Bosses in Dark Souls 3 are powerful foes which constitute some of the most challenging experiences in the game. Most are defeated as part of the mandatory story progression, with the rest optional. Defeating a boss earns the player souls, restoration of Ember and unique Boss Souls which can be transformed into powerful Weapons, Spells, or Items via Soul Transposition from Ludleth of Courland in Firelink Shrine.
Certain bosses feature special NPCs available as summons for the fight, with some of these summoning instances dependent on meeting certain progression conditions. See the individual boss pages for NPCs available and their conditions.
As long as the respective boss of an area remains alive, a player may be invaded by hostile phantoms. Once the boss is slain, invasions are no longer possible, however players may continue to summon phantoms via the Red Sign Soapstone.
In total there are 19 bosses in the whole game, with 6 of them being optional.
All DKS3 Bosses
| BOSS | LOCATION | NPC SUMMONING | WEAKNESS | RESISTANCE | IMMUNITY | PARRYABLE | OPTIONAL |
 Iudex Gundyr |
Cemetery of Ash | None | Fire/Frost/Riposte | Dark/Bleed |
Poison/Toxic | YES | NO |
 Vordt of the Boreal Valley |
High Wall of Lothric | Sword Master Lion Knight Albert |
Fire/Dark | Slash/Thrust |
Poison/Toxic Bleed/Frost |
NO |
NO |
 Curse-Rotted Greatwood |
Undead Settlement | None |
Slash/Thrust/Fire Sacs |
None | Poison/Toxic Bleed/Frost |
NO |
YES1 |
 Crystal Sage |
Road of Sacrifices | Slash/Thrust/Strike Poison/Toxic |
Magic | None | YES4 | NO | |
 Abyss Watchers |
Farron Keep |
Sirris of the Sunless Realms or Londor Pale Shade or Black Hand Gotthard |
Lightning/Backstab | Dark/Bleed |
Poison/Toxic | YES | NO |
 Deacons of the Deep |
Cathedral of the Deep | Anri of Astora Sirris of the Sunless Realms or Horace the Hushed |
Slash/Thrust/Strike |
Magic/Dark Bleed |
None | YES | NO |
 High Lord Wolnir |
Catacombs of Carthus | none | Bracelets / Blessed Weapons Farron/Wolf Knight's GS |
Dark | Poison/Toxic Bleed/Frost |
NO |
NO |
 Old Demon King |
Smouldering Lake | Knight Slayer Tsorig Great Swamp Cuculus |
Dark Black Knight Weapons |
Fire | Bleed/Frost |
NO | YES |
 Pontiff Sulyvahn |
Irithyll of the Boreal Valley |
Anri of Astora Black Hand Gotthard Londor Pale Shade |
Thrust/Riposte | Poison/Toxic Bleed/Frost |
None | YES | NO |
 Yhorm the Giant |
Profaned Capital | * Siegward of Catarina |
Lightning |
Physical/Magic/Dark | Fire/Poison/Toxic Bleed/Frost |
NO |
NO |
 Aldrich, Devourer of Gods |
Anor Londo | None * Anri of Astora summons the player in his world to defeat Aldrich if his/her quesline is fulfilled |
Fire/Lightning |
Magic/Dark | Poison/Toxic | NO | NO |
 Dancer of the Boreal Valley |
After 3 Lords of Cinder are defeated (or Emma is killed) |
Sword Master | Dark/Lightning/Strike | Bleed |
Poison/Toxic/Frost |
NO |
NO |
 Dragonslayer Armour |
Lothric Castle | Sirris of the Sunless Realms Eygon of Carim |
Frost |
Dark/Lightning | Poison/Toxic/Bleed | NO | NO |
 Oceiros, the Consumed King |
Consumed King's Garden | Hawkwood | Lightning | Magic/Bleed | Poison/Toxic | NO | YES2 |
 Champion Gundyr |
Untended Graves | Sword Master | Lightning | Poison/Toxic/Bleed | None | YES | YES |
 Lothric, Younger Prince |
The top of Lothric Castle | (Lorian) Lightning/Frost (Lothric) Slash/Thrust/Strike |
Dark | Poison/Toxic | YES3 |
NO | |
 Ancient Wyvern |
Archdragon Peak |
None | Lightning/Frost Plunging Attack |
Poison/Toxic/Bleed | None | NO | YES |
 Nameless King |
Archdragon Peak | None |
(King of the Storm) Lightning (Nameless King) Fire |
(King of the Storm) Fire/Bleed Poison/Toxic (Nameless King) Lightning |
(King of the Storm) None (Nameless King) Poison/Toxic |
NO |
YES |
 Soul of Cinder |
Kiln of the First Flame | Yuria of Londor Shade of Londor |
Lightning | Fire | Poison/Toxic | Stagger (Only in 2nd Phase) |
NO |
1Curse-Rotted Greatwood technically this boss is optional, although you won't be able to use your Boss Souls to perform Soul Transposition without defeating it because you will not receive the transposing kiln for Ludleth.
