Scarlet Nexus is jam-packed with a huge variety of bosses that you will encounter during your course of the game. In this guide, we will show you how to defeat Karen Travers in Scarlet Nexus, the fifth boss you will encounter as part of Kasane’s storyline.
Scarlet Nexus Karen Travers Boss
Let’s talk a little about Karen in Scarlet Nexus first. You will actually fight Karen in both Yuito and Kasane’s story routes. This boss uses a variety of unique abilities, which consists of Teleportation, Cloning, and Lightning attacks. Karen is at level 50, and his weaknesses include Psychokinesis.
It would be best for you to know the attack patterns used by Karen Travers during the boss fight. These patterns include Lightning Strike, which Karen himself unleashes and deals AoE damage. The range of this attack is extensive; therefore, it is recommended that you use teleportation during this attack.
Another common attack used by Karen is his 3-Hit Combo which deals high damage up close. You can easily avoid this attack by dodging and striking back.
Teleportation is your best friend and Karen’s weakness during your encounter with him. You will have two encounters with Karen Travers in Scarlet Nexus. Let’s go through them one by one.
First Karen Travers Boss Fight
Your first encounter with Karen Travers is programmed to result in a defeat from your side. Try as much as you want, there is no way you can beat Karen Travers during this boss fight. However, you must fight against him and give him as much damage as possible. Don’t feel too overwhelmed since he is supposed to possess abilities far more advanced than yours.
During the first encounter, Karen will be teleporting a lot, making it hard for you to attack him. He will use this teleporting to evade and also produce hard to dodge melee attacks. Since he’s so rapid with his attacks, it becomes hard to resist the impacts effectively.
The main trick here is to dodge from your position just before Karen teleports. You could also time his teleportation and predict the next one to save you from the damage. Try making the use of pre-strike to damage him as he teleports.
As for the attacks, Karen will launch his lightning attacks here to hit you with electricity and cause a stun effect. Karen will rise up in the air to trace you down and then send electric shocks. To avoid that, you will have to either run or teleport from Karen’s range.
To encounter Karen’s attacks better, we recommend you to wait for him to get distracted by other teammates and then launch your attack. You will repeat these steps by moving away from Karen and then hitting him while also dodging him.
There’s no ultimate way to save yourself from Karen’s lightning attacks as he has far more advanced abilities than you, and on top of that, he’s merciless. But you could save yourself by observing the patterns and actions that he repeats before attacking. For example, he’ll usually raise himself to the air and lift his fist.
As soon as you observe Karen doing so, either run away from his range or teleport. Karen’s attacks can’t be interrupted, but you could use melee attacks to respond better and irritate him.
Another attack that Karen will unleash is the Electricity Discharge. In this attack, he lifts his fist and then creates three orbs to track you. These orbs are highly damaging and can only be dodged if you prevent them from forming in the first place.
Just as the previous attacks, these orbs can’t be dodged once they are released. Karen will make sure to attack you, and he will go as far as he could by teleporting behind or in front of you. The best way to tackle him is to use melee attacks and Psychokinesis to combat.
Karen will switch to the Brain Field state after going back and forth with the Lightning Bolts and Electricity Discharge. Being in this state does not really change the attacks he’s using. However, he will become more aggressive and attack nonstop. At this point, every member will get affected by his aggression and will face defeat.
Second Encounter
As your second encounter starts, things get intense. What makes Karen different from other bosses is that he does not possess a Crush Gauge, which means the player can’t chunk his health utilizing the Brain Crush move. You can use Tusugumi’s Assault Vision for fighting the second encounter.
Karen will now make two clones of him to double his slash attacks. Both of these clones will attack you nonstop, so strategize your battle.
Dodge yourself from the first attacks and then proceed with your melee attack. As you’re dealing with that, Electrical Discharge will also make its way back. Dodge the orbs by attacking Karen and use Tsugumi’s Assault Vision to counter other attacks.
You can also attack Karen when he’s done attacking you through Electricity Discharge. He will kneel to the ground for a few seconds before he could get up again. Use that opportunity and shoot him from the back. Then, leap onto him and slash him as much as you can.
You can also use random objects nearby to throw at him by using Psychokinesis. To really damage him, you can also use gunshots to stun him and attack him more. However, to execute this attack on him properly, you must time everything correctly.
For his second attack, Karen will now bang his hand on the ground and release ice spikes from the surface to make things worse. Avoid getting in contact with these spikes and run around. These spikes can knock you out, so be very careful. You can run by dodging your way or go sideways to avoid any possible contact.
