Where Winds Meet Murong Yuan boss fight strategy (all phases)

Murong Yuan is one of the standout campaign bosses in Where Winds Meet, fought at Jadewood Court in Kaifeng as part of the Jinming Pool: Petalfall Banquet questline. The duel plays out in two distinct phases: first against Yuan alone, then with her Wooden Eagle backing her up. The fight is fast, punishing, and heavily weighted toward precise parries and smart target selection rather than raw damage.

Where to find Murong Yuan and when the fight unlocks

Murong Yuan’s campaign battle unlocks in the Kaifeng region, inside the Jadewood Court area near the North Imperial Garden. To reach her, you first need to complete the Jinming Pool: Petalfall Banquet campaign quest arc in Kaifeng. The boss encounter is the climax of that storyline.

After clearing the arc once, Murong Yuan becomes a rechallengeable campaign boss at Jadewood Court, letting you return on higher difficulties or with different builds.

Recommended setup for Murong Yuan

The fight is less about a specific weapon and more about survivability, parry timing, and a single critical Mystic Art: Meridian Touch. Still, certain choices make the encounter noticeably more manageable.

Any main Martial Art can technically clear the fight if your timing is good. Panacea Fan stands out because the healing effect gives you extra attempts to learn her patterns without resetting.

Reading Murong Yuan’s visual cues

Murong Yuan’s moves are built around color-coded weapon glows that signal what you can and cannot block or parry. Treat these as non-negotiable rules:

• Yellow glow on her sword usually signals a charged, high-commitment attack. Some of these can be blocked, others count as unblockable, but the safe response is either a perfectly timed dodge or pre-emptive Meridian Touch to cancel the windup.
• Red glow on her sword marks a two-part sequence. The first swing in this pattern is unsafe to block or parry and should be sidestepped or dodged outright. The follow-up swing is parryable and is one of your best chances to shred her Qi bar.

On higher difficulties, such as Legend, these visual cues matter more than your stats. Most failed attempts come from trying to guess without watching the blade.

Lú Game • youtube.com

Murong Yuan Boss Fight

Starts at: 00:14

Phase one strategy (duel vs. Murong Yuan)

Phase one is a straight duel between you and Yuan in a flat arena. The main constraints are her reach and how quickly she can traverse the space. Her swings telegraph clearly, but she covers distance fast, so you rarely get to whiff-punish from far away. Instead, you live inside her attack ranges and use her own pressure against her.

Phase one game plan

• Stay closer than feels safe. Her movement over long distances is fast, but her actual attack animations are slower than her dashes. Hug mid-range to be in position for parries instead of chasing her around the arena.
• Attack first, then be ready to parry. Her basic strings leave enough room to land a few hits before she counters. Once you’ve struck two to three times, expect retaliation and shift immediately into guard/parry focus.
• Use Meridian Touch on yellow-charged attacks when possible. When her sword flashes yellow, and she starts a longer charge, step in and hit Meridian Touch. If timed correctly, this cancels the move entirely and knocks her to the ground for a short window. Use that time for your highest-damage combo or a Mystic Art like Flaming Meteor.
• Dodge the wrong yellow attack. Not every yellow pattern is safe to intercept. If you miss the timing window for Meridian Touch or the prompt never appears, default to a sideways dodge instead of gambling on a block.
• Handle the red-glow pattern as a mini test. When her blade turns red:
  • Backstep or roll away from the first hit; do not guard it.
  • Immediately prepare a parry for the second swing. Landing this parry pays out heavily into her Qi bar and sets her up for more damage.
• Protect your companion if you brought one. Let an ally like Yi Dao hold aggro when things get messy, but don’t let them get deleted in phase one. You will want that extra body when the Wooden Eagle appears later.

Once you deplete her health for the first time, a cutscene transitions into phase two. Avoid skipping this cutscene if you rely on Yi Dao; the transition can sometimes cause companion behavior issues if interrupted.

Phase two strategy (Murong Yuan and the Wooden Eagle)

Phase two adds the Wooden Eagle, a giant mechanical bird that alternates between ranged harassment and occasional melee rushdowns. The key detail: you only need to kill Murong Yuan to win. The Eagle has its own health bar, but fully destroying it is unnecessary and usually a poor use of time.

