Dark Souls 2 - Royal Rat Authority, boss tactics

If you're quick, you can handle the trash enemies lurking by the Authority before the boss can even make it into the fray. We'll show you how to equip the right gear to finish the early fight off fast, then get stuck into the real meat of the battle in style.

How to kill the Royal Rat Authority

You can walk through the mist and into the fight against the Royal Rat Authority without worrying about an immediate assault. There are four rats waiting for you over on the far side of the room, while the Royal Rat Authority itself waits atop a platform just above them. As you've got a little time to prepare, look through your inventory to see if there's anything there to help mitigate the toxic damage dished out by the rodents.

When it comes to your offensive approach to the fight, make sure you use a weapon that has a fairly wide attacking range - that'll make it much easier to hit multiple enemies at once. It's also important to get rid of those four enemies as quickly as possible, so you can turn your attention to the Royal Rat Authority. You won't be given much time to take out this trash before the boss joins the fight either.

When you're ready to kick things off, run towards the rats, or fire off a ranged attack to get their attention. Make sure you back up until you've got at least three of them nibbling together in a bunch, then smack 'em in the face with your wide melee attack. If you're lucky, you might even take the whole lot of them down with one swing. If you approach on their right hand side, you can usually avoid the Royal Rat Authority's initial attack. You certainly won't need more than two swings to deal with the trash enemies, and as long as you wait for them to bunch up, you'll polish the lot off before the boss can join in the fun.

Once all of the support enemies are dead, you can turn your attention to the Royal Rat Authority. We recommend running straight through its legs, getting right underneath its belly, and then going to town on the creature's back legs.

"Certainly don't spend any considerable amount of time directly in front of the Royal Rat Authority, otherwise you'll take some meaty horizontal swipes to the face."

Certainly don't spend any considerable amount of time directly in front of the Royal Rat Authority, otherwise you'll take some meaty horizontal swipes to the face. It's not even worth blocking them either, as you'll lose a ridiculous amount of stamina by doing so.

If you get too far away from the Authority, your opponent will simply lunge straight at you with a head-first dive. Blocking this attack will wipe out your stamina bar entirely, although you should be able to get it charged back up before a new attack comes your way.

Because it's so hard to evade the Authority's attacks, your best bet is to block that lunging dive, then run immediately beneath the creature to get your own damage in. Stick around in this position for as long as you can, keep thrashing away at those hind legs, then move if the boss leaps out of the way. Be ready for that dive again.

When you've delivered a certain amount of damage, the Authority will start throwing up some vile, burning liquid. It'll spread very quickly, so get out of the way of it as fast as you can. That'll force the boss to start using its leaping attack again. Now just repeat the earlier strategy until this horrible creature finally falls.

We've got an easy-to-follow guide that will help you kill the Prowling Magus. Alternatively, head back to the first page of our Dark Souls 2 walkthrough for more guides.

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