Dark Souls Prepare To Die Edition Walkthrough
Jamey Saldana
To many, Dark Souls III [official site] can be summarised as a boss stamping on a human face forever. We're here to help. This is a guide to killing all of the bosses in Dark Souls 3 but it's not simply a how-to-murder manual. It also takes a look at some of the sumptuous design and the patchwork lore surrounding many of the bosses, explaining who they are, what they leave behind when they perish, and why it's necessary to steal all of their souls. As such it's absolutely riddled with spoilers, as well as strategies and a sprinkling of silliness.
Fire works an absolute treat, so if you picked up some firebombs on your travels try chucking them at him in his second form and following up with a few melee attacks. For ranged or magic users this fight is incredibly simple, stay at a distance, wait until he commits to a combo, then dodge away and hit him with everything you've got. Pyromancy completely destroys his second form.
That's because you are! Vordt is an Outrider Knight for a chap called Pontiff Sulyvahn and wears a ring that has twisted him into a beast-like form. He also has a rather large mace that can inflict Frostbite status.
As a dog lover I find this fight difficult to stomach, but I suppose normal dogs don't usually assault me with maces, or wear armour, and they're not usually 20 feet tall... OK, you've convinced me, how do I put this guy down?
The best way to hurt Vordt as a melee character is get in real close to him and dodge or block his mace combos, then hammer away at him with all you've got. When you're basically underneath him some of his attacks will miss too. He might look intimidating, but get up close and he'll struggle to swat at you.
Actually you don't have to, this boss is totally optional, however if you plan to transpose boss souls into powerful weapons, items and spells you definitely want to. I'm afraid this spirit tree is long past the point of being friendly however, infected as it is with the darkness that has afflicted all inhabitants of the Undead Settlement.
You have to attack the egg-sacs found on key locations on the tree. There are two ways to go about this. Firstly you can attack the eggs under his right leg, left arm and on his back, but you will have to contend with the roaming villagers at the same time.
Your other option is to great straight for his belly, destroying that sac will cause the tree to break the ground and you'll fall into a large underground chamber, the villagers will stop appearing, but there are other consequ..
As I was saying, consequences. The groin-arm is a wild flailing thing and makes going for those frontal egg-sacs a pain. The plus side is that hitting the arm is another way to do significant damage to Treebeard if you're finding it difficult to hit the sweet spots. The key to this fight is dodging heavy swings then quickly scrambling those eggs with a couple of quick attacks. Be careful when the tree starts to leak life-sapping err.. sap onto the floor. You might want to take a step or two backwards and wait for it to reside.
Well, he's not that tough: homing missiles, energy blasts, crystal lines on the ground and slow moving purple homing missiles. Plus the power of disappearing into the ground, I've got this. I just need to keep an eye on his projectiles and use a little bit of patience.
The second phase of the fight sees the Sage creating illusions of himself; they die in a single stroke, but you need to attack the one sage that is wielding purple spells to actually damage the health bar.
Unless the actual sage spawns right next to you, it's prudent to try and quickly take out a couple of illusions before heading for him, as it means you'll have less to dodge. You can also start staggering the boss more easily at this phase of the fight, allowing you to get some valuable attacks in before he disappears into the ground.
Aha, easy enough. I can either hack through them to reach the priest with an aura or make them come towards me and dash around the back. Their candle attacks and Fireballs seem easy enough to dodge unless I allow myself to get swarmed. So who are these guys anyway?
That's Archdeacon Royce, all you need to do is attack him to finish off the boss. Again you can either hack your way through the pack of priests, or try and trick them into following you, then run around the side to reach the Archdeacon.
These are the Abyss Watchers, heirs to the legacy of Knight Artorias who you may remember from Dark Souls 1. They are enemies of Abyssal forces (presumably why two Darkwraiths are fighting their way to the boss area). But now they appear to be cursed to fight one another in eternal battle, which is a little sad. I suppose when you stare into the Abyss long enough, sometimes it stares ba-
So this fight is a little complicated. The first Abyss watcher is basically a rubbish version of Artorias from Dark Souls 1's Prepare to Die edition. You can parry him, back stab him, dodge and block his attacks.
Dodging is your best bet here unless you have a shield with strong fire defence. You need to wait for gaps in his combos and punish them; don't try and be cocky and dodge into him when he's mid-combo. Another option is to bait out his long ranged dash and roll through it. Time it right and you'll avoid all damage and be positioned to rain down some hurt.
