As you traverse through the lands in Elden Ring, you’ll come across a myriad of distinctly different bosses. The only common factor between all Elden Ring bosses is how challenging they are to beat.
Spirit-Caller Snail is a Gastropod-like creature that emits a pale glow. It’s often invisible and only reveals itself when attacked or once its summoned spirits are defeated. It can also teleport when its location is compromised. You’d be right in assuming that it would be tricky to beat the Snail, but with the right strategy in place, you can defeat it with relative ease.
Spirit-Caller Snail Overview
Despite its weaknesses and mediocre health bar, the Spirit-Caller Snail is an infuriating boss to beat. It’s very reminiscent of the Witch of Hemswick from Bloodborne, in the sense that both are “gimmick bosses”, forcing you to fight them through other entities, which serve as a façade for the true boss.
Health Bar: The Spirit-Caller Snail’s health is not worthy of note, as it barely reaches 4 digits. Its summoned spirits, however, are the real worry, sporting large and difficult to deplete health bars.
Types of Damage: While the Spirit-Caller Snail itself will only deal standard damage, its summoned spirits are the real threat in this boss fight, dealing a mix of standard, slash, strike, pierce, magic, and thrust damage.
Weaknesses: The Sprit-Caller Snail is weak to standard, strike, slash, lightning, frost, sleep, and thrust damage. This boss is weak to virtually everything.
Weapons: The Spirit-Caller Snail is unarmed, using only its body to attack its target. Its summoned spirits, on the other hand, wield spears and blades.
Parrying: While none of the Spirit-Caller Snail’s attacks can be parried, most of its spirits’ melee attacks can be parried to varying degrees of success.
Elden Ring Spirit-Caller Snail’s Locations: The location of your encounter with the Spirit-Caller Snail will determine the number and types of spirits you’ll have to defeat before revealing the Spirit-Caller Snail. The Spirit-Caller Snail can be encountered in the following two locations:
- Road’s End Catacombs: Located on the western side of Liurnia of the Lakes, Road’s End Catacombs is home to the Spirit-Caller Snail, hidden behind a set of illusory walls. Upon traversing the mist, you’ll be met by the Crucible Knight, which is summoned by the Spirit-Caller Snail. Disposing of the Knight isn’t needed, but doing so will reveal the Spirit-Caller Snail. Do note that it might summon a second Knight after you kill the first one.
- Spiritcaller’s Cave: Spiritcaller’s Cave can be found on the eastern side of Mountaintops of the Giants, beside the western bank of the freezing lake. You’ll need two Stonesword Keys to gain access to the Cave. Again, you’ll be met by a summoned spirit, only this time, it’s the Godskin Apostle. After you kill the first spirit, the Spirit-Caller Snail will summon the Godskin Noble, which you’ll also have to defeat to reveal the Snail.
Movesets:
As stated previously, most of this boss fight will be spent fighting spirits rather than the boss itself. So, we’ll discuss the Spirit-Caller Snail’s moveset, as well as the movesets of the three other spirits.
Spirit-Caller Snail
- Grab: The Spirit-Caller Snail leaps slightly and executes a grab attack.
- Spirit Summon: Once you dispose of a previous summon, the Spirit-Caller Snail will summon another if given enough time.
Crucible Knight
- Spear Thrust: This quick attack from the Crucible Knight consists of a thrust with its halberd targeting whatever is in front of it. The Knight will perform this attack excessively throughout the fight.
- Ground Slam: The Crucible Knight often follows up its Spear Thrust attack with a ground slam using its halberd.
Godskin Apostle
- Melee Swings: The Godskin Apostle performs numerous horizontal swings from side to side with its twinblade. This move can be blocked, parried, or dodged through.
- Leaping Attack: During this attack, the Godskin Apostle leaps in the air and strikes its Godskin Peeler down on the ground, damaging everything in its immediate vicinity.
- Weapon Spin: The Godskin Apostle approaches its target while spinning its weapon. You can simply back away from the Apostle as it approaches you.
- Stretched body Spin: The Godskin Apostle begins to do pirouettes with its outstretched body, creating a large radius of danger. Not only can this attack be evaded effortlessly —despite the large AoE— but you can also attack the Apostle as it’s spinning.
Godskin Noble
- Ground Stabs: The Godskin Noble performs ground stabs with its swords at once while moving forward. You can easily block this attack or roll away from it.
- Spin: During this attack, the Godskin Noble spins its body around, creating a short-range AoE. Once you notice the start of this attack, get out of the Godskin Noble’s immediate vicinity but not too far, so as to attack right as the Noble stops spinning.
- Forward Stabs: Unlike the previously mentioned Ground Stabs, this attack consists of straight thrusts, targeting everything in front of the Godskin Noble.
- Belly Barge: If the Godskin Noble notices you lurking in front of it, it’ll react by flopping its belly forward in an attempt to barge you with it.
- Barrell Roll: Should you keep your distance to the Godskin Noble, it’ll leap forward and land on its side, continuing to roll its whole body toward you. This attack goes on for a few seconds, after which, you’ll have a prime striking opportunity.
