


The first is a leaping strike that you'll need to dodge to the left and a bit towards the boss. If you keep your distance from the boss during this phase he will do one of two attacks that will leave him open for retaliation if dodged correctly. It is a five hit combo that if you get caught in it you are almost guaranteed to be dead. This is your cue to dodge backwards, repeatedly. The main thing to watch for during this phase is for him to pull his sword back to brace himself for an attack. Back up while he is recovering, or the explosion of fire will make you. Once you have defeated his other four phases, he will regenerate all of his health. And if you die trying, you can start over at the same phase without having lost much. Since this is the hardest phase of the boss, and also the start of the fight, it can pay off to be aggressive here so as to get him to move on to the next phase quickly. If you dodge too soon you're going to get hit, but you should be able to dodge again to avoid the rest of the combo and be able to heal up.

You'll need to watch for his slow charging attacks where he pulls back to strike, and then seems to pause before he swings. This is going to be the first phase of the boss no matter what, and can be one of the harder ones to deal with as he can be very aggressive here. This boss will choose a phase at random after you defeat his first sword phase, so keep that in mind that the phases shown below may now show up in the same order shown here. It's been a long journey to get here, fill with many hard bosses to go up against, and this guy is no different. Thankfully, the windup to this combo is very slow, so be sure to back away once you see him raise his sword slower than usual.This is it, the last and final boss of Dark Souls 3. He will then finish the combo by thrusting his greatsword into the ground, executing a devastating fire AoE attack that will almost certainly kill you if you were already caught in the combo. His attacks consist of five-hit combos that can juggle you if you get caught in a single hit. Here, the music changes to an epic rendition of Gwyn’s theme from the first game, and the boss himself starts using Gwyn’s attacks to fight you. Make sure to stay far away from him as he’ll start off with an AoE attack. Once the first health bar has been depleted, the bar itself recharges and you’ll enter the second phase. In between each move set, the Soul of Cinder will get onto his knees when he does this, go in and get as many hits as you can, but make sure you have enough stamina to roll away. Just be sure to roll away when you see the Soul of Cinder curl in and getting ready to cast Wrath of the Gods. This is another great opportunity for you to start dealing more damage as he’s rather passive during this phase. His final move set consists of miracles like Heal and Wrath of the Gods. Be careful when you see him charge up the Great Fireball even if you’re behind him, he’ll turn around very quickly to throw the Fireball at you, so you’ll definitely want to start rolling once you see that Fireball getting prepped. He’ll also switch to pyromancy attacks, where he’ll use Power Within, Great Fireball, and attack you with a scimitar-like weapon. These attacks are fairly easy to read, though they can deal quite a bit of damage, especially if you get caught in a thrust. The Soul of Cinder also has a lance phase where he will charge at you with a thrust, or perform an overhead swing. When you see him charge up the Crystal Greatsword, roll out of the way to avoid damage, and then continue the assault. His staff phase is the best time for you to stick close to him and start dealing damage, since most of these attacks are long range. After depleting his health a little, he’ll switch to using a staff where he uses spells like Crystal Soulmass, Crystal Soulspear, and Crystal Greatsword. You can block them with your shield, or roll out of the way. His attacks are very swift, and his patterns consist of mostly regular slashes and thrusts.

At the start of the first phase, the Soul of Cinder will attack you with a fire longsword.
