up to the back of the crab. There you find a big red blood clot that you can attack to take down the boss’s health. After a while the boss will try to throw you off and the blood clot will disappear. Then you need to repeat the process and attack the next leg. The only dangerous parts are the spikes on its back, when it shoots lasers with its arms, and when it shoots explosives at you. With double jump and Gerbera devil breaker you can quite easily escape these attacks.

Mission 08 – Urizen Boss

Exact same fight as the Prologue boss, this fight is intended to be lost. When your health bar depletes a cutscene will play and the next mission starts.

Mission 10 – Urizen Boss

Exact same fight as the Prologue boss, this fight is intended to be lost. When your health bar depletes a cutscene will play and the next mission starts.

Mission 11 – Cavaliere Angelo Boss

The easiest strategy for this boss is to use the guard stance and block the attacks of the boss with / . Blocking consumes a little bit of Devil Trigger but you’ll get that back by attacking the boss. After he’s done attacking (usually 4 hits), you attack him with stinger   + / . Repeat this tactic. After a few times you’ll be able to stagger him and he teleports away to charge up a ranged attack. If you collected the Kalina Ann rocket launcher earlier in this chapter shoot him with that (it was in the ruins, after destroying the 3 blood clots, in a room where you entered the ruins). The rockets deal a lot of damage to him. When he comes back to use melee attacks you repeat the block & stinger tactic.

Mission 12 – Urizen Boss

Again you fight the boss from the Prologue but this time you must defeat him. At close range he is extremely dangerous. The best strategy is to hang back and shoot him with the Kalina Ann rocket launcher. He will often try to attack with tentacles but you can quickly dodge away before they hit   + / . When your Devil Trigger is fully charged hold / to power up your devil form. When that’s active you can go in and use melee attacks, which deal massive damage. This is best reserved for when the boss spawns the red crystal that protects him. It can be destroyed in a single use of your devil form.

Mission 14 Bosses

In this chapter you fight 3 bosses. It’s easiest to start with the gate on the right side that contains the Mission 02 boss “Goliath” and choose to revive Shadow (V’s melee attack pet). For the second boss go through the left gate that contains the Mission 11 boss Cavaliere Angelo and revive Griffon. Lastly, for the third boss go through the middle gate that contains the Mission 03 boss Artemis and revive Nightmare. Now you have all 3 of your demon pets back. The bosses have far less health than in the previous encounters. If one of your demon pets goes down, stand near it to revive.

Mission 15 Boss

This boss is sitting on a big bird. The easiest strategy is to shoot it with your revolver from afar. Power up the shots by holding / to deal more damage. Just walk in a circle around the area. When the bird charges at you, quickly dodge sideways or double jump and use Gerbera devil breaker to air-dash away.

Mission 16 – Cerberus Boss

In this fight you’ll have to make good use of your devil form. It’s one of the hardest bosses that switches between fire, thunder, and ice elements. Ideally you should go into this fight with the 1st and 2nd Devil Trigger bar being completely full. Then at the start of the fight you can immediately use your 2nd Devil Form and attack the heads of the boss, which will stun him. Then keep attacking in Swordmaster stance and spam , / , on him with the Devil Sword Dante equipped. In Swordmaster stance you get multiple swords to fight for you when pressing . When the boss gets up, avoid the attacks and wait for an opening. Always attack the side of his 3 heads. This has a fair chance to stun him and also deals the most damage. Try to charge up your 2nd Devil Trigger bar right away to turn into devil form again. Two uses of Devil Form are enough to defeat the boss on Devil Hunter difficulty. On higher difficulties you’ll have to repeat the procedure a few more times. This fight is mostly about timing your uses of Devil Form correctly. The boss is most dangerous when he uses ice element because it deals massive areal damage and is the hardest to dodge. It’s also one of the hardest bosses to beat on Hell & Hell difficulty so if you want to attempt that be sure to practice him a few times before on Dante Must Die.

Mission 17 – Urizen Evolved Boss

The best strategy is to double jump behind the boss and attack him with midair melee attacks. He only strikes the ground in front of him and will never be able to directly hit you when you’re behind him. However, he often uses ranged attacks. Evading these is key. He uses mostly the same ranged attacks as he did in the Prologue, so you should be familiar with it by now. An alternative tactic is to use ranged weapons against him and just dodge everything he throws at you. It’s tedious and takes a long time but if you are good at dodging it’s a good method for higher difficulties. On lower difficulties just jump behind him to do midair attacks as they deal the most damage.

Mission 18 Bosses

Throughout this mission you fight V’s demon pets. In the last encounter you fight all 3 of them including Nightmare. Focus your attacks on Nightmare, his health bar is the one you must deplete to win. The health of the other two demon pets doesn’t matter during this fight. Even if you kill them, Nightmare will simply respawn them. At one point in the fight, Nightmare will disappear. When he respawns, activate your devil form to deal massive damage quickly.

Mission 19 – Vergil Endboss

In the first Vergil encounter you’re playing as Dante. This fight takes a lot of practice to perfect to learn all of Vergil’s attack patterns. The best weapon for this fight is the Devil Sword Dante. The best strategy is to dodge him and then spam Stinger  + / . What’s great about Stinger is that it immediately brings you closer to Vergil and has a chance to stagger him. So even if he’s a few meters away you will still land a hit. The best time to attack him is right after he missed an attack combo. You can usually land multiple Stinger hits on him before he teleports away. When he reappears he’ll always launch an attack right away so it’s best to dodge first and attack afterward. When Vergil spawns his Devil clone the fight gets more tricky. Focus on the clone and shoot it with Ebony & Ivory pistols until it goes away. Don’t bother attacking while the clone is active. just keep dodging and shoot it with the pistols. Don’t use the rocket launcher or shotgun, they are too slow. After the clone has disappeared it’s back to the dodge & Stinger tactic. Out of all fights this one takes the most practice. Also, don’t use your 2nd Devil Form here. It’s too slow and Vergil will just teleport away. Instead, only use the 1st Devil Trigger bar when Vergil is stunned and you have a good opening to attack. It recharges your health and also increases your Stinger power. Stay in Swordmaster stance for this fight so you can press / to spawn extra sword to cause more damage (with Devil Sword Dante equipped).

Mission 20 – Vergil Endboss

Exact same strategy as the Mission 19 fight. Except this time you’re playing as Nero. Vergil will use the same moveset as before. The dodge & Stinger tactic still applies, see the Vergil strategy for Mission 19 above.

That’s all the bosses in Devil May Cry 5 (DMC5). Which one did you find the hardest and which one the easiest? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.