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  • Where To Find Chaos Witch Quelaag
  • How To Beat Chaos Witch Quelaag
  • Rewards For Beating Chaos Witch Quelaag

Dark Souls is loved by fans around the globe for its sprawling world, unique weapon design, and hands-off storytelling. It's also infamous for its unforgiving combat, brutal boss fights, and overall challenging difficulty.

Since the beginning of the game involves ringing the two Bells of Awakening, you'll inevitably cross paths with Chaos Witch Quelaag, a daughter of the Witch of Izalith and an arachnophobe's worst nightmare. She can be a major difficulty for most beginners due to her high health, and a lack of early-game tools to mitigate her abilities. So, we're running through where to find her, how to prepare, and crucially, how to defeat her.

Where To Find Chaos Witch Quelaag

Dark Souls Blighttown

Head to Blighttown and look around at the swamp below, Quelaag's Domain can be seen on the far-right corner of the swamp. Just look for the giant white mound of spider webs — no, we're not kidding.

Make sure to grab the bonfire between the two jetties in the swamp. Then head to the spider webs and through the fog gate. Before working your way there, there are a few things to grab which will make life easier.

First, go to the roof above Petrus of Thorolund in Firelink Shrine and get the Undead Asylum F2 West Key. Then use the Firelink Shrine-Undead Parish elevator to work your way into the Giant Crow's nest, and go back to the Undead Asylum to get the Rusted Iron Ring. This is to make getting to the fight easier, so you can save on those Estus flasks.

Secondly, stock up on Purple Moss Clumps and Blooming Purple Moss Clumps from the Undead Female Merchant. She's the NPC behind the bars of the long aqueduct connecting Firelink Shrine and the Undead Burg. You won't regret it.

Equip the Rusted Iron Ring to move quickly through the difficult terrain, using the moss clumps to deal with any poison or toxic status effects.

Preparing For Quelaag

Purchase some throwing knives from the Undead Male Merchant and bring some Gold Pine Resin for the fight. You can find some in the Undead Burg, but you'll need to buy the Residence Key from the merchant too.

In the Undead Burg, head to the stairs which had the flaming barrel trap at the start of the game, en route to the Taurus Demon. Look around and you'll see a chest on a ledge in the back garden of a house. Use the Residence Key to go through the house, open the chest and take the resin.

If you're not hollow, Maneater Mildred will invade as a red phantom to the right of the swamp bonfire. Whether you defeat her or not, she can help you against Quelaag by using her summoning sign outside the fog gate.

If you do wish to beat Maneater Mildred, she has slow, weak attacks and can be stun locked by any weapon, but her fast movement speed and the poisonous swamp can be problematic. To counter this, lure her into the bonfire area, then focus on parries and backstabs to defeat her quickly and safely.

If you summon Maneater Mildred to help you with Quelaag and she survives the boss fight, she will take half the souls you acquire.

How To Beat Chaos Witch Quelaag

Chaos Witch Quelaag Dark Souls

Firstly, Quelaag deals a lot of fire damage and is also immune to it. Apart from Flash Sweat, avoid Pyromancies altogether, whilst making sure to wear fire and physical resistance armour such as the Black Knight Shield.

Next, Quelaag is weak against lightning damage. Use the Gold Pine Resin from earlier to give yourself a big advantage. Equip throwing knives to your D-pad if you haven't already done so, while arrows, crossbow bolts, and any projectiles that hit her human body will cause her to stagger.

Once you enter the arena, move away from the entrance area as soon as possible. Quelaag can leap or jump, pinning you into a corner and making her attacks unavoidable.

Speaking of her attacks, she has a flaming sword with a slashing and stabbing ability, a stomp, two lava area-of-effect attacks, and two fire area-of-effect attacks. Try and keep in the centre of the room for the rest of the engagement, as it'll stop her lava abilities from boxing you in.

Fighting Chaos Witch Quelaag in Dark Souls

The main trick is to close the distance until you're practically hugging. Stay next to the spider's head on the right, as this will make her sword moves useless at best and easily dodged at worst. Also, her lava breath attack will go straight over your head, and you'll be too close for her to do a spitting lava leap.

The two moves to watch out for are the stomp and her close-range fire wave. For the stomp, keep an eye on the front hind legs, this is your queue to get the heck out of Dodge — or dodge out of heck, whichever you prefer.

The fire wave is extremely dangerous but is easy to spot too. Whenever she reaches forward and hugs the spider's head, she's warming up her defensive area-of-effect blast — pun intended. This has a large radius, so get away from her fast to avoid taking a potentially fatal amount of damage.

All in all, stay close, chip away at her health, ebb away from her more threatening skills, and stay away from the lava pools.

Rewards For Beating Chaos Witch Quelaag

Chaos Witch Quelaag from Dark Souls

After defeating Quelaag, you'll receive 20,000 souls, a Twin Humanity, and the Soul of Quelaag.

You can either consume the soul for 8,000 souls, sell it to Frampt for 10,000 souls, or turn it into the Chaos Blade or Quelaag's Furysword at the Giant Blacksmith in Anor Londo.

Next: Dark Souls: Best Tips For Beginners