Godskin Apostle | Elden Ring Wiki

A strat I found that makes this boss much easier (and which I can't find mentioned elsewhere) is to generally avoid dodging (for most attacks) and instead use a decent medium shield (e.g. brass shield) to block the attacks. You can just walk towards him with your shield raised, try to get behind him, and then punish when most of his attacks miss (raising your shield again once he faced you again or dodging if/when you run out of stamina).

Obviously whilst doing this you need go be alert for his aoe attacks (these tend to be slow or have a long build up - just move away until its over and/or dodge the one with longer range/direction) and his weapon spinning attacks (it gas a long animation so just try to get behind him by dodging when he does the attack in either phase).

In general though, fighting one's instinct to dodge all of his attacks and instead walking towards and then around him with your shield raised + punishing during the obvious opportunities (during his long animations where attacks are missing or gaps) turns this fight from frustrating to almost easy (my experience/character at least).
Good luck!

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Actually a great boss unlike his fat brother. I used Piercing Fang with blood affinity on weapon. Killed him in about 5 attempts.

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He's so non-aggressive in the first phase I just let him walk through a bunch of night maiden's mist for almost a 3rd of his health before even attacking me.

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Great and iconic design but feels wasted. Randomly encounters you in Farum Azula in a mock up Smough/Ornstein fight. Why there and not elsewhere? Cause of Maliketh who killed their goddess? We will never know. Thanks for nothing I guess...

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Beat the one in Caelid at level 30. Had to be perfect or he one shot me, great fight. But also, f**k this guy.

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Dolores the Sleeping Arrow. Go get her ashes off the dead merchant's body near 3 Sisters. Nothing else worked. Dolores keeps this dude sleeping through most of the fight. She's beautiful!

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This skinny mothertrucker makes me so absurdly angry. It's almost hillarious. I just want that damn foreskin he's wearing, geez.. and who gave this little shite permission to dodge almost all of my spells? Sometimes I just hate enjoying caster builds the most.

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Dolores sorted out the one in Caelid for me.

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This bossfight is very fun, plus the rewards are awesome. 10/10

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To anyone running a strength build: Use a curved greatsword with the newly buffed bloody slash art of war and you'll be amazed at just how fast he drops. The one with the lowest dex requirement is the Beastman's Blood Cleaver (requires 14). You have to farm the Azula Beastman you can encounter through the Four Belfries portal to Crumbling Farum Azula, but it's well worth it since it scales very well with Strength.

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I was able to reliably poisebreak the one in Caelid Divine Tower with a two-handed Warhammer (Great Stars) using one charged attack and one jumping attack. As soon as you poisebreak him the first time (the Stonebarb Cracked Tear can help immensely for this), use the charged as a wake-up and then follow up with a jumping attack. He can punish you after the charged, but if you have 20 Vigor+ you should be able to tank it. Make sure to let your stamina regen a little bit before riposting him as well.

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I beat my face against this boss (Caelid Tower) for a good couple of hours. Tried with my Halo Scythe +5 because of the tracking on the Miquella's Ring of Light... Didn't do so good. I eventually switched over to 2-handing my Sword of St. Trina +4 because of the sleep and did better but still kept dying. I decided to try my Flame Art Jawbone Axe +12 with Flame of the Redmanes on it and beat this SOB the first time. It was very easy and recommend trying it out if you are struggling. I used Page +3 Spirit Ash because the constant pressure forced the Godskin Apostle to dodge often which was nice. Page actually dodges himself too so survived the majority of the fight.

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Carian Retaliation saved the day for me. I swapped some of my HP flasks for FP, summoned +2 Jelly, distracted him long enough for him to get poisoned, and then just spell parried him all the way to 0%. I was having a tough time at level 54 with a Claymore and ran up to Carian Manor just to try this strat and it paid off — second attempt I got him. Pretty easy if you’re halfway decent at parry, and his black flame spell is really well telegraphed and slow enough to parry without any difficulty. I was doing ~480 per parry, which is about what I was getting with a charged R2 with a claymore in 2 hands. Safe, and I still had a few HP flasks by the end of the fight.

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That's how I did it, walk-in sleeping pot, and then buff the hell up, and then stance breaks them (I use square off heavy attack, have seen other using morning start with heavy attack-wild strike*6-end with heavy that can apply frostbite and bleed), and then do the misericorde(my main weapon) critical, roll back and throw another sleeping pot. Godskin will do the phase change move and stand in the sleeping mist and fell asleep again and then do another buff-stance breaks-critical and that should clear the health bar (at least most of it)

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was able to take this guy down on my 4th try, using Towershield soldier ashes. One of them made it thru with 5% health; they kept him distracted just long / often enough for me to cast at range, then roll into his phase 2 carwash airman thing and take him apart with Moonveil blasts. Felt VERY lucky and like I had actually accomplished something in this game.

