I really feel they've screwed up with balancing the queen. Every other valkyrie took me a couple of tries at most to learn the attack patterns. I had zero chance with the queen even at nearly 9th level. I see her attacks easily enough but they come just too quickly. Once I dropped down the difficulty, however, it was a piece of cake. Tbh the main problem was her Valhalla attack. It does waaay too much damage and is nearly impossible to dodge. If not for it I wouldn't have to reduce the difficulty. Perhaps timing a rage when she initiates it would've helped but I didn't think of that.

Hard to say how much 'easier' the fight would have been if I had hit level 9. I do agree she was a nightmare. Her Valhalla attack certainly could have been less health consuming, and I found with her it seemed like you had to always jump forward and partially sideways to dodge it. Trying to just go sideways or backwards and sideways always got me pinned, which didn't seem to be a problem with the other Val's. I never thought to try a rage burst during that attack either, which would be super hard to time, but I know if you were in rage and she Valhalla'd, your rage was just wasted. Her hit box also seemed to be much smaller than the other Val's. When trying to intervene in a prep attack with the axe, hitting the Queen was way way harder than hitting the other Val's. Her staff attacks were the worst for me. She always used them at the worst times when I was low on health or when I was in an area that was hard to dodge.

As far as I'm concerned, it was enough of a challenge in itself that story mode or not, it sure as heck felt like I was still in typical challenge mode.

I tried hack n slash earlier on, when playing it safe wasn't working, but it also got me nowhere. When she let her guard down and was vulnerable, that's when I went at her with everything I had, but I would say the majority of the fight at the very least, feels like you're just keeping your distance and dodging/countering attacks. It was fun for me, and I'll no doubt be replaying the game again and try to at least beat her on balanced mode next time, if not challenge, but I do agree the fight could have been handled differently. Not like it matters a whole lot because the game in it's entirety is just top notch. The few negatives are so inconsequential compared to everything that's done oh so right in the game.

As I recall, she had a devastating aerial attack that was very difficult to escape. I had to quickly use the boy's arrows to interrupt her so she couldn't get it off. That finally gave me edge enough to beat her.

The only real problem I had with the Queen is that she have 2 attacks that are too closely looking (and both can kill you on 2 attacks on GmGoW) and for one you need to turn your back (which I never had to use during the whole game, so muscle memory wasn't available) and the other roll to the side.

Everything else because I had to do many many many times the other vals I got memorized to react. Still you have to abuse on the attacks you use to take out one bar per try, that still makes a 20min battle.