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• (Normal tactics)

Strategy 1 (Melee)

The most dangerous part of the first phase is her grab attack. She announces the attack with a snake-like bow and then slowly sweeps her right arm over the floor to grab you and smash you on the floor. Either get some distance immediately when you see her bow or roll-dodge through the sweep (she uses her right hand, so roll to the left or you will get caught in the sweep).

The first phase isn't too difficult, despite the Dancer's intimidating movements. Due to the large size of her flame sword it is not recommended to dodge backwards when she does combos. Wield your weapon two-handed and watch her sword. You can roll towards her when she does a wide range sword slash. Her long arms make it relatively easy to roll under and past her and get a few hits on her backside. Attacking her beside her right leg is generally safer than beside her left one, since she wields her sword in her left hand. Do not be greedy with your attacks; you are unlikely to get more than two in before she counterattacks. If you dodge one hit of a combo, the remainder of the combo is unlikely to strike you. After half of her HP is depleted move away and be ready for the second phase.

In the second phase things become more complicated; she is armed with one sword in each hand and gains a powerful spinning attack. You don't have to worry about her grabbing you anymore. Do not attempt to block the entirety of her spin attack as she will certainly stagger you; abuse pillars and try to dodge some of it. You must play more reactively in this phase, as safely approaching her during combos has become more difficult and remaining close to her is out of the question. Wait for her to perform an attack with a long ending animation, then hit her and move away again (being very wary of the delayed action on some of her magic effects). You have time to strike her once during the jump & spin combo, between the landing AoE and the circular slash (dodge backwards at least once after the attack). Continue patiently getting hits in and avoid endangering yourself and you will win before long. You may also use projectile consumables to damage her more safely, although in phase 2 if you distance yourself from her she will jump and reposition herself, which will also involve an attack.

Strategy 2 (Magic)

Should be very easy to kill for most mage builds, given that the Dancer never advances very aggressively. Bleeding the boss with the miracle Gnaw is a fairly effective option (though lightning weakness should make this boss very easy for faith builds regardless).

Strategy 3 (Pillar peak)

This strategy can be done with either sorcery or melee. When you go into the room, immediately go to one of the four pillars. Make sure to roll/smash around to break up the surrounding furniture to allow for free movement. Now you'll just need to keep kiting the Dancer around the poll, or just keep moving left and right slightly to keep the Dancer in one place so that it can never progress towards you and is stuck at the pillar. Be careful though, it can still hit you through the pillar. If you're keeping it in place by taking advantage of how it tracks and aggroes, it wont be able to move towards you during those attacks so just keep a distance when it's attacking. This is useful because during attacks like the Blade Dance, it will just spin in place and not be a threat at all.

Just wait behind the pillar while it attacks and during it's recovery phase get in a quick hit and retreat back to kiting. Be cautious, especially during the second phase, of which windows you use to attack. You'll want to have enough time to move to it, attack, and move back.

Strategy 4 (Pyromancy)

This will be an easy kill for pyromancy builds. The boss is weak to dark, so your best spell here will be Black Fire Orb, but ordinary fire spells such as Chaos Bed Remnants or Great Chaos Fire Orb will also do big damage. The boss will generally walk around very slowly and passively, allowing you to freecast spells. As long as you keep your distance, you will be out of range for her spins and the fast majority of her attacks, which track very poorly. The only thing you have to be prepared to dodge is her lunge. 

 Strategy 5 (Sword Master Glitch)

There's a glitch for this fight (I've done it May 1st, app1.04 reg1.05) that you can do only in early game but allows you to kill the Dancer very easily.

Summon the Sword Master (You need to kill him at Firelink before and Vordt must be alive or the mark won't appear), kill Emma to spawn the Dancer. As soon as Sword Master dies during the fight, save & quit via the Start Menu. Reload your game and summon Sword Master again and go in the boss room.

Sword Master will now take very minor damage and will dodge due to a hitbox bug. Just let him take the aggro and wait for the boss being bled to death.

Attacks

Lore

• She was one of the daughters in royal family of Irithyll, but was ordered by Pontiff Sulyvahn to become a dancer first, and then legioneer, which is equal to exile. He also gifted her dual blades, infused with darkness and fire, similar to his own weapons.
• While Pontiff Sulyvahn wields his dark weapon in his left hand and his fire weapon in his right hand the Dancer does the opposite, wielding dark in her right hand and fire in her left hand.
• All Outrider Knights are fated to turn into beasts. According to her armor's description the armor is actually fused to her "hide".

Notes & Trivia

• The setting of this battle is reminiscent to that of Bloodborne's Vicar Amelia, which is fought in the Healing Church's Grand Cathedral.
• Uses matching swords; one gold, one dark, similar to the Gold Tracer and Dark Silver Tracer wielded by Lord's Blade Ciaran in Dark Souls 1, and wields them in the same hands. Also conceals her face, like Ciaran. These things seem to suggest a relationship between the two, and possibly that there are other characters corresponding to the Knights of Gwyn.
• It is helpful to only use one summon as opposed to multiple due to the ammount of health she gains and the damage reduction she recieves
• Beware that the fight will have a lot of frame rate lag and feel sluggish on Xbox One.
• During the fight, you can clearly hear each of her footsteps echo throughout the room.
• Attacks with the fire sword will leave traces on the environment and will light objects in the room on fire (just visual)
  • By the end of the fight it's likely that half of the room is on fire and lit brightly
  • Once defeated, the Dancer explodes into ash and extinguishes all of the fire in the room