Dark Souls - Pinwheel boss strategy
How to tackle Pinwheel in Dark Souls.
Pinwheel is a boss you'll face after exploring The Catacombs in Dark Souls.
If you're looking for more help, our Dark Souls walkthrough and guide can help with all other areas of the game, including the dreaded Taurus Demon, Capra Demon, Ornstein and Smough bosses.
Pinwheel boss strategy
Pinwheel might just be the easiest boss in all of Dark Souls. At this point, you should have defeated Ornstein and Smough, so it should be a walk in the park. Pinwheel likes to throw Fireballs and launch a flamethrower, as well as having another trick up its sleeve- cloning itself!
Immediately after entering the Fog Gate, you will drop down into Pinwheel's lair below. On landing you will take a fair amount of damage, which will put you at a disadvantage as you start the fight, heal up and be prepared for... an easy fight?
You will be able to tell when Pinwheel clones itself just through the tell of raising its arms up- these clones are only able to use the fireball attacks, so make sure to deal with those if the fight becomes overwhelming at all.
You will also be able to spot Pinwheel just by seeing when it chooses to make another clone as it raises it's strange hands, and then disappears. It should be pretty easy to keep track of the Pinwheel as it warps around the arena making clones.
The Fireball attacks come after a windup where it'll have a large glow in front of it, it's pretty hard to miss. If you find yourself getting rushed by a few Pinwheels at a time, you will want to equip a shield with high flame resistance such as the Black Knight's Shield, which should be able to eat most, if not all of the damage for you.
Since the room is pretty tight, it will be easy to have all of the Pinwheel clones surround you. To mitigate this, you can equip a weapon that has a large range, such as the Zweihander or any other Greatsword. This way, you will be able to attack multiples clones and wipe them all out at the same time.
If you're looking for more help, our Dark Souls walkthrough and guide can help with all other areas of the game, including the dreaded Taurus Demon, Capra Demon, Ornstein and Smough bosses. Meanwhile, we have explainers on how to access DLC Artorias of the Abyss, the best gift and best class in Dark Souls, Dark Souls' best weapons, Dark Souls Covenants, Dark Souls Estus Flasks locations, Dark Souls Titanite Slab locations and NPC quests including Lautrec of Carim.
The best way of killing Pinwheel is just to rush it down as soon as you spot the "true" copy and two-hand your weapon, as there is very little that Pinwheel can do once you've gotten close range aside from its Flamethrower attack. Once you get to it, the Pinwheel will go down very, very quickly.
If you want to take down Pinwheel even faster, or have a weaker weapon, this boss is also weak to Fire and Pyromancies, so take a visit to Vamos, who we encountered earlier and upgrade your weapon. Or, just use your pyromancy flame to utterly decimate the Pinwheel, it's really, really easy and the basic pattern of this boss is easy to read.
Once you've killed Pinwheel, you will gain access to the Rite of Kindling, which will let you kindle a bonfire to get more Estus Flasks, which will be incredibly useful for some of the coming areas, which are a lot more challenging than anything you've encountered before.
Pick up the item left behind by Pinwheel, and head up the ladder to the right of the table to proceed towards the Tomb of the Giants, where we will get a first Lord Soul.