Information[]
Location: East Wing, East Tower
Desmodaui fighting the player on the East Tower roof
Appearance: Pale fellow wearing a black cassock, looks a lot like Edgar Allan Poe
Attack Damage: 25 - 50
Speed: Above Average
Health: 1000
Repelled by Crucifix: No
Hits to Kill:
Cane: 75
Cross: 20
Revolver: IMMUNE
Flintlock: IMMUNE
Musket: IMMUNE
Chalice: 1 to 2
Punch: IMMUNE
Stake: 3
Machine Gun: IMMUNE
Description[]
Desmodaui is the first vampire boss you'll face in the game. He's holding your Aunt Sophie hostage on top of the East Wing's EastTower, and will attack you as soon as you manage to climb up to the roof of the East Tower. Desmodaui isn't all that tough once you figure out his pattern of attack, although he is immune to several weapons and thus requires specific attacks to bring down.
Strategy[]
Desmodaui runs slightly slower than you do, so it's not too tough to keep out of his reach, especially if you use short sprints. He also does an occasional cartwheel, but this is just a show-off move and it really doesn't help him in the fight. His punching attacks do lots of damage, but they're also fairly slow and it's pretty easy to avoid them by dodging in and out of his reach. Desmodaui can occasionally leap at you from several feet away, but this leap does no damage. Be sure to dodge away from him if he gets too close with his leap, however, because he'll immedietely try to land a punch on you as soon as he lands. There's plenty of room to manuever on the roof arena where you fight him, so keeping out of his reach shouldn't be much of a problem.
Desmodaui's coffin
Although this is mostly a one-on-one fight, a swarm of vampire bats are circling the area and they will occasionally swoop in and attack you. Although each individual bat doesn't do all that much damage, it is possible for all the bats in the swarm to hit you at once, causing significant harm. Additionally, the bats have a chance of knocking your weapon out of your hand. Since the bats move really quickly and are hard to kill, you really should just ignore them and try to defeat the boss as quickly as possible.
Boss Vampires like Desmodaui are immune to physical weapons such as the revolver, flintlock, musket, fists, and machine gun. Thus the only weapons that can harm him are the chalice, crucifix, stakes, and cane sword.
If you managed to rescue Father Aville and retrieve his Chalice, this fight will be over in a couple of seconds. Just toss some holy water on Desmodaui, one or two hits and he's finished.
If you don't have the Chalice, you can still kill Desmodaui pretty quickly with stakes. Just rush forward and stab him, sprint backwards to avoid his punch, rush forward and stab him again, etc. On medium difficulty, it only takes 3 stakes to defeat him.
Desmodaui in his coffin, holding the key that would free Aunt Sophie
The crucifix can also be used to defeat Desmodaui. It takes 20 hits from the crucifix to beat him, but the crucifix blasts have a decent range of several feet, so it's possible to hit him without having to get close enough for him to punch you. Each crucifix blast will also stun Desmodaui for a second and interrupt his attacks, which helps prevent him from striking you. Just be sure to dodge back quickly if he manages to get within striking distance by running or leaping at you.
Desmodaui can't climb or jump, so if he gives you problems you can just jump up onto a higher piece of rubble, and blast him with your crucifix from the safety of your elevated position. You'll still take the occasional hit from the circling vampire bats, however.
Desmodaui after he's been staked
Finally, it is possible to harm Desmodaui with the silver cane sword, but the damage done is so negligible it's really not a good idea. It takes about 75 hits from the cane sword to defeat him, and the sword's short range means you'll be vulnerable to his punches the whole time.
Notes[]
- Like the fights with the other Vampire Bosses, defeating Desmodaui won't permanently kill him. You need to locate his coffin and stake him while he rests in it, before he can regenerate his health. If you don't stake Desmodaui in his coffin, after a couple dozen seconds he'll rise up and you'll have to fight him again inside his coffin room. He behaves exactly the same as he did on the roof, except you'll have 2 big advantages: 1) lots of crates to climb onto where he can't get at you, and 2) no vampire bats to bother you while you're fighting him. Just be sure to stake him eventually, or else he'll regenerate infinitely.
- There is a bug where if you kill Desmodaui too quickly, he fails to appear in his coffin afterwards (it will be empty and already open). This can happen on Easy and Medium difficulties, if after the cutscene you immediately turn and splash him with Holy Water, killing him before he even moves. Since without staking him you cannot obtain his key, this renders the game impossible to continue, as you will be stuck on the top of the East Tower. In order to avoid this, wait for him to start moving before attacking him. Since on Nightmare difficulty he takes more than one hit from Holy Water to die, the bug does not trigger in that situation.