The Dancer of Ranah is another NPC-esque fighter in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree. She is found in the Southern Nameless Mausoleum, on an island west of the Cerulean Coast region. This fighter is literally a dancer with blades ready to shred you if you underestimate her.
We won’t let you be mesmerized by her moves; thus, we will review all her “dance” moves. Once you know her routine, she will never know it will be her last tango.
Fighting Dancer of Ranah
The Dancer of Ranah feels like she came to the Land of Shadow for the glamourous world of dancing but had to take up arms to survive the harsh realities of this world. This lady is frail, but don’t let her wimpy looks get to your head. She will thrash you around while moving all majestically.
She wears a pretty dress with little to no damage negation capabilities. However, she will counter this with her relentless swordplay.
The Dancer of Ranah has a blade in each hand and a unique moveset where she twirls, transforming into an elegant blender. She can destroy your HP in mere seconds if you get caught in her seemingly endless combos.
Another trick up her sleeve is the use of pyromancy. She only has a single attack where she fires a midrange cone of fire.
Besides that, this is one of the weakest bosses in the Elden Ring DLC. With a limited moveset and no defensive options, the Dancer of Ranah won’t pose much threat if you know how to handle her dance moves.
These are some additional details that might come in handy for the boss:
- There are no NPC summons available nor spirit summons allowed during this fight. However, multiplayer is open.
- She has one of the lowest poise out of all the bosses in the game, meaning she can be staggered easily with attacks, including both spells and weapons, that deal some good amount of stance damage.
- She has a healing flask, which she can use once during the fight.
- She loves to roll away and towards you when you attack her, which can be incredibly annoying when you try to catch her.
Moveset
Dancer of Ranah will use the following attacks, better to know how to react to them:
| Attack | Description | Reaction |
|---|---|---|
| Unending Dance | She will begin twirling around with both her blades. This attack can be chained together for a virtually endless combo. It is the ash of war of the weapon. | Just run in and attack, and in most cases, she will stop from the hit stagger. |
| Charge Slash | She will run up to you and slash her swords twice. | Roll back as she gets closer to you. If you are quick, you can immediately swing your weapon as you come out of the rolling animation to attack her, and she won’t be able to perform the second slash. |
| Jumping Attack | She will regularly jump at you and perform a dual sword slam towards you. | Before she lands, roll to a side, and she will miss you entirely. A well-time hit while she is airborne will drop her flat on the ground, allowing you some free hits. |
| Flame Fan | She will cast a medium-range flame incantation when you are at some distance. The flame is spread horizontally in a wide arc. | As she is about to cast, roll into towards her. You will ignore the spell damage and can strike her. Or you can roll back several times to get out of the spell’s range. |
Weaknesses and Resistances
The Dancer of Ranah is resistant to the following damage types, so try to avoid using them:
- Fire
- Sleep
- Madness
The boss is weak to:
- Strike
- Pierce
- Lightning
- Frostbite
- Hemorrhage
You can parry all of her melee attacks and then land a powerful critical strike. If you’re fast enough, you can even sneak around behind her during the fight and pull off a backstab critical strike.
Boss Strategy
The Dancer of Ranah lacks poise, so you can mess her day up with very little effort.
The only attack you need to be wary of is the Unending Dance. For this attack, attack her immediately after the initial spin with an adequate weapon; it will stop her full combo.
This will work with almost any weapon in Elden RIng with good enough poise damage (minus the daggers). If you learn to cancel this attack consistently, the fight is in your hands since she loves to spam this dance.
You can even bait her to perform the Unending Dance by standing at medium range.
The other attack that you need to keep an eye out for is the Flame Fan pyromancy. You need to roll through it, and you do want to be quick on your counter-attack since she can very quickly take her blades back out and then do a spin attack. You have to roll through the spell cast and start spamming R1 to come out swinging from your roll and not allow her to follow up.
The ideal strategy for this fight is to have some sort of long-reaching weapon, opt for jump attacks, or go for any type of gap-closing attack that can punish when she backdashes away from you. Large thrusting weapons like spears will do a great job of catching her. There are a few openings in her dance attack that allow you to get a few hits if she doesn’t back-roll out of your attack.
Even while she panic rolls, you should continue trying to hit her with light attacks. Spamming R1/RB attacks while she dodges has a higher chance of occasionally landing on her. Since it is hard to get her timing down, these blind-swinging tactics are a good way of hurting her.
You can exploit the healing window (50% HP) if you are fast enough, but don’t try too hard. Nevertheless, look for the second time she tries to heal. Funnily enough, her flask will be empty, and the whole animation is surprisingly long for you to rush in and put up some pressure.
Caster builds might have a hard time during this fight. She leaves no openings to cast spells. Pick up a melee weapon when going against her. Or, sorcerers can use the Greatblade Phalanx spell to deal significant poise damage as you enter the arena. If you still want to use projectile-based spells, then pick ones that have shorter casting times.
Rewards For Defeating Dancer of Ranah
Putting an end to the Dancer of Ranah in the Elden Ring DLC will unlock:
- 80,000 Runes
- Dancing Blade of Ranah
- Dancer’s Set
- Dancer’s Hood
- Dancer’s Dress
- Dancer’s Bracer
- Dancer’s Trousers
How to Cheese the Dancer of Ranah?
To cheese this dancing fool, all you need is the Sacred Relic Sword’s amazing Wave of Gold weapon skill. Most people already use it (and upgraded it) to farm runes in the Elden RIng.
Note: The weapon skill uses a ton of stamina so equip stamina boosting and regeneration talismans to cast it without stopping. Radahn’s Great Rune will work, too. Carry some FP flasks, also.
All you need to do is enter the arena and fire the Wave of Gold. As the wave passes through the boss, you will see her comedically fall to the ground and deal a chunk of damage. The recovery window from this fall is long enough for you to restore some stamina and fire another wave. Make sure to only fire the skill when the boss is standing; otherwise, it won’t hit her.
Continue to spam the skill and watch her drop to the ground. If she manages to come close, back off to the other side of the arena as she tries to get back up on her feet and let another rip.
If you do things right, she won’t get the chance to hit you once or even come close to you. She will spend most of her time on the ground. This technique works for most other NPC fights in Shadow of the Erdtree, so exploit it as you see fit.
The Dancer of Ranah can be troublesome if you don’t react to her intimidating moves. Yet, she is insanely weak compared to other NPC bosses in the Elden Ring DLC. Her last dance is right around the corner, so practice your upcoming performance, and you will put an end to this dancing menace once and for all.