Old King Doran | Demons Souls Wiki

Backstab Strategy

• This is the strategy you use if you are unable to use the other strategies.
• Make sure you have the Thief's Ring equipped.
  Remove all your armor to ensure maximum mobility, since being hit by King Doran will result in death anyway.
  Equip your best back stab weapon, preferably a Dagger (Fatal weapons would also do). Fifth have a bow or a long range spell ready. If you have the Clever Rat's Ring or Morion Blade equip it and lower your health to below 30% so you can cause more damage per back stab (About 2x). Now here are the basic and safest steps to what you should do to defeat him. Here's a map to also help you visualize the strategy.
• When the fight starts run back to the bridge and make sure he is following you.
  When he is around half way through the bridge, walk out of his line of sight by moving into the room right before the bridge.
  Then take a look at the bridge and see if he is walking away. If not then walk further away from him until you can definitely not see each other.
  If he is walking away then walk right behind him and stab him in the back, then move or roll away.
  Now this is the riskiest part of all. Pay attention to what he does when he gets up.If he moves towards you then go back to step 1 and repeat everything over.
  If he rolls away, walks away, or just just stands up and does nothing, then shoot him with a long range spell or bow quickly because he is most likely going to attempt to heal himself.
  Whether you succeed in stopping him or not, go back to step 1 and repeat everything over again. When his health is below 50% he will become a lot more aggressive, so be careful. Also be sure to only try to back stab him when you know there is no chance of him turning a little bit to the side. If he notices you, he will instantly attack you.
• Note: You can also keep Doran outside the room

Basic Melee Strategy

• For his first 25-50% health, he will wield his sword in one hand, and will slash his weapon from side to side one time, then usually roll backwards. On occasion, he will roll forward before his attack, this is when he is most dangerous. For most players, his basic attack will kill in one hit, regardless of armor, and a shield is only effective if it is the Dark Silver Shield. For the first half of his HP you can just walk in a small circle, just touching the edge of his attack range. Counterattack when he swings , but never use the last of your stamina since you will want to roll away right after your attack. Once you take him down 25%, you can take the Demonbrandt. You can get another 25% of his health before he becomes hostile again, but only the first time you meet him. If you lose the battle and have to come back he will remain hostile.

Knock-back effect strategy

• This works well with the Meat Cleaver or Bramd. Make sure you have enough stamina to swing the weapon three times in a row to use the knock-back effect. Doran will be thrown by the third swing and this will give you time for your stamina to replenish and/or heal. The long blade should enable you to hit Doran while staying out of his range.
• Once he is at 50% health he switches to a two-hand grip and will attack overhand, side-to-side, running, rolling, and heal himself. This part of the battle can be very difficult, so come prepared. Cast Second Chance. Each time he kills you run away and re-cast it. He will never use his heal when disengaged, so provided he gives chase initially, he will not heal. You should time this as he is running at you to preempt his swing. A slight miscalculation however will allow him to roll under the swing and hit you.

Hide behind the statue

• Kill the Red Eye Knight if you must. Then get Doran to come out of the building, run past him and hide behind the statue between both pillars. He will almost never go back there. He will attempt to close in on you, but don't move. He will return to guarding the sword, sometimes in different places but his back will always be exposed. But if he does manage to find you behind the statue, he will find you every time after that.
• Morion Blade, Clever Rat's Ring, Cursed Weapon, Second Chance
  Equip the Morion Blade, Clever Rat's Ring, Cursed Weapon, and Second Chance. Open the Mausoleum door, but do not step in yet!! Lower your HP to 30%, using the Blue Eye Knight near the second fog gate. Put your Morion Blade in your shield slot and your cursed weapon ( Blueblood Sword, Dragon Bone Smasher) in your right hand slot. Cast Second Chance and Cursed Weapon and go to work. With your damage boosts, it's possible to destroy him in under a minute.

Blessed Mirdan Hammer Strategy

• The Blessed Mirdan Hammer is an effective weapon to use against him. By wielding the weapon with two hands, your attacks will be fairly quick. If your Faith or relevant magic increase stat is > 30, you will be able to stagger him with R1quick attack chains. When you are low on Stamina, simply back away. You should never be at a range where you are unable to evade his retaliation after staggering. The exact method employed is to equip the Mirdan Hammer with an offhand item that will grant you a beneficial effect, such as an Adjudicator's Shield or Morion Blade. When you are ready to kill Doran, walk backwards towards where the Red Eye Knight] spawns. You'll notice once you exit the little tower room, he will halt his attack and begin to back away after he makes a swing. When he does this, you can simply walk forward to him, attack until your Stamina is almost gone, then back away quickly. It is recommended that you do this in armor that does not impede stamina regeneration. In fact you may want to remove all armor as one hit from Doran will kill almost any player.

