The Harrier receives the same amount of damage regardless of difficulty, what differs is its max health.

• Low Damage Stinger Shot = 175
• High Damage Stinger Shot = 350

Its useful to picture the fight as three different phases, which are:

1. Initial Phase
2. Pre-Cluster Bomb Attack
3. Post-Cluster Bomb Attack

Phase 1: Initial

• This is the start of the fight. Raiden (or Snake in Snake Tales) starts at the bottom-right of the top floor of the Shell 1-2 Connecting Bridge.
• The Harrier will start behind Strut G, it will gain some height then fly over the bridge until its behind Strut D.
• During this, the player can shoot the Harrier anywhere between 0 to 6 times (all of which are either low or high damage).
• After that, the game will check the Harrier's health to determine what phase to go to next.
  • If the Harrier's health is >= 60%, then it moves into Phase 2.
  • If the Harrier's health is < 60%, it will take a counter-clockwise route to the west of Strut D and then begin Phase 3.

Phase 2: Pre-Cluster Bomb Attack

During this phase, the Harrier has 2 attack patterns. The second pattern is repeated infinitly until the player reduces the Harrier's health to less than 60%.

• Attack Pattern 1:
  • Fly East, Fast Attack
  • Fly to Strut C, then clockwise
  • Fly East/West, Fast Attack
  • Fly Above You Attack
  • Fly East/West, Fast Attack
  • Gun Phase Attack
  • Missile Barrage Attack
  • Fly East/West, Fast Attack
  • Gun Phase Attack

• Attack Pattern 2:
  • Fly East/West, Fast Attack
  • Missile Barrage Attack
  • Gun Phase Attack

At most of the above points during the fight, if the Harrier's health is reduced to less than 60%, it will move on to Phase 3.

The end of this phase has a skippable cutscene where the Harrier blows up parts of the connecting bridge. The player can fit a total of two low damage shots during this.

Phase 3: Post-Cluster Bomb Attack The Harrier has one attack pattern in this phase, and is repeated infinitly until the end of the fight.

• Fly East/West, Homing Missile Attack
• Missile Barrage Attack
• Fly East/West, Fast Attack
• Gun Phase Attack

All possible shots (0-6) during the intial phase:

The following table assumes a perfect fight after the initial phase, values are taken from the PC port of Substance:

• Guidelines for 5-shot start

• VE Timing Comparison

• General strategy for 4- and 5-shot start on Harrier - Normal difficulty.

• The Harrier fight speeds up considerably with each extra shot you're able to land before he flies off for his first strafing run. 4-shot can be done with a little practice, but 5-shot will require more time to get consistently. None of the example fights are perfect fights, but serve as a good baseline.
  • 3-shot start: 1 minute, 35 seconds
  • 4-shot start: 1 minute, 9 seconds
  • 5-shot start: 58 seconds

• Fast 4 Shot Harrier on European Extreme. Useful for Extreme also.

• Similar to above, but includes a curved shot before the Harrier flies over the bridge

• A Fast Approach to 4 Shot Harrier. Done on PC but would work just the same on console.

• The fastest harrier possible on VE. Performed on PC but just the same on HDC.

On European Extreme Harrier will take 21 hits on average. May differ depending how consistently you attack the outer wing.

Textbook SoL Normal Harrier

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