Cerah the Old Explorer, Ancient Soldier Varg and the Afflicted Graverobber |
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|---|---|
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| HP | 3110 (Standard Game), 7001 (NG+) |
| Weakness | ? |
| Resistance | ? |
| Respawns | NOT IF ALL KILLED |
The Graverobber, Varg, and Cerah are Bosses in Dark Souls 2 (DKS2). Encountered within the treacherous confines of the Cave of the Dead, The Graverobber, Varg, and Cerah present a challenging trio of hostile NPCs. Each member of this formidable group exhibits a unique fighting style, with their distinct roles complementing one another. The first wields dual swords, demonstrating agility, the second dons Havel's armor, embodying resilience, while the third engages from range as an archer. Bosses are unique and challenging Enemies that drop Boss Souls capable of being transformed into powerful Weapons, Spells, and Items for the player.
Dark Souls 2 The Graverobber, Varg, and Cerah Information.
A boss fight consisting of three hostile npcs found within the Cave of the Dead. Each one of them fights uniquely with their roles but not names complementing each other. There is no description of them for no Boss Soul is acquired.
The Graverobber, Varg, and Cerah Location in DKS2
- Sanctum Walk, Priestess' Chamber bonfire. Optional Bosses of the Cave of the Dead, accessed after the Priestess' Rest bonfire.
- Accessible through the locked door near the Tower of Prayer bonfire (also in Sanctum Walk). Requires Eternal Sanctum Key. Simply travel by the thin bridge and then by the larger bridge guarded by two guards with lances and then proceed into the building. The door will appear on your left.
- Be wary of Rockshield Baldyr who will invade you right before the bonfire leading to the cave within which the boss fight will be fought.
Dark Souls 2 The Graverobber, Varg, and Cerah Drops
- Souls Awarded: 60,000 (Standard Game) 120,000 (NG+) [needs verification]
- Drops 3 Twinkling Titanite, 3 Petrified Dragon Bones, and 1 Titanite Slab.
- Immediately after them the Flower Skirt and Dark Greatsword can be found. (Note: Dark Greatsword can be obtained before defeating this boss by walking off the elevator next to the Priestess' Chamber bonfire.)
The Graverobber, Varg, and Cerah Attacks in DKS2
| Attack Name | Attack Description |
| Ancient Soldier Varg | Dragon Tooth's Moveset (Includes Jumping, Rolling and Running attacks) |
| Afflicted Graverobber | Berserker Blade's Moveset (Includes Jumping, Rolling and Running attacks) |
| Cerah the Old Explorer -- Ranged | While out of range he will shoot Greatarrows that will knock you down. |
| Cerah the Old Explorer -- Melee | Estoc's Moveset (Includes Jumping, Rolling and Running attacks) |
DKS2 The Graverobber, Varg, and Cerah Strategy
Phantoms can split the enemy's attention, which transforms the boss fight into a brawl consisting of multiple lesser duels.
Solo Strategy
"Afficted Graverober" moves with the highest speed of all three and usually attacks first before Varg and Cerah. Use this to your advantage and attempt to deal damage to him before his allies can arrive. Use parrying and backstabbing to deal a significant amount of damage without the need to expose yourself to Varg's and Cerah's counterattacks due to the resistance given during the execution of the critical hit. Be wary though of Graverobber's quick attacks for though they cannot one shot you they can still deal a noticeable amount of damage. In fact damage dealt by the Graverobber just might be the perfect amount to get finished off by Varg's hammer or Cerah's Greatarrows.
"Ancient Soldier Varg" has the highest health pool, noticeably high poise, slow but high damage with his hammer ,but he moves the slowest of all three. Do not exchange hits with him, nor do not get greedy because the Tooth can easily oneshot you. Instead focus on taking down his colleagues whilst he is away due to his slow speed. Once he is left alone do not parry for it is probably impossible but instead attempt to backstab. You can also try to wear him off with a spear, but be wary of his high lightnining resistance.
"Cerah the Old Explorer" will attack you from distance with the usage of a Greatbow. Once up close he will attempt to jab you with his Estoc which can also perform swinging attacks. The best way to take him down is to attack him after killing the Graverobber and whilst Verag is too far to retaliate for harm you are causing. If it comes to attacking him, use the fact of his low poise to your advantage and attempt to parry his Rapier. He has the lowest health pool of all three which is noticeable. To avoid his Greatarrows you can either hide behind walls, leave him slowed down within the lake or roll into them.
Under the main area of the fight there is a watery area filled with statues. Beyond it forcing you to move more slowly and having an animated statue slug, it's tight and difficult to fight within. This area is exitable, simply move to the left (orientation: face forward from the boss entrance) and look for a ramp that will lead you upward.
