DARK SOULS™ II

DARK SOULS™ II

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Dark Souls 2 Boss Guide UPDATED FOR DLC!
By Yavanna
Welcome to the World of Dark Souls 2. One of the many problems you'll face in the game is Bosses. They have a lot of health, different attacks, weaknesses and resistances and so on. This is for the sole purpose of helping find out what their attacks are and what you should do to kill them at ease. This guide is assuming you know everything in the controls and know what some stats do and items do such as resins or throwing items.

I made this guide for my own personal use but I decided to put it on Steam as I saw a lot of players having troubles with certain bosses, especially ones they need to solo. This guide will be very long because of the number of bosses there are in this game, so if you have problems with a certain boss, scroll down and see if it is there.

Edit: This guide was changed to add the bosses in the two dlc's The Crown of the Sunken King and the Crown of the Old Iron King!
   
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The Last Giant in The Forest of Fallen Giants
This boss will be fairly easy unless you think that getting hit by giant hands is smart. The simple way to beat this boss is to hug his feet and lock onto it. When you do this he will either do a swiping attack near the side of his foot or try to stomp onto you. When he goes to stomp on you simply go towards the other foot. This won't work if he does his triple stomp combo, where he stomps one foot once and the other twice. Avoid this by backing off as soon as possible.

The other attacks he has are swipes, he does these with his hands and they will hurt you a lot for your level. If you do not have enough adaptability to dodge through these or a good enough shield to block it, run under his feet.

At 50% health or near The Last Giant will rip his left hand off to extend his reach, at this point he will use his triple stomp combo more frequently and his swipes get more range and possibly more deadly. Knowing his attacks can lead to a quick and easy win, and your first boss soul.

Note that most low level players will most likely put their sign down for this boss, and that there is a NPC than you can get for it as well that might make the Giant attack him more than you.

Now that you have killed this boss with ease or by the skin of your teeth, it's time for the next one.
The Pursuer in The Forest of Fallen Giants
For a lot of players, they see the Pursuer as a hard boss. This is most likely because they either are fighting the boss on their own or aren't used to its attacks. Since you'll see this guy in the future it is best to master this bosses attacks.

The Pursuer is very easy to dodge, with slow lumbering attacks that have a great tell. The most common one he uses is a forward charge, he raises his shield and sword and dashes towards you. You will have to dodge it if you are at range but if you are close to him, just walk to the right / his left and he'll zoom past you, giving you a free hit.

The other attacks he does isn't that easy to learn though, using a shield against him isn't a smart idea as he does a lot of damage either way and will eat your stamina, dodging his attacks is the best way to defeat him but of course you can try using a shield if you come back after doing other bosses.

A deadly attack he does is when his sword turns blue and he readies a thrusting attack. If you get hit by this, he'll do a 'grabbing' animation and will curse you, which will lower your overall HP similar to dying. This won't make phantoms go to their world though despite being hollowed.

An alternate way of defeating this boss is summoning a player and either one of you run right behind where the boss spawns and gets onto one of the two ballistae, hitting the boss with this will bring him down to around 20%, this sounds like a very good idea but it goes through the boss and can kill your host / phantom. Teamwork is needed for this as the ballistae cannot turn and has a very tiny hitbox for the boss.



Now that you killed the boss with amazing music, time for a new zone.
The Old Dragonslayer in Heide's Tower of Flame
To some people this boss can be a bit tricky, he has quick attacks that cover a large amount of space and will use some attacks that might catch you off your guard.

His first attack that he might open up with is either a jump into a quick forward stab with his spear, this is very easy to dodge as all you need to do is either roll into the side or run towards him as fast as you can and make him attack just over you. If he doesn't do that, he'll assume a position and charge forward with a quick stab, this one is more obvious and might be hard to dodge for players with low adaptability.

Other attacks he has is a swipe he does with his spear, this might be followed up with another swipe or vertical attack into another swipe, getting hit by this will most definetely get you killed. If you dodge one of the attacks however he'll most likely never do the combo.

His special attack is made obvious when he 'flexes' and a purple / black aura surrounds him and jumps into the air, to come down and let out a large AoE attack that is useless against the shields low level players will have. The best way to avoid this is to run the hell away, if you dodge or block the attack it'll get you hit and knock you back or break your guard, leaving you open for an attack.

You can of course get a phantom to tank the boss, as he is slightly easy to stun if you are using blunt weapons like the mace, but not as easy as other bosses. So at this point we assume you have killed him and gone forward to the bonfire, only to go back.
First Dragonrider in Heide's Tower of Flame
After you kill what might be an ancient legend from Lordran, you'll come and find this next boss who is a lot beefier and in dark red armor wielding a greatshield + halberd. You might think this boss will be difficult. You are entirely wrong.

This boss is one of the easiest bosses in the game, of course it can actually hit you sometimes unlike other bosses looking at you, Rotten so let's just kill this failure of a Smough 2.0.

The Dragonrider's attacks mostly involve his halberd swinging or thrusting, he doesn't do anything else unless I killed him too quick. The trick to him is to just circle to his left and wait for him to do his attacks and destroy his back. His attacks are fairly easy to dodge unless you never touched the ADP stat whatsoever.

There is a little yet obvious secret to this boss however, in the Heide's Tower of Flame area there is a lever that appears after killing one of the Ancient Knights that raises a circular platform around the boss room, making the boss easier to circle. I think this makes the boss harder though as he will easily fall to his death without it. It's your choice!

This boss does not change anything other than health and damage in NG+ like the bosses before it.

