Crucible Knight | Elden Ring Wiki

I'm trying to count em and I know I'm missing some: 1 Limgrave Evergaol, 2 Stormveil pit, 3 Spirit Caller Cave, 4 Siofra, 5 Aquaduct, 6 Aquaduct, 7 Hero Grave, 8 Hero Grave, 9 Tanith, 10 Redmane, 12 Deep Roots, 13 Farum, 14 Farum... I'm missing two?

Submit

The one from Redmane castle cannot be fought after defeating Elden Beast, boss is not present in Castle anymore.

Submit

Better Black Knights (sorry)

Submit

Just updated the Crucible Knight's "Tail Spin" attack description and counters. I know a lot of players find this hard to deal with, so I hope it helps. :)

Submit

The boss one at Redmayne Castle after the Radahn festival has the poise of about 5 Havels. He was eating up my Giant Crusher shots.

Submit

Hey guys, just to let all of you know, if you didn't know already, the Crucible Knights that can do the Great Tail Spin attack will ONLY do this after the Flying Dive attack and even then they will only do it merely sometimes. Also, there are a few attacks where you can safely heal while they are recovering, like Seismic Combo and even Lunging Stab, assuming you are somehow able to outrange it.

Submit

Hey guys, just to let all of you know, if you didn't know already, the Crucible Knights that can do the Great Tail Spin attack will ONLY do this after the Flying Dive attack and even then they will only do it merely sometimes. Also, there are a few attacks where you can safely heal while they are recovering, like Seismic Combo and even Lunging Stab, assuming you are somehow able to outrange it.

Submit

The Kick skill will open them to a crit if you hit them while they're guarding. Also, Lifesteal Fist works on them.

Submit

I really like them, but they're very demanding at first because their stats are comparatively much higher than other enemies sharing their area. Still, there's an answer for every move and every playstyle.

First off, if you're a ranger, you can just keep your distance and keep firing. Unlike many other enemies, these guys don't evade ranged attacks. True, they'll block most spells, but they'll still take chip damage, and they can't run as fast as you can. Keep moving at all times and firing when it's safe, bring enough cerulean flasks. No skill required outside stamina management and dodging if they get too close.

For mele, as many pointed out, you can parry most of their attacks. I suck at that and even I was able to do it with a little practice and the Buckler. If you don't like parrying, focus on rolling, always better to the side (your left, so their shield doesn't get in the way) and sneak a hit or two. You can even hit them between attacks if your weapon is fast, except if they are in their tail sweep phase, in which case you should expect it to trigger as soon as you hug them and roll again immediately, then attack.

For healing, you can make some distance and do it only if they're far away or during one of their attack animations. If you try to heal otherwise you'll get hit, so timing and positioning is key, but it can be done consistently.

Again, there's an answer for everything. You can jump during their seismic AoE, roll through their lunge, delay your roll during their shield bash (or just run away). Complaining means you don't want to bother learning this fight, which is fine, but you have spirit ashes for that.

Submit

This Ash of War grants no affinity to an armament, but imparts the following skill: "Parry: Use this skill in time with a foe's melee attack to deflect it and break that foe's stance. This provides an opening to perform a critical hit." Usable on daggers, curved swords, thrusting swords, fists, claws, and small and medium shields.

Submit

The problem with parrying is that it's a high-risk strat that doesn't pay off against most bosses. Yeah it's great here but all bosses have a gank skill that can't be parried. So you spend a bunch of time learning to parry only to find out that it's mostly only good against small time bosses like this.
The smarter play is to roll through his attacks and use Impaling Thrust to hit him while he's recovering. Learning this will get you through a lot more fights than parry will, with the only downside being that you miss out on the satisfaction of humble-bragging about your parries in the comments.

Submit

Parrying these little *****es 3+ times in a row is so funny. I swear to god their weapons ****ing magnetize to your shield.

Submit

The first time i see one under Stormveil Castle, i immediately know this guys are on par with Dark Souls's Black Knight, when i read the item.. yep they serve a lord just like Black Knight.

Submit

The absolute BEST enemy in the game, this guy has everything going for him, great moveset, cool design, fun to dodge/parry, great spectacle, challenging but fair, and isn't a pushover.

