How to Beat the Crucible Knight in Elden Ring

The Crucible Knight is a deceptively simple boss fight in Elden Ring. You'll run into these heavily armored baddies several times over the course of your adventures in the Lands Between, so it pays to have them down pat. Here are some tips for taking down this tough so-and-so.

Crucible Knight Boss Guide

The first place you'll likely find the Crucible Knight is at Stormhill Evergaol, which can be found just past the Stormgate. This is your chance to learn the fight thoroughly. Heading into it, use whatever equipment lets you deal the most physical or magic damage — status effects are all but useless in this fight.

What makes the Crucible Knight such a pain for most players is their high resistances and high poise. Fighting the Crucible Knight is a test of patience more than anything else, though you can speed it up by employing parries. Many of the Knight's attacks can be parried, and aren't particularly hard to parry, allowing you a juicy punish each time.

If you're not a shield user, you'll need to learn to dodge the Knight's swipes. For most of these attacks you can roll straight forward, moving through the hit box with your invincibility frames. But keep an eye out: many of the Crucible Knight's attacks can be chained together into combos of up to four hits. Don't throw out an attack until you're sure you won't need to roll again.

The one move you can't roll through is the Knight's Seismic Wave, in which they two-hand their sword and stomps on the ground. If you're within range after the stomp, they'll go for a three-hit combo. Rolling to either side will dodge the Seismic Wave, at which point you can dodge the swipes as normal.

When the Crucible Knight reaches half HP, they'll sprout angelic wings and a draconic tail. That gives him access to a diving swoop attack you can roll forward through. It also lets them use a tail swipe attack that occurs most often when you're behind them, and that they can follow up with a second, even larger tail swipe. Roll into the tail as it approaches, then wait to see if the second swipe is coming before attacking.

Keep your punishes conservative and focus on dodging. Keep this up long enough and all the armor in the world won't protect the Crucible Knight.

Magic users will likely struggle against the Crucible Knight, as they'll block most magic attacks. The only real openings in that guard are during the Knight's attack animations. Alternatively, the Cuckoo Glintstone will make magic bolts him the Knight in the back, circumventing that massive shield.

Ok, so you've beaten the Crucible Knight. Hope you had fun, because you're going to have to do it several more times! When you make it to Redmane Castle, you'll encounter a boss fight that begins with a Misbegotten Warrior — but when that boss reaches around half HP, a Crucible Knight will join the arena. Your best bet here is to kill the Misbegotten Warrior as quickly as possible before the Crucible Knight joins; failing that, kite them both around the arena taking pot shots at the Misbegotten Warrior until it goes down. From there, settle in for a long, slow fight with the Crucible Knight.

Now how about two Crucible Knights at once? That's what you're getting when you take on the Auriza Hero's Grave on the outskirts of Leyndell, Royal Capital. The second Crucible Knight will be Crucible Knight Ordovis. Stay light on your feet, focus on dodging and not punishing, and settle in for a grind — there's not much in the way of shortcuts for this one.

Luckily, that's not the case with every Elden Ring boss. Check out our guides for Rennala, Radahn or the Tree Sentinel for help with those fights.