- Magic Attack: The Godskin Noble manifests a magic water tide that deals magic damage. This attack can be easily avoided by backing away as it starts, and the lengthy duration of it can be a perfect opportunity to heal if needed.
Pre-fight Preparation
As with any boss fight, you’ll need to prepare accordingly before embarking on the unknown. These tips will highly increase your chances of reigning victorious.
Summon multi-unit Spirit Ashes
Ideally, your focus should be on locating and eliminating the Spirit-Caller Snail rather than fighting with the spirits. With the aid of multi-unit spirit ashes —such as Lone Wolf Ashes, Skeletal Militiamen, or Fanged Imp Ashes— you can focus your efforts on the Spirit-Caller Snail and let your summons deal with the Snail’s spirits.
Casters should equip quick-release spells
As a caster, you’ll only be using your casts on the Snail’s spirits rather than the Snail itself, as long-range attacks are highly ineffective against the Snail and likely to put you in an awkward situation. Casts such as Glintstone Pebbles and Swift Glintstone Shard will allow you to quickly fend off any approaching spirits while you’re attacking the Spirit-Calling Snail.
Ranged players should equip a melee weapon
As stated previously, casts and projectiles are fairly futile and inconvenient against the Spirit-Calling Snail, as you won’t be able to see it nor lock onto it. A melee weapon, no matter how weak statistically, is leaps and bounds better against the Snail than long-range casts.
Equip a good shield
Despite the defencelessness of the Spirit-Caller Snail, a decent shield can be of great assistance to you in this boss fight, especially in Spiritcaller’s Cave, where you’ll have to fend off attacks from stronger spirits.
Fight Strategy
Given the striking difference in setting, as well as summoned spirits, you’ll need to take different approaches, based on the location.
Road’s End Catacombs
Focus on the Spirit-Caller Snail as opposed to the Knight
There’s no point in fighting the Crucible Knight, as the Spirit-Caller Snail will simply summon another. Kill the Knight enough times, and you’ll eventually have to deal with two at once. Look for the dim light around the edges of the arena, as that’s where the invisible snail is. Attack it until it teleports elsewhere.
Rinse and repeat this until the Spirit-Caller Snail is defeated.
Bait the Crucible Knight away from the Snail
Since the Knight will only walk toward you rather than charge or sprint, you can lead it to the other side of the arena from the Spirit-Caller Snail, then charge at the latter and mount your attacks. This way, the knight will not be able to intervene in time.
Make the most out of your spirit ashes
As long as the Crucible Knight is distracted by your spirit ashes, you can safely look for and attack the Spirit-Caller Snail.
Spiritcaller’s Cave
Be Patient
Both the Godskin Apostle and Noble can deal major damage in an instant, punishing you dearly for any hints of over-eagerness. Stick to one or two heavy hits whenever the opportunity presents itself, otherwise, steer clear of the spirit.
Resort to your shield
While dodging is just as effective, successful blocks can open up invaluable striking windows that you can and should capitalize on. Don’t overuse your shield but do keep it handy for the spirits’ melee attacks.
Try to break the Godskin Apostle’s Poise
With a well-timed heavy hit, you can easily break the Apostle’s poise and leave it vulnerable to critical hits. You’ll find the most luck attacking mid- or towards the end of one of its combos.
Land a heavy or leaping attack while the Godskin Noble is idle
Once you defeat the Godskin Apostle, the Noble will spawn in, usually facing the other way from you. It’ll be disengaged and sat still. You can sneak behind it and perform a cheap heavy or jumping attack for an early advantage.
Keep out of the Noble’s immediate vicinity
The Godskin Noble has numerous defensive moves that deflect your character away from the Noble. Until you notice an opening, refrain from getting up close and personal with the Noble.
Be wary of the Godskin Noble’s melee reach
All of the Godskin Noble’s melee sword attacks have a surprisingly long reach that can deftly catch you off-guard. Always be ready to block or dodge, as you never quite know whether you’re out of reach or not. It’s better to be safe than sorry.
Keep an eye out for the Noble’s Barrell Roll Attack
Spotting the start of this attack is easy enough, but evading it is a tad more challenging. The Godskin Noble will lock onto your character and roll towards it. If it misses the first time, it’ll roll around for a second attempt, and so on, until it either hits or the attack ends.
Keep fairly still until the last second, then dodge to the side. Do that until the Noble stops, after which, you can place a heavy attack.
Rewards
Depending on the location of your encounter with the Spirit-Caller Snail, you’ll be entitled to various rewards.
The rewards for each location are listed below:
- Road’s End Catacombs: 3,000 Runes on your first playthrough and the Glintstone Sorcerer Ashes, which is a fairly FP efficient spirit ashes, only costing 28 per summon.
- Spiritcaller’s Cave: Roughly 70,000 Runes, a Black Flame Ritual —an incantation that summons a circle of black flame pillars around you—, and a Godskin Swaddling Cloth —a talisman that restores your HP with each attack.
And with that, you should be as ready as can be to take on the cowardly Spirit-Caller Snail and any spirits it might throw your way. Should you implement the tips and strategies discussed in this guide into your boss fight with the Snail, we can guarantee you a swift and effortless triumph.