Now that you killed this fool in giant red armor, it's time to pirate some easy souls.
The Flexile Sentry in No-Mans Wharf
You go through the fog after killing all of these varangians hoping to get their sweet viking helm, and drop your jaw when you see whatever this boss is. It's a giant boss that is dual wielding warped swords and spiked clubs. It also has two bodies and four legs. This is the point where bosses get slightly weird...

In all seriousness, this boss is somewhat a cake walk. If you're a cleric with Lightning Spear he is super easy as the boss room is full of water, making his lightning defenses weaker. You might have some difficulty as a melee character as all of his attacks feature 3-5 hit comboes that will easily stunlock you into your untimely demise.

Let's start on the Dual Sword side, this guy will attack quickly with slightly less damage and is frequent to do triple hit comboes. He will miss often if you back away from his attacks however.

Now on the dual mace side, this guy attacks slowly but will deal a lot of damage, he mostly does smashing attacks with one club, the other and then both but assuming you are backing away he will hit no where near, giving you a free hit.

There is a NPC summon for this boss who might help take the aggro off you and will progress towards her storyline if she survives she won't survive

Now that you killed this monstrosity, just head up the ladder and interact with the globe in order to be sent in the next area, with a very, very fun boss.
The Three Ruin Sentinels in The Lost Bastille
When you killed the Pursuer, the Flexile Sentry and all the bosses before that the game points you towards the Lost Bastille, the nightmare for unskilled and low level players of Dark Souls 2.

When you go into the boss fight, you immediately drop down to fight one of the ruin sentinels on their own on a small platform with not much space for more than two players at the least. Below you is a massive square arena with pillars holding up the platforms.

The Ruin Sentinels all have the same moves, the difficult thing about them is that they hit hard and fast, and when you drop down, they often attack at the same time.

When they attack, they might do a double swipe with their mace which moves them forward, remember their attacks have insane reach so if you're planning to avoid them, circle them. Another attack they do is when they raise their mace and slam it infront of them, this attack you must exploit heavily as they can not track you well enough if you're trying to hug their back. You do not need to roll to dodge this. One more attack they do is a single swipe where they two hand their mace, this has a longer reach than the other attacks and does a lot of damage, and may even knock you down. All of these attacks can be easily avoided by circling to their back.

Then, you kill the first Sentinel, and you see the other two. They're just standing there, and then they jump in the square arena. If you weren't already in it this is the part where they get two new tricks inside of which can be very deadly when you least expect it.

One of the attacks is a shield throw, this is VERY easy to dodge because of its slow speed but will heavily damage, if not kill you with this attack. The other is one many people have problems with, it is a 5 attack spin they do with their mace. This is extremely deadly and yet when you try to dodge, you'll get hit anyway and knocked down. The best way to defend against this is using a shield as it'll only hit it once and not drain your stamina.

There is a NPC summon for this boss which can help you greatly with their sorceries.
The Lost Sinner in Sinner's Rise / Lost Bastille
This will be most likely your first Great One to kill, if you somehow wandered off to the Iron Keep / Black Gulch / Brightstone Cove. The Lost Sinner is a difficult boss fight for dodgers with 15'ish ADP. 20 ADP is a good amount for dodging her quick and painful attacks.

Her attacks start off with a charging thrust with her sword, this is painful, like most of her attacks. Dodging to the right is good against this. She also has two combo attacks where she either swings vertically and then swipes, or the opposite. Her attacks will easily break your guard in two hits so if you need to block, do it once.

She also has a jumping attack that she easily misses, and can be exploited if you can get her to do that more than her charging attacks. She also has an attack where she swings and then jumps back which might bait you into being hit.

The Lost Sinner doesn't have much to her, but she is a deadly boss for the inexperienced. There is the AI summon of Lucatiel for this boss and can greatly help for taking aggro and doing her storyline. if she doesn't die first

There is also a way to light up the boss room which will make locking onto her easier as the room is dark and cuts your lock on range to about half percent, making you have to be within a spear's range to lock onto the sinner but I don't know how to do that.

In NG+ about halfway through the fight, two pyromancers will join against you and are easily killed but have high health and will spam pyromancies including Flame Swathe and other deadly spells.

If you are reading this part now, then you must have defeated the Lost Sinner, gained a Bone dust and achieved your first Primal Bonfire. Now to kill more bosses.
The Skeleton Lords in Huntsman's Copse
After you ran around like a headless chicken trying to figure out where to go, you open up the old area from the Dark Souls 2 beta stress test and you might be thinking "oh well this might be easy". True, but if you didn't have problems with bosses, this guide wouldn't be here and I gotta make a living.

The Skeleton Lords is a fairly complex and simple fight, it starts with three of the Skeletal Kings who all wield giant scythes with a different model and use pyromancies that barely damage you. The real fight is when you accidentally kill all three Kings and wait around thinking "the boss isn't dead?" when you realise there are about twenty skeletons stunlocking you to death in a corner.

Let's focus on the skeletons that are summoned on a death of a king. The king that spawns on the left will spawn armored skeletons usually dual wielding falchions or using shield, they have slightly more health than a common skeleton. The one in the middle spawns unarmored skeletons which are simple to kill, but can hurt.

Then we get to the one on the right, when he dies the first thing we see is every Dark Souls 1 player's nightmare. Bonewheel Skeletons.

They're not that hard honestly, you can kill any of the skeletons before they finish their summoning animation and proceed to feed you your liver. And then the boss is done. That wasn't so hard was it?
The Executioner's Chariot in Huntsman's Copse *OPTIONAL*
You might find a slightly hidden path in the Huntsman's Copse leading to this boss, the Chariot is a somewhat difficult boss that requires quick thinking.

