Dark Souls Archthrones Kremmel, God of Struggle Boss Fight Guide

While you might have thought you were safe after overcoming Janara One-Eye, Dark Souls Archthrones doesn't ease up. Almost immediately after, it throws yet another formidable challenge your way in the form of Kremmel, God of Struggle. This newly added boss stands out as one of the toughest and most powerful adversaries in the game.

If you're struggling with this boss and need some guidance on how to defeat him, you've come to the right place. In the following sections, we'll provide a detailed breakdown of how to locate and defeat Kremmel, the God of Struggle in Dark Souls Archthrones.

Kremmel, God of Struggle Boss Fight Overview

Kremmel, God of Struggle, or simply "Kremmel" as I'll call him in this guide, is one of the four bosses that you encounter when traversing the Archthrone of the Buried Giants, with the other three being Janara One-Eye, Erdan, and Rimeblood Hati. But what makes Kremmel stand out is his immense power that uses ice, fire, and lightning attacks, a large mace weapon, as well as physical speed, as well as a second phase, and some special similarities to the previous Souls Games, specifically Dark Souls 2's Crown of the Ivory King DLC.

The boss is located inside the castle on the left side of the Eleum Loyce of the Boreal Valley bonfire, which requires defeating Janara to access. Once inside, you can head up the stairs and drop down the large hole on the other side of the fog gate which will let you drop down and face Kremmel, similar to how you dropped down this hole in Dark Souls 2 to face the Burnt Ivory King.

The fight mirrors the Burnt Ivory King's fight in a few ways as well, but we'll touch on that when we get to the general fight strategies below. First, let's discuss the boss's abilities themselves.

Kremmel, God of Struggle First Phase Attacks

• Mace Combo: Kremmel will use his mace to swing at you up to four times, with each attack having a decent amount of tracking, so you'll need to dodge at the last minute to avoid the swings.
• Mace Slam: Kremmel will raise his mace above his head, then slam it into the ground.
• Mace Stomp: Kremmel will stomp on the ground causing an explosion, then slam down on the ground using his mace.
• Leaping Mace Strike: Kremmel will leap into the air and slam his mace into the ground which when hit will cause a shockwave to exude outwards.
• Ice Stomp: Kremmel will stomp onto the ground, and cause an explosion of frost damage to radiate from his feet.
• Ice Leaping Mace Strike: Kremmel will leap into the air and slam his mace into the ground which when hit, will release a wave of frost damage.
• Ice Fall: Kremmel will spawn a spear of ice in his hand, which then starts shooting out shards of ice around Kremmel hitting you if you're too close to him.
• Lightning Spear: Kremmel will summon a bolt of lightning in his hand and fling it towards you, which either hits the ground and emits an AoE of lightning or if it hits you directly, will deal heavy amounts of damage.
• Loyce Knights: Throughout the fight, Kremmel will run toward the large ice pillars and break them, freeing a Loyce knight which will then begin attacking you along with Kremmel.

Kremmel, Profaned Deity Second Phase Attacks

*During his second phase, Kremmel's name will change to "Profaned Deity" and any of the Loyce Knights he's summoned will now attack him instead.*

• Flaming Mace Combo: Kremmel will now use a flaming mace and swing it at you, with each swing having the initial hit of the mace, then followed by a trail of fire that deals damage as well.
• Fire Mace Explosion: Kremmel will leap into the air, closing the gap with you very quickly, and then slam his mace into the ground causing a huge explosion of fire.
• Fire Spit: Kremmel will shoot out bursts of flame from his mouth that track you.
• Fire Thrust: Kremmel will take his mace and thrust it towards you very rapidly, which can easily close the gap and catch you off guard.
• Fire Mace Overhead Combo: Kremmel will perform a front flip that flings him towards you and slams his mace into the ground, then he will repeat this up to five times if he hasn't hit you yet.
• Fire Explosion Rush: Kremmel will charge up a huge burst of fire that deals AoE damage, after which he immediately shoulder tackles you, and follows it up with a kick.
• Flame Grab: Kremmel will grab you and, while holding you above his head channel an explosion into his hand and blow you away, dealing tons of damage.

Kremmel, God of Struggle Boss Fight Tips

When it comes to the fight against Kremmel, you're in for quite a challenging time as this boss can use three elements, summon in help and his second phase is even faster and more widely damaging than the first. So let's break down his first phase, in which you'll just be facing Kremmel and the Loyce Knights he summons.

While the boss is on his own in phase 1, you'll want to stay as near to him as you can, dodging his mace combos and punishing him after they're concluded. When the boss uses his ice stomps or mace slams, back away as quickly as you can to get out of the ice radius or position yourself between the ice streaks that form on the ground.

You also want to back away if you see an ice spear form in his hand, as this attack causes the ice shards to fall closely around the boss, but for most of them, you can stay close and dodge right in his face such as when he uses the lightning spear. Now once you've gotten the hand of these basic attacks, you'll need to account for the Loyce Knights that he'll summon.

When it comes to them, you have two choices, you can either kill them off (but then you won't have help during phase 2) or keep them around while you try to put phase 1 Kremmel down (which will be a lot harder generally). We suggest keeping at least two of them alive so that when phase two starts you can get a few free hits in on Profaned Deity Kremmel, though they will be quickly defeated by Kremmel in his second phase which requires a different approach to phase one.

During phase 2, Kremmel is a lot more aggressive and can use wider-reaching attacks like his Fire Explosion Rush and the Fire Mace Overhead Combo. So for this phase, you'll want to give yourself some distance from Kremmel, and when he closes the gap, you can use this chance to either punish him in between attacks or evade him to back away (especially when he does his Fire Mace Explosion, which you can dodge by rolling behind and away from the boss, then running to avoid the AoE).

When Kremmel performs attacks like his Fire Mace Overhead Combo or Fire Spit, you can use the cooldown from after the attack ends to close in and deal damage as well, but be quick as he responds very aggressively to getting spammed with attacks. From here, you can reposition away from him safely, and wait for your next opening; the name of the game here is patience and knowing when to attack and when not to, and all you need to do then is rinse and repeat this method until he falls.

Ultimately, Kremmel and both of his phases will require quite a bit of practice and thinking on your feet to best, but with some practice and using the tips we've outlined above you should be well prepared to enter his arena with more confidence than before. Once defeated, you can rest easy knowing that one of the hardest bosses in Dark Souls Archtrones has been defeated at your hand.