Elden Ring: How to Defeat Baleful Shadow

As the Baleful Shadow is the part of the Ranni’s questline you have to first complete through the Ranni’s previous tasks and Renna’s Rise in Three Sisters will open and you can go inside the tower which was once sealed. Go to the top and take the teleport and you will spawn in the AInsel River. From where you spawn look straight and you will see an item in a grave. It will be a Miniature doll.

Now you have to talk to this doll in order to do this just a bit ahead there’ll be a site of grace. Rest at grace and select the option to talk to a miniature doll. The first time she will say nothing, try again and it will be the same but the third time she will answer. Which actually triggers the Baleful shadow to spawn in his location if you don’t talk to the doll, Baleful shadow will not spawn and you cannot complete ranni’s quest without killing him.

Location of Baleful Shadow

The location of Baleful Shadow is Nokstella Waterfall Basin on the Ainsel River Main. To get there just continue the path of the Ainsel River and the Uhl Palace Ruins then take a right to the Nokstella. Go through the Grand gate and you’ll reach the cave of ants. Now keep going down until you reach the Nokstella, Eternal City site grace. Follow the river and you’ll see two stairs going up ignore the first one and go up on the second stairs and keep continue until you reach a bridge.

Jump off the bridge and go into the building and keep going with the river and you’ll reach an elevator that will lead to the Nokstella Waterfall Basin. Go through the Nokstella Waterfall Basin and go through the cave and you’ll see the Baleful Shadow after you come out of the cave.

Defeating Baleful Shadow

The Baleful Shadow Boss has the ability to chain a series of long-range attacks and he also has two Crimson flasks that he will use during the fight to regain his hp.

Preparation

So before this fight, you need a couple of things to defeat this boss easily. The first thing that you need is Rotten Breath Incantation and the second thing that you need is a Seal. Rotten Breath, one of the prerequisites is that you have killed at least one dragon and you have at least one dragon heart in your inventory to use at a dragon altar to purchase this incantation.

What you Need

To use the Rotten Breath Incantation, you need to meet the required attributes. The attributes that you should have are 15 Faith and 12 Arcane. Now to kill the Baleful Shadow, you are going to infect him four times with Rotten Breath, and each infection takes two Rotten Breath attacks. So you are going to need at least 72 points of FP and cerulean flask to recharge that three more times in order to have enough scarlet rot to actually kill the Baleful Shadow. You are going to need a seal to use the Rotten Breath Incantation. You can use any seal, there is not a specified seal for this incantation.

We can kill the Baleful shadow without even using a sword because of the Rotten Breath Incantation. So, the first thing that you should do is to infect the Baleful shadow for the first time as soon as you saw him and before he has any chance to attack you. You are going to use two rotten breaths making it the first infection. Then you need to keep your distance because Baleful Shadow has a really nasty chain of attacks and a decent range where he can lunge at you.

Use the cerulean tears to recharge the Rotten Breath for the second infection and he will use his first crimson tear at the end of the first infection. But you have to keep moving and don’t go any near to Baleful Shadow. After the end of the infection, spam two more Rotten Breaths at him and keep your distance. You can keep moving or there is also another way where he would not follow you but keep standing in one place, for that there will be a building with an elevator inside go to the elevator and he will stop following you. His health will keep draining and you can recharge your Rotten Breath and spam at him two more times.

He will have one more crimson tear left after he would use it then he cannot use that again and your poison will be enough to kill him completely. You can walk around with him following you or you can stand in the building and spam the Rotten Breath whenever it requires. It is just that easy to kill this boss.

After you kill him, you will get a Discarded Palace Key and 8561 Runes. The Discarded Palace Key is used to open a chest in Raya Lucaria Grand Library where you had fought the Rennala the Full Moon Queen. From the chest, you will get the Dark Moon Ring.