Let's talk about DS3 bosses. I mean just general thoughts about the ones on which you have any...

Let's talk about DS3 bosses. I mean just general thoughts about the ones on which you have any. I'd like this to be a nice conversation with sharing opinions and stuff but it'll probably become meme/shitposting fest in no time. Anyway, let's give it a try.

>Champion Gundyr
I constantly see complaints about his fight being hard and I must say that I don't know why. Honestly, Iudyx was more problematic. His attacks have weird charge time and I find them hard to dodge because of it. Champion's are much more intuitive to evade and he doesn't grow black shit blocking 1/3 of your screen in the second phase.

>Twin Princes
Same as with Champion. In my opinion most of their attacks are ridiculously easy to dodge and the ones that could possibly surprise you are not very punishing.

>Oceiros
In this case I just wanted to say that it's the best fight in terms of atmosphere. His screams and the whole Ocelotte thing are simply great. If he was not in this game the best atmospheric fight would be the Dancer. Not only because of the ass but I like it too.

>Crystal Sage
Time for some shameful confession. This one gave me the most problems in early game. While let's say Nameless King is at least supposed to be hard, this one shouldn't. And I died like a bitch for around 10 times.

Champ is a chump. If you summon Sword master, let him die, quit, summon, and re-enter the boss fog, master activates godmod and you can just strafe around the arena while the champ loses to the master.

I didn't say that I had any problems with Champion.

You touched the topic of summons so let me add something I did not put in the original post - I don't care if you guys used summons or not. I just want to hear you thoughts about bosses.

>Literally not playing the game

Fair enough. Of course I feel the game should at least be taken on solo the first time, but as far as the bosses go I think my favorite would have to be the last. When I realized who they were and even moreso when that piano qued in on phase 2, I felt it hard. It toyed with my emotions in a way the series hadn't since my first playthrough of DS1. Mechanically the fight was also superb. I couldn't believe it when he parried me for the first time while I thought I was capitalizing on his stagger, and due to his enormous movepool I had to constantly change my approach.

My wife brought up a good point though. It would have been a nice detail if, rather than the explosion, he transitioned to phase 2 by pulling out an old battered estus flask to really nail in the point that you're up against your past self.

Well, I wanted to see if it worked. I didn't do this on my first playthrough mind you, it wiuld have been really lame to do. But it's a decent way to get some cool shit on a very low level character, like a raw ASS burg invader or something like that.

I agree with almost everything but Champion is giving me a really hard fucking time with his endless stream of attack bullshit. I always end up fucking up once and then its game over. I refuse to summon

Twin Princes was relatively easy, but I enjoyed the fuck out of that fight. It was just a lot of fun having to react quickly to his teleportation. This and Abyss Watchers were probably my two favorite bosses so far

Oceiros, I dont know if I was over leveled for this fight, but it was by far the easiest boss I remember playing in a souls game. Was really dissapointed because I agree with your assessment on atmosphere. Over too quickly

>friend was stuck on Champ for 7 tries
>gets pissed at his '2nd phase'
>finally get to fighting him
>drain his health to nothing, first try
>anticipate 2nd phase
>that was it
>mfw

I guess his 2nd phase was getting more aggressive? I thought he was getting full health and spawning a black sludge thing like Iudex.

On a rating that equally values visual spectacle, music, memorability, atmosphere, combat mechanics, and finally, challenge in a engaging way:


1. Twin Princes 10/10
2. Pontiff Sulayvahn 10/10
3. Nameless King 10/10
4. Soul of Cinder 9.5/10
5. Dancer of the Boreal Valley 9/10
6. Oceiros 9/10
7. Champion Gundyr 9/10
8. Abyss Watchers 9/10
9. Aldrich, Devourer of Gods 8/10
10. Dragonslayer Armour 8/10
11. Yhorm the Giant 7/10
12. Deacons of the Deep 7/10
13. Old Demon King 7/10
14. Vordt of the Boreal Valley 7/10
15. Iudex Gundyr 6/10
16. High Lord Wolnir 5/10
17. Curse Rotted Greatwood 5/10
18. Crystal Sage 5/10
19. Ancient Wyvern 2/10

I agree. The mechanical aspect was amazing. Neither too easy nor too hard, "class change", no stupid gimmicks. It was just good piece of a fight. As for emotional impact Oceiros wins in my book but I'm glad you enjoyed Cinder.

Maybe, just maybe, I find Champion somewhat easy because his attacks are in some way similar to those of Artorias. When I was playing DaS for the first time I went to the dlc much too early and I ended up dying dozens of times to Arty until I finally learned his moveset by heart. Now I automatically dodge when I see start of the animation. Thus said, it's easier for me to evade Champion than Iudyx...

