DMC5 Empusa Queen

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Basic Information

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Overview

The blood and damage sponge. This demon is a huge cockroach that has high HP and attack damage. It tries to jump on you and drink your blood to power itself up. It’s usually the last enemy alive and is quite dangerous in Blood Absorption state.

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Attacks & Quirks

Empusa Queen primarily fights with close range claw swipes and long range jump attacks. It has a double claw overhead attack that is relatively slow, but can be parried. If this attack hits you, it will start drinking your blood, making it a bit risky to parry if you mess up the timing.

Empusa Queen has a swiping rush attack where she growls a bit then moves forward while swinging the claws left to right. If any of the hits catch you she will start drinking your blood. The turn radius of this attack is bad, so if you are behind her or on her sides, you won’t have to worry about getting hit unless she’s near a wall or another enemy. After the left to right swiping rush, Empusa Queen finishes with the double claw overhead mentioned above that can also be parried.

At long ranges, Empusa Queen can do a jumping press attack where she leaps upwards and then pounces on you. She can repeat this up to 3 times in a row. How this enemy can jump that high with those twig legs and weight distribution is beyond me, but if she catches you she will start drinking your blood. If you get hit with her body or butt, you will be grounded instead. This attack can be parried at her claws from the front when she lands. As a side note: it aims to hit you with its belly during this attack. So when it lands this means the lock-on point, the head, can be behind you. This can cross up your inputs.

If you see Empusa Queen pausing and looking around, she is trying to find a pool of blood to drink from. If it spots one, it will jump on it and start drinking to enter Blood Absorption state. If there are no nearby pools of blood, it will try to do a jumping press attack and drink blood from you instead.

In normal state, Empusa Queen’s gameplan is to drink your blood, but that leaves her with a lot of openings as a result. However, she also has some fast swiping attacks that cannot be parried. These attacks are also more common if you’re on her sides or when she enters Blood Absorption state.

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Blood Absorption State

When this demon successfully drinks blood, it enters Blood Absorption state. In this state, Empusa Queen glows red and gains increased damage, increased defense and becomes a lot more aggressive. Its threat level increases exponentially, and it becomes quite difficult to deal with.

In Blood Absorption state, you will see the quick left and right claw swipes more often. These attacks have surprisingly long reach. The overhead claw into swipe combo attack also becomes more common, and she also has a higher chance to do the jumping press attack 3 times in a row.

Blood Absorption state ends after a set time, or if you manage to land a parry on Empusa Queen. The double overhead attack after the swiping rush, and the jumping press are the parries you want to look for. But the risks are high, so you’ll need to stay cool and time your parry attempt properly.

It seems like Empusa Queen’s Devil Trigger activation makes parrying the jumping press harder while it is in Blood Absorption State.

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Strategy for Fighting Empusa Queen

Empusa Queen is a damage sponge that can take a hell of a beating. The main challenges with this enemy are evading its attacks, parrying and dealing damage to it.

If she starts drinking your blood, you can break the grab with Devil Trigger activation, or Nero’s Break Away. For this reason, it is recommended that you try to keep above 3 DT blocks when engaging Empusa Queen. Or just don’t get hit.

Since Empusa Queen becomes considerably more dangerous in Blood Absorption state, try to stop it from drinking blood. If you don’t prioritize killing this demon, stopping it from drinking blood is very hard to do since it typically has a pool of blood nearby in the stages where it spawns. This means that it has a high chance to become a nuisance later if you leave it alone and pick off the weaker enemies first.

If the Empusa Queen gets paired with any enemies that have a threat level of medium or higher, I would recommend killing the Empusa Queen first. The exceptions are if they are paired with Green Empusa, Riot, Nobody or Fury, then those enemies would take priority. But the latter cases can only happen in the Bloody Palace.

Empusa Queen doesn’t have any attacks that hit behind it. This means that if you target its booty you can stay relatively safe since the claw attacks have a higher chance to miss you back there. You’ll give up some damage though as all body parts excluding her head are more tough. Also keep in mind that the lock-on will always try to send you towards the head.

Since Empusa Queen is a Super Heavy, you cannot launch this enemy. The only stun type that is effective here, is heavy stun. You can make her flinch or knock her out of the air during the jumping press attack. But this is an enemy that will generally have you navigating its attacks while trying to deal damage. So you’ll need to learn its patterns and come up with a combat approach that suits you.

