How to Beat the Black Knife Assassin (Sage's Cave) - Elden Ring Boss Guide

Rewards: Concealing Veil,9000
Summons Available: Yes

Found at the end of the Sage’s Cave on the Altus Plateau, this boss can be incredibly frustrating due to its invisibility. However, there are a couple of ways to reveal it that we’ll go over in this guide; we’ll also give you some general tips and tricks for dealing with this foe.

General Tips

The Sentry’s Torch will reveal the boss — summons are also able to see the boss, allowing you to track its position.
Wait for the boss to attack, or for your summons to stagger it. Otherwise, the boss will simply dodge away from your attacks.
Summons that are good at staggering bosses, like the Lone Wolf and Demi-Human ashes, are best for this fight.

Strategy

The strategy you use will depend on whether or not you acquired the Sentry’s Torch, which allows you to reveal this boss. If you have, then you can let your summons tank, and get in hits while the boss targets your summons — if the boss targets you, roll away from its attacks backwards to make distance and wait for your summons to take aggro. For more details on fighting this boss while visible, see here.

If you’re fighting the boss while it’s invisible, you should always be rolling if you don’t know where it is. This is because the boss has a devastating sneak attack it does that will take a ton of your HP off when it lands. However, if you’re rolling, it’s less likely that you’ll be grabbed. You’ll run out of stamina eventually, so try to keep looking for the boss and stop rolling to recover stamina when you know where it is (assuming it isn’t close).

You can sometimes see the boss’s movement thanks to the shallow water throughout the boss arena. This can be useful for getting the first hit off on the boss, but you’ll sometimes eat the aforementioned backstab attack while trying this.

black knife assassin footprints in water elden ring

However, you’ll mostly have to rely on your summons to reveal the boss. You’ll also have to attack it without being locked on — you can sometimes lock on briefly, but almost never for long enough to cast spells or even swing a weapon at it. Keep in mind that your weapon/spell will aim wherever your feet are pointing, so use the left stick or WASD to aim your attacks. Use sweeping (horizontal) attacks if you’re a melee character, while magic-users should pick something with a wide AOE, such as the Carian Greatsword for sorcerers or Surge, O Flame for incantation builds.