The Duke's Dear Freja | Dark Souls 2 Wiki (2024)

HP	4,220 | 6,752 (NG+)
Weakness	Strike, Fire,Bleed
Weakness (small spiders)	Torchlight, Fire, Bleed
Resistance	Magic, Lightning, Dark
Immune	Poison
Respawn	NO

The Duke's Dear Freja isa Bossin Dark Souls 2(DKS2).Within Brightstone Cove Tseldora, Duke's Dear Freja, a monstrous two-headed spider, guards the Writhing Ruin. Her formidable shell boasts high resistance, rendering the heads as the sole vulnerable targets. During the battle, it's feasible to sever a head, inducing a brief stagger before she retaliates with a leg stomp.Bossesare unique and challenging Enemies that dropBoss Soulscapable of being transformed into powerfulWeapons,Spells, andItemsfor the player.

The Duke's Dear Freja Information inDark Souls 2

Duke's Dear Freja is a boss in Dark Souls 2. Found in Brightstone Cove Tseldora, her shell proves to be highly resistant to damage, leaving the heads as the only vulnerable points for attack. It is possible to cut a head off during the fight, causing her to be staggered for a few seconds before she does a leg stomp.
There are smaller spiders that are constantly spawning in the room while the boss is alive. Each of these smaller spiders has ~200hp. These smaller spiders can be killed off at the beginning of battle and will not re spawn for a short time, allowing easier combat with the boss.
Some Notes

• If a substantial amount of hits are done to one head during a short period of time, the head will fall off and will be untargetable for the rest of the fight.
• You will need a weapon with a fairly high damage output for this fight. If your weapon is too weak, you might actually decapitate both of her heads and leave her alive/invincible at the same time, resulting in you having to restart the boss battle. However, if both heads are decapitated, an armor-piercing weapon can sometimes deal damage to the boss from the positions where the heads were prior to being chopped off.
• Walking against Freja's legs will slow you down for a split second. Try to avoid this while moving underneath her, especially when you're being chased by small spiders
• Some weapons can attack around/through Freja's blocks.
• In an early encounter of a subsequent Cycle: If caused enough damage (33%) to it, its HP-bar will disappear, and any more damage attempted to cause to it, will not count, and it will retreat only after about 35s.
• NG+ any damage you do to her outside the boss room will carry over to the encounter in the boss room

• A monstrous two-headed spider which serves as the Keeper of the Writhing Ruin. Apparently Duke Tseldora's pet and more than likely the progenitor of the swarms of Parasite Spiders which overran and destroyed Brightstone Cove. But What could the Duke have wanted with such an abomination, and what madness could have possessed him to allow the destruction of his own domain...?

Dark Souls 2 The Duke's Dear Freja Location

• Area boss ofBrightstone Cove Tseldora. Accessed by going through the whole map.

The Duke's Dear Freja Drops in DKS2

• Soul of the Duke's Dear Freja
• Old Paledrake Soul (NG+)
• Souls: 42,000 (Standard Game) 84,000 (NG+)

DKS2 The Duke's Dear Freja Encounters

The Duke's Dear Freja Attacks inDark Souls 2

Souls Awarded

• No changes to souls awarded beyond Bonfire Intensity 8.

NPC Summons

Ashen Knight Boyd is available as a summon for this fight. His summon sign is located on the ground floor of the spider-infested area, behind a few columns against the opposite wall from the fog gate.
Manhunter O'Harrah (SotFS only)can be summoned in the room with all the poisonous spiders hanging from the ceiling, on the left, and is very effective. (When I had him and Boyd I got to about 2 hits off, but was killed.)
Bashful Ray can also be summoned earlier in the level, in the room with double doors next to Weaponsmith Ornifex's workshop. Unlike other times, Ray is summoned as a Phantom rather than a Shade, and so can be brought all the way to the boss room to help form a team of four. His attacks are quick and lethal, very handy for all the minion spiders as well as getting through the boss itself. He has a number of pyromancies including Firestorm (does very little to the boss) and Fireball (very effective if hits the head).

Strategies

The best way to fight the spider solo is to bait out the beam attack then sprint to its other head and attack it. Make sure not to get hit by the web it shoots out because this is a death sentence. When she starts to use her Leg Stomp, it's best to stay right up on her legs so that you can immediately run up on her head when she finishes.

Easy Mode with Torch (SotFS only)

If you equip a torch in the fight, all the small spiders will NOT attack you, just like all other spiders in this level. This allows you to just focus on the boss, see below for details.

