Requiem Aeternam - Boss Setup/Tips

Boss setup/tips for making your no-heal boss run less painful.

Requirements

• Kill original 10 bosses without using flasks [1]
  
• New Game (fresh save) [2]

[1] No Amanciedas needed for this achievement. Viridiana and Guilt Fragments can heal you. Don't use a flask in the boss room, or even adjacent to it if you really want to be sure. Lastly, if you mess up flask usage DURING the boss fight you can reset by dying. This will not work if you fat finger and use the flask AFTER you've killed the boss.

[2] I first tried to get this achievement on a True Torment (NG+) Unwavering Faith run. That means I had halved sword damage on top of the increased damage and health that all enemies get in NG+.
I managed to do the bosses without healing, but then didn't get the achievement, so I whipped myself for little reward, essentially. At least it was good training for the real run.

Items

Rosary Beads

• Silver Grape (physical defense) - A good number of bosses have some sort of physical attack. This is the strongest bead of this type.
  
• Big Bead of Red Wax (Max HP)
  
• Consecrated Amethyst (magic resist) - I find that the magic attacks always hit like a truck if you don't have any magic resist. Even with this bead on, they hurt a lot.
  
• Drop of Coagulated Ink (prayer damage) - Juices up any prayer that does direct damage - Verdiales, Debla, etc.

The rest is up to you. Most of the good ones are only gotten in Act 2, so earlier in the game you need to sub in the equivalents. Other beads that I think are especially helpful during a certain fight will get a recommendation in that boss' section.

Mea Culpa Hearts

• Heart of Virtuous Pain (+parry window, +parry recovery time) - I stuck with this for pretty much the whole run. It's demerit is more or less a non-factor compared to how much it extends your parry window.
  
• Smoking Heart of Incense (+prayer/blood damage/duration, +prayer cost) - Even more juice for your prayers and also juices your ranged blood attacks.
  
• Heart of Saltpeter Blood (+sword damage when low HP) - This is only here because there's no demerit. If you're some sort of god who can just stay at low HP and survive you could benefit.

The other hearts are worthless during boss fights (Molten Heart of Boiling Blood) or severely gimp you with their demerits (Heart of Oils).

Prayers

• Lorquiana - Good damage AoE, situational depending on boss position.
  
• Taranto to My Sister - Good damage and AoE, situational depending on boss position.
  
• Seguiriya to your Eyes Like Stars - Really big sword speed buff.
  
• Debla of the Lights - Ridiculous utility and localized damage, situational depending on boss position. Smaller AoE than Taranto. I feel like it also gives you invulnerability frames on cast. Side quest reward.
  
• Tiento to Your Thorned Hairs - Invulnerability. Side quest reward.

These can be cast for relatively cheap and let you get some damage safely. Yes, even Seguiriya - as long as you cast it when a boss is recovering from a missed attack or in a safe spot.

Misc. Upgrades

Obviously the more upgrades the better. I prioritized HP and Mea Culpa shrines to max out my life expectancy and sword damage. The only skills I'd say are really worth a buy for the bosses are the first combo one and the slide lunge attack.
You'll be fine without maxed fervor and rosary knots. Flasks are a non-factor for the achievement - I finished the run with 3 usable flasks (1 burned for quicksilver upgrade) and 2 that I had sitting in my inventory because I couldn't be assed to go to a bile fountain.

Bosses - Act 1

Warden of the Silent Sorrow

ez

Seriously, if you can't beat this guy without healing you're not ready.

Ten Piedad

Recommended Beads: Physical defense
Recommended Prayers: Seguiriya

Parry the stomps, jump up and do air thrusts when he kneels to swipe at the ground. Cast Seguiriya and slap him around. Simple fight.

Our Lady of the Charred Visage

Recommended Beads: Fire resist, Magic resist
Recommended Prayers: Seguiriya, Debla

Keep the prayer for when her face appears really close to the ground, then cast it and spam upwards cut. Bounce the red-orange balls at her face to speed up the fight. If you're having trouble dodging the fireball spam, move far away from her hand to give the fireballs time to spread out and make it easier to move.

Tres Angustias

Recommended Beads: Physical defense, Lightning resist
Recommended Prayers: Seguiriya, Verdiales, Debla

This is the first challenge of Act 1. While fighting, pay attention to the spear sisters. When they're aiming at you, hop around like a crackhead until the spear stops aiming, and then hit them if you're able. As for the mace sister, don't stand too close to her as she will throw it without any real warning and you will eat ♥♥♥♥. You can dodge through the mace as it flies around.
Reserve your prayers for when they're bunched close together near a platform. In this case, your sword can hit all of them at once, and so can Verdiales (the fire running on the ground prayer).

