Sister Friede | Dark Souls 3 Wiki | Boss Guide, Location, Drops, Stats and Tips

DS3 Sister Friede Video Strategy

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• Eight ways to backstab Friede, SL66, NG+2, P.G.Curved Sword

DS3 Sister Friede Attacks

Sister Friede has two attack phases.

Second Phase (3rd battle phase) - In this phase Friede uses Dark Pyromancy and is labeled as Darkflame Friede. She uses a few attacks from her first phase, but they are now more powerful.

Father Ariandel - Second Battle phase Only

How to fight and beat Sister Friede

Strategy 1 (Melee)

Before advancing to take her on, summon the NPC by the bonfire.

In the first phase of the fight, Sister Friede will shoot streaks of frost that deal heavy frost damage, and can quickly inflict Frostbite. She will often become invisible and teleport directly over your head, finishing with a lethal move. You can counter this by watching for a puff of fog where she lands behind you or listening for her footsteps. You can walk up and interrupt her invisibility spell. Her attacks can be easily interrupted and she is also vulnerable to backstabbing. When this phase is complete, the next two are incredibly difficult.

A cutscene will indicate the start of the second phase, at which point Ariandel joins the fight. The NPC you summoned prior to the fight will appear at this point and will assist you. Let your companion occupy Friede while you shift your attention to Ariandel. You can hit him from behind, but be wary of his powerful attacks. Eventually he will become staggered and open for a critical attack. During this phase both bosses share the same health bar, but attacking Father Ariandel makes the health bar deplete much more quickly.

In this final phase of the fight, Sister Friede will become Blackflame Friede will begin to deal dark damage in addition to her frost and melee abilities now augmented with increased speed.  Be wary of standing next to her as she comes back to life. She will begin to mix in a dark beam as well as a charged dark explosion that both deal a tremendous amount of damage. She will occasionally also take to the air and attempt a devastating attack from above. To defeat her keep your melee distance and dodge her magical attacks to the left and right, dodge far to the left to avoid her dark charged explosion. When she slows down take advantage of the window to get some attacks in and then retreat. Repeat this process of evasion and attack until she is defeated.

In conjunction with everything else that applies to melee players, below is a playbook of tips on how to beat Sister Friede and Father Ariandel (provided the player's weapon is a faster swinger, like a Broadsword, or better):

1. In the first of three phases of the fight, Sister Friede will more often open up with a melee attack. In this phase, her attacks do not exceed the number of three hits (not accounting for rapid succession. Sometimes, she will deal two hits, and also she will do two hits, then another two in rapid succession, but an attack window is there) before she calms down, so use that to damage her. She can be back-stabbed so if you are in that position (which is rare), then go for it!
2. Sister Friede tends to teleport, when this happens, go up against a wall, and wait for the audio cue, which kind of sounds like swinging blades. Next, dodge roll.
3. Sister Friede's dodge roll timing is different than a typical melee user and many bosses, because she likes to roll-catch by using a fast windup, and a very fast swing. Wait for the actual swing to dodge, and you will be good.
4. Friede is only open when she is recovering. When she poises herself to attack by going into stance (she will align the handle of her scythe parallel to her upper shoulders) 
5. One big tactical advantage is to stay in swinging distance of Friede when she is not trying to evade. This way, you can interrupt her attacks (she has little poise) and stun-lock her for some hits. She is fairly forgiving on the player needing stamina, so don't fret if you get greedy and eat up more than half of your stamina hitting her.
6. One big tip is Estus timing, here. Because of this boss fight's overall HP of 18,877, the player should wait, provided they have 14 of +10 strength Estus or more (easy, if you finished the main story), and only pop an Estus when they do 1349 damage, so their Estus reserve is in pace. If not, the player sadly has to adjust their Estus to the enemy's health. 
7. For phase two, just get in hits when things are calm, and people are not attacking. Ariandel takes more damage per hit and shares the same health bar with Friede, but don't bait yourself into getting hit by rushing. The player can use Ariandel as a buffer, but constantly trying to make this happen can get the player hit, out of distraction. Ariandel's attacks do not stick to the player much, and overall both bosses are less aggressive, so when Friede is in her calm periods, it is easy to get damage on Ariandel for an easier phase two, but Friede will use some of her attacks in first phase, so be ready to go after Friede if you're really trying to conserve Estus.
8. In phase three, as you probably know, Friede becomes Blackflame Friede. She will open up with a roughly five-hit cyclone, has homing attacks, an AOE, and does a combo where she frosts the floor with a trail, that may slightly home in on the player. After about two swings of this frost combo, the player is open. Other openings are very dangerous!
9. The player should not rush this fight. Friede and Ariendel are kind of glass-cannon builds, so although openings are the absolute scarcest (just to be all-inclusive and safe), the player gets in nice damage for every opening, and the fight ends fairly quickly. With a physical AR of 426 or better, the player gets a nice pace.
10. To speak in visible terms, this is a hybrid boss fight. Ariendel and Friede borrow, with respect to severity from Lorian's teleportation, Aldrich's ranged magic, Lord of Cinder's curved sword attacks, Dragon Slayer Armor's slow but heavy attacks, Ornstein & Smough's mobility, Manus' short opportunities for damage, and Nameless King's insane AOE attacks. Now, does this make them as hard as those guys? Not so much. The low HP offsets that, but the player should absolutely be very survival-oriented, and hold their survival much higher over doing DPS, because magnetism towards the bosses tends to create most, if not all the damage caused in this fight.