2Oceiros, the Consumed King this bossfight is not optional for the "End of Fire" ending, but optional for all others..
3These "staggers" or parrys cannot be followed up with a riposte. However, most bosses are still vunerable to ripostes, triggered through consistent damage and/or head damage.
4He can be parried, but he usually uses spells; the most likely parry is at the very beginning of the fight, where he is more prone to draw his rapier.
Ashes of Ariandel Bosses
| BOSS | LOCATION | NPC SUMMONING | WEAKNESS | RESISTANCE | IMMUNITY | PARRYABLE | OPTIONAL |
| Sister Friede | Painted World of Ariandel | Slave Knight Gael | Bleed, Dark, Lightning | Poison, Frost | None | YES | NO |
| Champion's Gravetender & Gravetender Greatwolf | Painted World of Ariandel | None | Bleed, Fire | Poison, Frost | None | YES | YES |
The Ringed City Bosses
| BOSS | LOCATION | NPC SUMMONING | WEAKNESS | RESISTANCE | IMMUNITY | PARRYABLE | OPTIONAL |
| Demon in Pain & Demon From Below / Demon Prince | The Dreg Heap | Lapp & Slave Knight Gael | Dark | Fire | Frost | NO | NO |
| Halflight, Spear of the Church | The Ringed City | Unbreakable Patches | Fire | Bleed | None | YES | NO |
| Darkeater Midir | The Ringed City | Shira | Mercury, Lightning | Dark, Fire, Magic | Poison & Toxic, Bleed Frost | NO | YES |
| Slave Knight Gael (Boss) | The Ringed City | None | Frost, Poison & Toxic | Magic, Dark | None | ?? | NO |
Mini Bosses / Special Encounters
- Boreal Outrider Knight, located under the double elevator of Undead Settlement, where we meet Siegward. He drops the Irithyll Straight Sword.
- Boreal Outrider Knight, located on the left side of the main bridge of Lothric Castle, down a staircase. He drops the Sword Irithyll Rapier.
- Boreal Outrider Knight, located behind an illusory stone wall of Grand Archives, top of a small ladder above the wooden bridge. He drops the Outrider Armor Set.
- Stray Demon (drops Soul of a Stray Demon), located on the other side of the bridge where you find Yoel. Can be accessed from the poison swamp area via ladder.
- Fire Demon, located on the way down to smouldering lake
- Deep Accursed, located within the Cathedral of the Deep in a large room with a body in the distance
- Deep Accursed, located within the Anor Londo castle hallway, on ceiling
- Carthus Sandworm, roaming the smouldering lake area just before the old demon king boss fight (drops: Miracle Lightning stake and undead bone shard)
- Sulyvahn's Beast, crocodile/wolf hybrid, located on the bridge to Irithyll of the Boreal Valley.
- Sulyvahn's Beast x2 in the Water Reserve area of Irithyll of the Boreal Valley, location of the Aldrich Faithful covenant altar.
AnonymousElden Ring’s repeat bosses are definitely dumb but most of the souls bosses are ridiculously easy. Beat soul of cinded first try. O&S 2nd try. I understand the frustration with Melania (I think she’s a bullshit boss) but all the DS3 bosses are pretty easy besides Nameless King. Haven’t played any DLC yet.
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Kinda ridiculous that lighting is strong against 12 out of 25 bosses but anyways.
