Boss: The Nameless King

Stage I

The first stage of the fight is against The Nameless King and the King of the Storm. You need as much Fire Resistance as possible, and heavy armor wouldn’t hurt. The enemies have massive damage output. In this stage, the dragon is your primary opponent. It hits you with its head and body, but only rarely. More commonly is breathes Fire onto you, and positions The Nameless King to strike at you from above.

The dragon’s physical blows are often minor and unimportant. If it’s going to kill you outright, it will be through the fire breath. From above, this does incredible damage and will nail you twice in a row. You must roll out of the way to avoid the second hit if you won’t want to die instantly.

Running away when the dragon takes flight might let you avoid both blasts of flame, but it’s harder than it sounds to pull off. The area of effect for the fire is gigantic.

Sometimes the King of the Storm breathes while it’s still on the ground. This is a gift! Sprint around to the back side of its head and go to town with free hits. You do massive damage and can shorten the fight considerably. Never waste this, as it’s your prime damage opportunity in Stage I.

The other recovery period that is in your favor comes when The Nameless King charges a Lightning strike and misses at close range. The targets are slow to get up from that, so you get decent hits.

Always go for the dragon’s head and neck. Foot shots are very weak, and you can’t afford to prolong this stage of the combat. There are two more stages to go afterward.

Don’t use lock on unless you have to. It’s hard to see what The Nameless King is doing, and his spear attacks come out of nowhere unless you can keep the camera on him manually.

The worst news: this is the easy stage.

Stage II

When the King of the Storm dies, The Nameless King dismounts. Now he’s mad.

The next two stages are very similar. You need to kill The Nameless King. He only has one life bar, but that’s still quite a bit of health to chop through. You want a relatively quick weapon if at all possible. There are only rare moments when you get serious combo time, and this boss punishes greedy swings. One extra shot is going to cost you half of your health.

Lightning Resistance is your lifesaver for Stages II and III. Keep it as high as you can.

The other way to survive is to master the brutal timings of the boss’ 1-2 swing, and his alternate 1-2-3 combo. In both cases, the early hit(s) are quick and easy to dodge. The final shot is slow and deceptive. You’re going to eat those several times before you learn to slow down and hold your dodge. Mastering this final dodge gets you a long way toward winning this match.

You can’t do anything at long range. The Nameless King has two wind attacks to disrupt you, and a couple of charges. All close the gap quickly, making it dangerous to back up and heal. You have to wait until you score a dodge before drinking, most of the time.

The wide wind attack gets used early in the fight. You have to roll into the wind to avoid the damage. You can roll in almost any direction against the narrow wind strike.

Always try to roll closer to the boss. You have little time to make your counters, and you lose all of that if you have to sprint over to him. Come up from your rolls and hit him immediately, or accept that you missed your chance. Don’t rush right into his spear when you’re hoping to get a shot of your own.

Stage III

After reaching half health, The Nameless King begins casting way more Lightning spells. They’re slow and specific in their timing. All of these attacks can be dodged if you’re good, but that takes practice. Unfortunately, this fight will take a lot of trial and error to get the timing right to avoid these repeated attacks.

Be especially watchful for his Lightning Bomb. It can hit you on the way out, and then explode after a few seconds to do even more damage.

He also has a slow spell that does so much damage that it can kill you from almost full health, depending on your build. There aren’t any tricks. You have to learn to dodge it. If you’re close when he starts this slow casting, punish him with several strikes. You might get lucky and stagger him. This won’t happen often, but it’s so sweet when it does.

To work on your timings, listen for the different crackles that the Lightning attacks make (in all three stages). These audible cues are one of your few assets as you learn to avoid everything.