Hexer Dark Fog Strategy
If fight is too difficult, equip two dark fog (one can be enough if your aim correctly) with dark sunset staff +5. Use the boss room to escape yours attacks while Dark Fog consume your HP. You can cast Dark Orb ocasionaly while run.
Video Strategy:
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Dark Souls 2 The Graverobber, Varg, and Cerah Hints
- Each one of them can be made to bleed or/and be poisoned.
- The water within the area under the main one slows the squadron as well, one can use this fact to make them split.
The Graverobber, Varg, and Cerah Trivia in Dark Souls 2
- "Varg" is the Swedish word for wolf.
- The squadron can be referred to as the "Gank Squad".
- This boss may be a hint to the player of how the PvP could look like without the latency issue.
- Their names do not seem to fit one another. Perhaps these people are just totally unrelated hollows who had bumped into themselves within the cave.
- Varg seems to be cosplaying as "Havel, the Rock", having his full set, his Greatshield and the iconic Dragon Tooth.
- Cerah has somehow acquired a Lucatiel's Mask, Black Leather Armor and leather gloves and leggings. He wields an Estoc and a Dragonslayer Greatbow.
- Graverobber wears Alva's armor and dual-wields Berserker Blades. He will powerstance with said blades.
AnonymousFor pure casters: cast affinity, run to archer, run away, cast affinity, run to archer, run away... repeat until victory
- Anonymous
"Perhaps these people are just totally unrelated hollows who had bumped into themselves within the cave."
I thought it was obvious they were a graverobber party...
Remember that many chests inside the temple were already open and empty before you enter
they had probably looted what they could and were resting in the cave.
The different names are probably a mean to give them more personality
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favorite part about this boss is the knowledge that whoever designed it will have their body gnawed to pieces by satan for all eternity eventually
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I seriously hope any creators of Dark Souls 2 don't still work for current Fromsoft.
- Anonymous
Backstabbing them does less damage than just hitting them. God damn what a tedious fight.
- Anonymous
Watch. Your. Back. I mostly died of "Havel to my back" stab ****.
You can do runback without clearing single mob.
I used (STR) Mace+10, with stamina ring and <40% load.
I did archer first, katana guy second, and havel guy third.
You cannot (at least I couldn't) dps this in few hits before others arrive. So it's a cat and mouse game.
After single guy is down this gets 80% easier. After second one is down, third one is roll, attack, roll, backstab, roll, win.
GL
- Anonymous
"The squadron can be referred to as the "Gank Squad"."
Who wrote this trivia? So cringe.
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I thought it was a fun change of pace. The arena and the run to the fight are the only parts that suck.
- Anonymous
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Garbage boss with an unnecessary gauntlet before it, pretty much forces you to use slow cheese stats to not get rushed down and ganked.
And your reward for doing all that is the umpteenth slab, some stones, and a skirt.
An ugly blot in an otherwise decent DLC.
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Upgraded heavy-ish armor makes all the difference if you're solo melee.
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The facts that you can still walk while using lifegems and that the animation duration when using them is so short made a HUGE difference when soloing these bastards. And even then I has to use a lot of lifegems.
- Anonymous
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would be a fun 3v3 if my only summons focused on learning how to deal more than 3 damage with a lightning buffed weapon and instead of casting some retarded lightbulb spell while he gets r2'd/bled for half his hp
- Anonymous
graverobber: do-do
varg: what what?
player: singing
cerah: playing on his nintendo ds
- Anonymous
I killed the archer first, then the remaining two's AI broke so Havel would just permanently block without ever attacking (he would sometimes switch stances though) while the Graverobber just stood in the water pool doing nothing. I used up all the durability on two of my weapons gradually hitting the Havel one while he blocked and periodically drank Estus to heal what gradual damage I was doing. I ended up just going into my menu to use repair powder while he was patiently standing there blocking. When he finally died after a few minutes of this, the Graverobber's AI reset to normal and continued as if nothing weird had happened. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- Anonymous
Fight would be more fun if my retarded AI team was as smart as the enemy AI team.
- Anonymous
Honestly I proly wouldn't hate this fight anywhere near as much as I do if the other two weren't there, and it was just Varg, and if he wasn't a boss
- Anonymous
After a couple days I finally beat them. Here are my tips (for thoses who are playing melee solo like me):
-Don't stop moving. If you stay still they will catch up to you. Ring of Restoration is usefull to heal while you are running around.
-Go after Cerah the Old Explorer first. He is the easiest and the only one with range attacks. He won't follow you. Then proceed to beat Afflicted Graverobber. He is the faster one. Leave Ancient Soldier Varg for last.