However, the demands scale up really high when one goes into NG+7, so I will add some new caveats for each phase

Phase I:

1. A good rule of thumb here is that when Sister Friede has done a combo and has gone calm or idle, she is open. One may know from previous playthroughs that she staggers easy, but please know that she comes out of her stagger very quickly, no matter how big the weapon is. When this happens, it is VERY likely that she will counter you, so STOP your attack combo and don't spam. Get ready to book it and get back to dodging when she comes out of that stagger!
2. Friede deals Physical and Magic damage for her first two phases. Her third phase also includes Dark damage, but her Dark attacks are easily nullified with horizontal rolls, so using a +2 Magic Stoneplate Ring is a nice addition because one gets a benefit on every hit.
3. Her teleport can be dealt with in three ways. A. You can run into her while she is teleporting to keep her in one place and visible for some free damage. B. You can wait for the snow under her feet to fluff up, showing she has teleported, then spin 180 degrees and scan around for a few seconds. The snow will splash where she lands and you can hit her. C. jog (not sprint) in a circle in case you fail to find her. Once the audio cue comes up, roll in a circle and you get a safer dodge roll.
4. Having an equip load of under 29% helps a bit. Not a game changer, but it improves your dodge roll animation.
5. She almost always finishes a combo with a fast, emphasized scythe swing with a distinct metallic blade audio cue, where the scythe sounds like it is cutting air.

Phase II:

1. The fight will start with Friede being resurrected. Lock on to Friede, and move left, and back, towards that corner of the room, so about 7 o'clock, where the snake doll in the nook behind Father Ariandel would be 12 o'clock, for reference.
2. Move counter-clockwise. This allows you to be on the side of Friede's ice trail traps so you can punish them. Moving clockwise is acceptable if you're trying to hit Ariandel.
3. Hitting Ariandel in passing is a way to get free damage.
4. Don't try to fight these bosses when they are close together. You may get caught during rolling.
5. Moving in and out of Friede's range to bait her melee combo may reward big, safe damage while Ariandel is not a threat during her cooldown window.
6. Do NOT let them get you in any of the two nooks in the map. Father Ariandel will easily blow flames, making it hard to escape. Sometimes, even Friede will block your escape, causing serious problems. Getting locked up against a wall also nets a similar result.
7. When Friede goes invisible to heal Ariandel, she almost always is nearby him. Scan in the radius around him, and you should find her. Backstabbing her keeps you safe from counters, here, because again, comboing Friede can de-stun her and let her counter you.
8. Father Ariandel likes to hit you when his bowl is out of view, he likes to catch you off guard, and he likes to roll-catch. So don't think you're safe around him.

Phase III:

1. This is the Blackflame Friede phase. Be prepared as this is the most difficult phase.
2. Her first attack of this phase is almost always a jumping AOE slam, that deals dark damage. Be out of range and roll sideways for a safe counter.
3. Her attack where she spins and tries to cut your throat may be an instant death. Rolling around three times is a good way to survive it.
4. There is no free damage during this phase like the last two phases. In other words, you have to wait for those ending animations and windup animations to get your damage in.
5. If she's invisible, she will do two or three ice trails. The player can then go up against the wall and see which trail she's making. Rolling with a preference for fast reactions may be a solid counter, here.
6. She follows up her invisible attack with a black serpent which is both difficult to dodge and is heavy hitting, your best bet is to get up close and watch for her scythe instead of the flame.
7. Her black flame AOE attacks always have a black flame trail. Rolling sideways is very good, here.
8. For many players, one hit is one Estus worth of health lost in this fight. Almost every hit is one of her magically charged attacks (these attacks show a blue flash or flash of black flame, so learn the counters for these attacks well).
9. Blackflame Friede is slightly weak to rolling, including double-rolling and triple-rolling, because her Scythe's hitbox is small, and moves fast. Take advantage of this.