When you head into the boss "room", you are greeted by skeletons, they ain't so bad.. only they come back to life. In this circular boss room there are a number of Necromancers, these guys will keep reanimating the skeletons until you kill them, and they can be slightly hidden and are safe from the Chariot's wheels.

Now 1/2 of the boss fight is running towards the other end of the room to pull a lever, the Executioner's Chariot will run the other way towards you, which makes these two human wide archways useful for when the Chariot comes to almost kill you. When you pull the lever, you will release a gate that the Chariot will ram into, killing the Executioner but not the horse.

Yes, they made the horse the boss.
So you're fighting a horse imbued with dark magic, whats the worst he can? Apparently a lot, so let's see what attacks it has. The horse will normally use a frontal attack that makes it stand on its back legs and stomp with its front hooves. The horse also has a anti-circler attack, where it will kick you with its back legs and might even knock you down. It also has a ranged breath that does Dark damage, this does hurt but has fairly limited range. The horse can also do a charging attack.

Personally when you get the gate down and fight the Horse itself, you've won the fight as its attacks are very easily dodged and obvious. There is a second way to kill it where you constantly use magic / ranged attacks everytime it passes by, it will then fall in the hole just before the gate and hang on until you hit it once more and will fall to it's death.



This boss is entirely optional and in New Game+ it will drop the Chloranthy Ring+2.
Covetous Demon in the Harvest Valley
Remember when you absolutely loved Star Wars and whenever you saw a fat character / enemy in the game you'd call it Jabba the Hutt? We all do, and it's time to do it again.

Jabba the Hutt here is one of the many easy bosses in the game but can still damage you if you aren't careful. His favourite activities involve doing the worm and killing unsuspecting sunbros.

His attacks are very simple but greatly damaging and using a shield won't do jack, and neither will rolling if you dodge into him for most of his attacks.

His most common attack is a roll to his left / right, followed by a roll to the side he just rolled towards or some weird crazy triple bounce of death to the side he rolled from. You do not want him to bounce as it is far more deadly than the roll. He also has tiny sweeps with his two... hands and has a very rare attack where he eats you, then spits you out with all of your armor and weapons unequipped. At that point you might as well die for your stupidity, or you just didn't praise the sun much.



Now that you are on your quest to seek your very own sun, and killed Jabba the Hutt, it's time to go to Ancient Greece.
Baneful Queen Mytha in the Earthen Peak
Now that you've gone from Star Wars, it's time to go to Ancient Greek Mythology. We'll start with Medusa over here.


As you can see from the screenshot, the boss room is circular with a ring of poisonous water. This poison heals the boss slightly but enough to be a pain. There is an interactive wheel in the zone where it lowers the poison to not affect the whole room like I have done, and instead make it cover the edge of the room.

Now when we go and fight Medusa, you might need a fair bit of ADP to dodge not only her long ranged spear, her tail, but also her sorceries. She casts spells when she raises or shoves her head in front of you, and they are mostly Soul Spear but it is deadly with low health / magic resistance.

Her attacks will mostly involve thrusting attacks with her spear, they are quick and quite painful but still something you can snicker at, they can be easily dodged with 20 ADP and up and that's quite it to the boss.

I haven't fought Mytha enough to get a lot of details on her because she's so weak, but perhaps this is enough to give you an idea of what this boss is like. After this boss, it's gonna get hot.
The Smelter Demon in The Iron Keep
After you killed countless invaders in this zone and reach this boss, you'll wonder 'Why am I fighting this boss with no estus?!", and how his attacks do so much damage and is practically insta-death...

Smelter Demon is a pain in the backside for most players who think they can take him on, this boss requires reflexes and nerves of steel, because this thing might do one thing, or might not.

His attacks mostly involve swings which are easy to dodge, the trick to hitting this guy is his back, like most bosses. He also has a slamming attack which can almost one shot you sometimes and he has a jumping attack where he slams his sword into the ground, and if a player or phantom is near him he WILL do an AoE Pulse. And for gods sake, do not run at him when he's doing this.

The Pulse is guaranteed to kill you every time, I do not know if you can block it but it does roughly around 2000 or more damage, the way to avoid it is running the hell away as fast as you can because if you don't, its back to the bonfire.

Roughly around 75 to 50% he will then roar, making the rooms darker but his chest will brighten, anyone standing near him will have their HP ticked down slowly. This isn't that big a deal but can matter if you hug him all the time.

At 50% and under, he will then coat his sword in fire. This increases his damage with it by a lot, getting hit by it even with the shield will still do a great amount of damage so if you're planning to block it, infuse your shield with Fire or use the Gyrm coffee bean Greatshield.

His attacks can be somewhat hard to dodge and need a great deal of timing to pull off, his attacks are teld by when he does a sort of roaring / grunting noise. There is also an NPC summon for this boss but she is likely to die anyway lucapls



After you kill that one hell of a demon beast, it's time for even more fire.
The Iron King in The Iron Keep
You've gone through Sen's Fortress v3.0, and you've got the bonfire and all you gotta do is kill this.. giant lava bull.



The Iron King is a somewhat hard boss for the inexperienced but all he needs is someone who is good with tanking and dodging or a couple of casters to drain his health ASAP.

His attacks are incredibly slow, but when he does comboes his speed somewhat increases. When he does his fist slams, he might do another one which might bait you into an attack, only to get slammed. He can also do a sweep with his hands similar to the Last Giant, only a lot more painful.

He also has ranged fire attacks, one of which is a fire breath where he goes from right to left in a cone. Getting hit by this will ALWAYS guard break or knock you back, not to mention the damage.
He also has a fire beam that he does with his hand in a straight line, this is more dangerous than Jabba the Hutt's bouncing attack, because he mostly does it when you're in front of the hole in the middle of the boss "room", and will knock you into it.

