How to defeat Heimdall in God of War Ragnarok

As you progress through God of War Ragnarok, Heimdall, one of the many believers in Odin, will stand against Kratos. There is a prophecy that if Kratos kills him, Kratos will die. However, as much as Kratos wants to avoid this, he must protect his son, and when Heimdall gives him no other choice, he must act and defeat someone who can see everything coming. Here’s what you need to know about defeating Heimdall in God of War Ragnarok.

How to beat Heimdall in God of War Ragnarok

Before taking on Heimdall, you must battle against his steed, Gulltoppr. It will be similar to the other creatures you’ve fought. It will gallop around and cause unbreakable attacks you’ll need to avoid throughout the encounter. When it begins viciously galloping, keep your shield up rather than attempting to parry every attack unleashes. Your best bet is to attack it from the side, away from its face, to do the most prolonged damage.

Related: How to get the Draupnir Spear in God of War Ragnarok

After you’ve defeated Gulltoppr, it’s time to take on Heimdall. Unfortunately, any attack you use against him will not register on him. You will need to use the Draupnir Spear that Sindri and Brok made for Kratos and throw it at Heimdall. You can cause them to explode when they hit him by hitting the Triangle button. You will need to build up Heimdall’s stun meter during this portion of the fight.

There are two phases to fighting Heimdall. The first one consists of you throwing Draupnir Spears at him and causing them to explode. After this has been completed, the next step is to throw the spearheads at the ground and have them explode around Heimdall. He grew wise to the original attacks and adapted to you.

Once you’ve done this twice, you will have the chance to attack Heimdall freely, making it more of a standard boss fight. Heimdall’s special ability is to cause a Realm Shift, which slows down time so he can close the distance to you. He has two attacks when this happens. There is an unblockable one you will need to dodge to the left or the right, and there is one you can parry, which can give you a brief opening to do some damage to Heimdall.

Heimdall also has a handful of ranged attacks that will be used, embued with Bifrost. If this hits you and you build up Bifrost damage after being hit by him again, use Spartan Rage. Your Rage will shake the Bifrost off on you, preventing Heimdall from dealing massive damage against you. He also has a massive AOE Bifrost attack that he will do when he charges up to you and throws his sword into the ground. You will want to avoid this or roll when it goes off.

When you reach halfway through Heimdall’s health, he will gain a grey shield around his health bar. You will need to use the Draupnir Spear to break it and resume doing damage to him.

After beating Heimdall, he does come back, but with a Bifrost arm. His attacks will become more erratic and wild as he fights, but his moveset should remain the same throughout the encounter. There will be one new attack where Heimdall slams his fist into the ground, attempting to set off a Bifrost explosion. You can stop this by double-tapping the R1 button and causing a shield bash.

Upon defeating Heimdall, a cutscene will play out, and you can continue playing through the rest of the chapter.