Fatal Fall Strategy - Stormruler

• You need Stormruler for this strategy which you obtain in Old Hero Archstone Walkthrough. You need to kill the entire path of enemies from the red eye knight in front of the mausoleum all the way to the shortcut stairs past the catapults and the blue eye knight. Once that is done, go to the mausoleum and hit king Doran and lure him to the middle of the catapult area as outlined in the previous strategy. Then run around him so that you are between him and the doorway that leads to the mausoleum. Perform a normal (R1) attack with Stormruler. When your attack hits him, he will fly backwards towards the shortcut tower. Keep hitting him until you get to the stairs in the shortcut tower that lead down. At that point just knock him off the top of the stairs and let him fall to his death. You can then go to the bottom and collect the items he drops when he dies. Just be careful of his attacks, which should stop after you are past the first catapult.

Fatal Fall Strategy - Mail Breaker

• This strategy can be done before beating Phalanx with any build, all you need is the Mail Breaker which you can get from the corpse on the far end of the room to the right as soon as you enter the first fog. If you do not want to kill Ostravathen it would be best to backstab him off the edge and once again, he should not attack you and will go on to get killed by the Blue Eye Knight. Defeating the Red Eye Knight is challenging. Equip the Thief's Ring, lure him towards you then run towards the catapult, he should begin to head back.
  Backstab. Rinse and Repeat.
• Have the Mail Breaker equipped in one hand and be light enough to roll properly. Open the Mausoleum and attack Old King Doran then step back. Lure him out. Throwing Firebombs makes this quicker. Once he is past the catapults, get in front of him and R1 attack him to the stairs where the guard dropped the big iron ball. Try to stop him from moving forward by blocking his path. Once you have pushed him down those stairs you must push him down the hallway and down the top of the next stairs to his death.

Blue Phantom Strategy

• Possibly one of the weirdest strategies, but if you have two blue phantoms helping, it works. First, engage King Doran, the blue phantoms cannot fight him. Doran appears as a white phantom, so you actually have to fight him by your self. But, your Blue Phantom's actually interfere with him, so in reality, you can block Doran with your blue phantoms. Maneuver him into a corner, and with your blue phantoms in place, Doran is effectively locked into a corner and cannot move. If you have a spear then you can attack from a distance with no fear of stray hits. Once he dies, even the phantoms get souls for his death.

Ranged Strategy

• These conditions are very difficult to achieve. Make sure you have a decent Bow and about 200 arrows.
  Pull King Doran all the way back into the room you pass through before meeting the Red Eye Knight. In this room, it is possible to manoevre Doran so that he becomes stuck between the table and the wall immediately to the left inside the entrance nearest to the Mausoleum.
  Using a Quality Compound Longbow +4, it's possible to kill him with less than 100 arrows.

Poison/Death Cloud

• Use Thief's Ring to get close enough to cast Poison Cloud or Death cloud and simply wait for him to die. Must be cast three times on first playthrough.
• Also works with Cloak spell, if you Cloak and walk far enough into the room with Doran at full health you can cast one single Death Cloud and just be patient. Takes a little over 5 minutes and waiting outside the room observing him with your camera. If you remain in the Red Eyed Knight area he will not aggro and will simply stand still and die.

Homing Soul Arrow

• Stay inside of spell range, but outside of Doran's attack range and keep casting Homing Soul Arrow while away from Doran. If he gets too close unlock and run away a bit, then lock on again and start casting Homing Soul Arrow again. If you have a Ring Of Magical Sharpness you should use that to boost the damage output of your spell.

Level 1 Royalty Strategy

• Start as Royalty Class, and kill Ostrava, of Boletaria (Prince Ariona Allant) when you see him and loot the key. Use Soul Arrow on the Red Eye Knight and go through the door. Soul Arrow Doran until he chases you. Lure him back to the catapults, and for some reason, he'll begin walking back to his room. Soul Arrow him while he is doing this and he will not try to dodge. Eventually, he'll come after you again. Repeat this until he gives you the Demonbrandt sword, or continue until he's dead. The Fragrant Ring's MP regeneration will help you.