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If anyone is having issues with the godskin bosses especially the duo fight at Farum Azula or anyone who just doesn't like fighting them Dolores the sleeping arrow is a very good option to have available to you for these bosses. I used her for the duo fight and she kept the apostle out cold for the majority of the fight.
You don't need to follow Ranni's quest any further than entering her service to get the necessary dialogue options from Seluvis if you only want access to the puppets and it isn't complicated or difficult to get DtSA well before Farum Azula.

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Foreskin Apostle lmao

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foreskin apostle

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He's challenging but he's fun to fight.

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If the Godskins have the hardest boss music currently, imagine what the Gloam-Eyed Queen's boss music must've been like. Imagine how epic the fight between her and Maliketh must have been from a musical standpoint.

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Heres how I did it (after much suffering): flame of the redmanes x2 then riposte with frost greatsword rinse and repeat, always maintaining some distance. No way around some moves besides learning when to dodge. Cerulean dagger talisman to conserve some FP

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Mimic tear +4 and bloodhound fang +9 did a number on the Caelid one pretty nicely. I think I was probably a little over leveled too, though…

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The final boss of low level runs.

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This dude is fun to fight.
The Godskin Noble, on the other hand, can go choke on a fat horse cock.

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After fighting this guy multiple times without leveling and without upgrading I learned to love the fight, to master it. It's really fun imo. You can use his input readings to your advance and end up reading him instead, as he's very predictable.
On the other hand, the noble can eat my d*ck and balls.

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TLDR: Baited him with Carian Retaliation

I had an extremely hard time with this guy as a Magic user. The Caelid one f'd me up a lot, especially since my summon got caught on the guy in front f the door half of the time. After dying to him a lot, I noticed that the sword projectiles from Carian Retaliation do much more damage than any of my attacks. So I just backed away until he did his black flame projectile and caught it with Carian Retaliation Weapon Art on my shield. The fight was rather cheesy and easy from that point on.

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I had a very hard time with him.

Used a remedy for help, walked in boss room panicked cause I couldn’t use my summon. Ended up soloing him, but we traded.

Got cocky with the monk and lost my runes. Rip

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god i love when he does his whirl move, it has so much swag

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try mimic tear ashes
and then sleep
and then bonk

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Why the **** is the summoning pool at the top of the tower. So useless

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Caelid one seems a bit overtuned.

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In terms of Presentation, the Music, the Drip, the Weaponry: S Tier.

In terms of the actual fight? Just no.

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Any enemy can be difficult when it reads your input, has unlimited stamina, unlimited poise, and extra long reach.

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Reduvia's weapon art obliterates this boss, his only ranged attacks are a flame sling and the helicopter move which are reasonably easy to see coming. Less effective solo where he will close the gap after a proc, but its wonderful for juggling aggro in coop.

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jellyfish +0 saves the day here big time if you are bad at dodging and don't have a shield. Wait for jelly to get aggro, then attack from behind, then keep this up until it's dead

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Finally got the him at my faith build, level 54 with 20 vigor and 15 in arcane. I’ve used Rotten breath and Skeleton Militiaman +2. The trick is to wait until he focuses on skeletons and then use rotten breath for full fp bar and let the scarlet rot do its business. The beauty of skeletons militiaman is that they keep respawning as other undead in the game and keep him busy (be careful sometimes they die if he hits them when they are down). DO NOT use rotten breath if he focuses you as he will throw his blackflame fireball when you are casting and interrupt it.

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Turns out the fanged imps are amazing in this at +0 they can tank about four hits and proc bleed in about three hits and usually one of them survives to about half why through phase two

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I was having big trouble with the one in Caelid using my trusty Engvall summon. This time he failed me and just got wrecked by this guys close range attacks

I switched to Page and got it first try. So ranged summons it is.

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Rocksling poisebreaks dude in caelid

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The votes are in, this boss sucks

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Godskin apostle, my beloved.

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One of my favorite boss encounters, they truly feel like a duel with how artful and punishing they can be if you lose Rhythm. For sure one of those bosses where you “dance” with them to battle them. Especially with the choir going wild in the music.

Different page, but nobles are fun too. Easier to parry, but they replace this with retaliation and roll catching by… well, rolling.

