I haven't heard much talk about the Ancient Dragon on these forums and I'm not sure if that's because people aren't fighting him, don't think it's worth it, or just think he's trivial and they're stomping him into the ground. Regardless, I found him pretty hard, and awesome. That said, I finally helped somebody beat him, and my experience crystallized a clear strategy in my mind.

First of all, use lightning. Lots of it. The more Great Lighting Spears you have to hurl at him, the better. I don't know of any other method of taking chunks of health off in groups of 400+ (don't be shy about sharing other serious damage-dealers). Use Sunlight Blade or Gold Pine Resin on your weapons if you're going melee.

This is the tricky part. If you can get under his hind legs he will try to stomp you with them. You need to be on the ball to evade effectively, but this attack does not make him change his positioning, so you can actually force him into a loop of stomping with one hind leg, then the other repeatedly by going from leg to leg. This gives other players a lot of time to throw lightning, or whatever else they're using against him.

While you're under there, he will occasionally stick his head under his front legs and breathe fire back at you. You need to get the fuck out of there at this point, but it also provides you with time to hit him with some ranged attacks once you're in the clear. I've yet to try it, but I'm willing to bet using Heavenly Thunder will be devastating at this point, since you're up relatively close, and he is a very large target.

Also, naked with stamina regenerating equipment seems to be the way to go, since he tends to one-shot you unless you've got the Gyrm Greatshield and lots of stamina.

This tactic seems to be pretty effective, but it's pretty important to have multiple players, with only one drawing aggro. What methods have you guys found to be effective? Please share.

Happy Hunting.

When I use my fully upgraded equipment with a flame quartz ring and use an orange burr I survive his flame attacks. It takes 3 estus to refill though, so I get taken out on the second flame attack. I don't have any attunement, maybe flash sweat or iron flesh would be helpful but I can't check. The best I've done has gotten him down maybe 1/10 of the way.

I beat him naked with my 2 Ultra Greatswords.

Hit his toe, run away, he lands, juke to his side, hit toe rinse and repeat.

I had succes with the front leg strategy. Enter the arena, run right to evade his fire breath, run up to his front leg (his left), whack away. Then, before he's fully recovered, run in front of him to bait out another flame breath, run back to his leg, and rinse and repeat. Occasionally he will fly up into the air, in which case gtfo immediately. You should already be a decent distance away from him at that point because you're trying to bait his frontal flame breath all the time, so you should have plenty of time to get out of dodge, provided you're fighting him around the middle of the arena. I did this strategy with 2 phantoms who were doing the exact same thing and knew wtf they were doing, unlike some, and we aced it, no one died or got hit. This, I've found, is the best, easiest and safest way to fight him. It'll take a few minutes but it's not actually that hard with this strategy.

Soul Geyser spammed him to death. Took 8 or so blasts. All his attacks one shot me so I had to be pretty lucky. That flying fire attack is a pain.

He kept one-shotting me with his dumb spreading fire attack, and since there's no achievement associated with beating him I just gave up. I went in to fight him several times with a full crew and I had no trouble dealing decent damage, but I just couldn't figure out what to do about the fire.

In other news, I beat Vendrick by carefully circling around him and only hitting him once at a time, carefully keeping my shield up and keeping from getting hit. What an adrenaline rush! I was literally shaking by the end because it took forever, though I had four of the five souls of giants which increased the damage he took. That achievement was so worth it.

Man, another optional boss? Well, didn't have to much trouble with the drakes and the dark lurker so I should be fine. My OP cleric is OP.

His flying flame breath attack can be really difficult to evade because he can rotate as he's taking off to initiate it. This means that even if you're off to his side, away from his head, he can still start shooting down fire real close to you before you can get out of the way. That's the only way he's ever killed, until I came upon this tactic.

I tried the fight a number of times. Seemed stupid but doable. But also not really worth it at all. I already killed Vendrick and everything else in the game. That climb up to the Ancient Dragon is stupid. Any time I'd attempt it as a Phantom, the summoner would die almost immediately. Any time I tried it with summons, I'd have to go up and kill all the crap on the stairs, get into the fight and hope I don't die from some bs reason or the Phantoms don't die instantly.

It was just a bunch of stupidness that didn't seem worth the frustration lol

That was my experience at first as well, but lately I've been finding that people tend to know what they're getting into now. Not as many hosts running directly into it initial flame blast. Maybe give it another shot.

To avoid the fire attack follow his tail.

So go for the meat of his tail. Avoid the feet. Just stand to the side of his tail , attack once or twice. Once he rears up to stomp, back off. 2 tail stomps and you can hit him again.

As soon as he goes into the air, dash towards the tip of his tail. You'll avoid the fire attack, and be in perfect position to attack once he lands. Don't lock on and just keep the camera on his body so you know what's coming. Just be careful you're not underneath his tail when he lands.

You won't get hit and you'll only only have 3 attacks to deal with

Never mind, beat vendrick but the run up to this asshole dragon is the worst, I don't think I have the patience. And he drops a soul of a giant? WTF is this non sense? Those things are useless and why would a dragon drop that?

