Dark Souls III: Slave Knight Gael Boss Fight

Slave Knight Gael is the end boss of The Ringed City DLC, but he is also the one who got you started on this whole stray path, as he is the one who gets you to go to the Painted World of Ariandel when you encounter him in the Cleansing Chapel.

As he is also a very helpful phantom that can be summoned for other boss fights in the DLCs (Sister Friede in Ashes of Ariandel and Demon Prince in The Ringed City), it may come as a bit of a surprise to find out that he is quite the villain of Dark Souls.

As you get to him shortly after defeating Halflight Spear of the Church, you first see a cutscene with some scared beings trying to flee from Gael because he is feasting on their dark souls like some sort of ferocious animal with a huge appetite. And of course, he wants your dark soul as well. You obviously haven't made it this far just to hand over your soul to the first random slave knight who asks, and this is what the whole beef of the fight is about.

Many people consider Slave Knight Gael the best boss in all the Soulsborne games and the true end boss of the Dark Souls series. I don't know about that, though. Sure, the fight is fun, but to go through all that crap just to find out that the big end boss is some sort of miserable cannibal trying to get to a souls buffet was not what I was expecting.

I realize that in this age of recycling, there are arguments to be made for cannibalism, but I just think it's really rude to eat people or their souls without their consent ;-)

Anyway, this boss has three phases. In the first phase, he is a fairly straightforward melee fighter, although he is very quick and has several different combos that you will need to learn to watch out for to stay alive. Especially one of them, where he leaps up into the air and then very quickly attacks you five or six times in a row is deadly, so when you see him winding that one up, take it as your cue to keep rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling like you're in a Limp Bizkit video ;-)

He fights on all four like an animal and is obviously just trying to get within munching distance of your soul, so make sure you don't let him get away with that.

In phase two, which starts after he has lost about a third of his health in phase one, he stands up straight and becomes much more Knight-like. He gains the ability to teleport, but fortunately doesn't use it nearly as much as Lorian did. He also gains two different ranged attacks, one of them being some sort of holy-looking boomerangs that come back and hit you in the neck even if you dodge them when he throws them, and the other being some sort of rapid fire machine hand-crossbow that he often fires while you're trying to dodge the boomerangs or just have a well-deserved sip of Estus.

I actually got the feeling that he was trying to cheese me with all that crap he threw at me, but bosses be bosses and they don't play fair, ever ;-)

Phase three starts when he has around a third of his health left and is similar to phase two, except there are some random lightning strikes and he seems to get more aggressive and attack even faster than in phase two, so stay alert and don't stray far from your roll button or this guy will eat your soul with some fava beans and a nice Chianti ;-)

I discovered that he is rather weak to poison during all three phases and it can help a lot if you manage to get the damage over time effect ticking on him. Although I often prefer ranged combat when it's feasible, I didn't manage to hit him fast enough with poison arrows from my longbow, but instead I had good luck with applying Rotten Pine Resin to my twinblades before and during the fight. At this point in the game, you should be able to buy these in as big quantities as you need from the Shrine Handmaid.

Besides, while it's possible to go ranged in phase one, he is able to close distances very quickly with his charge and plunge attacks, and during phase two and three he will just teleport to you if you get too far away, so it doesn't work very well.

In addition to using Rotten Pine Resin on your melee weapons, it's even better if you happen to have a Rotten Ghru Dagger, but I didn't and I couldn't be bothered to go and grind for one, so once again, I made do with my trusty twinblades.

Finally killing the boss marks the end of The Ringed City DLC as well. I personally waited with the end boss of the base game, the Soul of Cinders, until I had completed the two DLCs as killing that boss seemed like the proper way to end the playthrough. I'll get back to that in another video.

And please don't be a cannibal. It's just rude and uncalled for.