That is all! The player should now know how to avoid damage from Friede and Ariandel, while dealing it out, for that easy but still skillful win.

 

Strategy 2 (Melee + Lightning Blade, Solo)

For Stage 1: Try to be aggressive when she teleports so you can cancel her attack as it's very powerful and can almost one shot the player. 

For Stage 2: Leave Friede alone and go after Ariandel. Attack him from the back or the sides while being wary of his attacks and AOE smash. Roll through Friede's ice attacks. Ariandel may or may not be ripostable but he should go down fairly quickly.

For Stage 3: Play more passive while you understand Friede's attacks. Most have a wide or long AOE and do massive damage. There is a slight delay between the scythe swings, giving you a chance to attack and break her poise. 

 

Strategy 3 (Melee - Bleed build, Solo)

Before fight: Find, equip and upgrade Warden Twinblades (or any weapon, that by default can cause Blood Loss and can be buffed) and buy at least 20 Carthus Rouge (in case you fail to beat the boss on first run - average run with final phase requires up to 4-5 Carthus Rouges). While choosing the rest of your set (shield is not necessary) try to increase fire and frost resistance as much as possible, but do not forget about agility and physical defense. Just before the fight use Carthus Rouge and reapply during break in fight or at beginning of phase.

1st phase: You will face only Sister Friede, an easily staggered boss on whom critical attacks can be deadly. During her invisibility run across the room and after the sound jump in opposite direction of her attack (hard, but possible to avoid). Attack after her attacks - every three to four hits you will trigger the bleed damage, on NG+3 this was around 1000 damage.

2nd phase: Instead of fighting Friede focus on Ariandel because he seems to be more vulnerable to bleed than Friede, but keep in mind that the combination of Friede's frost attack and Ariandel's bowl stomp is usually deadly. The most suitable moment for attacking is after Ariandel's rush.  Dodge and then simply run to him and strike multiple times (On NG+3 his rush can easily deal 4500 damage). When Friede uses her healing spell you don't have to interrupt her, as simply attacking Ariandel will negate the spell effect (as well as lowering the total amount of HP). Just keep in mind to avoid Ariandel's attacks, because no matter what armor you use they will probably deliver a lot of damage, if not a fatal blow.

3rd phase: DON'T RUSH TOWARDS HER during her transformation (her HP will replenish and you will take some fire damage). Use that moment to heal or use Carthus Rouge. In this phase she is WAY more dangerous than in the first or second phase. The best opportunity to attack her is after the massive dark flame AoE attack that uses some kind of upgraded Dark Serpent. A few successful hits will deal massive bleed damage. 

 

Strategy 4 (Sorcery, Solo)

Equipment: Court Sorcerer's Staff +10, Magic Clutch Ring, Bellowing and Young Dragoncrest Ring, Sage Ring (+1/+2). Scholar's Candlestick in offhand for sorcery boost. A fast weapon like a straightsword is also helpful for flushing her out when she turns invisible.

Armor: Crown of Dusk, rest of Northern Armor Set

Estus: 11 orange/4 blue

With this loadout and 99 INT, I was doing around 600 per hit with GHSA. This spell is your bread and butter for this fight since there is so much HP to burn through, and it also staggers her reliably.

First phase: Just try to keep your distance constantly as she attacks, avoiding corners and the ends of the room. I like to save up stamina to full or almost full before firing off a volley of spells, as opposed to hammering R1 when you have minimal stamina. When she turns invisible, jog up and down the length of the room, reversing course occasionally to confound her aim. Or, if you happened to see the direction she went, (sometimes you can catch a glimpse of her as she flies past) run after her and hit her with your weapon to stagger her out of the assassination attack.

Second phase: Other than her exploding ice patches, you can ignore Friede almost entirely as long as you stay away from her. Focus fire on Ariandel from a distance, which will probably cause him to use his bowl slam to drag himself toward you. The thing about this attack is he can't easily turn once he commits to a direction. Right after he slams his bowl into the ground near you, roll/run behind him, and you should get a ton of free hits as he careens past. This phase should be a gimme as you can burn down Ariandel quickly with sorcery.

