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The dreaded Sentient Pest makes his long-awaited re-debut inElden Ring Nightreignin a new and terrifying form. If two enemies weren’t enough on the battlefield, you can now try your hand at besting three. How about besting three enemies that repeatedly revive themselves, making a gank inevitable?
Thankfully, compared to previous fights in the Everdark Sovereign series, Sentient Pest is a pushover in strength and complexity. However, this fight is not about skill, dodging long chain attacks, or clever builds. This is, first and foremost, the ultimate test of Stamina and strategy.
How To Prepare For Everdark Sovereign: Sentient Pest
Everdark Sentient Pest is a strange creature in thathaving any strategy at allmakes this boss extraordinarily easy when compared to other Everdark Sovereign fights.
This fight’s flow completely depends on how you wish to best the Pest. This is because of theunique gimmick of this fight:
When one enemy is downed, Animus temporarily possesses their body and makes them into a stronger version of themselves.
Having this knowledge beforehand will be your key to success, as:
Build a strategy around the boss you want to prioritize. If you cannot remember the movesets of these bosses, refer to ourofficial guide on the normal Sentient Pest.
Sentient Pest is weak to Fire damage- applying to all enemies. Therefore, armaments that deal Fire damage are a high priority.
Recommended Characters
How you prefer to fight the Sentient Pest in this form will determinethe best characters to fight it.
However, there is one character that does well regardless of style and should be brought:Duchess.
Wylder is fantastic due to his ability touse Flame Strikewhen performing his Character Skill.His Ultimate Art also deals Fire damageon top of the stagger, making him ideal for facing the scorpion.
Raider can deal high damage to the hard shell of the Scorpion using Strength-based bludgeoning weapons while alsousing Totem Stelato stagger or block out the moth’s attacks. It also provides amethod of reaching Animus by jumpingfrom above.
Ironeye and Recluse can bothreach Animus and Gnoster easily. By their ability to reach Animus, the fight can end quickly.
Their big downside is that both arepoor at dodgingin their own ways, making some attacks tricky to avoid (andsuffer from being squishy). Furthermore,Ironeye’s damage is low,while any ofRecluse’s magic damage is resisted by Gnoster and Animus.
Duchess is a champion here for herability to dodge all attacksin the moveset with great ease. She’s able torevive teammates and double damage.
With the ability tocast magicas well asuse handheld weaponsinterchangeably, she can fit anywhere on a team and hit all bosses equally. She’s a jack-of-all-trades who excels above others in this fight.
Revenant is an odd duck. Her ability to use Incantations is useful, and her summons can distract Faurtis (the scorpion). However, several AoE attacks can cause Revenant to struggle; she dodges poorly, and FP management is a concern for a fight so long.
Wind-Up Tells And Attack Description
Suggested Counters
Rising Phoenix
Animus appears and rises from the defeated bodies of Gnoster and Faurtis. It heals them both in waves (to approximately 25-30 percent health).
Ranged characters shouldtarget Animus,while melee characters shouldcontinue hitting the bossthat is the target.
Possession
Animus takes over the body of the first fallen ally. This deals damage to Animus while restoring the health of the target. Attacks that deal damage to the possessed entity transfer damage to Animus as well in small increments.
Rapidly hit Animusas he becomes infused with the target.
Red Pillars of Light
Like the original light pillars from the second phase, pillars will indicate their incoming position on the ground with red light. After a brief delay, these pillars will fire. However, unlike Phase Two, these pillars are numerous and fire multiple times over the arena.
Eventually, they will condense into one massive pillar, which creates a circular wave that expands into a larger area and continuously fires. During this time, Faurtis will be hardened and immune to damage.
Dodge and sprintout of the pillar of lights' range. When the large pillar appears,run away and keep distance, aware that the circle can expand.
Animus-Possessed Gnoster
Magic Barrage
Gnoster gathers several orbs of magic energy in front of them. They deceptively look small in number but then expand to 12 orbs in total. These orbs fire shortly after they reveal themselves, firing in two back-to-back waves that slightly track the player.
Run toward Gnoster if in melee tododge under. If at range,sprint to one sideanddodge twicein that direction.
Wave of Poison
Shivering, Gnoster makes a bell sound before letting a wave of poison fly out in sparkling red particles that then form a cloud.
Sprint in any directionto avoid the particles. If the poison is in your way to Gnoster, dodge forward through it (repeating if necessary).
