How To Defeat Bayle The Dread In Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree

In any other game, Shadow Of The Erdtree’s the Jagged Peak is endgame shit. It’s a gauntlet of vicious dragons, with escalating difficulty, in an environment that’s about as close to Hell itself without you yourself being on fire—though the dragons themselves will gladly take care of that for you. At the top, though, is Bayle, the one old legless Igon has been screaming bloody murder about since the moment you met him.

And if I may go on a necessary tangent here: this man crawled all the way from Castle Ensis to a quarter of the way up Jagged Peak, before YOU got there, and cut off his own dying finger so that somebody can carry his soul up the mountain, to be resurrected just in time to curse and kill his enemy with a harpoon. He may have lost his legs, but you best believe Igon will stand on business till business is done. All that makes what happens when you finally make it to the apex of Jagged Peak and have to face down his great nemesis even better. At least till Bayle straight up Kentucky Fries your ass from the lower stratosphere. But don’t worry, we’ve got the info you need on how to tame your dragon.

Bayle’s Abilities

Bayle will start off in the center of the arena, and unlike his lazy cousins, Bayle isn’t waiting for you to ride into his field of vision with Torrent—he’ll kick things off by taking a leaping swipe at you with his claws to close the distance. If you stay up in his face long enough, he’ll either try to take three tiny bites out of you as a combo, two big claw swipes, or one major bite that turns into a grab while he tosses you around like a chew toy.

Later in the fight, if you get too far away, he’ll actually use his wings, hover for a second, and charge himself up with lightning, before dropping down on you like the world’s biggest sandbag. If things get too hairy too fast, he’ll turn around and make a mad dash across the field, sweeping his tail when he turns around.

But, of course, there’s fire breath to contend with here—except, because Bayle’s extra fancy, it’s fire and lightning together. He’ll either sweep it across the arena right to left if you’re at a distance, or, if you’re close to him, he’ll breathe it directly underneath him and it’ll pool and spread out from there. He can also charge up some lightning in one of his talons, and slam it down to cause an area-of-effect explosion, in case you weren’t worried enough that he might get you if you’re not directly in front of his hideous mug.

Turns out, though, this isn’t even Bayle’s final form. At the 50 percent mark, Bayle will go full God Mode, sprout a pair of celestial wings, and take off into the stratosphere as lightning and fire rains down from the heavens. After Bayle takes a show-off lap around the arena, he’ll come in for a landing right on your head. After this, he’ll gain two deadly new abilities. One, he’ll breathe fire at you in a straight line from midair in a more concentrated shot. Two, Bayle will now take to the air for his talon attack, charge it up with even more lightning so that the initial slam back down causes damage, but not nearly as much as the MASSIVE, ground-destroying area-of-effect explosion does about three seconds after that.

Defeating Bayle The Dread - Phase One

For weaponry, like all dragons, Bayle’s particularly sensitive to piercing weapons. He has no one particular status effect weakness, but he’s still susceptible to them all, so run with your favorite and plan your weapon/enhancement/spell/incantation loadouts accordingly to build it up as fast as possible.

You can summon a Spirit Ash once you get into Bayle’s arena, but firstly, Bayle will leap at you the second he sets eyes on you, meaning you need to dodge that first, and secondly, nah, there’s only one man who deserves to be by your side for this fight, and that’s Igon. Sure, there are practical reasons. He actually does draw aggro from Bayle fairly often, he’ll fire on Bayle from a distance while he’s focused on you, he’ll use a few dragon-specific Ash of War abilities during the fight, and best of all, summoning him doesn’t raise Bayle’s HP. But even if he was useless, summoning him would be worth it just to hear this absolute brolic motherfucker go full on Blood and Thunder through this entire fight. The only real problem being he’s one of those rare summons whose sigil is actually inside the boss area, and, as mentioned, Bayle will typically drop on you within a few seconds of stepping in. Igon’s gold summon sign will be slightly off to the left when you walk in. Dodge’s Bayle’s leap first, then go for Igon, fast. Once you’ve got him summoned, it’s time to go to work, and the greatest hypeman in gaming history has got your back.

So, despite his rep, Bayle actually has a major flaw his colleagues didn’t: somebody, at some point, managed to take Bayle’s left leg, forcing him to use his tail to hold himself upright instead. This creates two advantages. One, the stump leg is actually a legitimate weak spot, so melee users can hang out back there and get him to phase two just by focusing on that. You still need to keep an eye on the front end, though. When he breathes on the ground, that fire spread can get to you back there, and Bayle will attempt to make some space by dashing off, which ends in his tail attack.

Two, Bayle actually holds his head lower than the other dragons, meaning it’s way less of a hassle to do some proper damage to it on a consistent basis. That head is still breathing lightning fire and trying to munch on your delicious innards, but you’ll have ample opportunity to smack him on his dome with a rolled up newspaper for being a bad dragon. Melee users can actually guard counter the smaller, quicker bites, and despite his enormous size, Bayle can be stance broken fairly easily after just a couple of those. Magic users can just try their damndest to stay on Bayle’s right flank, pelting him with spells, but don’t wander too far unless you want one hundred tons of pure beefcake dragon crashing down on you in a heartbeat.

Defeating Bayle The Dread - Phase Two

Once you get him down to 50 percent and Bayle stops moving but starts glowing, you need to create some distance, immediately. Phase two begins with a bang, and that bang can easily knock off half your health if you’re too close. Once you’re done marveling at Bayle’s majesty and he takes off from the ground, keep running, just in a lap around the arena, which should avoid the flame cannons firing at you as Bayle flies around. Rolling will get you shot—don’t bother until Bayle comes in for a landing. Once he does, your strategy largely doesn’t change.

There’s a lot more background noise and flashiness going on, but it’s mostly just for drama. That said, the real thing you want to look out for now is Bayle’s new lightning attack. Ideally, any time Bayle leaves the ground should be your cue to dodge, but during phase two, you actually need to run. If you’re not out of range of the initial explosion, you should at least be far enough to roll out of it and get out of range of the much-more-devastating second. That does mean you’ll have to deal with one of Bayle’s long-range attacks afterward, so keep the camera on him so you can react. Keep laying on the damage, and Bayle will fall. Hopefully Igon made it, because his roar of victory will make you feel like running through a wall and challenging your next-door neighbor to a midnight brick fight at the nearest volcano.

The immediate rewards for taking down Bayle are 400,000 Runes, and Bayle’s blackened heart, which you can turn in at the Dragon Communion Altar to get either Bayle’s Flame Lightning (his lightning talon attack), or Bayle’s Tyranny (his phase two area-of-effect explosion). Also, the Dragon Communion Priestess will have peaced out by the time you get there, but she’ll have left you some goodies for your trouble. By default, you’ll get the Flowerstone Gavel Hammer and the Priestess Heart, which lets you turn into a dragon and boost the spells you’ve been getting from the altar. If you gave the Priestess one of Thollier’s Concoctions and put her to sleep, though, you’ll find her Spirit Ash here.

Very lastly, head to the Foot of the Jagged Peak Site of Grace. Igon’s corpse will be there. Pay your respects to a real one, then pick up his entire armor set and a Bell Bearing that lets you purchase some of his anti-dragon harpoon arrows from the Twin Maiden Husks at the Roundtable Hold.

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