How the Wooden Eagle behaves

• Mostly ranged pressure. The Eagle frequently hovers at a distance, firing projectiles. These can be guarded or deflected, and doing so can chip away at its Qi bar.
• Occasional melee passes. Sometimes it swoops in close with attacks that look and feel awkward. These are technically parryable but are harder to read and not worth risking on higher difficulties unless you know the timing well.
• Camera focus shift. When the Eagle fully targets you, the lock-on/camera will swing from Yuan to the bird. Treat this as a signal that your priorities have changed: you are in survival mode until it backs off.

When you break the Eagle’s Qi bar, it will fall into a stun state and open itself for a finisher. Do not take the finisher if your goal is ending the fight quickly; leaving it stunned in place effectively removes it from combat temporarily while you focus entirely on Yuan.

Phase two game plan against Murong Yuan

• Keep your primary target on Yuan. Every second you spend swinging at the Eagle is a second you are not touching the real win condition. Attack the bird only when you’re forced to defend yourself or when deflecting projectiles safely builds Qi damage.
• Treat Eagle focus as a defensive phase. When the camera whips to the Wooden Eagle, stop chasing Yuan and concentrate on clean dodges, blocks, or simple deflects. The objective during this window is to avoid damage, not to push DPS.
• Exploit Eagle-assisted combos from Yuan. In phase two, some of Yuan’s attacks sync with the Eagle. These complex patterns are parryable and leave her extremely open if you get the timing right. Mechanically, they work like extended versions of her phase one strings: watch for the colored flash and answer with a parry at the impact moment.
• Prepare for her plunge attack. Yuan will sometimes call the bird, leap out of reach, and then dive back down with a plunging strike that leaves fire on impact:
  • As soon as she leaves the ground, start moving laterally to clear a wide area, not back toward the center.
  • When she hits, avoid standing in the fiery impact zone, which inflicts a burn status if you linger.
  • If you’re confident in the timing, you can parry the final hit on landing for a big punish, but prioritize safety until you’ve seen the tell a few times.
• Maintain companion uptime. A tanky companion like Yi Dao can keep Yuan busy while you manage the Eagle’s projectiles and set up backstabs or Qi breaks. If your companion goes down early in phase two, the fight becomes more hectic but still winnable if your parries are consistent.

Using Meridian Touch and other Mystic Arts effectively

Meridian Touch is the single most important Mystic Art in this encounter. It counters one of Yuan’s most threatening move types and creates rare, extended punish windows.

• Only commit when the prompt appears. When Yuan starts a yellow unblockable-style charge, the game can show a specific timing window for Meridian Touch. Use it then; throwing it out blindly will get you clipped.
• Chain major damage into the knockdown. Once she is knocked down:
  • Open with your strongest charged attack chain or a heavy-hitting Mystic Art like Flaming Meteor.
  • If you run high Qi damage tools, dump them here to push her toward a Qi break, then follow up with a finisher on the ground.
• Save resources for phase two. It’s tempting to burn all your strongest skills in phase one when the arena is cleaner. On higher difficulties, keep at least some cooldowns or resources ready for phase two, where safe windows are rarer.

Other Mystic Arts, such as Loong Head, can help you extend combos during her longer recovery animations or add ranged support when the Eagle is pulling you out of position.

Rewards for defeating Murong Yuan

Clearing Jinming Pool: Petalfall Banquet and defeating Murong Yuan grants a mix of currency, experience, and unique items tied to the Kaifeng region.

Beating Murong Yuan also moves your broader campaign progress forward and sets expectations for later high-difficulty encounters where reading colored attack flashes and parrying under pressure become mandatory skills.

Once you understand that the Wooden Eagle is a distraction, Meridian Touch is your safety valve, and Yuan’s colored sword glows are rigid rules rather than decoration, the fight shifts from chaotic to structured. The remaining work is repetition: internalizing her phase one strings, playing defensively whenever the Eagle steals camera focus, and squeezing every punish out of each knockdown until her health bar finally disappears.