Dark Souls 3: Dragon Barracks to Dragonslayer Armour

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Dark Souls 3: Dragon Barracks to Dragonslayer Armour

The Dragon Barracks bonfire is the start of a twisting and nasty crawl. Take the bit between your teeth.

There are two sets of stairs up to the next area. Standing between them, take the left set and hug the wall. There’s a red-eyed knight kneeling ahead. If you can take him down (not easy) you’ll be able to collect the Greatlance weapon.

Advance towards the ominously still dragon; the results of your foray are quite impressive. The good news is if you have a bow, a good stock of arrows and nothing better to do, you can put a stop to this. You need to find somewhere you can shoot them easily but where they can't hurt you, bearing in mind that arrow damage drops off rapidly with distance and dragons take more damage on the body and head than limbs, and none at all on the wings.

One such spot is on the bonfire side of the bridge, near a gap in the wall in front of the white (left) dragon. Shoot it in the knuckle closest to you. The dragons share a health bar, mysteriously, so you take them both down this way.

When they've gone quiet you can cross the bridge to collect a Lightning Urn and then an Ember. Turn right and circle the yellow (right) dragon’s head to collect a Refined Gem. There’s another Ember on a corpse on a railing near the big portcullis.

Let’s clear out the bridge now. It’s pretty deadly, to be honest. Start by dropping down on the dragon’s side of the bridge to a ledge above ground level. Grab the Undead Bone Shard from under the bridge and then go to the far left. Peer down at a grunt. It is in fact a snake beast. If you can put it down with an arrow in the head before it transforms, do so – because there’s another snake beast at the other end, and the last thing you want is to get into a melee fight with both of them at once.

If you snipe one (or both) but it survives and transforms, there’s a little gap in the walls along this ledge where you can hide from attacks – which as you may remember pay no heed to intervening cover. You can snipe them both slowly from here.

When you drop down, grab the Twinkling Titanite and Titanite Shards, then head for the doorway leading out. Roll through the barrels to the left of the next door to grab some Lightning Urns.

There’s a Crystal Lizard with Twinkling Titanite just around the corner, but a thief is waiting to throw kukris at you. Another thief drops down behind you as you advance a little. As you proceed down the path, three thieves ambush you. Hooray!

Up ahead is a round tower thing. There’s a winged knight on here. If you kill him, you can go past and take revenge on a certain grunt who made you unhappy earlier, and who often drops a sniper crossbow. Otherwise, just sneak on by and drop down to the bonfire.

Now for the other side of the bridge. Drop to collect a Titanite Chunk. A tall enemy with a halberd and grunt with bombs are just up ahead, and when you get close, a crossbowman opens fire, too.

There’s a door on your right leading back to the bridge and a path ahead leading to two knights. They are guarding nothing and there’s literally no reason to bother with them right now. Take the right doorway instead.

You have arrived in the rooms under the white dragon. Grab the Soul of a Nameless Soldier from near the pillar, then go out on the balcony for the Raw Gem.

The stairs, well – the stairs lead to an Outrider. You may not even remember what these are, but you fought one to get to the Road of Sacrifices, and it was terrible and awful. Yeah, you remember now. It can be cheesed if you have any arrows left after all this bollocksing around, and it won’t chase you far if you leg it quick enough. Is it worth it? There are four chests (and no Mimics) in its room, containing some Titanite Chunks, a stack of Twinkling Titanite, and the Spirit Tree Crest Shield.

Our next path is a doorway behind the other dragon. As you enter, look up and left, following the stairs with your eyes; there’s a grunt up here who throws firebombs. The middle of the room is full of explosive barrels. Well.

When that’s dealt with, start up the ladder to the right, but as soon as you hear activity, slide down and face the two grunts who leap off the ladder when you climb up. There’s a third grunt at the top. There’s also a corpse with some Firebombs and a Large Soul of a Nameless Soldier - and a snake beast, stuck in the door.

Make a dash to the stairs and you’ll be safe to put arrows in the snake beast; it spits venom or something all over the floor, making everywhere else deadly. As you attack it, you’ll aggro about five grunts, so don’t just sit there stupidly pinging arrows and not looking around. Look out for an overseer enemy on the balcony behind you, too.

You’ll get an Ember and some Titanite if you kill the snake beast, but there’s no other benefit beyond blessed silence; there’s no treasure beyond it. Wait, there’s nothing behind it at all! But wasn’t there a…? Hmm!