He also can do a Chaos Storm when he does a duo fist slam. The best way to avoid all of these attacks is to either dodge to the right or left, or run away.

There is a safe spot near the fog wall where you go after you defeat the boss, but that spot is for cowardly hosts to hide while you kill the boss yourself.

Now that you helped 500 people kill the Iron King, it's your turn... and there isn't a sign there. Oh well, might as well do other bosses.
Scorpioness Najka in the Shaded Woods
I forgot to take a screenshot of the area or boss, so instead here's what she basically is.

Scorpioness Najka is most likely Quelaag's half sister, we don't know what the Witch of Izalith did to have 7 daughters and one son, but if I took a guess it'd be too many nights in the pub.

Anyway, this boss excels at long range attacks and sorcery. This boss requires dodging or a lot of magic resistance and health.

Her attacks involve her spear like stinger that she uses to stab you with, she can also do some quick sweeping attacks that don't have much range but are good against your shield. For frontal attacks she can also use her stingers at the back to stab at you quickly, getting hit by this is practically near death or death. You can destroy her stingers so she can't use that attack again or use the sweeping attack she does with her tail if you circle on her back.

For sorcery, she has two spells, Homing Soulmass which turns into soul spears, it fires either 2 at first and 3 when you recover or all at the same time, and if you're doing co-op it might even shoot at your friend spamming Lightning Spear even though she's stabbing you to death. She also has a spell similar to Soul Geyser. She might even use the same spells at the same time to make it near impossible to dodge.

She has one more move, a burrowing attack. She goes into the sand and "runs" around, making it hard for you to see where she is but you can see by the sand particles. When they get closer and go faster, she's coming towards you to jump out and do a slamming attack with her scorpion body. This, much like her spells, is a near death move.

You can get the NPC Manscorpion to help you here, though he isn't of much use and in NG+ I believe she drops the Southern Ritual Band +2. Now onto hell and back.
Royal Rat Authority in Doors of Phaross *OPTIONAL*
When you got the next bonfire, got killed by a mimic, raged at the messages in front of illusionary walls and then got summoned to the Rat covenant guys camping for quick money, you finally got the bonfire near this boss.

I honestly haven't fought this boss much, I only fought him once and that was on the console version. I'll tell what I remember and if there's anything I forgot, just say so.

The fight starts with four brown dog/rat things who toxify you quicker than they poison you, killing them is the first part of this fight. Then a giant version of them will come down, and that's the boss.

I don't have a screenshot for this boss either, have a dog anyway.

This dog boss will frequently attempt to either bite or smack you with its paw, and this boss hurts a lot more than the others for some reason. The trick to the boss is just like Sif from Dark Souls 1, under the belly, hitting the legs.

That's pretty much it for that boss, casters are kinda screwed in this boss since his attacks are so fast, long and damaging. Now we'll get to the next boss in a crystalline wonderland.
Prowling Magus & Congregation in Brightstone Cove Tseldora
When you're done farming the peasant set for a Onlyafro themed build, you head down into oh my god spiders and you get to the fog wall. What can this boss be? Giant spider that dies and turns into smaller spiders and etc? Nope.

The boss(es) is a Dark magic user, he's the Prowling Magus. And two Miracle users with a couple of hollows. This boss is one of the easiest because once you kill the Magus and the casters, you've won.

The Magus will do all in its power to hug your face until you can say "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥" when it does a very weak, dark magic version of Wrath of the Gods. I never seen him do anything else.

The two casters will constantly cast Lightning Spear and I think they cast Heal as well with Emit Force, they are kinda bad and you can use the benches at the back of the boss room as a wall to heal.

The hollows are simple hollows and they're already dead. Once you get the casters, you've won.



So wait! This boss was really easy wasn't it huh? Too bad the next one is exactly what you think of in your nightmares as a child.
The Duke's Dear Freja in Brightstone Cove Tseldora
In spider heaven, you're crying for your parents/siblings/friends to help and squish them, and in this area it's exactly the same.

When you get to the boss room, you find out that the boss is a giant twin headed spider that is entirely armored aside from the head.

Ranged and spells can be hard to pull of since the boss is only damaged at the head, and if you're at range it will most likely cast range back at you.
In the boss room there are also some spiders, you should kill them first as they'll just bumrush you every time you're trying to hit the bloody monster of a boss.

Now, the attacks involve spits, steps, bites and a unique attack.
On the spits, its a ranged attack that doesn't do damage but slows you down to overweight, making you unable to dodge. Since you can't block any of the bosses attacks other than the bite, you're pretty much dead if you're hit by the white glob of death.
The bites are attacks the boss does when you're attacking its head, pretty simple. If you do get hit by it, expect to atleast use two estus as the damage is ridiculous on this creepy crawlie.

The steps are when you're far enough to not be bitten but not far enough to be spat at or have it use the unique attack. These are NOT blockable. The best way to avoid these is running the hell away because if the spider does its stomps, it'll do it on the other side as well. It can also do a spitting attack with a much faster stomp all around the boss.

The unique attack is a laser beam. I know. This thing can fire a 420watt laser beam charged by the fuels of arachnophobia. This thing will go through shields and will knock you back, it is near impossible to dodge unless you get incredibly lucky. This attack however is heavily exploitable, just run towards the boss away from the beam and strike at the other head where the beam isn't coming from. The best way to do that boss is to just exploit the beam.

Note that the spiders do respawn, and when you kill the boss if you left any spiders outside the room alive they will come in.



