Elden Ring Dragonkin Soldier Boss Guide

This guide explains how to reach and defeat the Dragonkin Soldier in Elden Ring – attack types, boss mechanics, strategy and video walkthrough!

How to get to the Dragonkin Soldier

The Dragonkin Soldier is in a semi-secret area within Siofra River. You have to take a portal up to a higher area called Nokron, Eternal City.

how to get to Dragonkin Soldier boss in Elden Ring

The portal is hard to spot since it’s small and guarded by 4 Ancestral Followers wielding bows. Here is the location of the portal:

Once you are teleported up there, the boss is just laying down near the waterfall.

Dragonkin Soldier Mechanics Explained and Strategy

The Dragonkin Soldier is fairly simple as far as bosses go. He mainly just swings his arms around a bunch. The challenge comes from the fact that his attacks deal a ton of damage. If you’re not at full health, there’s an extremely high chance that you’ll be defeated in the next hit.

Normally, I’d suggest waiting to fight a boss like this, but he does seem to be balanced around the attacks dealing so much damage. Each individual attack is incredibly slow and easy to dodge while his health is low enough that he’s not too hard to beat while you’re here after dealing with the Ancestor Spirit. Check out my guide for that boss too:

I only recommend waiting to fight this boss if he’s defeating you in a single hit from full health.

This next segment of the guide will explain all of the special attacks and moves of the boss and give you tips and recommendations on how to deal with them. If you like to, you can also check out the video walkthrough featured below. It’s from the perspective of a Spell Caster class archetype (Astrologer).

Waking Up

At the very beginning of the fight, the boss is asleep, and it takes him quite a while to fully wake up. During this time, he’s vulnerable to damage and I highly recommend using this time to get as many hits in as possible. Make sure you have enough stamina left over for his first attacks.

I was able to get his health down that much before I ran out of stamina and he began attacking.

Slams and Swipes

Since his attacks deal so much damage and he has pretty long openings, I do not recommend attacking if it looks like he’s winding up for a swing. Wait until he’s done with his little flurry and go to his side so he has to spend time turning to face you.

The boss usually starts off his attack sequence with a slam directly at you. It almost looks like he’s going to grab you, but he just whacks you.

Dragonkin Soldier - slams and swipes attacks

His series of attacks usually ends with a big swipe that makes a big splash in the water, so once he’s done that, you can feel safe that he’s not going to continue attacking for a moment.

Lunges and Safety

When you’re further away from the boss, he may lunge at you. If you successfully dodge forward, you’ll end up where his stomach would be.

Even without the lunge attack, the Dragonkin Soldier’s side and belly are relatively safe, so it’s good to roll towards them when dodging his attacks. That said, you have to watch out for when he moves his arm back so you don’t get hit by his elbow.

Dash Attack

Once his health gets low, he’ll let out a scream and add a dash attack to his moveset. When I fought him, he didn’t start using this until the very end of the fight, so I’m not sure if you’ll have to worry about it too much.

Crimson and Wondrous Physick Flasks

Since the Dragonkin Soldier hits so hard, you absolutely need to make sure that you have max health. Taking a single sip from the Crimson Flask probably won’t bring you up to max HP, so take an extra gulp if there’s time or run away and take another sip. The second sip will be partially wasted, but it’s completely useless to only partially heal against the Dragonkin Soldier’s attacks unless your build or level allows you survive multiple hits.

If you’ve gotten the Flask of Wondrous Physick and the Opaline Bubbletear, they should help a ton for this fight by mitigating an additional full hit. The Crimsonburst Crystal Tear might also be useful in regenerating the portion of health not regenerated by a single sip from the Crimson Flask.

What rewards you get for defeating the Dragonkin Soldier

Defeating the Dragonkin Soldier gives you 16,000 Runes and the Dragon Halberd.

Defeating the Dragonkin Soldier of Nokstella boss will also grant you one of the Elden Ring Achievements you may want to hunt down for your collection.

I hope you found my Dragonkin Soldier Boss Fight Guide helpful. If you have a question about any of the boss mechanics or strategy to beat it, leave a comment below.

You can find more Elden Ring Boss Guides here on VULKK.com. Check out the entire Elden Ring Guides collection for more helpful content.