Submit

I despise these guys.
The only way I could get the one from Azula was by passing him, taking the grace, going up to the ledge on the wall and spamming magic against him.
Not proud but it feels good after getting stun-lock killed several times.

Submit

Adding onto my previous comment:
They have so many flaws it's insane.
-Immune to bleed, high resistances to other effects
-Insane dmg and health scaling (the horn attack can instakill even with high vigor)
-Cannot be backstabbed
-Damage from crits sucks
Down vote me all you want, but these guys are MUCH more annoying than Godskin Duo.

Submit

Stupidly hard. The only way to fight them is either Lion's Claw or parrying which is just bullshit

Submit

You CANNOT summon spirit ashes for the Dragon Te.ple lift Knight in Farum Azula

Submit

so satisfying to consecutively parry

Submit

These guys are super easy to parry, and people are very quick to point that out, but I don't think that really excuses the other flaws they have, like overtuned stats. They're resistant to physical and magical damage. They have massive poise and take a ton of effort to stagger. Status is useless against them. Their damage is ridiculous. The tail spin attack is so stupidly quick it can easily hit you even if you're ready for it, and it happens in places where normally you would get your own window to attack. They input read your heals which means that you effectively can't heal against them unless you can put a ton of space between you, even if you are giving up chances to attack in order to heal. You fight them over a dozen times every playthrough. And Fromsoft likes putting them in awful group fights for some reason. All of this makes them absolutely terrible bosses, IMO. The cracks really begin to show if you skip using spirit ashes or co-op, I try to avoid this stuff because they trivialize most fights but those duo fights with these guys are just miserable like that.

Submit

These have critical resistance. Fought the redmane castle duo and the crucible knght took 1/2 the damage from riposte the misbegotten took.

Submit

As someone mentioned before, guard counters on the tail variant works really well. Since this one mostly does it after 1-2 swings of their sword, I found dodging behind them and waiting for the tail to appear, blocked, and GC. don't forget if you want to spice things up as well you can jump over some of their sword swings.

Submit

yeah they are cool but I DONT WANT TO FIGHT 100 OF THEM

Submit

if you have some heavy weapon they're pain to fight, almost impossible to r1 without getting hit (very short window to attack between theirs)

Buy Buckler and train parry at the STORMHILL EVERGAOL, trivialise the fight

Don't go hollow

Submit

immune to bleed :face_holding_back_tears:

Submit

The Crucible Knight at Sifora River accessed from wasting 1 key at the The Four Belfries.
You cannot summon Spirit Ashes for this boss
Drops 3,080 runes

WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT, why even bother making this fight accessible for such a **** reward, even costs 1 key for the portal.

It was a total disappointment. As a new player, I counted this as 30 minutes of wasted time figuring out how to beat him. (You can safely grab the dead corpse item from the edge and leave, don't even bother killing this one)

Submit

This is gwyn uhhhh I think 5.0, yes. I mean like gwyn gets trivialize with parring, the Pursuer also gets trivialized, lady Maria gets trivialized, pontiff gets trivialized, and then this guy also gets trivialized with parring. I’m starting to think it’s going to be trend.

Submit

Somehow manages to be the worst enemy in the game in a game that has imps in it

Submit

*inhale* THE **** YOU MEAN ¨LESSER¨

Submit

You don't even need parry, you can dodge everything and still get a hit or two in. I admit it's easier with strength build but you just have to be patient, I think a lot of players forget to be more patient when fighting fierce enemies. You can't always rely on poise break either. These crucible guys aren't that bad they're a joke once you memorize their limited set of moves. It becomes fun as well imo.

Submit

Ahh another Alt+F4 Knight. I force myself until its dead cause return means more pain :D

Submit

Easily the worst designed boss in the game. Nothing ever come close.
- Everything is unblockable
- Everything is undodgeable
- Infinite poise
- Insane tracking
Whoever approved this design should never design another boss in their life.

Submit

Holy **** i lost hrs to first CFA near rooftop grace as meele..... once again the greatest cheese is NIGHT MAIDEN'S MIST (from the lower tiny floating platform to the higher tiny one with target lock)

Submit

Give me one good reason why theese guys are immune to hemorrhage

Submit

The sword one in farum azula is easily the hardest in the game just because of that godawful arena.

