How to Beat Tancred & Reinhold
Details
Location: Tower of Penance
Resists: Holy (Tancred), Fire (Reinhold)
Weakness: Wither (Tancred), Bleed (Reinhold)
Summons: None
Rewards
Remembrance of Tancred, Master of Castigations
Tancred's Key
10 Umbral Scourings
1 Vestige Seed
How to Beat
Your strategy for Tancred is going to be very different from your strategy for Reinhold. They are both entirely different enemies and you will be dealing with them in different ways.
Tancred: Our strategy here is to play a little more conservatively. Tancred has a reasonable movepool to choose from, and while some of these attacks can come out quite quickly, all of them are punishable at least to some degree.
Almost the entire fight with Tancred will be spent dashing through his attacks to get behind him, and performing the dodge-attack off the back of that, which will very often stagger Tancred slightly.
For example, when Tancred attempts to use his double shield slam, dodge the first hit, then dodge the second hit and immediately attack, performing the dodge-attack move that has a good chance of staggering enemies. It doesn't have the raw damage of fully charged heavy attacks, but it will keep you alive and deal consistent damage against Tancred, making for a surprisingly easy fight.
Reinhold:
Things are a bit different here. Reinhold attacks very quickly, has plenty of area denial, and has too much pace variety for consistently going toe-to-toe with him like Tancred. Instead, lock onto one of his back legs, preferably the one on your right. Don't unlock from that - that is your target.
Now you need to close the distance and get in place. Reinhold has almost nothing that can hit you if you are directly to the side of him, so get there and start hammering that leg with all you have got. If Reinhold moves, get out of the way of his attack and immediately get back into position.
Reinhold's legs have remarkably low posture health, so with just a few consistent hits, the boss will be staggered and open to a critical strike. When this happens, head over to his ribcage and stick your axe in it. Easy.
Movepool
Phase 1:
Lunging Swipe: Tancred will rush forward and sweep his spear from right to left. Dodge to the right and punish the attack.
Shield Combo: Tancred will attempt to hit you with his shield, thrusting it forwards and then sideways. Dodge around to his back and get a hit in.
Spear Thrust: Tancred will attempt to thrust his spear forwards twice. The first one is easily dodged to the right, and if you reposition behind him, the second should miss while you get a hit or two in on his back.
Shield Slam: Tancred's shield will glow gold and he will slam it into the ground in front of him with poor tracking. Strafe to his back and get a hit in. This can be charged to create an expanding circle of light for high damage. Dodge through the circle to avoid the damage.
Summon Orb: Tancred will summon a glowing ball of light above him that will fire several projectiles at you one after the other. Staying mobile, making some distance and sprinting to the side in a circle will avoid the projectiles.
Light Beam: Tancred's spear will glow gold and he will charge a continuous beam of light. He will attempt to track you with this, but it moves slowly, so keep running sideways and you will avoid the damage.
Grab Attack: Tancred will catch you with his spear and hold you high, bleeding you out and slamming you down. Dodge to the side to avoid this.
Phase 2:
Lunge Swipe: Reinhold will pull his arm in and then swipe outwards, lunging forward to gain more range as he does. Dodge forwards into the swipe.
Charge: Reinhold will ready himself before charging forward to the opposite edge of the arena in your direct. As soon as you see him readying this attack, sprint to the side. He does not track you once the animation starts.
Magma Slam: Reinhold's hands will glow and he will slam them into the ground, dealing high damage and creating a wild pool of magma that will deal very high damage if you stand in it. Avoid the pool at all costs.
Magma Shot: Reinhold will spit magma balls out in your direction multiple times. Avoid this by sprinting to the side of him. Each attack will leave a pool of magma on the ground, which must be avoided.
Fire Beam: Reinhold will make some distance and then charge his attack briefly, before firing a long-range beam of fire from one side to the other. Get to the side of him immediately and get some hits in while he performs this attack.
Slam: Reinhold will raise his back legs high up in the air and then slam them down for high damage after a delay. Dodge as the legs come down and then punish the attack.
Trample: Reinhold can attempt to trample you with many close-range stomps and swipes. As long as you stay mobile and keep repositioning to his side, you will avoid this.