Aldia, scholar of the First Sin | Dark Souls 2 Wiki

Aldia, Scholar of the First Sin
HP	6,800 | 8,160 (NG+)
Weakness	Slash, Lightning, Magic
Resistance	Fire, Dark, Poison
Immune	Bleed
Respawn	NO

Aldia, Scholar of the First Sin is a boss in Dark Souls 2.

 Aldia, Scholar of the First Sin Information 

• This boss was introduced to Dark Souls 2 in Patch 1.10. He is available in SOTFS version by default.
• Benhart of Jugo can be summoned for this fight. His summon sign is located outside the fog gate.
• The Head of Vengarl can be summoned for this fight, provided the player has defeated his body after fighting the Duke's Dear Freja. His summon sign is located outside the fog gate.
• Bradley of the Old Guard can be summoned for this fight (SOTFS). His summon sign is located outside the fog gate.

Location

• When this boss is accessible, he may be encountered in the Throne of Want.
• In order to make this boss accessible, his dialogue must be exhausted at all three places he appears.
  
  He will show up in the following locations:
  1. When trying to light the fourth and final Primal Bonfire. Primal Bonfires may be activated in any order.
  2. At the Undead Crypt Entrance bonfire.
  3. At the Dragon Shrine Entrance bonfire.
  
  You should accomplish this through normal gameplay, unless you skipped lighting the bonfires.
• You must also defeat Nashandra, as well as the optional boss Vendrick.

Drops

• Souls: NG (0), NG+ (0), NG++ 0), NG+3 (0), NG+4 (0), NG+6 (0), NG+7 (0)
• Though considered a boss, Aldia does not drop either souls or a Boss Soul when defeated.

Combat Information

• Health Information
• NG (6800), NG+ (8160), NG++ (9792), NG+3 (11424), NG+4 (??), NG+5 (??), NG+6 (??), NG+7 (??)

Attacks

Strategy

 Here is a playbook with helpful info on Aldia. He is about average difficulty overall, with some key things that are only learnable to people who have fought him. Aldia only has a few nuances that need to be noted, which I will explain below:

1. Aldia tends to teleport. When he does, he may teleport on you, in which case you want to be standing about a foot outside of where the glow of his fire ends, as this marks the end of the AOE. This is a good way to give yourself time to hit him. 
2. Aldia is only really vulnerable when he is not ignited with flame all around him.
3. Aldia has a multi-shot homing fireball attack. It is advisable to sprint through this attack by juking the fireballs, but at a time when there is space, as the fireballs come in bursts of variable length.
4. Aldia has an attack where he charges a fireball. To deal with this, wait for him to fire, and IMMEDIATELY sprint, then roll as it is about to explode on the ground. You should clear the attack nicely.
5. Aldia has an attack where he summons a bunch of tentacles in a line. He telegraphs by pulling out a single tentacle and planting it in the ground. During this time, back up so you have room, and when the attack starts going, roll towards where the first two tentacles come out,. The tentacles have a maximum turning angle of about 45 degrees, so using that is helpful. It is also really helpful to run towards his right flank at about 90 degrees from the front of his face, so avoid the tentacles.
6. Do NOT hit Aldia when he is surrounded by fire. This can cause damage to you, and he will absorb only about 25% of damage.

That's basically Aldia for you.

Melee strategy

Aldia has no attacks that must be rolled. When he does his Charged Fireball attack, you have around 5 safe seconds to deal dmg to him. Run away from the fireball and it should miss you. When he slams just one tentacle in the ground, the attack can be a really badly tracking tentacle attack, much like Fire Snake pyromancy. It can also be a little bit better tracking but otherwise same kind of attack that starts not from the tentacle that slams in the ground, but from any side of Aldia closest to you. Both can be evaded by running clockwise around Aldia when he is slamming the one tentacle. After this attack you have time to deal 1-3 swings at Aldia before the fire shield comes back up.
When he does homing fire mass, just run sideways to avoid the balls, or use a spell parry shield. When he does the AoE tentacle attack, look for opening after the second AoE effect is starting (red dots on the ground) and go deal some damage to Aldia. Every time Aldia has a fire shield on, use whip, spear or any other longer range weapon to deal damage. He does, however, take less damage then, much like any boss with a hyper armor.
Aldia has around 5 spawn points in the arena, one in the middle and 4 in the corners of the arena. Its recommended to run around the middle, and when Aldia starts to spawn run to him for couple free hits. If Aldia happens to spawn really close to you, run away so the AoE blast he creates when spawning doesn't hit you.