As for Oceiros I certainly agree that it was too short encounter to be satisfying.

To be fair, Crystal sage throws a lot of people off.

You can get one shot if you're in the wrong place in at the wrong time and you don't really learn how to deal with it until you fight him properly.

Then you have nerds that say "wow it's ez i just ran up to him and hit him xD" in which they got lucky they were in the right place at the right time.

>12. Deacons of the Deep 7/10

Only thing I don't agree on. I just ran around slashing and not giving a single fuck. Still won easily 1st try.

I'll never understand why From still thinks Caster type bosses is a good idea. I guess it adds a bit of variety to the generic knight fight.

I liked them. Of course they are easy af but it was... I don't know, enjoyable? You just kill bunch of mobs, de-stress yourself and receive some souls and pope attire for it.

Deacons has 10/10 music and if you get the to less than 25% they start building curse and shit. Really cool boss that shouldve had numbers tweaked hard to showcase all the mechanics

It was mostly for these reasons:

>Deacons of the deep actually approaches a mob boss with the mentality "hey, let's make the mobs actually work together and do something interesting, in the second phase the mobs both attempt to defend the archdeacon, and also work together to contribute to the curse cloud the archdeacon is preparing, this is on top of the boss itself not relying on tons of mob doing large amounts of damage, with the red flame switching between them as another fun little mechanic,
>the music for the fight is ridiculously fitting, the heavy church organ feeling in the first phase adds a ton to the atmosphere, and this is reinforced in phase 2 as they begin preparing the spell, the heavier chanting comes in behind, it suits the congregation like attitude the fight is developing
>atmospherically the boss is on point, the large and almost liquid like crowd, the huge domineering centerpiece feels like a religious object of importance, and it is, being related to aldrich, the curse cloud feels threatening and visually satisfying, and it meets all the requirements of a holy congregation like theme

I won't comment on exact number, I'll just assume that anything above 5 is good and below is not.

So, I agree on everything but:
>Nameless King
I don't know, I just didn't like the atmosphere and his style.
>Dragonslayer Armor
I'd give him 5. Fight was ok but nothing more or less imo.

Also, I very agree on Ancient Wyvern. I mean, it was not the fight with the boss itself but with hordes of irritating mobs without stamina. I'm ok with killing with "a trick" but that was not very well implemented in this case.

Dancer, pontiff sullyman, and aldrich all blended together for me and I can't even remember which one was which.

what, how

Dancer walked on all fours and had an amazing ass.

Pontiff had two swords and summoned his clone at 50% of HP.

Aldrich was a black sludge eating Gwyndolin.

I don't know, maybe it's just me. Their moves felt the same and they're all tall and skinny.

Honestly, I agree with most of that. I just wouldn't have given Deacons or Wolnir that high of a score.

Dragonslayer Armor was memorable to me because I didn't think for one second he could shove me through those stone railings, but then he did at 5% health after not doing it once the entire fight.

The only problem with the Soul of Cinder is that if you mismanage your stamina and fail to roll one hit of his second form's big combo, he juggles you into the rest of it, which is easily an 0HKO unless you have high VIG. Other than that, I love the fight. Almost as good as Champion Gundyr in my opinion.

>Yhorm being above anything

at least the others TRIED to be an actual boss fight

I was heavily pleased with the nameless king overall

To begin, the peaceful nature of archdragon peak left me largely unsuspecting of what to come, the way it transforms into a fierce storm was intensely threatening.

Then upon entering the arena, the way he just swoops down from above was handled perfectly, the visual spectacle with the storm effects, rain and large open space was really quite striking.

I liked how in some essences they almost perfected the "dragon riding" style of a boss, not only were the flight mechanics handled really well for a dragon boss for arguably the first time in the series, but it was also quite visually breathtaking, the way the nameless king would throw down thunderbolts, the way in which the dragon thrusted backwards, creating these huge pillars of smog, it added a ton to the fight. The transition cutscene, the intense explosion, the way the smog clears to reveal him standing there in full standoff mode, you knew shit was about to go down. The second phase instantly starts off with him approaching you, smog waving off of him, the moveset includes more wind based attacks, branching of his slams and dashes, but later evolves to include lightning based attacks, I enjoyed how they added visual spectacle without being too scattered or lingering.

The mechanics of the fight were handled well, the first phase has numerous moves, the gliding thrust poke attack, the blast backwards followed by three wave smog, the lightnign slam, the circle lightning throw followed by swoop, the fire breath, the flame shoot from above, the various melee attacks the king uses.

