How to beat Bayle the Dread in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree

Bayle the Dread is an optional Legendary boss in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree. You may know a bit about it as you progress through the Jagged Peak. After slaying all the dragons in the way and making it to the summit of the Peak, this legendary beast stands in your way.

How to beat Bayle the Dread in Elden Ring 

Bayle the Dread is a two-phase boss that has a multitude of moves that you need to look out for. But first, it’s best not to lock onto it because the game only focuses on the head. Instead, you’re going to want to aim for the legs, even if you can’t lock on.

Next focus on the body movements of Bayle. If you see it trying to come at you with its teeth, you need to dodge immediately. Being caught by its chomping move will result in a likely instant death at any HP percentage. 

Any time you see it physically about to do something, be ready to dodge inward. That way, you avoid damage and get closer to its legs for quick strikes. Don’t get greedy because there’s little downtime between each move.

Like other Dragons, Bayle will also perform lunges and swipes if it can’t reach you with its mouth. So, once you start seeing the winding animation, get ready for a side dodge to prevent any fatal damage. You can block all physical attacks with a shield that has a 100 Guarded Damage Negation stat. It will, however, remove a huge chunk of your stamina.

If you see it starting to breathe fire lightning from its mouth, get ready for a quick left or right dodge. Timing is strict since the beams are thick. Also, if it starts to do this and you’re near the legs, be ready to dodge when you see the fire lighting come out. You can also jump over this.

As it gets into the second phase, Bayle’s moves start to become naturally imbued with its elemental powers, adding more lethality and AoE. It’s best to stop blocking attacks here as you’ll take more posture damage and elemental damage. 

It’s also important to learn how to utilize sprinting instead of dodging so you won’t burn through your stamina. Sprinting will be important because it allows you to take better control once you start seeing lighting strikes and beams coming from Bayle. Spamming your dodge roll will leave you defenseless over just sprinting away from things.

Bayle the Dread weaknesses

Bayle the Dread is weak to Frostbite, so it’ll be a huge advantage to proc it as much as possible. Chunking its health and making it more vulnerable to subsequent attacks. Make use of it because Bayle hits really hard.

Cheese strategy to defeat Bayle

If you have a hard time getting all the timing of the moves down or if you’re burning through your Flasks too quickly, there’s a decently good cheese strategy here. It requires you to summon your Mimic Tear and have a high-leveled Perfume Bottle.

To get this setup started, level up your Mimic Tear to as close to +10 as possible. Next, when you summon it, make sure it’s holding a shield on its left hand and a Frost weapon on its right. Since Bayle is weak to Frost, it’ll help take down its HP even faster.

Next, the Perfume Bottle you want is the Frenzyflame Perfume Bottle. Level it up as close to +25 as you can and equip it with the Rolling Sparks Ash of War. Make sure you have the proper attributes needed to use the weapon’s abilities.

The strategy to cheese the boss is to avoid its first few moves so you have time to summon your Mimic with the defensive bleed setup and recover your HP. Next, wait for it to get Bayle’s aggro and run under it so you can do massive damage. 

Face down and don’t lock onto the boss. While Bayle is still grounded, start spamming the Rolling Sparks ability. Make sure that it’ll still have its aggro on your Mimic Tear so you can do significant damage. With enough pressure from your ability and the Tear, you should be able to stun it. 

It seems counterintuitive to use a fire weapon while your clone is inflicting Frost, but the damage does add up. It’s the Madness buildup and all the stun that will tear its life away.

While it’s potentially down, keep repeating the move until you run out of FP. In my run above, I didn’t need to recover any MP and almost skipped the entire second phase.