-This battle takes time, so be patient.
-Move in circles or in "8". Try to separate them and strike when there is a chance. Fall in the water if needed but don't go down the ramp because they will chase by there and block the way.
-All of them can be parried. Do only if you have enough space to get out after or if there is only one enemy left.
-Shields are not great here. The bosses will guard break you or deplete your stamina quickly.
-Be aware that they can backstab you. If you are suffering with that use armor piece that nullify it.
-A large weapon that swings horizontally is good because you can hit more than one enemy at the same time. But don't exchange hits with Ancient Soldier Varg.
-Poise matters in this battle. Make sure you have (and deal) enough.
Good luck.
- Anonymous
I think this is the only boss in the game (besides Giant Lord) where there are regular enemies (Petrify Statue Cluster).
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Varg/Havel has a supernatural tracking with his weapon. Even with jumping attacks! Rolling is almost useless.
- Anonymous
"...do not parry for it is probably impossible" Somebody edit this. It is totally possible to parry Havel. I would even say it is recommended.
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Havel himself would already be a hard fight, but 2 more aggressive dudes!
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> This boss may be a hint to the player of how the PvP could look like without the latency issue.
LMAO
- Anonymous
Having at least one summon will distract them to give you plenty of opportunities for backstabs.
- Anonymous
Chain-gank the havel wannabe with your highest damage weapon before Andrei dies (Alfis is only useful to buy time), then counter gank the ganker 2v1 (do it where the archer can't hit you easily), then slowly torture the last one because that's the true reward for this god forsaken area
- Anonymous
Weakness: standing behind a certain rock and killing them softly with ranged attacks
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Just flatten them with big bonk. Cast away your silly swords and magic, become bonke.
- Anonymous
If Varg is truly a Havel Knight, and not just some imposter/random who's using Havel gear, I'm sure Havel would be very disappointed in him, No true Havel Knight worth his salt would team up with a band of graverobbers and gank you like a cowardly slimeball
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This boss is pretty easy with ranged battle (sorcery/pyromancy/faith/hexes/arrows) Kite the two idiots chasing you, dodge the arrow shooter, lure in water and keep kiting. Kill the shieldless one first (graverobber) and make your choice on who to kill next Havel's fan or the archer guy (he is easier to kill, less hp no shield). Then the boss is now easy pickings.
- Anonymous
Just as bad as lud and zallen, A Havel wannabe with infinite poise, a douche who snipes you across the map and has a rapier that straight up ignores poise and is guaranteed to stagger you, even if you're wearing heavy high poise-having armour he staggers you as easily as if you were a butt naked caveman, And a dual-katana weeb who bleeds you in seconds
This fight is just so, ughhhh...
Doesn't help that it's in black gulch 2.0 with petrify statues instead of poison statues, and an assload of enemies.
- Anonymous
Terrible fight - forces you to use chicken strategies. Once one of them dies, it becomes a breeze though.
Run in a figure eight down to the waterpools and run up the ramps. Graverobber will attack first. Roll, attack run. Rinse and repeat.
When Greaverobber is dead, Varg can be beaten easily by backstabbing him to death (backstabbing also makes you almost invulnerable to the greatarrows). After that, Cerah is a breeze.
- Anonymous
Spent all my soul vessels respecing to fight these things and learned they take no damage at all.
80 INT Spell spammer build with fully upgraded Magic Staff of WIsdom + Great Heavy Soul Arrow = 96 damage to archer, or 33 to Havel wannabe
80 STR Heavy Greatsword slammer = 160 to archer, 76 to Havel wannabe
Any dex just dies to arrow stagger and Havel onehits...
- Anonymous
The only real way to beat this boss is to play like an absolute pussy, circling round the edges, running after getting hit and going in for a few hits before fleeing again. Having Hexes or Spells definitely helps, and the chip damage most hexes do can give you a fighting chance. Good Luck Skeleton
- Anonymous
this is in my opinion the easiest of all the dlc bosses, since it's the only one I didn't get stuck on (in NG+ since I just bought the DLC)
literally the hardest boss in the game just beat it with great club pancake strats
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Surprisingly it only took me 2 tries with no summons. I was just circling around the ledges, dropping to the water then going up again while they chased me. Whenever one of them was separated from the other two I would give him a couple hits then repeat the process.
I never do PvP so this was quite the experience.
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The two summoning signs are shortly after the bonfire, since nobody seems mentioning it.
