I almost thought I’d never be able to beat this dang battle. I first attempted the fight in 2019, gave up after many attempts, tried again about six months ago but similarly failed, and finally buckled down to complete this trial.
Now that it’s behind me, I thought I’d write down my strategy, since the other guides and videos I found online didn’t seem to be clear enough for me to fully grasp it.
First thing to understand is that Block, Parry, and Dodge are all on the same button (▢). What the heck? Block and Parry make sense to be together, but Dodge should have been paired with Jump. The funny thing is that you never need to use Jump when you’re in battle, so the (✕) button goes unused in a battle context, and you can only Dodge when you have the enemy lock (R1) engaged and are pressing the left joystick in a direction. It would have made way more sense to turn Jump into a Dodge button whenever you have the lock engaged (which is only when you’re in a fight), rather than having to pick Block/Parry or Dodge based on long press or short press (▢). Bad control design, in my opinion. The important info though: hold the (▢) button to block/parry. Tap it while holding enemy lock (R1) and tilting the joystick in a direction.
Next thing, you should complete the Score Attack trophies before you attempt to beat Cor. That way you learn the Block/Parry mechanic that requires you to consistently time your block (▢) presses to maximize your odds of blocking attacks. To parry his attack, generally you’ll want to time your tap of the block/parry button (▢) with the moment just as Cor is about to swing.
The only times you will make Cor vulnerable to attack is when he turns purple. Parry (▢) his attack and then hammer him with attacks (◯) until the word “Vulnerable” is no longer written over his head. When he turns purple, you can try to get an extra one or two hits on him. If you’re aren’t knocked over, you can also hit him one or two times after his attack.
Finally, if you’re playing on PS5, and maybe this also applies to PS4 Pro, go into the game Settings and set the Performance mode to Lite. This will optimize the game to run at 60fps.
The overall strategy of the fight is to build your technique meter to Maelstrom and your Rage meter to the maximum (×4). You do this by Parrying attacks from Cor. Generally, keep your shield out while Cor is attacking you, but try to time block/parry button (▢) along with Cor’s strikes to parry his attack away. If you successfully parry, then attack (◯) one or two times while the button is flashed on the screen. Even if you miss Cor, you still increase your technique/Rage meters in this moment.
Save Maelstrom until Cor’s health is >50%. Cor is less dangerous when his health is above 50%. You should ideally have your Phoenix Down saved for the second half of the fight, and maybe one or more Potions.
When you successfully parry him into a vulnerable state with his health below 50% (and have a max Rage meter), then unleash your Maelstrom Glaive art (△). I’d recommend spamming the (△) button until the whole sequence is over, that way you don’t risk losing the timed optional attacks.
This may not be enough to kill him. If not, you’re going to want to continue playing as you did in the first half, but more cautious of Cor’s unblockable state (when he turns red) that he will more frequently enter with low health.
The worst part of the fight is that, starting with Cor’s health reaching about 66%, he has a chance of executing an unblockable attack that you must dodge, or else it will knock 75% of a full HP bar off your current health. If your HP is at or below 75%, you’re dead. When Cor jumps in the air, you need to pause for a moment, and then dodge to the left or right. If you’re moving while Cor jumps, or you don’t move to a different angle from Cor during his sequence, his hit will land on you. This is why you should have a Phoenix Down saved for the second half of the fight. I was never able to reliably dodge this attack.
Sometimes if you’re lucky, when you’re knocked over by one of Cor’s attacks and you hit the block/parry button (▢) just before Gladio hits the ground, your HP will refill some or all of the way. I don’t know that this can be done consistently, so just hope for it rather than think you can build it into your strategy.
Whenever Cor turns red, just disengage and run or roll away from him. When far away, make sure to watch out for his projectiles. Keep him away from you until he’s back to normal, then resume the strategy.
This has definitely been the most individually difficult trophy I’ve collected from any PlayStation game so far, and by far. Supposedly, the Cor fight is only the third most difficult fight in Final Fantasy XV, with Ignis’s fight being harder than this one, and Omega being harder than that one. We’ll see. Cor has stopped me from progressing in this game for years; I hope those other two let me finally 100% this game this year.