Sword

Axe

Firebomb

Description

Basic enemy in the Firelink Shrine and Undead Burg. Comes in different variations and often seen in groups or together with stronger enemies.
He wears the Hollow Warrior Set. Despite the model using a Broken Straight Sword, they drop the Shortsword instead.

Location

Drops

*Item drop rates can be improved by increasing Item Discovery

Description

A large, heavily armoured boar. First encountered in the Undead Parish, with an unprotected backside able to be backstabbed. Another two reside in the The Duke's Archives, this time with their weak point armored over.

Locations

Drops

*Item drop rates can be improved by increasing Item Discovery

Strategy

• They're weak to Lightning, so if you already joined the Warrior of Sunlight, you can use the Lightning Spear to safely kill them from afar.
• They're also weak to Fire, so you can use Pyromancies to easily dispatch them. Great Combustion is fast and does respectable damage, so it's recommended for fighting them. Fireball-type pyromancies start up slow, increasing the risk for you to get mauled while charging the fireball.

Attack patterns

• Running attack - The tusk will charge up and run towards you trying to hit you with a forward sweep of his horns (can deal a lot of damage)
• Back kick - When attacking from behind he may try to kick you away with his back hooves
• Tusk sweep - When facing his head he tries to sweep his tusks towards you

In Undead Parish

• You can backstab this one.
• Lure out the two Undead Soldiers and kill them, so you only have to take care of the boar.

Melee Strategy

The boar is weak in the back, so use the pillars to the right to protect his attacks and try to circle around him, stay in his back and stab him in his behind.
Also you can climb the stairs to the right as you enter, clear out the Undead Soldiers (crossbow) on the bridge above the boar and open with plunging attack on him.
If needed you can toss down an Alluring Skull (there's some near the crossbowmen) to reposition him if he is not close enough for a plunging strike.

Stair Plunge Strategy

After luring out and dispatching the first undead soldiers, walk slowly to the stairs on the right. Peek out of the pillars to lure the boar, then immediately run a bit up the stairs, to the first landing(as pillars end). The boar should end up hitting the pillar next to the fire, allowing you to jump down on him from the landing with an easy plunging attack.

Bonfire Strategy

Slowly lure the soldiers out and kill them. Then quickly run to the right stairway and stand just 4 or 5 steps up. He's too big to follow you.
He will run at you through the bonfire just off the side causing fire damage. Wait for him to reset and then walk just past the pillars or use a bow to get his attention.
He will once again dash into the flames. Repeat until dead. To speed up the process you can use Pyromancy or a firebomb as he is walking back to his start point.
The Alluring Skull picked up near the archers can also be thrown near the fire below to make Armored Tusk kill himself.

Fire Strategy

After using ranged combat or luring out the Hollows in the area, you can use a shield and block the Boar while standing next to the fire to the left of it. The fire will deal about 12 health a second, and will eventually kill the beast.

Ranged Strategy

Stay at the entrance to the opening and lure the boar out, e.g. with bow and arrow.
Run down the stairs into the passage. The boar is too big to follow you into it so you are safe.
Wait until the boar gives up (he does fast) and walks back. Get out and use your ranged attack into his back.
The boar will not turn around until he reaches the top of the stairs. When he does, he turns around and runs after you - simply run back into the passage.
Rinse and repeat, and the boar will be dead fast without a chance of hitting you once.

Ranged Strategy II

Start by luring out and killing the soldiers.
Once all on the bottom are taken care of, climb up the stairs and take out the other soldier and the two snipers.
By this time, the boar should have made its way back to its starting position.
Simply take position on the sniper's perch all the way against the wall and take out the boar with a bow.
If done properly, the boar should turn around and look in your direction but will not move from its spot, making for an easy kill.

Firebomb Strategy

Start by luring out and killing the soldiers.
Once all on the bottom are taken care of, climb up the stairs and take out the other soldier and the two snipers.
Then pelt him with 10 or so firebombs from the ledge, he just stands there and takes it.

Gate Strategy

If you are coming from the opposite direction (from Parish instead of Burg) there is another easy method to kill him by using the gate. Make sure you dispose of the hollows with a ranged weapon, especially the hollow which has a tendency to close the gate as soon as he sees you. After the hollows are dead make sure to get the boars attention and run immediately back and use the lever. It will crash right down on the boar and he will die instantly.

In The Duke's Archives

• This time the Armored Tusks are in a very confined space (a long hallway). This doesn't necessarily make the battle harder, especially if you do melee.
• You don't have to fight both of them at once, they're separated, so take out one after another.

Melee Strategy

Get to the tusk as quickly as possible and always try to hug it. Now try to circle it and attack either its side or its back, though now even its back is protected by armor, so you won't do much damage. Remember that weapons dealing lightning damage are well-suited to fight heavily armored enemies. Now continue to hug and circle it, dodge (or block if necessary) its attacks and this fight should be much easier than your first encounter, especially since this is late in the game and you should have much better equipment. hit with two hands for more damage.

Easy First Tusk Strategy

The first boar fight is incredibly easy as he cannot leave the hallway, as long as you back up and stand on the entrance stairs he will sit there and keep charging against an invisible wall, leaving you free to hit him with whatever you want. At a 23 faith stat and the Warrior of Sunlight covenant, it takes all 10 lightning spear miracles to kill him but much easier than actually fighting!
A melee character with a spear can also have an easy time - stand below the stairs, and when the boar charges, he will expose his snout and the underside of his head/body. A thrust attack here does more damage and does not deflect your weapon.

Easy Second Tusk Strategy

The second tusk is also pretty easy to finish off without the need of a real fight. If you're quick enough (high stamina / light armor), just run past him into the room with the first bonfire, get up the stairs and go to the left or right past the pillars, make sure the tusk follows you. Once you're there you'll notice that it's too big to fit between the pillar and the gates of the elevator, but will try nonetheless. So use a long-ranged attack / weapon (e.g. a lightning spear) and attack from a safe range. You can even attack through the pillar, making it easy to kill off the tusk without the risk of getting hit.

Poison Strategy

The armoured boars can easily be poisoned using the Poison Mist pyromancy. This method took around 3 minutes for each boar in NG.

To infect the first boar, lure it to the end of the corridor (since it can't leave, and can't cause you damage) and cast poison mist on it. The second boar is even easier, you can infect him while standing around the corner as long as you don't make too much noise.

The boars are immune to the toxic status effect, so you cannot use Toxic Mist or Dung Pie.

Balder Side Sword

Rapier

Crossbow

Description

Knight King Rendal of the ancient kingdom of Balder brought his elite knights in his quest for glory to Anor Londo. Sadly, a great many of them became Hollowed adding more obstacles to the already harrowing pilgrimage for the Undead pilgrims after them.

These enemies resemble Undead Soldiers in tattered maroon capes and better equipment. The cape makes them seem larger and more intimidating, which serves as an appropriate warning of their capabilities.

There are 3 types of Balder Knights: One wields the Balder Side Sword and the Balder Shield, another wields a Rapier and Buckler, and the third wields only a Light Crossbow.

Location

Undead Parish
A rapier knight is guarding the Knight Shield; A side sword knight is near the wooden plank bridge, accompanied by a spear-wielding Undead Soldier; two side sword knights and a rapier knight is guarding the entrance of the church building; a rapier knight is guarding the stairway to the second floor of the church; and lastly, a rapier knight is guarding the path to Knight Lautrec of Carim's cell at the second floor of the church.

Sen's Fortress
Two knights are guarding the chest with Flame Stoneplate Ring; a knight is at the corridor at the upper fortress area; and the crossbow knight is harrassing you while you travel the roof area of the fortress, while a giant continually throws firebombs at you.

Drops

*Item drop rates can be improved by increasing Item Discovery
Either Titanite Shard x1 (21.82%) or Titanite Shard x2 (0.91%) can be dropped from the same kill.

Attacks

• Balder Side Sword + Balder Shield version
  • Thrust with sword, usually 2 times. Can inflict a lot of damage if both attacks land.
  • Two handed swing, quite a powerful attack with a long wind-up
  • Multiple slashes, usually 2-3 times
  • Sheild bash, drains a lot of stamina if blocked, but deals minimal damage.

• Rapier + Buckler version
  • Thrust with rapier (very quick) usually 1-2 times
  • Parry stance - rapier held up high and pointing forward. Ripostes attacking player for huge damage, but cannot attack until exiting parry stance.

• Crossbow version
  • Only one known, atop Sen's Fortress functioning as a sniper.

Strategy

• Always try to fight the guard on a staircase because the lower part (feet) is exposed and easy to strike with a sword/spear thrust. If the Balder Knight is coming down a staircase it is easy to get the first strike (thrust or swipe) and it will usually stun the Guard. The sword version likes to swipe down with the shield when close to the player and leaves itself exposed for a quick stab afterwards. The Balder Knight will often do a jump backwards to counter any thrust from the player, be careful because it will often strike if the player runs forward.

• If you have a decent shield, enough stamina and aren't over-equipped (i.e: equip burden is over 50%), you can "bait" them into lowering the shields. Just keep your guard up and "run into" them, and immediately move back without a pause. Keep the shield up throughout. They usually respond with a lunge which, if you're quick enough, should't be far enough to hit you. Their fancy sword gestures afterwards tend to leave room for an attack or two.

• After pulling the above-mentioned "shield-down" feint, you can also throw in firebombs if your physical offense is insufficient at early levels.

• Can also be killed from distance with soul arrow, but the Balder Knight will likely interrupt with a thrust attack if close by.

• When the Balder Knight is low on health, it will jump backwards and try to heal. Always run forward for a free thrust/swipe attack to interrupt healing.

• If you're low on health and in need of healing, always dodge behind a pillar corner to heal with flask; alternatively, if you're dextrous enough with the controls, dash away to put a good distance between you two and chug down some Estus. They have a nasty habit of charging at you with a powerful thrust attack, which is often a one-shot kill in your weakened state.

• The Rapier+Buckler Shield Balder Knight may enter a stance where it lowers its buckler and holds its rapier out in front of itself. It will parry melee attacks when in this stance and counter for a massive amount of damage. Kicking it while in this stance will make it stagger, but accidentally using an attack instead of a kick will probably result in getting countered. The parry stance appears to be useless against jumping attacks (fwd + strong attack), some strong attacks, all whip attacks, ranged attacks, and magic.

• Once the player has the Drake Sword the Balder Knight can be killed in 2-3 hits and very easy to farm around the gargoyle church. If the player has the Astora's Straight Sword (need master key for Valley Of Drakes) the Guards are easier to kill because of the beautiful thrust/swing combo. If Astora's Straight Sword is upgraded the thrust attack will make easy work of the Balder Knight (1-2 hits) and then it becomes easy to farm for souls.

• Attracting a Balder Knight from a distance will almost always cause them to run at you and try to lunge at you when close. Simply wait in a comfortable area, and parry the moment you see the running animation start to change to an attacking one.

Farming Strategy

• For farming Balder Side Sword: In Sen's Fortress, with 410 Item Discovery, rest at the bonfire, leave the bonfire area, head right from the top of the stairs, and kill the two Balder Knights there (previously guarding the Flame Stoneplate Ring). Homeward/Homeward Bone back to bonfire. Repeat until the sword drops.
• There is also a location in the Undead Parish where you meet the Blacksmith. Rest at the bonfire and then go up the steps and across the bridge. There is one sword balder knight to the left. There are three balder knights, one rapier and two sword, to the left in the church right when you enter. Up the steps, there is also one rapier balder knight.

Description

These frog-like creatures jump around and spit gas that can result in a curse status ailment if you are exposed long enough.

Location

Drops

Eye of Death (6% chance with base Item Discovery)

Weaknesses

• Fire

Attacks

• Fog spewing - They fill up their lungs and spit out fog that will get you cursed if you stay inside it. But this is a slow animation and can easily be avoided. Just wait and get behind it.
• Jump and spew - They jump at you and spew fog in your direction.
• Jumping attack - They'll jump from a distance and drop down.
• Several minor melee attacks

Notes

• There are ten in total in the lower sewers levels. They're encountered when you fall down through a trap on the ground (a hole, so watch your steps; you should be warned that a rat will try to lure you through one of those traps by standing on it).
• When you fall, you will be attacked by a group of them, and they will start to attack immediately. You should two-hand your weapon and deal with them carefully but quickly (they rarely use physical attacks).
• Alternatively go straight down the stairs from the bonfire. Down the ladder to your left, and down the stairs at the end of the hall. Take an immediate left and into the tunnel with 3 large rats, and 1 small rat. Around the corner is the first Basilisk, and the other nine are ahead of you from there. This particular run is an easy way to farm for Eyes of Death and humanity.
• Be aware that a much more bothersome kind of these monsters can be found in the Great Hollow (area accessible through the base of Blighttown). They are more resistant than their counterpart and should preferably be confronted one on one.
• Another way to avoid being killed by Curse is to acquire curse resistance. Getting the Cursebite Ring from New Londo Ruins gives enough resistance to survive several simultaneous curse bursts. Curse resistance is also granted for every point of humanity showing on status screen. The Paladin Set also has high curse-resistance, further increasing your chances of surviving. Consuming your spare humanity fragments or hunting more down may give you a little leeway with mistakes. Having a few Purging Stones on hand before you attack the frogs is advised.
• Killing these guys gives you a relatively large number of souls for an easy kill. Therefore, they are great for farming.

Strategy

They have very little HP and are easy to dispatch. If you can find a route to approach some from behind, it is recommended to do so because they will not notice you regardless of how much noise you make. The basilisks will only engage you if you enter their line of sight. Do not get caught in the cloud of gas, as it will cause curse build-up. It is recommended to two-hand your weapon, as you can't block their breath attacks.

Firebomb

Basilisks are easy to kill at range with one firebomb. Firebombs from the Undead Merchant Male cost 50 souls a piece and each frog yields 200 souls in return. The frogs burn really quickly and die even if not hit directly, as firebombs have a nice Area of Effect. The player will require about 30-40 to comfortably pass through depths without much worry, and a nice haul of souls in return.

Melee

The Drake Sword can be quite effective with its two-handed shockwave (Heavy) attack.
A long thrusting weapon like the winged spear or the halberd can be quite effective at reaching the frogs when they're in a curse cloud.

If you have the Set of Thorns armor you can roll into a basilisk that is about to breathe and it will be stunned long enough for you to get a blow or two in.

Magic

They are really easy to kill with the fireball spell, especially the five in the depths, which are located in a pit. These frogs are below you, so it is possible to just drop a fireball on their heads. However, don't forget to run when they jump.

Description

A lesser chaos demon armed with a lightning-imbued demon's bone found patrolling Anor Londo. They also transport the Chosen Undead from Sen's Fortress to Anor Londo and vice-versa.

Location

In addition, one Bat Wing Demon will wait for the player where they first entered Anor Londo. Talking to it returns them to Sen's Fortress.

Drops

*Item drop rates can be improved by increasing Item Discovery

Attacks

Defenses

• Weak to fire damage
• Resistant to lightning damage
• Take additional damage from Black Knight weapons.

Strategy

• Their spear deals heavy Lightning damage, so it is advisable to use a shield with high resistance against Lightning. (Usually wooden shields, e.g. Eagle shield, East-West Shield, Wooden Shield, etc)
• While this won't work for all of the Bat-Wing Demons in Anor Londo, the player may be able to thin their ranks a bit by wearing the Ring of Fog and using stealth to avoid some of them.
• From the walkway area leading to the main castle entrance, one can see several of the demons waiting on either side through the iron bars. Use a projectile attack to hit them from afar. Their exaggerated hitstun animation makes them easily fall off of their respective platforms, killing them instantly. Even a Light Crossbow firing a Wooden Bolt will do the trick.
• A very easy way to stay safe while battling these demons in Anor Londo is to lure them around a corner, as they rely on distance to be effective. The path to the Giant Blacksmith is blocked at a gate until the player unlocks it from the other side. Once unlocked, lure the demons to the opening, which they can't get through. A leaping strong attack with a Fire Zweihander will floor them and deal massive damage. A leaping attack with the Gargoyle Halberd will also strike through the gate. On the other side, leading to the area with the Black Knight Archers, lure demons around to the stone doorway. If the player stay out of sight, they will try to follow them and be stuck with very little room to move. Again, long-range weapons like the Halberd or Ultra Greatswords make this strategy effective.
• If there is a drop behind the demon simply walk up and block until they bounce off the shield and fall to their death.

Notes

If the player killed the Bat Wing Demon transporter NPC at the beginning of Anor Londo, resting at a bonfire will respawn him.

FoldUnfold Table of Contents Description Location Drops Weakness Notes Attacks Sword Greatsword Halberd Greataxe Strategy Parrying Dodging and Blocking Melee Critical Damage Ranged Stealth and Diversion Environment

Black Knight (Sword)

Description

These are former Silver Knights of Gwyn that were charred black during the Demon War. They traveled with him to the Kiln of the First Flame, but were burned by the still hot ashes. Now these mighty knights roam Lordran and, in their hollowed state, are looking to kill the chosen undead as he/she will try to kill the one they were sworn to protect.

Black Knights do not re-spawn after being killed, aside from the Black Knights located in the Kiln of the First Flame.

Location

Drops

Weapon and Shield drops are mutually exclusive

*Item drop rates can be improved by increasing Item Discovery

Weakness

Occult Weapons

Notes

• Other than weapons in Occult upgrade paths, there are also three unique weapons that have Occult property as well, and therefore do bonus damage against the Black Knights. These weapons are:
  • Dark Hand (130 Occult aux.)
  • Priscilla's Dagger (110 Occult aux.)
  • Velka's Rapier (110 Occult aux.)

• The Black Knights will chase you far longer than usual enemies. So if you aggro them you'll have to cover a very long distance until they'll stop chasing you and return to their initial place.

• Resting at a bonfire will not reset a Black Knight that is already chasing you.

• Black Knights cannot interact with objects such as ladders and doors.

Attacks

Sword

• Stab
• 3 Hit Combo
• Heavy slash
• Running Stab
• Shield Bash

Greatsword

• Swing combo
• Overhead chop
• Running chop
• Uppercut
• Forward Thrust
• Upper thrust
• Running thrust
• Shield Bash

Halberd

• Single thrust
• Double Thrust
• Running thrust
• Strong thrust
• Spin
• Sweep combo
• Shield Bash
• Jumping attack

Greataxe

• Shield Bash
• Leap attack
• 3 hit chop combo
• Overhead swing
• Running chop

Strategy

Parrying

The Black Knights are among the most easily parried enemies in the game, because of their limited movesets and heavily forecasted attacks. As soon as you see their hand moving towards you, hit the parry button and you will easily parry their attack, giving you the chance to punish them with a riposte. Remember to watch their hand, not their weapon. Patience and attentiveness is required for this method but it is more reliable than other methods because it leaves nothing to chance and requires no space or mobility to pull off. Every time a black knight is down, it will stand up, face you, and attempt to attack again. With the exception of shield bashing, every attack by every Black Knight can be parried. Once you have a rudimentary understanding of parrying, this will likely become your preferred method of dealing with Black Knights as it can be accomplished even in tight spaces.

Dodging and Blocking

The Black Knights hit hard and are usually fast so heavy builds generally don't have the mobility required to outmanoeuvre them and should block, and light builds generally don't have the stability to block so should dodge. Stay at the edge of his range to familiarise yourself with his attacks, then bait them out and strike in the interim between finishing a combo and raising his guard. Note that if you move too far out of range during his combo he will not complete it and you will not get your window.

• While blocking, watch for his shield bash. It is a very short range attack and is easy to dodge but drains a lot of stamina (likely staggering you) and he will follow it up with a devastating attack.

• All Black Knight attacks, excluding the unblockable sword charge and the shield bash but including the leaping Greataxe attack, can be parried. Sticking close to the Black Knight helps.

Melee

Hover at the edge of his range and bait out his combos, then attack once (or twice for a fast weapon) as he finishes them.

• At least a +5 weapon is recommended (get one and come back for the knight in Undead Burg as a mistake is often fatal that early in the game and this will significantly reduce the time required to duel him)

Critical Damage

Allowing the knight to finish a combo will occasionally allow you to get around behind him, where you can perform a backstab.

Ranged

• His shield has good magic resists so even if using spells or miracles you still need to hover at the edge of his range and bait out attacks, however y
• ou have the option of backing up and hitting him while he attacks if you are fast.

Stealth and Diversion

The Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring allows you to sneak up on knights with their backs turned to allow you to land a backstab on them. Note this item is not available until Sen's Fortress.or you can gain this item by killing the sorcerer you save in lower undead burg when he gets to firelink shrine bonfire.

Environment

• Undead Burg
  • Hellkite Dragon assist - This will only work after you kill the Taurus Demon. Clear out the level of all enemies, except the ones on the Dragon bridge. Get his attention and have him chase you all the way up and to the Dragon Bridge where you can dodge the fire (see Undead Burg page for guide) but he will not.
  • Fatal Fall - Clear the surrounding area of enemies. Go up the stairs leading to the tower containing the fog gate. Right after the first corner is a drop leading to a small edge. Aggro the Black Knight, take the drop and it will fall off the cliff. You can then roll to the nearby ledge.
  • Unreachable - Get a bow and 200 Arrows or a full stock of Soul Arrows (30) Head to Undead Burg and kill everyone there. Let him chase you to the ladder that you have to climb up in order to kill the Hollows that throw firebombs from the top. Walk to the very end of the rooftop, opposite from the ladder. This will lure him into the opening below. Wait for him to get confused and walk up and down the stairs to look for you, he can't climb up ladders. Shoot until he dies. If you time it right, you can hit him in the back while he circles, doing significantly more damage. Note the cost of the arrows will be far more than is retrieved from killing him.
  • Through the Door - Get the Black Knight to chase you to the house the firebombers were on, and close the door behind you. The Knight won't be able to open the door and you can simply poke him through the door with a spear. Be wary, as the Black Knight can still kill you through the door.

• Undead Parish
  • Unreachable - Get his attention then run down the stairs, into the opening. Run up the stairs where the boar is, but instead of entering the area get on the ledge and run to the end. As the stairs go down, the Black Knight can't reach you from them. Target him and pump 20 soul arrows or about 5 flame toss into him.
  • Bonfire Assist - First kill everyone in the bottom around the second Bonfire, and the slowly draw the Knight towards it. Lock-on to the knight, and position yourself behind the fire (preferably with your back against the corner and your shield raised). He'll connect a few hits, but he will also keep hitting the fire, and quickly die. Keep an eye on your stamina (let go of the guard to recover it quicker, but raise the shield again when he telegraphs an attack) and don't move, it should be over quickly.
  • Hollow Assist - Near the Bonfire by the Hellkite Dragon, there is a Hollow holding his face near the wall with two entrances. Drag the knight down here and around the nearest entrance, putting your character near but not through the second entrance on this side. He will get trapped by the Hollow, upon which you can lock onto him and start using Heavy Soul Arrow to whittle him down, making sure not to accidentally kill the Hollow.
  • Hellkite Dragon Assist - First get to the bonfire underneath the Hellkite Dragon and open the gate to the area with the Armored Tusk, climb the steps and lead the black knight on to the bridge and run all the way to the second spear wielding undead, once you see the Hellkite Dragon take cover in the save nook and the knight will be blasted, he will not die but simply run out of cover and get the drake to spew flames forth once more.
  • Fatal Fall - Proceed from the Undead Burg bonfire, up the ladder shortcut, under the bridge, and up the ladder to Undead Parish, killing two soldiers and three rats as you go. Run up and draw the knight's attention. Return to the area under the bridge. When the knight tries to follow you under the bridge, it will fall off the ledge to its death and automatically give you its drops.