Video Strategy:

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Hints

• Rebel's Greatshield with Dark infusion will make this fight almost trivial.
• Can be poisoned. (With Dark Fog, took 3-4 casts but he got poisoned)
• Some of his attacks drain his aura of fire, during this time he is vulnerable, press the attack and fall back when his fire starts emerging again.

Lore

• Lord Aldia is King Vendrick's elder brother. He aided his brother in founding the kingdom of Drangleic, but he then secluded himself in his manor, searching for the secrets of life, viewing the Undead as the key to finding it. Through his experiments, Aldia sought to learn the nature of the undead curse, and to shed the yoke of fate.
• Due to a dispute on the research of souls, or the research methods on how to end the Curse, Vendrick locked Aldia away in his keep. It was there that Aldia "kept Giants in his manor, and attempted to recreate a dragon, but after some time, was not heard from again".
• With the release of Scholar of the First Sin, it is revealed that Aldia did not become the Ancient Dragon, but was transfigured into a blob-like creature that appears to be composed of fire, witchtree branches and a glowing red eye. He will appear to the player at the the last Primal Bonfire they reach, the entrance to the Undead Crypt and the Dragon Shrine. If spoken to in all of these locations he will become the final boss after defeating Nashandra at the Throne of Want.
• His dialogue ranges from benign to going as far as to express outward rage at Gwyn, Lord of Cinder, who is referred to by Aldia as the "Lord of Light". The scholar describes how the old Lord of Sunlight expelled the darkness, and began the cycle of light and dark. This cycle, this curse, forced men to assume a fleeting form, reverting them back to their hollow form. They became less than what they were, and to Aldia, this is the first sin he has taken his name from. He claims that men are mere props, and that no matter how exquisite, a lie will remain a lie. The anger is audible in his voice at this point, an expression of his fury at the commitment of the first sin, the first linking of the flame.

