How to Beat Yucong (All 3 Puppets) in Phantom Blade Zero: Boss Guide

Boss Overview

Remember the three-phase puppet you had to fight back in chapter one of Phantom Blade Zero? The game eventually calls back to that encounter in a much nastier way. The Yucong boss fight is a triple-threat showdown in which all three puppets are on the field at the same time, and it is on you to survive and dismantle them together rather than one phase at a time.

By the guide's own assessment, the encounter lands in the "kind of difficult" range. It is not the most brutal wall the game can throw at you, but juggling three hostile puppets at once will absolutely expose sloppy habits. The good news is that the fight's difficulty is almost entirely a matter of target discipline and preparation. If you bring the right loadout, respect how the puppets' aggression is gated, and commit to one target at a time, the whole encounter becomes far more manageable than it first looks.

This guide walks through everything the video covers: how each puppet behaves, the full recommended build — including the one weapon the quest forces you to carry — and a step-by-step strategy that carries you from the opening seconds of the fight to the final puppet falling.

The Three Puppets

The defining feature of this encounter is that all three puppets share the arena with you from the start, but they do not all share the same level of aggression. The video singles out two puppets by name — the Steel puppet and the Chaos puppet — and builds its entire game plan around the fact that two of the three hold back until something triggers them. Here is the summary:

One elemental note applies across the board: fire damage works really well against all three puppets, whatever the individual weaknesses turn out to be.

The Steel Puppet

The Steel puppet is your designated opener, and the video is explicit about this: walk up to her, make her engage you, and treat the start of the fight as a one-on-one duel. The reason this works is the encounter's built-in aggression leash. As long as you leave the other two puppets alone, they simply will not attack you during this opening stretch.

That leash has exactly two triggers, and you need to keep both in mind. The first is your own doing: if you engage the other puppets, the free pass ends immediately. The second is a countdown you cannot stop: once the Steel puppet's health gets low, the other two join in whether you touched them or not. In other words, the opening duel is on a timer set by her health bar, so make the most of it and be mentally ready for the pile-on the moment her health dips low.

The Chaos Puppet

The Chaos puppet is one of the two that hangs back during the opening duel, but it earns its own mention for an elemental reason: in the video's experience, it seems to take extra damage from frost. The creator is upfront that this is an observation rather than a confirmed mechanic, so treat it as a strong hint instead of a guarantee. If your build has a frost option available, this is the puppet to spend it on.

The Third Puppet

The video does not name the third puppet or single out any weakness for it, and that is the honest takeaway: its weakness is unknown. Behaviorally, it follows the same script as the Chaos puppet. It stays passive while you duel the Steel puppet, joins the fight once one of the escalation triggers fires, and is thereafter handled with the same tools — area damage from your Phantom Edge and punishing guard breaks whenever you create them.

Recommended Loadout

A large chunk of the guide is spent on preparation, and that is a deliberate choice for this fight. With three puppets crowding you, the right weapons and accessories quietly do an enormous amount of work. Everything below comes straight from the video.

Weapons

• Blazing Edge: This one is not a preference — the quest itself requires Blazing Edge, so it has to be in your loadout before you can even start the fight.
• White Shadow: The second weapon in the video's setup, paired alongside the mandatory Blazing Edge.
• Marshall Edge Fire Meteor: The creator's personal addition for this specific boss fight, and it earns its slot for two reasons. First, it comes with an area-of-effect move called Force Cyclone, which is exactly the kind of tool you want when three puppets are clustering around you. Second, it also increases your damage reduction, which is a genuinely welcome bonus in a three-on-one fight.

Consumable

• Green Serpent Brew: Bring it to negate status damage. The video specifically stresses that you should not just bring it, but bring it upgraded — do not skip that step.

