Elden Ring: Loretta, Knight of the Haligtree (Miquella's Haligtree) Boss Fight

Published: November 1, 2025 at 5:24:41 PM UTC

Loretta, Knight of the Haligtree is in the middle tier of bosses in Elden Ring, Greater Enemy Bosses, and is found blocking the way from Miquella’s Haligtree to the city Elphael, Brace of the Haligtree. She is technically an optional boss in the sense that it is not required to defeat her in order to progress the main story of the game, but she must be defeated if you wish to enter Elphael.

As you probably know, bosses in Elden Ring are divided into three tiers. From lowest to highest: Field Bosses, Greater Enemy Bosses and finally Demigods and Legends.

Loretta, Knight of the Haligtree is in the middle tier, Greater Enemy Bosses, and is found blocking the way from Miquella’s Haligtree to the city Elphael, Brace of the Haligtree. She is technically an optional boss in the sense that it is not required to defeat her in order to progress the main story of the game, but she must be defeated if you wish to enter Elphael.

You may recall meeting the spirit form of Loretta earlier in the game, all the way back in Caria Manor in Liurnia of the Lakes. I certainly remember it, I had help from my preferred meat-shield at the time, Banished Knight Engvall, and I still have a very fond memory of seeing Loretta’s horse kick him in the face up close. Oh the good old days. Perhaps I should start summoning Engvall for some bosses again, if nothing else then for the comedy of it ;-)

This time I was evidently in an unusually patient mood and feeling up for a challenge, as I decided to take on the live version of Loretta without any help. Perhaps it was because Tiche pretty much trivialized the last boss I fought to the point where it felt a bit cheap and boring, so I let her sit this one out.

This version of Loretta is a pretty tough fight. She’s very active, constantly attacking or spamming spells, so there is not a lot of time to get in melee range and do some damage to her, as many of her attacks are much easier to avoid at a distance. So, after a few rather embarrassing failures, I decided to give the katanas a rest and go full ranged as well.

I started out the fight by shooting her with Serpent Arrows until the poison damage over time effect started ticking, at which point I switched to Bolt of Gransax. It would obviously have been more effective to use Scarlet Rot arrows, but I was out of those, and I was in no mood for going to Lake of Rot to grind materials for them. Although I do think that Lake of Rot may be slightly less annoying than the way down through the Haligtree.

I had previously just switched to using regular arrows at this point, but that seemed to drag out the fight longer than necessary and sooner or later I would get caught by one of her multi-shots and die. In hindsight, I have no idea why I didn’t use the Barrage Ash of War on my bow for some rapid-fire goodness and getting the poison ticking faster, but I guess I’m just not so used to going ranged against bosses. I’ll have to change that; I usually find ranged combat more fun than melee.

Anyway, Bolt of Gransax deals some decent damage in return but using it has to be timed well as it takes a while to wind up, and Loretta does not leave many openings for that. It’s usually best to start it right after she has done a big move herself. Don’t underestimate how fast she can attack again or how fast she can close distances on her horse.

She has several highly damaging and annoying skills, but the one that would most often end up getting me was the multi-shot with her bow that she starts using at around half health. If hit by all the arrows, it would take me from full health to death in an instant, so avoiding that should be a priority.

The double melee strikes she does when her halberd starts glowing blue are also hugely damaging. I could usually survive being hit once, but if both strikes landed, I would be dead. Fortunately, they’re telegraphed fairly well and not particularly difficult to dodge, so just watch out.

And now for the usual boring details about my character. I play as a mostly Dexterity build. My melee weapons are the Nagakiba with Keen affinity and Piercing Fang Ash of War, and the Uchigatana also with Keen affinity, but in this fight, I used the Black Bow and Bolt of Gransax for some long-range damage dealing. I was level 163 when this video was recorded, which I think is a bit high for this content, but it was still a fun and reasonably challenging fight. I’m always looking for the sweet spot where it’s not mind-numbing easy mode, but also not so difficult that I will be stuck on the same boss for hours ;-)

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