Lu Bu is fought a second time in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, but it is markedly different from your first encounter with him at Hulauguan Pass. You should prepare for a gruelling battle, complete with several fire attacks.
Lu Bu has turned into a demon thanks to the evil Elixir, and he now resembles something akin to a demonic centaur. The only aspect of this fight that is similar to your first battle is Lu Bu relies heavily on fire-based attacks. Because of this, you should try to tweak your gear for fire defence and change any spells you have to Water.
Demon Lu Bu Boss Fight Strategy Phase One
Unless you feel confident about your deflection timing, we suggest hanging back as the fight begins. Lu Bu will start the fight immediately by using an AoE slamming attack, spinning his halberd in the air and plunging it into the ground. The impact of this creates a shockwave, but you can deflect it if you are already in his face.
It is rare, but Lu Bu could start the fight by using a Critical Strike, of which he has access to three.
Similarly to the Zhang Liao fight, he will chain two of them together if you deflect the first.
As a demon, Lu Bu has a whole new attack pattern to learn, setting it apart from the first battle with him. Instead of his bow and arrows, he will shoot multiple fireballs at you; and instead of Red Hare ramming into you from the outskirts of the arena, Lu Bu will use his new hooves to stomp the ground several times, dealing a ton of damage.
For the most part, he will favour using his halberd to swing at you, which is always what you want him to do. This is because his swings are slow and predictable, making them perfect fodder for a deflection.
He mostly swings wide, which will be a problem if you are trying to flank Lu Bu while your Followers keep him busy.
Since these swings have a large radius, you have a lenient window to deflect them.
We do not suggest deflecting his overhead slam attacks, simply because they have an awkwardly long wind-up before he uses the attack. These slams are designed to catch you out, so you are better off hitting Lu Bu while he readies an attack and then blocking when you think is best.
The best strategy for dealing damage to Lu Bu is by keeping close to him. If you are far away, he will choose to use ranged attacks. One such move has him sprint around the arena, blasting fireballs at you, which prolongs the fight more than anything.
It will not be a problem if he does this because you can use this time to deflect the fireballs for easy Spirit gain.
The flames come at you at medium speed, but all you need to do is deflect towards them before they hit.
Deflect all of these, and you'll be in a good spot to sneak in a charged Spirit attack.
Demon Lu Bu Boss Fight Strategy Phase Two
As you do more damage to Lu Bu, he will become enraged at half-HP. While enraged, he will enchant his weapon with fire and use new attacks. If you were previously blocking his attacks instead of deflecting, this strategy will now be a bad idea.
His physical attacks with his halberd will now have a secondary swipe of fire damage, tracing the same path as his previous swing. The fire appears a second after he swings, which will damage you if you are not prepared for it.
This means his physical attacks will deal several instances of fire damage to you.
The first instance comes from the fire on his weapon, and the second comes from the after-effect of his swing.
Critical Strikes
Whether enraged or not, Lu Bu has three Critical Strikes to choose from. As we mentioned before, if you deflect one of them, he will then immediately use the same critical or one of the other two he has.
The reason for this is obviously to catch you off-guard since you will want to hit him with a Spirit attack as soon as you deflect a strike. Try to reign in your instinct here, and only use a Spirit attack when you deflect his second Critical Strike. Doing so will damage his Spirit gauge significantly, with a powerful swing at the end for decent damage.
While enraged, his Critical Strikes will have more power behind them. The Critical Strikes he might use are as follows:
- Lu Bu will jump backwards and create a giant fireball above him. This will slowly travel towards you, so you should be prepared to deflect it. The timing is a bit awkward on this, so you should wait until it's closer than you would like it to be before deflecting into the ball.
- Lu Bu will stab his halberd into the floor, jump up high, and crash down on you. This attack does a lot of damage and there will be an eruption of fire when he lands. It is an awkward attack to deflect because of how much he floats in the air. You need to wait longer than you think.
- Lu Bu will ride away and stab his halberd into the floor to change direction towards you. He will ready a swing and unleash it as he gets close. This is by far the easiest to deflect since hitting deflect as he's close does the job.
Generally, you want to stay close when he's enraged because these extra flames that appear after his swings could actually go over your head if you position yourself well, nullifying them as a danger.
While he is buffed up with fire, you can create an opening with Water-based spells.
If you enchant your weapon with Ice, for example, you can stagger him briefly by hitting him enough to inflict the cold debuff.
Other water spells will be useful, but you want to focus on inflicting him with the cold more than anything.
His stomping attack from before will be different, implementing more stomps and splashes of fire as he does it. You can deflect all of this, but you might be better off creating a small amount of distance between the two of you.
We beat Lu Bu using a Dire Tiger+7 straight sabre.
We think the straight sabre weapon type offers the best versatility when it comes to boss fights.
His flame enchantment lasts until the end of the fight, but your best bet to create a significant opening is to use Water magic in conjunction with deflecting his easier attacks.
Stay close and be aggressive in this fight, but don't be greedy. Take your time, bring some Followers, and you'll eventually wear him down. Just remember that Zhang Liao was a far tougher fight than this, and you already beat him to get here.