Similarly to the Godskin Apostle, this boss has a few fairly generous windows of opportunity for you to exploit, and shouldn’t be much of a challenge if you remain patient.
General Tips
Use the pillars in the room to avoid the attacks that you have trouble dodging.
This boss is resistant to Holy, Fire and Strike damage, and is vulnerable to Slash, Hemorrhage and Frost damage.
General Strategy
Whether you’re playing a ranged or a melee character, the strategy here will remain largely the same. There will be a couple of safe windows of opportunity for you to damage the boss. The first and most obvious one will be when the bosses throws a Black Flame towards you. If you’re playing a melee oriented character, stay at mid range of the boss and wait for him to start using this attack. As the ball of Black Flame is in the air, roll under it and towards the boss, and you will be able to either use 2 quick attacks, or one heavy jumping attack. The jumping heavy attack will be a bit safer to execute, especially if you’re using a slow weapon.
Whenever the boss hops to the side, he will always follow it up with a Black Flame attack, so it will be your cue to start running towards the boss. If you’re more of a spell slinger, you can just dodge the ball of Black Flame by rolling diagonally towards the boss, and retaliating with an attack of your own.
Once you reach Phase 2 (~50% HP), the boss will gain a few more attacks, and some other ones will get an upgrade. One of those is the belly bump that the boss will sometimes execute when attacked from the front. Instead of being a small shove backwards, he will instead knock you down. Luckily, you can quickly recover by rolling, which will also help you avoid his follow-up attack.
The boss will also gain a new attack that can be heavily punished: the Jump Attack. After making himself bigger, the boss will jump up before crashing down and dealing damage in a wide area around the impact. This attack can either be outranged, or jumped over. If you decide to jump over the shockwave, keep an eye on where the boss is, as he will be jumping slightly towards you, and you don’t want to end up under him. If you’re melee, focus on jumping over it as it will allow you to immediately start attacking him. If you’re ranged, run out of range and start slinging spells as the boss lands, so that you have time to land a couple of spells.
Lastly, use your summons in Phase 1, as Phase 2 has more area of effect attacks, which will make quick work of your spectral friends. And if you’re playing ranged, simply running away from the boss will give you even more opportunities to sling spells, as a lot of his combos will end in a small moment of respite.
Avoiding Damage
While a lot of the boss’s attacks are straightforward to dodge, there are a couple of attacks that can be more challenging to avoid. The first one is the Rapier Flurry. The boss will unleash a series of rapid thrusts forward, ending with an upward thrust. Depending on your distance, you have 2 different ways of dealing with it:
If you’re close, you can roll towards the boss and slightly to the right to find yourself in melee range, avoid his attacks, and be in a position to punish the boss.
If you’re further away, you can simply outrun this attack by sprinting backwards. Note that you might have to dodge the beginning of this attack by rolling backwards.
The other deadly attack will be the boss rolling around the room. This attack will only happen in Phase 2, and while avoiding it can be rather difficult, you have a couple of ways of dealing with it. First, using a 100% physical defense shield, block while the boss rolls towards you, and dodge through the boss at the very last moment. This way, even if your dodge rolling timing is a bit off, you will simply end up blocking the damage before rolling through the boss. Another way is to use the pillars around the room to avoid taking any damage from this attack whatsoever.
Lastly, if you’re having a hard time figuring out the dodge timings for some of the more straightforward attacks, don’t hesitate to use a 100 physical defense shield, and keep blocking up until the point that you dodge, to make sure to avoid taking any damage in case you don’t have the timing down just yet.
Video game fan since TMNT: The Manhattan Project, I'm always on the lookout for games that could top Outer Wilds or Disco Elysium, or for new songs to listen to.
50 000
Love how his fat lard azz can roll through concrete pillars. Makes total sense.