How to beat Messmer the Impaler in Shadow of the Erdtree

✓ at a glance

• Messmer has two phases, transforming into Base Serpent Messmer.
• You can inflict Bleed on Messmer for good damage.
• Messmer can be parried, but he has a lot of moves designed to catch you out.
• When it doubt, always Mimic Tear.

You might recognise this particular knucklehead as the guy on the art of the DLC. Messmer the Impaler, whom we’ve heard plenty about at this point, is a straightforward, yet frustrating boss. Learning how to beat Messmer and his second form, Base Serpent Messmer, is as simple as paying attention to his moves. Take a look at our Messmer boss guide, breaking down how we beat him and his second form.

Messmer the Impaler location

You will fight Messmer at the end of the Shadow Keep Legacy Dungeon. Messmer needs to be beaten for you to challenge the final area of the game, but that is still a long way off. You can do plenty of other boss fights before Messmer if you want, since the Shadow Keep leads to several.

If the boss is going to kill you in a few hits, 10 more points in damage negation isn’t going to be the difference between life and death. Once again, the Mimic Tear is the real MVP in this fight. No NPC summons for this fight, but you wouldn’t want to use them anyway. Messmer doesn’t need more HP, after all.

Messmer the Impaler boss guide

Messmer can be a wall for many and he will test your ability to not lose your cool. You have to deal with a lot of nonsense in this fight, specifically the obscene range and AoE his spear has. When you get him half HP, he will transform and enter his second phase, completely changing his moveset and appearance. He will launch phantom snakes from the ground in his second phase, but it isn’t as intimidating as it looks. Messmer can be parried, but it’s almost far too risky to try it in this fight since all of his attacks have weird hitboxes and he staggers a ton of his swings to catch you out.

Messmer the Impaler – first phase

As soon as the fight begins, Messmer will be on you. If you see him jump into the air and start glowing red, don’t use your Spirit Ash just yet. You want to bait this attack because the positioning is much better for you in the long run. He will leap and slam down, and then his attack will detonate. You just need to roll as soon as you see him start to come down and then again one second later. After dodging this attack, use the time to summon your Spirit Ash, or hit him while he recovers.

✓ Positioning

The entrance to the boss room is a fantastic place to fight Messmer. It will shut down a lot of his floaty movement where he dodges around to create space. More often than not, he’ll get caught on the environments.

With Messmer in close range, you want to stay there. As we mentioned, fighting him near the entrance to the arena in this first phase is fantastic for exploiting his movement. It can make things dicey if he throws out a nasty combo, but see how you get on using this position first. Speaking of combos, he has plenty in this first phase that are mostly for roll-catching.

His basic melee attack can be chained with fire spells, or his attacks can be enchanted with fire. One particularly nasty move is a triple stab, where he lights his spear on fire. He will spread fire in front of him, stab once, lunge to the side / forward, stab again, and then charge up the third stab. The stabs are nasty and being hit by all three can spell death. You always want to roll into him; if you roll backwards or to the side, you will get hit by the obscene range of his spear and the frustrating tracking all of his attacks have. Keep in mind, this stab attack can be chained into by the boss from almost any of his combos. Watch out for when he spreads fire in a circle.

✓ Mimic Tear, I choose you

Your Spirit Ash can be a tank in this fight and it’s extremely useful to use the tools the game gives you to help out. We always have great success with the Mimic Tear, and this is true for literally every boss fight in the DLC. If you use it, make sure to heal immediately since it costs HP.

In this first phase, you mostly have to contend with a lot of spear stabs and sweeps. One attack to look out for is a long combo that includes him stabbing you while floating through the air and finishing in an AoE slam. The cue for this attack is when he lights his spear tip on fire and jumps into the air doing a sweeping attack. In the air, he will swing and spray fire and then float off to the side, coming back in to perform a rapid stab five times. He will then float in the air holding an attack and come crashing down, exploding on impact and then launching several fire spears up from the floor in an AoE around him.

✓ pick a god and pray

You will have a hard time dodging this attack, you mostly want your Spirit Ash to take the aggro and hope Messmer attacks them instead of you.

The good news is you have a lot of time to hurt him while he recovers from the attack. After the fire spears come up, he will stand and pose while he magically returns his spear to him. During this animation, get in there and deal some damage. You can stagger him with a strong enough weapon, and you might have enough time here. This attack will come back in his second phase, but it will be slightly different. Look out for the same visual cue of him jumping into the air and sweeping his spear. Check out his combo in the gif below.

In his first phase, you also need to watch out for his grab attack. This can be a one-shot kill if you aren’t fully healed up. As with all grab attacks in Elden Ring, the range on it is stupid as heck, and it will track your movement an unfair amount. He will stand still and his right hand will glow, he will then walk towards you and end in a lunging grab. Try not to roll too early and wait for him to go for the lunge; when he does, roll into him or to his left side.

Messmer the Base Serpent – phase two

Once you get Messmer down to half HP, there will be a long cutscene which will be the start of Messmer’s second phase. Now, Messmer will have a lot more snakes with his attacks, because that’s exactly what this boss fight was missing. As soon as the second phase begins, you will be in the middle of the boss room and Messmer can choose to transform into a massive snake with fire gathering in his mouth. He will rear up and hold this for a long time before he comes crashing down. It’s best not to lock on to the boss and dodge forward to avoid the hit when it comes down, then you can simply run away from the boss to avoid the AoE burst.

✓ Snakes… why’d it have to be snakes?

The first hit will deal damage and then he will explode the fire a second after landing. Time your rolls – first, when the snake moves its head down to slam and then again a moment after while it is on the floor.