• Undead Asylum (Return Visit)
  • There are two Black Knights waiting for you in very confined spaces. Unless you are confident enough to parry their attacks, draw them out into open areas where you can fight more freely.

• Darkroot Basin
  • Unsportman - Part way to the corpse with the Hunter Armor Set, the Black Knight stops chasing you and turns around. Use this to lure the Black Knight to you, then fire ranged attacks at him when his back is turned.
  • Fatal Fall - When performing a backstab, it is possible to throw him off the cliff for an easy kill, if you position yourself correctly. In order to achieve this, bait him into attacking with your back to the edge, then quickly get behind him for the backstab before he has time to turn around.
  • Alternatively, he can be tricked into jumping backwards off the cliff. Lure him to the nearby cave entrance, then block his attacks and maneuver him to the far left of the cave entrance (facing the drop) and keep blocking/dodging until he performs the jump. Note that if he does this, it will take some time for him to actually die; this is most likely due to landing on the ledge below instead of falling into the water. Just keep moving around; he should attempt to follow and fall to his death.
  • Unreachable Lure - If you can get passed him and into the cave with the bonfire, you can stand near the entrance and he will continue to walk back and forth in front of the entrance. Attack him while he walks slowly backwards as he will have his guard down every time. This may take a little while if you do not have a strong weapon, like the Drake Sword. Note, be careful as he may be able to hit you when he charges, try to block him if he does. An make sure to light the bonfire behind you as well, as should you fail, then you'd only have a very short walk back.

• Catacombs
  • Stealth Clearing - By using Hush or Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring you can move through the room with the Wheel Skeletons without being spotted by the Black Knight where normally the Black Knight would jump down and fight you. This allows you to clear out the skeletons first and not have to worry about them.
  • Leeroy Strategy - Enlist the help of Paladin Leeroy. Smash all the Skeleton Wheels that come your way. Run to the Black Knight side of the cavern. Make him drop down and chase you to where Leeroy will help you smash him.
  • Round and About - In the room above the knight, get his attention through the hole. He will jump down and you can clear the Skeleton Wheels in peace. After the area is clear, you can edge up to near where he is standing without aggoing him, and get a lock. Shoot him with a Soul Arrow or higher damage arrow, and he will chase you. Dodge his attack(s) in the clearing and run back to where he was standing. Climb up the ladder to the right (be wary of the archers and necromancer, might even get rid of them before this) and drop down where you can fall through the ceiling. The knight will return to the entrance area, so you can drop down, sneak up on him, and do this over and again until he is dead.

Description

Also known as Abyss Guards in the Prepare to Die Edition artbook. Like the regular Bloatheads, Bloathead Sorcerers were once people from the land of Oolacile, corrupted by Manus' influence. However, whereas Bloatheads were once regular citizens, the sorcerers were once practitioners of sorcery.

Like regular Bloatheads, there are two kinds of Bloathead Sorcerers, normal ones and frenzied ones. The latter dealing more damage (25% on both Magic and Physical damage before Damage Calculation) and Stamina Damage through block (25%). The difference is that frenzied Bloathead Sorcerers have glowing red eyes and drop more souls.

Location

Oolacile Township & Chasm of the Abyss

Drops

*Item drop rates can be improved by increasing Item Discovery
Titanite x1 and x2, and Bloated Sorcerer Head and Oolacile Catalyst each can't drop at once from the same kill.

Attacks

• Will cast any of these three Dark Sorceries:
  • Dark Orb
  • Dark Bead
  • Dark Fog
• At melee range they may attack you with their catalysts, causing Poison buildup if it hits, or give you a degrading shove in the face with the palm of their large hand which has a guaranteed stagger on your character.

Weakness

Striking them with a weapon that has fire damage can stagger them due to their low poise (Example:Chaos Great Scythe).
Melee: If fighting them one-on-one, move in close and stagger them quickly to prevent their casting. They may manage to teleport/dodge a short distance away from you, with a weapon that has good reach you can continue striking them even after they have teleported. Do not underestimate their melee attacks, be sure to block with a shield or dodge when necessary. If you see them using a fog spell, steer clear, and maintain distance. If you find yourself against two at once, lure one closer to you if you can, otherwise, try ranged.
Ranged: A decent bow and a number of arrows can stagger them to stop them from casting while dealing enough damage to take them down. Dodge their ranged attacks or use the silver pendant, then begin staggering them. As with melee, it's best to take them one at a time, but fighting at range can give you the advantage of placing yourself in a position where only one is capable of attacking you.

Tip: If you have no means of ranged attacks and must fight a group of sorcerers and regular bloatheads at the same time, running past the regular bloatheads and going for the sorcerers first is recommended. The magic attacks will kill you faster than a few punches from the regulars will.

Description

Also known as Abyss Guards in the Prepare to Die Edition artbook. Bloatheads were once the citizens of Oolacile, warped by Manus' influence when Oolacile awoke him. With their humanity warped, they have been corrupted into creatures with elongated arms and large heads with many red eyes.

There are two kinds of Bloatheads, normal ones and frenzied ones. The latter dealing more damage (25% before Damage Calculation) and Stamina Damage through block (25%). Frenzied Bloatheads have glowing red eyes and drop more souls.

Location

Oolacile Township & Chasm of the Abyss

Drops

*Item drop rates can be improved by increasing Item Discovery
Titanite x1 and x2 can't drop at once from the same kill.

Attacks

• Two-handed shove.
• Flail around.
• Slap combo.
• Overhead two-hand pound (running jump).

Description

A non-respawning, long range enemy that quietly fires toxic darts in your direction. They can be difficult to see from a distance and provide a significant threat if you are without Blooming Purple Moss Clumps or decent poison resistance, although they have low HP and are easy to kill once you've encountered them. Interestingly, they use the same death vocalizations as the Dreglings from Demon's Souls.

Location

Drops

*Item drop rates can be improved by increasing Item Discovery

Attack

• Toxic Blowdarts - the blowdart projectiles are small and don't leave a noticeable trail in the air. It won't stagger you when you're hit, but will stop you for several moments when blocked with a shield. Have high Toxic buildup and equally high Toxic damage over time (at 14 HP per 0.6 seconds)
• Has a rare melee push attack. It stuns the player like a kick and also causes Toxic buildup.

Strategy

• Highly suggested to bring several Blooming Purple Moss Clump if you haven't cleared Blighttown of these enemies yet

• Equip high Poison-resistant gear. Read the Toxic page for more information.

• Equip shields with 100% Poison resistance (i.e. Spider Shield, Crystal Shield, or Greatshield of Artorias)

• Always keep your shield up, and immediately scan your surroundings if your Toxic bar suddenly raises and/or your character suddenly blocked "something" when there's no apparent enemy in front of you. Identify where the Blowdart Sniper is and then rush him. If he has company, try to keep a wall or terrain between the two of you while you deal with the other enemies.

• If desperate, suicidally killing the Sniper at any cost will solve the problem forever, even if you die, as they don't respawn.

• You won't find Blowdart Snipers placed next to each other or on the other's immediate vision range, so you don't need to worry about pincer attack by snipers when you are looking for a sniper. The only exception is in the room surrounding the Fire Keeper Soul, where there are several snipers accompanied by Flaming Attack Dogs.

• If you have no Blooming Purple Moss Clumps ready, and your toxic bar is near full, you can force yourself to Toxic status by throwing a Dung Pie. Status effect doesn't care about what builds up the bar, but only what attack makes the bar full (thus triggering the status effect). So, even if your bar gets near full by getting shot by the snipers, the toxic HP damage-over-time is more manageable because Dung Pie toxin does roughly half the damage of blowdart toxin.
  • In places where you can't predict where/when you will get shot by toxic darts (i.e. the aforementioned room surrounding the Fire Keeper Soul), then you may want to throw Dung Pies until you're toxic before entering the Snipers' line of sight. If you're already inflicted with toxin, the toxic darts will have no effect on you.

Description

A moving pillar made of bones from various skeletons, about two and a half men tall. Spawn in groups more often than not. Pop out from the floor to ambush specific locations.

Location

Drops

White Titanite Chunk (5% chance with base Item Discovery)

Attacks

• Wavy hands everywhere. Despite the animation some areas around him are safe to stand. Since it's hard to tell where his front or back is, there isn't a reliable way of knowing whether or not you'll be hit, just keep your distance.
• Slam attack, usually done as you charge up to him or keep just a little too much distance. Tries to hit you with entire body and then right itself back up. Block or avoid and then rush to counterattack.

Weakness

• Especially weak to pyromancy, if you are not comfortable melee'ing them, consider bringing a Flame.
• The hands attack they use when you are really close to them isn't very strong, you can get close to them with a spear/shield and poke them with impunity from behind your shield (Note, obviously, poking them will be harder if they are grouped together).
• They take damage very shortly after they spawn, if your weapon is particularly strong, you can two-hand your weapon and hit them before you can lock on them to kill them before they can do anything (Note, not an insta kill, just a moment of defenselessness).
• Like all skeletons divine weapons work wonders.

Tactics

These enemies don't do a particularly high amount of damage nor are they very fast. Just let them attack and counterattack when it's safe. Be mindful of your environment, they spawn either in groups, or on ledges. Be careful with the swings of your weapons. Do not panic at the sight of what can only be described as a wall of kung-fu skeletons, the universal rule of "divide to conquer" still apply, especially in the tomb of the giants.

Glitch

Not gameplay related, but when treading down the Tomb of Giants, players may be confused to stumble upon pieces of bones hanging out of a wall. This is in fact one of the (life) bone tower ambushing the Covetous Silver Serpent Ring.

Description

Large dinosaur-like creatures in Lost Izalith, representing the lower body half of an Undead Dragon. They only spawn once, so you can easily pull and kill one after another, or (later) at the second black tower get them together to kill off each other.

Location

Attacks

• Jumping attack - Will jump off from a large distance and drop down on you. This deals a lot of damage and is hard to dodge due to the size of these creatures. This is NOT a homing attack. The second he jumps he is targeting where you are standing. Move. If you were standing next to him when he jumps, you have about two seconds, you have longer the farther away you were. Rolling will usually put you outside of its range. Certain objects will block their jump trajectory, and you have time for two R2 attacks with a spear after they've landed, if they're close enough for you to hit.
• Sweep attack - Will start rotating his tails. Hard to dodge due to huge range
• Triple stomp - Stomps three times, two times pretty narrow and the last stomp can stretch out really far. If using a shield/spear combination and you've got the stamina for it, you can hit the leg at the third stomp by simultaneously blocking and attacking. Both feet can do the stomp attack and it will switch between them mid-combo on occasion so this is not a safe time to attack.

Strategy

• Just before you reach the Bonfire, you should be walking along a branch/log. Instead of dropping to the ground level, keep going forward onto the second floor of the building/tower. Go into the broken covered bridge. From there, shoot as many as you can as quickly as you can. This should attract all of them to you at once. They will try to attack you, regardless of the fact that they cannot hit you. In doing so, they will very quickly kill each other.
• As for a direct attack strategy, just shoot them from a safe location. They seem to take most if not all damage from any ranged weapons (possibly melee as well, but not tested). Maybe 10 arrows and they go down. Just pick a good, unreachable location. If you get hit, you won't have a good day.

Notes

• These enemies can damage each other. One way to make use of this fact is to get the attention of several Bounding Demons and run to one of the safe zones in the area, such as the black towers. Stand close enough to them to trigger their attacks, but far enough away from them to not get hit by them, and they will destroy each other.
• The mesh of this enemy is the lower half of the Undead Dragon encountered in the Painted World of Ariamis. This explains the glitch encountered there, where the corpse of the Dragon jumps into the Default Pose upon being disturbed and clear the path it was supposed to block by standing up.
• As of patch 1.04, the sight and hearing range of the Bounding Demons has been drastically reduced. With the exception of one guarding the walkway to the Lost Izalith Bonfire they are now entirely avoidable.

Bugs

• If the enemy is most of the way around a corner, and you can hit the part that's sticking out with a bow, they will bug out and turn back and forth instead of coming around the corner. You can kill them with zero risk where this is possible.
• If there is an obstacle in the lava high enough that they can't walk over it, they won't find a path around it while you're taking them out from a distance.

Description

Immobile giant centipede-like enemy. Some of them are hidden, only unburrowing after you get near them.

Location

Drops

*Item drop rates can be improved by increasing Item Discovery
Titanite x1 and x2 can't drop at once from the same kill.

Attacks

• Acid - Decreases Armor and Equipment durability by 40
• Various physical headbutts and shakes
• Bite attack - ignores guard

Strategy

Keep your distance. A good bow will do the trick and you can get pretty close before they attack. They are stationary and will not come at you. If you have to get up close be prepare to roll away after you hit them once!

The jumping attack (forward + R2) on large weapons works, if done after baiting an attack. Just roll away quick. Powerful spells (like Soul Spear) and a good catalyst with a high Intelligence makes them laughably easy, to the point of being able to one-shot them.

Non-aggro Strategy

It is possible to kill them with melee without ever getting hit. Use a weapon with a long reach (Halberds or spears) and you can hit them just outside of their attack radius. However, attacking with a halberd or spear makes your character step forward slightly, so you might accidentally enter the attack range, this is not usually an issue, you just need to step back again. Do not use attack combos, you will get hit, be patient and go with one chop at a time.

Note: This method doesn't work for the Rockworm that is in front of the Demon Firesage fog gate. The head needs to be close to the ground where you are but, it is possible to plunge attack it from the ledge above its head if you run past it.

Poison Strategy

Dung pies are very efficient against these enemies, only requiring a few to toxic them. This allows you to safely avoid getting your gear damaged. Alternatively, you can poison them using poison arrows. You do need to be patient while the toxic/poison does its work, however.

Description

These cannibal butchers carry two weapons, a massive butcher blade and a sharpening steel that is used for a grab attack. There are only two of them per playthrough, as they don't respawn.

Location

Drops

Sack - 100% chance from the second butcher killed

Attack Patterns

The Butcher attacks are similar to that of the Giant Skeletons and Maneater Mildred.

• Basic swing attack using the cleaver.
• Holds cleaver parallel to body and chops downward.
• Raises the cleaver up with both hands and then smashes down on the ground.
• Uses the left hand item to grab the player. If successful, the Butcher does a downward smash with the cleaver. Like all grab moves, it is not block-able.

Weaknesses

• Backstabs
• Poison

Strategy

They are fairly slow and easy to dispatch if faced one on one. So be patient, wait for their attacks, block or evade them and strike back.

There are two of these minibosses, although you don't fight them at the same time. Wait for them to attack and then strike from behind (or backstab them), and roll away or strafe around if the butcher raises the cleaver above its head. You can also attack after the downward chopping motion, which takes a moment for the butcher to recover from. Another method is to position yourself behind one of the many nearby pillars. You can circle around the pillars and use them to deflect the butchers' attacks.

The butchers aren't particularly fast, but they are fairly strong. Considering the poor lighting conditions and the swarms of Hollows and Undead Attack Dogs in the area, you will likely want to proceed slowly and carefully.

It's worth noting that the butchers can in fact be both parried and backstabbed, however the parry window on their attacks is fairly small, as is the angle for backstabbing them.

First Butcher

Your vantage point upon first discovering the butcher will allow you one free shot with the projectile or spell of your choice before it chases after you. It's possible trick the AI into pathing into walls downstairs or into the water area below to use more ranged attacks.

The first butcher is accompanied by a non-respawning Undead Attack Dog and they both become aggressive if you attack one of them. Because the dog is usually much faster at following you than the butcher, getting their attention and luring the dog back upstairs to separate it from the butcher is recommended.

Alternatively, you can do a plunging attack on the first butcher. Get momentum from the balcony with the first three Hollows and jump on the railing below. You will bounce away from the railing and drop below. Quickly press the attack button to do the plunging attack on the butcher.

Second Butcher

The second butcher is waiting for the player above the doorway near Laurentius. It will drop down as the player proceeds through the hallway there. You can see it waiting if you look up, or look from the behind the bottom of the first staircase leading into the Depths, by the first Hollow. You can use a ranged attack to initiate combat before it drops down.

Description

An enemy completely covered in chains that uses a spike protruding from its back and a ball attached to a chain as weapons. The chains around him will make your weapon bounce back, thus exposing yourself to his attack.

Location

Drops

20% chance to drop any piece of the Chain Set. Multiple dropping at once is possible.

Attacks

• Swipe
• Straight forward charging poke
• 360 chain boulder swing
• Overhead boulder slam

Strategy

Melee

• Try using a fast weapon if you don't have a lot of stamina
• Try using a heavy weapon held with 2 hands and you won't suffer knockback.
• Mind your stamina: you will need a lot to block some of his attacks.
• He's vulnerable to strike type attacks, so hammers will work. A good choice is Dragon Bone Fist because it's both fast and has a strike attack.
• Since you will encounter him in a great hall, there is plenty of room for you to roll around to avoid his devastating stone attacks.

Magic

• For a chained prisoner, he moves very fast. Best magic to deal with him would be Great Combustion or Wrath of the Gods, if you have enough to kill him.
• If you have Homing Crystal Soulmass and Crystal Soul Spear, charge up your soulmass first, then nuke him to death with your spears. The soulmass serves as a stun mechanism in case he gets too close to you, but also deals a fair bit of damage.

Cheap poison arrows

• Stand close to the elevator
• If you have a good bow and equip Hawk Ring, your poison arrows will hit him
• It takes about five arrows to poison him
• Let the poison do its job until it wear off
• Hit him again with five more shots of poison arrows
• Repeat until he dies. It will be a while. But it will be safe.

Non-confrontational Strategy

Required: Ring of Fog, Slumbering Dragoncrest ring, and fast roll (mid-roll acceptable).

• Get close enough to the chained prisoner to aggro him and lure him a short distance outside room he is contained in.
• Run back around him once he forgets about you towards the elevator shortcut but, do not activate it unless you want to deal with two enemies.
• Stay hidden in the passage to the elevator until he goes back to his post, facing away.
• Activate the shortcut and be glad he can't hear you.

Description

The Channelers are powerful servants of Seath the Scaleless. They scour Lordan searching for Undead that they can kidnap and take back to the Archives where they will be experimented on and eventually crystallized. Capable of dealing great damage with melee and magic, they also teleport away when they are in danger of dying and can boost the power of other enemies nearby via an odd little dance. With superb eye sight and spell range, they can easily blast away at an opponent from afar, or butcher them up close with the rotating head of their trident.

Location

Drops

Channeler's Trident - very rare(1%)

Attack Patterns

• Ranged strong Soul Arrow - can be devastating with low magic resistance, but has a slow build-up and can easily be dodged.
• Trident thrust - When getting close, repeated melee thrust using their Trident, can deal a huge amount of damage, especially when buffed.
• Channeler's attack buff - Not an attack in itself, but a dance that buffs all enemies in close range. Buffed enemies will have a blue aura around them.
• Teleport - Once you deal enough damage they teleport to a different location. Has a long build-up but you can't deal damage once he initiates his warp.

Strategies

General Tips

• The one in Depths will buff the Gaping Dragon if not killed prior to the fight, making the fight much harder. He will also cast Soul Arrows against you while you fight the boss.
• The two channelers in The Duke's Archives are able to buff each other once one of them teleports into range of the other, making their attacks devastating, so take care.
• These guys can see you at any range, while wearing the Ring of Fog. Semi-invisibility will not protect you from these enemies.
• The animation for their teleport ability actually starts about a second or so before they start glowing. Because they can't receive damage during their teleport, you are able to land two or three hits during this animation without dealing any damage. It can be frustrating with a slower weapon, as they can start the animation between swings.

General melee strategy

Since they teleport away once they take damage it can be annoying doing them melee. But the key is to wait for one of their longer attacks and then to stagger them. So take a fast weapon that doesn't drain lots of stamina (e.g. a spear) and get close to them. Now wait till they either start to dance or do their trident thrust attack (in that case, get behind them). Now unleash as many attacks as possible, and if you stagger them they won't be able to teleport away.

Ranged Strategy for the channeler in the Undead parish

An easy way to deal with this enemy is after you defeat the Heavy Knight go behind the pillars near the Fire Keeper Soul. Take out your bow and shoot him repeatedly.
Hide behind the pillars to avoid the Soul Arrow when he fires one. Aim for the head and most the time he won't even cast his spell. The hollows will just stand there.
This makes it easy to deal with the hollows as he wont be able to do his empowerment on them.

Very easy strategy for the Channeler in Undead Parish

Climb up the stairs, but be careful with the Balder Knight, kill him and turn to your left and then right. The channeler will spot you and start firing spells on you but he'll just hit the pillars, also his minions will spot you and will come at your direction, go back a little and deal with these hollows. Once all the hollows are killed, go forward to face the channeler, face him from the front and then he will teleport to the lower floor (or maybe he'll just jump down), so get close to the ledge and keep shooting arrows to his head until he is dead. He will keep firing spells at you but won't hit you.

Another very easy strategy for the Channeler in Undead Parish

Inside the parish, hide behind the right pillar before the pillars going up to the altar. If you have a bow equipped, strafe out from behind the pillar and manually aim at the channeler's head and fire once, then retreat. From this distance, he should stay stationary and not teleport. Hide behind the pillar until he stops his ranged spell attack, then strafe back out and fire. Rinse and repeat and he should be easily taken care of without alerting the other enemies in the area.

Farming Strategy

A good spot to farm Channelers (for the Channeler's Trident) is the second bonfire in The Duke's Archives (called "The Duke's Archives" in the Warp menu) after you have opened up the path to the Crystal Cave. From the bonfire, head right to the new passage and climb up the ladder. Near the rotary stairs are two of them.

Description

Small hopping insects found on the pathway between the Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith. They have no means of inflicting damage. There is one with a unique, red glow to its eyes that does not respawn. The red-eyed Chaos Bug provides a useful item and is linked with Solaire of Astora's storyline.