Now to fight the headless horseless horseman and to the final boss we need to get into end game.
Royal Rat Vanguard in Grave of Saints *OPTIONAL*
Once you've gotten the cat ring from that creepy cat that is far too bold, you'll be ready to hop down the pit in Majula. You can of course skip this boss and area by going down further but there is a bonfire at the entrance.

When you're doing being summoned by the filthy rat scum, this boss is somewhat easy and annoying.

When you go in you're filled with a swarm of eargasmic music, and rats. A lot of damn rats.
You have to kill every rat because they won't keep coming until you kill a specific rat, this rat is different from the others as it has a Mohawk and it basically 1 shot you. Another way to identify the rat is locking onto them and if it doesn't have a health bar above it, it's the rat.

Once you've killed this somewhat joke of a boss, you can head to the Gutter where there is no boss, then the Black Gulch where you want to cry in your sleep.



I love the PC edition by the way, fell through the world 4 times so far.
Bell Gargoyles in Belfry Luna *OPTIONAL*
When you've been invaded by so many cowards hiding behind midgets, we can kill the Gargoyles from Dark Souls 1.

They are literally the same ones, except that they can breath fire in the air and more of them will come out whenever you kill one or take too much time ( roughly around a half minute ).

Their attacks are very obvious and easy to dodge, but time is everything in this fight, so rushing the gargoyles is key unless you wanna get ganked by a boss. I don't have anything else to say on this boss so Praise the Sun!
The Rotten in Black Gulch
After you've gone through Blighttown 2.0 AKA The Gutter and Blighttown 3.0, which is Black Gulch. You're ready for one of the easiest bosses of all time.

The Rotten is a lump of corpses made into some fleshy version of the Ironclad enemies. The trick to defeating this boss is to exploit his slow attacks and easy avoidable grab.

He has a few attacks, one is a sweep with his cleaver, one is a combo where he smacks his cleaver onto you around 2-3 times, one is a grab with his left hand which should be avoided at all costs and the other is a move similar to the Old Dragonslayer's Pulse, it is easily avoidable.

The boss room however is coated in fire and if you get backed into a corner, you might have to run over it. You can jump over the fire to reduce some damage but if it's not going to take you to a safe spot, don't bother. The fire damage is great enough to bring you down to half health for a second spent in it.

There is an AI summon for this boss who is pure range but his AI is really stupid, he often walks into the fire and dies.

And after that, it's time for some real bosses...
2nd & 3rd Dragonrider Fight in Drangleic Castle
This fight, like the first Dragonrider fight should be easier than picking your nose and using it to open the shortcut in the Forest of Fallen Giants, it's basically a second, slightly stronger Dragonrider and another Dragonrider who uses a bow with 3x less health.

The trick to this fight is to get the Dragonrider with the bow to shoot his own platform down / walk off it and kill him, he is in the far left corner of the boss fight so if you hide under him he'll just come down. He is SUPER easy to kill and should take around 3 hits.

For the Dragonrider who isn't using the bow, just do the same as you did with the first Dragonrider in Heide's Tower of Flame, and you're done. Remember when I said we were gonna get a good boss now? I lied that time, but now I ain't.


Next time, we'll die more to falling through the ground, this time we're not a Sunbro.
Looking Glass Knight in Drangleic Castle
Now this guy is a very interesting boss, he's sort of my way of practicing for PvP because his moves are kind of unpredictable and he has very high defenses against Lightning despite being in the rain, also having a shield that can bounce spells back towards you which also counts as a wall if you hit it with melee, making it a very precise boss that needs strategy to defeat.

This guy's attacks are no joke, since you are in the open rain your lightning defense is lowered and this guy has a lot of lightning attacks. He starts off with a spinning sweeping lightning attack, then he moves into a smashing lightning attack which shoots a projectile forward, than a sweeping lightning attack that also fires three orbs of lightning in front of him at a deadly speed.

His normal attacks are still dangerous without his lightning buff, he will use a charging stab if you are at range or a jumping smash attack. He also will have sweeping, long reach comboes.

This boss is very hard to deal with for melee characters, especially Strength since their attacks will hit his shield a lot, and when you do it doesn't damage him and it will stun you for a split second.

The secondary factor is that you can be invaded in this fight, players can put their red signs just before the boss room and if he's about to summon using his King's Mirror, he'll summon either a player or an NPC.

The NPC is likely to be the greatsword guy with the greatshield you see a lot of times or a spear guy with Pate's shield who is weak.

There is a NPC summon for this boss who is Benhart of Jugo and the boss fight looks like one of the most popular end game summons in the game.



Next, we'll go to the boss who is in a place known as Satan's Playground.
Demon of Song in the Shrine of Amana
After you've been through Satan's Playground full of casters, healers, corrosive turtle mushrooms, dark magic invaders and so on.. you reach the boss that is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ frog.

This boss is sort of easy for ranged and casters, but somewhat difficult as melee.

The boss has a weakspot, like the giant evil laser spider of arachnophobia+2, is its head. This time he will actually hide his head with his black.. skin thing.

His attacks are made up of spitting dark orbs, which is easy to avoid, hand smacks for anti-melee and jumps with charges. The charge is VERY hard to avoid at times but if you are ranged you have plenty of space to get away. Besides that, this failure of a boss is a walk in the swamp.

Now we gotta get spiritual.
Velstadt the Royal Aegis in Undead Crypt
Now you've been through several hells, and this recent one almost made you turn into a newborn babe, and it's time to kill a somewhat easy boss, who can be hard if you don't know his moves.



