The Guardian Golem is an optional mini-boss that’s certainly beatable without having to level up too far ― we used our mid-40s Wretch armed with a juiced-up greatsword and shield combo without too much problem. So, if you’re happily mopping up the bad guys around Limgrave that you were pointedly avoiding early on, the Guardian Golem is one for the list.
You’ll find it at the end of Highroad Cave, located at the end of the large canyon that stretches out to sea in the north of the area. Once you’ve navigated your way past the various wolves, bats, and octopi that also live down there, you’ll find the Golem’s lair by passing through the large waterfall at the bottom.
Inside you’ll find the Guardian Golem resting at first, which gives you a few moments to call in your favored Spirit Ash for some ever-welcome support. Once the Golem stirs, you’ll notice a few bright spots on its arms, chest, and lower legs, indicating weak spots for you to target. As the arms and chest can be hard to hit, even with ranged weapons and magic, those ankles are your best bet, so you’ll need to get in close if you’re on a melee-based build.
The upside is that the Golem’s basic attacks are mostly front-facing, so as long as you can rotate around to the rear of its legs you can avoid a good chunk of any impending damage. The attacks you will want to watch out for are the wider swipes of its ax and the ground-slam AoE that can leave you vulnerable. If you do take some big hits, just try to run back around to its rear or circle the room to give yourself a few seconds to chug a potion and regroup before getting back into the fight.
You should be able to get a good few hits in before having to take evasive action, so just learn the patterns of when those ax and ground attacks are incoming if you find yourself taking more damage than you’re dishing out. After a short while, hitting those weak spots enough will cause the Golem to drop to the floor, at which point you can circle around to its now-exposed chest area and inflict a health-sapping critical attack. If you’re at a similar level to our Wretch, by this stage the Golem shouldn’t have too much health left, so just repeat those ankle attacks until it falls.
Your reward for taking down the Guardian Golem, besides the raw satisfaction of wiping another mini-boss off the board, is the Blue Dancer Charm. This talisman will increase your damage the lighter your loadout gets, so if you can afford to stow a few secondary items away in your inventory rather than weighing down your armament slots, your remaining equipped weapons will get a little extra kick.