Location

Demon Ruins & Lost Izalith
At the shortcut between the two areas, where the gate unlockable with the Chaos Servant covenant is found. Turn right before the Demon Firesage boss fog to find a tunnel full of roots. Three of them are on the Demon Ruins side, and six of them (including the red-eyed Bug) are on the Lost Izalith side.

Drops

*Item drop rates can be improved by increasing Item Discovery
Sunlight Medals and Red Titanite Chunk can not drop from the same kill.
The red-eyed bug instead is guaranteed to drop the Sunlight Maggot.

Notes

The red-eyed Chaos Bug is linked with Solaire of Astora's storyline. Check his page for more details and tips.

Description

Large monster made of tentacles and teeth. It has several tentacles for walking, two that act like arms and a cylindrical head with lots of eyes.

Location

Drops

• Red Titanite Chunk - uncommon
• Red Titanite Slab - very rare
• White Titanite Chunk x 2 - very rare

Notes

• If you try a plunging attack on the ones tied to Siegmeyer's questline, you will automatically be thrown into the mouth of it, just like if it grabbed you. It can be escaped in the same way as if you were normally grabbed.

Attacks

• Deadly Grab - The Chaos Eater will grab you and put you into its mouth. This can be a one shot kill. You can escape from this by repeatedly pressing shoulder buttons, however.
• Acid Spit - Spits acid from its arm tentacles. Note that this acid drains your gears durability, so you'll want to avoid it, especially if you're up against a group of them.
• Tentacle Swing

Strategy

• It's big, pretty slow and its attacks can easily be avoided, though if not, things get nasty. So if you need engage in melee, be careful and wait for its attacks to counter them. If at all possible, these things are best dealt with from afar using whatever ranged capability you may have.
• The best strategy for these enemies is to just circle them, as if trying to backstab them; they are very slow to turn around, and its attacks have a slow startup, making it easy for you to react and circle it some more. Just hit once or twice, circle to its back, hit and repeat.
• It's weak against fire, so a very effective strategy is "backstabbing" it with Combustion.

Farming Strategy

As with other item farming strategies, your Item Discovery should be at 410. Have 10 "soft" Humanities and equip Covetous Gold Serpent Ring or Symbol of Avarice (if you don't mind the drawback). This farming run takes about one and a half minutes at full speed.

1. Rest at the secret bonfire (behind an illusory wall) at the lava area of Lost Izalith.
2. Traverse the lava, get on the root. You can have Orange Charred Ring equipped, or you can just run if you have enough HP and Fire resistance.
3. Run up the path, skip all the Demonic Statues.
4. Kill the first Chaos Eater at the stair.
5. Then run to kill the other Chaos Eater to the right of boss area. There are also 2 others you can farm albeit somewhat awkwardly.
6. Homeward, Homeward Bone, or (more economically) run back to the bonfire then repeat.

Description

They are seven members of the Forest Hunter Covenant who inhabit the Darkroot Garden. They are hostile unless you are a member of the Forest Hunter Covenant yourself. Attacking one of them will break the Covenant.

All will respawn except Knights and the Hunter (both K + H respawn on the EU version).

Location

Darkroot Garden
Between the Crest of Artorias gate and Alvina's building.

Members

Bandit Bandit Stats Playthrough HP Souls New Game 908 1,000 NG+ 1,534 3,000 NG+6 1,918 3,750 Equipment Battle Axe Spider Shield Bandit Set Attack Pattern Will alternate between one-handing and two-handing his Battle Axe.

Cleric Cleric Stats Playthrough HP Souls New Game 767 2,000 NG+ 1,296 6,000 NG+6 1,620 7,500 Equipment Mace East-West Shield Talisman Soothing Sunlight miracle Holy Set (minus the Priest's Hat) Attack Pattern Will fight defensively, putting her shield up and moving slowly. When her HP or another Forest Protector's HP drops below certain point, she will try to get away from you to cast Soothing Sunlight, greatly restoring her team's HP.

Hunter Hunter Stats Playthrough HP Souls New Game 767 5,000 NG+ 1,296 15,000 NG+6 1,620 18,750 Equipment Black Bow of Pharis Falchion Large Leather Shield Pharis's Hat Hunter Set Ring of Fog Drops Black Bow of Pharis Pharis's Hat Twin Humanities Respawns on the EU version, but only drops items once. Attack Pattern At long range, will constantly shoot you with Black Bow of Pharis, stopping and moving farther only if you get too close. At mid range, may switch to Falchion and engage at melee. At close range, may switch back to Black Bow of Pharis and put some space to engage at long range. Strategy This character is a difficult NPC to kill because she will constantly move around and alert all other enemies in the area. It is highly recommend to clear the place of all other NPCs (there are about six) and some of the Demonic Foliage before trying to kill her. Ensure that all other NPCs in the area are dead while staying clear of the area she is in. Kill the Barbarian in front of the Covenant castle last. From facing the castle door, slowly follow the cliff to the right. The cliff will eventually turn to the right, and become a small ridge that has a short drop to some land. She is right next to a tree here, with her back to you if you have moved quietly enough. She will be very hard to see due to the Ring of Fog. But you can sneak up on her and hit her in the back. Using a weapon 2H with the strong R2 attack will knock her off the ridge, onto the land below and take a significant chunk of health. Quickly follow her down and try to position her between you and the ridge. Pinned against it, she will have to switch to a sword instead of trying to roll/run away to continue using her bow, making her much more manageable. Another useful strategy is to put a tree between you and the archer; she'll run at it and be unable to get around, letting you easily block the occasional swing of her sword, and deal damage with a spear or other thrusting weapon when she lowers her guard. If possible, try to utilize the ridge of land to the left of the Forest Covenant NPC to trap her. The area is also hard for NPCs to pathfind due to the density of trees there. Non-combat Strategy Join Forest Hunter covenant. Walk over to her and simply kick her off a ledge sending her to her death. It won't count as a betrayal, and no one will attack you. Then quit, reload, and her items will be where she always stands.

Knight Knight There are two Knights. Both respawn.on the EU version. Stats Playthrough HP Souls New Game 849 3,000 NG+ 1,434 9,000 NG+6 1,793 11,250 Equipment Claymore Knight Shield Ring of Fog Knight Set Attack Pattern Will alternate between one-handing and two-handing her Claymore.

Sorcerer Sorcerer Stats Playthrough HP Souls New Game 719 2,000 NG+ 1,215 6,000 NG+6 1,518 7,500 Equipment Sorcerer's Catalyst Longsword Small Leather Shield Soul Arrow sorcery Heavy Soul Arrow sorcery Sorcerer Set (minus the Sorcerer Hat) Attack Pattern Will alternate randomly between Soul Arrow and Heavy Soul Arrow at long range. At mid range, may switch to Longsword and engage at melee. At close range, may switch back to Sorcerer's Catalyst and put some space to engage at long range.

Thief Thief Stats Playthrough HP Souls New Game 767 2,000 NG+ 1,296 6,000 NG+6 1,620 7,500 Equipment Bandit's Knife Target Shield Ring of Fog Hollow Thief's Set Attack Pattern His Bandit's Knife builds up bleed. Will try to get around you to backstab you for massive damage. For some reason (maybe a bug in his A.I.), sometimes he will just stand without doing anything. He will occasionally dodge if you attack him, however.

Notes

• Ideal soul farming area as there is a bonfire near the Crest of Artorias gate (behind the illusory wall) that can be used as a checkpoint. Check the Soul Farming page for details.

• As with any other PvP situations in Darkroot Garden, the clan members' entire costume can be used as a disguise by the host, which can sometimes fool the invading Dark Spirits. If you are one of these Dark Spirits and can't seem to find the host, try hitting every enemy here. As you're "allied" with the host's enemies, your attacks won't even connect with the real ones, but it will connect if it hits the host.

• Talking to Alvina while being chased by any of the Forest Protector(s) will instantly de-aggro them, even if you simply initiate the talk and walk away (Assuming you aren't a traitor/haven't refused her offer to join the covenant)

• If you kill Pharis by forcing her to jump backwards off the cliff and do NOT collect her gear, she will respawn after you rest. This is easy even at low levels - if you charge her with melee she'll keep jumping back to get distance, so just push her towards the cliff until she suicides for a cheap 5000 souls. (This has been eliminated by the latest patch. Forcing her to jump backwards will kill her permanently. By saving and reloading, her gear should appear where she spawns.)

Description

A Hollow transformed into a spider creature that is able to breathe fire. Though it has some small mosquito-like wings it can't really fly and only hovers above the floor with them.

This monster has the same roar-on-death sound as the Man Centipede from Demon's Souls.

Location

Attacks

Strategy

They're not very hard to defeat but their fire attacks can be dangerous. Quickly approach and hit before they spit fire. Be cautious of standing behind them, as they sometimes shoot fire from their tails.

Description

Tall enemies, half human and half crow. They can fly across short distances, quickly closing gaps and should be engaged with caution.

Location

Drops

Souvenir of Reprisal - uncommon (6% Drop Rate)

Attacks

• Basic melee attack - They use their wings to do some swipes. Can be easily blocked.
• Grapple jump - A very dangerous grab attack that deals a lot of damage (~1,000HP in NG+), but easily predicted. The Crow Demon will fold its wings, bend its knees and slowly start to jump up. Luring them into a building or hallway with a rooftop won't stop them from doing this attack. It just ignores the wall and still jumps high in the air, making it even harder to detect where it'll land.

Strategy

• While their regular attacks are predictable, they can take a good chunk of your Stamina even if blocked, if you don't have a good enough shield. The best way to deal with this is to keep your shield up and keep a small distance between you and the Crow Demon.
• They can be staggered out of any of their attacks. When they crouch down and screech in preparation of their dive attack, run in and knock them out of it.
• When they're using their grapple jump, the Crow Demon always jumps towards your position. All you have to do is circle/strafe to left or right, when it's preparing to take off, to avoid it.
• You can actually use their diving attack to your advantage. In certain spots, if your back is against a bottomless pit, you can make the Crow Demon miss and fall to its death. Get your back as close as you can, and roll forward when they swoop in.

Farming Strategy

Items Needed

• Weapon/spell with a wide area-of-effect attack. Few examples:
  • Wrath of the Gods - quick to cast and 360° area-of-effect. Strengthen with Ring of the Sun's Firstborn and/or Crown of Dusk, or attune more
  • Great Combustion - quick to cast, decent AoE, and has plenty of use charges. Strengthen with Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring and/or Crown of Dusk, or attune more
  • Greatswords - most of them have quick and poise-breaking horizontal slashes with their two-handed strong attacks
  • Ultra Greatswords - their two-handed weak attacks are slow, but can easily stunlock and kill the Crow Demons
  • Katanas, especially Washing Pole - quick slashes, also builds up bleed which Crow Demons are susceptible against
  • Any other crowd-control method you're comfortable with

• Item Discovery (having both increases drop rate to about 25%)
  • Covetous Gold Serpent Ring
  • 10 Soft Humanities

• Homeward/Homeward Bones as needed.

How To

1. Start at the bonfire and run through the courtyard and up the stairs in the annex (these are the stairs in the right corner past where the broken benches are)
2. Turn left, run up the stairs, and kill the fire-casting Engorged Zombie at the top
3. First Crow Demon will come down from the top of the tower to meet you, kill before it tries to jump off
4. Run up to the top and kill the second Crow Demon plus the next two Crow Demons that show up suddenly. Wrath of the Gods can make this easy, but a little kiting and some Great Combustions or quick wide AoE weapons will do just fine
5. Now go back to the part with the big hole in it and go down the other stairs toward the circular tower. Run around until you get to the entrance on the other side
6. Go just a little ways up the stairs inside and two more Crow Demons will come down to meet you. Kill them
7. Teleport back to the bonfire, or jump/walk down to the bottom of the tower and back through the courtyard

Description

Mass-produced version of the boss Moonlight Butterfly.

Location

Drops

• Blue Titanite Chunk - rare
• Blue Titanite Slab - very rare

These drops are automatically added to your inventory if they are dropped, so you don't need to worry about fighting them over a chasm.

Attack Pattern

• Homing magic attack
• Light needles attack

Strategy

• These enemies have small aggro radius, so they will not attack you first in any normal Crystal Cave run.
• They fight like the Moonlight Butterfly, only they don't land, making them an entirely ranged fight.

Description

A crystallized warrior guarding the path to Seath the Scaleless' room in The Duke's Archives

Location

Equipment

• Crystal Greatsword
• Crystal Shield
• Crystalline Set

Strategy

• It's best to lure him out of the corridor to be able to dodge his attacks.
• Will attempt to parry you and riposte for great damage when he puts up his shield and walks slowly. He can parry even though the normal Crystal Shield can't be used for parrying.
• This guy seems to be cursed with fat rolling, which he uses too much for his own good. This often occurs when he's trying to catch up to the player, wait for the invincibility frames to wear off and punish him (he will take slightly more damage because he was trying to use an evade tactic).

Description

A golem created from Seath's experimentation with the Primordial Crystal.

Location

Drops

• Blue Titanite Chunk - uncommon
• Broken Pendant - automatically added to your inventory after you kill the passive one at The Duke's Archives, but only if you have the Additional Content

Attacks

• Normal Arm Swing
• Strong Crystalized Arm Swing
• Area of Effect Crystal Blast - before the Crystal Blast the Golem will raise both arms over its head. The attack is easy to dodge, but if it makes contact it will do substantial magic damage. This attack builds up very minor Curse status, but nothing to worry about, as it will never be enough to kill you.
• Jumping (lunging) Smash Attack
• Standing Uppercut

Resistance

• Magic damage
• Non-Strike physical damage

Weakness

• Strike damage

Strategies

• They have long detection range. As such you could easily find yourself up against more than one at a time if you aren't careful.
• Fast characters should have no trouble keeping behind the Golem, and should only have to worry about the Crystal Blast.
• When in the Darkroot Basin, the Golems surrounding the Hydra can be taken out by its splash damage projectiles if you time/position it correctly.
• When in Darkroot Basin, there is a glitch where all the Golems can be grouped in one spot to make killing them with splash damage easier. You can watch a video here.
• A weapon with high stun (Zweihander for example) is best to two hand and stun.

Description

These creatures have 8 legs, a large crystal on their back, and emit a distinctive sparkling (crystal-like) sound when nearby. When they spot you, they will attempt to run away, burrow and vanish¹. They carry upgrade materials, rewarded to the player if killed before vanishing. The materials will be added to your inventory automatically.

They behave almost identically to Crystal Lizards in Demon's Souls, but appear different. The only confirmed difference in game mechanics from Demon's Souls is that there is no counter-system that can cause the Crystal Lizards to respawn or disappear permanently after vanishing. Instead, a Crystal Lizard will never respawn after being killed, but they will always respawn upon reloading if you miss them. This means you can only kill each Crystal Lizard once, but you have unlimited opportunities to do so.

Drops

• Titanite Shard
• Large Titanite Shard
• Titanite Chunk
• Titanite Slab
• Twinkling Titanite
• Green Titanite Shard
• White Titanite Chunk
• Blue Titanite Chunk
• Red Titanite Chunk

Locations

Strategy

• Listen carefully to their distinctive sound, indicating that one of them is in the area. Move slowly and if you spot it try to hit it as fast as you can or it'll disappear. Every time they're hit, it will cancel their burrowing attempt. This will prolong their escape attempt even if they're taking low damage.

• The Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring as well as the Ring of Fog will help with getting closer to the lizards before they start to flee. Especially helpful for certain lizards that often run before the player typically spots them.

• If you have strong long-ranged attacks (e.g. Dragonslayer Greatbow, Crystal Soul Spear, Homing Crystal Soulmass), you can one-shot them before they can even run. Equip Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring and Crown of Dusk to ensure high damage with sorceries.

• As the materials is given to you automatically, you don't have to worry about them falling off a ledge. Knocking them off ledge is even a viable option as it kills them.

Balder Knight

Berenike Knight

Description

After you destroyed the illusion of Gwynevere, Anor Londo was cast into the night. This angered Dark Sun Gwyndolin, making him set his disciples on you. Two of the Blades now appear in the area, presumably to make you pay for your sins.

They don't respawn.

Location

Dark Anor Londo
Only after Gwynevere, Princess of Sunlight has been killed. Both Darkmoon Soldiers can be found where the Royal Sentinel nearest to the boss arena was standing.

Balder Knight

Equipment

• Balder Side Sword
• Balder Shield
• Balder Set

Berenike Knight

Equipment

• Greatsword
• Tower Shield
• Steel Set

Enemy - not to be confused with the Darkwraith Covenant

Description

The Darkwraiths were once the knights of New Londo, but when the Four Kings fell into Dark, so did their knights. New Londo Ruins was flooded to contain the Darkwraiths, and all other citizens were drowned with them. The three Sealers were placed to guard the ruins until the arrival of one who could slay the Four Kings. When the Chosen Undead broke the seal and opened the flood gates, the Darkwraiths emerged once more.

Using the Art of Lifedrain granted to them by Darkstalker Kaathe, they can suck out the Humanity of their victims using a grapple attack and can create a shield that is capable of blocking most damage from all manner of attacks.

Location

Drops

• Dark Hand - rare
• Titanite Chunk - uncommon, sometimes x2 per drop
• Titanite Slab - very rare

Attack Pattern

• Humanity drain grab attack - only when you're very close. They charge up a white light with their left hand, then attempts to grab you. This can't be blocked, but it takes ages to charge up. When grabbed, you'll take damage (~1,000 dmg in NG+) and you'll lose one point of "soft" Humanity if you have any. Does not home or rotate in any fashion whatsoever, so you can just sidestep and backstab them while they do it.

• Heavy kick - only when you're very close. Drains a lot of stamina, but is easy to predict.

• Quick forward stab - they do a quick forward stab which has a long range.

• Multiple sword hits - this one can deal a huge amount of damage (over 1,200 in NG+) if not blocked or dodged. Several (up to three) normal blade swings followed by a roundhouse swing. Note that they can partially rotate while doing this attack, so even when you're slightly behind them, they can still hit you.

• Two handed strikes - one or two heavy attacks that drain more stamina when blocked and aren't likely to bounce off shields.

• Shield - they will put up a black hole-like shield with their left hand. While the shield are up, they'll move slowly and home on you, preventing you to get a backstab on them.

Weakness

• Weapons with Divine modifier
• Fire - Pyromancies (e.g. Fire Orb) work well.
• Lightning attacks, or weapons imbued with Lightning damage.
• Soul Drain and Heavy Kick are easy to whiff at close range with shield raised. Making for an easy backstab. Useful when dealing with more than one at a time.

Description

The eldest daughter of the Witch of Izalith. Like her sister Quelana, she escaped the Chaos flames that engulfed Izalith long ago, avoiding the fate of her other sisters and brother. She is the creator of the Chaos Fire Whip pyromancy.

Location

Lost Izalith
In front of Bed of Chaos' boss fog.

Stats

Drops

Izalith Catalyst

Attack Patterns

• She attacks with Chaos Pyromancies:
  • Chaos Fire Whip
  • Chaos Storm
  • Great Chaos Fireball

Strategy

• Just waiting briefly for an opening is a good strategy, and even the over-cautious can wait for her to run out of charges of her various spells before attacking.
• Her poise is rather low, which is easy to exploit with a heavy weapon.
  • Her poise is so low that you can interrupt every spell she casts simply with a bow. You can use longbow with the standard arrows and kill her easily with only a couple of arrows.

Description

Trees/bushes with stretching arms and legs that have come to life. Common enemy in the Darkroot Garden.

Location

Drops

• Purple Moss Clump - very common
• Bloodred Moss Clump - very common
• Blooming Purple Moss Clump - common

Attacks

• Medium range single whip attack.
• Medium range double whip attack.
• Close range grab - Similar to Mind Flayers from Demon's Souls 3-1. Does a lot of damage (around 700 with a good armor, even more in New Game Plus).(Tap L1-R2 repeating for less damage.)
• Ambush - They hide as bushes that are slightly darker in color than area decorations. It is possible to damage them while they are buried. Either by shooting them with a manually aimed weapon, using an attack that smashes the ground (e.g. strong greatsword attack), or using magic that has an area of effect.

Weakness

• Thrust attacks
• Fire

Strategy

• Fairly straight forward. Watch out for their spiky heads sticking out of the floor, so you can easily predict when they ambush. Wait for their whip attack and counter with fire-based damage.
  • If you get close to one that is still buried (usually easiest down at the swamp area, near the stone giants) and you have a weapon with a wide arc (such as an uchigatana), you can hit them before they even emerge, though hitting them will wake them up and cause them to pop out of the ground.
• Do not let them grab you (close range attack), Can inflict massive damage. It's telegraphed by them putting both hands up to praise the sun before attempting to grab you.(Tap L1-R1 for less damage)
• It is possible for their grab attack to glitch you through the floor if your character is elevated higher than they are. This is most prevalent on the stairs leading to the Moonlight Butterfly boss fight.
• You can interrupt all of their attacks with fast weapons. They have almost no poise.

Notes

• Farm these enemies before going to Blighttown for poison and toxic removing Moss Clumps. They have a high drop rate.

Description

Looks like decorative statues scattered across Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith. While some of them are really just a decoration, most of them are mobile, fire-breathing statues.

Location

Attacks

• Straight fire breath - lasts several seconds.
• Left to right fire breath - lasts several seconds.

Weakness

• Magic

Resistance

• Physical attack
• Fire

Strategy

This enemy is slow and extremely weak, but it does pack a punch with its fire breathing move. The best way to deal with them is to wait for them to make their move, since they are stationary while breathing fire, and then attack from behind. However, it is much faster to simply rush them and kill them before they can do anything as their attack takes time to build up.

Description

Small blue drakes that fire heavy lightning blasts and have fairly high health.

Location

Drops

Dragon Scale - rare

Attacks

• Fires lightning at player in 3 manners
  • Simple blast directed towards player
  • Sweep from (player's) right to left
  • Jumps and fires lightning while airborne. Occurs when in melee range. Lands causes damaging shock. Does it to properly face player

• In melee range, the drake performs a quick bite attack that deals a lot of damage.

• Performs a jump forward to catch up to the player.

Weakness

• Poison - aim poison arrows at the very tip of the Drake's head. An accurate shot will be confirm each hit with the cry of pain that they typically let out after several consecutive hits. The third arrow the poison drain will begin.

• Bleed - the drakes are susceptible to bleed build-up from bleed inflicting weapons.

• Fire, NOT Lightning; they have very high Lightning defense but average Fire defense.

• Large Swords can stun Drakes, if they hit hard enough. Drakes have high Poise, but it isn't infinite.

Strategies

• If you want to engage the drakes in melee you should optimize your resistance against lightning damage by
  • wearing a good armor (e.g. Stone Set)
  • using a shield that is effective against lightning (e.g. Eagle Shield, Effigy Shield)
  • equip the Thunder Stoneplate Ring

• Use the Darkmoon Bow with Moonlight Arrows

• Use the Jagged Ghost Blade and get behind them. Then hit them with your strong attack quickly.

