Basilisk (Dark Souls III)

The Basilisk is an enemy in Dark Souls.

Location
Basilisks are found in the Farron Keep near the golden scroll and antiquated set. Further into the play through, the player will find a sewer in the Irithyll Dungeon with two chests (one being a mimic); the normal chest contains the Cell Key and the mimic contains the dark clutch ring. After obtaining the items, the player will be ambushed by several basilisks. The final place to find basilisks is down in Smouldering Lake, just before being attacked by Knight Slayer Tsorig near a large pool of lava.

Description
Basilisks are slim lizards with a large head with seemingly large eyes. Upon sensing the player, the basilisk will charge the player in a hysterical manner before leaping in the air to either spew a gray mist that increases curse or they will leap behind the player in an attempt to block off an escape or improve their ambush. Unlike the basilisk in Dark Souls, these variant basilisks can cause physical damage with a swiping motion of their front limbs. They can also use their body to leap into a player for an attempted stagger. As noted in DS, the bulbous appendages that appear on the basilisk are not its actual eyes. The basilisks eyes are the small yellow beads that appear right over its mouth.

General Information
The basilisk can cause curse status and physical damage. They move quickly in a forward direction but turn slowly.

The basilisks seem to always be guarding something; the golden scroll, the dark clutch ring and cell key, and just before Knight Slayer Tsorigs encounter.

Strategy
Usually attacking from the side will provide the best results. Target-locking will help achieve side-stepping for an attack on the basilisk.

Running from basilisks in the Farron Keep is usually not a good idea as they will continue to chase and spew their curse mist for a far distance while moving much faster than the player in the mucky swamp.

Critical
Hitting any part of a basilisk's face will deal increased damage. Because the face is the point that gets targeted when locking onto the basilisk, using thrusting weapons will work exceedingly well against them, as each strike will almost guarantee this bonus damage.

Melee
Basilisks can now deal physical damage with the use of their front limbs. They can swipe and even lunge into a character in an attempt to break poise. Getting too close risks exposure to curse and is ill-advised if they are in any significant numbers, or the player has low curse resistance.

Using a shield with high curse resistance and a spear is a great combo as a player can attack with a thrust from behind the shield. Also, a player with a heavy weapon (such as a greatswrod or a greataxe that breaks poise can use the weapon to usually one-shot a basilisk, or continually breaks its poise preventing it from spewing its mist or attacking with its limbs.

Ranged
Basilisks stagger from just about any hit, and can easily be pelted with arrows without them being able to execute a single attack. This gives the added bonus of allowing players to pull one or two basilisks at a time, rather than have the entire swarm of seven or so rushing after them.

Drops
Mossfruit