Elden Ring’s bosses are one of the many reasons why this game is considered as revolutionary as it is. Fromsoftware took their tried and tested formula of making great boss fights and made many of them even more epic in scale and design, with bosses doing unexpected and complex moves that we couldn’t even have thought of!
So, with this innovation and grand scale of fights comes a great amount of difficulty. These games are notorious because of their difficulty and Elden Ring is no exception, and though not all of the main bosses in the game are hard, it always helps to have a guide, just in case.
(As a note, there are more than 15 unique bosses, but the ones listed here are either required by the story or are otherwise explicitly stated to be massive parts of the game itself. For example, some of my favorite fights in the game, Lichdragon Fortissax and Dragonlord Placidusax, won’t be included as they are both completely side things that have no bearing on the main story)
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
15. Red Wolf of Radagon
This lupine loser is nothing short of a pushover, with no real strategy even being needed to beat him, save for your standard well-timed dodges and attacking when you see an opening. He takes a ton of damage as well so leveling up enough before you even get to Raya Lucaria helps. He is quite fast though, so be sure to not get greedy and you’ll do great.
How to beat Red Wolf of Radagon:
- He is very fast so always time your dodges and attacks
- When he does his 3 glintstone darts, just sprint to the left side until they all miss
- His jump to the air AoE can hurt pretty bad so learn the timing to it
- Just play the game standardly and you can beat him through intuition
How to beat this boss: https://youtu.be/X80HUCyG9cw
14. Sir Gideon Ofnir, the All-Knowing
As a boss fight, Sir Gideon isn’t very difficult, though he can easily kill you if you stop paying attention and don’t learn his moveset. He plays like your typical magic spammer in PvP, using insanely strong but readable sorceries and incantations that you will encounter throughout your runtime of the entire game, often mixing them up to keep you on your toes.
How to beat Sir Gideon Ofnir:
- Since he is an NPC, he staggers very easily so using colossal weapons really helps
- He takes a ton of damage
- He is very susceptible to bleed and takes a ton of damage through it
- Watch out for when he does glintstone comet shard, he can either do one or 3 in a row which deal a ton of damage
How to beat this boss: https://youtu.be/lOwu2QI1xy8
13. Margit, The Fell-Omen
Where I differed was that I had completed all of the side quests in Limgrave before I decided to take on Margit, meaning I was super overleveled and did a ton of damage. This led to me beating Margit on my first try, but I could still see why people who didn’t overlevel themselves would find him difficult.
How to beat Margit:
- Maintaining a distance from Margit can be great against him
- Continually strafing to his left or right side with well-timed dodges can give you openings to do damage
- For his second phase, keeping a distance can bait his jumping hammer smash
- This has a fairly long recovery so you can get many attacks in
- Be mindful of his delays, especially of his overhead slam
How to beat this boss: https://youtu.be/02PjeMllulQ
12. Godrick the Grafted
As a fight, this has spectacle like very few others. The fight starts with a great cutscene, but continues to keep up the pace with Godricks insane jumps and earthquakes and wind attacks. The second phase starts with another insane cutscene of him grafting a dragon head to his own hand with the best voice acting in the entire game. If this was a quality ranking, this fight would be near the top.
How to beat Godrick:
- Bleed weapons and builds are very effective against Godrick
- His earthquake AoE has a deceptively large reach and delayed timing so your best bet is to run as far as possible when he starts it
- His attacks are heavy and slow so dodge well and get a couple of hits in, rinse and repeat
- Nepheli Loux is a great summon for this fight
How to beat this boss: https://youtu.be/_wl71myyD-k
11. Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon
Phase 1 is insanely easy, where you just have to run around and find the student with the golden aura around her. Killing 3 of them at a time will bring Rennala down for a short while to get hits in. The second phase consists of Rennala using all her power, utilizing all sorts of magical summons and sorceries.
