How to Beat Godfrey, First Elden Lord (Golden Shade) - Elden Ring Boss Guide

Rewards: Talisman Pouch, 80,000
Summons Available: Yes

Found in a high tower in Leyndell, Royal Capital, this non-optional boss blocks your path to the Erdtree. This foe may only be a shadow of Godfrey, but it turns out spectral axes still hurts, and you can’t parry or poison shadows. In this guide, we’ll give some general tips, as well as specific ranged and melee strategies, to help you defeat the golden shade of Godfrey, First Elden Lord.

General Tips

This boss is immune to all status effects, and cannot be backstabbed or parried. He can be staggered for a critical strike, although it’s difficult to do.
This boss is moderately resistant to Magic and Fire damage, and is especially resistant to Holy Damage. However, he is not very resistant to physical damage, and has zero Lightning resistance.
You can jump over the boss’s stomp attacks — the window in which you can jump to avoid damage is much wider than the safe rolling window.
Doing a ranged attack will trigger the same response from the boss almost every time, so magic/projectile users can count on this being a predictable fight.
Despite being a big golden shade, this boss does purely physical damage, so dress accordingly: don some armor with high physical defense and get that Dragoncrest Shield Talisman +1 equipped.

Strategy

Note: Godfrey has no Phase 2, so regardless of your chosen strategy, you can safely use it the entire fight.

Since summons are available, you’ll want to bust out your strongest spirit ashes as soon as you enter the boss arena. If you’re using the Skeletal Militaman, make sure you stay away from their corpses when they get destroyed — Godfrey’s stomp attack can kill them while they’re regenerating. Since this boss is immune to status effects, the Jellyfish isn’t very useful for this fight, so consider other options if that’s your usual go-to summon.

Because this boss only inflicts physical damage, you can use a 100% physical defense shield in this fight. However, the boss hits pretty hard — you won’t be able to hold block and eat a full combo. Instead, use the shield to learn/identify the boss’s moves; you can block the first attack in a combo and then roll to avoid the subsequent ones, and you can roll late while blocking to make sure you either block or dodge each attack.

Melee

Equip a 100% physical defense shield, and hold block while hugging the boss (stand as close as possible). Strafe to your right, counter-clockwise around the boss — this will make many attacks miss and save you some stamina. You should still roll if possible when you see an attack coming, but holding block means you can err on the side of rolling late (rather than early). Once the boss finishes a combo, you can get off a couple of light attacks. (You can also do rolling light attacks in the middle of some slower combos if you want to be greedy.)

Once you’re comfortable with the boss’s timings, you can two-hand your weapon or dual-wield instead, but when you first encounter this boss, it’s easiest to just hold block for most of the fight. Make sure you’re letting go of block in between attacks and when the boss backs off. Also, don’t be greedy with your stamina! If you’re low on stamina, don’t attack even if you have a window to do so, as you always want to make sure you have enough stamina for at least two rolls.

It’s helpful not to move backwards (rolling or otherwise) while fighting Godfrey in melee range. If you’re hugging him, many attacks in his combos can miss you — this can be the difference between life and death if you mistime a roll or run out of stamina. The stomp attacks will also usually damage you if you roll backwards, wheras rolling forwards while already close to Godfrey takes you out of the stomp’s AOE.

Ranged

Godfrey’s shade is predictable — when you use a ranged attack, it almost always dashes forward and does a stomp (and often a followup after the stomp). It also doesn’t dodge ranged attacks! Therefore, you can safely cast a spell or two, jump backwards when the boss stomps, and then roll backwards twice to avoid the potential followup attack.

Note that jumping sideways or forwards will cause you to take damage, so make sure you have space behind you when using this strategy. The only tricky part of this strategy comes when you run out of room behind you. You’ll need to run, dodge, or block your way out of the corner before you get trapped against the wall. Try to do this preemptively — rather than waiting until your back is to the wall, sprint around the boss once you’re getting close to the wall behind you. Avoid the narrow section of the boss arena so you always have space to run around Godfrey.