To me, Godskin duo is meh. It is much more stressful, but it isn’t my least favorite boss in the game. Would prefer the normal Godskin Apostle or Noble solo, however. My least favorite boss is those Valiant d*ckheads with area denying poison and other bull crap.

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Two words, one item: sleep pots. These dudes (including the Nobles) are insanely weak to the Sleep status effect. Make some Sleep Pots, throw them at the ground as they approach you, and watch as they become completely helpless. Once, they’re asleep, the best course of action is to use a weapon that does major chunks of damage to get the most out of situation.

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Summoned my mimic while i was holding 2 sleep pots. I was pretty sure if i used the ones i was holding it would be a waste, i.e. i'd sleep him but die during the fight. Used a +4 Ghiza's Wheel after reallocating stats so he couldn't one-shot me. Beat him on my 4th try today after about 17 deaths yesterday. He couldn't punish jump attacks in phase 2 as the crouching animation let me "duck" his punish and then roll away. My mimic fought better than i did until getting cornered shortly before phase 2. Didn't want this guy's weapon or armor but he had bodied me too many times to just walk away. Got a full Blackflame Monk set plus 2 extra chests, 2 extra gauntlets, 1 extra pair of boots in the process. Set my Physick flask so i wouldn't lose runes which took a lot of pressure out of the fight and made it less frustrating. Tried to parry but got chopped to pieces as i was attempting to parry literally every attack like a moron. Being a scrub is tiring.

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Put Glintblade Phalanx that you get from Rogier after defeating Godrick on any weapon, 2 relatively quickly casts (14 FP per cast) to break his pose and critical strike with your main weapon. 1st phase becomes a joke, 2nd is a little tricky because every time he executes one of his new moves, his poise resets and can't be broken before his attack ends

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GODSKIN CHEESE AT DOMINULA: Load up on blue flasks, get poison mist, sneak behind apostle, proc poison and then Wait for the effect to wear off before casting again because if you cast it while its still afflicted it won't do anything. This cheese requires patience but if you're a level 45 weakling like me it's all worth it

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Do all of them in the game really have the same hp here of 14379? That doesn't seem right

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Serious question: do these godskin *******s have stamina limit? The noble one once went his sonic spin for 3 minutes non stop then stopped and immediately started spinning again and this long strechy douchebag can blend 4 of his different combos together without stop

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His OST has no right being so good

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If you're having a tough time with the one in Caelid: Okay, so I was having a tough time with him, but I figured it out - get a slashing weapon with bleed, katana for example and use the blood slash for it, it's super cheap (only 3fp per cast) the animation is quick and does quite a bit of dmg to him. Next use a ranged summon, I did so with the Page. During 1st phase just dodge him and try to get hit as less as possible. As soon as you see him turn his attention to the summon hit him once and dodge right away, because he will turn to you with a quick strike, don't get greedy unless he's charging a black fire ball at your summon, then you can punish him until the end of his cast. Also save your FP for the 2nd phase. While you have the aggro let the summon do his work. Kite until you get to 2nd phase.

Once you're in 2nd phase, circle around him and dodge his abilities while waiting for him to do the extended helicopter blade spin. Mid to longer range seems to trigger him to use it more often. Once he does that, dodge straight into it, so you can get to his legs and use the blood slash once , then back off. Repeat until dead. Ez pz.

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didnt he drop like 4000 souls on an older patch

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im so sick of my summons trying to fight the enemy through the mist door instead of helping me at the caelid one, even the guy at the door is a bit of tank so i have to waste pots beating him just so my summons help. frustrating AF

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For anyone struggling with him, A tip I found effective was to treat him like a bloodborne boss. dodging inward on 99% of his attacks will allow you to punish him easier.

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Got through the Caelid one with electrified hookclaws. He does shoot fireballs every time you do something, but I noticed if you roll out of range early you can drink a flask while he is still in the attack animation. The fireball also misses point blank. As others mentioned you can also drink between fireballs. Honestly the fireballs is the easy bit, he can chew through 40 vigor like butter, truly a trial by fire.

My 28 faith kinda carried my non bleed damage lol.

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Currently stuck with the Caelid one. Absolute and complete nightmare. Not only does he have like 1639463 combos, his recovery time is minimal. Can't land 2 hits before starting to dodge all his crap. Currently on my 794863 attempt

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Fought the Windmill Village one with my jelly who poisoned him in phase one and then died to the black flame tornado. I get him down to 2% health with a +1 Reduvia and then die like a fool because I got cocky. I'm watching his health numbers as i'm being told by the game that i died and he hits zero and ENEMY FELLED appears. I respawn at the Stake of Marika and receiver the Peeler, Black flame, and zero runes. Run back to my death spot and claim 558 dropped runes. Not sure how i feel about that.