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is it just me or is dancer of the boreal valley is kinda cute
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What about the demon you fight to start Seigward's questline, am I being blind or is that not missing from the list?
Remember when bosses were hard but fair? Pepperidge farm remembers.
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Question: why out of 92 bosses in "Dark Souls" games, only Four Kings and Gwyndolin has death cutscene?
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Whelp. After finally beating Elden Ring. I can say that its biggest flaw for me personally in my playthrough of it is that it has WAY too many bosses. To the point I can barely remember any of them. That's sad to me. Went back for a DS3 playthrough to compare. Personally, I like the player mechanics better of ER. I think the magic system is better, and there's a lot of build variety. But in the case of bosses, I like DS3 better than ER. Because, even if some of them weren't the best bosses, they were memorable. There were no bosses in Elden Ring besides Malenia or Radahn (Although I personally didn't like his fight) and Full Grown Fallingstar beast that I really remember or cared for, or had struggled on, most of them felt a bit lackluster imo.
Comparatively, DS 3, I have very memorable moments from the base game with Dancer, Champion Gundyr, Lothric Nameless King, Pontiff, and Soul of Cinder, etc. As for DLC, I also have quite a few memories of Gael, Friede surprising me with a phase 3. And especially that scumbag Midir.
All in all. There were some cool looking bosses in Elden Ring. But, I still see it as a Quality vs Quantity isssue. I'd have rather even 1/4 the amount of bosses in ER, and make them more memorable, and interesting to fight instead of feeling like a chore or just another mob to kill (Yes, I know they are optional and you can skip many of them, or not know some exist till your second or third playthroug for an attempt at a fresh experience each playthrough, its just a choice I don't agree with for my play style I guess, I understand what FS was trying to aim for, but I think they overdid it a bit). Rather than over 100 bosses, most of which weren't very memorable for me. I hope the ER dlc will have some bosses that strike fear into me like Midir especially. While I hated the fight, I also loved it. Or nameless king with that cutscene before phase two. That was especially memorable. I want boss fights I look forward to, even if they are extremely hard. That's why I fell in love with FS games in the first place with the DS series, and Bloodborne. Nioh and Sekiro kind of? Still fun bot not as much.
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"entitled babies"? thats a new one man. but i think the "entitled babies" strategy for elden ring DLC may enclude Azur comet and or rivers of blood + mimic tier. I don't think they're going to be trolled at all. even if the boss doesnt hemorrhage **** still does so much damage.
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In terms of difficulty,
Elden ring DLC> melania > DS3 DLC > Elden ring Radagon+Elden Beast > Malakath (Elden ring) > Other Elden ring bosses > ds3 bosses > ds1 bosses
Discuss.
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Going from annoying 2 shotting elden ring bosses to fair dark souls 3 bosses is so weird
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Elden Ring dlc bosses are going to spank all you ungrateful's so hard lol FS has a great opportunity to troll all you entitled babies
- Anonymous
I like most of these bosses really... except for the BS ones like Pontiff, Dancer and the Crystal Sage
- Anonymous
Dark Souls 3 lineup was great at the time, but if I look at it now I see a lot mediocrity and bad bosses. Curse-rotted, crystal age, old demon king, deacons, yhorm, aldrich, wolnir, oceiros, ancent wyvern, halflight, champion's gravetender.
It's not like I hate all these fights, but when it comes to a VERY linear game these misses hurts him a lot.
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I've just beaten all the bosses on here :D
Prepared to get my ass kicked in the dlc lmao
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While I agree ds3 has the best boss lineup in the whole series, I think people are *****ing way too much about elden ring. Yes,the game has copy pastes bosses, the game has some awful encounters, but most of them are minibosses. If you look at the rememberence bosses lineup which are the actual bosses in elden ring, 14 out of 17 are pretty decent if not great. sucks how the community only really remembers the bad bosses. Reading this comment section would make you think elden ring is terrible without any good boss and discourages the player base to experience an otherwise great game.
Tldr; both are honestly good in terms of bosses but elden ring's larger boss lineup does include some bad bosses, there are still enjoyable ones as well
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why does this wiki have adds to be honest the bosses are cool when you can parry them
its good to parry them
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i like the bosses so the soul of cinder because it gives a lot of souls!
