How to beat Godfrey the First Elden Lord in Elden Ring

How to prepare for Godfrey the First Elden Lord

Firstly, one important detail: this is the Golden Shade version of Godfrey the First Elden Lord. We won't spoil anything for you, but as plenty of Elden Ring players might have suspected, this isn't the true form of Godfrey.

Yes, what we're dealing with here is a main story-focused boss in Elden Ring, but keep in mind that we're specifically talking about the Golden Shade iteration of Godfrey throughout this page.

Now that that's out of the way, you'll want to take a heavy weapon infused with Bleed damage for this fight.

While Godfrey the First Elden Lord is unfortunately pretty resistant to Scarlet Rot, he's pretty susceptible to Bleed damage, and so we'd recommend taking a weapon that has a special Bleed-focused ability, not one that builds up Bleed damage with each continuous hit.

Godfrey the First Elden Lord tips: How to beat Godfrey the First Elden Lord

Godfrey looks like an absolute tank, but he moves surprisingly quickly.

This boss fight, as they often are in FromSoftware games, is about holding your nerve and dodging at the last possible second through Godfrey the First Elden Lord's massive swinging attacks with his axe, not automatically dodging as soon as the boss prepares to swing at you.

A lot of this fight revolves around dodging through Godfrey's massive swing attacks with his axe. The boss generally pulls off one, two, or three big swings in a row, and it's important not to get greedy and run in for an attack, only to get caught out with a follow-up attack from the boss.

A really good rule to stay by is that if Godfrey the First Elden Lord's attack ends with his axe on the floor in front of him, he won't chain together another strike.

There's an attack where the boss brings the head of his hammer down on the floor immediately in front of him, almost using it like a spear to reach at you, and this is just one instance where when the axe finishes in front of him on the ground, you should press the attack.

Godfrey's also fond of rising up into the air and throwing his axe down at you from above, followed by a large sweeping attack when he zooms in to grab the weapon.

This is most commonly seen right at the beginning of the boss fight, and it's a pretty simple one to avoid, if you dodge while the axe is careening towards you in the air.

Other than this, one strike to watch out for is when Godfrey lifts up a leg. When his foot comes down to the floor, a wave of spikes will erupt from the ground in a small cone immediately in front of him, and this can be a little tricky to dodge if you're caught in the blast.

Try timing your dodge so that you're rolling when the spikes burst up, and you stand a much better chance of avoiding the whole thing.

Godfrey the First Elden Lord reward

Once the fight with Godfrey the First Elden Lord (Golden Shade version) is done, you'll be rewarded with 60,000 Runes for your efforts, which should be worth at least two levels for you.

You'll also bag yourself a Talisman Pouch, which increases the number of Talisman slots.

Godfrey the First Elden Lord might be down, but you've got the rest of Leyndell, Royal Capital to venture through. The climax of this entire area brings you face to face with one of the tougher bosses in the entire game.