Dark Souls Archthrones Disgraced Knight Boss Fight Guide

Defeating bosses is par for the course in the Dark Souls 3 mod, Dark Souls Archthrones, and if you're taking on the Archthrone of the Old Gods, then one boss you'll come across is the Disgraced Knight. This boss is extremely aggressive and difficult to master, and if you're looking for some tips on how to beat it, then you're in the right place.

Below, we will help you bring this boss to its knees by giving you a breakdown of what to expect as well as how to defeat the boss with some tips and tricks you can use. So without further delay, let's dive right in and explore how to beat the Disgraced Knight in Dark Souls Archthrones. 

How To Beat Disgraced Knight Boss In Dark Souls Archthrones

The Disgraced Knight is one of the three bosses you'll encounter when traversing through the Archthrone of the Old Gods, specifically in the Phoenix Tower in Irithyll. To locate the boss, you'll need to head through the central tower in the starting area, then choose the path/door to the right which will lead you to the boss.

Specifically, you'll want to take the path to the right that leads to a second tower, and then a bridge to a large broken-down structure. This will lead you to a large building containing Quella's Chamber. From here, you'll want to turn right and head up the stairs that lead back outside and to another tower, finally reaching the Tower Vista bonfire, just down the path from the fog gate for the boss.

As for the boss itself, the Disgraced Knight is a new boss designed for the game and is a large humanoid in armor wielding a large Crescent Moon sword. What makes this boss particularly difficult isn't necessarily its size, but rather its speed and second phase that adds magic to the mix as well as the use of Lloyd's Talismans that prevent you from healing. So, it's vital to know its moves and how they work, so let's discuss them below for both phases.

Disgraced Knight First Phase

• Throwing Daggers: The boss will throw two daggers at you while either standing still or as it jumps away from you.
• Dagger Strike: The boss will throw a dagger, then quickly follow up with a normal melee attack that can easily close the gap between you two.
• Basic Combo: The boss will swing its Crescent Moon sword between three to five times, and each hit can deal significant damage.
• Delayed Combo: The boss will telegraph an attack, then slightly delay before the sword comes down, making it a tough attack to dodge.
• Leap Strike: The Disgraced Knight will leap forward and strike you from above.
• Kick Back: The boss will raise their leg and kick forward, either staying on the ground or jumping backward after the kick.
• Rolling Strike: The boss will leap forward and roll quickly while also swinging its sword.
• Rush Strike: The boss will rush forward and attack quickly, swinging its sword upwards.
• Deflect: The boss will hold its sword up and try to deflect any attack you're currently doing.
• Stomp: The boss will stomp on the ground causing a small shockwave that hurts you if you're nearby.
• Lloyd's Talisman: The boss will slowly throw a talisman while standing still or as it moves, and if it hits you, you won't be able to use Estus recovery.

Disgraced Knight Second Phase

*Borrows all the attacks from the previous phase*

• Light Slash: The knight will unleash slashes of light that move forward and hit hard if you don't dodge them.
• Leap Combo: The boss will jump forward and when landing open up with a quick combo.
• Light Explosion: The boss will hold its head down and a cloud of light surrounds it, exploding in a haze of light.
• Light Stomp: The boss will stomp, but instead of just releasing a shockwave, it will unleash light slashes.

The key to defeating the Disgraced Knight lies in learning its move set and knowing when to attack and when to wait for your opening, as the boss's speed makes it easy to get punished for getting greedy, and the boss's high damage can cleave through your health bar extremely quickly. The first tip is to not attack when the boss has done a light combo as opposed to its attacks with a longer cooldown.

This means waiting for the boss to do its leaping strike, roll strike, or throwing a Lloyd's Talisman, for example, as attacking after its more rapid attacks will leave you vulnerable to its counters (unless you can stagger it, but that requires quite a bit of strength at this point). Keep your distance and attack when safe to do so only, and be sure to avoid the Lloyd's Talisman as getting hit can be easy in this fight and you'll need to heal as soon as you can.

Keep this strategy up until the boss enters its second phase and will now use all the same attacks but with a mixture of magic attacks using its Crescent Moon blade. In this case, you'll want to follow the same strategy as the first phase (wait for its large attack cooldowns to counter), but you'll want to keep a bit more distance between you and the boss as it's much faster in this phase and you need the time to see its attacks coming.

Thankfully its attacks are pretty much identical to phase one, except for the magic attacks, but if you can keep your distance, you can easily see the slashes or explosions coming and can avoid them with less effort. Keep this up and eventually the Disgraced Knight boss will fall, granting you its loot drops and allowing you to head to the next area in this Archthrone (given you already defeated the Keeper of the Old Gods).

So there you have it, a comprehensive breakdown of how to defeat the Disgraced Knight boss in Dark Souls Archthrones. As always, be sure to check out our dedicated Dark Souls section here for the latest Dark Souls Archthrones guides, news, updates, and much more.