Submit

so the one you get to with the imbued key is a complete waste of time fighting because he drops nothing besides a measly 3000 runes and he's hanging out at a literal dead end.

Submit

I must have put 100’s of hours into these *******s. And just discovered the trick.

Kick.

Submit

I swear Crucible Knight always attacks you when you try to heal. (Or at least the one in the evergaol.)

Submit

The second one you find in Crumbling Farum Azula that's fighting the beastmen before where the Boltdrake Talisman can just yeet himself off of the edge where the covered tunnel/hallway section is. He tried to use his firebreath attack and fell right off.

Submit

Why is the tail spin attack so goddamn hard to time the roll for?

Submit

You don't need to parry to beat anything in this game. But if you want to turn these guys into barely more than a standard Mook from being some of the hardest enemies in the game, I highly recommend learning how to parry them. Their attacks are all relatively slow and easy to see coming, and putting any parry assist AoW (Storm Wall, Golden Parry, etc.) on a shield makes them even easier to parry.

Submit

Yea these guys are a pain in the nut sometimes but they're actually fun to fight against, I suppose because their attacks are ACTUALLY dodgeable.

Submit

Fully charged burn, o flame melts these guys

Submit

A very good strat for sword knights is to bait out their shield attack: Hit their shield, and if they do the attack, run to the right. Then they will leave a big gap to do a heavy attack or two normal attacks (or something around the same speed). Hope this helps you

Submit

I'll start off by saying that I'm not very good at this game. I love it but I suck at it. But through the strategy of being way over-leveled for whatever area I'm in I made it to Crumbling Farum Azula. Eventually I encountered the first Crucible Knight in that open area before the Dragon Temple Rooftop site of grace. And that was my biggest stumbling block so far. As a melee character I couldn't get past it. It was harder for me than any boss or other enemy I've encountered so far. I suck at parrying so that wasn't an option. Finally after a million attempts, the first time I tried it with a maxed out Zweihander with the Giant Hunt ash of war, I beat him on that first try, only taking one hit in the process. Lesson learned - there is a viable strategy for every enemy in this game no matter how lame I am otherwise.

Submit

Parry.

Submit

I don't see my prior comment, but on my first playthrough, the first crucible knight I encountered appeared at the top of the second ladder after the stobesword gate ar the back of the Stormveil rat-cellar. There was a voice line associated with it. I only note it because I have not encountered it on my current playthrough at daytime or night, although this time I did not go up there until killing Godrick and Gostoc, bothching the Castle Morne quest, killing the two invaders in the roundtable hold and and making peace with Patches. Not sure what other quests/sidequests could have affected the knight's spawn, but there were just two banished knights when I got up there this playthrough

Submit

On my first playthrough, there was a crucible knight on the Stormveil rooftops at the top of the second ladder after the Stonesword Imp behind the rat cellar. It had a shimmery red animation as it phased in on the roof out of the ground, and I think there was a voice line too. I tried again on a new playthrough, and just had a pair of Carian knights up there. Not sure if quest/sidequest progress toggled its spawn or what.

Submit

I still can’t believe this guy and the night’s cavalry in limgrave are worth fewer runes than anastasia in the smoldering church

Submit

Pretty fun hard as **** mini boss, wish it was just him in redmane

Submit

When I start playing a game prophet and 15-ish level, see a stormhill Evergaol.
see a message "time to parry".
I hate parrying in soul game but decide to practice parrying with the guy anyway for full-experience.

Eventually "complete" a training with the guy after 4 hour.
"I'm going phalanx style" is what I thought after that.

Submit

Cerulean Hidden Tear, cast Terra Magica on the steps on the edge of the arena, then Comet Azur till cooked. He just stands there and lets his face melt off.

Submit

"I'm far enough from him now, time to take a sip" -Famous last words

Submit

The ones with spears can laser you for most of your health no matter how many walls are in the eay

Submit

For the one at Stormveil:
-Get 1 dragon breath spell (any is fine but rot is the best as always)
-Change all of your flask to blue but leave 1 as red, just in case.
-Get a bow (any is fine) and shoot it to get its attention when it shows up
-Go stand in the middle of the ledge between the 2 platforms, it will just jump from its platform onto its end of the ledge and then jump back but won't go any further than that.
-Use your dragon breath spell and profit.