- Anonymous
Probably the worst boss if we aren't considering runbacks, incredibly boring to fight and simulates elden ring pvp experience. Only good thing are rewards in form of upgrade mats but even that is hardly worth the trouble considering they can be farmed easily. If you are having trouble do the following:
- kill the archer first
- use magic, bows and other ranged stuff whenever you can
- go to Gavlan and buy 30+ poison knives
- bait them to lower floor often as that can give you 5 seconds of breathing room because they are slowed by water as well
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broke all the statues on the way to gank just to find out that they respawn. ****
- Anonymous
as others have mentioned, definitely bring the summons along, and a way to heal them. go 3 v 2 with Graverobber and Vargh and try and get some backstabs on them, kill em fast. Then gangbang Cerah.
- Anonymous
Well, with the two summons I actually enjoyed the ensuing 3v3. Felt like a fair fight. Would never try to solo, though.
Havel is easy to backstab. Bow dude is easy to parry or stunlock.
- Anonymous
This fight, and in particular the area before it, is the reason I didn't finish all 3 games before getting to Elden Ring like I wanted to. **** the completionism, this dogsh!t fight is not worth another second of my time.
- Anonymous
I love when they put impossible bosses in ds2, there was no chance that miyazaki was at the studio when they made this
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Shouldn't be hard if you summon the 2 npcs. Also, you can endlessly farm 3 ascetic 3 twinkling 3 petrified and a slab. So, 3 vs with all of this is more than fair and I farmed there multiple times.
- Anonymous
A bow spammer whose thrusting sword breaks poise...
A weaboo who can inflict bleed in two hits and ignores summons...
A Havel boyscout who miraculously gets 1-hit backstabs when he's in front of you...
Yep, sounds like a measly 45000 souls worth of work to me!
soldier varg was probably in havel army for his armor and title, and in the gutter there is a body with havel equipment so i assume two havel soldiers went exploring the gutter or shulva
- Anonymous
Just bring in the summons, and fight the melee guys 3v2, easy. They seem to naturally be drawn to the phantoms anyway so you can just go for backstabs. The archer barely hits anything so don't worry about him until the other 2 are dead.
- Anonymous
Here's the strategy that worked for me:
-= Things you will need =-
>No Phantoms! These only will makes things more difficult since the Gankers could (and will) focus on you out of nowhere in the middle of the battle
>Big Ass Weapon! I'm talking about Zweihander/Greatsword type, preference on +10 with some imbuing (Fire, Dark or Lightning)
>Light rolling
In the beggining of the boss battle, wait for Fake Havel and Fake Alva to advance, go to the pit on the right as soon as they're close, run upwards as soon as you hear the two gankers falling on the water.
Then run to the archer ****er and swing your sword at him. Sometimes you will hit once or twice, sometimes you will miss, the thing is DON'T GET GREDDY. Despite being on heavy armor Havel Fake run fast as hell and he ONE SHOTS YOU with some moves.
After hitting the archer (or not) run to the left, (right beside where he will be on the start) and fall in the pit again, be aware that there are LOTS of **** spitting statues there and the way to climb up is pretty narrow and easy to miss, roll until the middle of the way and locate the climb (drink some Estus if you need) once you're up again, go to the fog gate and wait for the two melees two aprouch and repeat this until you kill the archer shiter Lucatiel fake ass *****.
Once you done with him, things will get more complicated, you will repeat the same process until Alva Fake reaches you before Havel Fake. Trade one or two hits with Alva and run as soon as Havel aproaches, DON'T GET GREEDY ON THIS, it will take some time and patience.
Once you finished Alva Fake is time to get on x1 with Fake Havel, go to the middle of the arena and prepare! His hits are ****ing lethal and if you get caught on his R1 combo it's ****ing over. If you get hit, roll out immediately, and do the race throught the pits of water as before to get time to heal and once done, go back to the same place.
Despite his hits being ****ing lethal, it leaves a great room for atacks and backstabs if you roll correctly!
And that's it! This was the one that worked for me, at least...
- Anonymous
Damn, ds2's director could see the future. This bossfight is basically every ds3 invasion you ever attempted.
- Anonymous
Graverobber: Stole Alva's drip and went into hiding because of how recognizable the armor is
Vaarg: Misheard Seath to Sinh but it's still a dragon so Havel approves
Cerah: Silver Knight trainee that didn't get accepted because she failed the height requirement
- Anonymous
we were fighting but then varg escaped from the arena? he literally got out from the fog gate and then his HP bar went 0 did this happened to you?
- Anonymous
The summons actually help here immensely, as long as you fight with them (as in, gank them as much as they gank you). Take out the Graverobber guy who two-shots everyone first, then the bow guy and Havel cosplayer are a lot easier.
