Yuding Boss Guide: No.12 Crescent Blade Puppet Fight

Who Is Yuding, No.12, Crescent Blade Puppet?

Yuding (十二号·偃月刀偶：“玉鼎”) is the glaive-wielding Vessel-class puppet guarding the Mirage Estate’s Training Grounds — a tall, armored figure with pale hair and white-and-blue robes, swinging an extremely heavy, Loong-carved crescent blade. pbz.gg files her as a level 23 mandatory story boss in The Way Forward chapter; her Pathbreaker health pool is 170,720, confirmed by both AllThingsHow’s fight guide and Wikily’s boss table. Arrive upgraded with a full gourd — she hits like a zone-closer should.

She is also one of the Four Great Puppets behind the gold trophy The Four Freed — and not done with you after this zone: phantombladeatlas notes she reappears alongside Yubi in the final Mount Soulrend gauntlet with the same tells. Learn her once, here, and the rematch is a review session. For the full roster, see our all bosses list.

How to Reach Her: The Five-Wave Trigger

You cannot walk straight into this fight — Yuding only appears after you clear the Training Grounds yard’s five back-to-back waves, with no breather between them. Rest at the Training Grounds bell, then climb the stone steps to the wooden practice deck — red cloth, spear racks, braziers, drums. The moment the final doll of wave 5 falls, Yuding enters the yard and her boss bar appears.

Plan for one continuous fight: each wave spawns the instant the last one dies, so heals spent celebrating are heals you won’t have for the boss.

• Wave 1 — Swordshield Puppet + Puppet Spearman. Shield bruiser paired with a long-spear drill partner. Kill the spearman first; his reach punishes you while you trade with the shield.
• Wave 2 — Shadow Assassin ×2. They spawn right beside you as wave 1 ends. Be dodging as your last hit lands — the stretch’s cheapest death.
• Wave 3 — Golden Assassin Puppet + Alloy Cannon Puppet ×2. A close-range duelist while two cannons paint the floor with explosive shots. Keep moving; standing still feeds the cannons.
• Wave 4 — Iron Umbrella Puppet + the small big-head doll. The doll links purple beams to its allies and takes no damage while linked. Ignore it and kill what it is beaming into.
• Wave 5 — Hmph-hmph, Ho-ho, and Wah-wah. Three big-head dolls, still shielded by the small doll’s beams. Same rule: hit the linked targets, never the doll.

Yuding’s Moveset, Move by Move

The game never names her attacks on screen, so the labels below follow AllThingsHow’s verified table, named by what each attack looks like:

Her sideways Jade Slash deserves extra respect: per phantombladeatlas, if it connects you are frozen in time and cannot avoid the Red Flash that follows. Treat that swing as the one attack you never trade against — dodge it every single time.

The Last-Quarter Neck-Hook Execution

When Yuding’s bar drops to roughly its final quarter, she gains a kill condition rather than a new move. She hooks the crescent blade behind your neck and forces you down onto one knee, then stands over you, glaive arm stretched out. You stay pinned for seconds while the screen drains to grey — then the execution plays and the death screen follows. Both AllThingsHow and phantombladeatlas document the sequence, and there is no button prompt to escape it.

The counter is never being grabbed. Play the last quarter at maximum spacing, dodge the hook on its wind-up, and treat every opening as a gift. Heal early: per AllThingsHow, fights against her can end within the first minute on both Pathbreaker and Wayfarer, and a half-empty gourd is how it happens to you.

Rewards: The Crescent Blade

Beating Yuding pays 90,000 Remnant Dust and the Crescent Blade — the two-handed Qinglong-carved guandao whose stats, Qinglong Form kit, and acquisition window (including the Mirage Estate late-story flag warning) are covered on our dedicated Crescent Blade guide. The blade is unmissable once you are inside, but entering is a decision — sweep optional content first. The kill also checks the third box on The Four Freed gold trophy alongside Yuzan, Yubi, and Yucong — our trophy guide maps the order that dodges the point-of-no-return traps.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Yuding an optional boss? No — a mandatory story boss in The Way Forward chapter. The only real choice is when to enter Mirage Estate: stepping inside advances a late-story flag.

Do the five waves respawn if I die to Yuding? No. Per AllThingsHow, death returns you to the bell with the waves still cleared — Yuding waits alone at full health. Rest, then walk back up.

What is Yuding’s HP? 170,720 on Pathbreaker (AllThingsHow and Wikily agree). On Wayfarer the bar is proportionally long — expect attrition either way.

Can I skip or block the neck-hook execution? No — it is a grab. The defenses are spacing, dodging the hook wind-up in her final quarter, and ending the phase fast.

Sources: allthings.how (five-wave trigger, full wave table, moveset table, 170,720 Pathbreaker HP, last-quarter execution, respawn behavior), pbz.gg (level 23, The Way Forward chapter, 90,000 Remnant Dust, Crescent Blade reward, Training Grounds bell 84 m), phantombladeatlas.com (mandatory story boss, sideways Jade Slash freeze into Red Flash, Mount Soulrend rematch with Yubi), wikily.gg (Gallery of the Archives lore, 170,720 HP table), rockpapershotgun.com (boss ordering, Crescent Blade reward) — launch-window guides, October–November 2026.