Before you’re allowed to face the final Lord of Cinder in Dark Souls III, first you’ll have to defeat the Dragonslayer Armour. If you want to use a shield for this fight, make sure it has 100% physical resist, and a decent stability rating. 60 stability should be enough to get you through the fight. On the other hand, if you’re more comfortable with rolling through attacks, drop the shield and two-hand your weapon for the first phase, but make sure you can access it quickly when the second phase begins.
During the first phase of the fight, the Dragonslayer Armour will simply try to attack you with his lightning-imbued halberd. The most dangerous attack to watch out for is his overhead slam. Thankfully, this attack has a pretty slow windup and you’ll be able to out-range it fairly easily. The boss will swing the halberd onto the ground, dealing both lightning and physical damage. If you don’t have a lot of points in Vigor, or if you’re not in Cinder form, this attack will likely one-shot you, so steer clear of it at all costs. His halberd attacks are slow, and he doesn’t have massive attack strings in this phase, so blocking them is a viable strategy, though you’ll have to keep an eye on your stamina bar and know when to drop your shield to regain it faster.
The Dragonslayer Armour also has a shield bash attack that I advise you roll out of the way of. Blocking the shield bash will drain your stamina and break your guard, leaving you exposed to further attack. As usual, only go in for hits at the end of his attack strings, and you’ll be able to wear him down pretty quickly.
Once you’ve gotten him down to half health, the second phase of the fight begins. If you’ve been two-handing your weapon this whole time, now’s the time to bring out your shield. The biggest change in this phase is the projectile attacks that will start flying towards you from the weird stick dragon-like figures hovering in the sky. These attacks don’t hit very hard, but they can stunlock you, and leave you exposed to the boss. If you have to run through the projectiles, keep your shield up to mitigate the damage.
The Dragonslayer Armour will also power up in this phase, and his melee attacks can break the railings on the bridge. Be careful of this, as his attacks can knock you off the edge if you’re standing too close. Don’t be afraid to use the fountainhead in the middle of the bridge to put some distance between you and the boss if you need to heal. The boss also has one new dangerous attack that you should definitely avoid at all costs as well.
When he two-hands his halberd and walks toward you slowly, start creating distance as soon as possible. He’ll rush towards you with the halberd and launch you into the air, depleting a very large amount of your HP, if not all of it. You can out-range this attack by continuously rolling backwards, or rolling to the side. The Dragonslayer Armour’s attacks deal more damage in this phase, but his patterns will remain largely the same.
Be sure to check out our Dark Souls III wiki for more tips and tricks.