Sweeping Grab
Forming purple energy in front of itself, Gnoster makes an audio cue before reaching for the player. It then turns around and performs the grab attack a second time if the first fails. If grabbed, the player is poisoned with Gnoster’s unique infestation.
Dodgediagonal-forward. Pause. Thendodge again.
Rain of Red Stars
Gnoster rises high above and fires red magic beams into the sky. The skybox takes on the appearance of a hundred red stars. They then begin firing down on the arena in rapid succession and at angles.
Gnoster begins seizing in the sky before falling to the ground. Once on the ground, Gnoster will be immobile for a short time and then be separated from Animus to return to its Phase One attacks.
Rapidly dodgein a single direction (any direction). Do not pause to drink flasks or revive teammates. Once the stars are finished, eitherattack Animus or reviveany fallen teammates.
Possessed Faurtis
Red Wave Stomp
Faurtis stomps in any direction (side or forward) as he would in his normal first phase. However, after stomping, he creates a delayed wave explosion on the ground instead of spikes.
Dodgeinto Faurtis and thendodge againon the explosion.
Lunging Bite
In close melee, Faurtis punished aggression from the front with a quick bite attack.
Dodgeforward or back.
Roar
Raising his head, Faurtis lets out a staggering, multi-hit roar that deals damage in melee range around him.
Dodgerapidly away andkeep your distance.
Waves of Red
After a brief roar, Faurtis begins to bash his head into the ground. Where he bashes his head, giant, fanning red waves appear and detonate after delay. Hedoes this five timesbefore pausing for a roar and one final, big head-bash and red wave explosion. After, he falls limp on the ground and is immobile for several seconds. This will separate Animus and Faurtis.
Like Rain of Red Stars,continue dodging to the side, sprinting where necessary and dodging forward through a wave if unable to reach the far side of a wave.Keep your distance from Faurtis’s headto avoid needing to double-dash and overuse Stamina.
The moveset of the Sentient Pest depends on whether any bosses are incapacitated. In Phase Three, Animus will appear topossess the boss that died first.
However,Animus will have a single movethat he can use when he is not possessing.
Red Pillars of Lightis that single attack of Animus. However, when used,Faurtis will hardenand become immobile and immune to all damage.
When this attack comes,good Stamina use will be a mustas dodging and sprinting will be constant. The most dangerous part of the attack isthe final beam,asthe circle will silently expandand can catch players off guard.
Faurtis is slow but heavy-hitting in his possessed state. The most dangerous aspect of him is hisdelayed explosive attacks when using his normal stomps.
His Ultimate at the end of his possession (signifying the end of this form) will beWaves of Red.This can circle Faurtisas he will continuously spin to face his target and potentially hit unsuspecting non-targets.
Gnoster is theeasier of the two possessed forms, but harder to reach. His attacks can be difficult for slower players to dodge and come in multiple waves.
Rain of Red Starsis his Ultimate, and this attack willrequire constant dodge-spammingto prevent being hit and staggered into multiple instances of damage. Pausing at all can be fatal.
Fire, Piercing, Strike
Strong Vs.
Magic (Gnoster and Animus only), Slash (Faurtis Stoneshield only), Poison, Sleep
Total HP
17,000 (Animus); Remainder Variable
As touched on above, theprimary takeawaysfrom this fight are as follows:
This fight will only end whenAnimus’s health bar is depleted. Once Animus is gone, all bosses on the field will die.
There is a known bug we encountered where, on a revival of Animus and Gnoster, the duo will appear out of bounds. Only ranged attacks can reach them. However, once separated, Gnoster will no longer be able to re-enter the arena field. This is one of the few times that a bug is actually helpful, as the only enemies left are Animus and Faurtis.
Therefore, the way to end this fight is to defeat Animus.To damage Animus, you may:
The last is possible because the possession Animus performs willremove a large chunk of health.
You can strike Animus and the possessed boss for great sums of damage at the end of a possession as well. After an Ultimate, the possessed boss will be inert for several seconds, allowing you to hit both.
The best strategy to deal with Everdark Sovereign: Sentient Pest is tofollow these steps:
If one of your party members falls during this fight, the best time to revive them is at the end of an Animus possession when he and his host are incapacitated and when Gnoster is performing a dig attack. Party Members should be left alone if an Ultimate attack or the Red Pillars of Light are active.
Eventually, with a lot of patience (this is a very long fight) and no small amount of juggling, you will overcome the Sentient Pest.
As a reward for the first clear of the fight, you will receivex25 Sovereign Sigilsas well as the right to purchasea new Relic from the Collector Signboard:
