How to beat the Putrescent Knight in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

The Putrescent Knight is a secret boss in Elden Ring’s Shadow of Erdtree DLC who ferociously attacks you with a massive cleaver. If avoiding their brutal onslaughts was not enough, the Putrescent Knight has the help of an eerie horse during the fight, and the capacity to conjure powerful fire spells at you. Fun...

In this Elden Ring DLC guide, we’ll explain how to beat Putrescent Knight in Shadow of the Erdtree, including details about how to prepare and how to read the Knight’s attacks.

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Putrescent Knight location in Elden Ring DLC

You find the Putrescent Knight at the bottom of a region called Stone Coffin Fissure, which you access by descending through The Fissure. However, before you can reach this boss fight, you need first to progress with the main story and have at least reached Shadow Keep.

By the time you get in front of the castle, a message pops up saying “Somewhere, a great rune has broken… And so too has a powerful charm.” You can’t reach the Fissure before that.

You’re led to The Fissure by following Thiollier’s quest. If you do so, you can also summon Thiollier to fight alongside you, although it’s not mandatory to access the fight. Whether you have or haven’t moved forward with his quest, you can enter the fight. Once you have reached the Stone Coffin Fissure area, keep going down until you find the Fissure Depths Site of Grace. Move forward and jump from the massive head to reach the arena.

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Putrescent Knight weakness and how to prepare

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Polygon

In general, the Putrescent Knight fight is not a fun experience for melee builds, since the boss moves a lot around the arena, giving you only a short window to land one or two hits. Long-range abilities, from sorceries to incantations, can work well against this enemy.

Like some other enemies in the Elden Ring DLC, the Putrescent Knight is weak to Holy damage. They take a significant amount of damage from attacks based on this attribute, which is great if you’re running a Faith build. If you’re not, then it’s a good thing that Putrescent Knight is also prone to Bleeding, making blood loss a solid second strategy as well. Although the boss is not immune against fire damage, it’s not as effective as it is against enemies in the base game.

Elden Ring has a considerable number of Holy-based weapons, so which one you should use is a subjective decision. There are some good options to consider though. Weapons with the Sacred Blade Ash of War are great options because they offer a mid-range attack as well. In addition, using this ability imbues the weapon with Holy for a period of time. Two other fun options are Maliketh’s Black Blade — its damage-over-time potential is great during down times — and the Sacred Relic Sword, which has a skill that covers basically the whole arena.

When it comes to building up Bleed, give preference to weapons capable of quick sequences of attacks, like katanas and twinblades. As mentioned, the windows to hit the Putrescent Knight are very short and you want to trigger blood loss as quickly as possible before the boss rides away from you.

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Polygon

If you’d rather play safe, running some defensive items, then the Flamedrake Talisman is a solid option for you. Putrescent Knight has two nasty Fire attacks, but with this talisman, you improve your chances of survival in case you are caught by them. If you’re having a hard time dodging these attacks. you should consider increasing your Endurance to help you resist the Frostbite it inflicts.

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How to beat the Putrescent Knight in Elden Ring DLC

The Putrescent Knight’s attacks have long — but delayed — animations, which requires some practice to correctly nail the timing. You have almost no room to pop a flask or recast a buff. The Putrescent Knight’s kit has more than one tool to prevent you from doing so by forcing you to choose between getting hit while healing yourself, or escaping their offensive movements but staying one hit from dying.

While the fight is not explicitly split into two phases, we’re doing so to make the information below easier to digest. The first phase encompasses all the boss’s main moves. Once you have learned to survive the first phase, the second becomes a walk in the park.

Putrescent Knight boss fight phase 1

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Polygon

All of the moves we’ve detailed below repeat throughout the whole fight. Understanding how to avoid them and the windows for striking back are crucial to beat this boss.

The Putrescent Knight can start the fight in two ways. They can jump at you and slam their massive cleaver at your location or ride toward you and perform a few swing attacks — which is more common when you perform a skill as they are coming at you. The former is usually followed by one of Putrescent Knight’s signature moves, the spinning attack combined with their horse.

The combined attack begins with Putrescent Knight jumping from their horse and performing three spins. This initial move is followed by another three spins and a charge attack from the horse, which they repeat one more time. In total, you need to dodge three spinning sequences and two charges. Dodging the first sequence of spins is only a matter of rolling toward them. But, when the Putrescent Knight and their horse attack together, you need to roll toward the horse and quickly roll to the opposite side.

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Polygon

Once they are done, there is a small window to attack the Putrescent Knight during the animation where they mount their horse again. Go for a single heavy attack and two light ones, but don’t be greedy.

A second common move that you need to deal with during the whole fight is a sequence of swing attacks. These are a little tricky to avoid initially because of their delayed animation, which means that they tend to take a little bit longer than expected to actually attack you. Luckily, there’s a tell for when Putrescent Knight is about to execute the swings. Usually, they raise the cleaver with one hand. (There is, however, a variation in which they use both hands.)

When Putrescent Knight uses the single-hand variation, they can execute two to three swings. This version also has a variation where the boss follows up the third swing with a double-slamming attack.

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Polygon

To escape when Putrescent Knight swings and slams the cleaver at you, focus on rolling toward the direction from where their weapon is coming. Regardless of the variation, when they complete the sequences, the boss won’t move for a few seconds, giving you another good opportunity to land a skill or a few blows.

If you get close to the boss for too long, they can eventually use two attacks. One is a stomp; the other is a roar. There isn’t a secret to avoiding these attacks besides rolling at the right moment. Running from the boss to avoid getting hit by them is almost impossible so you need to just tank the damage if you can’t avoid it.

Lastly, in more than one moment during the fight, Putrescent Knight will ride away from you. When they do that, prepare to dodge a boomerang attack. The Putrescent Knight will throw their giant cleaver at you, and it’ll return via a semi-circular route. To avoid getting hit by the weapon on its return, stay where you are.

Putrescent Knight boss fight phase 2

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Polygon

Once more than one-third of the boss’s health bar is gone, that’s where what we consider the second phase begins. As mentioned, the Putrescent Knight still uses the same attacks from the first phase, but performs fire attacks for the rest of the fight. These not only cause a lot of damage but can inflict you with Frostbite.

The first variation of the fire attack is when Putrescent Knight rises from the ground and shoots projectiles of black goo. When they hit the ground, lines of blue fire are formed, covering parts of the arena. The boss always releases three sequences of projectiles. You can either roll or dodge to escape the flames. The former seems more intuitive, but it’s harder to time. Jumping forward when the fire is coming at you is the easiest strategy.

The second variation tends to happen as a follow-up for the first one. The Putrescent Knight unleashes a final frontal fire attack. Nothing special here, and you can avoid it using the same strategy.

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Polygon

The third variation, however, has a different initial animation. Instead of rising from the ground, Putrescent Knight stands and only the horse rises a little bit while the black goo concentrates on them and is thrown far at the edges of the arena. Once the projectiles hit the ground, they form a circle of fire that starts closing toward the center of the arena. Jumping or rolling work equally well in this situation as well.

During all these fire attacks, you won’t actually have a window to hit the boss, so focus on surviving the flames and wait until Putrescent Knight uses one of the attacks from the first phase.

Defeating the Putrescent Knight rewards you with the Remembrance of Putrescence and 220,000 runes.

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For more Elden Ring DLC bosses, see our guides on all Remembrance bosses and learn how to duplicate Remembrances. Need to power up? We’ve got location guides on where to find Scadutree Fragments and Revered Spirit Ashes, and an interactive Elden Ring DLC map.