Solo/Melee

Entering the fight, immediately run right towards the back, circling the arena to avoid Freja's legs. This should group up the spiders, making it easier to take them out. Guiding the spiders away from Freja, take them all out as quickly as possible. Once the spiders are finished, run over to Freja and whack her face. Whenever it looks like she's about to attack, roll to the left/right but keep close by the side of her face. Ensuring you keep next to her face at all times and kill any respawning spiders, she's a pretty easy boss. If she does her beam attack, sprint in the direction of the beam to avoid getting hit. Without the spiders, Freja is easy to kill, taking only a bit of patience and overcoming arachnaphobia to defeat her.

Solo/Melee alternative

Stay to the side of the boss in medium range (far enough so the legs wont hit you) picking up the spiders 1 by 1 strafing as you do, andas soon asthe spiders are gone go as close as you can to the boss head when it starts to attack, quickly run to the other head and hit it, repeat till the boss is dead. I did this with a 69% weight and a halberd, worked flawlessly.

Sorcery/Lightning Spears/Pyromancy

Enter the fight, and sprint straight around her (you can go under her legs and still avoid getting hit), and put a bit of distance between the second head and the spiders. You can cast 1 or 2 spells (depending on cast speed) safely before she recovers from her initial attack. The rest of the battle consists of keeping your distance and baiting attacks. When she uses her stomp or acid attacks, dodge back once or twice and you will be safe (depends on encumbrance). When she uses the lunge attack, dodge a couple of times to the side, and attack her other head after she has finished the attack (otherwise you might miss). When she uses the beam attack, run in the direction of her attack, but run towards the side of her head, this should give pyro's enough time for a fire storm, depending on how quickly you get there, her head should push you to safety if you cast next to her. If you keep moving in one direction (counter-clockwise works best for evading the beam attacks) not even the spiders will give you much trouble. (I defeated Freja on NG+ in 4 mins using this strategy and Soul Spears, the spider's didn't even get close enough to attack me).
If you have the ability to summon a phantom, the boss battle becomes much easier allowing the two to three players to beat on each head.
Despite the best way normally being eliminating the small spiders, the area is quite large and they move rather slowly, making avoiding them an easy task, so it is not necessary to take them out to focus on the big spider.
After entering through the fog gate as a Magic User, IMMEDIATELY use AOE spells like heavenly thunder or chaos storm to take out the small spiders in one go. Making the remainder of the fight much easier.

Video Strategies

NightHawk: Duke's Dear Freja: Ranged, Sword & Board and Power Stance
Melee(dual wield/power stance)
(miracles/spells)
Melee Co-op (Drangleic Sword+2, no buffs)

The Duke's Dear Freja Glitches in DKS2

• When decapitating one of the heads, the head that has been decapitated can still be targeted, causing spawned NPC to target this while causing no damage (Xbox 360)

Dark Souls 2 The Duke's Dear Freja Hints

• It's possible to glitch the fog gate when you get hit/grabbed by the little spiders before the gate. Make sure to clean the room before you take on the boss.
• the beam attack is unblockable by both your shield and environment and will do large damage, however it will never pass through the bosses own legs, so you can use that as a guide for where the safe zone starts.
• Avoid using the pyromancy "Warmth". If the boss gets close, it will be healed, and after the heads are destroyed, it will still have hp remaining, meaning you can't kill it.
• Using the Black Knight Halberd can be a good tip, using the one handed light/ fast (RB/R1) attack is perfect. (i've used this one for my NG+).
• Melee Weapons with a good amount of reach are a necessity if you don't want to stand immediately in front of her face and punch with a Caestus.
• Using a Lit Torch during the encounter renders the other spiders useless and you can focus solely on the boss. Just don't let it go out.(SOFTS ONLY!)

Trivia

• If you decapitate one of her heads, You can kick it around like a football. This is somewhat advised, as the spider minions will not go near the head, but it also means that Freja only has 1 weakpoint instead of 2.
• You can kick the head into the stairwell where Vengarl's body is and use it to block him from hitting you.
• This boss is modeled after both Armored Spider from Demon's Souls and Seath The Scaleless from Dark Souls.
• Interestingly, unlike the other Old Ones, the "Great Soul Embraced" message does not appear after killing Freja. Instead it appears when interacting with the Dragon caught in her web, suggesting the great soul may actually belong to it.
• Oddly, this isn't the case if you burned Bonfire Ascetic, the message appears if you killed Freja in the same playthrough but with Bonfire Ascetic.
• All Great Souls - including Freja's - are optional to open the Shrine of Winter, provided the soul memory requirement for that playthrough is reached. [Edited]
• The icon of her soul is different than that of the other great souls. It is the icon of a typical boss souls.
• After Freja is defeated, Manscorpion Tark alludes to Seathe the Scaleless in aremark: "What skill. You've defeated my master. But our master never dies, only changes form, so that he may seethe for all eternity."

*If you use a torch while fighting her, the small spiders will not attack you, making the fight much easier. (SotFS ONLY)