Elden Ring will make you face dragons in all styles, whether they are conventional flying dragons, magma, lightning, and of course rot. The most popular affliction in the game has to be present in all possible forms.
Preparations
- One of the biggest problems with this dragon lies in Scarlet Rot. Immunizing items will reduce the difficulty.
- Spirit Summons aren't very useful in this fight, as they have a tendency to die from a blast or clouds of scarlet putrefaction.
Strategy
- Basically, Ekzykes the Rotten behaves like other dragons, with the same behavior and common attacks. So we won't dwell too much on this, you can find different strategies in our Agheel guide. The main difference is that facing this dragon without using Torrent is very difficult, even more than for its congeners.
- One of the notable differences that makes this dragon far more fearsome and frustrating is Scarlet Rot. It's best to do it only after you've gained enough levels to start, the objective is to avoid getting killed in one shot
- Ekzykes' kicks are far more deadly than normal, as they will raise clouds of scarlet dust . They inflict damage and cause putrefaction, so it's better to avoid them. In practice, this encourages even more to give a few blows in passing before fleeing in the other direction.
- Ekzykes also loves to let out a roar that kicks up some scarlet dust in front of him, it slips away behind him.
- This dragon's various breaths tend to spread out a little wider than those of its brethren, so be careful when dodging them on horseback.
- The biggest difference is his dust cloud summon. It will then blow vertically, which will flood the entire area, knocking you off your horse and killing you. Learning to recognize this technique and to flee is certainly the most important condition for survival. Run away with Torrent, and use this respite to heal yourself. If you're playing from a distance, it's an opportunity to attack, but only from very far away.
- The environment doesn't help on this fight either, cliffs and mounds tend to make for some pretty harrowing situations, during which the dragon adopts odd firing angles, resulting in unpredictable blasts. It may be wiser to just run away from the area when this happens, in order to force it to disappear and then reappear in the center of the area.
- You can try to reverse the situation and use the heights to attack him from afar before fleeing on horseback when he decides to fly away, but this tends to degenerate quickly if you are not reactive enough.
This guide has been translated from MGG France by bxakid and was originally written by Raiden Robin.