• When fighting near the ravine, there is a good chance that they will take a leap back and fall to their death. Try to avoid this if you are attempting to farm Dragon Scales

• Curved greatswords like the Gravelord Sword makes quick work of Drakes because it takes very few light attacks to break their poise and stun them. Go from the left side, attack them until they're stunned. As the Drake is stunned, move a little bit more to the left, letting your stamina recover a bit and get to a safer area. Rinse and repeat.

• If you're a Sorcerer (or have decent Int and the right spells) you can effortlessly kill Drakes from very early on in the game simply by using Heavy Soul Arrow and/or Great Heavy Soul Arrow on them as both spells will allow you to stun-lock the Drakes; each spell stuns them on impact, and the stun duration is just long enough for you to fire another spell before they are able to fire their breath attack - however I suggest taking a couple steps backwards as you begin to cast the spell to give yourself some extra time since the Drake's AI will make it start to walk towards you to get in range before it tries to use its breath attack. On average, depending on your Intelligence, you can kill a Drake with only 3-4 casts of Great Heavy Soul Arrow or with 4-5 casts of Heavy Soul Arrow.

• The Lifehunt Scythe works very well against the drakes. It's a good idea to bait their lightning breath, then run towards them (while avoiding the lightning) and hit them with a running attack, because the standard attack is very slow. You take away half their health every time you bleed them.

Notes

Check the Upgrade Material Farming page for more info on how to farm Dragon Scales.

Bug Notes

Drakes that fall through the map can sometimes be found within The Abyss, with all drops still intact.

Description

Humanoids with eggs on their backs. If you attack one, the eggs will hatch and Vile Maggot larva will attack you, so it's best to just leave these alone as they are usually docile otherwise. Some very slowly crawl towards you and attempt to claw you.

It has a grapple attack that will infect the player with a Parasite Egg.

Location

Tactics

Very easy to avoid, so don't panic and attack them.

They can be farmed very easily with the Great Chaos Fireball pyromancy, as it will kill the carrier and the larvae with a single cast.

Drop

Egg Vermifuge (rare)

Bug Notes

• It is possible for the Egg carrier to glitch you through the floor when grabbing you with it's grapple attack.
• It is also possible for the maggots spawned after killing an Egg carrier to be untouchable by melee attacks and spells to undershoot them for no effect (unless they have a large AoE), but bows/crossbows will still hit them.

Torch

Caster

Description

These Hollows have a bloated, tumor-like growth on their torso. When you kill them, they explode, splashing toxin on their immediate surroundings, except when you kill them with fire. These enemies come in two varieties, torch-wielding and fire-caster. The fire-caster types will run if you approach them or attempt to engage you in a fistfight.

Location

Attack Pattern

• Torch-wielding: Same attack patterns as the torch-wielding Hollows.
• Fire-caster: Throws a straight fireball not unlike the Necromancer. Note that this fireballs have Magic damage property, instead of Fire.
• Both varieties can spew a purple Toxic gas.
• Both varieties deal AoE Toxic explosion if you kill them without Fire damage. The explosion's Toxic buildup is quite high, it will almost always leave you with Toxic status if you don't specifically equip anti-Poison gear.
• The toxin's HP loss rate is 8 HP/seconds

Weakness

Fire

Strategy

• Equip high Poison-resistant gear (e.g. Pyromancer Set, Thief Set, Gold-Hemmed Black Set, Poisonbite Ring, etc.). Painting Guardian Set and Bloodshield can be found later on Painted World of Ariamis.
• Bring Blooming Purple Moss Clumps just in case.
• Engage them at range. Shoot them with Arrows or Sorceries.
• Use Fire weapons or Pyromancies to kill them at melee range. (Killing them with fire damage prevents them from emitting the toxic cloud.) You can also save Pyromancy charges by hitting them with your weapon first to chip their HP, then burn them with Pyromancy to kill them.
• Hide behind a 100% Poison resistant shield (e.g. Spider Shield, Crystal Shield, Greatshield of Artorias) then poke them with spears or thrusting swords while keeping the shield up.
• Use Charcoal Pine Resin to temporarily make an enchantable weapon have Fire property.
• Kill them with Backstab. This prevents them from exploding near you.
• Engage them from below on stairs, the toxic explosion is 2 dimensional, if you are sufficiently lower than them in height you will not be poisoned.

Description

Dogs with a flaming breath attack. They're smaller than the Undead Attack Dogs and a little harder to hit. They can be very dangerous in packs.

Location

Attack Patterns

• Charging bite
• Standing bite
• Fire Breath

Drops

none

Strategy

With several dogs flanking you and/or biting at your shield, you can easily find yourself stunlocked while being flamed by another, leaving you little time to attack. Try to deal with them in as small numbers as possible, and/or snipe them from afar. When engaging them in melee combat, it is safest to allow them to hit your shield first and then attack as quickly as possible right after. This reduces the chances of having them dodge your attacks.

Description

Red and black dotted cross between a frog and a manta ray, can be spotted far away due to its vivid coloring. Attacks with its tongue for weak damage. Trivial to defeat, although comes in numbers. Despite it's colouration, it deals no poison damage.

Location

Drops

Green Blossom - very common

Attacks

• Tongue lash - Lashes out with its long tongue.
• Lunge attack - Jumps at you suddenly (may stun).
• Tongue Sweep - Flings tongue from side to side.

Weaknesses

• Fire
• Lightning

Description

A mini-boss version of the Bell Gargoyles that does not respawn. Casts lightning attacks instead of fire.

Location

Anor Londo
There are two found in Anor Londo. Both are on the main outdoor walkway, on opposite sides of the large rotating bridge. The first will see and attack the player shortly after descending the elevator. The second gargoyle will approach the player immediately after operating the rotating bridge for the first time.

Drops

• Gargoyle Tail Axe - tail cut
• Gargoyle's Shield - very common
• Gargoyle Halberd - very common
• Gargoyle Helm - very common

Strategy

• Susceptible to poison arrow damage.
• Both of these enemies attack in areas near stairs; try to lure them on to a stairway and then get below them…their melee attacks will likely whiff and you'll be able to score a few hits after each miss.
• You can safely take out the second gargoyle from the bottom of the spinning staircase, provided you don't immediately turn the lever. If you go to the bottom, just aim upwards at him with a bow and fire away, he will not be able to retaliate in any way.

Tail Cut

To cut off a tail it's necessary to deal a certain amount of damage against it. The HP of the tail increases with higher NG cycles and is based on the HP of the respective enemy.

In case of the Gargoyles in Anor Londo, the tail has about 12.17% of the Gargoyle's HP.

Male

Female

Description

When New Londo was flooded to contain their corrupted knights and their kings, the citizens of New Londo also fell victim to the flood. The ghosts of the citizens now haunt the ruins of their old city, inadvertently acting as guardians, keeping any intruder from getting close to the seal.

Ghosts are immune to damage unless you're under the effects of a Curse, Transient Curse, or using a cursed weapon.

Ghost attacks will pass right through armor and shields as if you were naked unless you're under the effects of a Curse or Transient Curse. Since cursed armor or shields do not exist, the only way to block their attacks even a little when not cursed is two-handed blocking with a cursed weapon.

Ghosts can pass through walls and attack through walls, floors, and ceilings with significant reach - a serious danger when encountered in hallways and small rooms.

Location

New Londo Ruins
The male ghosts are the most common, found in large numbers in and surrounding the two main buildings of New Londo Ruins. Although they typically haunt the upper floors, there are some areas where they are able to find the player on ground level after the water is drained.

There are only two female ghosts, one inside each of the main buildings: one is near a corpse not far from the Parrying Dagger, the another is in the room with the ladder that leads to Ingward. It is interesting to note (though irrelevant to gameplay) that the females carry a ghost baby, and it is this baby that actually delivers the female ghosts' lightning attack.

Drops

• Transient Curses (5% drop rate 2x)
• Jagged Ghost Blade (1% drop rate) - male only
• Ghost Blade (1% drop rate) - female only

Weapon and Consumable drop are mutually exclusive to oneanother

Attacks

Strategy

Male Ghost

The male ghosts are completely melee with two mid-range attacks. Most of their attacks are very quick but easily blocked, so it is best to block with shield and counter until they die. Their grab and double slash moves can both be instantly lethal when cursed so be careful to avoid them. The grab starts with the ghosts extending both arms forwards and then pulling them inwards, yanking you to them where they slash your throat. If they or their arms are clipping through a wall when they grab it will instead do a small amount of unblockable damage. The other mid-range attack is a surprisingly long slash attack which comes out fast, so keep your shield up when at range.

For those that spawn from the ground, use the time when they are rising up and inactive to attack them. They often spawn in groups so be wary. The Drake sword, when held in both hands, can kill them in two hits. You need to scout and be aware of where they are, since it is easy for them to attack you through walls where you cannot counter-attack. Be defensive and lure them out where you can attack, and be wary of rushing into new areas since you may be surrounded by groups of 6 or more.

Female Ghost

The female ghost will lift its head and scream once it sees you. Then, once you are at mid range, it will start conjuring electric bolts at you (by holding up its baby who will scream a lightning attack at you!) The lightning bolts act somewhat like Drake's lightning breath, crackling around your position doing rapid damage. They will conjure rapidly for a few seconds followed by a lull. Moving rapidly to avoid the bolts to engage in melee or staying out of range and attacking with sorcery or pyromancy is recommended. If you or they move into close quarters, they will attempt to use the dagger to stab you.

Description

Common enemy in the poisonous swamp area of Blighttown. A giant leech that's slow and typically found in groups.

Location

Drops

• Large Titanite Shard - uncommon
• Green Titanite Shard - uncommon, 5 per drop

Farming Leeches

Giants Leeches are the best enemies in the game to farm mid-tier titanite ores. One instance of Green Titanite drop nets you 5 shards that can be converted into 25 Titanite Shards by Kingseeker Frampt.

1. To farm the leeches efficiently equip the Rusted Iron Ring (found when you return to the Undead Asylum) and (ideally) the Covetous Gold Serpent Ring with 10 Humanities. Symbol of Avarice is too risky because you will get poisoned while farming these leeches.
2. Start at the second bonfire in Blightown near Quelaag's Domain and leave the bonfire to the left (opposite direction of the lair).
3. Go to the opposite side of the swamp from the bonfire. Following the wall in the left direction you should find all the leeches (about 20).
4. No need to cure the poison, just heal when you need to. You should have enough healing power for one run even with only 5 estus flask charges as long as you don't get damaged by the leeches.

Description

These mosquitoes spawn in Blighttown. They are quite easy to dispatch with ranged attacks, although they can provide a nuisance for players engaging in melee combat. Mosquitoes can inflict Poison.

Location

General Information

• They commonly attack in pairs
• The Mosquitoes that respawn on the ground level do not respawn infinitely. Each pair that respawns will only generate 7 mosquitoes in total.

Attack Pattern

• Short-ranged attack where they shoot blood at you that deals small amounts of damage and builds up Poison on hit.
• Melee attack that deals larger amounts of damage and also builds up poison.

Strategy

• Ranged attacks, like sorceries, arrows, bolts or Throwing Knives are highly recommended
• Using the Ring of Fog or Hidden Body will allow the player to avoid or outrun most Mosquitoes easily
• If using melee attacks, try using weapons that have a vertical slashing motion (e.g. Katanas' one- and two-handed weak attack, Straightswords' two-handed weak attack, Velka's Rapier's one-handed strong attack)

A large skeleton that fires extremely large arrows. The arrows aren't very fast but do fairly high damage.

Location

Tomb of the Giants

Drops

Longbow

Attacks

• Fires arrow at you. Has a long wind up. If you stand right next to him when he fires the arrow, it won't hit you.
• Kick attack. Does a fair amount of knockback and does about as much damage as the arrows. Possible to strafe around it.

Strategy

This enemy only has two simple attacks and is annoying if left alive. Can be safely bum rushed by virtually any build. In general the most dangerous thing about him is the level design of the Tomb of the Giants, just be careful when attacking him so that you don't fall of a cliff or something while dodging an arrow.

Descripton

Huge skeletons that roam the graveyards and dark areas of Lordran. They pack far more punch than their smaller breathren, and especially in narrow places like down in the dark Tomb of The Giants they can pose a severe threat and deal high damage. Be especially aware of your surroundings, as a lot of the Giant Skeletons' attacks knock you backwards even when blocked.

Location

Firelink Shrine
Two are located in the graveyard area.

The Catacombs
One is guarding the Darkmoon Seance Ring, in the area behind the breakable brick wall.

Tomb of the Giants
Common enemy throughout the level.

Drops

Murakumo - rare

Attacks

• Close Range Kick - kicks down towards the player to break guard. Can knock you back some distance on block.
• Single Sword Swipe - basic attack, simple sword swing.
• Double Sword Swipe - same as basic sword swipe, but two times. If both attacks hit you can catch yourself an unhealthy dose of damage.
• Guillotine Attack - grabs the sword with two hands and drops it down like the blade of a guillotine. This does a lot of damage, but can be easily predicted. Can push you back some distance if blocked.

Tactics

• When using a Mace, or similar Strength based weapon, dodge roll behind the Giant Skeleton after it does a heaving attack, and use a power attack/jump attack on his back to knock him on the ground and leave him open to attack.
• For heavier characters who cannot dodge roll, the use of a Mace, Morning Star, or similar Strength based weapon's strong attack will knockdown the Giant Skeleton long enough to combo in a second strong attack. Early on, you may only have enough stamina for two solid strong hits. Step back quickly when the Giant Skeleton recovers, as his retaliation will be swift and deadly. Only raise your shield when you see him ready himself (i.e. crouch) for a lunge attack, this will allow you to recoup your stamina faster. Side-step or block his lunge, then hit him with a strong. Repeat until Giant Skeleton is dead.

Notes

• They start off slow, but can easily close distance.
• Really weak to fire

Descriptions

These large statues lie on the ground without moving, only to rise up when you get close. While they don't have a lot of HP, their defense is high. Combined with their predictable moves, this makes battles with them a matter of attrition.

Location

Drops

• Stone Greatshield (2% drop rate)
• Stone Greatsword (2% drop rate)

Shield and Weapon drop are mutually exclusive

Notes

• There is a kind of trap in the area where you encounter this enemy for the first time: deeper on the right of this area, two Stone soldiers are sleeping, guarding Elite Knight Set. If you approach close enough to wake them, they will both attack you, with a bunch of Demonic Foliage. You don't want that. To follow the road to the Moonlight Butterfly boss, stick to the walls on your left.
• An interesting thing to note is that the Stone Knights wield their swords in their left hand and their shield in their right, unlike any other enemy in the game. This was most likely intended by the original Oolacile designers, as most warriors wear their shield on their left arm, and would have a difficult time blocking an attack on their right side.

Attacks

• Sword swings.
• Charging swing.
• Thrust.
• Running thrust.
• Casts Tranquil Walk of Peace, a spell that slows your movement speed to the same as when you are overencumbered. While under the effects, you cannot run, roll, and stamina regen is slowed. Wears off after ~30s.

Weaknesses

• Weapons with strike damage, such as Maces, Clubs, and Hammers.
• Fire

Resistances

• Slash
• Piercing
• Magic

Strategy

• Due to it's high resistances to most damage types, characters that rely on slashing/piercing weapons or Soul Magic will likely have trouble inflicting large amounts of damage. It's suggested that you purchase a Strike weapon, such as a Club or Reinforced Club to bypass their resistance. Both can be bought from the Undead Merchant (Male) for 150 and 350 souls, respectively. Weapons such as these will make taking down the Knights much easier, as they can be killed in as few as 3 or 4 hits instead of a dozen.
• Be careful at first when he slows you. It may be a good idea to just focus on defense until it wears off. When he starts to cast his spell if you can get enough hits on him fast enough it will interrupt his casting and you won't be slowed. Keep in mind that a good while after the spell wears off, they'll be able to cast it again.
• Stay behind them and only do one to three attacks, then get your shield back up. If you stay away from their striking zone, it should be as easy as *swing swing swing* move *swing swing swing* move…
• If you have a decent shield and enough stamina (in case their swings nick you), circle-strafing while sticking very close to them works nicely, even when you're slowed.
• While a bit of a slower method, if players are still having trouble fighting the Giant Stone Knights in the area before the Moonlight Butterfly fight and have plenty of arrows, run up the tower steps that leads to where the fog door is/once was. The knights can and most likely will follow once they have sight of the player and will continue trying to follow even after they reach a point in the staircase in the tower that they can not advance through. From here just aim and shoot with whatever bow or ranged weapon there is available. Killing a single Giant Stone Knight should take anywhere between 10-20 basic arrows with a non upgraded bow. Just be cautious to not travel too far down the stairs; the knights still have a long reach with their weapon and just because they can't reach you on foot does not mean they can't hit you with their sword. Also be aware that this does not stop any Demonic Foliage that was aggro'd in the process from ascending the stairs after you.

Description

Even larger version of the Undead Rats that acts as a miniboss in the Depths. It can be dangerous if encountered head on, but there are ways to safely approach it.

Does not respawn.

Location

The Depths

Drops

Humanity

Weaknesses

• Fire
• Lightning

Attacks

• Does several melee attacks with its head and can turn around quickly.

Strategies

Ranged Strategy (easy)

To avoid a frontal approach, go to the area just before the depths where you defeated the butcher. If you destroy crates around that area, you will see a small pit by the wall. Fall down the pit into a large pile of bones. From here you can use ranged attacks from the ledge to pick at the Giant Undead Rat at your leisure. If you run out of arrows use fire bombs.

An alternative ranged strategy is to stand at the top of the ladder where you can see the Giant Undead Rat through the bars of a grate. There are a couple of spots here where it's possible to fire arrows through an opening along the top of the bars at the Giant Undead Rat.

Melee Strategy (Normal approach)

A long range melee weapon such as the halberd or spear is preferred. Before entering the mist in the Depths take a right into a narrow corridor. Take your first right, go to the end of the next corridor and take another right. You will be facing the Giant Undead Rat's room. Move into the room and then immediately roll back to where you were. If you time this correctly you should be able to get one hit on the Giant Rat as he charges by you. Lather, rinse, repeat.
(The fastest approach is to just two-hand the strongest weapon you can handle, run around him, hit his hind legs with a running attack, continue to run, then do another running attack ad infinitum. He can turn around, but he cannot turn all the way around to his back, so you should be safe as long as you stay close to his hind legs or tail.)

Plunging Strategy (Butcher shortcut)

Probably the easiest way to dispatch this enemy is through a plunging attack. After killing the butcher you can destroy several boxes behind where she was standing revealing a path. If you drop down you will be on a large ledge above the giant rat. Simply position yourself directly above him and drop down doing a plunging attack (R1 while falling). You should finish him in one good plunging attack.

Lunge Strategy

You will first see it through railings that make up 1 wall of a room you enter. Go down the ladder next to the door you entered the room by (it's behind some boxes) and take up position at the bottom of the ladder. You can't lock on so this is a free swing attack strategy. This is easier if the rat is facing you as you will hit every time and do more damage. Double handed lunge through the railings until the rat is dead (it can't return the attack so you don't need to consider defence). A long weapon is best so that you can reach the rat to cause damage, e.g. a Halberd is good for this strategy.

Drake Sword Strategy

Go around to the bars next to which the rat stands. Use the Drake Sword's two handed AoE move (R2), which will damage the rat greatly.

Description

Huge colossi that tower over the player, acting as minibosses throughout Sen's Fortress. They pack a real punch but get exhausted after their frenzy attack, leaving themselves vulnerable to the player during that time.

Only the Boulder Giant will respawn if killed.

Location

Sen's Fortress
Three giants can be found in Sen's Fortress, each with a different role:

A Gatekeeper Giant opens the portcullis after ringing both Bells of Awakening, and can be found by hitting an illusory wall by the top of the ladder that exits the tar-pit area.

A second giant drops boulders that act as an obstacle and trap in the interior of Sen's Fortress. The Boulder Giant can be accessed by making a running jump onto the rooftop, near the entrance to the Crestfallen Merchant's tower.

The third giant throws large firebombs at the player in the final area of Sen's Fortress. The Firebomb Giant is found on the highest rooftop and will make the boss fight more difficult if not killed first.

Drops

Titanite Chunk - 100% drop from Gatekeeper and Firebomb Giants, also occasionally dropped by the Boulder Giant

Attacks

Strategy

Melee

All can be easily killed off with melee (you can reach the stone feeding Giant by jumping from the bridge), with the firebomb one being a requirement or your boss fight in Sen's Fortress will become extremely hard (he bombs that area as long as he is alive). Just approach them and wait till they start their gound-pounding frenzy and move away. Once it's over they're totally exhausted and will get down to their knees for roughly 5~10 seconds, leaving them open for your attacks with no way of defense. Rinse and repeat until they're dead.

Ranged

Bring some Poison Arrows and let them do their job. Pretty easy, but note that especially on a New Game Plus they have lots of health and high resistance, so it may take a long time for them to get killed by the poison effect.

Distraction

Giants can be distracted with Aural Decoy, though this only works during melee combat. Aural Decoy will not have effect on the tracking of thrown firebombs or the boulder pathing.

Notes:

• Entering the fortress from either the Undead Parish or Anor Londo will sometimes cause the Boulder Giant to disappear. Resting at the bonfire seems to fix this (but does not prevent it from re-occurring).

Description

The Golden Crystal Golem is a larger, stronger version of the blue Crystal Golems. It usually contains an NPC as part of a questline, but the ones in Crystal Cave do not hold any NPCs, and only act as mini-bosses.

Location

Check Dusk's and Sieglinde/Siegmeyer's page for more information about their respective quests.

Notes

• The ones in Crystal Cave may look like a normal blue Crystal Golem because of the ever-present blue color filter of the cave.

Attacks

• 1 or 2 Normal Arm Swings.
• Crystallized Arm Swing.
• Area of Effect Crystal Blast (smaller radius than the regular Crystal Golem).
• Jumping Smash Attack.
• Standing Uppercut.

Weakness

• Fire.
• Strike.
• Lightning.

Strategy

• Wearing the Rusted Iron Ring makes the fight after the Hydra much easier.
• Their attacks do track much better than the blue versions but it is still possible to outmaneuver them by strafing quickly around them in a circle.
• Try to lure the ones in the Crystal Cave onto larger patches of ground as their attacks have a lot of blowback and can send you flying off the edge, especially if you have your shield up.

Description

Large, aggressive feline creature. Capable of performing high speed, high knockback attacks. Easily underestimated and best approached with caution.

There are three of them and they do not respawn.

