Four Kings is one of the toughest bosses to beat in Dark Souls. Players have been looking for weaknesses and ways to cheese this foe for over a decade. However, one of the things that make it so hard is it’s a straight fight with the odds stacked against you. So, the key to defeating Four Kings is to even things up a bit.
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Dark Souls Four Kings weaknesses
Unfortunately, Four Kings doesn’t have any significant weaknesses. Fire attacks do more damage to them than normal, but not enough to center your strategy around it.
Four Kings shortcut
The New Londo Ruins don’t have a bonfire, so you’ll have to start your trek to the boss from Firelink Shrine each time. There are two shortcuts to Four Kings in Dark Souls. One is relatively safe but requires you to fight through enemies each time. The other is a mad dash through New Londo Ruins that can result in a quick death.
Safe shortcut
To take the safe shortcut, follow these steps:
- Head toward New Londo.
- Once you cross the two wooden bridges leading into it, continue forward until you reach the wall.
- Turn right and continue to the edge (there’s a pot here with a corpse inside that drops two Transient Curses).
- Look down to the left, and you should see an ledge you can walk onto.
- Below here is an area with a pool of water you can drop into.
- Fight your way through the building (or run through it), and the fog door leading to the boss is on the other side.
Fast shortcut
This shortcut is a bit quicker but requires you to run the entire way and involves a lot more risk:
- Head toward New Londo.
- Once you cross the wooden bridges, keep heading forward and take the stairs up to the left.
- When you reach the top, turn right and drop down.
- Slide down the broken piece of the wall onto the bottom walkway.
- Turn left and climb the ladder.
- Turn right and then take the first left.
- Follow this path and take the doorway on the right into the tower.
- Immediately veer left, then take the first doorway on the left.
- Turn right and continue along the walkway.
- Head left toward the tower.
- If you look left and down, you should see the area containing the boss fog door.
- Drop down and sprint to it.
Four Kings melee strategy
Preparation:
- Get a weapon that strikes quickly with low stamina use for high DPS
- Grab a decent suit of heavy armor.
- Obtain the Crest Shield: Grab from Oscar of Astora in the Undead Asylum after defeating him.
If you’re running a melee build, your objective is to stay as close as possible to a king (preferably directly behind them). It’ll still hit you with its sword hilt often, but that causes much less damage than the blade. Should any of the kings fire magic projectiles, the Crest Shield mitigates 100% of magic damage, and once you’re close to them, they’ll only use their melee attacks.
Since your goal is to do as much damage in the least time possible, it’s best to go with something that strikes quickly and uses little stamina, like one of the straight swords. The Balder Side Sword +14 works particularly well, but you can use whatever you’re comfortable with. Additionally, even if you don’t usually run heavy armor, it’s best to throw a decent body armor on for the Poise. You’ll be taking hits during this fight, and that’ll keep you from stumbling too much.
Aside from the big purple magic explosion they sometimes conjure, you can take any of them one-on-one with this strategy. Fortunately, that’s easy to avoid by rolling straight back twice. The thing that makes this fight hard is that a new king spawns about every 45 seconds. So, if you don’t kill the first king during that time, you’ll face two, then three, and so on.
Fortunately, there’s something you (potentially) can do to make this fight a lot easier. Across the bridge from the fog door that leads to the boss fight is a pillar. On one side of it, you can find the summon sign for Witch Beatrice as long as two requirements are met:
- You are in human form.
- You summoned her to help in the Moonlight Butterfly fight in Darkroot Garden.
She’s a glass cannon, but with her help, you can easily take down each king in 45 seconds or less. She likely won’t make it through the whole fight, but you should make it most of the way through Four Kings’ health bar before she dies.
Four Kings magic strategy
Preparation:
- Get Strong Magic Shield spell: You’ll find this in a chest in the Duke’s Archives.
- Buy Homing Crystal Soulmass: Big Hat Logan sells this in the Duke’s Archives after you free him from the jail cell.
- After this, buy it from Griggs for more charges.
- Buy Lingering Dragoncrest Ring from Griggs of Vinhelm
Mages will have an easier time with Four Kings. All you have to do is pop the Strong Magic shield when you hit the arena and start casting Homing Crystal Soulmass. The Lingering Dragoncrest Ring will extend your shield spell’s active time so you can concentrate on staying on the offensive.
Again, if you’re in human form, you can summon Witch Beatrice as described above. It shouldn’t take long between the two of you to knock Four Kings out.
Dark Souls Four Kings cheese
There’s no way to cheese Four Kings in Dark Souls that we’ve discovered. The fight occurs in a dark, featureless arena, and there’s nothing in the environment to exploit. For better or worse, it’s the most straight-up fight in the game.
Dark Souls Four Kings boss fight FAQ
Ensure the Covenant of Artorias Ring is equipped before entering the boss arena. You’ll die instantly if you attempt to fight Four Kings without it. You can get the ring by defeating Great Grey Wolf Sif in Darkroot Garden.
Unfortunately, Four Kings is a mandatory boss. The Bequeathed Lord Soul you get for defeating it is required to fill the Lordvessel.
You’ll need to make your way through Darkroot Garden before you fight Four Kings since you need the Covenant of Artorias Ring. However, you can head to The Duke’s Archives and defeat Seath the Scaleless first.
