The following scenario should be quite familiar to the experienced Elden Ring player: you’re riding around the Lands Between when, all of a sudden, dramatic music starts playing and a boss bar appears at the bottom of your screen. You’ve just encountered a Field Boss. For our purposes, that term refers to any boss you can fight without going through a Fog Wall.
Related: Elden Ring: The Best Halberds
These bosses appear all over Elden Ring, and range dramatically in difficulty, from relatively easy to horrifying monsters that will give even FromSoftware veterans fits. Here are ten that will likely give you the most trouble.
10 Tree Sentinel
In a vacuum, the Tree Sentinel is not actually that difficult to defeat. However, its location in Limgrave means it will likely be the first Field Boss you fight, and the devs from FromSoftware use it as a harsh lesson. It’s there to teach you that, unlike in the company’s previous games, not every challenge is intended to be faced right away.
If you carefully learn the Tree Sentinel’s patterns, it’s not an unbeatable challenge, but if you try to fight it as soon as you’re able, you aren’t going to have a fun time.
9 Ulcerated Tree Spirit
You can find Ulcerated Tree Spirits in various forms throughout the game, some as Field Bosses, others at the ends of dungeons. They’re massive, and move exceptionally quickly in an erratic, flailing pattern, making them extremely difficult to keep track of.
Fortunately, these monstrous beings aren’t quite as deadly as they seem. In fact, the immediate panic you feel the first time one bursts from the ground beneath you might be the most dangerous thing about the Ulcerated Tree Spirits. If you stay close to them and don’t panic, they won’t hit you as often as you think.
8 The Dragons
There are enough dragons roaming the Lands Between that they could probably fill this list on their own, but we already have guides and lists covering where they are and how to beat them (although a couple of the dragons included there aren’t actually field bosses).
Related: Elden Ring: Every Twinblade, Ranked
Of the field bosses, most of them follow a similar pattern. Their attacks are easy enough to dodge once you learn them, but they’ll deal massive amounts of damage if you make a mistake. And of course, there’s enough variation here to mix things up, between the unique attacks of the stronger “normal” dragons, along with the occasional Magma Wyrms and Ancient Dragon Lansseax, who have completely different movesets.
7 Dragonkin Soldier
There are several Dragonkin Soldiers in Elden Ring. The first is in Siofra River, while the Dragonkin Soldier of Nokstella is in (unsurprisingly) Nokstella. But the strongest of the three, and the one that makes this list, is located in the Lake of Rot. You probably don’t need to know much more than that to understand why this particular Dragonkin Soldier can give players trouble.
It has better stats than the others, but the real danger in this fight comes from the constant threat of Scarlet Rot the Lake presents. For ranged builds, sticking to the various platforms that provide safe havens from the Lake will make the fight easier, but if you actually need to get up close and personal with the Dragonkin Soldier, you’d better have a large reserve of Preserving Boluses on hand.
6 Black Blade Kindred
There are two Black Blade Kindreds in Elden Ring: one guards the Bestial Sanctum in Dragonbarrow, while the other guards the Grand Lift of Rold in the Forbidden Lands. And they’re both a nightmare to deal with. They have largely the same attack patterns as the Valiant Gargoyles boss, but with the added danger of Blackflame attacks that will drain your health (assuming they don’t kill you outright).
Both of these enemies are dangerous, but the one standing guard outside the Bestial Sanctum is especially dangerous, since it can be fought long before you’re at the appropriate level to defeat it (although it can’t enter the Bestial Sanctum, so it can be cheesed if you’re careful).
5 Draconic Tree Sentinel
Guarding the entrance to Leyendell, Royal Capital is the Draconic Tree Sentinel, an upgraded version of the first Field Boss the game offers you. At first, the two fights don’t seem all that different, other than the Draconic Tree Sentinel having more health and higher damage, along with a fireball attack that it spams whenever you try to get your distance.
But don’t let those similarities fool you. In its second phase, the Draconic Tree Sentinel adds an array of Lightning attacks with odd timings that cover wide areas and will one-shot you if you aren’t careful. And unlike the regular Tree Sentinel, the Draconic version must be killed to progress the game, making it a potential brick wall for players who are struggling to beat it.
4 Wormface
There are few things more terrifying in Elden Ring than Death Blight. Seeing that status bar appear on your screen, rapidly building towards your immediate death is enough to strike fear into the hearts of even the bravest Tarnished. The Wormface Field Boss, which sits near a Minor Erdtree in the Altus Plataeu, can inflict Death Blight in two ways: first, by emitting a large, toxic cloud, and second by spitting globs of the stuff at you from afar.
Related: Biggest Missable Quests In Elden Ring
Then, while you’re panicking and trying to escape the clouds of Death Blight, this gangly weirdo will sprint after you, trying to catch you in a nasty grab attack. If you have high resistance to Death Blight this fight might not seem so bad, but for the unprepared player, it can be a brutal experience.
3 Bell Bearing Hunter
The Bell Bearing Hunter is a secret boss that appears at multiple locations across the Lands Between. The conditions to trigger his attacks are niche enough that many players might never have encountered him. He only appears at night near certain merchants in an apparent attempt to murder them.
From his appearance, you can tell that this mysterious figure is, in fact, Elemer of the Briar, a boss you can face in the Shaded Castle. He shares the same, far-reaching telekinetic attacks as his boss form, and the strongest variants have more health than the actual boss. Although, at least with the non-main-boss versions you aren’t fighting Elemer in a room the size of a shoebox.
2 Death Rite Bird
Early in your Elden Ring playthrough, you might have been traveling at night and stumbled across a Deathbird. They’re unnerving to look at, but nothing too complicated. Then, later in the game, you can find Death Rite Birds, which are essentially Deathbirds on steroids. They have full wings, so they can actually fly, and they gain the ability to wield powerful Ghostflame magic.
If you need some help dealing with these magical zombie chickens, try using Holy Water Pots, which benefit both from the Death Rite Birds’ weakness to Holy damage and from their own damage boost against Undead, making them exceptionally effective even if you haven’t invested levels into Faith.
1 Full-Grown Fallingstar Beast
Located northeast of Volcano Manor in Mt. Gelmir, the Full-Grown Fallingstar Beast is much stronger than the undeveloped versions you can find in the Altus Plateau and in the Sellia Crystal Tunnel. It has far more health and shares the speed and aggression of its younger counterparts. It also adds a few extra Gravity attacks to its arsenal that can practically one-shot you if they land.
It doesn’t help that the Full-Grown Fallingstar Beast’s tiny, mountaintop arena gives you limited space to work with. The boss is difficult enough to defeat without worrying about falling to your death at any given moment.
Next: Elden Ring: Best Melee Weapons With Ranged Attacks
