The Moonlight Butterfly is an elegant boss in Dark Souls Remastered with an annoying combat structure. Fortunately, you don’t have to endure this boss for much longer than you should especially if you apply the things we touch upon in this guide.
Let’s take a look at an effective strategy for defeating this boss, which movesets it uses, and what kind of rewards it will drop once bested.
Fighting Moonlight Butterfly in Dark Souls Remastered
Moonlight Butterfly flies into the scene gracefully and starts showering you with all manners of energy projectiles. She flies around, strafing the side of the bridge, all the while firing her spells. She only has a handful of spells, but reacting to them is quite finicky, and she ends up hurting you occasionally.
The irritating bit is that while she stays airborne, you are limited by the narrow bridge you are on. Your melee attacks can’t reach her even if you tried. You are forced to linger while she pummels you with her spells.
However, when she is done firing her barrage of spells, she lands on the bridge and takes a breather. This is FromSoft handing the boss to you. And the good part is, her health pool is surprisingly shallow for a boss.
The whole fight is about surviving the spells and waiting for her to rest then beating her to a pulp.
Here are some things to consider when facing the Moonlight Butterfly in Dark Souls Remastered:
- Summoning Witch Beatrice will make this fight insanely easy. She can kill her on her own while you stand safely away hiding behind your shield. Her summoning sign is hidden behind some bush near the staircase leading up to the boss. Mini Cheese Strategy.
- Shields with good magic resistance like the Crest Shield will help tank her projectiles.
- Having a ranged option on you will come really handy against Moonlight Butterfly’s flying phases. If you can’t equip sorceries/mircales then at least bring a bow/crossbow. Or you can bring a bunch of Firebombs.
- If she is on the side of the fog gate, take cover behind the gate to block many of her projectiles.
- Applying the Magic Shield spell to your regular shield will help absorb all of the damage from her projectiles.
Boss Strategy
The strategy for beating Moonlight Butterfly in Dark Souls Remastered varies drastically depending on your build and equipment.
For sorcerers, this fight will be a cakewalk. Just stand on the bridge, cast your preferred spell at the boss, and watch as her weak HP bar fades away. We recommend Great Soul Arrow for better damage output or the regular Soul Arrow will do fine too. Just be prepared to either shield or dodge from incoming projectiles and you are good to go.
As for melee and pyromancers builds, there is no way of reaching the boss with your attacks. Early pyromancy spell can’t reach the boss too. Although if you time it right, you can hit her with pyromancies too, but it is harder said than done. For this reason, we highly recommend you carry a bow or crossbow to hit her while she is in her airborne phase.
At any rate, playing as these builds you have to wait for the boss to stop casting her spells and come in to rest on the bridge. She does this periodically so it is just a matter of dodging/blocking her spells and allowing her to recuperate on the bridge.
Now this is your opening. As she remains docile, cast your pyromancies at her or move in with your weapon and deal a ton of damage. Two-handing your weapon will deal the most damage so we highly advise you to do that. Go crazy with your attacks as she rests.
With an upgraded weapon, you can ideally take her out in just a single resting phase. If you can’t then get ready to move out of the AoE explosion after she is done resting. Continue to defend against the next set of spells and wait for her to rest again. Two resting phases are enough to bring her down.
Moveset
The Moonlight Butterfly in Dark Souls Remastered uses all these attacks and how you must react to each:
| Attack | Description | Reaction |
|---|---|---|
| Shotgun Spears | Charges energy and releases two sets of six spears in a spread-out pattern. They have slight tracking. | Dodge when the boss is about to fire. Dodge twice to counter both sets. Or you can block them with your shield. |
| Homing Orbs | Charges up and sends out three orbs with medium tracking and speed. | Dodge to the opposite side from where they are coming from right before the orbs are about to hit you. |
| Beam | Charges up and unleashes a continuous energy beam. It travels from one end of the arena/bridge to the other. | Dodge into the beam as its about to hit you. |
| Blue Orb (50% HP) | Flies over the bridge, charges energy, and casts a huge blue orb towards you. | Dodge forwards into the orb when it is about to connect. |
| AoE Explosion | When the boss has done resting on the bridge, she will build up energy over a long time and unleashes a large explosion around it. | Hit her during this charge up and back off as soon as she close to releasing the explosion. |
Rewards for Defeating Moonlight Butterfly
For clipping the wings of Moonlight Butterfly in Dark Souls Remastered you’ll receive the following rewards:
- 10,000 Souls
- 1x Humanity
- Soul of the Moonlight Butterfly
Moonlight Butterfly is one of the easier bosses in Dark Souls Remastered. It is even more easy if you are a sorcerer which ended up helping me a ton. You’d be forgiven for not even considering this a boss fight after you have taken out all the real baddies in the game.