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There are a lot of caped villains that Batman left still wandering the streets of Gotham City for the Bat-family to clean up in his absence in Gotham Knights. Perhaps one of the most iconic is Harley Quinn who’s since split up with the Joker in the game’s canon and is scheming to take the city for herself. In the first few hours of the game, the player will be introduced to Harley and learn just how menacing she can be.
If you choose to follow the Harley Quinn questline to the end of its wild ride, you’ll find yourself in the Gotham City General Hospital face-to-face with her for a bombastic boss fight. The fight can be tricky, so make sure to use the guide below to successfully take down “Dr. Q” in Gotham Knights.
More Gotham Knights guides:
All Batarang Collectible Locations | All Landmark Collectible Locations | All Street Art Collectible Locations | How To Unlock Clayface’s Side-Quest | How To Swap Heroes | Character Guide | Momentum Explained | Momentum Abilities Explained | All Investigation Puzzle Solutions | How To Turn Off Multiplayer | How to Fast Travel | How to Use Smoke Bombs | How to Find Premeditated Crimes | Perfect Strike and Timed Strike Explained | How to See the True Ending | How to Use Modchips | All Historia Strigidae Page Locations | Knighthood Explained | How to Unlock the Talon Suit |
Harley Quinn Boss Guide
Unfortunately, I can’t reach through your computer and beat the boss for you just like my older brother used to do for me when I got stuck when I was a kid (the “beating the boss for you” part, not the “reaching through your computer” one.) But what I can do is give you guidance on the best strategies to use when facing Harley Quinn in the side quest boss fight. Use the tips below to know what to do and when and you’ll be able to get her locked up for good.
In general, the strategy for beating the boss is pretty similar across all three phases: avoid taking damage by playing defensively and dodging out of the way only to counterattack when you find an opening. If you can hit Harley into one of the piles of electrified debris scattered across the perimeter of the arena, you’ll be able to deal a good chunk of damage to her and keep her vulnerable for longer.
Phase 1
In the first phase of the fight, Harley will fight you one-on-one. This is a good time to start learning her moveset and how to avoid the big hits. You’ll notice that she’s far more aggressive than most of the other enemies you’ve encountered in Gotham Knights and, since there’s no way to block incoming attacks, you’ll need to get comfortable dodging out of the way of her attacks.
There are three of her attacks that leave her open to counterattacks where you can really bring the heat: her triple bomb throw, her one-armed hammer thrust, and her ground-pound that does AoE damage directly in front of her. While you may be able to get a quick punch or kick in when she uses other moves, those three attacks leave her most open to damage.
Keep your distance while she does her other attacks, especially the one where she swings her hammer over her head as she’ll attack multiple times in a row without providing any openings. While you’ll want to stay out of her way when she’s attacking, don’t get too far, however, as she’ll use some of her more long-distance moves which can chip plenty of your health away and cause you to waste your health kits.
The first phase is pretty simple, avoid attacks and hit Harley when she’s open. Make sure to use your offensive Momentum Abilities to maximize the amount of damage you’re outputting during your brief windows of attack and you should be finished with the first phase in no time.
Phase 2
After you’ve depleted about a third of her health bar, you’ll see a brief cutscene where some of Harley’s followers break through the glass surrounding the boss arena. She’ll disappear and leave you to fight them off. Take all of them out and you’ll see another cutscene where Harley reenters the arena this time with five goons backing her up.
In this phase of the fight, you’ll need to manage holding off the goons while also dealing damage to Harley. Although your instincts might tell you to focus on taking out all of the enemies before dealing with Harley, you shouldn’t completely eliminate them because they’ll simply be replaced by more goons infinitely. Instead, take out two of them to thin out their numbers without triggering more to respawn then focus your attention on Harley.
Be warned: she’ll do much more damage if she hits you from this part of the fight onward since her hammer becomes electrocuted following the cutscene.
As the phases of the fight continue, Harley will start fighting much more aggressively by chaining together moves into much longer combos. This means that you’ll need to play even more defensively striking only when you’re sure you have an opening. Her AoE slam attack, in particular, gets much more dangerous as she’ll quickly go into a sweeping swing attack after hitting the ground from the initial slam.
This drastically reduces her vulnerability window after performing the AoE attack, so it means that you’ll likely have to stop using it as a window of attack. Similarly, because her goons are on the field, she won’t perform her AoE bomb throws so the only attack that really gives you a consistent opening with her is her one-handed hammer lunge.
This phase of the fight is definitely the most difficult as you’ll need to juggle fighting off the goons while also taking Harley head-on. The best course of action is to try and bait her close to the electrified debris that’s on the edge of the arena and hit her into it to deal extra damage. Play defensively and use your Momentum Abilities during the brief moments when she’s vulnerable and you’ll be onto the next phase.
Phase 3
Once Harley’s health bar is reduced to its final third, you’ll see a cutscene where your chosen hero disables her mind-control device and all of the goons take off leaving you to finish the fight one-on-one. Most of the same strategy applies to this section, although it’s important to note that Harley is much more aggressive in this leg of the fight which means she’ll be chaining even more attacks together making her much more dangerous up close.
That’s not to say you should keep your distance, as you won’t be able to deal much damage from afar, but that you’ll need to carefully dodge her moves while you wait for her to be vulnerable. The one-armed lunge is still a great opening for attack, but she’ll start throwing her bombs again since her followers are no longer on the field. Once she does, avoid the bomb and run to her to give her some pain right when she lands on the ground after throwing them.
With her followers out of the picture, you should be able to use all of the same skills you used in the previous phases to quickly take Harley out. After her health bar is depleted, the fight will be over and you’ll see a cutscene that wraps up the side story.
