A difficult and infuriating boss, I hope this guide makes your life a little easier.
Intro
The Putrid Tree Spirit boss took me so many tries that I decided to write a guide. He will seem unpredictable and borderline unfair, but his moves are pretty easy to read. Nonetheless, it's a terrible boss due to his scarlet rot attacks. There is a weaker Tree Spirit at the bottom of Stormveil Castle with a similar move set, there may be more.
I'm assuming a melee build for your character here.
Good luck and try rolling.
Location
War-dead catacombs, in the north east corner of the area where you defeat Starscourge Radahn, in Caelid.
Run all the way through the catacombs, dodge all the battling spirits, jump out at the last window before the dead end to find the switch that opens the boss door.
Main strategy
Stay near his chest.
Between the front paws you will see the Tree Spirit's fat, bright red belly. That's where you will want to be standing next to.
This will 100% make your life easier. His attacks will miss you more often. I prefer staying a little bit to his left side (right from your perspective) as this makes it easier to read his next move. The spirit will move around frantically, but just keep running towards him and roll while keeping your shield up all the time.
Read the attack and hit him 2-3 times afterwards.
It will take a lot of tries to learn his attack pattern. It's safest if you hit him a few times after his attack animation instead of going all in. If you get too greedy, you'll get stomped.
Staggering is possible.
If you land enough hits in a row, you will stagger the tree spirit. Going for a critical hit in his eye did not deal a lot of damage, so I prefer a good combo attack.
Attacks
Take your time to learn his attacks and get a few hits in after his attack animation ends.
Bite - you NEED to dodge this as it will one-hit you, no matter what. You will see him grasping for air and then lift his head up and open his mouth. Once he initiates this animation, just start running towards him. When he starts the bite towards you, you should roll left/right. If you are close enough already, he will miss, allowing some free hits. Once his head hits the ground, you may be pushed around a bit but this will not hurt you, so try to get some hits in while he is swirling around.
Swipe - swipe from his left paw is easy to predict, he usually does it when you are near the left paw. I find the right paw attack harder to read. Roll towards the center, opening him up for a few hits.
Stomp - he will raise his paw, as a cue that he will stomp twice, just roll away.
Body slam - he will raise his body up high before slamming into the ground, you can roll into him.
Tail swipe - he will turn away from you and do a 360 degree swipe. I prefer to block with a shield (although you get staggered). Rolling is dangerous as you might get hit at the end of the roll.
Rot breath - you can see him charge the breath attack, which should be easy to dodge. Run into him for a lot of free hits.
Rot explosion - you will hear an audio cue and then he will charge his whole body for about 2 seconds and explode with an area damage attack. You need to run away as soon as he starts charging to dodge the flames, which can be hard if you are in a corner. He will first initiate this attack at around 50-60% health.
Second phase
After his first rot explosion, the Spirits body will glow with rot and his attacks will deal some Scarlet Rot damage. It did not bother me all too much, so you might want to get your immunity up if you're struggling with this.
He uses the exact same moves, but his body will glow, which can be a bit confusing. In the end, I find the attacks during this phase easier to read.
Gear
Things that seemed helpful to me:
Frost seems to work well, dealing a substantial amount of damage when it triggers.
I used a scimitar, because the attacks are fast enough to build up frost. I did not experiment too much with damage types.
A shield with 100 physical resistance, which allows you to block if you fail to roll. I also prefer to always block the tail swipe. Although it staggers you, there is enough time for stamina to regenerate.
Vow of the Indomitable as a shield skill (which will make you invincible for about 1 second) can be used to avoid the Scarlet Rot explosion. I can reliably get the timing right (I count 1...2... seconds in my head as he's charging, then trigger it), which feels more reliable than running away from the flames.
Opaline bubbletear (wondrous physick) - This will absorb one of his attacks, basically allowing you to make 1 mistake during the fight.
Charms that provide stamina and stamina regeneration.
Winged Sword Insigna charm, bonus damage on successive attacks.
You can summon ash spirits, but it makes the attacks of the tree spirits harder to read and they die easily to his attacks so I didn't use them.
Reward
Redmane Knight Ogha ash (106 FP)
1 Golden Seed
64000 runes
by Deadlock
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