Karen will also charge attack at you for increased damage. We suggest you keep running and slashing to encounter these attacks. If you don’t dodge the attack, you’ll be knocked out soon. We also recommend you use teleportation as much as possible to avoid Karen’s attacks.
To bring down Karen’s health low, keep up with the melee attacks and slash as much as you can. As soon as his health drains to 50%, a cut scene will trigger and your team will be defeated by Karen again.
However, don’t get frustrated if you can’t seem to win the battle because regardless of how much you try, this fight is a special scenario. Yep, that’s a bummer but you will have to follow through. Karen is supposed to beat you in this battle and trigger the next phase.
Final Encounter
Your final boss encounter with Karen Travers will take place at the Sumeragi Tomb. This fight will be divided into three phases.
First Phase
For the first phase, Karen will use the combinations of all previous attacks he made towards you in the first and second encounters. A new attack that he’ll add will be the Eruption attack, where he will become untouchable, and no attacks will have any effect on him. He’ll stomp on the ground and release eruptions that will cause intense damage to you and your mates.
This attack is more potent than any attacks made previously by him. To save yourself from it, run away from Karen’s range or teleport as soon as you detect him advancing towards this attack.
Thankfully, you can use SAS: Velocity here to catch Karen every time he teleports. Use this ability to get near him and execute your attacks to bring his health low. You’ll also have access to all SAS abilities making it easier for you to counterattack Karen. You can also use SAS: Invisibility to attack stealthily on Karen and create more damage towards him.
After going back and forth and attacking Karen as much as possible, his health bar will hit 70%, triggering him to activate the Brain Field. Here Karen will teleport more than usual and use Lightning Bolts and Electricity Discharge to bring you down. You can avoid the impacts by using SAS: Sclerokinesis or SAS: Velocity. You can always run and dodge to save yourself from any damage.
As Karen’s health bar hit 30%, he’ll now use Psychokinesis and lift objects around him to throw towards you. He’ll throw them with greater force that can lead up to more damage than you expect. The best way to dodge these attacks is to look at the object before they are thrown towards you. They will be highlighted red and then come your way.
Use the red highlight as an indication of an upcoming attack and run or teleport. If you get hit by an object, a cut scene will be triggered where Karen will use a combo similar to Brain Crush and drain 70% of your health.
Use Medium Jelly to heal from any damage you’ve received and counterattack Karen as much as you can with the SAS abilities. After you’ve caused some damage to Karen, his Crush Gauge will be depleted.
After much battling and dodging, you’ll win the first phase against Karen!
Second Phase
For the second phase, Karen will have five statues that will fight for him. Karen will be pretty much unconscious during the whole fight and will control these statues with his mind while hiding behind one of them.
Karen essentially will be hidden behind the metal fans of the Statue, and once that Statue receives damage from the players, the fan would fall. Karen will then be exposed to damage for a specific duration, and you can attack him as much as you can before the Statue recuperates.
These Statues have flowers held onto their faces at first, which later converts to masks.
When you’re in a battle with these Statues, they’ll spawn a big object into the arena with a timer on it. If you’re able to bring the object’s health down within the time limit given, you’ll use the same object to throw it onto the Statue and make its mask fall.
You will then lift the Statue’s mask and smash it down to the ground. By this hard smash, shockwaves will make the fans fall down and expose Karen. You can now attack Karen until his body releases a black matter and then trigger the cycle to repeat. Defeat all the five statues and attack the boss.
The statues can also trick you by spawning fake copies of the objects, so we recommend using SAS: Clairvoyance to distinguish between the real and fake. You’ll also have Shadow Karen attacking you while you try to bring down the Statues, so make sure to use SAS: Sclerokinesis and SAS: Velocity to counterattack him.
Drop Karen’s health low and repeat the steps until he’s exhausted and the third phase starts.
Third Phase
For the third phase, Karen will use dark illusion to isolate a team member from the rest of the team. The battle will start with you combatting against Karen alone. And unluckily, all of your SAS powers and communications will be completely disabled in this phase.
The best way for you to survive here is to dodge as many attacks as you possibly can. After you’ve dodged enough, a cut scene will be triggered where Hanabi and Shiden will enter and save you or any other player from Karen.
Everything will now go according to the game script from here on. The attacks of OSF members will weaken Karen, and you can get your revenge back by attacking him. Karen will finally be crushed, and you’ll receive 70,00 EXP and 50,000 kins for defeating the undefeatable!
