Ruin Sentinels are tall, slender and agile enemy bosses in Dark Souls II. There are, overall, three Ruin Sentinels (Alessia, Ricce, and Yahim) and to successfully beat all of them, you will have concentrate and calculate your moves.
When you first come into the area where the Ruin Sentinels reside, you’ll encounter the first one - Yahim. Yahim will be standing on a platform, to the left of the entrance to the area. In order to make the fight easier, concentrate on Yahim at first. You’ll be cornered and you’ll only have a small area to maneuver, but it is still possible to beat it. You might get tempted to jump down, but don’t - you’ll be swarmed with Alessia and Ricce, besides getting some fall damage.
Yahim, like other Ruin Sentinels, uses melee attacks. Though hard hitting and fast, it is easy to calculate its attacks. The problem that you might encounter, especially with Yahim, is that Ruin Sentinels have a wide reach -- get hit, and you’ll fall down from the platform, making the fight much more difficult to deal with. So remember to stick to platform walls, too.
After you destroyed Yahim, don’t jump down the platform. It’s a good idea to stay on it for a while. Other Ruin Sentinels, will try to reach you. Luckily, they won’t be jumping on the platform together. Use the time, that you have on the platform, to deliver some blows to the Ruin Sentinel, that jumped on the platform first. The moment the second jumps on it, jump down. But be careful, mentioned before, you’ll sustain some fall damage.
The real fight now begins.
The first thing you should notice is the size of the room you’ll be fighting Ricce and Alessia in. It’s quite enormous, so use that to your advantage. Maneuver. Coincidentally, you’ll need a lot of room to stand any chance against Ricce and Alessia, as the Ruin Sentinels will be chasing you relentlessly.
Another thing to be prepared and be aware of - the direct location of both Ruin Sentinels. To put it simply, don’t let them out of your sight. Be Always a step, nay, five steps ahead of them. Whenever one of the Sentinels tries to flank you from your side, reposition yourself, so you’ll have both of them where you want them to be.
Now to the attacks. Ruin Sentinels use high damage, sweep attacks. Those are the ones that you’ll have to avoid the most. It might seem impossible to touch one, when another one is waiting for its turn to strike, but don’t fret -- eventually their attacks will have too big of a window between each others, that’s the moment that you should strike.
Note, that they are very fast. Rolling back and to your sides will be your go-to strategy. Whenever you see one or both of them performing an attack - back out. One unlucky slip-up, and you’ll be back on the platform, waiting for the other two. Keep one eye on Alessia, another on Rice. Whenever one of them fails, attack the one that slipped or left its guard open, but keep your eye on the second too. If you ignore Alessia, while Rice is letting its guard up, you’ll get the taste of that Alessia’s Ruin Spear with great force.
All of the Ruin Sentinels have some… ruinous… gap closers. Keep your things together and run if you have to, because the moment you leave yourself too open for an attack, you’ll get yours.
Rocking one of the cooler, albeit not very Dark Soul-ish enemy designs, Ruin Sentinel has a huge shield, that it uses to defend itself. If you aggro it for long enough, Ruin Sentinel will throw that shield at you. Though the weight(damage) of the thrown shield collapses on you like ah... well, massive metal shield, it’s actually a plus; if you succeed to avoid it or survive the hit, it won’t be picking it up again. That leaves you an enemy who just lost its main means of defense.
In terms of “who’s who?” or “who should I hit/damage first?” - it doesn’t matter. Try to get as many swings as you can. Even if one of them has less health than the other, don’t ignore the one that has more of it.
One of the other attacks that Ruin Sentinel uses is a Whirlwind Spin. This massive damage dealer might be the end of the fight as soon as it hits you. Back step, or if you failed to do so, at least put your shield up. At any costs, avoid it. What makes this part of the fight difficult, is that the two, or if you unlucky, three of them, might synchronize and use the Whirlwind Spin attack on you at the same time. Without letting you react, by the way. Be alert.
Don’t forget to look at your stamina bar. It might seem like a good idea to just keep rolling, but the moment might come, where you’ll have to choose between foolhardy hitting Ruin Sentinel or to avoid it and risk getting damage in the next attack barrage.
Last tip: Ruin Sentinels are weak to Lightning, Fire and Magic. It’s always nice to have an edge, especially in the fight, that depending on your ability to react, might be one of the hardest ones in the game.
