If you’ve spent any time grinding late-game Infinity Nikki PvE content, you’ve almost certainly hit a wall when you first run into Ricardo. I spent three straight days wiping to this boss last month, wasting dozens of stamina refills before I figured out the tricks that make this fight trivial. If you’re sick of watching your team get wiped by his star-powered AoE attacks, learning how to defeat Ricardo Infinity Nikki is easier than you think once you stop following the generic build guides floating around online. This guide is built on 20+ successful clears, so every tip here is tested by actual players, not just data mined from test servers.
Pre-Fight Prep You Need to Know to Defeat Ricardo Infinity Nikki
Before you even step into the arena, there are a few non-negotiable requirements you need to meet if you want to avoid wasting stamina on failed runs. A minimum team level of 65 is non-negotiable, no matter how good your gear is. I tried to power through this fight at level 62 seven separate times, and I got one-shot by his basic auto attacks every single run. Even if you have a full roster of maxed SSR units, the level difference damage penalty will make it impossible to output enough damage to beat his enrage timers.
Next, you need to prioritize light resistance on all your gear, not just attack power. 20%+ light resistance across your entire team is the sweet spot to avoid getting one-shot by his stray AoE attacks. 90% of Ricardo’s damage output is light elemental, so stacking attack power without resistance is basically asking to get wiped in the first 30 seconds of the fight. If your gear is a little underleveled, you can craft cheap honey lemon tarts from the in-game kitchen to get an extra 10% light resistance buff for 10 minutes, which makes a huge difference.
For team builds, you only need one dedicated healer, one taunt unit, and two DPS units to clear this fight. SSR Starry Path Nikki is the best healer for this fight, since her ultimate gives the whole team a 15% light resistance buff on top of full healing. If you don’t have her, SR Cozy Cottage Nikki works perfectly fine as long as you level her healing skills to 6/6/4. For DPS, stick to fire or ice units, since they get a 15% damage bonus against Ricardo’s base armor. Skip dark units entirely, he has 40% built-in dark resistance that makes them basically useless here.
Phase 1 Breakdown: Avoid His Most Annoying One-Hit KO Attack
Phase 1 lasts until Ricardo drops to 70% of his max health, and his attack pattern is extremely predictable once you learn the cues. He cycles through three basic auto attacks targeted at your closest unit, then a charged AoE attack called Starfall Barrage. The biggest mistake new players make here is wasting their ultimate skills to burn his health fast, but you’ll need every bit of that ultimate damage for phase 2. Hold all ultimates during phase 1, no exceptions.
When you see him raise his left hand holding the golden microphone, you have 2 full seconds to dodge to the far left or right edge of the arena. That’s the only cue you’ll get for Starfall Barrage, which hits the entire center 80% of the arena for 120% of your max health, no matter how much armor or shields you have stacked. I used to try to block this attack with shield skills, but it ignores 70% of all shield defense, so dodging is the only reliable way to avoid it.
If you have a taunt unit, use their taunt skill right after each Starfall Barrage to draw his auto attacks away from your squishy DPS units. My taunt unit is a level 63 SR Bodyguard Kaito with 4.2k HP, and he can tank all three auto attacks without needing healing in between. Just make sure you don’t use the taunt right before Starfall Barrage, or you’ll trap your taunt unit in the center of the arena where they can’t dodge the AoE.
Phase 2 Strategy: Burn Through His Shield Before He Enrages
As soon as Ricardo hits 70% health, a short cutscene will play where he puts on a glowing golden aura, and that’s the start of phase 2. This is the hardest part of the fight for most new players, because he gains a light damage absorption shield equal to 30% of his max health that you have to break within 15 seconds. If you don’t break the shield in time, he enrages and spams AoE attacks every 3 seconds, which is an automatic wipe for 99% of teams.
This is where all those ultimate skills you saved during phase 1 come in. You need to follow a strict rotation to break the shield as fast as possible, and even a 1 second delay can make you miss the timer. I used to mess this up constantly until I wrote down the order and practiced it a few times:
- Trigger your support's attack buff skill immediately after the phase 2 cutscene ends, before you do any damage
- Use your main DPS's elemental resistance debuff skill 1 second after the buff goes up to maximize damage output
- Pop all three of your team’s ultimate skills back to back, starting with your highest damage DPS first
- Dodge to the edge of the arena immediately after the shield breaks, to avoid his follow-up spinning mic attack
The biggest barrier to learning how to defeat Ricardo Infinity Nikki is getting past that phase 2 shield enrage timer, so don’t feel bad if you miss it the first few times. If you’re still struggling to break the shield in time, try swapping one of your support units for a sub-DPS with shield break bonuses, or equip your main DPS with the Star Shatter relic set, which gives 25% extra damage to shielded enemies. I swapped my second healer for a level 60 ice DPS and cut my shield break time by almost 40% on my first try.
Common Mistakes That Make This Fight Way Harder Than It Should Be
After running this fight dozens of times and watching other players stream their attempts, I’ve noticed a few common mistakes that make this fight 10x harder than it needs to be. The first one is wasting revive items on team members who die in phase 1. If someone dies before phase 2 even starts, just restart the run. You only get two revives per run, and you’ll almost certainly need them for phase 3 if someone gets caught by a stray AoE attack. Wasting a revive in phase 1 almost always guarantees you’ll lose later on.
Prioritize the backup dancers immediately when they spawn in phase 3, even if you have a full ultimate bar ready to hit Ricardo. When he drops to 30% health, he summons two backup dancers that heal him for 2% of his max health every 2 seconds if you leave them alive. I once lost a run where he had 5% health left because I ignored the dancers to hit him with an ultimate, and they healed him back up to 12% before I could kill them. It was the most frustrated I’ve ever been with this game, so don’t make that same mistake.
Another common mistake is sticking to your standard skill rotation that works for regular mobs. For this fight, you need to prioritize dodging over dealing damage whenever you see one of his attack cues. It’s better to miss three or four auto attacks than to get hit by Starfall Barrage and lose a team member. I used to chase extra damage by staying in the center of the arena to hit him with auto attacks while he charged Starfall Barrage, and I died more times than I can count because of it.
You don’t need a full roster of maxed SSR units to beat this boss, you just need to follow the patterns and avoid the common traps that trip up most players. Take the time to adjust your team's resistance stats, save your ultimates for phase 2, and prioritize those backup dancers in phase 3, and you'll find that learning how to defeat Ricardo Infinity Nikki is way less stressful than it seems at first. I now clear this boss in under 2 minutes every run, and you can too with a little bit of practice. If you have your own tricks for this fight, drop them in the comments below to help other players out.