Soul of Cinder is the Final boss in Dark Souls 3, and defeating it is mandatory to complete the game and achieve any ending. This powerful enemy wears heavy armor that is known as the "Firelink" set, and its fight will be separated into two phases. During the first one, it will use its Greatsword and perform similar Spells and Incantations to the ones that all players can cast.
However, in the second phase, the boss mimics Gwyn, Lord of Cinder's attacks, and after you're done with it, you will get the option to choose between the endings if you have completed the requisites for them. Here is all you need to know about Soul of Cinder.
Soul of Cinder Overview
| Soul of Cinder Overview | |
|---|---|
| Location | Kiln of the First Flame |
| Optional | No |
| Drops |
|
| Weak To | Lightning |
Soul of Cinder is located in Kiln of the First Flame, which you can reach by defeating all the Lords of Cinders. The boss fight is not optional. Defeating him will reward you with 100,000 Souls and the Soul of the Lords. You can transpose the Soul to get Sunlight Spear or Firelink Greatsword. To transpose the Soul, you will need to defeat the Curse-Rotted Greatwood, who is an optional enemy and will drop the Transposing Kiln. Giving the Kiln to Ludleth in Firelink Shrine will enable the Soul Transposition process.
Soul of Cinder Attacks
Soul of Cinder has two phases, both of which are unique and has you avoiding all the attacks it throws at you.
Strategies and Moveset
Soul of Cinder is a formidable foe in the game but is not the hardest. You can defeat it with ease through careful analysis and proper counterattacking, and having an aggressive playstyle will benefit you a lot throughout the first phase of the fight. In the first phase, the boss will switch up to four styles. Each style is different and allows it to use various attacks and spells, which makes learning all of them difficult.
The Straight Sword Moveset is the first one Cinder will be using. In this moveset, it does not have many openings since it throws consecutive attacks that are mostly strikes and thrusts. But despite its aggressive nature, most of the Soul of Cinder's attacks have a slow start-up.
Another style is Mage Moveset, where the enemy starts to use Sorceries. Homing Crystal Soulmass is a Sorcery that it uses quite often, these have good tracking and do little damage but can be annoying if you get hit by all of them. Despite not having a normal weapon to strike the player at close range, it covers its weakness by using the Soul Greatsword (Sorcery).
Another style is the Curved Sword with the Pyromancies. In this style, most of its attacks are telegraphic and are easy to punish, and it'll also perform Fire Orb quite often, which you can roll to one side to avoid and get a few hits in. The more aggressive you are against this style, the better.
The last style is the Faith Moveset, where Cinder performs Miracles such as Wrath of the Gods, which cause a shockwave dealing heavy damage if you are close enough. It also uses a lance during this style which has good reach and can thrust you from a small distance away.
When this enemy loses its first health bar, it will stick its weapon into the ground and causes an AOE explosion that you should stay away from. This will restore its entire health bar and initiate the second phase.
The second phase is where Soul of Cinder starts using Gwyn, Lord of Cinder's moveset. In this phase, the boss has a lower health pool compared to the first phase allowing you to defeat it relatively quickly. The 5-Hit Combo is an attack you must stay away from at all costs. The attack is quite long and can take out your entire health bar. If you can manage to get away from the first hit, you can stay away and watch while Cinder performs the entire attack. The Leaping Attack and the Grab are both attacks that have huge punish windows, and sometimes it will spam Grab. Dodging to the right will save you from it and give you the time to hit him two or more times.
Remember not to get greedy if you miss an opening, as you will get many more.
Parry is also an effective strategy that you can use. Most attacks in the first phase, especially in the Straight Sword and Pyromancy Moveset, can be parried, which will put this boss it in a staggered position, allowing you to attack it several times. However, you can not Riposte it for extra damage, since sticking too close to the boss in the second phase makes it perform its Kick attack a lot. This can break your guard and can leave you vulnerable to its grab attack.
Healing in this fight can become tricky at times. Using an Estus Flask recklessly can leave you susceptible to its attacks. Whenever you need to heal during the fight, you should try to get away and use your Flask as the boss completes an attack.
The boss is resistant to Fire, so if you are a Pyromancer, then you should avoid using Fire spells and instead use Dark Spells. The first phase for all ranged classes will be much more difficult as Cinder can close the gap with the player in an instant. The Mage and Pyromancer moveset is quite easy to go through as the boss takes quite some time to cast spells and stay away from you. Do not use Sorceries that have a slow cast as the boss can perform an attack that can interrupt your cast and do heavy damage to you.
Unlike the melee strategy where you punish the Leaping Strike, in the ranged strategy you need to avoid this attack and be careful not to cast before it. If you manage to avoid the first hit of the 5-Hit Combo, you can get away as far as you can and start to cast multiple Spells and Sorceries.
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