How To Beat Dragonlord Placidusax In Elden Ring

The Elden Ring Placidusax battle pits you against one of the game’s toughest dragons. Despite being an optional fight, it’s one you should strongly consider completing. Victory earns you a Remembrance with the chance to get a powerful sword and some elder dragon fire magic--or both, if you play your cards right.

Where is Placidusax in Elden Ring?

You can only reach Placidusax towards the end of the game. The Dragonlord resides in Crumbling Faram Azula, a ruined city in the sky you arrive in after defeating the Fire Giant. Take the elevator near the Beside the Great Bridge Site of Grace, head through the church, and keep moving forward until you reach a small copse of trees. Look down, and you’ll see a ledge far below you. The drop won’t kill you, though you can use soft cotton as insurance if you don’t want to take the risk.

Continue moving forward towards the tornado. You’ll eventually reach a large section of ruined wall with an empty niche in the middle. Approach the niche, and the game prompts you to lie down. Choosing to lie down transports you to the boss arena. Note: You should be at least level 100 with a fully upgraded weapon before taking on Placidusax. Using a Rune Arc before the battle is also a good idea, especially if you have Godrick’s or Radahn’s Great Rune equipped.

Elden Ring Placidusax boss battle

As you’d expect from the ruler of all dragons, Placidusax’s move pool is different from the Agheels and Smarags you’ve fought up until now. They uses holy fire and lightning, deal physical damage with their claws, and can vanish in a puff of smoke. Equipping the Boltdrake Talisman--ideally an enhanced version of it--is a good idea for this battle.

Magic users and bow wielders have an advantage. Placidusax is fairly easy to hit at range, and you’ll avoid most of their more troublesome attacks this way. Melee characters will need to learn the dragon’s claw swipe move and track the dragon after they vanish to avoid their deadlier moves. Placidusax is reportedly weak to fire. We didn’t notice a significant difference after coating weapons with fire--and fire spells take too long to cast--though it’s worth trying at any rate.

Once you approach the dragon, they call down red lightning across the battlefield. The attack is telegraphed well before the lighting strikes, so you can stand outside the glowing red spots on the ground to stay safe and pull off a few attacks if you’re using ranged weapons.

Placidusax will occasionally breathe golden fire in an arc in front of themself or fly overhead and spew fire in a straight line. Less frequently at first, but more often as their health depletes, Placidusax will also shoot beams of golden fire from both heads. This attack has the longest range of the fire attacks, but it’s easy to dodge if you stay beside Placidusax or behind them.

When you’re near Placidusax they will frequently raise their foot back, charge their claws with red lightning, and slash. It’s a fast attack, so you’ll need to dodge quickly. Placidusax also uses the standard dragon tail swipe move, though that seems less common.

Of more significance is their vanishing trick. When you’re close, Placidusax will suddenly vanish in a cloud of smoke. The smoke mostly dissipates, but you can follow its trail to keep an eye on where Placidusax will reappear. The most damaging attack involves the dragon vanishing into the sky, then only reappearing as they crash into you. Sometimes, they will stay nearby after vanishing and unleash a string of fast attacks where they reappear, swipes with lightning-charged claws, and repeats this trick a few more times in quick succession.

This attack chain is relatively simple to avoid, since you can dodge away from it, but Placidusax will often follow it up with a gold flame burst. This is much more difficult to avoid, since the dragon transitions to the flame attack right after slashing with their claws. The best way to stay safe is staying well away from the smoke cloud so you’re already out of reach.

You can break Placidusax’s poise, though it’s often best to use that time either for casting a stronger spell, recovering your health, or using a stat-enhancing item. Unless you’re already close, Placidusax will already recover by the time you reach them, which puts you in danger.

Once you’ve defeated Placidusax, you’ll receive the Dragonlord’s Remembrance. If you take the Remembrance to Enia the Finger Reader in Roundtale Hold, you can buy the Dragon King’s Cragblade or Placidusax’s Ruin. The former is a sword whose skill lets you turn into a cloud and reappear in a lightning strike, while the latter is an Incantation that summons the dragon’s golden fire breath. You can visit one of the Wandering Mausoleums in Liurnia’s Mausoleum Complex--assuming you haven’t used them already--and duplicate the Remembrance. That means you can go back to Enia, spend 2,000 Runes, and get whichever item you skipped the first time.