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Sleep pots make this guy a joke

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Just beat the one in Caelid after literally like 100 tries. Turns out his attacks don't do much stamina damage so he can be fairly effectively turtled. I gotta say though. This guy is a total PITA and will just link combos together like an assembly robot at a chain factory so even turtling has its limits. I counted an 8-move attack string at one point. Meanwhile you're basically stuck in a tunnel with him so if he decides to pull one of his 7,451 move combos and you're trying to reposition onto the long side. Well thank you and please fly with Godskin Apostle Airlines again!

It really just comes down to one thing for me: recovery time. His recovery time on attacks is way! too! short! If you're running a rushdown style build like mine (STR/END, greatswords and hammers), I could land 1 hit. Just one. freaking. basic. hit during his recovery windows. Not even a strong attack or a jump attack. And often times he'd counter so fast I couldn't even sprint or dodge roll away in time after just one hit! Commence the greatshield turtling. Then just keep doing that over and over until finally I got the perfect run. If his recovery time on his combos was lengthened by say 2 seconds, then I would say you've got a pretty well tuned fight. Might be possible to successfully jump attack and stand break him. But as he stands now, the Caelid mofo requires either extreme patience and impeccable timing or total cheese like sleeping pots and Glintblade Phalanx. Maybe that's the point, I dunno. But it seemed way way way too difficult to avoid damage without turtling or any ability to put distance between him and you. On the short side of the room he basically has enough reach to cross-arena strike you.

I did try a dual wield against him at one point of Bloodfang and Rogier's Rapier which was the next most effective strategy. The Glintblade can poise break him after just 2 casts. But as with his recovery frames, his stagger is fairly short. I could then get TWO whole hits in. That worked well until phase two of the fight where he becomes a gummy worm and hint: when he's a gummy worm he won't take stamina damage. So then I was stuck trying to dodge his ridiculous combos and without any effective blocking. Oof.

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Is it possible to glitch the one in the Windmill? I got to its second phase and I swear not a single one of its attacks hit me, even when it looked like it should have

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VS: the one in Caelid, at the bottom of the tower. At RL 60 ("nothing special" build, wpn lvl 12/4, slightly running FTH/STR), tried different methods/styles and was coming up short again and again... The answer? A flamberge. I didn't normally choose Bleed in the DS games as an avenue towards victory, never been a good enough player to truly make the best use of it. That being said, I'll be damned if the poise/stagger potential of two-handing the blade combined with the Hemorrhage factor was WAY more effective than I thought it'd be. In fact, I don't have the weapon yet with this character, but if I did, and if I knew how effective all this was, I would certainly have gone with the Great Stars. Anyways, though, if you're not higher level and you're struggling, remember: yes, the Apostle is FAST and he hits HARD, but he's FRAIL and UNARMORED. Hell, summon up a +6 or even just a +5 spirit for backup if it's been really tough for you, but trust me: Bleed + Stagger is what this boss is hoping you don't figure out. Thank goodness I upgraded that flamberge on a whim, I've hardly touched it outside of this...

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Recently fought the one in the basement of the Caelid tower. It was a really fun fight! Loved the sword I got for killing him too~

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Windmill apostle cheese: lure him close to the furthest cliffside shack, get on the shack's balcony, shoot your spell of choice and go around the corner when he retaliates. Back off enough so that his attacks don't get you via clipping.

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LVL 80, Strength build.

Beat him (Caelid) on the 2nd try using the WATCHDOG STAFF. the sorcery of the crozier ash of war follows him and breaks his poise. Also I could take his hits and counter most of his attacks. Really fun boss!

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Cool boss but jesus christ he's tanky as hell

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After hours I managed to kill him at level 50 using rotten breath into his 'second phase' then using rotten breath again and then using blood blade to finish him off.

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LVL 80, faith/Strength build with 18 Int, impossible to get close. How do I kill him? Well, I bait him with Night Maiden's Mist, then he throws the mf black flame fireball at you and only then can you roll to land a hit.

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Best soundtrack in the game

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I found the apostle at windmill village not too difficult with millicent and wolves+5 but after reading the comments I'm not looking forward to the one in caelid or in later game areas.

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a comment here mentions anyone using FoTR and colossal weapons on this boss need to be careful, but what is FoTR though?

