How to Beat the Ruiner Boss in Lords of the Fallen (LotF)

You’ve plunged head first into Fitzroy’s Gorge, excited at the prospect of finding another beacon to cleanse in Lords of the Fallen but, as you’ve no doubt come to expect, it’s not gonna be an easy trip. Aside from all the raving marauders and serpentine marksmen, you’ll eventually need to cross a bridge protected by a towering opponent equipped with both an exploding sword and shield capable of launching fireballs. If this brute has got you down, then look no further as I explain how to beat the Ruiner boss in Lords of the Fallen.

How to Find Ruiner in Lords of the Fallen

It’s difficult to miss this particular encounter, honestly. Given that he can be found at roughly the halfway point of Fitzroy’s Gorge and he protects the only path through to the second section of the area, it’s almost impossible that you’ll somehow snake around and completely avoid this fight. Having said that, we should still do our best to optimize the route as best we can so as to ensure a hasty return if he manages to pull off a cheek victory. So, let’s begin at the tunnel location of Fitzroy’s Gorge. You’ll know you’re here when the cliffside you initially run along blends into a cave entrance that’s protected by enemies wielding axes and crossbows loaded with explosive bolts. Progress through this system of caverns until you come across a collapsed bridge.

Take out your Umbral Lamp and hold it up to reveal a fleshy replacement that exists in the land of Umbra. With your lamp out, walk along the bridge until you reach the other side. You may encounter some ghostly remnants in the process and if that’s the case then it may just easy to shift entirely in the land of the dead. There’ll be a transition point around the corner if you go this route.

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On the other side of the bridge, you’ll make your way down the slope upon which you arrived but rather than go straight, look for a massive hole in the wall on the right side. You should spy what looks to be a ramp made of meat that you can actually walk up and over. You’ll discover a side tunnel with a series of platforms and ladders that provide a shortcut for the rest of the cave system. I can see many players missing this nook so I highly recommend ducking in here and using the patch of Umbra to plant a Vestige Seed, otherwise the run back to Ruiner is an absolute killer in terms of wasted time and amount of enemies that stand in your way.

Side note: There’s also a very friendly NPC here who claims to be Melchior’s brother and insists that he also possesses an Umbral Lamp. He doesn’t really offer much in terms of mechanic advantages but it’s always nice to see a friendly face in the realm of Axiom, even if his Lamp doesn’t really look like it’s working…

From the Vestige Seedling, continue down the tunnel until it spits you out into the main cavern. You can drop attack a sleeping enemy under the ledge you need to fall from, after which two more foes will charge at you. You can simply avoid them by running to the right, they’re slow enough that by the time you get down the bridge guarded by Ruiner, they’ll be left in the dust. Speaking of which, now that we’re at the boss fight location, let’s get ready to knock this flaming monstrosity on his ass.

How to Prepare for Fighting the Ruiner Boss

As usual, let’s make sure you’re equipped to deal with some of Ruiner’s more elemental attacks. The guy oozes Rhogar magic, meaning there’ll be fire spilling out of every attack. So before we cross the moth gate, let’s first ensure Burn Resistance Balm is equipped to one of the quick-select slots. Don’t bother applying it before the fight, we’ll be using it to negate build-up rather than resist the actual effect. However, it can’t hurt if you’ve got a bunch of balms lying around that aren’t going anywhere. You’ll also want to apply some kind of buff to your weapon but, obviously, avoid the Fire Salts. Holy, Bleed, Smite, and Poison Salts are all decent alternatives that won’t provide a massive damage boost but they add up after a while.

How to Beat the Ruiner Boss in LotF

Once you first set foot on the aforementioned bridge, all will appear safe and normal… until you see the red healthy bar fade in at the bottom of the screen. This is followed by a massive Hellboy-esque warrior charging across the structure before he seemingly falters by running into a wooden blockade. His fiery sprint comes to an end he slowly walks towards you. I wanted to see if he always came to a halt at that specific point so I reset the fight a few times and whatever was inside that broken wagon is guaranteed to cease his charge every time. With this in mind, feel free to open with a few arrows or bolts since he’ll run directly into them and you know when he’s going to stop. The ice arrows are a good choice for Ruiner, for obvious reasons.

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Now for the bread and butter of the encounter. Ruiner’s move set is all about area denial as he’s always on the offensive and uses his Rhogar magic to cut off potential escape routes. More on that in a minute but you should know that his opening attack is almost always a standard swing of his axe followed by a shield slam. Due to the size of the weapons, the timing of an attack can be difficult to read in terms of when he actually makes contact. In fact, I don’t think it’s possible to parry the shield attack. I highly recommend dodging around him because Ruiner is a tank; the guy hits hard but he’s very slow. A single dodge to the left or right makes it easy to circle around him and land a fully charged heavy attack.

Of course, those are just his standard opening combo, Ruiner has a lot of other tricks up his sleeve. His other frequently used move is smashing his axe into the ground after slowly raising it upwards. When it makes contact with the bridge, it ignites a line of explosions that deal a DEVASTATING amount of damage. Seriously, this attack one-shot me on more than one occasion. Granted, my armor wasn’t necessarily specced to resist fire damage but still, you can’t block this attack so get used to mashing the dodge button.

Since Ruiner is all about sticking close, be ready for him to close whatever gaps you try to make. Healing is difficult in this fight due to how little time you have between attacks. Like a raging bull, Ruiner will stop his foot twice before launching into a sprint and ramming you with his chest. It’s not going to deal a lot of damage but it’s easy to lose focus on your positioning and accidentally get pinned between the boss and the side of the bridge, making it difficult to read his follow-up hit.

The two other major abilities you’ll need to pay careful attention to are his “land mines” and the “shield laser” as I described them in my notes for this guide. The latter will see Ruiner stomp his foot and summon an aura of fire around himself, which indicates to you that he’s effectively spawned a series of “mines” around the arena. If you step on one, it’ll obviously explode and while you can dodge over them, you’ll need to be blocking from a very specific angle if you want to mitigate the damage. There’s no way to avoid this, so just do your best to duck and weave. They do disappear after a few seconds and he usually only spawns around five at a time. It is possible for Ruiner to create a bunch of them right on top of himself, making it impossible for you to squeeze a hit in.

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Now, the shield laser will look incredibly impressive when you see it the first time. It’s easy to determine when the boss is about to launch it: He’ll drag his sword across his shield, sparking a bunch of flames in the process. When you see this, dodge to the left or right since getting hit with the resulting beam is a death sentence. The other notable thing about this move is that you can abuse the elevation of the bridge to some extent. The laser fires in a dead straight line, sticking exactly to the x-axis Ruiner is currently facing. So if you can position the boss in such a way as to be above you on the bridge’s arch, the laser will sail directly over your head and save you some stamina. It’s actually amazing how many times this happened to me and it made the fight much simpler.

The last thing to bear in mind is that at various points in the fight, Ruiner will summon a small totem that will boost his damage. You can obviously ignore it and continue dodging as much as you want but I recommend focusing it down as soon as it spawns. Allowing him to have such a drastic buff reduces your margin for error, making the fight much more stressful than it needs to be.

The good news is that Ruiner has no perceptible second phase from what I saw so you’ll only need to master a single fight rather than changing up tactics. While he’s a bruiser, this boss lives and dies based on your positioning. Always stick to the middle of the bride and dodge left and right whenever you can to abuse the flanking angles and he’ll topple soon enough. For your efforts, you’ll be rewarded with a slick helm and a shield, both of which are pretty decent statted at this point in the game.

If you’re looking for more on the game, check out how to respec stats in Lords of the Fallen.