How to defeat the Soldier of Godrick in Elden Ring

Elden Ring has some truly challenging bosses, such as Margit and Godrick. However, before you take on these tougher bosses, you’ll fight through a few bosses that offer less of a challenge and serve more to introduce you to certain mechanics. One of these bosses is the Soldier of Godrick, who might be the first boss you face following your encounter with Grafted Scion.

Soldier of Godrick is found in the Stranded Graveyard, which is the area you’ll spawn into after fighting Grafted Scion. Here, you should see a spirit, as well as a hole in the ground. The spirit will encourage you to fall through the hole. You’ll then proceed through some linear passageways that act as the game’s tutorial area. At the end of the tutorial, you’ll encounter the Soldier of Godrick.

Being a tutorial boss, the Soldier of Godrick is pretty easy to beat. He moves fairly fast, but his attacks come out slow and are easily telegraphed. Even when you’re first starting the game, you can block or dodge his slashing attacks quite easily. From what we’ve seen, he only attempts heavy strikes, all of which have a ton of starting and ending lag.

If you’re running a melee build, you can use heavy attacks, leaping attacks, and guard counters to knock him off balance, then follow up with a critical hit. You can also get behind him and backstab him with the light attack button. Magic-users can simply fire at him with their preferred spell until he’s dead. He only rewards you with 400 Runes, but when starting a new game, you’ll want to take all the Runes you can get.