The Elden Ring Godskin Duo is one of the game’s most notorious fights. In fact, it’s actually two extremely difficult bosses rolled into one — then multiplied with a literally larger-than-life health bar. It doesn’t come early in the game, but the Godskin Duo is a mandatory encounter. You must defeat them to progress to the final stage of Elden Ring. As such, many players might find this already frustrating fight extra annoying. There’s no getting around it; you just need to push through. That’s why we’ve put together some info on how to beat one of the most annoying antagonists around. Let’s take a look at how with our Elden Ring Godskin Duo guide!
Note: The Godskin Duo doesn’t appear until quite deep into the main story of Elden Ring. As such, there will be MINOR SPOILERS (mostly in the form of location and item names). If you don’t want even that much spoiled, don’t bother reading. Then again, if you’re looking up how to kill the Godskin Duo, you’re probably in deep enough as it is.
With that out of the way, players encounter the Godskin Duo in Crumbling Farum Azula. This is the floating city populated by demi-humans, dragons, and knights. You can reach it very early in Elden Ring by accessing the proper teleporter in the Four Belfries: as early as the start of the game if you have a Stonesword Key. Though the section seen through this portal is just a fraction of the full region. You won’t reach the city proper until after defeating the Fire Giant and making one sacrifice or another to open the Erdtree. The Godskin Duo is the first real, nonoptional boss fight of the zone.
The battle pits you against two otherwise optional bosses found elsewhere in Elden Ring: Godskin Apostle and Godskin Noble. Both of them. At the same time… The name is actually misleading, too, since there are usually closer to four total opponents over the course of the fight. Destroying one boss causes another to spawn after a short delay. This process repeats until you actually deplete the bosses’ single, shared health bar (similar to the Four Kings fight from the original Dark Souls).
Godskins are, to put it plainly, real assholes. They hit hard at close up and spam black fireballs at range — especially whenever you try to heal. This makes using flasks and other consumables throughout the fight extremely difficult, not to mention outright dangerous. The god-killing black fire doesn’t just hurt, you see. It deals lingering damage over time like a rapid poison. Using slow, powerful spells and abilities at a distance is more difficult in this fight than against most bosses. Staying at close range and dodging or blocking just before landing one hit and backing off is often your safest bet. Good luck doing that when there are two of them hounding you around the room, though.
Beating the Godskin Duo can be an exercise in unholy patience. You can only afford to hit one foe or the other when both are visible. Otherwise, the one you’re not targeting will surely sneak up on you. The worst is when the Godskin Noble pins you to a corner. Unlike the Four Kings fight, the Godskin Duo inhabits a relatively small space separated by pillars. This can cause players to get stuck or roll into walls by mistake. Particularly when the noble use its inflatable roll attack — which is usually easy to avoid — leading to an easy instant kill. Even if you survive, healing is extremely difficult when playing solo. There are pillars to block incoming fireballs, yes, but the Godskin Duo will quickly destroy them with melee attacks. This leaves only small ruins on the floor that block their movement, but not their upper bodies.
Thankfully, these crumbling columns are also vital to your success. An easy solution to the borderline unfair fight is accessible from the very start of the game. You just need the Icerind Hatchet.
More specifically, you need the Hoarfrost Stomp Ash of War, which is also located in Liurnia and accessible immediately after exiting the Elden Ring tutorial. The axe is found in a chest in the Temple Quarter, as shown in the guide linked above. Whereas the Ash of War resides in a small pond just southeast of Caria Manor. There you’ll find an invisible Teardrop Scarab — made visible by its glowing trail on the ground — holding the ash. You just need to whack the scarab once with a weapon as it loops around to kill it and receive the item. From then on, you can equip Hoarfrost Stomp to any melee armament without a fixed weapon skill. Sorry, that means you can’t use Hoarfrost Stomp and the Sword of Night and Flame at the same time. Not that you’d likely want to, of course…
Despite not being borderline broken (like the aforementioned sword), Hoarfrost Stomp is an exceptional skill for how easy it is to use and acquire. It sends out a shockingly quick cone of ice on the floor ahead of the player. After a short delay, that ice shatters, dealing heavy damage and usually Frostbite to anything standing within it. Frostbite does even more initial damage and saddles the afflicted with a defense debuff that makes them more vulnerable to further attacks. Hoarfrost Stomp is also easy to spam; it costs very little FP and activates quickly.
Even the Frostbite status is easy to trigger over and over again. You just need to deal a bit of fire damage to the affected target to deactivate the Frostbite status — making them vulnerable to accruing it all over again. Then hit them with more ice to retrigger the initial large damage burst. That shouldn’t be necessary for this fight, though.
Instead, the trick is to draw either the Godskin Noble or Godskin Apostle into close range. Then circle around one of the pillars. They won’t be able to approach directly because of the rubble blocking their feet. However, your Hoarfrost Stomp ice wave will pass over and through the pillar, onto their feet. The range isn’t phenomenal, but it’s more than enough to hit them past the pillar. At this point you should spam the skill as many times as you feel comfortable. Then back away and reset your position if either member of the Godskin Duo gets too close.
Summoning a spirit makes this tactic even more effective. The ever-popular Mimic Tear is always a great choice, but any reasonably tanky ally will do. I personally used Ancient Dragon Knight Kristoff. This helps draw the Godskin Duo apart so you can focus on one at a time. Summoning a real player works too, of course, but multiplies the duo’s effective HP. It’s actually better to use Spirit Ashes than human assistance since the boss will just create a new Godskin Noble or Godskin Apostle when either of them dies.
As a reminder, you must deplete the total health bar shared across all of the bosses. Across multiple runs, this seems to add up to four under normal circumstances (the initial duo followed by two resummons). Though killing one or the other makes the fight briefly easier. As such, it pays to be extremely aggressive, and stomp one or the other out of commission quickly. I recommend players deal with the Godskin Noble first. Your mileage may vary but dodging its spin attack around tight corners and debris is tremendously frustrating.
This is the simplest (and safest) way I’ve found to fight the Godskin Duo so far. Hoarfrost Stomp is quick, easy to use, and lets you keep close to your enemies. That way you don’t trigger the Godskin
