Valley of Drakes

The Valley of Drakes is one of the locations in the game Dark Souls. This area is filled with blue drakes and the Undead Dragon. This dragon protects Astora's Straight Sword, and the Dragon Crest Shield. The drakes can pose a very big threat to lower level players, as they have high health, high damaga resistance, and do high damage. If approached from the Blighttown route, there will also be a cave with some trolls which can poison you, so try to avoid fighting them if possible, or use a Spider Shield.

Blue Drakes
Each Blue Drake drops 1000 Souls when slain and is easy to kill when players use the right tactics. However, they have huge amounts of health and strong offensive abilites. It is not recommended to engage them for the purpose of soul farming.

A good way to fight drakes is to have a shield that can block at least 80 percent Lightning damage. Keep your distance and your shield up until it charges it's lightning attack. It will usually do a side-to-side lightning breath which takes a long time, and is easy to dodge. After dodging, attack a few times on its side, let stamina recharge, then rinse and repeat. They also have a very powerful bite attack that is performed at close range and may perform it twice in a row.

Drakes are capable of temporary flight and may perform strafing runs where they fly above the player and blast them with lightning then return to land at the same spot which they began their attack. They can also jump then glide towards the player and tackle them, or jump back away from the player while spraying lightning at them.

Blue Drakes are resistant against Lightning damage, but Bleeding damage appears to be quite effective against the blue drakes, making weapons like the Bandit's Knife or Uchigatana a viable option.

Blue drakes have a small chance to drop a Dragon Scale.

Undead Dragon
After entering the area from Firelink Shrine, dispose of the first Drake. Continue to the left, down a small path along the mountain. You'll meet another Drake blocking your path. After killing the Drake, continue on until you see the large, stone-like dragon lying lifelessly on the ground. You can safely approach the dragon for now, but if you pick up the items next to it, it will jump to life and attack you with its poisonous breath.

Melee tactic: Approach the dragon from its left side, then attack its left paw once. Move back a bit, and let it spew poison at you. After this, you'll have a about three second interval before it spews again, use this time to get in one-three more hits, depending on your weapon. Repeat until it's dead.

Ranged tactic: Any ranged weapon/spell will do. Stay out of range of its claw swipe and poisonous spew.

Notable loot

 * Astora's Straight Sword, next to the Undead Dragon.


 * Dragon Crest Shield, also next to the Undead Dragon.


 * Red Tearstone Ring . After killing/running past the Drakes across the bridge, take a right and climb up the ladder on the castle tower. The ring is on top.