Theories

• Lord is the generic term for a person of peerage, the highest order of which is Duke. So, based on his relation to King Vendrick, we can surmise that Aldia is the Duke in Brightstone Cove, the one found after killing Freja, the giant spider.
• Manscorpion Tark thanks you for killing his "master" when you kill the Duke's Dear Freja. So, the Duke is the one who created all man-beasts through his experimentation, which we know Aldia was involved in. The Lions "just seemed to crawl out of the earth one day". The Lion Warrior Set description states, "The Lion Clan are an offshoot race that have no ties to humans, and would murder anyone with the curious notion of approaching them." The Lion clansmen seem to despise their own looks, as they hate being seen. Why would they despise their own looks? Because they're abominations, and they know it. Tark himself doesn't seem to be loving life right now. So in that area we've got: 2 manscorpions, lion-men, a bird-lady, a curious dragonbone-infused basilisk, and more. The whole area seems to be Aldia's zoo, with the fog possibly trapping them within the place, not just keeping people out.
• So Tark effectively tells us that the Duke created them. But, that alone does not really prove Aldia is the Duke But, there is another type of man-beast: the Mastodons. The Mastodon Halberd's description states, "Halberd of the Primal Knights that defend Drangleic castle. The brutish and might Primal Knights wield this halberd like a feather-light twig, but to the ordinary warrior it is a chore to even hold up, owing to its great weight. Terrible experiments were said to have taken place in a hidden manor in Drangleic. The mastermind presiding over the deeds was thought to be Lord Aldia." The Duke created the man-beasts. But, no one ever said the Duke wasn't Aldia. They both created man-beasts because they're the same person, hence all the overlapping information.
• So, where does Aldia fit into the cycle of reincarnation and Eastern mythology? While Gwyn is supposedly the Old Iron King and not Vendrick, the latter is still the "Gwyn" of this world from a literary perspective, and From Software is known for this sort of thing. With that, we can see that Gwyn liked Seath, his right-hand man and most trusted confidant, and also the smartest being with an expressed interest in sorcery and unlocking the secrets sorcery held. Seath wanted immortality because he lacked them scale of immortality of his race. It is mentioned that Vendrick and Aldia, moreso, were working to unlock immortality. Aldia is also the right-hand man of Vendrick, if we discount his zealot guard, Velstadt, who is really only the right-hand man by name and rank. Aldia, on the other hand, is both the older brother and the man Vendrick was working with to "solve" the curse of the undead. Aldia is also the foremost authority on sorcery in the land, it would seem, thanks to his research.
• So, from the "cycle" perspective, we can suppose that Aldia is Seath incarnate. Aldia disappeared. No one knows where he went or what he became. Some say he was destroyed by the Ancient Dragon he created, or became the dragon, but he was more likely drawn to Tseldora, with its giant crystals. The Duke was drawn in by his love of spiders, but perhaps it was moreso his love of one spider, and the thing that spider itself loved: crystals. It's unclear who or what the spider was, but it is possible that Freja is merely the other half of Seath's Soul, or something similar, hence Aldia's need to go there. So, Aldia followed some need to live in Tseldora, post-spider-invasion. What was it? Just outside his study, in the cave is the remains of an ancient dragon.
• Finally, the man-beast of Vengarl's body is found in a room adjacent to the Duke's study. Vengarl's head, however, is found in the Shaded Woods, home to many other man-beasts. Vengarl "was like a mad beast on the battlefield."
• Why did Aldia abandon his work in his keep? Maybe he realized he was going about it all wrong and sought out the primordial crystals in Tseldora. The Duke and/or Freja created man-beast hybrids. Aldia also is said to have created similar beasts. This is possible because they are one-and-the-same. Among other things, the presence of an ancient dragon just outside the Duke's quarters and very strong ties to Seath the Scaleless from Dark Souls help to support this theory.
• So, Aldia was working on creating the Emerald Herald, but failed. Those "enhanced undead" lumbering behemoths in the Keep are not scorpion-things. Their tail is not a scorpion's tail. Look at the tail of the drakes in Dragon Aerie, and look at their horns. and look at this description: "This deformed, unnatural creature must surely be the product of some serious misdeeds. Who created this monstrosity, and is it what they intended to make? It almost seems to be half-dragon, but, whatever it is, it has a mind of a Hollow." These things are failed attempts at creating either dragons or creating the Herald, who was thought to be the key to solving the curse of the Undead. She was a failure, too. Maybe Aldia, disapointed, took off at that point, or maybe something else made him leave…
• Then there is the Giant soul. Aldia was not a giant, nor did he need to be some towering warrior figure like Vendrick. We find a Giant Soul in the Ancient Dragon, making a good case for the idea that Aldia made this dragon with a Giant Soul. There it is, though. The Ancient Dragon gave Aldia what he wanted: the Ashen Mist Heart. It's easy to forget that Aldia himself did not want to cure the curse; that was Vendrick. Aldia tapered off on his own path, seeking immortality. Aldia claimed the Ashen Mist Heart and then went to Tseldora, to that petrified actual dragon corpse. Maybe he went hollow before he could get his soul. Or maybe he and Freja weren't so close after all, and she was keeping him from obtaining it. Or perhaps he was too in love with her to slay her. It seems that he never completed this task, whatever the reasons.
• Some believe that the "master" Tark mentions is more specifically Freja, not the Duke. From this, combined with the fact that Freja has two heads, and the Duke "became something far from human," we can assume the Duke is Aldia, and that Aldia, in the same manner as Vendrick, separated himself from his soul but melded it with Freja. Thus, the Duke you kill is Aldia's husk, similar to Vendrick's husk.

Notes & Trivia

•  Aldia is voiced by David Gant.