The second phases mechanics were really nice as well, the way the king can change his moveset up, the long dash can last up to three pokes, the up close melee swipe attacks can be extended into a 5 hit combo, the lightning kick attacks, the lightning strike, the homing in wind riding attacks, the smog based attacks, I enjoyed the variety..

I die to champion gundyr at least 25 times on every single playthrough. his second phase always gets me and I can't reliably dodge his halbard charge when he enters phase 2. Somehow I managed to kill him on my first try on my strength build with yhorms great machete though.

>beat the champ and soul of cinder on my first try
>die to cursed shitwood 7 times and barely survive when i finally beat him

>mfw beat yhorm without Storm Ruler on my first try

Am I retarded, or a master dodger?

Fuck, I think I'd have had an easier time just trying that instead of desperately running away trying to charge the sword up. I am literally unable to walk backwards so he would always sneak up on me while I was looking the other way.

literally all you do is walk back and forth between his legs while spamming the spec. You don't even have to run or dodge at all.

In the second phase he'd always get me after doing the straight down slam into some backwards move. Never had enough time to charge up stormruler.

This works on the champ too? Nice. Now i can start up my garl vinland cosplay a little sooner. Nowi just have to get past Oceiros at SL30

Yhorm being above anything for was largely a result of dark souls 2's giants being shit.

Yhorm might not be as mechanically complex as the rest of dark souls 3's bosses, or even challenging, but he actually had quite a decent moveset for a giant, and was surprisingly aggressive.

The quality of the boss fight for me came out from everything else, the intro cutscene with siegward, the long pale hallway felt like something out of a fairy tale as yhorm slowly got larger and larger as he ran up to you.

Taking him down with storm ruler felt wonderful as well, I felt it alleviated the potential issue of a boss which consists of hitting his legs repetetively for 5 minutes, and also gave a huge feeling of "I'm using the power of storms to take down an inhumanly powerful monster" effect

The swirling and rapid strings across the vocals of the music really helped this as well, as it added a large, epic and monolithic feeling which emphasised yhorm's stature, and the stormruler effect.

I genuinely didn't even know there was a second phase til I saw your post, that's how quick i killed him

It kinda reminds me my situation from DaS. I didn't have much problems with O&S, Manus or whatever (I don't say that they were easy though). And every time I replay DaS, to this fucking day, I simply cannot normally beat Raping Dragon. Every single time I defeated him was because of luck or favorable RNG.

He goes on his knees, starts to burn brighter and goes ape shit. I think you have enough time to finish him off if you dont have to flail around with a fucked up keyboard.

Most people playing NG will have 300 AR early into the game and kill bosses insanely fast, without ever really experiencing them. This is why most people don't complain about Crystal Sage and Sulyvahn, because they didn't fight them in a scenario where they need a lot of hits to kill them, so they don't understand how horribly hard these fights are when the number are changed around.

I still maintain they are both the hardest bosses in the game because of how stupidly hard they are to actually dodge.

About to fight Nameless King. So far all of the bosses have been pretty disappointing. I think Consumed King was the only one I actually liked fighting for pretty much the same reasons you listed. Everyone else was either really boring or had some kind of annoying gimmick or bullshit that made them more frustrating then they would be otherwise. How many are left and do any of them get better?

His second phase actually activates really quickly usually, sometimes even after the first strike, especially if siegward is there.

You might not have noticed it as a result, but the changes are largely:

>Yhorm get's on his knees
>becomes a fiery motherfucker

I'm not sure if he has a largely different moveset, but he certainly seemed much more agressive

>hard to dodge
but they're not

Cont.

To contrast, Nameless King is a fucking joke of a fight that people ONLY complain about because he's a damage sponge and they're not used to have to actually fight a boss. Sulyvahn has the objectively stronger moveset and if he had the same amount of HP as Nameless King most people wouldn't have killed him without summoning

There will be Dragonslayer Armor, Twin Princes and Soul of Cinder. I liked Princes and Cinder, but desu I liked many more bosses and if you feel dissapointed so far I'm not sure if those I listed will please you.

>tfw used phantom for soul of cinder because just wanted to end game
>tfw completed 0 quests
>tfw find out nameless king exists

still dont feel like playing it again

>He had problems with reskinned fool's idol
>not mentioning the massive pile of a shit that is the curse-rotted greatwood.

>People complain about Nameless King
>I kill him in two tries
>People say Pontiff Sulyvahn is easy
>The only boss I ever summoned for

>curse-rotted greatwood
>a pile of shit

Just bait out its stupid 'stand and fall foward' attack that does 0 damage and get 4-5 attacks on its hand. Every other move it does is easy as fuck to dodge.

