Dark Souls Archthrones Janara One-Eye Boss Fight Guide

Among the multitude of bosses in Dark Souls Archthrones, some undoubtedly tower above the rest in terms of their strength and the challenge they present. Such is the case with the first boss of the Illeum Loyce area, Janara One-Eye, and if you've faced her yourself, you likely understand why.

Janara One-Eye is a formidable adversary, presenting a significant challenge to even the most seasoned players. If you find yourself in need of assistance in defeating her, you're certainly not alone. Fortunately, this guide is here to help, as we'll delve into precisely how to locate and overcome Janara One-Eye in Dark Souls: Archthrones.

Janara One-Eye Boss Fight Overview

Janara One-Eye presents a two-phase fight as the first boss encounter within the Arcthrone of the Buried Giants. You'll encounter her shortly after entering the Eleum Loyce of the Boreal Valley area, serving as a significant skill check for players considering facing this Archthrone prematurely.

Janara wields a large halberd-style weapon and primarily employs ice-based attacks. However, her most formidable aspect lies in her speed and fluid, almost delayed combat style, which initially poses difficulty in anticipating her moves compared to other bosses. Before delving into strategies for confronting her, let's first examine her move set for each of her phases to better prepare for the encounter.

Janara One-Eye First Phase

• Basic Combo: Janara will execute a combo using her halberd, but what makes it deadly is that the number of swings alternates depending on how close/aggressive you are to the boss and can range between two to four strikes. 
• Heavy Combo: Janara will use two swings, then finish it off with an overhead attack. 
• Delayed Combo: Janara will execute two swings, but they will have delayed timing (and seem slower), which can easily catch you off guard. 
• Swipe Retreat: Janara will perform a wide swipe and then jump away from you quickly. Heavy Overhead: Janara will start with a heavy overhead attack and then perform a swipe attack shortly after. 
• Frost Wave: Janara swipes her halberd in front of her body and creates a wave of frost damage that pushes outward in a cone shape towards you. 
• Leap Strike: Janara will leap toward you and as she lands, either perform a swipe attack or heavy overhead/ground slam with the halberd. 
• Halberd Hurricane: The boss will hold her halberd up and proceed to spin around up to five times swinging her halberd outward towards you. 
• Halberd Thrust: Janara will thrust her halberd forward either quickly or slowly (so watch for the telegraphing), and this attack can either come on its own or be used at the end of a combo. 
• Halberd Thrust (Rush): Janara will use the same telegraphing as the thrust, but instead, she will attempt to run you down with the halberd and deal with consecutive strikes as the halberd passes through you.

Janara One-Eye Second Phase

*All first-phase attacks persist during her second phase*

• Illusionary Strikes: After her phase transition (and then randomly throughout the second phase), Janara disappears into a fog of snow, and then 5 illusory versions of her will spawn near you and execute a different attack (each of her clones is invulnerable). 
• Frost Leap Strike: Similar to the leap strike attack, but upon landing, Janara will thrust her halberd into the ground and cause a burst of frost crystals to appear and then explode, dealing damage and frost buildup. 
• Frost Combo: Janara performs a combo (strike, then overhead heavy), and concludes it with a retreat swipe and follow-up swipe that both let loose a wave of frost damage. 
• Frost Slam: Janara will raise her halberd summoning frost crystals around her that then explode as she slams the halberd into the ground. 
• Frost Burst: Janara will unleash a burst of frost damage from her seemingly broken arm and helmet that sprays out towards you and deals heavy frostbite buildup as well as a decent chunk of damage.

Janara One-Eye Boss Tips

As you can see, Janara boasts an incredibly wide array of attacks to use, and the main concern with dealing with them is the fact that she can weave any of them together as she sees fit. This makes her difficult to predict, and if you're familiar with the fights in any of the Souls games, you'll know that learning the boss's moves is paramount to defeating them, which makes Janara particularly hard to overcome.

What I've found is that instead of trying to counter between combos (unless you have a really quick strike with a short sword or rapier), instead, wait for her to do any of her heavier combos or slower combos before retaliating and punishing. Ultimately, you'll need to be extremely patient for these windows as she gets more aggressive as the fight goes on and these windows become shorter and shorter.

Ultimately, though, as long as you can avoid getting too close to Janara and give yourself space to dodge her wide swipe attacks as well as the hurricane (which is just a brutal attack to deal with if you're close to her), you can confidently get her down to half health without taking too much damage. It's here, though, that phase two begins, and where you're going to need to keep up with her.

The opening for phase two will always be the illusionary strikes, and I've found that the best way to deal with this is to just run away. This gives you space to dodge all five of the strikes coming from the clones, but also, once the final clone does its attack, it takes Janara a while to reappear, giving you time to heal or reposition.

This phase is ultimately similar to the first phase, but now you need to watch for those ice attacks as they have an AoE (area of effect), meaning that even if you're in mid-range of Janara, she can still hit you with these. So, you'll want to give her as much space as you can and bait out her normal combos to give yourself space to close in and attack, then back away to safety.

You should also consider parrying some of her strikes if possible, but due to their speed (and when she slows them down purposefully), it can be hard to time just right, but it's worth a try if you're confident. From here, you simply need to avoid the frost attacks as much as possible as they stack up frostbite quickly and if you have a build with no cold resistances (like I did), then you're going to become tissue paper in terms of your damage absorption when frostbitten, so take care to avoid these at all costs as her normal attacks can at least be dodged, blocked, and parried.

So keep these tips in mind, and learn her attack telegraphings to know when it's safe to engage and when you should back away. Play this fight safe, and even if it takes you many attempts, with a bit of luck and understanding of her moves, you'll eventually bring down Janara One-Eye. As always, be sure to check out our dedicated Dark Souls Archthrones section here for more boss guides and general tips, and good luck to those taking on this powerful boss.