- Anonymous
Ok. I was ready to say I never died to this boss due to the water and me circling around these guys to take out the Lucateil fake. But alas on my fourth playthrough Havel backstabbed me. At least I can say I never died to the area but my strategy is to play duck duck goose with them and take out the archer first, then the knight, and finally the havel wannabe.
- Anonymous
Save yourself the headache and summon the two npc's at the beginning. Yeah the bosses will have higher hp but they'll also be distracted by your "renta-friends" which gives you some breathing room. Watch out for Havel, hes like a dog with a bone... and you are the bone. He was the one chasing me while 2h'ing Dragon's Tooth (phrasing) AND somehow outrunning the one in Alva armor! Still, beaten is beaten, next!
- Anonymous
just disgusting. I dont know why fromsoft enjoys putting unfair bosses behind unfair paths
- Anonymous
Is this boss objectively harder than many others? Probably not. Is it the most tedious? Oh, yes. Yes it is.
- Anonymous
Man, this almost made me quit the game. I'm enjoying DS2 but this was just too mutch bullshittery in one arena for a dex user. My build is for 1v1s not for a Havel wannabe and a ****ing akimbo-samurai to show up. And I didn't even mention the guy with the Dragonslayer bow. This fight is... overwhelming. My tip is to use a polearm (I personally used a maxed-out Partizan for this fight, great weapon) and because the 2 melee guys are following you, just go backwards and stab towards them with the spear. This will eventually hurt both the Graverobber and Varg. But first take out the archer. He is target #1.
- Anonymous
Ancient Soldier Varg was one of the most famous bards in Lordran, until one day he stabbed the Lute player of his band to death and was thrown in the King's dungeons. After his release, he settled in Drangleic, taking up a life of making increasingly erratic poltiical statements is almost entirely Hollow by the time of Dark Souls 2.
- Anonymous
So this is where they got ideas for the dungeons and field bosses of elden ring
- Anonymous
First beat this about 2 years ago in my first "do everything" save, on NG. Two-handed the Dragon Tooth, wore no armor but the Jester Robes for the weight under 30% for light-roll, and just R2 pancaked everybody, Alva-cosplayer first. VERY satisfying to pancake Havel-cosplayer after all the times he did it to me! The archer, though, wouldn't stay still for me to hit, so I think I hard-swapped to a staff and cast a few Dark Orbs at her at the very end.
I must have died at least 50 times before developing this strat on my own, didn't use a guide. I reeeeeally should have used a guide. I had no idea about the poisoning strat, I am definitely going to try that next time. The NPC Summons were useless to me, they were dead before 10 seconds had passed.
- Anonymous
Yes, running around this left circkle and poking them sometimes with my poison Grand lance. The last the Havel guy was constantly healing but was poisoned eventually =D
- Anonymous
Stay with the group and fight the two melee, drag the group behind some rocks. The archer will continue to fire and hit terrain. Was super easy after I did that, also through in some poison while they were occupied.
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""Afficted Graverober" moves with the highest speed of all three and usually attacks first before Varg and Cerah."
absolute rubbish
- Anonymous
I have to say, a savior for traversing the path to the boss-fight are firebombs to take out the poison spitting statues (pack a bag of poison cures) and the Ring of Restoration helps for conserving resources. In the case of magic users or low vitality builds, this area is more than crippling for low health or low poison resistance, Iron Passage or Snow Fields may be the area you want to cover before the Cave of the Dead, as despawning enemies there is an option, not so much in CotD. Now as what I have to say for the boss-fight, take out Varg first as he is a heavy hitter, best way is to backstab as he has high poise, staggering with weapons Satiner's Spear is not an option. You get the back stab after he swings, you wait for the longest recovery attack, also buff the backstab just to squeeze out more damage when you prompt for it. Next is the Graverobber, either backstab him or stagger him hard, Satiner's Spear heavy 2-handed combo attack is excellent for doing so, you just need to make sure he doesn't attack you as he can combo you back. In the case of Cerah, the annoying archer during this fight, at times it's best just to magic blast him, but in the case of close-range, reach is your friend, so you a spear or ultra-greatsword and keep some small degree of distance, yet not enough to trigger the greatbow. On that note, spells like Homing Crystal Soul mass helps for getting damage in, when fighting off the Graverobber and Varg, seek to get out of sight of Cerah to engage. Summons here can help a lot on keeping off agro from you especially if you are fragile, but don't expect them to be able to do all the work, to an extent they are better as shields rather than damage.
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Why the hell did Ancient Soldier Varg told me to stop watching **** as he gave me the final blow ?
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This fight didn't bothered me at all, the ****ing path is what is frustrating to me, all those status and the lizards with a small hit box is bs
That's why I dont like team sports.
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