Grand Archives Scholar

Grand Archives Scholars are enemies in Dark Souls III.

Description
Eerie sages, sorcerers by craft, who tend the vast and irreplaceable bulk of knowledge stored within the archives. They wear religious robes and pace slowly along the library's corridors. They all wield a Scholar's Candlestick, which strengthens the sorceries cast by some of them. All of them can be seen holding a small, unlit candle on their left hands, although only those with a burning flame on their heads may use it to douse wax onto trespassers.

Scholars know too well the dangers contained within the store of knowledge they tend, and thus, are always seen with their heads drenched unceremoniously in wax to protect themselves from the many spirits lurking within the tomes, which ends up taking the shape of a small candle on the top of their heads.

There are two variants:

Unlit candle: Normal-sized scholars with their candles unlit. They mainly resort to perform melee attacks with their candlesticks.

Lit candle: Slightly taller and stronger sages portraying a burning candle on their heads. They can unleash a series of magical attacks from very long distances and may quickly heat up the candle they hold with the flame on their heads to douse the player with hot wax, rendering unable to sprint or roll for a short period of time.

Locations
Only found throughout the library section of the Grand Archives.

Lore
In Lothric, the Scholar has long been considered one of the Three Pillars of the king's rule, and is therefore master of the Grand Archives.

Strategy
Scholars mainly serve as support forces for other enemies. Even though they move very slowly, they may surprise the player with unexpected stabs and slashes with their candlesticks.

The ones portraying burning flames on their heads are considerably stronger and may only fall with at least two hits from heavy weaponry. They will be the main concern while traversing through the archives while in search of the elusive Crystal Sage, as they can detect the player from very long distances and unleash several barrages of magical attacks in quick succession.

It is advised to take care of any other enemies in their vicinity first and to have one's own head covered in wax the whole time, as they tend to stand in areas where a myriad of Clawed Curses may emerge.

If possible, it is recommended to attack them from very far away with a bow and arrows, thus giving the player a breathing room while evading the Crystal Sage's constant harassment.

Trivia

 * Their headgear, the Scholar Shed Skin, exists within the game's files and was supposedly intended to be dropped by these enemies, although testing by using a 100% drop rate script has confirmed that it actually cannot be obtained in the game by conventional means.