The Duke's Dear Freja

The Duke's Dear Freja is a boss in Dark Souls II.

Description
A gigantic two-headed spider, fought in Brightstone Cove Tseldora. She guards one of the Primal Bonfires.

Locations
Normally fought at the end of Brightstone Cove, she can be encountered and fought early at the cliff just outside the cave leading into the church where the player fights the Prowling Magus. It is possible, albeit extremely difficult, to defeat her here.

Strategy
Most of the boss's shell is extremely strong, and attacks will merely bounce off and do no damage. Her weak spots are her two heads on either side of her body. Caution must be taken when approaching these spots, however, as most of her attacks occur at her head areas. The heads are also quite hard to hit with a melee weapon, but fortunately the lock-on automatically targets the heads.

The attacks of the boss are very powerful and hard to block, but they aren't too difficult to dodge either. Players who wear lots of armor and roll slowly will have a really hard time with this boss.

Many smaller spider minions also continually attack the player during the fight. They are easy to kill, but can do a lot of damage. If the player doesn't watch for these spiders, they can do massive back stab damage.

Possibly one of the best ways to fight this boss is to wait until she uses one of her attacks at one of her faces, then run over to her other face at the opposite end and attack. Usually both heads cannot attack at once.

It is possible to sever a head during combat if it takes enough damage. During this time, Freja will be staggered for a second or two, then slam all of her legs into the ground repeatedly. It is advisable to move out of her range when this occurs.

Summoning
A phantom, Ashen Knight Boyd, can be summoned for this fight. His summon sign is located next to a column beneath a spider web on the opposite wall of the fog door. He makes the fight much easier, as he will easily defeat the first wave of smaller spiders and keep the boss busy for a good portion of the fight.

Attacks
Spider Spear: Freja slams her large two front legs on the ground. Powerful, but small hitbox. Simply dodge or run away from her face.

Jaws of Death: Freja raises her two pincers at the side of her face and lunges forward with them in a hugging motion. Run to her side to avoid.

Spider Slam: Freja jumps into the air, and falls down in an attempt to land on the player. Can sometimes be difficult to avoid due to her large body.

Black Widow Bomb: Freja rears up high into the air and thrusts quickly forward with her body. Run to her side to dodge her attack, but stay away from her head.

Web Barrage: Freja spits out balls of web that immobilise the player. They are hard to avoid, which is unfortunate since, if immobilised, you will inevitably be attacked

Acid Shower: Freja spits out many balls of web, which depletes armour durability from both of her heads while repeatedly slamming all her legs on the ground. Getting away from her completely is advised.

Ether Laser: Freja breathes a beam of magic horizontally from left to right. Deals extremely high damage as well as being unblockable. It is possible to roll under/through the beam with the use of invincibility frames. The most effective tactic is to recognize the set up, then run to the opposite head to negate and deal damage.

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