You can avoid everyone on the run too. Take a left up the stairs through the arches before the second dude. Kill the cleric , you can get to the door to the stairs without getting hit.

Then just run. Cheat right for the first two waves then just head towards to door. There's no point wearing any armour so just go under 30% load

So after spending pretty much all day helping people out as a phantom against this guy, I think I've pretty much perfected my strategy--enough so to solo him in a fight I didn't actually plan on getting into. I think going solo might even be preferred, as you don't have other players mucking with Ancient Dragon's attack pattern and drawing aggro away from his feet.

The trick with using the tactic I described originally is making sure you are literally touching his rear feet as you're casting/attacking. This almost assures a foot-stomp response, and during that attack he actually stomps farther forward than his foot's resting position, so he will pretty much miss you on his own. I still recommend dodging towards his other foot. He will still try breathing fire at you, but that's easy enough to run out of the way of.

The only catch is that there's a slim chance he will lift off and do his ground fire breath, in which case you should do as @gerrid suggested and just sprint for his tale and hope for the best.

I can also now confirm that Heavenly Thunder will really rip into his health bar. The game doesn't properly track how much damage it does cumulatively, but it appears as though each lightning bolt does around 200+ damage, provided you have a maxed chime and lots of faith.

I did it solo, naked with a lightning Halberd. As long as you have the stamina, it's pretty easy to run in past his ground fire breath, hit his front leg 2-3 times, then book it away from him. Half the time he'll stay on the ground and breathe fire at you again, the other half he'll fly up and do his AOE insta-kill, but at that point you can dash to the edges of the arena the instant he gets in the air and you'll pretty much always dodge it. Took like 15 minutes, but once you get in the rhythm it's actually kind of fun.

I tried with the Gwym Greatshield before that, but even with 40 Endurance and the Third Dragon's Ring I could only block the fire breath once, and it ALWAYS hits twice.

I saw this guy and, being the complete dunce that I am, decided to fire a couple poison arrows at him from outside the doorway. Big mistake. I only found out later that you're supposed to talk to him to get the ashen mist heart, and can only hope he drops it upon death (I still haven't killed him). As a side note, I found the run up until the boss to be incredibly difficult, but that could just be me. I've resorted to running past the guys on the big steps leading up to the gate, but this only works some of the time.

Did you try holding the shield with both hands? That increases stability. Also don't lock on to him and guard when he's in the air since it moves your shield upward, leaving you open to the fire below.

I just beat the Ancient Dragon today. Was naked with the cloranthy+1 ring and third dragon's ring and the silver covetous for that sweet soul boost. Wielded the Gyrm Greatshield, Rose Blossom Shield, and Pursuer Ultragreatsword+4. Turns out I didn't need the greatshield at all since being naked lets you run pretty quick out of his fire range. But it's nice to have a precaution in case he flies up at a weird angle that is somehow closer to you than normal. Kept the rose shield on my back to stamina regen.

I bait him into doing a regular fire breath, get in 3 hits, run in front of him to try and bait him into doing a fire breath again. If he does a flying fire breath, then it's okay since I'm already in front him and have a good headstart to get out of range. But yeah, it ended being stupidly easy after dying countless times. I find it's better to do it solo, since having other players tends to mess up his predictable pattern and makes his flying fire rather unpredictable. Plus even if you can tank damage with a gyrm greatshield, more often than not, your dudes will die, leaving you alone with a boss scaled toward 3 players and making the fight even more tedious.

Kinda ironic how the boss fight is easiest when you make yourself the most vulnerable, naked and alone.

He's one of the easiest boss in the game , for the fact that he doesn't move from his position , i soloed him as a sorcerer with soul geyser

the strategy was to get naked and run as soon as he flies , when he lands hit him with 1 soul geyser then repeat , won't take more than 6 casts until he's dead .

FIFY. :D

I've been using this strategy and told about any time I could (cheesy strategy topic, and others). The stomp loop from the hind leg has more chance to occure when you stick to the toes, as it will lock him in the loop more effectively. You don't really need lightning. It quickens the battle, but using this strategy makes it awefully easy. Being naked or having stamina regenerating equipement isn't necessary, you just need to manage your stamina well, by NOT being greedy (observe the stomp timing, get a few hits before letting your stamina regenerate during your run to his other leg).

The "fire under belly" is easy to see coming and easy to dodge. Know that sometime he will use the AoE flying breath, but it's really rare. If he do, run to his tail and you should be okay. I was fast enough without being naked at all, but you need to sprint. Be carefull though, it killed me a few time, mainly because of the randomness of the direction ihe turns to while being in the air. Plus, be sure you don't stay directly under the tail or you will be crushed when he lands. He will also do an evasive jump from time to time.

I tried a few strategies and this one worked the best for me so far.

As for the bits of your post I highlighted... Dont... just don't summon help... EVER, for this fight. Phantoms will just make the Ancient Dragon's reaction more random, which will get you killed... and considering he already has insane amount of health, each summoned phantom you have with you will raise it further. So, you're alone this fight.

I'm not sure how well this works if you've already angered the dragon, but this video shows off a pretty foolproof strategy assuming you've got a bit of patience. TLDW: poke his toes.