After that snake attack finishes, you can get in plenty of free damage while he recovers. While in his second form, he has a plethora of new attacks. He can now transform into a large snake and perform a triple bite attack that is extremely difficult to dodge and predict its movements. The head moves around so much and shamelessly tracks towards you. Our advice is to keep locked on to the boss and only dodge when you see its mouth open as it moves towards you. You can block this attack, but you might stagger depending on your shield stability. After this attack ends, you can hit the snake’s head for easy damage.

The final snake attack that can cause you a headache is a multi-hit combo where several snakes burst forth from his position. He will stand still and glow red, as large snakes appear around Messmer. They will all attack pretty much in unison, but if you back up enough you can dodge the first few. It’s better to then move into close range for the other snake attacks to go over your head. While this happens, you can hit him for free damage. The only thing to watch out for is he will end the combo with the fire spear AoE explosion coming up from the floor—again, exploit the ending of this attack to damage him or heal if needed.

If you’re too far away from Messmer, he can teleport to your position appearing as a snake underneath you and bursting upwards. Due to this we always recommend staying close to the boss. Being too far away increases the chances of them using ridiculously annoying attacks that close the distance in a flash. If you see a puddle of mud appears beneath you, move out of its radius. Messmer will continue to attack after coming out of the ground, but you can get free damage when the attack ends by hitting the head.

The more you fight him, the more you’ll tune into the attacks he has and how you can deal with them. More than anything, picking your moments to heal will make the biggest difference if you’re struggling to fight him. Likewise, you can always take a break from this battle to find more Scadutree Fragments or level up to get stronger.

Messmer move list

With two phases to contend with, Messmer thankfully doesn’t get many new moves. The downside is he will have more annoying attacks than in his first form, now utilising snakes. We’ve named these attacks ourselves to give you the best idea of the incoming move.

Move	Description	Strategy
Jumping Spear Slam AoE	Phase one: You will see this attack at the start of the fight more often than not. He will leap into the air, glow red, and then slam down.	Roll when he starts flying towards you. Keep backing up after he lands to dodge the incoming explosion.
Grab	Phase one: Messmer will stand still and his hand will glow. He will walk towards you slowly and then lunge forward, bringing his hand up to grab you. If you get caught, he will hit you several times.	The grab has tons of tracking on it. Don’t be caught out, wait until the last moment when you see his hand swing upwards to dodge the attack. Dodge to the sides or forward, never back.
Flying Spear Combo	Phase one: Messmer will sweep into the air with a flaming spear, fly to the side stabbing multiple times, then slamming down into the ground creating an AoE explosion and flaming spears to come up from the floor.	Truly, this move is his most annoying. It’s so hard to dodge and time, you have to get lucky with his range. If you are far away enough, you can run back to avoid the attack. When he lands, you have a chance to hurt him as he returns his spear.
Stabbing Combo	Phase one / two: Messmer will perform a sweep with his hand, spraying fire everywhere. He will then stab three times, staggering between each hit.	Roll to the side or into him to dodge this. His stab has a lot of range and the hitbox is huge, meaning if you roll backwards you will get hit every time.
Fire Spray	Phase one / two : Messmer will spray fire in a circle using his hand.	The fire can splash in a huge radius and he usually uses this attack to chain into more stabs or his nasty jumping attacks.
Slow Stab	Phase one / two: Messmer will perform a sweeping backhand with his spear and then drag it along the floor for a final stab.	The stab is the worst part of this attack. He holds it on the floor to catch you out. Look for sparks on the floor, only start rolling when the sparks stop.
Fire Spin	Phase one / two: Messmer will spin towards you with spear aflame. After this, he will leap into the air and lunge down with a stab.	The spin hits you multiple times and the final stab down from the sky has a ton of range. You want to try and roll under his attack when it happens, but it is so difficult to dodge the first spin.
Snake + Fire AoE	Phase two: Usually used when the second phase begins. The snake will rear up with fire in its mouth and slam down, detonating immediately after landing.	Be ready for this attack as soon as phase two begins. You want to essentially keep backing up and roll when you see the snake lunge downwards. Roll away as it lands and keep rolling back to dodge the AoE explosion.
Multiple Snake Attack	Phase two: Messmer will glow red and several snakes will appear around him. The snakes will attack at the same time in front of Messmer. He will send out about four snakes and end the combo with his AoE fire spear attack, with spears coming up from the floor like earlier.	You can dodge most of these attacks and the smaller snake hits don’t do too much damage. Staying in close range can help the snakes sail right over you head. Be ready for his final spear AoE afterwards.
Lunging Snake	Phase two: Messmer will turn into a snake and attack in a straight line.	Move to the side. You probably won’t see this attack much if you stay close enough.
Teleport	Phase two: Messmer will disappear and teleport to your position. He will erupt from the ground as a snake hitting you on the way up and then again with its head as it comes around.	It’s rare, but he can use this while in front of you. Mostly, he will use this attack to close distance. Run away as soon as you see a pool form beneath you. When he comes out, get ready to dodge his next attack.

Messmer the Impaler / Base Serpent Messmer rewards

With Messmer finally done for, you will get Remembrance of the Impaler and the Messmer’s Kindling Key Item. You need this item to proceed to the final dungeon in the game, but that’s still a long way off. You can now buy Messmer’s armour from the Finger Reader in the Roundtable Hold. We hope this guide helped you beat this chump. He really makes you work for it. Don’t celebrate too soon, you’ve got plenty more bosses to come.