Velstadt is a giant mace wielding boss that also has a small number of hexes. His attacks involve kicks, smashes, swipes and spells.

When you get to a melee range with your shield up, he will attempt to kick you, this will lower your guard and stun you if you get hit by it and if you do, he'll follow up with an attack. His other melee attacks involve his bell, usually a charging attack or smashes which are fairly easy to dodge.

Then he goes and rings his bell, ding dong...
And he gets hexes. At range he will ring the bell and that will be the tell that he is casting Dark Hail, a ranged, large conal attack which absolutely kills. You need to exploit his casting time by charging towards his back and mashing your attacks. After that, you might just beat the game!

Congratulations, you're about 80% done with the game now. Only a couple more bosses to go.
King Vendrick in the Undead Crypt *OPTIONAL*
You killed his bodyguard, his men, his army and even conquered his forts. It's time for him to die... in about ninety attempts.

Do NOT attempt this boss without having atleast 3 to 5 of the Soul of a Giant

This boss is weakened depending on how many Soul of a Giant(s) you have, 5 being the highest. You need atleast three to deal some damage to him as he has an insane amount of health and damage.

Now, the attacks of Vendrick involve him using his sword in order to swipe or smash. Nothing else.

He has a charging swipe attack and a jump attack, he has a three hit combo swipe into smash attack and he has a dual smash combo. You might be thinking that this boss sounds too easy...



Look at the picture, look at his health bar, imagine taking off 0.5% of that health bar every swing / cast of a spell. And have fun!

No seriously, you deserve hugs if you kill this guy, i absolutely hate this boss.

Another trick to Vendrick is to hug his butt, you basically want to be behind him at all times since his swipe attacks attack in a cone in his front and his smashes do as well. You want to exploit his recovery time on smashes heavily as he has a slow recovery especially on a two handed attack.
Guardian Dragon in Aldia's Keep
You are to succeed the throne of Drangleic like many before you, and reset the cycle. Might as well go Gwyn on these dragons.

This boss is somewhat a pain but also easy at times, doesn't need that much thinking but needs quick reflexes when doing its ranged.

The boss is easily exploitable when doing its fire breath on the ground, if you are melee just run towards his feet and if hes recovered, make him do his tiny stomp. If you are caster, just run atleast behind his head.

When he gets in the air he will either breath fire right at the center of the room, where you are or breath fireballs towards you, this is easily countered by Plan C: Running the hell away or getting the Coffeebean Gyrm Greatshield.

When you progress through the next area, just remember that the dragons there basically have the same move set as this dragon too, minus the aired fire breathing stuff.
Ancient Dragon of the Dragon Shrine *OPTIONAL*
You might have spared him more like yourself the fate of death, and received the heart to enter the memories of the past. But can you actually kill this thing?

Let's find out.


When you fight the Ancient Dragon, act as if every minute is your last, every attack can 1 shot or 2 shot you and you're basically burnt toast if you get hit by that fire breath of his.

The proper way to kill him is to exploit him by having him fly up, do his fire breath, run away. Then go towards his tail and attack, hopefully making him to his tail smack which is incredibly slow. Then you attack his feet and repeat for about 500 hours.

This boss has an incredible amount of HP and if you die you'll have to go through the ENTIRETY of Dragon Shrine again.



I haven't actually killed this thing yet, because I just can't be bothered to go as hollow as a DkS1 Player trying to find the Sunlight Altar.

Good luck if you do kill this monster though, and good riddance.

Note: If you kill this before Vendrick, it will drop a Soul of a Giant, helping you kill Vendrick easier.
Darklurker of the Dark Chasm of the Abyss *OPTIONAL*
Casters rejoice! Another easy boss for you yet another hard boss for melee players! Oorah!



The Darklurker is an angel with Dark magic and some fire spells, with the ability to teleport and fade in and out. He is available to players in the Dark Covenant.

As the first line, this boss is stupidly easy to defeat as a caster, especially as a miracle / sorcery user. Pyromancy is slightly weaker but stronger than using a +10 large club or something.

This bosses attacks involve mostly dark damage with fire, so using a Dark Quartz Ring is useful.

His melee attacks is a form of Psi-blade where he does a slash then a thrust, the thrust has amazing reach and the combo can pretty much kill you instantly. His spells are a small dark orb going through a tiny portal, AVOID THIS. It will explode, just run in the direction it came from.

Other spells include a Dark version of Soul Spear, A Dark Beam similar to the Final Bosses and a 3 Great Fireball combo that shoots in rapid succession at where you are. These are all deadly.

At 50% health or near, the boss will split in two. And they cast the same spells.

Beating this boss lets you get the Dragon Chime, one of the best chimes in the game, the Xanthous set and Climax, which might be the heaviest hitting hex in the game.
Giant Lord in Memories of Jeigh ( Forest of Fallen Giants Memory )
This boss can only be reached by players who have the Ashen Mist Heart from the Ancient Dragon in the Dragon Shrine.

He is a very large giant with similar attacks to the Last Giant, remember that guy? Well, remember his weaknesses?
They have the same weakness, their feet.

The difference between the Giant Lord and the Last Giant is that the Last Giant has a triple stomping Combo, while the Giant Lord doesn't...

He is an incredibly easy boss if you dodge his attacks, his slices and stomps.

Anyway, when near his feet, if you are on the side he will cut you with his sword with a quick slash. If under his skirt he'll stomp. Just roll to the other side and repeat and you.. did it?

Next, the grand finalé.
The End: Throne Watcher & Throne Defender, Nashandra.
You arrive at the Throne of Want, the true throne of Drangleic. Battling Nashandra over the crown in this hell hole, let's get some good boss souls!

