Elden Ring Erdtree Burial Watchdog boss guide

Put the Watchdog down with our Elden Ring boss walkthrough

Jack Bye

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If you venture into the depths of the Stormfoot catacombs in Elden Ring, eventually you will come across the Erdtree Burial Watchdog. Aside from the Tree Sentinel, this is likely the first proper boss you will encounter in Elden Ring, provided you have a desire to explore off the beaten path. Here we’ll walk you through how to shatter this strange stone creature for good.

How to beat the Elden Ring Erdtree Burial Watchdog boss

The Erdtree Burial Watchdog is a regal-looking stone creature, swathed in a crimson cape with a crown as its collar. Despite these majestic pretentions, it is also a very uncanny-looking enemy, something like a cross between a lucky cat statue and a stone golem. Its movements are somewhat stiff and unnatural. This is both a blessing and a curse when it comes to predicting its movements, depending on the attack.

You can lead the Watchdog around the pillars in the area to soak up some of its quicker moving attacks, though bear in mind the pillars will shatter, so you cannot do this forever.

If you already have the Spirit Calling Bell, the wandering Noble Ashes found earlier in the Stormfoot Catacombs can be used to give you some breathing room, and help whittle down the Watchdog.

Erdtree Burial Watchdog boss mechanics

We’ll also prepare you for the Watchdog’s range of offensive mechanics in Elden Ring. The Watchdog’s attacks can come out incredibly quickly due to its rigid arm movements. But as a trade-off, most of these abilities are telegraphed clearly ahead of time.

• The Watchdog mainly wields its sword in forward lunges, overhead strikes and sweeping slashes.
• His overhead strikes come out the quickest, but you can tell when they coming because of the stiff, telegraphed movement as it comes towards you. The Watchdog will rear up and walk towards you on back legs only. When it gets close enough, its stone blade will slam down at you with lightning speed. Be ready to dodge as soon the Watchdog gets close to you.
• Similarly, when the watchdog slowly ascends into the air, you know a downwards sword slam is coming. Thankfully this does not have as wide an AOE as some other enemies’ ground slams.
• The Watchdog will crouch on its haunches just before performing a forward lunge with its blade.
• It will lower its blade and place the tip on the ground before spinning in a circular 360°sweeping attack.
• Aside from wielding its sword, the Erdtree Burial watchdog can start breathing out torrents of fire. Its otherwise slow pace can temporarily speed up while it breaths fire.

Keep it up, and you will eventually reduce this stone sentinel to rubble!

More Elden Ring content

We’ve been waiting to get our hands on FromSoftware’s Elden Ring for so long, we almost can’t believe it’s finally arrived. Other than our Tier List, We’ll be here to walk you through every step of your journey through the Lands Between. Join us for all our Elden Ring content and guides over the coming days and weeks!