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Absolute nightmare for pure casters because of his input reading dodges, but a fun challenge for hybrid casters and melee fighters.

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The Caelid boss fight was one of my favorites of the game, all their attacks are clearly telegraphed, but they still hit like a truck. On the 30th attempt I was in the zone and it was sooo satisfying to dodge all their attacks with that awesome music!

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Tip: always wait for him to cast his fireball before using any pots . Hé is programmed to cast it when you use a pot !

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This boss was though as hell (cealed tower) i can't even recall how many times i did him , probally well over 50/100 lmao.
I defeated him with my bloodhound fang which isnt the greatest weapon for this Guy at all but its the only weapon i got which does do damage and is upgraded +5 . The cool thing is this boss made me alot better in this game so it was well worth it . Defeated him on lvl 78/80 and didnt use any spirits because they where useless all the time ..

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I've just beaten my first godskin apostle at windmill village, I really enjoyed the boss fight, maybe my favourite one so far or at least it's up there with my favourites. I was looking forward to trying out the scouring black flame incantation it drops but I'm not sure I get it. I tried it out on a giant rat with fire scorpion, canvas talisman and two fingers heirloom, with these three talismans one cast of frenzied burst dissolves this rat but scouring black flame needed two charged casts, took me by surprise when the rat didn't die, it nearly killed me. I haven't used the other two black flame incantations I've found before this one much, the black flame blade doesn't last anywhere near as long as the other weapon buff incantations I have, so its not like I've thoroughly tested these black-flame incantations. What I'm wondering now though is the godslayer seal worth using the upgrade materials on or am I better off sticking to frenzy, fire, and flame incantations?

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1 word, Reduvia.

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I had to use Rotten Breath, all the sleep pots, and stay away from him. This dude ain't easy

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Using Delores the Sleeping Arrow Puppet ashes makes the fight pretty easy. Even with her missing over half of her shots (shakes fist), she can still manage to put him to sleep at least once. This allows you to drop some pretty massive damage on him while he's incapacitated.

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I beat him at level 58 using rock sling and lint haul plus one

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the enemy design is a bunch of lieing bullshit in this game. he is literaly wearing one of the worst armor sets poise wise and still takes like 5 jump attacks with a greatsword

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Be warned, this guy is like Malenia, he has attacks where he is completely immune to staggering and thus you can be punished for aggression. FoTR users and colossal weapon users beware

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Bro why the hell is pic of the apostle on this page a player wearing his armour lmao

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I fight this one harder than the fatty :(

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I fight this one harder than the fatty :(

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1 word... Flame of the Redmanes

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Use horseback battle for the one in the Windmill Village. At lvl 40 with a +3 somber weapon, t's a pretty easy and methodical fight.

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This mother****er in Caelid Tower has no margin of error. One hit takes half my health which might as well be all of it since he won't give me half a second to heal. He even destroys my headless Lhutel+5 summon like he's nothing.

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Loooooong, Loooooooong maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan

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What exactly is described in the combat tips here as "land a 3x charged combo attack when he is sleeping"? Is that 3 R1s, or trying to get off 3 charged R2s? Something else?

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His posture appears to go up in his second phase, as two R2 Square Offs down him in the first, but an additional R1 or R2 is required during his Black Flame Phase.

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That moment when even your sleeping animation is badass

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this is the most bs boss i’ve had to fight. i’m level 78 and can only get him down to 1/4 health but he hits so mf hard i’m out of flasks and can’t do anything about it. i’m about to lose my ****ing mind.

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Holy cow. That dude at the bottom of Caelid Tower is beefed up compared to the Windmill Village one.

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Fellas, is the Godskin apostle lookin’ a bit more tarnished than usual?

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Why is their black flame attack linked to your heal button. like each time I heal they spam the black flame and make you unable to heal

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The two game changing tips I recommend: use sleep pots. In Mountaintops, both phases are pretty vulnerable to sleep pots and that gives you tons of hits which leads to criticals. The other tip is that if you are going to heal, try to put a tree between you and him. When you heal, he will start to throw a fireball at you and it will be blocked by the tree. (Again this is for Mountaintops of the Giants).

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I call Tiche and stand in a corner watch him do the job

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Picture isn’t of a Godskin Apostle, it’s of a player wearing the Godskin Apostle Set. Someone should probably fix that

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On journey 4 (ng+3) the godskin apostle in altus Plateau in the windmill area drops exactly 35438 runes

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carian retaliation make this fight so much easier

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Gotta say I didn't expect the best song in the game to be found on top of some random hill

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