God's Wrath Strategy

• Equip Thief's Ring, Silver Coronet if possible, and have a lot of Fresh/Old Spices. Make sure you have the God's Wrath spell. When the fight begins, cast God's Wrath. As Old King Doran gets back up, if you have enough magic remaining, castGod's Wrath another time. Otherwise, allow King Doran to chase you. Let him chase you around the table at the end of the room. Eventually he'll go back to his "starting"position in the middle of the room. When this happens, you'll have enough time to take some Spices to regain magic and to start casting again. The idea is to cast God's Wrath as much as possible, then allow King Doran to chase you around the table then replenish magic, then casting again. Be careful: After you cast God's Wrath at him, if you do not approach him to allow him start chasing you, he'll probably try to heal himself. So after every cast, it's best to get close to him then run back around the table. 

Blind Spot Glitch

• This is the easiest way to kill him at all. Run from him, but keeping a distance that makes him chase you.There will be a point(generally at the catapult area) where he will stop chasing you and walk slowly back to the mausoleum.At this time, put your weapon in both hands and hit him or use a damage spell as most as you can until he gets in the house after the catapults, because there he will chase you again. Run from him until he stops and repeat the process until he is beaten.

Catapult Glitch

• While he is charging you, as long as you keep a close, but not too close, distance, he will follow regardless where you lead him. You can lead him to the middle of the catapult area, and once he stops chasing you, get ahead of him so you are between him and the doorway. At this point he will not attack you, so power push3 him past the first catapult. Once he is positioned at a safe distance from the catapult, you may attack him at will. As long as you remember to keep him properly positioned you should have no trouble.

Door Glitch

• Take the strongest weapon you have, preferably a large two handed weapon like the Meat Cleaver. What you have to do is to get Doran behind one of the doors of the Mausoleum. He has to be inside it while you're outside. You have to have a good idea of where he is, which isn't hard, or still be locked on while he's behind the door. When he's walking into the door, just smash the door with an R2 attack. The weapon will either clip through the door or clip far enough to hit Doran. He should never try to walk around the door. Make sure you are using a two handed weapon as Doran can also attack you through the door, a two handed weapon will give you the advantage of distance.

Greeting Glitch

• You can run to the back of Doran while he is talking (i.e. his greeting) and stab him in the back. This may cause him to just stand in place, without attacking, and repeat his greeting. Keep stabbing him in the back while he is giving his greeting. Keep doing this until he either dies or he stops talking and prepares to fight you.

Blue Phantom Strategy

• Summon two blue phantoms and have them interfere with the Old King. They will only see him as a phantom and they will not be able to attack him; however, they can still get in front of him and stop him from walking towards you. The best strategy is to have the two blue phantoms to back him up in a corner and stop his movement completely. You can then kill him with either a large weapon, a bow, or magic.

Rolling out of sight glitch

• Attack him untill he becomes hostile, then run away until he loses interest and walks back.
  Then wait till he's all the way back to where he started and stand outside of the door (where the Red Eye Knight was).
  Take out your bow (make sure you have plenty of arrows, at least 100-150).
  Use the bow zoom option to aim. Don't stop shooting, he will eventually roll away to the side to dodge your arrows (usually after 1 or 2 shots he will start doing that). Keep shooting at him until he rolls to the side of the room where you can't see him. Now just wait a few moments, you can hear him running to you, but he can't see you and he will give up after a few seconds. Now he will walk back to his starting position and you can shoot him again just like before.
  Just keep doing that and you will eventually easily kill him, without taking any damage. When you can't get him to roll out of sight on time, just run away from him and he will go back to his starting position and you can try again.
  Poison Cloud from Outside
  After Doran becomes idle from having earned Demonbrandt, position yourself behind him. Using a weapon with significant critical damage and preferably one with the upgrade, strike Doran in the back to send him toppling into the center of the room. He should not be aggressive after this one little knock, so don't hit him again and instead run to right outside the doorway into the area the Red-Eye knight was. From here, cast poison cloud into the mausoleum and allow it to expand into Doran. He will become poisoned from the attack, but as long as you are not inside the mausoleum he should not chase after you and instead stand in the middle of the room taking damage. After the second cast he may threaten you, but shouldn't chase after you. Repeat the spell until he falls over, having never had a chance to fight back.

When entering:

• Thou who seeketh the King's sword!
  I am the Old King.
  Show me thine strength and the strength of thine souls.
  Prepare thyself, brave knight.

When given the sword:

• Thou dost well to impress one such as me, young knight.
  I am Old King Doran, and thou hast proven thine strength to me.
  Go forth, and take the King's sword in thine hand.

If challenged after giving the sword:

• I am the Old King. Dares't thou to challenge me? Very well.
  But may thou be determin'd from the depths of thine heart, else thou shalt fail.
  May fate be with thee.