Elden Ring: How to Beat Magnus the Beast Claw

Do you play Elden Ring offline, or would you prefer not to invade other players to access Mohg’s house? You’re in luck! Knowing how to find and beat an NPC named Magnus the Beast Claw progresses an otherwise PvP-centric questline. Here’s how.

Where to Find Magnus the Beast Claw

Before you can beat Magnus the Beast Claw, you need to know where to find him. His invasion sign spawns in the Writheblood Ruins on the Altus Plateau, but to get it to spawn, you need to progress Varre’s questline until he gives you the Festering Bloody Finger invasion items.

At this point, I don’t recommend you use any of the Festering Bloody Fingers Varre gives you when you meet him at the Rose Church. Instead, make your way to the Altus Plateau, either by navigating the Ruin-Strewn Precipice dungeon or finding both halves of the Dectus Medallion and using the Grand Lift of Dectus to reach Altus.

Once you’re in Altus, travel east toward the huge shield wall guarding the outskirts of Leyndell. However, instead of going in, follow the path north along the outside of the wall, past the Altus Plateau map fragment, until you reach a bridge with an Isolated Merchant on it. There will also be a portal near him. Take it to cross the chasm.

Travel west once you finish teleporting, past the trolls pulling the cart, and make for the ruins in the distance. These are the Writheblood Ruins. Everything here deals bleed damage, from the dogs to the blobs, so watch out for that. In the nort\northeastern-most ruined building, near a Sacramental Bud crafting material, you’ll see Magnus the Beast Claw’s red invasion sign. Approach, and you’ll be able to interact with it and invade Magnus, the Beast Claw’s world.

Once you arrive in Magnus’ world as a red phantom, he’ll immediately rush you and attack. He’s equipped with the Great Stars Greathammer and uses Beastial incantations, specifically Bestial Sling, Beast Claw, and Gurranq’s Beast Claw. Every attack in his arsenal deals heavy damage, and he will rarely stop attacking, staying on you until you’re dead.

How to Beat Magnus the Beast Claw 

As an NPC enemy, strategies on how to defeat Magnus the Beast Claw differ from regular enemies. NPCs act significantly differently from standard mobs or bosses. Their attacks are more random, they can all but input read when a spell or attack is thrown at them, have far more health and deal more damage than enemy players, and can recover from any animation far faster than a human ever could.

With that in mind, I know of a few consistent ways to beat NPCs like Magnus the Beast Claw:

• Meet aggression with aggression. Magnus isn’t wearing any heavy armor, meaning he has no poise. As a result, you can cause him to stagger with a weapon of any size. Even a straight sword or paired daggers will stop him in his tracks. Bait him toward you until he’s in range of your attacks, then wail on him. Beware that Elden Ring has a very strict combo limiter on most weapons, and even existing combos don’t really work on NPCs. Additionally, Great Stars has a lot of what the community calls “hyper armor,” or stagger resistance. If he’s in the middle of a heavy attack while two-handing his weapon and you try to hit him, you’ll probably both take damage. As long as you keep him at weapon length and don’t overcommit to your swings, he should go down easily enough.
• Parry him. You know that Magnus the Beast Claw will attack the instant he’s able, and you can easily parry even two-handed Great Stars with any parry tool and a parry-focused Ash of War like Carian Retaliation or Stormwall. Magnus only has about 3,000 HP, and a riposte, even at level 60-70 with +12 weapons, should still do around 500 damage. You need to be careful about his spells, as you can’t parry those, nor can you parry his Lion’s Claw, but so long as he’s swinging his weapon normally, a well-timed parry will send him reeling.
• Keep him at range with magic or a bow. This last strategy is a bit hit or miss, as Magnus the Beast Claw is, again, an NPC, and so is much more liable to simply react with a roll through whatever spells you cast. However, certain spells, like Giant’s Flame Take Thee and other magic with explosions or AoE effects, have a better chance to hit, provided you have good timing. A bow is probably an even better way to deal with Magnus at the range, as you can equip an Ash of War like Barrage to keep the arrows coming faster than he can roll through them. Use enough arrows at a high enough damage threshold, and he’ll go down quickly.

Once Magnus the Beast Claws dies, you’ll receive his Great Stars weapon and a Somber Smithing Stone [6]. You’ll also see a message reading, “Magnus the Beast Claws defeated. Returning to your world.” You’ll then be teleported back to your world, but there won’t be any notification that you’ve done anything additional to progress Varre’s quest. Rest assured that you have.

Return to Varre at the Rose church, and he’ll ask to anoint you as per his quest. He’ll give you the Lord of Blood’s Favor, and you’re off to find a maiden to take blood from.

For more quest Elden Ring quest guides and plenty of coverage of the Shadows of the Erdtree DLC, check out our Elden Ring guides hub.