However, the door opposite the sneak beast is a totally different matter. Collect a Titanite Chunk and then leg it for the Crystal Lizard; it may surprise you by turning off into the corner immediately. It holds Twinkling Titanite. Go on a bit further to collect a Titanite Scale.

Back inside now. There are some Black Firebombs on the bottom floor you can collect now there aren’t grunts every which way. Climb the stairs and deal with any remaining grunts. In the room at the top you’ll see many passives, and right on cue an overseer comes wandering in from the door to the right. Kill him before he gets off his scream. Seriously.

Past the overseer, two thieves are playing possum. Kill them and collect the Titanite Scale. Return to the room you just left and collect the Pale Pine Resin – and don’t be fooled by the Mimic! It’s got three Titanite Scales.

Pass through the door and grab the Large Soul of a Weary Warrior from the right. Pull the lever to raise the portcullis and send everyone downstairs into hysterics. There are two priests down there with the two knights; it’s really hard to see and snipe them all from this place. It’s better to try from another angle. You could drop down via the ledge – but you could also run back down and around to the main gate. Hell, take the chance to visit the bonfire – you’ve earned it.

Facing into this area from the gate, there’s a priest and a knight on the right. A red-eyed knight will also come charging at you down the stairs if you move too far in, and the second priest up on the stairs will be alerted. Ideally you want to kill the priest first, then lure the knight out and cheese him, then bring the red-eyed knight down, and finally the second priest, who has been oblivious all the while. It sounds daunting until you realise the knights are really reluctant to advance past the stairs leading to the bridge. Hand far enough back and they’ll just charge and retreat, charge and retreat. Arrows for lyfe. You only ever need to do this once, thankfully.

Now that the lower floor is clear you can grab the Ember on the left of the stairs and proceed up. Head up the stairs on the left and collect the Sunlight Medal; you should also activate the lift for a shortcut right back to the Dancer of the Boreal bonfire area. See?

Advance a bit further towards the edge of the building and you can finally see the snake beast making all the noise on this side. Snipe it down for more Titanite and Embera, and to clear the path below so you can drop down and grab whatever it drops, as well as the Soul of a Crestfallen Knight that’s been taunting us this whole time. There’s a room nearby with a Mimic. It has the Sunlight Straight Sword. Praise the Sun, et cetera. You’ll find the Braille Divine Tome of Lothric on a curled up corpse nearby; you can give it to Irina of Carim or Karla, and you might want to read our NPC guide for some spoilers before you make up your mind.

Head back up to where you sniped the snake beast and look for a ladder. Climb up and collect a Titanite Chunk from the lift side of the roof, then look across the area from the other side. There are two crossbowmen and a tall enemy; take ‘em out.

Cross over the rooftop and enter the next room. There’s nothing on the other side but a bunch of messages falsely suggesting there’s an illusory wall, which you should applaud, because it puzzles people and that’s what passes for humour here at the edge of our nerves. Climb down the ladder near the entrance.

Now, clearly you want that item, but also clearly, there’s a big old knight standing on the bridge. Will he attack if you grab the item? We did not care to find out, and sniped him. Unfortunately, he proved smart enough to climb the ladder after us, but not quite smart enough, because we jumped down, grabbed the Knight’s Ring, and sauntered over the bridge he was supposed to be guarding while he stood on the upper ledge staring at nothing. Nice job, sucker.

On the other side of the bridge you’ll find the Altar of Sunlight and can finally get the Praise the Sun emote. The chest here is safe, and contains a stack of Titanite Scales. Open the door back to the area by the lift.

I know you want to go through that boss gate (ha ha, no you don’t) but we’re still. Not. Done. Send the lift back down by rolling off it (trust us) and take the other path to enter yet another chapel. The lift here doesn’t unlock from this side. Look right and grab some Rusted Coins and a Titanite Scale from a chest. (You get the feeling FromSoft wants you to upgrade your weapons?) Go out the door on the opposite side and head right for the Red Tearstone Ring. There’s a very nice view of an optional area we'll visit shortly, and a gap in the railing here where you can drop down to collect Caitha’s Chime; it's a lpng fall, so Spook or Silvercat Ring it up.

You’ll drop down right by those two knights we advised you to ignore ages ago. Roll on past them or snipe them from the ledge with the treasure; the silly things can’t cope with it.

Well, that’s everything we can do here for now, so why not head for the Dragon Barracks bonfire, travel to the Dancer of the Boreal bonfire, and get set up to take the lift to the boss gate? Aren't you glad you sent it down?

Continue to Dragonslayer Armour boss guide.

Back to Dark Souls 3 guide and walkthrough.