The doppelganger of Rose, the protagonist of Belmont’s Curse, appears when finishing the trial of Four Virtues. She is gray and purple and gauges Rose’s abilities to hunt the night. It is by no means a hard boss fight. However, it has all of Rose’s weapons and spells, which can make her a tricky fight. I will go over her patterns and spells and give you a solid build to finish her off without breaking a sweat.
Detailed guide on beating the Doppelganger:
Where to Find the Doppelganger Boss Fight
This boss is found in the Gallery of Four Virtues after finishing the four trials of virtue. She appears with “???” as her name, but is known as the Doppelganger. Fighting and beating this boss is essential to getting the true ending of the game, for it gives you the final tarot card, the self.
After finishing the trial and saving at a mirror of life, activate the altar, and you’ll be transported to a small empty room in which your shadow or curse breaks out of you in a cutscene and taunts you before starting a fight.
The Doppelganger Move Set
She is a doppelganger of Rose, so she uses a wide variety of moves that are also available to you as well. She can use both spells and weapons.
The Doppelganger Weapon Attacks
For her normal attacks, she uses the longsword. Dodging or parrying is recommended.
The Doppelganger also switches to the lance to hit you if you aren’t in immediate range, but uses the move even when you are close. Usually good if you can dodge behind the Cursed; if not, you need a precise jump time or a parry.
The whip comes out if you are too far away from the Doppelganger to hit you. She will try to drag you to her with the whip. Jump to avoid it.
Also, between all her combos, but mostly in her second phase (happens when the boss reaches 50% HP), she weaves in a greatsword attack as well. Either dodge or parry
There’s also a shield bash that can appear, though it’s incredibly easy to dodge.
On the rarest of occasions, the Doppelganger would try to combo you with the twin blades. Stagger or try to put some distance between yourself and the boss. Parrying is not recommended here.
All of these attacks can be parried with Holy Light, or just dodge by dashing past the boss.
The Doppelganger Magic Attacks
The Doppelganger also has most of Rose’s tarot cards and uses them in the fight. The first one that she uses is almost always the Holy Cross. You can attack it, jump over it, or just parry it using Holy Light.
But it doesn’t end there. You have to dodge Petrify a lot in this fight as well. Sliding past the boss usually does the trick.
The Doppelganger also has access to soul harvest, which you can only dodge by jumping high and not being on the same horizontal level as the Doppelganger.
The Doppelganger also has access to Infernal Pyre. You can see each tarot card behind the Doppelganger before she casts the spell itself. For the pyre, either stagger the boss or jump away fast.
Tho it is rare, the Doppelganger can cast bloodspikes. They travel on the ground, so jump to dodge them.
What Happens When You Beat the Doppelganger
The Doppelganger turns into a tarot card and congratulates Rose on beating the darkness within and asks whether Rose is ready to face the darkness of the world or not. When she finds herself back in the main gallery of Four Virtues, Rose is met with the visage of her mother, Sypha Bellnades. They share a brief talk about love and hatred, the importance of balance, and then the piece of Sypha’s soul that has always been with Rose moves on to rest in peace.
Best build to defeat the Doppelganger
Many builds have already been posted online, but there’s one that I’m very fond of when I want to melt a boss fast, and that’s “The Dark, The Haunted, The Blackened”.
You need three Relics and either Brenhard’s Wrath (if you want more heals) or Alucard’s sword and shield (if you want easier movement and damage dealing).
- The first relic is the dark sigil that increases Rose’s defense by 80% when she’s at max health.
- The second relic is the haunted relic, which increases Rose’s defense by 60% after she receives a hit.
- The blackened heart heals Rose for 2 health points whenever she hits an enemy, but she can’t use her flask.
I think you are already getting the idea here. With Brenhard’s ability to heal with high combos and the healing of the black heart, supported by the two defense-increase relics, your Rose becomes an indestructible, aggressive Juggernaut that can dish out damage continuously and heal all the damage she receives back.
You can further supply this with the Brittle King tarot card that allows you to cast the Stained Glass shield. While the spell itself is very useful, one of the passives you can get as an upgrade to this spell allows you to reduce all the damage you receive during an attack by 50% and continue the attack uninterrupted. Easily tank and keep the combo going and melt Shadow Rose. Or any boss, really.
By replacing Bernhard’s Wrath with Alucard’s Sword and Shield, you would be giving up a bit of healing, but in return you would get the teleport ability of the weapon, always staying engaged with the boss, and the ability to block any attack from the front. Pick your favorite; mine is sword and shield.
Best Location to Farm The Self Works of Mercy
After fighting the Cursed in the gallery of four virtues, you are given the final tarot card of your deck, The Self, which gives you the Absolution spell, a high-damage-dealing spell that also heals Rose. The works of mercy for this card are as follows:
- Kill 4 enemies in a single cast of this spell x5
- Explore 85% of the map
- Heal back to full life using this spell x10
The second condition is most likely already met (unless you somehow didn’t get lost at any part of this game and speed ran to get this card), so we can focus on the first and the third one.
There’s a location in the Main Hall called the elevator tower. To the right of the mirror of life is an arena battle that, when won, leaves behind two lance knights and a flying lance knight. Exactly below them is a group of six ghouls that can jump on Rose. Here is the best place in the game to farm Absolution’s First and Third Works of Mercy, and not just this card; other cards can also be farmed here to reach maximum level as soon as possible.
Castlevania: Belmont's Curse