This is my first time playing Elden Ring and I have only meet 2 of these knights, this and the one in the Stormhill Evergao but as far as I'm aware, this is the only instance, where your dragon breath spell can effectively damages a Crucible Knight, any other case they would just block the whole spell with their shield and get hurt for like 50 dmg.

Submit

They look great, but are poorly and cheaply designed. Having a input reader on your healing- flasks has to be one of the cheapest decisions in the entire series... 100% doable, but insufferably annoying. Make them slightly slower and with slightly lower range and it would be fine. No blood build- up made me lose it tho tbh.

Submit

If you heal in front of him after riposting, his standup animation just cancels and he goes from the ground to an attack animation in a single frame.

Submit

Sekiro's dual ape gank was shockingly better than this pile of garbage. Wait till the combo ends to hit the punching bag ONCE. Next phase, wait till the combo ends and either trade damage because the tail punishes punishes of wait while it flies away. This is some dogshit

Submit

Balanced enough, but not one of From's best. It's a punching bag and painfully slow. Just wait, dodge, hit once, repeat for 5 minutes straight. Phase two plays the same as the first, the combos are just add a tail attack so you spend more time dodging.

Submit

Who is working at From putting this as the 3rd boss. I beat Sekiro without even a fraction of this frustration. ****ing kill me now

Submit

Gotta love when from relies on the old "enemy spins like a record player" **** from ds2 botched design. End of story.

Submit

The input reading on the Stormhill one is blatant af. For new players this guy will test if you got your parrying down.

Submit

These guys look amazing

Submit

I mostly like these enemies but man that shoulder charge is ridiculous

Submit

The article doesn't list Crucible Knight in Mt. Gelmir that appears after attacking Lady Tanith omomoming daddy Rykard

Submit

I don't care what anyone says, I love this enemy and wish we had more of them.

Submit

Parry riposte only does like 50% damage against them so forget about it.

Submit

Heal punishments are connected to the flask drinking animation. If you heal with an incant, you won't ever get punished for heals from nobody.

Submit

I watched Crucis fight bosses and the satisfaction to see Mohg's stupid NIHIL not working on them and the two Crucis just crushing him was everything. Imagine Godfrey having an army of them under his command all stomping in sync. I wished we could see that. Crucis and Godfrey were one of my favs fights. The movements, the music, the vibe. Even if all of them are super hard, I love all of their clean semi slow attack pattern.

Submit

Peak infinite combo bs

Submit

Wish you could get their wing ability

Submit

Such a boring boss fight… Took me like 5+ minutes to kill just because I had to wait for the ONE SINGLE ATTACK that leaves him open long enough for me to strike

Submit

the crucible knights in crumbling farum azula will yeet themselves off the edge. Have your back towards the edge and when they do there flying dash dodge (they spawn wings jump then charge at you) and they will fly to there deaths off the edge

Submit

"ELDEN RING CRUCIBLE KNIGHTS (SIOFRA AQUEDUCT) You can summon Spirit Ashes for these bosses" incorrect. There's no rebirth monument until the twin gargoyles' arena. Cannot summon for either Siofra Aqueduct Crucible Knight. I just did these fights and there's no summon until the arena doorway.

Submit

honestly that first crucible knight is probably a top 10 elden ring boss for me. clean, clearly telegraphed attacks that actually give you enough time to recover and roll again inbetween combos, a second phase that builds on what you learned from phase 1, but introduces a new quick combo-ender to keep you on your toes. And to top it off, the dude just looks dope. loved all of its variations except for the duo one.

Submit

Can't use summons against the two in Siofra Aqueduct. No icon is showing for summon availability, no summon item will highlight for use.

Submit

List showing crucible knights and their rewards is missing Tanith's knight, which rewards the breath spell.

Submit

didn’t like these boss fights, so I learnt to parry them. Guess what? They’re still a slog fest. They’re not good.

Submit

Boring boss. Hard as **** in the beginning, easy once you learn but always annoying. It takes 3-4 consevutive impaling thrusts to stagger (the same as giant bosses) and since they read your inputs it just forces you to play reactively, waiting for openings instead of getting stuck in. If I wanted to wait for enemy attacks i'd be playing a shield build.