Location

Attacks

• Pouncing attack, in which monster attempts to jump behind player and damage them.
• Biting attack which can be performed in quick succession.
• Eating you, similar to Demonic Foliage.
• Rolling attack, which can go through shields and easily knock you back. Only happens if you keep a distance.

Strategy

Stay in the wooded area that leads to their arena from the stone bridge and lure them over to you. They'll only be able to go in so far, at which point they'll back out of the woods slowly, allowing you to land some hits. Repeat the process until it expires, and remember that two more of these cats will appear mid-way through your fight with the first - the same strategy can be used for all three of them.

Ranged Strategy

There are three Great Felines you must kill. 200-300 arrows are recommended. Start from the stone bridge which connects to the area where the Great Felines reside. You will notice an open glade surrounded by semi-dense forest on two sides (one of which is closest to you). Use arrows to lure the first Great Feline, shooting it between the trees as it makes a backwards walk to your right. It will pause on the elevated area on the right, where you will have another chance to shoot at it. The other two Great Felines are on a further elevated area (there is a steep ridge) on the right. You should be able to see them in the distance and get their attention. Be patient and stay at medium range as they are unable to move through the forest thicket.

Melee Strategy

When you approach the Great Felines from the side with the stone bridge, there will a slight slope at the edge of the elevated glade where the Great Felines reside. At the right most edge of the slope there is a tree that when approached from the right will prevent you from walking up the slope. Walk around the tree and place yourself on the slope, so the tree is behind you and the elevated glade is directly in front of you. This is where you will need to retreat to once you have lured one of the Great Felines. Once you have a Great Feline lured, retreat to the slope with your shield up. Just face straight forward, facing the glade, and hold your shield up. Do not lock onto the Great Feline, that just makes it harder to pull off. The Great Feline may do its roll attack and do some slight damage to you. Just back up and heal if it is an issue. You need the Great Feline to try to lunge and bite you while you are on the slope by the tree. If done correctly the Great Feline will get stuck trying to back pedal up the slope. Back up, if it didn't already push you back from its attack, and you can just strong attack repeatedly until it dies because it will just continually try to back up the slope. Then rinse and repeat for the other two Great Felines.

Caster Strategy

Stand in the trees just back from where the first one attacks you. They will charge at you but can't make it through the gaps. It is very easy to take all 3 on at the same time and you an stand in safety and cast any ranged spell on them with ease. When they have finished their attack, they will back away around the corner, and they come back. Do not chase them.
Alternatively cast one(or more if you miss) poison/toxic mist when they charge you, and then wait until they die.

Tranquil Walk of Peace Strategy

This spell won't halt a charge attack already in progress, but once they're next to you they'll be forced to walk and become extremely predictable and easy to handle even in groups. They lose access to their more dangerous moves and instead rely on slow easily telegraphed attacks.

Poison Mist Strategy

The cats are very easily poisoned from any type of attack. Draw their attention to you and bait them into coming into the trees. Cast the spell as they dash toward you while under the safety of the trees. The felines will back away slowly, giving themselves enough time to be poisoned. There are just enough casts for each one so long as you don't mess up. Having Toxic Mist will make it go by faster when you are waiting for one cat to die.

FoldUnfold Table of Contents Description Location Equipment Drop Strategies Standard Duel Strategy Parry-Riposte Strategy Backstab Strategy Ranged Strategy Firebomb Strategy Fall Damage Strategy Poison Strategy Through the door Strategy Ring of Fog Strategy Plunging Attack Strategy Alluring Skulls Strategy Dragon Head Stone Strategy Leash point Strategy Trapped Strategy Faith Strategy

Description

Havel, the Rock was a bishop of the Way of White. He was a close friend of Lord Gwyn and fought alongside him. His hatred towards magic and Seath the Scaleless made him develop the miracles Magic Barrier and Great Magic Barrier. His gear also has high magic resistances to combat magic threats. In an indeterminate time before the event of the game, he became Hollow and was locked in the watchtower for his own good.

Location

Equipment

• Dragon Tooth
• Havel's Greatshield
• Havel's Set

Drop

Havel's Ring

Strategies

Havel The Rock is a very difficult enemy when first encountered. He wields the Dragon's Tooth and will kill most low-level players in one hit.

Standard Duel Strategy

If you have a decent shield, his attacks will not break your guard. With 20 endurance and the Eagle Shield, you can block his strikes and attack while he recovers. This is the simplest strategy, but it requires you to come back later once you have acquired a medium or heavy shield with perhaps 60+ stability.

Parry-Riposte Strategy

Wait until Havel finishes an attack and then run in front of him. Stand there with shield lowered and parry-riposte every attack. If you equip a small shield like Cracked Round Shield, the time window for parrying increases compared to when using larger shields, thus giving you a larger margin for error and probably making this the easiest and fastest method for disposing of Havel. Once rispoted, immediately target Havel again.

As he will probably kill you in one hit, you can equip the Red Tearstone Ring and let the Hollows outside reduce your HP to a level in which the ring will be activated, this will reduce the number of times you need to riposte Havel and make this strategy safer.

Backstab Strategy

This strategy is based off avoiding his attacks, either by strafing or rolling through them, to get behind him and perform a backstab. Light armor (<25% capacity) is highly recommended if not required for this strategy, and you should engage him in the middle of the room to give yourself more space.

If you are strafing his attacks it is best to have a shield raised just in case. Stay right up against him and keep circling him until he uses an attack and allows you to get behind him. Use lock-on for this strategy.

If you are rolling through his attacks, stay a little further back and do not lock on. When he uses an attack, roll past and get behind him.

NOTE: If you are using a light build, strafing too quickly can cause Havel to perform a 360-degree spin at the beginning of his attack animation with no diminishing speed, and the attack will carry out as if nothing has happened. This supposed glitch is possibly a reset in Havel's attack tracking, which targets you more sharply, even in a vertical swing. Rolling out of the way is still possible, but the animation error can make timing more difficult and can prove annoying to many

Ranged Strategy

In this strategy, you will need a bow and approximately 120 arrows. Have him follow you outside, as he will only chase you to the bottom of the stairs before turning his back to you and walking to the tower. Shoot him in the back as many times as you can before he gets out of sight. Go back inside and repeat.

Firebomb Strategy

You will need about 50 firebombs, which you can buy from the male Undead merchant in Undead Parish. Lure Havel to the entrance of the tower and wait for him to make his attack, then walk back (lock-on recommended), throw a firebomb and repeat. Each firebomb should deal approximately 34 damage per hit. If he starts blocking and stops attacking, just walk out of the tower until he starts retreating, then go back in and wait for him to attack.

Fall Damage Strategy

It is highly recommended to have less than 25% equip load for this strategy as it will reduce the fall damage and the time required to go up the stairs.
Aggro Havel, then run back up to the previous floor and run up the next set of stairs until the last second before you can no longer jump off. You must wait here until Havel is very close but has not yet started his attack, and jump off. The fall will deal some minor damage, but Havel will take considerably more as his armor is extremely heavy. Run back up and repeat. Roll when you hit the floor to give you a good head start on running back up the stairs.

This is a very easy way to kill Havel and can be done even at low levels. The one thing to remember is; if you jump off when he is trying to circle-strafe you, backstepping to set-up a running attack or blocking he will simply walk down the stairs and attack you.

Poison Strategy

This strategy can be done using the Poison Mist pyromancy, Dung Pies or Poison Throwing Knifes.
When using Poison Mist, go to the door in Darkroot Basin and use the Poison Mist pyromancy through the closed door. Repeat until he dies.
When using Poison Throwing Knifes or Dung Pies, simply throw them at him from a distance until he is poisoned and wait for him to die. It is recommended to wait outside the tower, so as to not get killed by him while waiting.

Through the door Strategy

If you make your way to the bottom of Darkroot Basin, you can go up a hill that leads to the tower Havel is in. Make sure you don't open the door leading into the tower. You can actually hit Havel from outside the door while it's closed; however, this works both ways, as he can hit you as well. Get in one hit and then dodge to be safe. With Halberd +3 it takes maybe ten minutes or less to kill him this way.

• You can also kill him with the door open, as he cannot go down those stairs leading to Darkroot Basin. Keep luring him into the doorway and attacking him that way. Be careful though, as stated as before he is still able to hit you.

Ring of Fog Strategy

Equip Ring of Fog to lower Havel's detection of you and make your way down to the lowest tier of his tower. Walk once he is in view and make your way down. Slide off the stairs at a safe falling distance and walk all the way around until behind Havel. Backstab him, then run up the stairs until about the first level nearest the door. He should lose interest and head back to his starting position. Repeat.

Plunging Attack Strategy

Because Havel is so slow, he can be lured towards the bottom of the stairs, where he can be tricked into attacking the player from the side rather than climbing the stairs. After he begins his swing, roll up the stairs. He should move along if you don't go too high. Once you're a few steps higher than his head, perform a plunging attack. At soul level 20, it takes 3-4 attacks with a +5 Uchigatana.

Alluring Skulls Strategy

You will need some Alluring Skulls, which can be bought from the female Undead Merchant for 500 souls or found as loot above the boar miniboss in Undead Parish.
Go through the door from Darkroot Basin and throw an Alluring Skull at the door hinge from outside on the stairs. Make sure that Havel either goes straight to the door or straight behind the door and not at you. If he's ignoring you, two-hand your weapon and wail on him, as he won't swing back. When he raises his weapon, back off, let him retreat behind the wall and repeat. With the Drake Sword, three Alluring Skulls is enough to kill him, but bringing more is highly recommended.

Dragon Head Stone Strategy

The Dragon Head Stone is easy to obtain as early as the start of the game. Should one have it, they can simply clear out the nearby vicinity of hollow soldiers and lure Havel to the "ground floor" of the tower he is in. He is scripted to not exit the tower so players can exploit this to retreat/ heal or make some distance between them and Havel.

The Dragon Head Stone's flame breath has more than enough range so that the Havel's attacks can be dodged by a simple backstep or side roll. Given enough time, Havel will be down regardless of the player's level. The key in this strategy is to keep a distance between you and Havel that is sufficient enough for the flame breath to hit him and at the same time far enough for you to be safe from the Dragon's tooth reach

Leash point Strategy

Havel is not technically able to leave the tower. His "Leash" point occurs right around when you get him to one of the doors that exit the tower. He will, however, carry out a melee attack that he started to perform and chase you down to execute it. Using this to your advantage, lure Havel up to the exit of the tower that leads back to the bonfire in the Undead Burg. Eventually, he'll decide to commit to taking a swing at you (this can be provoked easier by using a ranged attack on him) and he will follow you down the stairs. Once he does his swing, run in front of him and body block him to prevent him from getting back into the tower and start pummeling him with melee attacks. He will single-mindedly continue trying to get into the tower, and will not attack you until he has made it back in. You can either attack him from there or continually backstab him as he tries to get back in.
WarningThere is an open ledge close to the bottom of this staircase! Do not let Havel fall off the ledge, or you will lose the Havel's Ring loot for the rest of your playthrough! Reloading does not make the ring drop at his spawn, unlike most other NPC's.

Trapped Strategy

This works best if you have both the doors in the lower watchtower shortcut to the Darkroot Basin open. Starting from the Undead Burg bonfire with the ladder shortcut to the Undead Parish, leave the room and sprint past everything (this part is very important!). You should have the enemies chasing after you, just don't look back. Sprint down the stairs and around Havel, and out the door he was standing next to. Havel should follow you out the door and to the first step, and stop, running into an invisible wall. Some of the enemies who were chasing you should follow, and get stuck behind Havel, in the doorway. This prevents Havel from backing up into the room, leaving him open to any spell or arrow you want to throw at him; just be careful not to kill the soldiers blocking him.

Faith Strategy

If you have over 20 Faith you can also use the Lightning Spear Miracle to take Havel down. slowly make your way down the staircase until you can lock on to him and fire off the spears. He should die within 3 or 4 hits.

Heavy Knight (Sword)

aka Berenike Knight

Description

The knights of Berenike who went Hollow on their journey to Anor Londo, becoming a threat to all Undead. Large and heavily armored, they wield a massive Mace or a Greatsword and the Tower Shield. Typically guards something of value.

Location

Drops

*Item drop rates can be improved by increasing Item Discovery
Either Greatsword or Greataxe or Tower Shield can be dropped from the same kill.

Attack Pattern

• Shield bash
• Heavy horizontal Swings
• Heavy Vertical swing
• Charge attack

In Sen's Fortress

First make sure the weaker enemies in the area are dead. Keep his attention by hitting him occasionally while retreating to the base of the stairs you passed earlier. Past a certain point, the Heavy Knight will try to retreat back up the stairs. At this point simply hit him while his shield is down and retreat when he raises his shield or tries to swing his mace.

Note: He will try to heal if he gets far enough away. When he tries to heal be sure to get an attack in to interrupt him or else the fight can take a very long time. A stabbing weapon is beneficial for this strategy as the tunnel don't leave much room for you to swing a large weapon.

Beware of his vertical attacks, he can attack in succession. Also beware of trying to attack him after his strike, wait 1/2 of a second or so and then land a few blows.

Ranged Strategy

If you stand at the top of the stairs where the Knight first comes into view stand inside the circular part of the wall similar to his.
Pull out your bow, aim and fire away. He'll just stand and take every hit without healing.

In Painted World of Ariamis

The easiest way to defeat the Heavy Knight found on the bridge leading to Crossbreed Priscilla is to get its attention by moving towards the second Hollow Archer. Be careful not to get too close to the second Hollow Archer to avoid alerting the four Hollows hanging on either side of the bridge. Immediately turn around and proceed back across the bridge towards the large circular room at the bottom of the large stairwell between the two gates. If the Heavy Knight follows you into the room, it will proceed to back away from you up the staircase. It will continue to walk backwards up the staircase indefinitely, so wail away at the Heavy Knight as it will not attack you whilst retreating.

If the Heavy Knight will not follow you into the circular room, you can engage him using a similar strategy on the bridge by leading him to the beginning of the bridge. If you are careful to block/avoid his attacks, you can freely attack every time he starts back-peddling. All of his attacks can be blocked save for the heavy downward strike.

Sword

Archer

Torch

Description

Hollows are undead who have lost their sanity. The un-armored hollows are considered to be amongst the weakest enemies in the game, however they can still prove dangerous when they ambush the player in groups.

Location

Attacks

Tactics

All of the sword Hollow's attacks can be blocked easily. Quick barrage is the only real threat as it is the only multiple hit attack. If you don't have a shield strong enough to block the entire quick barrage then you should dodge this attack by rolling or back stepping due to the attack's poor tracking. If you have a shield that can fully block the attack and stagger the hollow then afterwards you can easily move around behind it for a Back stab. When confronted with multiple sword Hollow it is recommended to kill them quickly as group attacks will often leave you with no time to counterattack.

Hollow (Archer)

Bow wielding Hollows, will shoot arrows at you from a distance.

Attacks

Tactics

The arrow attacks are very easy to block or can be avoided by moving out of their way or rolling through. Once in melee range a few quick hits should dispatch them with ease.

Hollow (Torch)

Just as weak defensively as the other Hollow variants, however the added fire damage and aggressive attacks pose a more significant threat.

Attacks

Tactics

Most of the time you can fight these Hollows in the same way as the Sword Hollows. However you have to be careful if they start using Crazy Run. The attack allows them to quickly close any distance between you and them whilst simultaneously inflicting large amounts of damage. Because of this it pays off to always keep an eye on any Torch Hollows in an area. If you are confronted by multiple torch Hollow using Crazy Run then it is recommended to try and parry one of the attacks and use the invincibility frames from the riposte to avoid damage as Crazy Run drains stamina very quickly whilst blocking.

Please use the Enemies page

Description

These mysterious creatures reside in the Chasm of the Abyss. Bearing striking resemblance to the Humanity sprite, they float about, doing damage to their enemies by making simple physical contact. They have 3 different sizes: small, medium and large. They are often encountered in groups; they can be lethal if not handled with care, as blocking has no effect.

Location

Chasm of the Abyss
Common enemy in lower area of the chasm

Drops

• Humanity - common
• Twin Humanities - common

Attack

Their sole attack is very simple. They simply hover on top of you, dealing very rapid magic damage. Not too bad when there's just one of them, but can kill you very quickly in groups. Also wreaks havoc with lock-on as they can rapidly pass through you, causing your camera to follow them.

Notes

Useful for Humanity Farming.

Large Club

Boulder

Description

Huge infested barbarians that populate Blighttown. They pack a punch, but most of their attacks can be easily avoided. The ones carrying boulders are more dangerous and difficult.

Location

Blighttown

Drops

• Dung Pie - very common
• Large Club - only from the club types, rare
• Pickaxe - only from boulder types, uncommon

Attacks

Barbarians with large club

• Charged up forward stroke - Can be easily avoided, the barbarian will charge up a powerful forward smash with his club and his guard will be open for a long time.
• Double swing - Swings his club to the right and then to the left. Smaller range than the charged up forward stroke and less damage, easy to block.
• Overhead Pound - Brings the club up over his head with both hands and smashes it to the ground. Easy to block or avoid as it has a wind up time, also leaves him open to attack.
• Roar - They let down their guard, and just roar. The roar does no damage, but will cause other nearby enemies to join the fight. However, given the way enemies in Blighttown are positioned, most of the time those in range of the roar are already dead or fighting you, so this is your best time to get in a few attacks.

Barbarians with boulder

• Boulder throw - They pick up a boulder from underground (yes, they have an unlimited amount of boulders) and throw it at you from a distance.
• Boulder dash - They dash forward with the rolling boulder. This is nasty, as it's a pretty fast and devastating attack, so try to roll away.
• Boulder slam - Melee attack. They lift up the boulder and smash it down on you. This deals a lot of damage, but leaves them open for attacks.

Weaknesses

• Bleed
• Fire
• Backstabs (relatively easy)

Strategy

Not much to say about those Rhinos. They are extremely powerful and poisonous, but have a very low rate of attack (so getting poisoned is not much of an issue with them).
However brutish they are, their attacks can be blocked with your shield, so keep looking at your left hand and you should be A-OK. They also attack slowly and are easy to backstab. You should probably attack them one at a time too.

There is one trick concerning them in the game, though : if you enter Blight Town through the Depths, you will meet the first one of them on a bridge that is a little narrow for your killing. Try cowering out of this trial by arrowing his face (they are not overly mobile).

Also, Blight Town Ghouls are often in the vicinity of these enemies. it might be best to kill the panzer division first, and then deal with the big headed walking corpses.

The Lifehunt Scythe is very effective in taking out these guys. Two consecutive hits (two-handed) from the Lifehunt Scythe will bleed them, and take away half their health instantly. So, if the first hit takes away 1/4 (or more) of their health, the second hit will kill them, whether they have 800 or 2000 hp. Any other weapon that causes bleeding also works great on these guys, although none are as vicious as the Lifehunt.

Undead Rapport can be used to make these guys fight among themselves. Give the last one standing a backstab as a reward.

Leash-Point Strategy

This method can be used on the Barbarians guarding the Valley of Drakes side of Blight town. The Barbarians on this side are incapable of actually leaving Blight town. Using this you can bait them into chasing you toward the Valley of Drakes, leaving them defenseless. You can then easily pick them off with arrows. If the Master Key is chosen as a starting item, these can be accessed early on in the game, and used as an early form of soul farming. (The Dung Pies they drop also have a 200 soul turn-in value when fed to Kingseeker Frampt)

Non Fighting Method

The first ones encountered in Blighttown, through The Depths entrance, can be forced to fall to their deaths by retreating to the ladder after getting their attention. Climbing back up the ladder and waiting on the platform above will sometimes lure the barbarians over the edge. If they don't fall by the time they reach the ladder, the player can reposition themselves slightly and bait attacks from the barbarians, getting them to swing, miss, and fall.

Similarly, the three encountered near the entrance/exit to the Valley of Drakes can be defeated the same way. You simply need to get their attention, then run to the first ladder going down into Blighttown and climb a few rungs down. The Barbarians will chase after you and fall off the edge. You can sometimes pick up their loot by climbing back down towards the wheel elevator. You will probably have to force them off the edge one at a time by running back through the tunnel, getting the next one's attention, then sprinting back to the ladder.

Sword

Spear

Corpse

Description

Aggressive, human-sized enemies of Blighttown. There are three different types of this enemy each wielding a different weapon; a sword, a spear and a corpse. Though it makes little difference what they carry, as they all have similar attacks and identical health.

Location

Drops

*Item drop rates can be improved by increasing Item Discovery
Multiple items can't drop from the same kill for these enemies.

Attacks

Tactics

The Infested Ghouls have a wide range of attacks that you've seen before from previous enemies. The tactics are quite similar to those needed for handling Hollows.

All of the ghouls' attacks can be blocked easily. If you have a shield that can block the attack and stagger the ghoul, then move around behind it for a backstab. They are dangerous in packs as they can break through your guard and kill you quickly. Attacking from a distance to try and reduce their numbers is a good strategy. They will mostly attack by swinging wildly and try to overwhelm you. The most dangerous attack is its grab. You can tell when it's going to try and grab when it holds both its arms out and prepares to jump at you. If successful it will keep biting at you causing high damage. Be sure to interrupt its grab with a quick strike, or avoid it by strafing or stepping out of reach. They also seem to have low bleed resistance. (Example: I am using my Gold Tracer +5 to kill them in NG+. The first hit does 270, then the second hit does 430.)

Description

Slightly larger version of the Small Undead Rat, though smaller than the Giant Undead Rat mini-boss. They have more HP than the normal rats, are more aggressive, and deal more damage.

Location

The Depths

Drops

Humanity

Attacks

Pretty much the same as their smaller counterparts, but with more damage. Also inflicts Poison.

Description

When you invade Knight Lautrec of Carim's world using the Black Eye Orb, Lautrec is not alone. He will be flanked by two White Phantom guards. Like Lautrec, both of them have a permanent Fall Control buff.

Location

Anor Londo
In the world of Lautrec the Guilty, accessed by using the Black Eye Orb in the area before the Dragon Slayer Ornstein & Executioner Smough.

Members

Pike Soldier Stats Playthrough HP Souls New Game 821 0 NG+ 1,436 0 NG+6 1,795 0 Equipment Pike Wooden Shield Hard Leather Armor Attack Pattern The pike soldier tends to use the Pike's charging attack.

Sorcerer Stats Playthrough HP Souls New Game 719 0 NG+ 1,258 0 NG+6 1,572 0 Equipment Tin Banishment Catalyst Soul Arrow sorcery Heavy Soul Arrow sorcery Crimson Robe

Description

Smaller, less powerful version of the Sanctuary Guardian. Two of them are found in the area where you fight the Sanctuary Guardian boss, after you defeat Knight Artorias. They respawn and provide another opportunity to obtain the Guardian Tail.

