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.
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 | NO | 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 | None | 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.
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.
Anonymous14 Aug 2018 00:28
Oceiros is disappointingly easy. If you pummel him into stage two, his psychotic charges are 10x easier to dodge than Vordt’s
- Anonymous
12 Aug 2018 02:08
I can't seem to get any more summonin signs when it comes to fighting bosses, anyone want to help I'm on ps4
- Anonymous
30 Jul 2018 09:04
if you could rank the bosses from hardest to easiest in your opinion what would they be??
- Anonymous
29 Jul 2018 20:15
the fire demon you fight with siegward in the undead settlement is missing (it's supposed to be a miniboss)
- Anonymous
27 Jul 2018 16:21
darkeater midir has fucked me over countless times. not only is it because you will miss most attacks because he is mving so often, it's also because his extremely high hp (16k in ng+). Its also hard to get summons to help you because there is no fog to traverse when entering the fight, and you need to hit two cleverly placed fog walls to get to the room with the deep hole to jump down in to start the fight. he's moving all the time and most of his attacks WILL oneshot you. if people placed summon signs at the Ringed Inner wall bonfire it would make everyones lifes easier.
pls nerf
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
24 Jul 2018 16:14
There’s also a Sulyvahn’s beast in the river you go to one of the bonfires in irithyll
- Anonymous
18 Jul 2018 00:42
I need help with Aldrich I have a good grip on his move sets but he fucks me over in the second phase
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
17 May 2018 18:49
It is possible to stagger the Soul of Cinder in phase 1. Done with a +10 heavy claymore and lightning blade. I usually stagger 2-3 times before phase 2 begins.
30 Apr 2018 21:51
I like to check game data I must say that, just like on DS2 wiki, some of the boss weakness info here is wrong. For example, the Dancer actually have no weakness other than Dark. Nameless King is weak to Dark and is neutral to Fire. Old Demon King is not actually weak to any damage type - where did "Weakness: Dark" came from?
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
27 Apr 2018 09:47
Boss categories are as follows " Beat them first try" category: Nameless King, Pontiff Sulyvahn and Champion Gundyr. ACTUALLY beat them first try: Iudex Gundyr and Oceiros. Optionally mega hard bosses: Yhorm the giant, Ancient Wyvern (AKA Midir) and High Lord Wolnir. The boring bosses are The Old Demon King and Curse-Rotted Greatwood. The Actually fun bosses are: Abyss Watchers, Dragonslayer Armor, Dancer of the Boreal Valley and Soul of Cinder. Literally mobs you encounter in the area category are: Deacons of the deep. Magic spammer category are: Aldrich and Twin Princes. Sh*tty DLC category are: Champion's Gravetender and Gravetender Greatwolf and Halflight, Spear of the Church. and finally, the Best DLC/hardest bosses category are: Slave Knight Gael, Darkeater Midir and Sister Friede. Do you agree with my opinions?
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
25 Apr 2018 19:36
little did you know the soul of cinder cant be parryed in his second phaze they are reffering to the dark souls 1 Gwyn the Lord of Fire
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
08 Apr 2018 04:54
Missing the Mini Boss Fire Demon in Undead Settlement that is part of Siegwards Questine (you did count the one on the way to Smouldering Lake a mini boss). I'd consider the Giant Slaves Mini Bosses myself but obviously that's just my own opinion.
- Anonymous
28 Mar 2018 14:18
Guys, don't tell my mom but i was up ten minutes past my bedtime killing Vordt of the Boreal Valley.
Shhhhhh don't tell her.
- Anonymous
26 Mar 2018 18:16
i have some notes that i hope you can fix :
the crystal sage's melee attack is PARRYABLE
and Dragonslayer Armour 2 handed heavy attack is parryable but it's too hard and u can't repost him
i hope you fix that
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
14 Aug 2018 13:31
Yo, wheres the ender dragon.
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