The final fight with Throne Watcher and the Throne Defender is difficult to solo, it is best to either summon players or the NPCs Benhart & Vengarl to help you.

Throne Watcher: Attacks quickly, can buff weapon with lightning. Ninja flips and deadly combos.
Resistant to magic.

Throne Defender: Attacks slightly slower, buffs weapon with lightning. High resistance to lightning. Deadly combos.

When one of these dies, they'll kneel down and in thirty seconds or more the other will come other and revive the other to life, prolonging the fight.

It is a bit short amount of advice, but just use the NPC summons / players to tank for you and you'll live through it.

Nashandra, the final boss.

Nashandra will be the last boss you will reach at the game, you might have saved the optional bosses for later but after you kill her you will get the ending and given the option to move onto NG+.

Her attacks involve her using her scythe for melee attacks, but also a large amount of hexes and curse magic.
At the start of the fight she will almost always summon four orbs of dark that will Curse the host, you can destroy these by attacking them. She has some sweeping attacks with her scythe and she can shoot a beam of dark like the Darklurker can. She is VERY weak to lightning so miracles or gold resin is needed if you want a quick, easy win.



And that, is the end of Dark Souls 2.
Crown of the Sunken King: Elana the Squalid Queen


Elana is somewhat a tricky boss to people, yet can be easily done due to exploiting her spamming spells.

Her attacks are mostly configured of Pyromancies and Hexes like Dark Orb, Dark Hail-like spell and Flame Swathe. I haven't done her in a long time so my memory of her is very vague.

Other spells she has is a summon, she will mostly summon some yellow skeletons which are relatively easy to kill, like the ones in the Skeleton Lord fight. She may also summon a yellow Velstadt who I think only uses melee attacks. Velstadt is extremely annoying in the fight as he will try to draw your attention to him while Elana will cast all her spells, forcing you to dodge constantly. An easy fix is to just have an AI summon deal with one of them, and you go after the other.

Elana also surprisingly has some melee attacks with her weird scythe-axe. These are pretty easy to dodge but they do deal a fair amount of damage. Remember to focus on her summons first, then her or else you'll be eating a ton of lifegems.
Crown of the Sunken King: Sinh the Slumbering Dragon


Now this is a ♥♥♥♥ of a boss, he frequently uses a bunch of melee attacks and ranged breath attacks.

If you played Dark Souls 1 previous to Dark Souls 2, and have done the Artorias of the Abyss DLC you may have an idea of what to do. For those that don't, this is what the guide is here for.

Right off the bat Sinh will most likely use a toxic / fire breath or either charge straight into you and whack his head to the left. Running instead of dodging in this fight is very helpful as it can be used to avoid most of his ranged while also getting close enough to dodge his melee attacks based on his head.

Sinh also may fly up and breath a couple of fireballs(?) towards you, they do a plenty amount of damage but is easily avoidable and he will land straight below afterwards. He can also fly up and strafe across the room with a toxic / fire breath attack which leaves a cloud of toxic. Try your utmost best at running away from this rather than dodging through it as dodging will leave you in the cloud, and most of the time won't avoid the damage from the breath. Toxic is exactly like a poison except it is seriously damaging and will leave you running away most of the time popping lifegems.

Sinh also has some tail whips, and you can cut off his tail. Unlike Dark Souls or Demon Souls however it doesn't give you a weapon or anything of the sort, but is handy for removing that tail whip attack which has a serious amount of damage.

When you are close to Sinh's chest, either left or right, he may slightly stand up and look at you and breath his toxic breath on you. I also remember if he had done this to the front as well. Running away is recommended for those attacks.

Now it can't be harder than that right? You got the Sunken Crown, killed a dragon or two and killed countless bosses, right? Oh who am I kidding, it's harder.
Crown of the Sunken King *OPTIONAL* Ganker Squad


So you killed the Squalid Queen, the Slumbering Dragon and all those before it. Now to face your worst nightmare in PvE form, a ganker squad.

These ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ are the reason I have trust issues, they are a 3-man boss featuring a Havel who will CONSTANTLY follow you and try to stun you long enough for the others, a random dude in the Alva set with a katana or two and will also try to gank you with the Havel. And last at not least the weakest of the three is most likely the host of the ganker squad is the Archer who uses a greatbow, he also has a Rapier or something but he is significantly weaker than the other two in health and damage.

Clearly the way to beat this "boss" is by killing the archer as fast as possible while running from the Havel and the Alva guy, and also baiting them into attack to slow them down more. Once the archer is dead it is up to you to choose who is next, I prefer killing the Havel since I feel like he is somewhat quicker than the guy in Alvas, with infinite stamina and an absurd amount of health. Once you kill two of the guys it is a standard 1v1 Invasion-esque fight.

If you are simply not good at PvP in the game however, you will find this boss a pain in the arse like I did.

Now that those typical ganking noobies are dead, it's time for more DLC!
Crown of the Old Iron King: Fume Knight
After you've gone through a miniature hell featuring the all time favourite ambushes and constant harassment of ranged attacks combined with melee gang bangs it's time to kill this puppy!

Well, not really a puppy..

HINT Before you try to fight this boss, you'll want to remove the four Idols around the boss room. They are ALL casting Warmth and will heal the boss so much that it is physically impossible to harm him enough.

Now onto the real fight, as soon as you start you have a couple of seconds to rush up into him for some free hits before he "starts" the fight officially. His attacks in the start of the fight are mostly him using his small sword combined with his ultra greatsword as a combo finisher. Dodging to the right of him made my fight easier in my opinion as dodging to the left may still have you get hit by his Ultra Greatsword which you do NOT want.