For casters the key is that ranged dash: run away from the boss, wait until he commits to the dash - then dodge and hit him with your magic. He often finishes his combos in a vulnerable state too, just stay out of range and wait for those precious moments.
13,500 Souls isn't a bad little haul, the boss soul can be used for another 20,000 souls or transposed into Farron's Greatsword or the Wolf Knight's Greatsword. You also get your first Cinders of a Lord, which you can place on the correct throne at Firelink Shrine.
I'm wise to your tricks Dark Souls, obviously touching this Skull Faced goblet will do bad things... hrm, it's transported me to a very dark place. I can see some shiny loot, which I must hav- GIANT SKULL FACE MAN.
Wolnir wears three magical bracelets on his arms which you'll need to destroy. Targeting them can be a little finicky, especially with smaller weapons or magics, and the lock on is frustratingly far away from the actual area you need to hit as well.
Each time you destroy a bracelet he gets a small buff including spawning skeletons of increasingly annoying variety (which he usually kills himself) as well as handily finding a magic sword after two bracelets are destroyed.
22,000 are yours along with the Grave Warden Pyromancy Tome which you greedily nabbed at the start of the fight. The boss soul which can be transposed into Wolnir's Holy Sword or the Black Serpent Pyromancy, or consumed for 10,000 souls.
They're essentially dead or dying alongside the 'chaos flame', a misguided attempt to recreate the First Flame by the Witch of Izalith. After the death of the Bed of Chaos the twisted demons started to die out, this fellow seems to be on his last legs too.
It's a classic Dark Souls ploy, the boss who looks finished, with the laboured animations. Except this time he has a surprise in store in the form of an incredibly powerful flame blast just when you think he's done, put him down before he uses it.
What you get to kill is far worse than just a silly normal God. Sulyvahn is another minion of Aldrich and along with the unpleasant fanatics of the Cathedral he has been feeding the devourer powerful souls. He may be a mere minion but this is a tough encounter.
Then you're doing it right mostly. Try roll-strafing round him in a circle and get a little dig in now and again as you avoid his attacks. It's rare you'll get a safe opportunity to get more than one or two hits in at a time. Alternatively you can actually parry the Pontiff - try using a light shield and timing it with one of his wind up attacks with the overhead animations. If you mess up instantly roll away, parry successfully and you should be doing incredibly high damage to the pontiff.
You can, but leaving the clone alive can actually be useful as it telegraphs the attacks of the real Pontiff. If you can stay out of range of the clone, you can predict how the Pontiff will move and pre-emptively dodge into a position where you can cause him some real harm. If you find this too difficult then you are probably better off just taking out the clone. Watch out for his new attacks in the second phase of the fight, such as sending a giant magic spear out from his sword, or his jump attack that finishes with a fiery explosion.
Not quite, you need to charge up a special attack by holding down your L2 button or equivalent (Left Ctrl is the default for the two of you out there playing on keyboard & mouse). Once fully charged, you unleash a devastating wave with strong attack.
That was disappointingly easy, considering how awesome this fellow looked in the trailer. Does he at least have a compellingly tragic back-story about being consumed by madness or falling into ruin?
Yhorm is an ancient conqueror who became the ruler of those he conquered. There's an element of self-sacrifice in his tale, suggesting he willingly took on the role of lord despite knowing how it would end. He also has an understated relationship with Siegward of Caterina if you followed his side-quest.
36,000 of the blighters, a further 20,000 if you eat his heart (that's how this works right?). You can also transpose his soul for Yhorm's Great Machete or Yhorm's Greatshield, if you want to hold some equipment that is far too big for you.
This is Aldrich and she's the worst. Her body is an amorphous blob that devours gods (the name kind of gives it away), and she is a composite of at least three recognizable Dark Souls bosses. They include Dark Sun Gwyndolin, Nito - whose cloak she wears - and Priscilla, a part-dragon lady with a tail who formerly ruled the Painted World.
Aldrich is to blame for a lot of the awfulness in Dark Souls 3, with both the Cathedral of the Deep and the Pontiff Sulyvahn in her thrall, feeding her the souls of powerful beings and pursuing her foes with violent fanaticism.
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