Sanctuary Guardian
HP: 2560
Skills: Lightning Blasts*, Head Charge, Pounce, Poison Tail Sweep*, Flurry Swipes*, Shockwave
Souls: 30000

Difficulty: 4/5
Times died on 1st playthrough: 10+

"Dark Souls" will always be hard. After about a couple of years after finishing the game, they throw out a DLC, taunting the players to jump right in with a "Come at me, bro!". Of course, any sensible gamer WILL get their hands on the DLC, one way or another...then they will rage, once again. The DLC, "Artorias Of The Abyss", is ridiculously difficult. Dangerous enemies, merciless bosses and  a whole new landscape...of course, the only reason why we're here today, is to analyze the bosses. The moment you step into Oolacile, you are greeted by the Sanctuary Guardian, one of the hardest bosses in the game, and the easiest out of the DLC baddies. This is a message from the developers...you are going to die. A lot.

Nom nom nom!

I'll be frank with you. The Sanctuary Guardian is relentless. He gives almost no openings, and he will throw attacks on you over and over with almost no chance for you to hit him without being traded back. You're going to need some VERY fast weapon if you want to land hits on him without risk. A ranged strategy is going to be rather difficult because he has many ways to jump in on you. All in all, if you don't study his patterns, he is going to be a very tough opponent.

Lightning Blasts* - Simple enough, he shoots multiple blasts of electricity on your face. He can either do this on the ground, or fly into the air to do it, which will then be a lot harder to avoid. Dodging rapidly is the way to go, unless you have a nice lightning resistant shield.

Head Charge - He pulls his head back and rams himself straight into you for massive damage. Easily dodged, but it can be blocked as well if you have decent stamina.

Pounce - He just runs at you from far away and pounces you from a considerable distance. It does't do that much damage and can be easily blocked or dodged, but he will almost always follow up with flurry swipes.

Poison Tail Sweep* - I hate this move. He just spins his body around to net you with his tail, doing moderate damage and inflicting poison. You can block, but you'll still take the poison ailment head on if you have no poison resistance. Roll away to deal with this.

Flurry Swipes* - He relentlessly hits you in melee range with swipes and bites. You can roll away rapidly to completely negate his frontal assault, but since the start up time on this move is so quick its a little bit hard to read. Blocking is not recommended, as he will eventually break your guard with his multiple hits.

Shockwave - He gets up on twos and slams his feet down to create a shockwave that does almost no damage but renders you in a stunned position, letting him follow up with another attack. Dodge away, as blocking this will leave you staggered as well.

That's a lot of attacks, but honestly, there are only a few you need to look out for. His lightning blasts can be really scary if he starts to spam them...and he will if you're staying too far away from him. He can shoot these on the ground or up in the air when he decides to fly around. Needless to say, you'll want to see less of this because it can be a little bit scary. Once you do get into range, he'll start using a lot more attacks...at least you don't have to deal with more lightning blasts.

When you are in mid range, he'll usually open up with 2 moves, either head charge or pounce. Head charge has a little bit of a start time so its rather easy to see coming,  its easily dodged, but can deal a good amount of damage if it connects. Shockwave is even easier to see coming, but its a mistake to actually block it because of the stagger animation, leaving you open to other attacks like flurry swipes of head charge. Just look out for these two attacks, if he manages to come in on you with head charge, you'll be in range for melee combat. If he does shockwave, just back off and wait for a chance.

In melee range, you'll mostly need to look out for flurry swipes and poison tail sweep. It's hard to predict which attack will come out first, because for the most part, these attacks have close to no start up time. Instead of keeping your shield up, its a nice to prepare yourself to dodge attacks when needed. Flurry strikes is crazy strong if he manages to land all 4 hits, enough to instantly kill you if you're not of a decent VIT. Poison tail sweep is just annoying, because not only does it do decent damage, the poison is infuriating.


The Sanctuary Guardian is a fearsome foe. He has a lot up his sleeves and there's little chance to actually deal any "safe" damage to him. He is rather squishy though, so you can take that into account. Beating him grants you 30000 souls and the Guardian Soul, as well as passage into the town of Oolacile. Take note that if you come back here later on, you can face off against 2 Sanctuary Guardians at once, which is a daunting task that I've not been able to accomplish by myself.