Submit

"Man these asses surely are hard to beat, if there was only a single weapon to cheese them..."
Buckler:

Submit

Why in Marika's sopping wet fat milky tits do people have trouble with these guys???

On the input reading when you chug - Enemies have been doing that since at least Dark Souls 1. I never had a problem with it, as to me, it would make sense for enemies to react like that to healing. That, and you can outspace them easily enough.

I swear I'm not trying to be an asshat, I'm just confused as to why THESE guys get so much hate

Submit

The Stormhill Evergaol variant gave me much more trouble than I would like to admit. That input reading cheater!

Submit

Redmane Castle boss is the bane of my existence. On the plus side, crucible knight improved my parry timing ^^

Submit

for mage builds out there gavel of haima consistently stuns these guys

Submit

Long as their combos are, at least everything (except for the tail swipe but even then you can kind of work around it) is telegraphed. Never really manic/fast enough to make you panic either. You can get used to fighting them and beating them with reasonable enough practice. I can't say the same for Runebears and Revenants, who just have zero semblance of combat flow of any kind.

Submit

Banished knight Engel all is a real bro.

Submit

the spear ones keep trolling me

Submit

parry practice

Submit

DS1: Silver Knights -> ER: Copper Knights

Submit

More than a decade later, the Black Knight may have acquired the ability to go frog mode, but he still gets wrecked by my nipple-looking portable arm plating.

Submit

Not a shred of lore on this page. Pitiful. As far as Fextralife is concerned, this enemy should be called 'numbers', like all the other ones, and simply rated for difficulty.

Submit

ANON Mar 13, 2023
Crucible Build *update*
Vigor 56
Mind 15
Endurance 36
Strength 50
Dexterity 14
Intelligence 9
Faith 42
Arcane 7

Submit

One word solution for the ones on Nokron on the way to the gargoyles fight: Rejection. One off the waterfall, and the other off the bridge or lip of the building. You'll have to chain it, and don't do it when his shield is up. Aside from that works like a charm. If they stun lock you get away and catch them in a gap between their movements. Rejection stun locks them, just edge forward to keep pushing them off.

Submit

The real boss of Redmane Castle.

Submit

I'm presently playing a no-magic build. Just a rapier, parry shield, short bow, consumables. Crucible Knights went from being my least favorite fights to fights I seek out even when there's no reward like that Tree Crucible before Valiant Gargoyles. The reach on that spear thrust is so easy to mis-judge but it feels so nice to parry them and take them down.

I was at one time entirely incapable of parrying anything. Pages, Soldiers, and Crucible Knights are a great way to learn. It feels great turning what was once a slog into a "4 parries and they're dead" fight.

I'm thinking when I take this character to NG+ she's coming back as a Crucible Knight.

Submit

You can Straight Up Cheese these guys' first phase with life steal fist, Walk to behind them base on where their attacks will miss the most and just spam lifesteal fist, The shield ones can't do anything until second phase if you do it correctly

Submit

Crucible Knight vs Lesser Burial Watchdog
Place your bets

Submit

i hate the tree ones jab attack i always think im out of range but i never am

Submit

Men only want one thing and it’s ****ing crucible knight spirit ashes

Submit

The only thing I would change about these is how long you stay down when they do an attack that knocks you off your feet. The later game ones have a tendency to do a sword thrust that knocks you down, then they do the ground stomp while you still can't defend yourself or even roll, then follow up with the double sword swipe. Basically a guaranteed kill if they get you with the initial knock down thrust. You really should be able to roll away faster after the thrust, the stomp, or both. It's not really a "challenge" per se when I can't defend myself to the point I could unplug my controller and it would be the same level of difficulty. You could say just learn to dodge the strikes but come on, as much as people like to talk as if they were high level players there's only a handful of legit no hit runners irl. Chances are, the average player is going to get hit at some point in these fights and having a sequence like this is just kinda crazy. Even Malenia's waterfowl dance has openings for rolls even after you get hit. It's hard but it's possible. Everything else can stay the same, just give me normal recovery time. I've recovered faster from a hit from Rykard ffs!

Submit