This dragon guards the frozen lake found in the eastern section of the Mountaintops of the Giants. You’ve probably fought a lot of dragons by this point in the game, so this one should be a breeze. If you’re struggling to take down Borealis, however, we’ve got a cheesy strat to help you defeat this chill dragon, as well as some tactics if you want to do it the old-fashioned way.
General Tips
While it has generally high resists, this dragon is especially resistant to physical thrusting and slashing damage. However, it is not immune to any status effects.
Borealis has the same AI as the other dragons, so if you have a technique you like vs them, it will work here.
Try to bait Borealis towards the Jellyfish on the frozen lake — if the dragon kills enough of them, it will replenish your flasks.
Strategy
Cheese
To do this cheese, it’s best to first unlock the Spiritcaller Cave — it isn’t necessary, but it makes resetting much easier if something goes wrong. From the entrance to the Spiritcaller Cave, go east, hugging the rock wall, and make your way up onto the rocks that overlook the lake (1). At the edge of the rocks, summon Latenna the Albinauric(2). If she doesn’t end up near the edge of the rocks, you’ll need to go rest at the site of grace and try again — do this until she’s in a good position on the edge of the rocks.
(1)(2)
Once you’ve got Latenna where you want her, mount Torrent and ride east off the rocks and continue until you see the boss’s HP bar — once you do, turn around and ride back up to Latenna’s position. This might be hard while the fog is still present, but it should soon dissipate. From Latenna’s perch atop the rocks, Latenna is completely safe. Borealis may attempt to use their frost breath, but it can’t reach your position, and Latenna can freely fire from this position until the boss is dead.
Sometimes, the dragon will move to a position where Latenna’s arrows hit an obstacle — if this occurs, you’ll need to go aggro the dragon and pull it to a spot where Latenna can hit it. Besides that, you can just sit back and wait!
Horseback
If you’d like a more honorable kill, you can use the strategy that is effective on basically all the dragons: be mounted, dash directly at it, then go through its legs and attack the legs a few times before continuing past the dragon. Usually, you’ll want to ride directly through the dragon’s legs, going under its head. However, if it does its Frost Breath, you’ll need to ride left around the breath attack.
After attacking the boss’s legs for a few seconds, you need to continue past the boss, or you may end up getting hit by the Bite or Tail Whip attack. It’s best to wait until the boss is idle and walking towards you to start dashing back towards the boss, otherwise you may end up eating the Frost Roar — this attack inflicts AOE frostbite. If you see this attack begin, you’ll need to simply ride away instead of committing to going underneath the dragon.
Frost Roar
The only other dangerous attack is the Flying Frost Breath, but as long as you gallop out of the boss’s path once he starts breathing his frost, you should be fine. If you find that your attacks aren’t doing a lot of damage, you can combine the cheese strat from above with this strategy to finish the fight faster.
Unabashed FromSoftware fanboy still learning to take his time with games (and everything else, really). The time he doesn't spend on games is spent on music, books, or occasionally going outside.
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