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wow could you imagine what it would be like to play a game that had more than 10 unique bosses?
- Anonymous
25 Well-Designed & Iconic bosses are far better than +150 characterless copy pasted unfunny garbage
- Anonymous
Best bosses of all the Souls+ games. Rock solid quality very nearly all the way through with some of the best fights in the series that they still haven't topped. And looking back after Elden Ring makes me appreciate that there are no outright bad bosses in the entire game, only two or three that are mediocre. Goated boss lineup.
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Even after 5 years I still prefer Kalameet / Sinh / Midir to all those characterless dragons.
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look what we have here as final boss and what kind of bullshit we got on elden ring
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Here after Elden ring...
wow so many well designed & balanced boss here
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Damn after beating Radagon I realized how much I cherish every single boss in DS3 compared to all of those garbage bosses combined
- Anonymous
Was not expecting to be looking back to this game after beating Elden Ring and wondering where the quality went.
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the bosses I find to be easy in ng+3: Iudex gundyr, Vordt, cursed greatwood, crystal sage, deacons of the deep, abyss watchers, high lord wolnir, pontiff, old demon king, dancer, yhorm, dragonslayer armor, oceiros the consumed king, aldrich, sister friede, champion gravetender and greatwolf, demon prince (I used black knight weapons and gnawing) and spears of the church and I think thats it
the bosses i find hard are champion gundyr (still) the prince brothers, soul of cinder, nameless king and slave knight gael.
The one I can't be asked to fight is Midir, we don't talk about midir
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lothric can be riposted, his riposte area is just his side and not his head so you have to be slightly to his left your right
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If I can help anybody by defeating a boss, giving them souls or items, my character is lvv 390 with maxed weapons and all spells etc, if you need something message my psn: The_Due_MK44
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I came here to see which bosses were weak to magic, since, I’m doing my first sorcery build. Lo and behold it’s the only weapon form that no bosses have a weakness to. Some of the bosses are resistant to it, but not one is weak. Literally every other form of damage has a weak boss, wtf.
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Hardest bosses per NG:
NG: Darkeater Midir
Hits harder then every other boss has high defenses, and is just a ***** sometimes
NG+: Soul of Cinder
He just seems to be on a different lvl lmao
NG+2: Slave Knight Gael
Hits so so damn hard lmao and has super super high defenses, beat him somewhat easy with Chaos infused onikiri and ubadachi, Lady Maria 3rd phase cosplay btw
NG+3: Twin princes
IDK why but they seem so much harder now lol
NG+4: Halflight
Whys he gotta be so tanky and keep running away lol
NG+5:Gael again
For the same reason but worse lol
NG+6:Demon prince(Not demon below and pain)
Hes when i say is so so godamn tanky and its annoying and not just that hits so damn hard
NG+7: Demon prince
Again for the same reason but worse lol, tied with Gael tbh
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Weakness of Demon Prince needs to be changed to be more accurate
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Missing the first Fire Demon across from where you first meet Seigward above the Outrider Knight.
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So, i decided to count weaknesses, and here is what i found :
Lightning - 12(!)
Fire - 7
thrust - 5
frost/dark - 5
slash/strike - 4
poison/toxic/bleed - 2
Use lightning, boys
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Shouldn't Champion Gundyr be marked with the little 2 for "this bossfight is not optional for the "End of Fire" ending, but optional for all others.." as well?
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i have fought the dancer and won right after deacons of the deep
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can somebody help me get the vertebra shackles please, you summon me, I kill you and you get a lot of souls, my psn is The_Duke_MK44
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Any advice on how to take down wolnir I’m too much of a ***** to fight him
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Someone with ps4 please help with irithyll I hate this place it makes me wish I never beat wolnir
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I understand you're proud... but literally no one cares how many tries it took you to kill a certain boss
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Why r ppl saying that the dancer is hard my first playthrough it took me 3 tries and my second i did it first try
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I hope I don't get flack for this, but after well over 1000 hours of this game, Midir is simply not difficult, all his moves are obvious and telegraphed. The explosion is not that big when he switches to second phase.
All his moves you can simply roll out of in between his legs or out of range, for lasers just run to the left or right and close to him, run to the tail when he does the fire underneath himself. Obviously, his flying fire is easy to avoid if you run to the left. I did this fight with around 376 AR on a straight sword, no problem. The fight just takes longer in higher ng cycles or if you're underpowered severely.
