Dragonrider

The Dragonrider is a halberd-wielding boss in Dark Souls II.

Location
The Dragonrider can be found in Heide’s Tower of Flame.

Description
The Dragonrider is clad in heavy red armour, matching his crimson-tinged skintone, giving him an almost demonic appearance.

Strategy
The Dragonrider possesses a highly predictable attack pattern, consisting of mostly mid-ranged attacks, and the biggest threat is being knocked off the edge of the circular arena, a threat almost eliminated if the guarded lever earlier on is pulled. If he misses an attack on the player, he will take quite a while to recover his composure. Blocking may prove useful, through a dextrous warrior with good timing can dodge roll away from his slow attacks.

Attacks
Note that throughout the boss fight, as his health gets lower, his attack combos begin to get longer and longer. There are three different phases (start, middle, and near-end of fight) to his attack patterns based on his health, and the new attacks simply combo after his normal ones. Most of the new attacks are simply extra horizontal swings, with a few exceptions. Do note that like most enemies, he only continues the combo if the player is still in range of the attacks.

1. Lines his Halberd up and does a straight thrust.

-Phase two: adds a horizontal, sweeping slash.

2. Raises his Halberd up behind him and does two sweeping strikes.

-Phase two is the same, since he already does two strikes with this attack

-Phase three finishes with a downward smash.

3. Raises his Halberd above him and does a downward slash in a straight line.

-Phase two: adds a upward, diagnal slash to the combo

4. Raises his Halberd up similar to the first attack, but instead does a single, twirling swipe very similar to his second attack, with a wider range to his left.

-Phase two: adds another horizontal slash, making it very similar to his second attack set.

Defenses
Dragonrider has two main defensive moves.

-One is to dash back away from the player.

-The other is to simply raise his shield for a short period of time, like a normal enemy. He often combos this after a dash.

Drops
The Dragonrider also drops 12,000 souls upon defeat