Old King Doran
Old King Doran

Old King Doran, also known as "The Last Hero"1, is a demigod of the ancient past and the founder of Boletaria, locked away by the False King inside a great shrine which houses one of the Kingdom's most holy treasures - the Demonbrandt.

Location

Tendency Events

  • None

Special

  • The doors of the mausoleum can only be opened by the Mausoleum Key that Ostrava gives to the player in World 1-4 or drops if he's killed anywhere.
  • Upon first meeting Doran, he'll demand the player to prove their strength to him and engage in a fight with them: after losing around 25% of his HP, he'll declare the player worthy of the Demonbrandt and return passive.
  • If the player continues to attack Doran and lowers his HP to near 50%, he will become hostile: unlike during the previous fight, this time he'll be more aggressive and relentless.
  • If made hostile, Doran may heal himself with a New Moon Grass once.
  • Killing Old King Doran will shift World Tendency (-2) towards Black.
  • Doran is the only character in the entire game whose stats aren't adjusted by New Game Plus.

Stats

HP Souls Drop
2575 27200 Ancient King's Mask
Ancient King's Breastplate
Ancient King's Gauntlets
Ancient King's Leggings
Eternal Warrior's Ring
Vitality Intelligence Endurance Strength Dexterity Magic Faith Luck
75 48 57 56 42 48 29 31

Equipment

Right Hand Ring
Northern Regalia Eternal Warrior's Ring
Helmet Armor Gauntlets Leggings
Ancient King's Mask Ancient King's Breastplate Ancient King's Gauntlets Ancient King's Leggings

Strategies

Backstab Strategy

Video Tutorial: Backstab strategy

This is the strategy you use if you are unable to use the other strategies.

  1. Make sure you have the Thief's Ring equipped.
  2. Remove all your armor to ensure maximum mobility, since being hit by King Doran will result in death anyway.
  3. 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 Bladeequip 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.
    kingdoran_howto.jpg
  4. When the fight starts run back to the bridge and make sure he is following you.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. If he is walking away then walk right behind him and stab him in the back, then move or roll away.
  8. 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.
  9. 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, Bramd or Dragon Bone Smasher. 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, Curse 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 R1 quick 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 Shrine 4-3 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

Video Tutorial: Fatal fall Strategy

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 Ostrava then 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.

Notes

  • If Old King Doran falls down to his death, reloading the game will make his drop reappear in his original location.

Dialogue

All dialogue text is © Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.


Voiced by: Christopher Fairbank (as Chris Fairbank)

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License

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