How to beat Divine Beast Dancing Lion in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree
Here's some strategy tips to defeat Belurat Tower Settlement's main boss.
The Divine Beast Dancing Lion is one of the first main bosses in Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree expansion. You'll find it at the end of Belurat, Tower Settlement, which is also the first major legacy dungeon in Shadow of the Erdtree.
The Divine Beast Dancing Lion is a tricksy and powerful boss, with three main phases and a multitude of different element attacks to pummel you with alongside his dancing head thrusts. If you're in need of assistance taking him down, we're here to help. Read on below for our tips and tricks on how to beat Divine Beast Dancing Lion in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree.
How to beat Divine Beast Dancing Lion
Before you open the main boss door for Divine Beast Dancing Lion, you'll be given the opportunity to summon redmane Freyja as a cooperator. You're going to need all the help you can get with this fight, so make sure you do this before opening the boss door.
You can also use Spirit Ash summons here, so we'd also recommend doing this immediately as you enter the boss arena. The more points of distraction the Divine Beast Dancing Lion has, the easier it will be for you to score some hits.
First phase
With your assistants at hand, Divine Beast Dancing Lion will often kick things off by spewing a horrible breath attack at you, or leaping towards you for a devastating headbutt attack, where he'll chomp down on the ground where you're standing. These attacks are best dodged away from - either backwards or to the side - though you can absorb his breath attack with a shield at the cost of some stamina.
There are two main points you can hurt the Divine Beast Dancing Lion: from the front near his head and on the hump at his rear near his legs. The middle section of his body is just fabric, so hitting him here will do no damage whatsoever.
Unhelpfully, you can't directly target his rear hump, but this is where you'll do the most damage, so try and attack here if you can.
He'll also rear up on his hind legs and either head smash the ground or spray a circle of his grey breath attack - again, moving backwards is a reasonably safe bet in these instances, and he takes a few seconds to recover after this attack, making it a good time to get some attacks in.
If he lunges at you, roll towards him at the last possible moment. The invincibility frames will prevent you from taking any damage here. Similarly, if he rears up and starts biting the air, watch out, as he will catch you in his jaws if you don't get out of the way.
Second phase
Once you've knocked between a quarter and a third of the Divine Beast Dancing Lion's health off, he'll enter his second phase, which always begins with him rising into the air and unleashing a powerful lighting attack across the arena.
He will chuck lightning bolts at you which can deal heavy damage if you're weak to magic, so at this point, consume as many Lightningproof Dried Livers as you need to keep your resistance high.
In addition to long-distance lightning bolts, lightning will also rain down from the sky - which you can dodge by avoiding the ominous rings of lightning that appear on the ground.
All of his physical dancing attacks will also have a lightning-themed element to them now as well, as does his breath attack sweeps, so you'll need to pick your moments to attack carefully.
Eventually, he will swap back to his regular, non-lightning attacks, making this a much better time to strike.
Third phase
Once Divine Beast Dancing Lion is down to 50% health, he will rise up into the air again, only this time he'll unleash a roar that covers the place with ice instead of lightning.
Like before, all his attacks will now have an ice riff - his ground pounds will also shoot up shards of ice, while his breath attack becomes a flurry of deadly frost. He can also shoot out waves of ice in a rough star formation for a large area of effect attack, which is best dodged and weaved between so you don't land in the ice.
If you get hit by too many of these, you'll be inflicted with Frostbite, so make sure you keep an eye on your frostbite meter, and have the necessary healing items ready to keep the effect at bay.
That's not all, either. In this phase, the Divine Beast Dancing Lion will alternate between several different elemental effects - he'll swap back to his lightning phase, and a windy tornado phase, too, rotating them one after the other.
The windy tornado phase is perhaps the safest to attack him, though the window is quite brief before he's back to lightning and ice again.
Hang in there, though, and keep attacking that rear end, using moments where he's distracted by your Spirit Ashes and Freyja to eventually take him down.
Finally, on defeat, you'll be rewarded with the Remembrance of the Dancing Lion, which you can take back to Finger Reader Enia in the Roundtable Hold to exchange for one of the two following items:
- Enraged Divine Beast: a consumable charm that raises the potency of storms.
- Ash of War: Divine Beast Frost Stomp: usable on all melee armaments, this Ash of War will grant it a Cold affinity and the Divine Beast Frost Stomp skill, which lifts your leg up high and stamps it down on the ground to send out a powerful shock wave of frost straight out along the ground. It can also be charged to increase its power and range.
You can also obtain the Divine Beast Head off the ground once the battle is over, which is a special helm you can wear on your head. It's also an important item to take to Hornsent Grandam in Belurat, Tower Settlement, if you wish to receive the Spell 'Watchful Spirit', so make sure you pick it up before activating the Site of Grace 'Theatre of the Divine Beast' and moving on.
Congrats on beating the Divine Beast Dancing Lion! There are still more things to do in Belurat, Tower Settlement before you leave, so why not hop back over to our Belurat walkthrough to see what else you can do after beating Divine Beast Dancing Lion?
Continue to next boss: Rellana, Twin Moon Knight
Need more help? Jump back to our list of Shadow of The Erdtree bosses or our Shadow of The Erdtree tips and tricks.