How to Beat Dragonlord Placidusax
6 March 2024 at 13:21:53
Details:
Health: 26,650
Resists: Almost everything
Weakness: Pierce
Immune: Madness, Sleep
Rewards:
280,000 Runes
Remembrance of the Dragonlord
Best Strategy
This method can absolutely trivialise the entire fight with Dragonlord Placidusax, but requires some setting up. It will enable you to position yourself carefully and then defeat Placidusax in a single cast of one spell. You will need:
1: Meteorite of Astel. This is a gravity sorcery that deals immense damage, can be held down for consistent damage until your FP runs out, and has high potential for stunning.
2: Cerulean Hidden Tear. This will negate all FP cost for 15 seconds. That is 15 extra seconds of casting Meteorite of Astel before your FP starts to go down, which is a lot of damage output.
3: Stonebarb Cracked Tear. This will increase your poise damage per hit, meaning it will take fewer hits to stun Placidusax. Since Meteorite of Astel fires so many projectiles, that is a lot of poise damage, and you are almost guaranteed to stun him.
4: Staff. You will need a sorcery catalyst for this approach. With exceptionally high Intelligence, which you will need, the Carian Regal Scepter provides the highest sorcery scaling without any drawbacks. You will ALSO need the Meteorite Staff in the off hand. You don't cast with this one, but it boosts gravity sorceries, which we are using.
5: High Intelligence. The higher the better. Aim for the sorcery soft cap of 80 Intelligence, which will provide the best overall damage output with the Carian Regal Scepter. You can also go for 80 Intelligence and 80 Faith if you are using a very high level build, which will actually make the Prince of Death's Staff the best to use.
6: Magic Scorpion Talisman. This will boost your magic damage output by a lot, but increases your damage taken as well. That's fine, since we don't plan to get hit with this approach.
7: Graven School Talisman. This will also boost your magic damage output a little, with no drawbacks.
8: Graven Mass Talisman. Similar to the Graven School Talisman, this will boost your magic damage output with no drawbacks, and both stack.
9: Golden Vow. This incantation will boost your damage output, but requires 25 Faith to cast. This is worth it for a valuable buff.
10: Flame, Grant me Strength. Another powerful buff which boost physical damage output. Since Meteorite of Astel deals physical damage, this is a very worthwhile buff.
11: Black Knife Tiche. Be sure that she is fully upgraded - Black Knife Tiche will add a huge boost to the success rate of this approach, and will apply a valuable max health debuff to Dragonlord Placidusax.
Once you have all of this, you are ready to beat Dragonlord Placidusax easily. When you enter the arena, he will be stationary, and will not activate until you get near the inner row of pillars. Summon Black Knife Tiche right before the fight starts, and buff up Golden Vow and Flame, Grant Me Strength.
When the fight starts, Dragonlord Placidusax will start summoning lightning bolts around the arena that cover wide areas per bolt, and one will usually be at your location, shown by the floor glowing red. Keep moving to his right side (your left) and you will avoid them as you go.
Position yourself underneath Dragonlord Placidusax's right wing, behind his front leg. By this point, Black Knife Tiche will have initiated combat and should be the target of some of Placidusax's melee attacks, keeping him in place and keeping him distracted.
Drink your Flask of Wonderous Physick, and begin your assault. Cast Meteorite of Astel immediately and don't leg go. Dragonlord Placidusax will be bombarded with an unearthly assault of meteors that will do tremendous damage to him over the duration. When he gets close to 50% health, Placidusax will try to disappear, but by this point, he will stun onto the ground, leaving him absolutely helpless while he continues to take massive damage from your meteorites.
If all has gone to plan, Dragonlord Placidusax will die before he comes out of his stunned animation, making this fight easily won, albeit with a lot of preparation.
Movepool
Lightning Strike: This attack will be seen throughout the fight. Dragonlord Placidusax will summon large areas of red around the arena that will be blasted with massive lightning strikes after a short duration. Stay out of these areas at all costs.
Claw Swipes: Dragonlord Placidusax can use a wide variety of different claw attacks in combos of multiple hits. Any of these that are infused with red lightning have extended range and will leave an explosive trail.
Fire Breath: Often following claw swipes, Dragonlord Placidusax will rear up and breath fire from both heads around in front of him. This can also trail to his left side to catch you if you are hanging around too close to his side. When this is used, create plenty of space by running backwards or to his right side.
Reposition: Dragonlord Placidusax will leap backwards, breathing fire along the route between the player and himself. Usually used when you are in melee distance for too long in an area that is awkward for him to hit.
Wing Slam: Dragonlord Placidusax will dig his left wing into the earth, and after a moment, will swing it upwards, dealing high damage in a wide area at his side. Placidusax will only use this if the player is at his left side for too long.
Rock Fling: Dragonlord Placidusax will reposition himself to face the player by empowering his claw with lightning and digging it into the ground for leverage. This is followed by flinging rocks at you. Dodge forward at the last moment to avoid this.
Tail Attacks: If you spend too long behind Placidusax, he will bend his tail and either sweep or slam the area for very high damage, using the leverage to reposition to face the player.
Giant Lightning Strike: Dragonlord Placidusax will summon a massive bolt of lightning in hand and pierce it into the ground. The arena will go almost silent, with just a slight ringing, and waves of red will radiate outwards from the lightning bolt's location. Then, Dragonlord Placidusax will place his claw on top of the bolt and push it into the ground, causing a monumental lightning strike in a very wide area. The only way to avoid this is to sprint outside of its wide radius.
Thundercloud: Dragonlord Placidusax will disappear into mist. He will reappear flying outside of the arena high up in the form of a thundercloud. This can be stationary, or he will be flying around the perimeter. Both variations will result in Placidusax swooping down incredibly quickly at you to deal absolutely massive damage. This can be avoided by dodging forward right as he gets to your location. Failing to do so will likely result in your death.
Teleport: Similar to his Thundercloud disappearance, Dragonlord Placidusax will teleport in a puff of smoke and reappear nearby, often followed by a lightning claw attack that he started while he was still invisible. Stay locked on to find his new location and dodge backwards to avoid the hit.
Placidusax's Ruin: This is a very difficult attack to deal with. When he gets close to death, Placidusax will disappear in a thundercloud while also casting his lightning bolts around the arena. He will appear in the sky and swoop down to the player to perform his usual rushing attack, but will then spin round when he has fully landed and start breathing fire. He will continue doing this until the fire turns into a laser beam from each head, which he will spread across the entire arena, blasting any area it touches and almost definitely killing you if you get caught by it. The best way to avoid this is to spend the end of the fight near the edges of the arena. When Placidusax swoops down and turns to breath fire, he will do so at the edge, and if you are near, you can quickly sprint behind him, where you will be completely safe and can deal tons of damage to Placidusax while he fires his attack.