Below are some character specific pointers and things to look out for when fighting Empusa Queen.

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Nero Strategy

You can Buster the Empusa Queen if you make it flinch or stagger, but the window isn’t that big so you’ll need to be ready for it. You are also not safe from being hit by other enemies during the buster animation.

For parrying, use Split or Shuffle primarily. The risk for parrying an Empusa Queen is quite high so use what you’re the most comfortable with.

For dealing damage, use your Exceed to the fullest, Charge Shot Lv3 and use your Devil Breakers liberally. Overture Battery while in the air is strong here. Feel free to use a Break Age on this enemy too since its HP pool is quite high on DMD.

Since this demon tends to spawn alongside other weaker enemies, it’s a good idea to use one of the other demons present as a shield with Hold. This will let you fight more aggressively and brush off any incoming attacks from the Empusa Queen.

If you get caught by while Holding another demon as a shield, she will drink the blood of the other demon instead.

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Dante Strategy

If you want to Royal Release the jumping press attack, take note that you may have to input the command in the opposite direction. This is because the lock-on point is Empusa Queen’s head, but when she jumps on you, she hits you with her belly unless you were quite far away. So the lock-on point will be behind you when she lands, effectively crossing up your inputs.

For parrying, use DSD Helm Breaker, Balrog Flint Wheel, Cerberus Revolver and Ice Age.

You can also use Cerberus Percussion, King Slayer and Balrog Blow Mode attacks to build up heavy stun on the Empusa Queen. Since the fight draws out, you can aim to end up at SSS rank where you can use Sin Devil Trigger Sin Inferno as well. But plz don’t abuse it.

For dealing damage, use Balrog Real Impact, Divine Dragon, Cerberus Hot Stuff, Cavaliere Air Combo B, Double Kalina Ann Mega Cascade, Dr. Faust Red Shot held down, Red Hot Night, Sin Devil Trigger SDT Combo, Sin Stinger.

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Vergil Strategy

Empusa Queen’s lock-on point is her head. This means Air Trick will almost always teleport you into an airborne state which might be a bit disconcerting if you aren’t ready. Always keep this in your mind when teleporting to Empusa Queen.

For parrying, use Beowulf Flush jumps, Rising Dragon, Mirage Edge’s Helm Breaker and Stinger.

You can use Mirage Edge Million Stab, repeated Helm Breakers or SDT Stinger to build up heavy stun on the Empusa Queen. This will give you a chance to charge up Beowulf strikes.

For dealing damage, use Yamato Perfect Judgement Cut chaining, Yamato Combo A while in SDT, Beowulf LV3 Charges, Beowulf Combo B while in SDT, or Vergil’s Super Moves.

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V Strategy

V’s familiars take 2.5x damage from Empusa Queen’s double overhead attack. This means that if you screw up a parry on it, you are probably going to lose a familiar.

Try to build up DT blocks by reading your book and air taunting every 20+ seconds. Keep an eye on your familiars and when you see Empusa Queen try to hit one of them, use the corresponding dodge to bring them to safety. Just be careful to not let this end with you getting caught up in her successive jumping press combo.

If one of your familiars dies, pop Devil Trigger to bring them back to life. But try to not go below 3 DT blocks.

For dealing damage, call down Nightmare.

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Danger Case: How This Demon Can Kill You

This demon can kill you easily. Here, let me paint the picture for you.

She jumps on you. Sucks your blood. You look at the DT gauge. There’s nothing there. Too stubborn to use a Break Away so you let the blood drinking animation play out. Then you soon realize you screwed up somewhere because this demon is absolutely ferocious in Blood Absorption state.

Its swipes are so fast, they hit so hard and it becomes so aggressive it can feel like it just spams attacks all day. Then it enters DT state and gets a damage buff and a defense buff on top of Blood Absorption state buffs. You want to make this stop, so you make some space to try to let it do the jumping press so you can parry.

It jumps. You time your parry perfectly. Then it somehow ignores your parry attempt and kills you, thanks to DT buffs affecting parries. You get upset. Vow to always kill this enemy before it drinks blood.

Try to lead a normal life, but the fear of Bloody Palace Floor 50 is burned into your brain. Lie down at night. Cry deeply. Cope by making fun of its legs and weight distribution.

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