He constantly roars or moves crazily when he is attacking, making it easy to tell when he is going to attack. His Ultra Greatsword's swings are often somewhat delayed or have a small swing, and almost always he will swing from right to left.

When you get him to about 50% health, he will then glow his ultra greatsword and get rid of his longsword. His attacks are GREATLY strong during the 2nd phase of this fight. Getting hit will almost always want you to use an estus / Heal miracle if you have a phantom helping you.

He also has some slightly faster comboes with the ultra greatsword, but the most devastating I found people to hate is when he sticks it into the ground with a dark aura and spawns some fire going from him spinning in a circle. There are some spots in this "spell" that can make you avoid the fire, but getting hit will damage you greatly and blocking it will stagger you for sure.

I am certain he also has a jumping attack, but I found it not a problem because you can just dodge forward or run forward and he will fly straight over you.

Now that you killed the Fume Knight and got the Old Iron King's Crown, that's it... or is it?

Crown of the Old Iron King *OPTIONAL* Sir Alonne


You slayed the Fume Knight and got the crown, now it's time to become very honourable...

Sir Alonne is yet another humanoid boss who wields a giant sword, yet he is a katana user who excels in speed rather than being slow and powerful.

His attacks involve a ton of combos involving slashes into a backstep charging stab and various other attacks.

As soon as you head in, he'll almost always do a charging slash which can be easy to avoid, but he will abuse the charging attack often in his combo attacks. His combos are mostly close range slashes from left and right, and most of the time he will backstep a great deal and then do a charging stab which is somewhat hard to avoid at first. Going backwards for the stab can sometimes avoid it.

You want to constantly be on your guard with this boss as he is faster and more powerful than you that one bonus attack can mean the difference between victory and defeat. One of his most dangerous attacks is a delayed stab when standing still, this makes a gas-like noise and has a dark aura like the Fume Knight. If you get hit by this, you'll be grabbed and damaged slightly, but will buff the boss making him hit harder than usual.

You can avoid the buff attack by sticking to the right, much like the Old Dragonslayer and several spear wielding enemies throughout the game. He also has a jumping attack which can be avoided by dodging backwards. He doesn't use it often as his other attacks however.

He also has a sneaky, honourable ranged attack! He'll slash, making you expecting him to charge but except he'll fire a dark laser towards you from his sword. It is quite easy to avoid but getting hit by it opens you up for another attack.

This boss is very hard as he takes plenty of trial and error to learn. I found him quite easy with the Steel Willed Lorrie NPC Phantom as he tanked a fair bit of the damage.



You killed Sir Alonne now, and can get his badass armor set and his glorious katana with an awkward move set. That's everything, right? Nope!
Crown of the Old Iron King *OPTIONAL* Smelter Demon 2.0
So you got the badass armor from the two bosses previously in this guide. What about a third boss? Yup, it's time to visit PC Gamer's favourite boss since day 1 again.

This Smelter Demon is a lot like the first one, except he has tiny little differences such as that AoE attack on the first buff, and that he often delays his swings like a ♥♥♥♥♥. He may also spam the jumping attack frequently and not do the AoE burst afterwards when you expect it.

One major difference however is that I think that the Smelter Demon has magic damage rather than Fire damage, making him a neat surprise for all you Gyrm Greatshield scrubs out there. The trick to defeating this boss in my honest opinion is seeing how fast you can rush the zone before him with as much estus as you can.

I honestly don't have a lot of hints for this one because he is so similar to the original. But just keep dodging backwards and never get greedy. Good luck to you all who find difficulty with this boss or it's zone because it is a ♥♥♥♥♥.

Now we need more DLC! Where is it From?!
11 Comments
Pythios 12 Jul, 2017 @ 8:29am 
#trkcga
Pythios 10 Jul, 2017 @ 7:45am 
the royal rat vanguard deals tons of poison dammage but has low hp i suggest a large hitting item then swipe at it if it hits you back off and stay aware f where it is if it doesent go ham on it
Purmafurb 12 Apr, 2016 @ 3:24pm 
this is just my basic premisese on the 2 bosses out of 3 i fought in ivory dlc...

ivory king (after alva by the first bonfire) lightsabers for days,also minions before he appears.

alva (before the king) beautful cat of death and invisable if you don't get a item.

the other 2 which are in the same boss are in this area full of annoying unicorns and they do the same stuff as alva but there's 2,and i don't know how you activate them in total sense 1 might be active then out of nowere there is 2 of them,also i belive their health regenorates.
Microwave37 28 Jan, 2016 @ 4:50pm 
What element thing (fire or electric) i the last giant weakest to?
GhostyGG 3 Jul, 2015 @ 3:06pm 
Possibly the best boss guide on steam. Everyone else's guide just has the word 'boss' and talk about how awesome they are. -_-
Yavanna  [author] 30 Aug, 2014 @ 2:32am 
I will add the DLC bosses, I haven't done any of the bosses in the Old Iron King DLC yet for some reason :<
SunbroStang 29 Aug, 2014 @ 8:28pm 
Will you be adding the dlc bosses any time soon? Cause screw smelter 2.0.
Tank Sinatra 27 Jul, 2014 @ 3:38pm 
Might be worth adding that Ruin Sentinels are also optional bosses, if the player has a Lockstone.
AngryAlbinoCroc 6 Jul, 2014 @ 3:35am 
The darklurker can be silenced with the profound still hex. My character is mostly melee and I beat the holy bajesus out of it.
Blazing Black Dragon 17 May, 2014 @ 12:53pm 
Vendrick is such an asshole boss, not even the ancient dragon is that hard.