How to beat Loretta, Royal Knight of Caria Manor in Elden Ring

A powerful mounted boss blocks the way through Caria Manor. Here’s how to beat Loretta, Royal Knight in Elden Ring.

To the northwest of Raya Lucaria Academy sits an unusual manor filled with animated hands and magical traps. Loretta, Royal Knight is the boss here and she blocks the way to an important area to which you’ll need access to progress the story.

How to defeat Loretta, Royal Knight in Elden Ring

The best way to beat Loretta, Royal Knight in Elden Ring is using spirit ash summons to draw her attention while hitting her with melee attacks to the front of her horse.

Loretta, Royal Knight is a powerful hybrid boss who mixes magic with mounted combat. This fight will likely be the player’s first instance of fighting a mounted enemy without having the ability to summon Torrent. The trick to defeating Loretta is being able to dodge her sorceries while staying close to her in order to deal damage.

Spirit summons will give Loretta new targets, allowing you to get close to her and do more damage. Loretta’s moves are similar to the Night Cavalry boss, with leaping forwards strikes and angled slashes. Right in front or directly behind Loretta are often the best places to position, as many of her diagonal slashes will miss a player who’s hugging either end of her horse.

In her second phase, Loretta will unlock a powerful sorcery called Loretta’s Greatbow. This is a ranged attack with a long charge up that deals huge damage. The arrow it fires has a moderate homing effect on its target.

This attack is deadly is deadly if it lands, but it’s heavily telegraphed and not hard to evade. Dodge roll sideways past where the arrows locked in on to avoid the move. Loretta will often win battles of attrition, so trading some of your health for more damage on her is a solid tactic. All of Loretta’s sorceries can be either dodged or avoided by sprinting sideways while locked onto Loretta.

Loretta’s not a particularly tanky boss and many builds will find themselves eating through Loretta’s health bar quickly. Use spirit ashes to get more space to approach Loretta, as less time spent dodging her swipes is more time that can be spent dealing damage. Spirit Jellyfish is a solid option due to its sheer tankiness, but stronger ashes like Banished Knight Oleg can tank attacks and deal some damage.

Loretta is a great lesson in fighting sorcery users as well as punching up into mounted enemies. Once defeated, the Three Sisters Rise area will unlock. At this point players can begin the lengthy but highly rewarding Ranni questline.