How to beat Rennala:
- In the first phase, kill all the students with golden auras to bring Rennala down
- Keep doing this until her health bar runs out
- For the second phase, your best bet is to be as aggressive as possible
- She staggers a lot so keep hitting her as much as you can
- Colossal and generally heavier and stronger weapons do a ton of damage and also stagger her a lot
- When she uses summons, just sprint to the sides or backwards in order for their timer to run out so they eventually disappear
- Sprint to the left when she does her kamehameha attack (comet azur)
How to beat this boss: https://youtu.be/HuQcIIoodwM
10. Praetor Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy
The fight’s difficulty really boils down to one thing: whether you’re going to use the Serpent Slayer or not. Without it, it turns into a tough battle of attrition that lasts very long and can kill you very easily with just a hit or 2, but with the weapon it turns out to be almost exactly the Yhorm fight from DS3, not hard but not exactly easy either as the Serpent Slayer really changes how the fight goes.
How to beat Rykard:
- Use the Serpent Slayer
- In the second phase when he unleashes the Rykards Rancor sorcery, just keep circling him to whichever side but keep your eye on him
- He can do super powerful moves that can 2 shot you so keeping your eyes on him is what really makes the difference
- After this entire thing, just stick close to him and keep hitting
- Don't mind the lava damage as it is very little and you can just run back and heal
How to beat this boss: https://youtu.be/2TU3-E7rpGo
9. Fire Giant
His first phase is very slow and while the attacks are delayed, they are fairly easy to learn and dodge. The real threat is the amount of damage they do, as well as learning the timing for them due to delays. Second phase requires a lot of spatial awareness because although he has ditched his giant plate thing, he starts doing a ton of fire attacks that happen very frequently and cover a large area.
How to beat Fire Giant:
- Hug his left ankle and keep attacking
- Torrent can be used in the fight so make sure you’re riding him as he’s much faster and can double jump
- The fight starts with the boss doing a ranged attack which can be jumped over using torrent
- Alexander can be summoned for the fight
- Second phase is essentially the same strategy
- When he does flame of the fell god, go close to the fireball to trigger it but quickly run away as it never stops chasing you
- His AoE lets out exploding rocks so create distance between yourself and the boss and wait out the entire attacks
- Its best not to lock on to the boss when you’re up close to him
How to beat this boss: https://youtu.be/3hQWrBg7mvU
8. Starscourge Radahn
There are a set number of NPC summons available and they should most definitely be summoned as often as they can be. The character is truly written to be insanely strong and many fighters have to come together to bring down this legendary warrior. They essentially serve to take the brunt of the damage while you get your hits in from the back.
How to beat Radahn:
- Use as many summons for the fight as many times as you possibly can
- Even if summons die, they can be summoned again a set number of times
- They are great distractions for Radahn to focus on while you get hits in
- Keep riding to the left and start summoning as the fight starts to dodge his ranged attacks
- His second phase starts incredibly, where he turns into a meteor and can one shot you if you get hit
- To avoid this, just start riding torrent away as far as possible when he jumps up into the sky
- When he gets 4 massive boulders floating on top of him, don’t ride too far away as they shoot out to you
- If you’re close, they’ll never hit you
How to beat this boss: https://youtu.be/NMVJNWEJ-JQ
7. Morgott, Omen-King
This fight is amazing, and the summon that can help you in this fight is also just as perfect so it just adds to everything. However, one wrong move and you’re dead. Sure, he may not be even close to the harder bosses in the whole game, but he is just so quick and relentless that you always need to be on your toes to fight him.
How to beat Morgott:
- Stay close and stay aggressive
- Keep to his left side
- Use Melina as a summon as she is great offensively and she even heals you in the middle of the fight
How to beat this boss: https://youtu.be/OaCDKsTw6Pc
6. Godskin Duo
However, the fight itself wasn’t really that bad for me. I used the Darkmoon Greatsword, which was definitely one of the biggest reasons why this fight was fun and fairly easy as it allowed me to get great damage build up from a distance. Just remember to be as quick as you can as one can heal the other when one of them dies.