Accessories

• Feather Fan Plum: Increases your elemental damage against enemies by 30 percent. Given how well fire performs against all three puppets, an elemental damage boost pulls real weight here.
• Ancient Armor Fragment: Makes you more tanky. Simple, effective, and always welcome when three enemies can swing at you at once.
• Remnant Spark Cube: Increases your Phantom Edge damage. Your Phantom Edge is a core tool in this fight, so boosting it pays off every time you use it.
• Miraculous Scabbard: Grants super armor and damage reduction whenever you switch main weapons. The video flags this as a standout for this encounter specifically, because you will be switching weapons constantly against three puppets — every one of those swaps becomes safer and cheaper.
• Quickhand Might: Increases the damage of two-handed weapons. Both weapons in this setup are two-handed, which means the bonus applies to your entire kit — a nice free boost.
• Aite Whisk: Restores your Remnant Spark, which is what fuels the Phantom Edge in the first place. Against three targets, you will want the Phantom Edge available again and again, and this keeps it online.

Recommended Strategy

The strategy boils down to one core principle the video repeats more than once: the fight is not that hard if you focus on one target consistently. Here is how that plays out, step by step.

Step 1: Open on the Steel puppet and duel her alone. At the start of the fight, go directly to the Steel puppet and make her engage with you. Leave the other two puppets completely alone. As long as you do, they should not attack you, which turns the most dangerous phase of a three-on-one — the beginning — into a controlled one-on-one exchange.

Step 2: Respect the two escalation triggers. The passive behavior of the other puppets ends the moment you engage them yourself, or once the Steel puppet's health gets low. Keep one eye on her health bar as you damage her, and treat the moment it gets low as your warning that the real fight is about to start.

Step 3: When the others start attacking, answer with your Phantom Edge. Once the remaining puppets pile on, do not panic and do not try to duel all three individually. Use your Phantom Edge — it hits the puppets around you and deals damage to all three at once, converting the scariest moment of the fight into an actual damage window for you.

Step 4: Go all in on every guard break. Whenever you break a puppet's guard, that is your cue to unload. The video's advice is to deal as much damage as possible to any of them at that moment — it does not matter which puppet's guard breaks, only that you capitalize on it immediately. Guard breaks are your biggest burst windows in this fight, so do not let any of them go to waste.

Step 5: Take the fight from three puppets to two. Keep up the single-target pressure and the guard-break punishment, and eventually you will kill one of them. From that point on, only two remain, and the encounter gets meaningfully easier.

Step 6: Run the exact same script on the survivors. With two puppets left, the plan does not change: focus on one target and finish them off. Do not split your damage between the two survivors — pick one, break its guard, punish, and repeat until the arena is down to a single puppet, then close out the fight the same way.

Step 7: Spend your resources the moment you are in trouble. If the fight starts slipping away from you, do not hoard anything. The video's advice is direct: use your heals and your Phantom Edge. In a three-on-one, a bad moment compounds quickly, so recover early rather than trying to scrape through at a sliver of health.

Elemental Game Plan

Two elemental facts shape your damage choices. First, the Chaos puppet seems to be weak to frost — the creator's own observation, offered with the honest caveat that it is not confirmed — so frost is worth directing at that puppet if you have it. The weaknesses of the other two puppets are unknown, but that barely matters because of the second fact: fire works really well against all three of them. Between a strong universal element and one likely frost-weak target, your elemental priorities in this fight are effectively set.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why should I attack the Steel puppet first in the Yucong fight?

Because of the encounter's aggression rules. While you are fighting the Steel puppet, the other two puppets will not attack you — and that only changes if you engage them yourself or the Steel puppet's health gets low. Opening on her effectively converts a three-on-one into a temporary one-on-one, which is by far the safest way to start the fight.

What do I do when all three puppets attack me at once?

Use your Phantom Edge. It hits the puppets around you and deals damage to all three simultaneously, which makes it the ideal answer to the pile-on. Beyond that, keep looking for guard breaks — whenever one happens, that is the moment to go all in and deal as much damage as possible, regardless of which puppet it is.

What are the three puppets weak to?

Fire works really well against all three puppets, making it the safest all-around choice. The Chaos puppet additionally seems to be weak to frost, though the guide presents this as an unconfirmed observation. The weaknesses of the other two puppets are not known.

Do I have to use Blazing Edge against Yucong?

Yes. Blazing Edge is a requirement of the quest tied to this fight, so it has to be part of your loadout. The video pairs it with White Shadow and adds the Marshall Edge Fire Meteor for its Force Cyclone area-of-effect move and its damage reduction bonus.