In this walkthrough, we’ll explain Royal Knight Loretta’s location and offer five top tips for defeating her. After beating this boss, take a look at our Elden Ring boss locations guide to find other challenging foes nearby.
Royal Knight Loretta location
Royal Knight Loretta is found in a small courtyard at the end of Caria Manor. This is a castle in the northwest of Liurnia of the Lakes, known for its creepy hand spiders and the popular Sword of Night and Flame that you’ll find within. When you find Loretta, you’ll notice that there is another wall of fog on the opposite side of the arena from where you entered. This leads behind Caria Manor, where you will find the Three Sisters, a range of three towers. Within, you can start Ranni’s questline, which can lead to a special ending. We recommend exploring other areas to level up to around level 50 before fighting Royal Knight Loretta. This should be easy enough, as you’ll probably fight Godrick the Grafted, the Red Wolf of Radagon, and Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon, before heading to Caria Manor. While Royal Knight Loretta does force you to fight from the ground, we have a few handy tips that will make this fight a breeze. These include information about her attack pattern, weaknesses, and resistances. You can watch our guides editor, Ollie, battle Royal Knight Loretta below, and then we’ll explain our five top tips for this fight.
How to beat Royal Knight Loretta: tops tips for success
1. Boost your magic defence with certain armor sets and talismans
Royal Knight Loretta uses a lot of magical attacks. While you can try to avoid her spells with well-timed rolls, sometimes they just occur too fast and too often. This means you might take a couple of hits from a spell, which could quickly kill your Tarnished if you aren’t prepared. To survive the fight against Royal Knight Loretta, we recommend wearing armor and talismans that boost your protection from magic damage. Some of the best armor sets in Elden Ring, such as Rennala’s Queen of the Full Moon set and the Spellblade set, massively boost your magic protection. This will make the fight against Royal Knight Loretta much easier, as you will soak up her attacks without cause for concern. There are also plenty of powerful talismans that you can use to make the Royal Knight Loretta boss fight easier. The Spelldrake Talisman, located in Earthbore Cave in the North of the Weeping Peninsula, boosts your magic damage negation, making most of Royal Knight Loretta’s attacks deal far less damage. You can find better variants of this talisman if you want extra protection, but you’ll need to travel a little further. You can find the Spelldrake Talisman +1 in Sellia, Town of Sorcery, behind one of the magical barriers. You can dispel the barrier by lighting one of the fires on the various towers in Sellia. You’ll find the Spelldrake Talisman +2 in the Hidden Path to the Haligtree, a secret area that you can reach by using the Haligtree Medallion at the Grand Lift of Rold. When you reach the top, leave the lift and avoid the main path into the Consecrated Snowfield. Instead, delve deeper into the dungeons below to find the Spelldrake Talisman +2. If you want to learn more about the Haligtree Medallion and where to find both pieces, check out our guide on how to find and beat Malenia, Blade of Miquella, which has all the details you need.
2. Watch out for Loretta’s magic attacks
Loretta has two forms of attacks: melee attacks with her spear and magic attacks that will track your character. These magic attacks are troublesome and will end your run if you don’t pay attention. Try to constantly be aware of when Loretta is powering up a magic attack and get some distance so that you can easily avoid them as they approach. Loretta uses various tracking spells, including a form of Glintstone Stars and Glintblade Phalanx. To avoid these, get some distance and then roll to the side just before they hit your character. In the second phase, she will also start using the Loretta’s Greatbow spell that deals massive damage. This is obviously telegraphed with a long charge-up animation, so you’ll have plenty of time to back off. Rolling on time is crucial for avoiding these attacks, so consider using the Crucible Feather Talisman. This increases the iframes when you dodge, making Royal Knight Loretta’s spells much easier to avoid. You can find this in Auriza Hero’s Grave, a dungeon located on the Capital Outskirts, southeast of the Draconic Tree Sentinel boss fight.
3. Use jump attacks to stagger Loretta
After avoiding any spells, run towards Loretta and use jump attacks to break her poise. Eventually, you can stagger Loretta, opening her up to some easy attacks. This will also let you perform a powerful visceral attack that will help you get the upper hand. To do this, simply move over to the small glowing part when Loretta is knocked down and do a light attack. This will enter a special attack animation that does huge damage. Jump attacks are quicker than charged heavy attacks, so we suggest using these to stay mobile during the fight. Pull off one or two jump attacks and then back off, as Loretta will probably start powering up an attack shortly after. If you want to make your jump attacks stronger, head to Stormveil Castle’s Rampart Tower Site of Grace and climb to the rooftops. You can find the Claw Talisman, which increases your jump attack damage, on top of one of the towers. You can combine this with the Stonebarb Cracked Tear in your Flask of Wondrous Physick to increase the speed with which you stagger enemies, which should allow you to pull off a few viscerals on Royal Knight Loretta. You can get this Crystal Tear by defeating the Putrid Avatar at the Minor Erdtree in Caelid’s Dragonbarrow area. If you want to use one of the best builds in Elden Ring, our Dexterity Bloodhound build combines these jump attacks with the powerful bleed effect and a few other items to destroy enemies with incredible speed.b
4. Don’t attack from behind
When dealing your damage, we suggest staying at the front of Loretta’s horse. If you stand behind the horse, Loretta will make her horse kick their hind legs out, which will send you flying and could lead to an easy death. She has a similar move that will happen when you attack from the front, but it is telegraphed much more obviously, allowing you to back away and dodge with ease. If you do end up behind Royal Knight Loretta and want to avoid taking damage, consider using the Opaline Bubbletear as well. This will give your Tarnished a bubble shield that deflects almost all of the damage from the next hit you take, allownig you to shrug off one of Loretta’s nasty kicks without issue. You can find the Opaline Bubbletear by defeating the Erdtree Avatar at the Minor Erdtree in the Weeping Peninsula, South of Limgrave.
5. Stay patient when Loretta uses multiple attacks
Loretta will tend to chain attacks together, so keep an eye on her animations and prepare to roll more than once. When making melee attacks, Loretta will swing her spear up to four times before taking a break, while her magic attacks are much more relentless. Loretta can even cast a few of the magic attacks mentioned above at once, which can quickly get overwhelming. Be prepared to avoid multiple bursts of magic in quick succession, as you might get hit unexpectedly if you assume Loretta will fire one and then wait. Stay patient and keep your distance until you’re sure that Loretta has exhausted her current burst of magic attacks. Then, you can head in and use those jump attacks we mentioned to deal some easy damage. That covers everything you need to know to defeat Royal Knight Loretta in Elden Ring. If you need more help, make sure you’re using one of the best weapons in Elden Ring for this fight. If you want to push ahead on your quest to 100% Elden Ring, check out our Elden Ring walkthrough and Elden Ring sidequests guide. This also covers other NPCs that lead to optional endings, such as Fia, Deathbed Companion. To upgrade your Tarnished further, check out our Elden Ring Golden Seeds and Sacred Tears locations guides.