Location

Drops

• Guardian Tail - tail cut

Notes

• It doesn't seem possible to sneak up on these things. They will face which ever direction you have spawned from at the bonfires. The Ring of Fog as well as the Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring don't seem to affect them, even if you wear both rings at the same time.

Tail Cut

To cut off a tail it's necessary to deal a certain amount of damage against it. The HP of the tail increases with higher NG cycles and is based on the HP of the respective enemy.

In case of the Lesser Sanctuary Guardian, the tail has about 24.63% of his HP.

• If you want a Guardian Tail, you will need to engage both.
• The easy method - aggro a Sanctuary Guardian from within the cave with a bow. When they start shooting lightning, back up until all of the lightning gets absorbed by the ground while you can still see their tails. Manually aim at the tails until a whip drops. Note, they will jump back and forth a bit, but you are in no danger.
• If you accidently kill both Lesser guardians you will need to respawn them via bonfire.

Man Eater Shell at Ash Lake

Description

Large clam shells that walk on five thin legs. They have piles of human skulls from previous victims inside their shells.

Location

Drops

• Purging Stone - uncommon (10% drop rate)
• Twinkling Titanite - common (30% drop rate in Ash Lake, 20% drop rate in the Crystal Cave)

Notes

• When you kill them and they drop something, the usual yellow item glow may be hard to see because of their huge static corpses. Be sure to walk over any killed Man-Eater Shells to check for items.
• Farming these in Ash Lake is a good way to acquire Twinkling Titanites and Purging Stones before you acquire the Lordvessel. There are no other enemies around after you kill the Hydra, so it's relatively fast and safe.
• After you kill Seath the Scaleless, a warpable bonfire (named "Crystal Cave" in the Warp menu) will appear. There are about 6 Man Eater Shells outside Seath's boss room. This is the most efficient spot to farm Twinkling Titanites. (see below for details)

Weakness

• Fire

Resistance

• Physical attacks

Attack patterns

• A short, fast tackle that they can perform a two-hit combo with. Getting hit by the first attack usually means you'll get hit by the second, unless you have enough Poise to avoid getting stunned.
• An eating attack. Long windup and easy to avoid. If you let it hit you, you'll be forced to watch it chomp away your gear's durability.
• A fast stab with two legs.
• A charging attack that sends the player flying into the air if it hits and does heavy damage. Long windup, but fairly long range.

Strategies

• This enemy has a strong defense against physical attacks. Bring up a shield and keep strafing around them until they attack, leaving them open.
• Two Fireballs with an ascended Pyromancy Flame are enough to kill them. Keeping your distance and throwing Fireballs is a good way to take out a crowd.
• If you cut Seath the Scaleless' tail and you have the stat to wield it, you can use the Moonlight Greatsword's one-handed heavy attack to pick them off from safe distance.
• A heavy weapon with a downward power or running attack makes easy work of these. Just attack them on approach and follow up quickly for the kill. Alternatively, you can back up and use the running attack again.

Farming Strategy

This strategy aims to kill as many Shells as possible with the most efficient way possible (i.e. one-hit kill). It's mainly for farming Twinkling Titanites, but you can also sell the Purging Stones to Frampt (1,000 Souls each) to buy more Homeward Bones or to upgrade weapons or armors using the Twinkling Titanites. This can be done on the first playthrough.

Items Needed

• Spell damage enhancer, must have both:
  • Crown of Dusk
  • Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring

• The spell and catalyst, choose one method:
  • For non-Intelligence builds, you need Ascended Pyromancy Flame +5 and Great Fireball (or Great Chaos Fireball).
  • If you have 50 Intelligence (or slightly lower), you may use Logan's Catalyst and Soul Spear (or Crystal Soul Spear) instead.

• Item Discovery
  • Covetous Gold Serpent Ring
  • 10 Humanities (stat)

• Additional spell charges, choose one method:
  • Attune both Great Fireball and Great Chaos Fireball for a total of 8 charges, to give room for errors. Note that you need at least 3 Attunement slots to attune both pyromancies.
  • Attune both Soul Spear and Crystal Soul Spear (or additional copy of Soul Spear from Griggs) for a total of 8 charges.

• Homeward Bones as needed.

How to

1. Kill Seath the Scaleless to spawn the Crystal Cave bonfire, then rest at it.
2. Equip the Crown of Dusk, the Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring, the items for additional spell charges, and the spell of your choice. If you wear these items, one attack should kill a Shell (on the NG at least) without the need to stagger the Shell or using Power Within.
3. From the bonfire, go to where the fog gate was, then throw a Great Fireball or Soul Spear to kill the Shell to your right (first Man Eater Shell).
4. Kill the one to your left (second Man Eater Shell).
5. Wait a bit for the patrolling one to approach you, then kill it (third Man Eater Shell).
6. Go forward a bit, then kill the one facing away from you (fourth Man Eater Shell). If you're using Soul Spear, you may try to lock on to the Shell behind this one (fifth Man Eater Shell), or manually aim the spell so that the Soul Spear pierces the first, killing two Shells in one shot and saving your time.
7. Some builds (e.g. low level ones) may not have enough Attunement to attune both Great Fireball and Great Chaos Fireball, or don't have enough Intelligence to use Soul Spear. These builds only have enough spell charges to one-hit kill four Shells without sacrificing Item Discovery. For these builds, it's better to Homeward Bone back to bonfire rather than kill the remaining two Shells, then repeat from step 3 as needed.
8. If you still have spell charges left, kill the fifth one if not already killed.
9. Turn right, walk a bit, kill the last one (sixth Man Eater Shell).
10. Homeward Bone back to the bonfire, repeat from step 3 as needed.

Description

Huge gray blobs of slime with several faces and a big mouth on its front side. There are two that do not respawn.

Location

Attacks

• In close range, it will emit a large spear from his mouth and bring it down vertically, sometimes a second swing horizontally will follow directly.
• While somewhat close to the player, may stab directly forward with a spear from its mouth. This attack is slow but the spear thrust itself is quick and does high damage.
• Close to medium range, it will project gray vomit at the player. This is highly predictable and very easy to dodge. Getting hit by this gray material will cause you to move very slowly for a while, eat away some of your health, and halve all healing received.
• At long range (or possibly any range), it will spawn Wisps

Weaknesses

• Fire
• Poison
• Toxin
• Divine

Strategy

Fighting against these alone is pretty easy. They're slow, and all attacks are easy to predict. It's also often possible for them to get stuck down there, so don't worry if you see one of them. Just wait for its attacks, dodge and deal damage. Or get behind it and hit it hard, cause it's taking time to rotate to the player.

Ranged tip: As both of them appear in rooms/areas wich have stairs and doorways, it is very easy to pull them. Simply walk up to them to grab their attention and then retreat out of the door and down the stairs a bit. Now you can safely kill it with ranged attacks because its spear attack will always go over your head and miss and the gray vomit is easy to spot and dodge, a simple sidestep/roll is enough.

It is also possible to poison them with Poison Arrows. A good strategy is to fire an arrow of any kind into them while wearing the Ring of Fog, then back away until it turns to return to its original location. Thanks to its slow turning speed, it's simple to fire four to five Poison Arrows into it before it can fully turn, and will begin to take damage from the built up poison. On NG, it will take two bouts to kill them.

Bugs

Occasionally, the wisps spawned by the mass of souls will be invisible, this is usually due to the fact that they have been spawned out of sight of the player's camera. The wisps will still damage your character when they explode.

Identifying a Mimic

Aggroed Mimic

Description

It looks like a normal chest, but if you open it, it will perform a very powerful grab attack, biting the player repeatedly for heavy damage. If you survived the grab attack, it will revert back to its passive chest form. If you attack the chest, it will immediately sprout arms, legs, and tongue. It will attempt to attack you with its long limbs.

Location

Sen's Fortress
In a room after the bottom of the indoor boulder-path.

Anor Londo
One in the large hall with the two Sentinels nearest The Duke's Archives entrance, one in the basement area by Havel's Set, and two on the upper floor by the spiral staircase.

The Duke's Archives
One at the end of an indoor balcony-walkway in the first hall, another by the descending staircase leading to the outdoor area with the Crystal Golems.

Oolacile Township
One after the first wooden bridge, another by the lit fireplace on the upper floor of the building containing the many Bloatheads.

Drops

• Lightning Spear - in Sen's Fortress
• Crystal Halberd - at the beginning of Anor Londo
• Occult Club - the one in the hidden cellar amongst the four normal chests in Anor Londo
• Enchanted Falchion - in the side room near the second bonfire of The Duke's Archives
• Crystal Knight Shield - in the first room on the second floor of The Duke's Archives
• Gold Coin - after second bonfire in Anor Londo
• Silver Coin - after second bonfire in Anor Londo; x5 per drop
• Very Good! Carving - after the first wooden bridge in Oolacile Township
• Symbol of Avarice - rare drop and only one per Mimic; also, if you find and kill every Mimic, then the final one will drop it by default

Notes

• A way to tell the difference between a mimic and a normal chest is the chain on the right side of the chest. If the chain is looped, it's a normal treasure chest; if the chain is straight, it's a Mimic. The color shade of the chest is also different, and when looking at it for a while, the Mimic chest breathes and slightly moves. Additionally, the Mimic's tongue and teeth can be seen through the opening gap. (This is more noticeable if you are playing the PC version of the game, modded to run in higher resolutions, such as 1080p.)

• Each Mimic has a fixed drop (Lightning Spear, Crystal Halberd, etc…) that always appear the first time you kill it (or throw a Lloyd's Talisman on it), but it also has a random chance to drop a Symbol of Avarice that may or may not dropped simultaneously along with its normal contents.

Attacks

Strategies

• Throwing a Lloyd's Talisman at a sleeping Mimic will result in it opening up, allowing you to loot it without killing it.

• Throwing a Lloyd's Talisman at an awake Mimic will result it in going to sleep while opening up, allowing you loot it and giving you free hits on it. When the talisman wears off, it will wake up and continue attacking.

• Using the Poison Mist or Toxic Mist pyromancy on the Mimic (if you don't attack or interact with it) will result in the Mimic getting poisoned and not changing forms into its combat stage.

• The Mimic in Sen's Fortress can be killed rather easy as you can lure it into the boulder that is coming down. Just wait until it passes, hit the Mimic and run to the room on the left side where the boulders go. It should be hit at least once. If you are lucky it will get hit a second time and will die immediately.

• Usually it's best to stay passive, or you can get devoured like you would if opening up the chest without checking for a mimic. So circle it, wait for its predictable attack and counter attack one or two times with a fast weapon. It doesn't have much HP, so it's still a short fight.

• A nice idea you could do in Sen's Fortress is to get to the room with the lever that controls the direction the boulders fires towards and point it towards any direction that is not the spiral stair case. After you do that proceed to let the Mimic chase you up the stairs by attacking it and running away. After a certain distance it will stop chasing you. All you do now is re-aim the boulder launcher towards the stair case and let the Mimic get smashed by the boulders until it dies. After that just collect the drops.

• Equip fire or lightning weapon, even fire +5 will do. Two hand your weapon, attack the chest as much as you could, the mimic would have about 1/5 of HP left by the time it gets up. Just finish him off with one to two more hits.

Strategy for Farming Symbol of Avarice

You can reliably collect a Symbol of Avarice for each Mimic encountered:

1. Bring plenty of Lloyd's Talismans. It can be bought early and cheaply from Undead Merchant (male).
2. You may equip Covetous Gold Serpent Ring and have 10 Humanity (stat) to cut collection time and save Lloyd's Talismans, although it is not necessary.
3. Throw a talisman at the Mimic, it will open, allowing you to collect its fixed loot. (If you're lucky and get the Symbol of Avarice on the first try, then good for you, you don't need to fight the Mimic)

Next, you can use the normal way, or using the quit & reload exploit.

The normal way:

1. Punch the Mimic so that it awakes and goes to attack mode.
2. Stand behind the Mimic so that it needs to turn towards you, giving you time to throw another talisman. If you're in front of the Mimic, it might attack you while you're in throwing animation. The talisman has no effect when the Mimic is in the middle of the "getting up" animation.
3. Throw a talisman, the Mimic will be put to sleep again, allowing you to (hopefully) collect the Symbol of Avarice. If the Mimic hasn't drop the Symbol yet, repeat step 1.

Using quit & reload:

1. Quit the game
2. Reload the game. When you spawn, the Mimic will be in its passive mode.
3. Throw a talisman again and check the contents to see if you get it. If not, repeat step 1.

Description

A copy of the Capra Demon found in the Undead Burg, although this enemy is easier due to its lower HP, open surroundings, and the experience and gear you have gained.

Location

Attacks

The moves are the same as the Capra Demon, so continue to watch out for the two-handed swing which pierces shields.

Drops

*Item drop rates can be improved by increasing Item Discovery

Physical resistances

Elemental resistances

Auxiliary resistances

//Also takes extra damage from Black Knight Weapons.

Strategy

There are seven Minor Capra Demons who respawn in and around the ruins area, five of which are in the first floor of the ruins. Lure them one by one back up the cliff path to get more room to maneuver. They will most likely use their two-handed lunge attack when following you, which creates a small opening for counterattack. They recover from attacks fast, so stay alert. Although you can draw aggro from a modest distance, using arrows or other long-range attacks will also lure them easily. The hardest section to deal with are the three demons who are fairly close to each other in the ruins, but keep drawing focus away and you should be fine.

Alternatively, after getting past the first one, all the others can be avoided. Run along the ledge, and when you see the landing below with the bonfire, just drop down to it.

These Capra Demons only have 45 Poise, so two-handing a weapon such as a Spear or Curved Sword allows the player to stagger them and get extra damage in much more frequently.

Note

• All Minor Capra Demons in the Demon Ruins will respawn after resting at a bonfire, unlike the seven of Minor Taurus Demons on the hardened lava field at the beginning of the area.

• The Capra Demon's one handed attacks can be parried, but the only effect of a successful parry is the attack ignores you.

Description

A copy of the Taurus Demon found in the Undead Burg, although this enemy is easier due to its lower HP and the experience and gear you have gained.

Location

Attacks

See Taurus Demon

Drop

Demon's Greataxe - rare

Strategy

As always, it is best to fight them one at a time. Lure them out with arrows or long-range attacks.

Being only physical attackers, having a high-stability shield will make fighting them much easier. Again, when they jump forward to attack you can run or roll under their legs and get in a few hits. It helps to stay close to its legs when using melee, but be sure to block or dodge when it uses the downward smash attacks. They are still weak to fire and lightning, and move slow enough for you to throw something powerful between swings. If you prefer this strategy, continue walking backwards and you should stay out of range of its attacks.

One good way to bring these guys down quickly is to carry a heavy weapon that can break the Taurus Demon's poise, such as a Greatsword or Black Knight Halberd. Draw one demon in at a time using an arrow, and then wait for them to get close enough to make the first move. Assuming the demon misses you entirely, you can then dash in and hit it with a running two-handed strike, which may be enough to stagger the demon allowing for a few more free hits if you have the stamina.

These demons share the Taurus Demon blind spot inside their legs, it's just a little bit more difficult to stay in because it's slightly smaller than the boss's. You only need to keep moving with the demon's attacks to stay in the blind spot.

Description

The Mushroom child is a smaller version of the Mushroom Parent, though much weaker and with different attacks.

Location

Attacks

Drop

Gold Pine Resin - uncommon

Strategy

• They can be backstabbed. Use this to your advantage as those in the Darkroot Garden will run away once attacked, exposing their back.
• Watch out for their trip attack, it can take you by surprise as they fall down and give you a headbutt. It's very quick with no telegraph.

Notes

• When in Ash Lake, using the Chameleon sorcery will turn you into a Mushroom Child.
• The sound that Mushroom Children sometimes make when they die is the call of the common loon

Description

A giant anthropomorphic mushroom with bloodstained fists. Has an incredibly powerful punch that is not to be underestimated.

Location

Drops

Gold Pine Resin - common in Darkroot Garden, sometimes drop x2

Attacks

Weaknesses

• Fire
• Magic

Resistances

• Lightning

Strategy

• Despite their looks, these creatures are very powerful; one successful punch can be a one shot kill for many low level players and even some high level.
• They are not very armored, but their HP is very high.
• Also note that they usually travel in packs except for one in Ash Lake.
• Don't be fooled by their stubby arms, all of their attacks cause them to lurch far forward, especially if they are on a down slope.
• Melee characters should be careful while strafing around them to the left, as their rotation animation looks almost exactly like their wind-up before punching.
• Try to stay away, until they leave themselves open after an attack.
• They are also very easy to outrun. If your Soul Level is fairly low, fleeing is suggested.
• In the Darkroot Garden, they can get stuck easily as they try to pass in between trees. You can use this to your advantage to kill them with a bow and arrows, or seeing as the range of their attacks is very small, you can attack it with a spear without being hit.
• In the Great Hollow, they can get stuck easily if you lure them up as they are bigger than the player character for which the paths were designed.
• Also in the Great Hollow, if you enter from the Ash Lake side and try to lure them out, they will walk back right after the turning of the tunnel, this makes them easy prey for an archer.

Description

Also known as an "Undead Mage". Every Skeleton in the Catacombs belongs to a Necromancer. If the Necromancer is still alive, the Skeleton will revive if you don't kill it with a weapon with a Holy modifier. They are usually at a hard to reach places and they will run away if you approach them.
 
Once killed, they will not respawn and the Skeletons they control will not revive even if killed without a Holy weapon.

Location

The Catacombs

There are six of them:

• Guarding the first bonfire. You can rest here after defeating him and the nearby Skeletons.

• After you enter the 'main shaft', he will be standing on a ledge to the right. You can shoot him down with arrows or magic, although you may need to kick the first Skeleton over the edge first.

• At the end of the first spiked bridge, guarded by two Skeletons with shields & scimitars, it is difficult to flip the bridge switch and kill him unless you permanently destroy the Skeletons on the way to the switch. If you go slow enough they can be kicked off the edge, allowing for a mad dash across the bridge to kill the Necromancer.

• Go down the spiral staircase until you find a lever, he is guarding it. If you want to reach Vamos, return here and go off the ledge at the end of the spiral.

• Once you traverse the white fog, he will be in a hollow above you and to the left. You can try to kill him with arrows here, but if you don't have ranged options, you'll need to knock through the wall near the two Skeletons, jump down, then run forward. At the end of the path, there's a sarcophagus containing the Darkmoon Seance Ring, but you need to turn to a broken wall to the right, usually just before the Giant Skeleton gets to you. Head up the ramp until you reach the Necromancer. If you were quick you shouldn't have any enemies keep up with you. Also, next to the Necromancer is a ladder reaching to the Tranquil Walk of Peace miracle.

• The final one is located past the Prowling Demon, down two ladders; and is guarded by two Skeleton Archers. Two Skeletons wait at the bottom of the first ladder. Be careful here, as on either end of the sarcophagi there are two crumbling floors that will drop you to meet a Greataxe-wielding Black Knight. Go down the next ladder here to find the Necromancer. Take care when you fight the Necromancer, as the Black Knight may come around and enter the room through a broken wall if not previously killed.

Stats

Drops

Skull Lantern - uncommon

Attack Pattern

• Throws straight fireballs.
• Melee with lantern (Fire damage).

Strategy

Equip high Fire-resistance shield such as the Black Knight Shield or Dragon Crest Shield to safely block their fireballs.

The Necromancer is a quick Fire Caster. He goes down fairly easily but is guarded by constantly reviving skeletons. It is best to rush them as they do not respawn and once dead all skeletons they control will no longer revive. But note that most of the necromancers try to run off if you approach them, making it hard to follow them due to skeletons spawning while chasing them. So it's often best to kill them ranged.

Description

White robed warriors guarding the giant painting in Anor Londo. For many generations they have guarded the painting, but they can no longer remember their reason for doing so.

Location

Drops

• Painting Guardian Sword - rare
• Throwing Knife - common, 2 or 5 per drop

Attack Pattern

• Throwing Knives - they'll start throwing these the moment they notice you
• Sword slashes - they use the same moveset as the Painting Guardian Sword, and like the sword, they build up bleed when hit
• Backstab - they won't circle you, but they can backstab you for massive damage when they're behind you

Strategy

• Sometimes they'll switch their left-hand weapon with a Target Shield, making them capable of blocking your attacks.
• Kill them one by one. Two guardians fighting you raises your chance getting your guard broken, as they attack relentlessly and their combo attack can kill you easily.
• When you come from inside the painting, you'll be facing their backs. You can easily backstab them one by one.

Description

Looks like a mass of Hollows fused together. They carry a spear, a large shield, and move in phalanx formation. They are similar to their Demon's Souls counterparts in world 1-1. They are initially passive, grouping at the bottom of the central statue; but once you get close to them, they'll separate into individual enemies.

Location

Drops

• Spear (1% drop rate)
• Large Leather Shield (1% drop rate)

Not mutually exclusive

Notes

• Their grouping together, relative ease to kill, and proximity to a bonfire makes them popular soul farming target. Check the Soul Farming page for details. Each run on new game, 2hing a +5 Queelag's (with plenty of dex) takes roughly 1 minute and rewards roughly 10k souls.

Attacks

• Spear stab - Takes off a fair chunk of stamina but doesn't really hit that hard otherwise. If your poise is bad, though, you may get stagger-locked and poked to death.
• Spear swipe - Horizontal spear swipe. They will occasionally do this if you stand to their side for too long.
• Spear toss - Projectile attack. Be careful when you are running away from them, as several of them may throw spears at you, easily killing you if you're not careful.

Weaknesses

• Fire-based attacks

Strategies

• They're all bunched up around the statue when you see them at first, so you can easily take out half of them with some AoE pyromancy before the fight even starts. They also turn very slowly, so you can just get them all facing you (preferably while hiding behind something so the projectiles don't hit you) then sprint to the other side of the mob and start hacking away. They're intimidating because there's so many of them, but they're really not that hard.

• They are very slow so taking them out quickly and not letting them overwhelm you is preferred. Grab a powerful two handed weapon and start from the bonfire. Head in, taking care of the first 3 hollows. Move towards the Phalanx by going around the right of the boxes so that you don't get any spears thrown at you. Quickly dash into the side of their formation and swing away. You will easily kill at least 5-6 in a couple swings. Keep moving and let your stamina recharge then repeat into another clump of them. Their animations are slow and there is little to no tracing so you should not have very much trouble simply walking around their attacks when their numbers are cut down a bit.

• Another strategy is to learn the sorcery White Dragon Breath and cast it once near them to aggro them, and then run behind the large stone boxes by the fountain. When they come around the sides, you can either cast the sorcery again, or since it is just one or two, use a melee weapon to kill it off. Their projectiles can't hit you, and attacking from their sides means they can't block your attacks.