How to beat Godskin Duo:
- Use the pillars for your advantage
- Use magic or a weapon similar to Darkmoon Greatsword which allows for ranged damage
- Using a weapon with any sort of status build up is also very helpful for this fight
- Couple the weapon/magic with the pillars and play it patiently
- Best option would be to use a weapon that has some sort of damage build up that has an effect on the enemy once fully stacked up
- Mimic tear works brilliantly
- Conversely, use a weapon with a damage build up with the mimic tear as that would allow higher damage and faster effect build up
How to beat this boss: https://youtu.be/KEGPA3Xnd8U
4. Elden Beast
The Elden Beasts biggest drawback is that the arena is really big and it just swims away to random spots whenever it feels like it. This means that too much of the fight is just spent running after him, which really brings down the pace and the overall quality of the fight. And, he can just swim away as soon as you reach him. This is why this is a very divisive boss, and this running away can lead to a depletion of stamina which is especially important in this fight. If you’re out of stamina and he starts his flurries, you’re done.
How to beat Elden Beast:
- Mimic Tear does wonders for this fight. If you had gotten Malekith’s Black Blade, pairing that with your mimic tear stacks up crazy destined death damage that can completely melt the boss’s health bar
- Black knife Tiche is very useful as she is quick and does destined death damage as well
- His slashes are slow and delayed so wait for the last moment before dodging
- His following missile move can be dodged completely by sprinting in a circle
- Just sprint in any direction to dodge elden stars but when it gets too close, just roll out of the area
How to beat this boss: https://youtu.be/_V_6aerW9m0
3. Radagon of the Golden Order
Radagon is one of the best fights in the entire game, and one that many consider to be the proper end game fight. He uses all sorts of incantations and moves and is utterly relentless in his pursuit to protect the Elden Ring, using his fabled hammer to pummel you again and again. You can clearly see why it was him who was tasked to spread the word about the Golden Order across the Lands Between.
How to beat Radagon:
- The same destined death strat for the Elden Beast works just as well here
- Use the Malekith blade and use a mimic tear with the same thing to do damage
- Black knife Tiche is great here as well
- Don’t stay at too much of a distance as he has super powerful lightning attacks that come out quick or can be delayed by him as well
- His second phase initiating hammer slam can be jumped over
- His grab is one of the most delayed move in the game so as soon as he starts the animation, start running backwards
- At the very last moment he slams his hand down, roll in order to escape the grab as well as the AoE from the grab
How to beat this boss: https://youtu.be/_V_6aerW9m0
2. Godfrey, First Elden Lord/Hoarah Loux
The second phase sees him kill the beast on his back and let out his primal warrior instincts, going from Godfrey to John Cena, first Elden Lord. Hoarah Loux throws away his axe, now opting for using wrestling moves and insane grabs, punches and kicks, ground stomps and AoE attacks that literally rip the ground apart. It is a relentless battle that’s possibly the most aggressive in the entire game that you can’t even look away from once!
How to beat Godfrey:
- Use a mimic tear, trust me
- Most attacks in phase 1 are AoE attacks and they can be dodged or jumped over
- No matter how far away you are, the AoE will always hit you if you don’t dodge or jump over it
- Get 2 hits in then move away as Godfrey doesn’t stop his onslaught
- Sorceries and incantations aren’t very good as they take long to cast and if you’re far, he just does an arena wide AoE
- So, for this reason, the best strat would probably be to use physical weapons
- In phase 2, dodge every single attack at the very last moment
- For his flurry, run backwards
- Panic rolling plays into his moveset so watch his moves carefully
How to beat this boss: https://youtu.be/OfhqRGsdIyk
1. Malekith, the Black Blade
On top of being the coolest boss design in the history of everything ever, Malekith’s assault is unabating in both his phases which gives the player one of the most difficult boss fights ever. He jumps around firing missiles of destined death at you and never once stops. Though this fight would have been perfect if the entire thing was just Malekith, the Beast Clergyman is fun in his own right.
Malekith is the one who holds destined death in this world, making him the most formidable challenger both in terms of gameplay and narrative. It is said every single demigod feared Malekith and after fighting him, you can see why.
How to beat Malekith:
- Just use a mimic tear and learn his moveset,
- Darkmoon Greatsword works very well against both phases of the fight
- He is way too quick for you to reliably use colossal weapons so it is best to opt for something faster
- Keep strafing to the right side of Beast Clergyman and only hit when he stops his combos then move away
- Keep awareness of his AoE attacks
- Second phase always starts with the same move that has a bit of an idle animation, so just dodge into that move and get a few hits in
- You HAVE to learn his moves, otherwise you will never be able to beat him
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