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*equips great soul dreg 2300 damage build* im coming for your ass, ng+6
- Anonymous
killed them all after 62 hours of sufffering
the hardest bosses definitely are: gael drakeater midir aldrich twin princes dragon slayer armour and abyss watchers these are all hard when i beated some of them like gael or thr dragon it took me 10 minutes to beleive it
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Came here to check out the resistances because I'm think about doing a Luck/status effect run. But Wolir is listed as immune to Poison/Toxic, and I know for a fact that he's not (you can use Poison/Toxic Mist to kill him without triggering the fight).
So, just more proof to not trust the Dextralife wiki.
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Demon Prince itself is not weak to dark, in fact dark did very little damage. The 1st part of the 2 demons can be damage with dark.
- Anonymous
All these bosses weakness doesn't make sense, same goes for the regular enemies, as if FormSoftware just randomly put a weakness to each of them.
- Anonymous
Man the dancer on my fourth play through I hate how she can jump
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Man I got destroyed by champion gunder on my fourth plat through uh midir
- Anonymous
Ds3 bosses in a nutshell
Iudex: Pus of man warm up
Vordt: CAKE
Greatwood: Acid diarrhea and ballsacs
Crystal Sage: Wanna see me cast 3 spells at once?
Abyss watchers: Badass fight
High Lord Wolnir: Vaping is bad kids
Old demon king: If your 90 year old grandpa tried to fight off a home intruder with a blunt instrument
Deacons of the deep: *laughter intensifies
Pontiff: Hit L2 2 win
Aldrich: I misspelled his name, it should be aldbi*ch
Yhorm: Those knees aren’t gonna last much longer
Dancer: CAKEEE
Dragonslayer armor: We all know we only want his weapon
Oceiros: INSTA CHARGE GO BRR
Champion: BOOT
Twin princes: A cripple and his weird ass brother
Ancient wyvern: just why
Nameless King: Phase 1 camera ftw
Soul of cinder: The pyro falchion will have you screaming
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There's another sulyvahns beast not listed, right near the water logged entrance to the spider beast cellar
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Wowza, thank you kind fextralife for giving my parry information on every ringed city boss except the most important one
- Anonymous
Kinda annoyed that it took 9 of the 19 bosses for the first heavy hitter.
But man, the Pontiff made me feel like that little boy being bent over by the Pursuer all over again.
Almost as good as the Old Dragon Slayer.... Almost
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Everyone needs to understand that souls games randomise the boss encounters so you could easily beat sulyvahn one playthrough an the next playthrough he's the hardest in the game so that way every encounter despite already killing the boss in a previous playthrough is unique or even challenging therefore you can't simply say a boss is the hardest or easy I person got my ass beaten to a pulp by the dragon slayer armour and even got a friend to get to my level an use my gear to see if it randomises now it took me about 6 tries to kill him my mate did it first go so the experience in a souls game is always different no matter what equipment you use
This page still lists Darkeater Midir as weak to "Mercury", however the spell was renamed to Pestilent Mist, so this page needs to be edited.
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So it turns out you can parry Dragonslayer Armour. Not sure how useful it is, but yeah
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Nameless King was joke. Expected this boss to be the hardest
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> ng+3
> NLK, dancer, champion Gundyr, SOC, midir, Gael, Friede all these bosses first try
> Died to crystal sage, deacons of the deep and Aldrich
> Sed lyf :(
- Anonymous
Under the mini-boss/special encounter shouldn’t the following also be included:
Fire Demon - Fought in the undead settlement with Siegward
Wyvern - Fought at archdragon peak after the ancient Wyvern boss fight
Giants - Cathedral & Irithyll Dungeon
I say this because they’re all large, high health enemies that don’t respawn after you kill them. Which seems to be the theme for all of the enemies in that section
A case can also be made for the Ravenous Crystal Lizards too
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I played eldenring first then darksouls 3 the only boss in eldenring i can remember is mogh lord of blood and I still love the fight. But in darksouls 3 the bosses are way more awesome especially pontriff Sulyvahn or nameless king
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