The first boss fight you’ll butt up against in Wo-Long: Fallen Dynasty is Zhang Liang, General of Man. It’s an enormous step up on the difficulty curve, but also a learning experience that will help you approach the rest of the game. We promise, things get easier afterwards. In this guide, we’ll do our best to teach you how to beat Zhang Liang in Wo-Long: Fallen Dynasty so you can dive into the rest of the game.
How to beat Zhang Liang in Wo-Long: Fallen Dynasty
© Team Ninja
While this boss fight is a challenge, you can beat much more easily once you learn a few tricks and the right approach. We’ll cover general tips and a few of Zhang’s moves below.
Have patience and focus on parries, not dodges
The key to this fight is not being overeager. Your basic attacks don’t deal much damage to Zhang, so focus on deflecting instead to build up his spirit gauge -- the left bar under his health. Most of his club swings are slow, giving you time to learn their patterns and tap the deflect button (Circle/B) as he strikes.
Parrying his red special attacks is daunting, but doing so will add an enormous amount to his spirit gauge and reduce its maximum size. He only has a couple of spirit moves, so focus on learning the timing of these over anything else. Follow up a successful parry with just a couple of hits and a spell or special attack before waiting for him to come to you again.
Use spirit attacks when his guard is broken
Fill up Zhang’s Spirit Gauge and you’ll stun him temporarily. Instead of wailing on him with quick attacks or special moves, use your spirit attack (Triangle/Y) and you’ll perform an impaling strike that cuts off a large chunk of his health. You can get a couple of hits in first, but make sure you use a spirit attack before he recovers or your miss out on major damage.
© Team Ninja
Use defensive spells while you practice
If you’re struggling with parry timings, unlock the first level Earth spell which offers extra defense and apply it periodically throughout the fight. You’ll be capable of taking more hits on each attempt.
Moves to watch out for
Rushing sweep: The first of Zhang Liang’s red attacks has him charge forward before sweeping his club around. Wait for the club to flash outward to the left as he reaches you before pressing parry. He'll regularly do this move multiple times in a row, so watch for a second flash of red after you deflect the first attack.
Uppercut: Zhang Liang’s second red attack is a heavily delayed uppercut sweep. Watch his club head and wait for it to drop behind him before you press parry.
Phase two: Stay defensive
Yes, the first proper boss in the game has a phase two. The good news, though, is that it isn’t a proper one. All you need to do is hold out until your Divine Beast gauge (shown on the right side of your weapon’s special moves) fills up. Once it gets there, hit the prompt on screen (Triangle + Circle / Y + B) to end the fight.
The Divine Dragon Gauge builds through dealing damage, but you’ll speed it up most significantly if you break Zhang Liang’s spirit gauge again. He’s very slow in this new form, so land a few fast attacks before focussing on parrying once again.
© Team Ninja
New attacks to watch out for include a double sweep of his demonic arm, an overhead slam that spawns rocks in a line, and a piercing thrust indicated by him tucking his arm down to his side. In most cases, you can get away with tapping circle regularly to parry them so long as your gauge isn’t full. If yo usee a big aura of red appear around him, run away to escape the spikes he spawns.
Hopefully the tips above have shown you how to beat Zhang Liang in Wo-Long: Fallen Dynasty. The game gets a good chunk easier for a while after him, so give yourself a well-earned pat on the back for overcoming this hurdle!