Esdras of the Anointed Legion

Recommended Beads: Physical defense, Lightning resist
Recommended Prayers: Seguiriya

You can parry these:

• His mace swing
  
• His beyblade mace spin
  
• The shockwave when he slams his mace into the ground
  
• The upwards swing after he digs into the ground to raise a wall of lightning
  
• Perpetva lunges

Seguiriya nets you a lot of extra damage if you cast it right before he stops spinning and beat on him. You could use Verdiales/Debla here, but at this point my sword combo was more than good enough.

Bosses - Act 2

The stat upgrades should be making you feel pretty powerful at this point.

Melquiades, the Exhumed Archbishop

Recommended Beads: Physical defense, Magic resist
Recommended Prayers: Seguiriya, Taranto to My Sister, Debla, Lorquiana

Pop Debla/Taranto to hit his head. Seguiriya/Lorquiana are mostly to cut the arms holding him up. The beams do magic damage as far as I can tell.

Expósito, Scion of Abjuration

Recommended Beads: Contact damage (snake body), Fire resist, Toxin resist (if you really care)
Recommended Prayers: Seguiriya, Taranto to My Sister, Debla

Pop Debla/Taranto to hit the snake head/body weak spots in one go. This boss really lets you stack the damage on because of this dual weak spot mechanic.

Quirce, Returned By The Flames

Recommended Beads: Fire resist
Recommended Prayers: Seguiriya, Taranto to My Sister, Debla

Parry his dash attacks and cast Debla/Taranto when he sits on the ceiling.

Crisanta of the Wrapped Agony

Recommended Beads: Physical defense, Magic resist
Recommended Prayers: Seguiriya, Saeta Dolorosa, Tiento
Recommended Hearts: Heart of the Virtuous Pain

Really, if you aren't using the parry heart slot it in. It gives you a much wider window to stop her attacks with, since her sword is the main source of damage. You'll want to basically stay close and constantly attack her. You can even hit her parry, get a second hit in to do damage, and then parry her riposte and counter back.
Whenever she shows her back to the screen and you see her cape, she's about to do a downwards slash and can zoom across the screen to kill you. Make sure you parry the first slash, since she can follow it up with a second one.
Her jumping attack sometimes seemed to miss me and I would get hit by the magic shockwave - to stop this, put yourself in her path and parry it.
In phase 2 the lunging attacks can be easily parried.

His Holiness Escribar/Last Son of the Miracle

Recommended Beads: Physical defense, Magic resist, Fire resist
Recommended Prayers: Taranto, Debla

I will skip over Phase 1 because you can slap this geriatric very quickly.
As soon as Phase 2 starts, hop up and do an upwards slash to get a bit of free damage in. Your Taranto/Debla is reserved for when his face opens up, to let you circumvent the platform RNG.
When his purple symbols come out, drop to the ground. You can stand still in the center or under each of them and not get hit.
The fireballs are pretty easy to dodge if you stand on the side of the screen where they start, and then inch towards the opposite side. The fireballs will land right behind you if you do it right.

Closing

You've killed all the bosses without healing, congratulations! Now go get all the collectibles and do NG+.

[THO]

thanks man

[Ghosty]

Completed the game grinding this last achievement just yesterday. Thank you so much for the tips!

[HiimSpencer0808]

Does molten heart of boiling blood affect the achievement? Or does it just straight up not work on bosses?

[Meimei]

Coagulated Ink relic and enough Fervor to cast 4 Deblas and you can wipe out Last Son in one open mask phase proving, yet again, that no problem can't be solved by a giant fuck off laser.

[Diggdigital]

Nice guide! Albeit it uses some rude language

[Dangertits]

ok thx

[brekiy]

i literally say at the top you need a new save

[Dangertits]

do i have to start a new save file? does ascent (NG+) works??

[Moh]

The achievement says you have to defeat every original boss so no dlc bosses are needed to be defeated.

[danielvalencia.fc]

Just out of curiosity, this restriction doesn't apply to the last DLC bosses too, right? Im trying to do one of them with the Penitence of the True Guilt, and even if im unable to heal with bile flask already, having the oportunity of just spawning spells could help a lot XD