• At 30 Faith with a Canvas Talisman, two casts of Wrath of the Gods can clear out the entire group. On NG, with Symbol of Avarice and Covetous Silver Serpent Ring, it's possible to get 10,080 souls in a matter of seconds, and being practically next to a bonfire this is a very effective means of collecting souls. To overkill on NG with the Darkmoon Talisman and Ring of the Sun's Firstborn, allowing for more souls (12,096) to be collected, you need 42 faith (40 with synergy, 38 with double synergy)

Please see the Clan of Forest Protectors page

Description

Looks exactly like the boss Pinwheel, but they're weaker and less mobile.

Location

Drops

*Item drop rates can be improved by increasing Item Discovery
Either Mask of the Mother or Father or Child, and either White Titanite Chunk x1 or White Titanite Chunk x2 or White Titanite Slab can be dropped from the same kill.

1 Pinwheel Servant, on average, with 100 Item Discovery will drop 0.106 White Titanite Chunks, with 410 Item Discovery will drop 0.328 White Titanite Chunks.

Attacks

• They can throw fireballs. The animation is somewhat slow, making the attack by itself easy to dodge. However, the Pinwheels have an excellent tracking AI, and may prepare this attack even if they don't see you directly yet.
• They can use a firesurge-like attack.

Tactic

The original Pinwheel was a pushover, so are the minions, but you still need to take some precaution when fighting them. First, never ever attack the babies before the pinwheels are killed, their strength combined can destroy you. In fact, you should never interrupt your sprint in the pond to reach the pinwheels, because the babies will make you regret it. Second, kill them quick. They have an extremely low poise, almost any weapon is sure to interrupt the casting of their spells, so keep the pressure on. Third, mind your fire resistance, this is literally all they got. Everything should go smoothly if you heed these warnings.

The Pinwheel Servants can be avoided entirely, if you want. When you enter the room, drop down the small ledge on the left, and hug the left wall until the path bears right and then left (getting you to the last Servant and the door). You can roll through the barricade in front of the fog door and enter it quickly to avoid being hit. This should all be done at a sprint with your shield raised, if you use one. It is not particularly difficult to avoid being hit at all, and you do not need to walk through the water. Note that if you hug the left wall for too long, you will wind up falling off of a ledge that drops you directly in to the water. You will need to turn right before that drop off.

Description

Snake-like creatures with a bright blue octopus head. They used to be humans, until they were kidnapped by the Channelers and subjected to Seath's experiments.

Normally they're passive, but when the prison alarm is activated (either by yourself or by the man-serpent guard), they become active, patrolling the spiral staircase.

Location

The Duke's Archives
At the bottom-most room, in front of the giant cell. If the alarm's active, they'll spread out and start patrolling the spiral staircase. The two unique Pisacas won't move even if the alarm's on, they'll still be in front of the giant cell.

Drops

• Humanity - common
• Soothing Sunlight - 100% drop from one of the non-respawning ones
• Bountiful Sunlight - 100% drop from the other non-respawning one

Notes

• You don't need to kill them if you want to get to the cell behind. You can just climb up the ladder, kill the guards, and activate the alarm, so they'll walk upstairs. Note that some of them may get stuck down below you and hug the ladder.
• The two of them that do not respawn are passive, and drop Sunlight miracles, suggesting that as humans they were handmaidens of Gwynevere.

Attacks

• Spit attack - They spit out some fluid that deals physical damage, deals little damage to stamina when blocked.
• Jump and grab - This is their most devastating attack, but it's not lethal if you have enough HP. They charge, jump in your direction, spread their tentacles and try to grab you. Avoid at all costs, easy to dodge.
• Tentacle hit - Standard attack. They hit you with their tentacles, not much damage and easily blocked / dodged.

Weaknesses

• Highly vulnerable to fire-based attacks
• They also seem to have very little poise, so a quick weapon can easily disrupt all of their attacks, making them practically unable to hurt you.

Strategy

In early videos it may have looked like these were lethal creatures that couldn't be killed, but that's not the case. Though they can deal a lot of damage with their grab attack they're easy to kill off, so don't be afraid. Even on a New Game Plus they're very easy to kill, at least if you take care of them one by one. If you want to farm humanity or want the two miracles that they drop, you'll have to deal with them anyway.

• They can be backstabbed.
• The first time you leave your cell, a guard will activate the prison alarm that makes them active. They'll then start to ascend the stairs to chase the player.
• You can try to kill them when the alarm's still active, but it can be a challenge because you'll fight at least 2 Pisacas per group.
  • Using a quick weapon, you can stun-lock them easily, as they have little to no poise.
• Or, you can kill yourself (you're near a bonfire anyway) to get the alarm turned off. They'll be back to their passive state in the bottom prison area.
  • You can kill them by pulling them using ranged attack, then killing them one by one; the other Pisacas won't chase you as long as you don't damage them.
• If you have the pyromancy Chaos Storm or any of its variants, then run in and use it. You will kill most if not all of them on your first go. They may stop you with their grab attack but this shouldn't kill you.

Description

The Possessed Tree is more of an obstacle than an enemy. It is there to obscure hidden paths. It moves slowly and is fairly easy to distinguish. It does not attack nor defend itself. There are two and they do not respawn.

Location

Drops

none

Notes

They do appear to have an attack that they do not seem to use, as shown via a hack in this video They also have 1200 points of bleed resist.

aka Titanite Demon

Description

The Prowling Demons, also known as the Titanite Demons, are demons born from the scattered legendary slabs after the unnamed blacksmith deity passed away. They wield the Titanite Catch Pole which still has residual power from the Titanite Slab from which they are spawned.

They act as minibosses in various areas in Lordran, but all of them can be avoided or run past.

Location

Sen's Fortress
In the tar pit down below the swinging blade area. There are four of these demons here. Note that the second pair are not guarding anything.

Drops

• Demon Titanite (Guaranteed, x2 for the demons in Lost Izalith and Anor Londo)
• Titanite Catch Pole (Rare)

Glitch Note

• The one in the Lost Izalith shortcut may not respawn after sitting at a bonfire for some players. Reloading the game may be necessary.
• The one in the Undead Parish may jump onto a pillar during combat, and if it dies there the item/s it drops may be inaccessible.

Attacks

Weaknesses

• Ranged attacks¹
• Lightning-based damage²

Strategies

• The Prowling Demon is a difficult enemy to deal with; his attacks cover a very large span of the area and deal heavy damage when they hit you. His attacks can be guarded against, but at the cost of a large amount of Stamina. This, added to the fact that his attacks cannot be parried, means the best way you can deal with his attacks is by rolling. He is also quite agile and will jump around the area dodging your attacks, meaning you’ll often have to chase after him.

• The primary attack he uses is a 3-hit combo that consists of two horizontal swings, followed by a vertical slam into the ground. There is also a slightly slower version of this combo that takes slightly longer to execute, but has much greater range. During the combo his tail can also damage you, which limits your evasive options. The best way to deal with the attack is to stay as close as possible to the demon, right behind his empty hand. From this position the attacks will often miss completely because you are outside of the attack’s hitbox, allowing you to get some quick hits in.

• Lightning Spear is a good way to fight a Prowling Demon without much risk. With 20 Faith and a mediocre talisman, each attack will inflict 200+ damage on them, killing or removing a large chunk of their health after 10 casts. Simply wait until they cast their own lightning attack, dodge it, and respond with Lightning Spear. With 15+ Dexterity, you will be able to cast the miracle faster than he can respond.

• If you cannot get close, block or roll to the left for the first attack, then roll again towards him for the second attack. While he brings his weapon up for the final hit you can then get round to his back and attack. You can stay behind him and attack, but you must leave some Stamina in reserve, because the enemy will jump to readjust himself to face you again. He may end up jumping on you as he does this, which will also deal damage to you.

• His most hard-hitting move is his Grab and Bash attack. He will initiate this by slowly raising his weapon up and then striking the area in front of him. If he is successful this will impale you and he will then smash your body against the ground a few times. This attack will deal huge damage to your health, very likely killing you. Fortunately, it takes a very long time to perform and the hitbox is small, so you can avoid it by backing away. Spell casters will not have much luck when it comes to fighting this enemy. The Prowling Demon can shoot a lightning spell at you if you’re far away, or he may use his jump attack and land on you. You must always be on the move if you are attacking him with spells. This will be a difficult enemy to defeat and will depend entirely upon how well you consume your Stamina.

• Fighting a Titanite Demon head on is very dangerous and will generally result in very painful death. However, they seems to have a spot that none of his attacks hit. This spot is on their left side, between their left arms and tails. There none of their attacks will hit you, but you'll have to stay very close to its body. However, both his weapon and his tail cause severe damage when they are allowed to hit you. The only thing you have to worry about is when he jumps in the air and slams his weapon down on you. Rolling away from him right after he jumps will allow you to dodge this attack. Alternatively you can predict where he will land and block it. This however is very dangerous as this attack does huge damage. If you are able to make it into this blindspot while he is attacking, performing a Fire Tempest can cause massive damage, as the columns of fire are close together and, with a 5+ Ascended Pyromancy Flame and the Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring, do up to 1600 points of damage.

• Get close to him and place yourself where he is missing his right leg, stay there and keep strafing to the right. You can take several swings at him before he jumps, when he jumps, roll. There is a chance he will do a down thrust onto your head if you stay too close to his jumping position, usually a one hit kill. Make sure to be quick in getting back close to the original position if you don't have a decent shield. His tail will push you around a bit, but you should take little to no damage.

• With high Endurance and 100% damage reduction shield, face him head-on and block through his left and right swipes. The next attack will often be a long-charging forward lunge. Just circle right to evade it and close the gap to the demon. Hit him once or twice and back away. Ensure that you release the block button as often as you can to recharge your stamina between attacks. If you can use a greatshield with high stability (e.g. the Greatshield of Artorias), you can just stand in front of these guys (any of them) and take everything they throw at you (using the shield, of course), probably aside from the Grab and Bash move. You should be able to block their jump attack with ease, even when you let them land directly on top of you (as long as they still hit the shield and not your body). A fast weapon goes better (than a heavy weapon does) with this approach. After they finish a combo, give them a quick poke or two with, say, a spear, or thrusting sword. Block again. Repeat. No self-buff no nothing. It takes time, yes, but easy and stress-less, almost to the point of boring. It is likely that you will be the one chasing after them a lot, not the other way around.

• With the Ring of Fog equipped you can hide from them very easily. The easiest way to beat them safely is to lure them a little bit away from their resting position. If they lose sight of you they will turn their back to you and start slowly walking back to where they started. You can walk right up behind them and do a two-handed swipe at the tail. Maybe two if your weapon is fast enough. Right after turn around and run away until it can't see you anymore. Rinse and repeat. You should see little danger approaching them this way. It is slow, but very safe.

• Using the Red Tearstone Ring can help greatly, particularly when you are in the situation where "either you take one hit (and die) or none at all". Clearly, the damage boost from the ring reduces the time it takes to kill the Demons, thus the overall risk of getting hit. Using this ring, however, is even more beneficial against these three: one of the four in Sen's Fortress (the one near the Scythe), the one in The Catacombs, and the one in Lost Izalith. In the case of these three, you can get fairly close to them without aggro'ing them, which means you have an opportunity to position yourself and unleash the highest amount of damage you can possibly do in one attack (ranged), before actually starting the fight. *For the one in Lost Izalith, you need to take the shortcut from Quelaag's Domain so that you can approach him from behind.*

Undead Parish

• Get about 100 Large Arrows and run past the Prowling Demon and go down the stairs. To the right is a fallen pillar. If you stand just behind the pillar base, his attacks will hit the top of the pillar. You can move away from the base and fire, go behind the base again, wait for him to attack and fire again. He is weakest when he fires his lightning bolt. You won't do much more damage but you will do more than if you were just waiting for him to cast. Remain wary, if he stops casting his lightning attack, it may mean that he is about to lunge. His lunge has tremendous range and will leave you vulnerable to a lethal followup swing.

• Less than 30 casts of Soul Arrow with an Intelligence stat of around 20 also works well.

• In front of him lies a pillar on it's side. Enter the room and go down the short stair and slightly to the left. Move so his bolts start to hit the pillar in front of him. Then pull out your bow and fire away.

• Melee is possible at lower levels. Use the change in elevation just passed him to your advantage. Lure him over to the steps dropping down to the lower portion of the room right before the exit door. Make sure you are below him. His attacks will swing right over the top of your head, but not connect. This leaves you freedom to wail on him until your endurance wears out. Occasionally he will do an overhead attack that will damage you. Move away from him and heal yourself, dodge his magic attacks, and go back to the same spot.

• This is an easy way to deal with this enemy near Blacksmith Andre. Enter his room and he'll start his lightning ranged attack. Don't run up to him but move into a spot at the bottom of the short stair where his lightning is hitting the broken pillar in front of him. Take out your bow and fire away until dead as he will never stop casting as long as you don't get too close. Did this with a short bow and around 120 standard arrows.

• Another way is to run clean though the room to Darkroot Garden, kill the Demonic Foliage, then you can stand just to the right of the door and all his attacks will hit the doorframe while your own will go though the door.

Sen's Fortress

• There are four Prowling Demons in Sen's Fortress on the tar floor. The environment will impede your movement, so the use of a Rusted Iron Ring is highly recommended.
• With a Long Bow that hasn't been upgraded at all, it only takes about 110 Wooden Arrows each to kill the first and second Prowling Demon.

First Demon

• Located right under the entrance where the pendulum trap starts.

• You can perform a plunging attack on it for a large amount of damage. To maximize the damage, use Power Within before you descend. Either way, you will need Estus to heal from your fall, as while you can easily deal 800+ damage with a decently upgraded weapon, the attack will not kill the demon in one hit.

• You can kill it easily and safely with ranged attacks or spells.
  • From on top of the scaffold at the other side of the room, you can hit the Prowling Demon with arrows or spells and it won't retaliate at all.

Second Demon

• Located underneath the scaffold with three Serpent Mages, which is beneath where the pendulum trap ends.

• It's defending two items: a Soul of a Brave Warrior, and the Scythe. Although, It will not attack until you attack it or trespass. To give you an idea of how useful this is, you can walk right into it and it will not attack, so long as you haven't passed the doorway. To start the battle with this demon, ready your most powerful weapon, and try to deal the most damage you can manage.

• You can kill it easily and safely with ranged attacks or spells.
  • Later in the Sen's Fortress, you can access the top platform of the swinging blades. From the ball control room, go to the long staircase but immediately drop right, to a platform with a Serpent Mage. Go forward, you'll arrive at the top platform which contains the Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring at the corner, guarded by a Serpent Soldier. This platform has two large holes with small ledges. Go down the hole nearest from you came from by using the small ledges. Near the bottom of the ledges, you can see the Prowling Demon. You can kill him off safely with various Soul Arrows without him retaliating, or you can do a plunging attack for a huge damage.
  • Alternatively, you can lure the Prowling Demon out of its tunnel, where it will get stuck between pillars due to its massive size. While stuck, the demon will continuously attempt to run toward the player and very rarely use its ranged lightning attack. Even when it actually uses its ranged lightning attack, players can avoid it by simply stepping behind one of the many pillars near them.

Anor Londo

• If you have the Great Lightning Spear miracle and high Faith, you can hit him from above, in the room where you find a spear-wielding Silver Knight and a coprse containing a Soul of a Hero (all 10 shots on 35 faith; might work with other spells too - confirmed to work with Soul Arrow spells with careful positioning).

• There's a small area from where you can shoot him from above with arrows. Move directly in front of him, then two to three steps back. You should be able to see his tail moving through the balustrade, to the left of the altar - that's where you can hit him. I waited until his tail was on the right, then let loose three arrows, waited, and repeated the tactic. Please note that crooking the arrows before shooting doesn't work - just tap the key instead. Recommended to wait with killing him until you can take the shortcut below so you can pick up his drops.

• Alternatively, you can hit him with arrows (and even Dragonslayer Arrows to speed up the process) from outside the door to his room - take a few steps back towards the spiral staircase end of the hallway, you should be able to see his leg. He won't respond as you unload arrows, then just walk inside to collect the Demon Titanite.

Lost Izalith/Farming

• On the Izalith side of the demon near the beginning of the bridge there is a root on the left that comes to chest height. If you stand here and convince the demon to use it's spell against you, the lightning will strike the root, while your own spells will pass over. This is by far the easiest way to kill it, although if you take the shortcut you will need to make a risky maneuver to get around the demon.

• Using the shortcut from the Chaos Servant covenant, you can reach the Prowling Demon in about forty-five seconds to a minute. Equipping your best Pyromancy Flame, +15 normal or +5 Ascended, you can kill this beast in under a minute. Four attunement slots with Great Fireball, Great Chaos Fireball, and Iron Flesh. Run right up behind the demon and place yourself to the far left just beside his tail and use Iron Flesh. From here, spam the Fireballs and heal if you need to. Then Homeward or use Homeward Bone.

• If you don't have the Homeward miracle, you can just run back to the end of the tunnel you came from and suicide into the lava, taking you back to your last bonfire. There are no hostile enemies between the Daughter of Chaos bonfire shortcut and the demon, so getting your souls/humanity back is easy.

• Using Iron Flesh, a decently upgraded Pyromancy Flame, a full set of Black Iron/Havel's/Giant's and a good melee weapon, you can simply slug it out with the demon. Being closer to him allows you to spend less time healing and more time killing.

• For an easy ranged strategy, use the shortcut from the Demon Ruins side and stand right outside the part where it says "Lost Izalith". Wearing the Ring of Fog and the Hawk Ring, equip your Dragonslayer Greatbow and arrows and start shooting him. He won't turn around to attack and it takes 29 to 30 arrows.

• For an easy (but slow) melee strategy, use the Demon Ruins shortcut to approach him from behind. If you're not wearing any armor, you can sneak right up to him. Hit him once on the tail with your strongest melee attack, and then turn around and run back towards the Demon Ruins until he looses interest in you (typically when you reach the first stairs). Rinse, repeat.

• Farming this Demon might be easy for an INT build. Maximize your sorceries damage by equipping the following items : the Crown of Dusk/Crown of the Dark Sun, the Tin Crystallization Catalyst/Manus Catalyst/Logan's Catalyst (choose higher Magic Adjustment), the Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring, AND the Red Tearstone Ring. At 45-50 INT, with the aforementioned items, and the hefty damage boost from the Red Tearstone Ring, you can inflict high damage quickly by casting advanced sorceries like Homing Crystal Soulmass, Crystal Soul Spear, or Dark Bead Dark Bead works extremely well because you can easily make the entire spell hit him for huge damage by standing right behind him. If you want to use Dark Bead, however, you might want to replace the Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring with the Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring, so that you can walk up to right behind him without him detecting you. It's possible to kill the Demon in a few seconds this way.

Scarecrow with Plow

Scarecrow with Shears

Description

Scarecrows that are serfs of the forest sanctuary. They are found wielding two different gardening tools that they use as weapons; shears and a plow. Appearing in the Royal Wood, they are believed to be ancient versions of the Demonic Foliage that roam the Darkroot Garden. After the fall of Oolacile, the Scarecrows no longer had any need to operate as servants and regressed into the wild as feral creatures.

Location

Drops

• Bloodred Moss Clump (8% drop rate)
• Blooming Purple Moss Clump (8% drop rate)
• Blooming Purple Moss Clump (2% drop rate)
• Four-pronged Plow (Plow wielders only) (1% drop rate)

All drops are mutually exclusive

Attacks

Plow

• Quadruple poke - 4 digs in the ground. Short range.
• Overhead Sweep - slow to wind up, smash down.
• Long poke - pull back and poke with the plow.

Shears

• Slow cut - pull back and cut at your neck
• Quad cut - 4 quick chops at your head.

Weaknesses

Fire

Notes

• Very low poise. Any attack will stragger them.
• Their attacks drain little stamina when blocked.
• They blend into the forest extremely well. You may think you're pulling just one, but more can swarm you quickly. They also like to ambush you, dropping down from various locations.
• The scary Stone Guardians will often notice fights, and pile in, so be careful.
• They run pretty fast.

Strategies

Melee

Due to their low poise, simply block the first attack and then swipe at them with a fire weapon. Even low level characters should dispatch them in 2-3 hits.

Ranged

You might want to pull them with an arrow one by one, but watch for Stone Guardians taking note.

Sentinel

Royal Sentinel

Description

Giant brass warrior found protecting Anor Londo. Their attacks are powerful, but generally slow and easy to avoid. Be wary of high amounts of Stamina that may be drained by blocking their attacks.

The Royal Sentinels are identified by their long blue robes and are capable of casting a Wrath of the Gods like AoE attack, as well as a Heal miracle.

Location

Anor Londo

A group regular Sentinels are found in the beginning of Anor Londo, and outside of the giant, openable doors of the great hall. Two Royal Sentinels are found inside the great hall, outside of the Ornstein and Smough boss room.

Drops

• Giant's Halberd - rare, both types
• Giant's Shield - rare, both types
• Titanite Chunk - uncommon, Royal Sentinel only

Notes

Other than weapons in Occult upgrade paths, there are also two unique weapons that have Occult property as well, and therefore do bonus damage against the Sentinels. These weapons are:

• Priscilla's Dagger (110 Occult aux.)
• Velka's Rapier (110 Occult aux.)

Weakness

Occult weapons

Attack Patterns

They have four different attack moves, six for the Royal Sentinels.

• An horizontal swing from right to left, almost everytime followed by another swing from right to left. Time your dodge correctly for the second swing as it is slightly delayed and will chop you down if you roll too early.
• A hard-hitting overhead vertical swing that is really easy to dodge as it has a very poor tracking.
• A thrust attack, that may followed up with a quick horizontal swing.
• A shield bash/crush, which can be easily avoided but seem to deal small AoE damage in the direct vicinity of the Sentinel. Yet this move should be taken advantage of whenever possible as it leaves a huge opening.
• The Royal Sentinels can unleash a Wrath of the Gods like miracle that can send you flying but doesn't deal that much damage.
• The Royal Sentinels can heal themselves with another miracle. If they suddenly back off, run for it and try to catch them from the sides. This move leaves an opening for almost 3 seconds.

Strategy

Their shield will fully block every damage type. They're basically impossible to kill when attacking from the front if they're not in an attack animation. These guys are slow. Really slow. However they're unable to stop you from rolling between their legs when they're in an attack animation. The shield bash is the best time to try this, as that's when there's the most space for you to roll through, and since that space is open for the longest time. You'll find yourself behind them while they're recovering from their attack make the most of this time to attack. Be wary of the shock wave that the royal ones can unleash.

The safest and easiest way to tackle these guys is to get right underneath them in order to bypass their shield and let loose with combustion or great combustion, just keep moving in circles and wait for the two hit combo to end and flame away. fall back when they stand tall and cast their area of effect knockback magic spell, does a fair amount of damage, if your magic defense is below average.