Sulyvahn was really the tipping point for me. It was the trial by fire that made me better at dodging/knowing when to block/positioning to avoid attacks all together. Took me ~26 fucking tries, but I got that shit and felt myself get 3x better in general.

How are you supposed to be leveling up stats as pyromancer?
Would love to go full int and faith but also need health, mana and stamina.

These bastards still scare me

The hell? How do you get them to do this? I can't recall a single enemy in souls history that begs for their life at low health.

Use a critical attack on them and then allow them to finish flailing around. They start praying and never stop

>get chased by invader to the hidden wall room with the ladder
>giant seed is on so we're going down
>pull one of the rat things
>come get me fuccboi
>invader is still on the ladder
>i've made a terrible mistake.png
>fight the thing a bit
>say fuck it and climb the ladder up to the invader
>as i climb he falls past me and dies from the impact
Weird and hectic.

Overall I agree, but Ancient Wyvern seriously gave me the feel of being a fairy tale hero using your wits to slay an evil dragon and cutting through its minions or something like that. If it had interacted more while you were running along the ramparts to reach the vantage point it would have been 10/10... to me because of how it gave me that feeling. Maybe there should have been more to it than just that ONE drop but like I said I found that part fun as fuck once I realized what I was in for.

People don't get deacons because most people overlevel at the cathedral of the deep, they don't even know you could be cursed. SL40 should not be considered meta for cathedral of the deep, i was sl25 when i fought deacons and i found the fight thoroughly enjoyable.

Just lure Olly into the corner then run around the roots and fire arrows at him until hes dead.

On NG+5. I've come to the conclusion that the hardest fight in the game is Soul of Cinder and people who think Nameless King is hard are memers who don't know how to dodge or think staying under the dragon is the right strategy.

But Champion doesn't have instant attacks like Artorias...
Half of his attacks have weird gestures and goofy timings just like Iudex. They share at least half of their move pool. Only Champion can extend his combos for a long time potentially fucking low stamina builds.

I don't really get the love for Oceiros' fight. To me he's just as poorly realized as the first form of Ludwig in BB.

Just a boss that flails around widly and runs constantly. It makes him more of a chore and "luck" whether you'll get hits or not. ESPECIALLY depending on the particular weapon class you decide to go for. Fast long weapons as always win more easily but slow or shorter ones are going to be very frustrated half the time at whiffs outside of their control.
Not to mention for some strange reason his stagger sends him flying away so you can't punish him.

Fuck off with your humblebrag blog OP, literally no one is impressed.

Well that's because Nameless King has actual timings that can be read and learned.

Cinder can sometimes just pull an attack frame out of his ass for massive damage.

It's not really you to blame for death against Crystal Sage imo any more than someone dying to Aldrich. They both have the magic that the player should have but it got nerfed to oblivion instead.

And honestly it's sort of a roll of the dice sometimes depending heavily on the build you take into that fight. Mages might struggle because ironically mages are weak to themselves in this game... especially if you want to deal anything resembling damage.

Also ironically because of no poise knights might struggle too because their slow but can be staggered by the swift magic and rapier swings stopping an otherwise simple fight. My first build that was more strength and dodgey had no problem. Beat him first time.

My mage died 5 times because I dealt shit damage and it's a game of the clock about how long you can last to constant barrages of magic in both fights. In Aldrich's case, not very long most of the time since he goes apeshit later in the fight.

Yeah I decided after the long trek required and the fact that they couldn't be bothered to give Gundyr actual patterns and instead let him just go ham for as long as he wants, that I would just summon the master as well. They obviously knew he would be shitty which is why the master is there.

It wasn't worth my time or effort to even bother trying to learn.

On the other hand they didn't give a summon for Nameless King and no surprise it's possibly the best fight in the game. You can usually tell when From is proud of something they did and when they aren't so proud usually based on what they allow in summonings, haha.

>and the fact that they couldn't be bothered to give Gundyr actual patterns and instead let him just go ham for as long as he wants,
But he does have patterns.

You know, overall the feeling I got from DaS3 was that. . Well, none of the bosses felt particularly hard to me. I mean I certainly died plenty of times, incidentally Dragonslayer Armor and the Dancer were the ones that had me stuck for a little while, but in every fight I could easily recognize my mistakes and what I had to correct to win later.

I felt that, generally, there wasn't a boss that had me teetering on the edge of my seat and shitting bricks to secure victory. Just that raw, desperate sensation where half of your rolls, blocks and parries are nearly instinctual. I had this experience with Sif, Ornstein & Smough, Artorias the first few times around, Kalameet (fuck that guy), Alonne, Smelter Demon and the Fume Knight.

