How to Defeat Alduin

Co-authored by wikiHow Staff

Last Updated: April 28, 2020

A time-travelling dragon who eats the souls of the dead, Alduin the World-Eater appears twice in Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to do battle with the player. For both fights, you will have access to the powerful “Dragonrend” shout, which will force him to the ground so that you can fight him hand to hand (this is necessary even when fighting with ranged weapons). The strategies for both fights are very similar, but the final battle has a few extra limitations due to its location in Sovngarde.

Method 1

Method 1 of 2:

Fighting Alduin at the Throat of the World

1
Prepare for the climb. Purchase or craft a number of healing and fire resist potions in any town. You may want to consider recruiter a follower to help you as well.
- A solid melee fighter, like Lydia or Mjoll are good choices to tank Alduin when he lands. Ilia is also a good choice for her proficiency in frost magic.
- There will be a few Ice Wraiths on the climb, so a couple of frost resist potions may be a good idea as well.
- If you have training in Restoration magic, you can use spells to substitute for healing or resist potions.
2
Learn the “Dragonrend” shout. When you reach the top, you will speak to Paarthurnax and watch a lengthy cutscene to learn the shout before the fight with Alduin begins.
- Paarthurnax will aid you in your fight against Alduin and act as a distraction, but you will have to deal the bulk of the damage.
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3
Use “Dragonrend” to bring Alduin to the ground. Tap and hold the shout button to charge it. Follow Alduin’s flight with the camera as you charge so that you do not miss. If you miss you will have to wait while your shout recharges.
- Equip an Amulet of Talos if you need the shout cooldown to be shortened.
- Although Paarthurnax will spar with Alduin in the air, Alduin cannot be damaged until you ground him with Dragonrend.
- A single tap of the shout button will do a single-charge version of the shout that can still effectively stun Alduin after he is already grounded. You can use this to help preventing him from becoming airborne again.^{[1]
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4
Use “Clear Skies” tactically. Alduin has his own shout that causes meteors to rain from the sky. When this happens, you can use Clear Skies to cancel it.
- You will have learned this shout from The Greybeards before being allowed to ascend the mountain, so you cannot have missed it.
- If your shout is on cooldown when this happens, then it is a good time to use a fire resist potion.
- Remember, using Clear Skies means your shout will go on cooldown and you will have to wait for it to recharge before you can use Dragonrend again.
5
Avoid Alduin’s front. Once on the ground, Alduin uses a powerful fire breath attack that does lots of damage to everyone in front of him and a strong tail whips from the back. Try to attack from the sides regardless of range or melee.
- Eventually he will turn to bite you, causing you to face his front again, so keep strafing to the sides.
- Fire resist potions can help if you want to challenge him from the front, but best to avoid it altogether.
6
Use frost magic. If you have training in destruction magic, spells like ice spike and ice storm can do big damage to Alduin since he has a slight weakness to frost.
- Ice storm can damage your follower, so use it with caution.
- If you have it, the Marked For Death shout will greatly increase your damage with magic, but timing it between uses of Dragonrend and Clear Skies can be difficult.
7
Apply poisons to your weapons. Lingering poisons are just as effective against Alduin as any other non-undead creature. These can be crafted or acquired from an alchemy shop in any town.
- Using poisons if very effective when using a bow from afar while a follower tanks Alduin’s hits at melee range.
8
Keep the pressure on. Keep Alduin on the ground with Dragonrend, use health potions when you get low, and before long Alduin should succumb to the damage and retreat.

Method 2

Method 2 of 2:

Fighting Alduin at Sovngarde

1
Prepare for the fight. If you are already at Sovngarde there is no turning back, so hopefully you have a healthy supply of health and fire resist potions. Consider equipping armor that gives fire resist and a weapon that heals on hit (like the Ebony Blade or others with the Absorb health enchant) if you have any in your inventory.
- The point of no return is when you have the option to leave for Skuldafn from Whiterun. You will lose a full dungeon’s worth of progress if you wish to revert to an earlier save to take advantage of stocking up in town.
- If you have training in Restoration magic, you can use spells to substitute for healing or resist potions.
- You cannot bring followers with you to Sovngarde without modding, but you are given help by the NPCs there during the engagement.
2
Use the “Clear Skies” shout three times. Your NPC companions will automatically use it when you do to clear Alduin’s blocking fog. He will restore it until you’ve cleared it three times.
3
Use “Dragonrend” to bring Alduin to the ground. Tap and hold the shout button to charge it. Follow Alduin’s flight with the camera as you charge so that you do not miss. If you miss you will have to wait while your shout recharges.
- Equip an Amulet of Talos if you need the shout cooldown to be shortened.
- Even though the NPCs will shoot at Alduin while he flies, he cannot actually be damaged until he is forced to the ground with this shout.
- A single tap of the shout button will do a single-charge version of the shout that can still effectively stun Alduin after he is already grounded. You can use this to help preventing him from becoming airborne again.^{[2]
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4
Let an ally take the damage. Each time that Alduin lands, wait just a few moments for an ally to attack him and draw his attention.
5
Avoid Alduin’s front. Once on the ground, Alduin uses a powerful fire breath attack that does lots of damage to everyone in front of him and a strong tail whips from the back. Try to attack from the sides regardless of range or melee.
- Eventually he will turn to bite you, causing you to face his front again, so keep strafing to the sides.
- Fire resist potions can help if you want to challenge him from the front, but best to avoid it altogether.
- If you have to choose, tank a tail whip hit rather than a fire breath attack. You’ll suffer much less from it.
6
Use frost magic. If you have training in destruction magic, spells like ice spike and ice storm can do big damage to Alduin since he has a slight weakness to frost.
- Ice storm can damage your helpers, so use it with caution.
- If you have it, the Marked For Death shout will greatly increase your damage with magic, but it is best to use Dragonrend as much as possible to keep Alduin on the ground.
7
Apply poisons to your weapons. Lingering poisons are just as effective against Alduin as any other non-undead creature.
- Using poisons if very effective when using a bow from afar while the NPCs tank Alduin’s hits.
8
Rinse and repeat. Keep Alduin on the ground with Dragonrend, let your allies grab attention so that you can heal when you need. Eventually, Alduin will run out of steam and be defeated once and for all..

Community Q&A

Question

What level should I get to before fighting Alduin?

Community Answer

Alduin will level with you, so judge based on your gear, spells, ect. If you have decent gear and weapons/spells, just take a bunch of healing potions and you should be okay.
Question

How do I defeat him with just a blade sword and healing with no enchantments or potions.

Community Answer

If you wish to also avoid magic, you'll need to be very careful about avoiding his attacks while letting NPCs tank the damage. Use an amulet of talos to shorten your shout cooldown so you can keep Alduin stunned on the ground. Good luck and keep your patience.
Question

Is there any way to make Alduin lose health?

Community Answer

Yes. If you are doing a quest, you need to ground him using Dragonrend and keep him grounded while also attacking him between uses of Dragonrend.

Warnings

Keep an eye on your follower’s health. Melee followers like Lydia are likely to die from Alduin’s fire breath. Try essential (immortal) followers such as J'zargo.

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Even if you run around Alduin when near him, he will follow you with his fire breath.

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Skyrim suffers from many bugs. In some rare cases, Alduin may remain invulnerable the entire fight. If this happens, try reloading from a save point. If your Skyrim patch version is up to date this is less likely to occur and that game will also autosave just before the fight starts. This bug may be triggered by using Dragonrend before Paarthurnax tells you to, so only first use the shout when prompted. ^{[3]
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