Bow/Poison Arrow Strategy

Fire Poison arrows from snipe range and they never even move. Shoot three arrows or until their health bar shows and wait. May have to do it twice. Move a little closer to the one facing the door. Do not pass the edge of the doors on the first one and walk to the third pillar on the left, counting one at the archway entrance, for the second in order to clear his shield but still at a safe distance. The Sentinels have their critical spot (arrow does ~1.1x more damage) at their Achilles heel (Anything lower than Knee) instead of their heads, so if you are used to manual aiming & sniping using Hidden Body/Fog Ring, aim for their heel to save arrows!

Melee Strategy

These lumbering giants are very susceptible to fast movement and dodging. Equip light armor, or go in naked to max your speed, get right up in their face and simply dodge when they take a swing, if it is the horizontal swing, be ready to dodge a second time as they may still hit you otherwise, regardless, with a speedy dodge they will be left wide open and a couple shots from a large weapon being 2-handed should momentarily stun them allowing you so easily strike the killing blow. Weapons that cause bleeding are also very effective here, causing the Sentinels to lose a large chunk of their health after four or 5 hits.

Lock on and circle around them (after luring them away from their buddy) until they expose themselves with a shield slam onto, or while you're behind them you can get an attack in. When doing this against a Royal Sentinel, beware of their blast miracle as it does a sizable amount of damage even with your shield up. When they get low they will cast a healing miracle which will bring their HP to almost full. If they get in a crouching position they are completely invulnerable from the front, so try to get around their shield and take them out quickly.

Description

Half man, half cobra, with four arms quad-wielding spiral swords. They can do melee and ranged lightning attacks. In Sen's Fortress they make it difficult to navigate the small pathways while trying to avoid the swinging blades.

Location

Drops

Flamberge (2% drop rate)

Attacks

• Devour - a devastating attack that deals massive damage. The serpent mage raises her head and lashes forward to devour the player's head.
• Lightning projectile - mostly used when at a distance. Throws lightning bolt at the player. Slow and easily avoided as long as you have room to dodge. Deals purely magic damage.
• Attack frenzy - attack with all four weapons. Build up bleed when hit. Try to dodge, but can be deflected with a medium shield.
• Spit attack- rare use and only if the player is at mid to close range.

Weakness

Lightning, even though they themselves use lightning attacks. Note that though these appear as lightning, they do magic damage.

Strategy

Melee

Rush them before they fire lightning bolts at you. Dodge their attacks, then hit hard with a lightning weapon. In New Game Plus, four quick stabs with a Lightning Spear +5 take these down. They stagger if you land enough attacks in a row.

Ranged (Bow & Arrow)

The size of their heads makes it easy to headshot them continuously and put them in a stun-lock until they die.

Description

Tall soldiers, half man, half serpent. Equipped with a huge sword and a wooden shield. They either attack with their sword or try to bite the player.

Location

Drops

Man-serpent Greatsword (2% drop rate)

Attacks

• Bite - They raise and then lunge their heads, biting the player. Does a fair amount of damage and can still inflict a small amount of damage even with a shield up.
• Forward sword stab - The thrust their sword in a straight line towards the player. Easily dodged, leaving them wide open for attacks.
• Normal sword sweep - Default attack, sweeps sword from right to left.
• Heavy sword hit - Lunges out and charges up a heavy hit. Easily dodged and leaving their guard open for several counter attacks.

Weakness

• Lightning-based attacks do a lot of damage
• Fire does a good amount of damage (use Firebombs or Combustion)

Strategies

This type of enemy differs from others in a particular way: they have high poise and therefore are quite hard to stun, making very difficult to hit them more than once; but, on the other hand, all of their sword attacks can be deflected even with medium deflection (i.e. normal shields), leaving them staggered and open to a retaliation from the player. Also, they're quite slow; you can easily circle around them for a backstab or land several consecutive quick attacks (with, for example, thrusting swords or spears) in a row. They are also weak to bleed as I have been able to kill them in 2 hits using a plus 5 lifehunt scythe on NG+3 the first hit will not do much but the blood loss should finish them on the 2nd hit

Sword

Spear

Archer

Description

The Silver Knights protect Anor Londo. When Lord Gwyn departed to link the Fire, he brought all of his Black Knights with him. The Silver Knights remained in the forsaken capital Anor Londo, in the service of their goddess. Silver Knights appear wielding three different types of weapons; a straight sword, a spear, and a greatbow.

Location

Anor Londo
Common enemy protecting the main building.

Drops

• Silver Knight Shield (1%)
• Silver Knight Straight Sword (2%), sword-wielding only
• Silver Knight Spear (2%), spear-wielding only

Shield and Weapon drop are mutually exclusive

• Dragonslayer Arrow (7% for 1x, 3% for 3x), archer only

Notes

• Killing them is great for accumulating souls quickly. Check the Soul Farming page

Attacks

Straight Sword Silver Knights

• Straight thrust. Takes off a lot of stamina, but is easy to see and has a long recovery.
• Right swing. A swing attack from the Knight's shield side to his right arm. Has a long recovery and no followup.
• Running Slash. Knight charges, bringing the sword up behind him to execute a downward slash.
• Three hit combo. Comes out fairly fast and takes off a lot of health if it hits, but doesn't hit your stamina that hard if blocked. You can backstab after the last hit if you're fast enough. Also fairly easy to parry.
• Shield bash. Takes off a ton of stamina, but deals little actual damage. Even if this breaks your guard, you will still recover in time for whatever their next attack is.
• Slow-windup stab. Seldom used, but it ignores shields. Identified by the Knight holding his shield over his sword hand. They can walk a short distance in this stance before launching the attack.

Spear Silver Knights

• Charging lunge. Like the sword version, except with longer reach.
• Three hit combo. Three straight thrusts in a row, Hits hard, but tracks poorly. Easy to backstab.
• Shield bash. Identical to the one used by the straight sword variant.
• Spinning slash. Swings the spear in a horizontal arc. Easily blocked and backstabbed. If you are in front of them when they do this, sometimes they will follow it up with a straight thrust.
• Longer spinning slash. Identical to the spinning slash, but with a slightly longer windup. It is less common and has no followup.
• Slow-windup stab that ignores shields. Even rarer than the one used by the sword version. Also identified by the knight raising his shield over his weapon.

Greatbow Silver Knights

• Dragonslayer arrow shots. Fires massive arrows the size of spears at the player. Produces knockback effect even when blocked.
• Straight Sword moveset. The Greatbow-wielding Silver Knights switch to the Silver Knight Straight Sword when approached.

Strategies

• While they can hit very hard, they are also very consistent and clearly telegraph their attack patterns. Once you have the timing down, ripostes can be executed quickly and consistently. Backstabbing them is a lot more difficult compared to, for example, backstabbing Black Knights, because the Silver Knights move/turn faster and their attacks have wider arcs.

• The first archers encountered in the level provide a significant obstacle for a lot of new players. Consider using ranged attacks to poison them, or run in closely while running past or rolling under their shots. Get close to the archer on the right to make it switch from its bow to the straight sword. The terrain can be used to make the knight fall during combat. Or, with a bit of practice, you can parry its attacks. If you do, be wary when doing a riposte, as you can fall if you're in a bad position.

NG+ If you have a greatbow and some greatarrows to spare, they can easily be beaten at their own game.
Tip: All silver knights are vulnerable to knockback attacks.

• Deeper inside the building once you get in to the bonfire on the left passed the archers, there are numerous Silver Knights. In on particular room there are 3 Silver Knights, 2 at the end of the room opposite the door and 1 waiting for the player on the right. Prior to this room is where you can once again meet Siegmeyer of Catarina, this time talking to the player about the Silver Knights holding him up and claiming to need 3 to 5 more people to progress. Anyways the Knights in the adjacent room can enter Siegmeyer's room, and if they backstep/sidestep into him they collide with him and take 150-200 damage whilst he does nothing whatsoever. This can be of great use if you are having trouble (triggering 2 or all 3 of the knights at once by accident) seeing as it can take out 1/3 to 1/2 of their health.

• Silver Knights have lower overall Poise than Black Knights. If you two-hand a greatsword and hit them, they will be staggered. You can then keep hitting them and, basically, stun-lock them to death. With a decent greatsword, it should take only 3 or 4 hits to kill them. They can also be pinned down to the ground by the Titanite Catch Pole.

Description

Skeleton Archers who will begin firing arrows at you upon sight.

Location

The Catacombs

Stats

Drop

Nothing

Strategies

These enemies are not particularly difficult when handled one-on-one, although they will run away from you if you take your time in getting close. Like other Skeletons in the Catacombs, they will return to life if you aren't using a weapon with a Divine buff, or haven't killed the specific Necromancer controlling them. Astora's Straight Sword works well if you don't have any divine upgrade weapons.

Description

Small baby skeleton enemy. A group will spawn as the player walks through the water area before Nito's fog gate. They are little enough that you can possibly miss them by swinging your weapons too high, though locking-on generally fixes that.

Location

Weakness

• Fire
• Blunt/Strike

Attack

• Punch - builds up Toxic. The toxin's HP loss rate is 7 HP/seconds
• Jumping attack - also builds up Toxic

Strategy

• Consider carrying Blooming Purple Moss Clump when fighting them.

• They deal very little damages individually, but their strength is in the numbers, and they have plenty of numbers (about 5-10 by very big group). They have zero strategy apart from swarming you, and even then they are easy to dodge by walking.

• Be wary of the surrounding Pinwheel Servants in the room.

• They will only spawn as long your character is in the entrance to the cavern or the water. Stepping in and out of the water while killing them is a good way to control the spawn rate and ensure you can handle them.

• As long as you keep the swarm of these creatures in front of you, any decent weapon can kill them easily. But you'll want to kill as much as possible with a single hit:
  • Weapons with sweeping horizontal attack (e.g. greatswords, ultra greatswords, Great Scythe, Butcher Knife, etc)
  • You can also use spears. The have narrower hitbox but also longer range and the ability to hide behind shield, preferably Spider Shield, Crystal Shield, or Greatshield of Artorias.

Farming

The skeleton babies drop humanity (around 5% at 410 item discovery) and respawn continually, making them one of the preferred methods for farming humanity.

Farming tips

• The dropped items will disappear quickly in the water, sometimes in a second or less after appearing. You have to be quick to pick up those items or you will miss them. Although they still disappear out of the water (sometimes after ~15 seconds or so), you have much more time to collect them there. Pulling the baby skeletons onto land is recommended.

• It is highly recommended that you bring several weapons or repair powder if you plan on farming for an extended duration without returning to a bonfire.

• Equipping the Ring of the Evil Eye can help you conserve your estus flask. Be aware that the ring counts kills with a small timespan as a single one, so if you are priotizing healing, isolate few skeleton babies and take them out individually.

• Attempt to kill as many babies in one swing, especially if killing the baby skeletons in the water. Not only does this save on repairs, but it gives you the time to wait and see if any drop a Humanity, since you don't have to swing again which may make you miss a drop (as stated above, they can disappear VERY quickly).

• Depending on the priorities of the player, it is also possible to equip the Covetous Silver Serpent Ring and receive a huge quantities of souls while farming humanity. Baby-farming provides a steady and strong supply of both souls and humanity.

• Enjoyably, one can equip the full Set of Thorns and roll around in the water to kill the skeleton babies. Note that it takes two rolls in order to kill the Skeleton Babies. Also, it is more difficult to collect the humanity they drop, so this is primarily for a different kind of rapid soul-farming more-so than for humanity. Also, be careful of toxic, as you will undoubtedly be struck occasionally.

• Farming is always a bit tedious, so to break the monotony you can lay a soul sign and help people with Nito. As long as you survive the fight, you will be sent back to where you were (dying send you back to the last bonfire with your humanity and souls untouched). The perfect level-range for a lot of summons is around 60-70 (NG) or 100 (NG+). Even between those two hot spots you can be summoned, but it's a lot rarer. If you get summoned, bring a back-up divine weapon to put the reviving skeletons down for good.

• The Ring of Fog can be used to see through your character if you wish to know if a skeleton is blocking you, in the event you're wearing a robe and can't see your legs.

• Don't swing faster than you can collect, if you kill two skeletons far from each other and they both drop something, you may miss one of the drops. Spears or poles offer a great narrow damage-zone, so you can keep your drops close to each other.

aka Skeleton Dog

Description

These giant abominations have an appearance similar to their Giant Skeleton brethren, but they walk on all fours and have feral mannerism.

Location

Weakness

• Fire

Attack Pattern

They cycle through 3 attacks:

• Lunging bite, where it will flail itself at you for major damage.
• A standard bite attack which still hits pretty hard but it's blockable.
• A quick swipe with its arm that can be followed by another quick swipe from his other arm, it's easily blocked but if the first swipe hits you, there's almost no time to recover before the second swipe hits you again, dealing moderate to serious damage.

Do not think you're safe just because you're behind them. The lunging repeated-biting attack (which can easily take away all your stamina with damage to spare, and which also pushes you far back even if you block it) tracks easily, and they have been seen pretty much instantly turning around to take chomps out of you.

Strategies

Stealth

Use the short aggro range to avoid detection by most of the Skeleton Beasts. Contact can be avoided by running past all of them.

Melee

They are very tricky to deal with so the best thing to do is make sure you have any type of big shield with good stability around 70 (Eagle Shield works great) move up to them slowly and block the first attack and keep circling around them waiting for the claw swipe attack which doesn't take too much stamina to block, use this as your time to strike, patience is the key. What you could also try doing is, if you happen to have Fireball or Fire Orb, hit him with one of those to start and immediately block his attack, that will usually set you up to move in close easily without any hassle.

Melee Strategy: Strength Build

It is possible to lock onto them from outside the range of your light, and outside of their aggro range. This makes it simple to perform a strong jump-attack, killing them in one blow. For first playthrough, unupgraded weapons with sufficient power such as Dragon Tooth or Demon's Greataxe are enough. It's still possible on subsequent playthrough, although you should upgrade your preferred heavy weapon to maximum (e.g. you can use a Demon Great Machete +15).

Melee Strategy: Outmaneuver

Since the dogs aren't exactly nimble it's simple to get behind them (Or at least to their side) and hit them.
NOTE: You will still need to make sure you stay by their side so they can't hit you.

Pyromancy Strategy

Great Fireball or Great Chaos Fireball should one hit them if your Pyromancy Flame is upgraded enough. Great Chaos Fireball is actually capable of killing them in just one hit even on NG+6, provided you use an Upgraded Pyromancy Flame +5 and wear the Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring (the hit itself takes away almost all of their health and the lingering lava finishes them off): approach them carefully to hit while they're still not aggroed and they won't even have the time to get near you. Alternatively, you can also just cast Iron Flesh on yourself and battle it out with the beasts with the best weapon you have.

Mage/Fighter Strategy

If your INT is 31 or higher, you can summon 5 missiles with each cast of Homing Soulmass or Homing Crystal Soulmass (the later is much better). If all five missiles hit at the same time (or in rapid succession), the beast will be staggered, giving you an opportunity to attack, risk-free. So, the general approach is: cast one of these two spells (at a good distance from the Skeleton Beast), run straight at it, then do a running attack with the strongest/heaviest weapon you can handle (two-handed) (if that's not enough, hopefully one more hit will do the trick). The missiles should hit the beast and stagger it before it could touch you, or even react to your approaching.
If you are investing heavily in a pure-caster build, you can certainly just kite it to death with spells.

Description

Skeleton Wheels are counterparts to the typical Skeletons found throughout Lordran. These Skeletons have been attached to a spiked wooden wheel which they use as an attack method. Taking a run at their opponent they jump and hold onto the wheel, becoming a devastating foe as they begin to roll towards their opponent and hack away at them with the wheel's spikes as they spin. They are able to continue rolling for reasonable periods of times but have little steering ability. They do continuous damage and continue to roll until eventually they stop to prepare for their next attack. Often being in wide open spaces in spread out groups, they can be deadly if not fought tactically.

Location

Drop

Bonewheel Shield - 1%

Attack Patterns

• Forward roll at player. Devastating to hp and stamina. When blocking, use the shield with the highest stability at your disposal. Dodging recommended.

Strategy

• Fighting more than one, is a really good way to get yourself killed; try fighting them one by one.

• Try to kill them before they have a chance to hit you at all. Good timing on a strong spear attack is a good strategy.

• Generally, the most efficient to way to fight these enemies is to dodge the rolling attack and chase them down. When they hit a wall or an obstacle they will stand up and turn around. This is the time to attack.

• A bow can be used to aggro them from afar in order to take them out one at a time.

• While in the catacombs, drop onto the promontory with the corpse holding the Cleric set and mace. Use a bow or Aural Decoy to lure them to you and you can them pick them off with sorceries. Soul Spears/Arrows should do the trick just fine.

Notes

• If they hit you unblocked it can be an instant kill due to the stunlock.

Even when blocking it's possible for them to take your whole stamina bar before glancing off.
The very fast multiple hits hurt a lot if you get caught between them and a wall, so try not to do that. Even running into their back results in damage while they are spinning.

• When you encounter them in the Catacombs, a viable strategy is to lure them toward the crypt where you fought the Necromancer guarded by two Skeleton archers. Position yourself to the left side of the entrance to the crypt, dodge their roll attack, and watch as they plummet to their demise through a hole in the world (glitch).

• In the Catacombs, they can be lured and shot from the room where you fight the Black Knight. They will attack the base of where you are standing, but will lose interest and wander off. It takes some time, but it's very safe as long as you're happy enough to take out the Black Knight.

• It appears that fire weapons can kill them more easily compared to other types of weapons. Also, if you time it right, you can swing your sword and hit them before they hit you and they will die before you getting hit at all.

• Use Homing Soulmass or Homing Crystal Soulmass at Painted World of Ariamis is very helpful to dispatch the Skeleton Wheels guarding the wheel mechanism that opens the door to boss area.

• If you have Karmic Justice active, you can take all of their hits through a shield without 100% damage reduction. Doing so will trigger the miracle and temporarily cripple the skeleton, while causing major damage.

• Use Firestorm, Chaos Storm, or Fire Tempest if you know a group of them is attacking you at once. This works particularly well in the Painted World of Ariamis.

• Especially in the Painted World of Ariamis, stealth spells such as Hidden Body and Hush are extremely useful to get within melee range before being seen by a Skeleton Wheel. This allows you to easily engage them one at a time.

Scimitar

Falchion

Archer

Description

These skeletal soldiers often initially appear as scattered bones on the ground and will assemble as you approach. They are untargetable until they start putting their head on, but can always be hit while they are reassembling after being staggered or knocked down.

Every group of Skeletons (about 6 or more) in The Catacombs belongs to a Necromancer. While a Necromancer lives, Skeletons under his command will reassemble themselves at full health after taking fatal damage unless the killing blow was dealt with a Divine weapon¹ or by falling off a cliff where there is no ground to land on (for example off the path leading to The Catacombs). If it does land on ground it will revive where it landed. Skeletons only give souls when they are permanently killed so use this to confirm they will not revive.

Killing a Necromancer who commands his own flock of Skeletons will stop those Skeletons from reviving, even if there are other Necromancers around. The Necromancers do not respawn.

Location

Firelink Shrine
At the graveyard area, near the entrance to the Catacombs. These don't have a Necromancer master, and so do not reassemble.

Catacombs
Common enemies throughout the area.

Tomb of the Giants
Summoned by Gravelord Nito at the start of his encounter. He acts as the Necromancer for these Skeletons.

Drops

• Scimitar skeleton
  • Scimitar - rare
  • Red and White Round Shield - rare

• Falchion skeleton
  • Falchion - rare
  • Red and White Round Shield - rare

• Archer skeleton
  • Short Bow - rare

Attacks

• Rolling attack
• Strong Lunge Slash Attack
• Two quick slashes followed by backwards jump to avoid counterattacks.
• Multiple Slashes from 1 to 4 attacks continuously
• Switches stance to holding his scimitar pointed to your right. If you attack while they are in this stance, they will parry and severely injure you.
• Corkscrew Dive Bomb Attack (for lack of a better name): The Dive Bomb Attack consists of the skeleton visibly "charging up" and then flying at you in a corkscrew spin for High Damage, shattering and re-assembling himself, leaving himself vulnerable for attacks.

Note that their Falchion and Scimitar strikes cause bleed damage, even though those weapons don't cause that effect when the player is using them.

Strategy

• For new characters, use a hammer weapon (e.g. Mace, or Morning star) to knockdown skeletons. They're vulnerable to knockdown by both quick and strong attacks from a mace, though the duration of their knockdown is longer with a strong attack. This allows the player to link together a series of quick/strong attacks and defeat skeletons unscathed. Can also be used to knock them off cliffs.

• Like Hollow archers, Skeleton archers will run away from you if you take your time in getting close, so kill them quickly.

• Other than weapons in Divine upgrade paths, there are five unique weapons that have Divine property as well: Astora's Straight Sword, Greatsword of Artorias, Crescent Axe, Silver Knight Spear, and Grant. They also prevent Skeletons from reviving.

Description

Slimey creatures that often drop from the ceiling. They're slow and don't deal much damage unless they attach to you from above.

Location

Drops

• Approximately 3.5% chance (at base Item Discovery) of dropping a shard, which is then 50/50 Green or Large. Therefore:
• Green Titanite Shard : ~1.75%
• Large Titanite Shard : ~1.75%

Weaknesses

• Fire

Attacks

• Melee attacks - When on the floor, they grow slightly just before the attack. This is a very slow attack and can easily be countered. If you attack them while they're in the middle of enlarging, it will cancel their attack.
• Spikes - They emit spikes from their slimy body. Low range, low damage.
• Drop down - Usually found on the ceiling, they will drop onto you from above when you travel underneath them. This can be a dangerous attack depending on your Soul Level.

Notes

• Mind the ceiling. They fall on your head and eat through a large portion of your health. There is a hallway where a half dozen of them will try to surprise you at the beginning of the Depth (assuming you enter from undead Burg, which is likely). Usually if you walk near them they'll just drop in front of you, making it easy for you to just walk by or around them.
• In most cases you can sprint through this hallway with ease without them dropping onto you.
• If you do get caught by the slime, quickly mash the L1 and R1 buttons to shake it off. This can prevent you from otherwise taking a fatal amount of damage.
• If you are playing co-op, the other person can knock the slime off of your head.

Description

Undead rat with festering open wounds and poisonous attacks. Even though it's the smallest of its kin, it's still the size of a dog. Not very strong, but often appear in groups, so be careful and bring poison resistance equipments.

Location

Firelink Shrine
One is located inside the aqueduct tunnel connecting the Firelink Shrine to the Undead Burg.

Undead Parish
There are three in the room with the ladder underneath the Hellkite Dragon bridge.

The Depths
Found in various locations throughout the level. A few are hiding in boxes and will ambush the player.

Drops

Humanity

Attacks