Out of all three games I think DaS3 had some of the best atmosphere and aesthetics for sure, but I didn't get that mad rush from any of the big bads. Anywho, here's how I'd rank them:

1. Nameless King (10/10)
2. Soul of Cinder (10/10)
3. Pontiff Sulayvahn (10/10)
4. Watchers of the Abyss (9.5/10)
5. Dancer of the Boreal Valley (9.5/10)
6. Champion Gundyr (9/10)
7. Twin Princes (8/10)
8. Yhorm the Giant (8/10)
9. Oceiros, Consumed King (8/10)
10. Aldritch, Devourer of Gods (7.5/10)
11. Dragonslayer Armour (7/10)
12. Ancient Wyvern (7/10) - I liked the gimmick, felt satisfying.
13. Old Demon King (7/10)
14. Vordt of the Boreal Valley (6/10)
15. Iudex Gundyr (6/10)
16. Curse Rotted Greatwood (5/10)
17. High Lord Wolnir (5/10)
18. Crystal Sage (4/10)
19. Deacons of the Deep (3/10)

They would be a good boss type if they would make magic reasonable in these games.

They should have R2 casting and combine some of the magic together. Like Soul Arrow and Great Soul Arrow should be the same fucking spell and just be R1 and R2 casts.

And casting time could be reasonable but instead let you charge like melee for more damage.

They LITERALLY have the template for how magic should be sitting right in front of them every game but insist on making it some static Dragon's Dogma bullshit. Honestly mages and archers should play like Dragon's Dogma archery does and should have skills and r1,r2 just like melee does. There should be button combos too like forward R2.

Soul Greatsword/Farron Magic Sword would benefit from this greatly.

But From will never learn it seems.

Well, how about that, after 2 games you knew how bosses worked.

Yeah I kind of agree except I do think Nameless King is good.

Dancer isn't good imo. She randomly and haphazardly swings feeling more clumsy than a solid boss fight should. She also deals more damage than she should. The bosses after her deal less than she does with most of their attacks, yet she, for some reason, needs to instant kill with 3 moves and deal over half health with most others. Its just nonsensical. On top of that she is unfinished and unbalanced for many builds. Magic ironically has an easier time but only because all of her gap closers have no comboability. Whilst melee suffers a huge difference in difficulty simply because she can choose to fuck you at any random time making any length of combos string together she so desires making the fight very inconsistent compared to better fights like Nameless and Cinder.

Honestly she gets a 5 for me. She's kind of creative but she just doesn't deserve the range and damage and honestly should have been replaced with something more interesting. Maybe a different mechanic than haphazard strings of combos, maybe?

Aldrich also gets a lower score to me though simply because, again, another spammy boss that can simply fuck you whenever it pleases. I like to know that when I learn all of the attacks of a consistent fight that it rewards my time and patience. This fight doesn't do that. Even if you know how to avoid every attack the game still rewards fast r1 spammy builds over anything else. He can string some magic plus the arrow rain and force you to take insane damage because you just can't dodge it all at once sometimes. Definitely not impossible, just more annoying and less rewarding to beat than I'm used to in these games.

I come out thinking, "Man, I never want to fight that piece of shit again". I think too many people confuse relief from a frustrating boss with "accomplishment" for learning said boss. They aren't the same thing.

Agree with all else though.

None of the bosses were 10/10 for me, or even 8/10
The game has a bunch of fundamental flaws in my mind that I simply can't ignore. Its still a fun game but I can't shake the feeling of slight disappointment.

>Muh randomness

No bosses patterns are fucking random, you learn the fight and strike back.

>gimp player health gain from levelling
>gimp player armor by not allowing upgrading, removing poise but still keeping weight limits
>expect it to work well
what the actual fuck were they thinking

No, I beat him without the sword to the first playthrough because I didn't see the sword for some reason. I don't think he's that hard to dodge. They intentionally made his patterns a little easier though I think because you have to sit still for so long to charge the storm ruler they intended you to use for the fight.

I actually thought he was a well balanced fight though without the sword, except obviously he has waaay too much health.

>I constantly see complaints about his fight being hard

It's hard when you're playing the level 1 deprived, and that's the only time it's hard. But it's perfectly valid if that's the case.

Stick does shit damage and the wooden shield is horrible.

Dude his run up reminded me of this boss

Sounds like you're talking about Iudyx?

They are random in that they can string anything together they want at any time. Of course each combo has timings but sometimes the she can cancel out into an instant attack followed by another combo.

I've seen it everytime I fight her. There isn't much way to tell when she'll do this. Unless you can explain that.