Third phase: During her resurrection animation, Friede will prop her scythe on the ground to pull herself to her feet. Don't stand too close, but right at this moment, you should be able to lock on to her and get 2 or 3 free shots before she starts attacking. This phase comes down to staying away from Friede while effectively dodging her ranged attacks. Her black flame tornado followed by shooting a flame snake got me a few times, but you can avoid it just by locking onto her and strafing sideways. When she goes invisible, avoid her exploding ice patches and wait for her to reappear, watching out for her black flame snake. You can sometimes interrupt her combos with sorcery, but I found it to be more reliable to hit her at the end of her combos, as she sometimes punishes your casting by firing a black flame snake that will hit you during your spell animation. Just back/roll away from her constantly while waiting for an opening.

 

Strategy 5 (Backstabbing Pyromancer, Solo)

Equipment: Rings boosting fire damage and Ring of Favor,  5 Estus and 7 Ashen Estus, Armor & Weapons: Brass Set, Chaos Mail Breaker +10 (right hand), Pyromancy Flame +10 (left hand), Spell: Chaos Bed Vestige

Pyromancer using this spell with 32 Intelligence and 32 Faith will deal high damage with Chaos Bed Vestige - around 700 in case of Friede and even 1,000 or more to Ariandel.  Mail Breaker is a must to break dangerous Friede attacks or backstab her (backstab may deal up to 700 damage).

1st phase: Try to limit attacks to moments, where Friede is preparing to strike - otherwise, you risk, that Friede will evade spell or receive minor damage. If you play carefully, Friede will be downed pretty fast.

2nd phase: Don't focus on Friede (but watch for her attacks with AoE, or when she starts to heal), but attack Ariandel and - when he has a cooldown or stationary attacks like Fire Breath (of course, if you are not risked of getting hit) spam him with CBV, as he is very weak to fire. In case Friede starts to heal hit her with CBV to break down the spell or backstab her.

3rd phase: Watch out for attacks, and attack during cooldowns or to break some of her actions. Mail Breaker is useful to backstab or stun her.

Sister Friede & Father Ariandel Dialogue

Player approaching Father Ariandel, before first fight

(Ariandel): I see flame. Flame, flickering, once again. Not enough blood yet shed. My flail.... Bring me my flail. Ahh, Friede. What stops thine ears? Please, my flail, right away...

Cutscene dialogue, before fight (needs to be triggered by approaching Ariandel and choosing option "Talk")

(Ariandel): Ahh, oh. Bring Friede to me, please. Canst thou not see? The flame, flickering once again. Soon it will surge. I can see it, feel it...

(Friede appears, this time as boss)

(Friede): Fret no father, we have no need of thy flail. Tis only the flame, quivering at misguided Ash. Please avert thine eyes. I will snuff out these ashes for good.

Dialogue, after second phase

(Ariandel): When the Ashes are two, a flame alighteth. Thou'rt Ash,  and fire befits thee, of course...

 

Player is not a Lord of Londor

Dialogue, first phase, player dies

(Friede): Return from whence thou cam'st
For that is thy place of belonging.

Dialogue, second/third phase, player dies 

(Friede): Leave us be, Ashen One.
Sweep all thought of us from thy mind. As thy kind always have.

 

Player is a Lord of Londor

Dialogue, first phase, player dies

(Friede): Return from whence thou cam'st
Yuria surely awaits thee.

Dialogue, second/third phase, player dies 

(Friede): Leave us be, Ashen One.
Thou art the Lord of Londor and have thine own subjects to guide.

 

Player completed Lord of Hollow ending, but not started next NG Cycle

Dialogue, player dies

(Friede): Return Lord of Londor. You have your own subjects to attain to.

Sister Friede Lore Theories

The eldest of three sisters: Friede, Yuria and Liliane are founders of the Sable Church of Londor.

 

Sister Friede Trivia

1. If player approaches the statue which covers the boss room before opening it up, he can hear sound coming from the room. It is Father Ariandel smacking himself with a Rose of Ariandel. Strangely, near Ariandel there is no flail he may hit himself with, and when player enters boss fight arena for the first time, he asks to bring him one. 
2. However, in Ashes of Ariandel trailer, player can spot a flail he may use.
3. Father Ariandel will mostly go for the player, which attacked Friede last.
4. Father Ariandel has green skin, similar to Hollow players in Dark Souls II.
5. Gael's summon for this battle does not count as a regular summon. Therefore, player can still summon up to 3 player phantoms. And does not increase her health.
6. Weapon used by Father Ariandel bear some similarities to the Lordvessel from Dark Souls I.
   
   Some people say that Friede is on a speed scale to Bloodborne, while the player is at a Ds3 speed scale, mainly due to her extreme comboability and her extremely low attack lag during the 3rd phase.