I remember Orphan of Kos and Isshin taking a long time for me. Multiple days of several-hour long sessions, I assume. I would probably have trouble beating Orphan today too, but Isshin has gotten pretty easy for me over my 4 or so playthroughs. Laxasia from Lies of P is also a huuge pain despite my four playthroughs. I feel like her second phase is just waaay too much whereas her first phase has gotten pretty easy by now.
Currently playing Khazan and some of the bosses did give me a lot of trouble too. Especially the first two you get to after beating the tutorial were a pain because the bosses felt really spongy, I didn’t have a lot of damage, and they dealt damage like a semi-truck. I’ve gotten better at the game, though, and now bosses don’t take nearly as long. I’ve gotten better gear by now, I’ve got better skills to use, and my overall skill in the game is also good enough to not struggle as much anymore.
Which ones did give you trouble on your playthroughs?
My first time fighting Gwyn probably took the longest. I used Queelags fury and still had no idea how scaling works. Gael was a tough one as well but also because my first go at him was in ng+3 or 4. Same with consort Radahn who felt like such an inpassible barrier at first I fell into despair. I refused to use shields and summons though so that heightened the difficulty a bit
I still have not ever beaten Orphan of Kos after four playthroughs with four different builds. I don’t know what it is, that boy is just built different. Only other Soulsborne boss I’ve never beaten is Kalameet, mostly just because it’s kind of pointless and I never bothered, but I’ve recently been playing through Dark Souls Remastered since it went on sale and we’re going to address that this time around.
I don’t know when I’ll be headed back to Bloodborne for another go at the Orphan though. Not gonna lie, my spirit is a little broken in that regard. I bet I’ve put a good 18 hours into just his fight alone over the many attempts. I’ve gotten him to phase 2 a bunch of times but I’ve never finished the fight, not once. At this point I figure I just take the L because he’s beaten me good and proper and there’s nothing else behind his fight that I require.
For me it was Great Shinobi Owl I think. I just had all the wrong things going on mindset wise, took me a good while to do it the first time. Ever since then it has been easy every other time and so has the rest of the game. It finally forced me to play sekiro correctly
Depends on the game and how much experience I had at the time.
DS1 and DS2, between 1 and 5 attempts on average.
DS3 (my first souls game) probably 10+ on average on first playthrough, but now I can first try most of them. I think Abyss Watchers or Dancer took the most tries, probably 50 each. The challenge on NG+7 makes me feel like a noob again, though - Demon Princes, SoC, Gael are all pretty nuts.
Elden Ring, honestly I haven’t solo’d most of the late game or DLC bosses, but I would say they are among the most difficult. I’m playing through again now and soloing most of them, I would say it’s around 10 to 15 attempts for the main remembrance bosses so far.
Demon’s Souls was not bad, maybe 1 to 3 tries each, except for the second-to-final boss was easily 20 or 30 tries, and an absolute nightmare of a runback. I was also on the full black world tendency before realizing how that mechanic worked lol.
Yeah, DS3 on ng max has Gael and first phase of the Demon Twins not only with buffed health & damage reductions but they get way more aggressive than in other ngs leaving you with much less opportunities to deal damage.
(For the Demons I just gave up - on ng max I summon the two dorks to keep one busy, they usually promptly die at the start of the second phase anyway.)Especially Gael in second phase - around level 50 that fight lasts me prob 20 minutes (and I don’t ever enjoy that fight under any circumstances to begin with). I know there are some other cheesy tactics that work there but I don’t like them.
Then again, folk beats ngs with a broken ‘broken sword’ so …It all feels wrong since the enjoyment of other bosses doesn’t change as much with ngs.
First playthroughs i can get bosses in under 10 attempts a lot of the time because im a completionist and am overleveled. A lot of bosses towards end of game end up being just 2-3 attempts.
When i do SL1 challenges though then that’s where the pain comes. I haven’t done SL1 elden ring or bloodborne but from DS1-3 the hardest boss for me was nameless king. At around 40 attempts. It just took me a really long time to get the the timing of his one-shot sword strike down 🙈
Have you played the DS3 DLCs at SL1? My SL1 run is currently stuck at Soul of Cinder, just can’t stop getting greedy and eating combos.
Personally I found NK wasn’t bad, but I struggled with about as many attempts as you on both Twin Princes and Champion Gundyr. At least they are all fun fights though!
I did do the DLCs and i don’t recall any of them being too bad. It did help in general though i had already done plat so had gone through the game several times and had practiced most bosses and was familiar with their moves before doing SL1. the problem with NK was just that i had never bothered learning the timing of his sword attacks and the one that one-shotted me i kept dodging too soon or too late.
SoC for me was pretty similar to NK but i found it more forgiving since there’s more strikes that won’t instant kill you. I do think once i started playing more patiently i was able to stop trading hits and that made the difference.
I don’t recall trouble with twin princes or champion gundyr. Unfortunately i think i deleted the folder that had all my death tracking for each SL1 run 😭
NK is really sneaky like that. I remember noticing he has that slight delay which became prominent with Elden Ring bosses.
What did you use to track deaths?
Ha, exactly! this was before i did elden ring and i hated that about elden ring 😅
Just used pen and paper with tally marks, and then i had saved them on the computer at some point. It was kind of fun to see the deaths per boss. I know speedrunners use some software that can track the deaths per segment too but you need to manually increment it still
The longest one is Promised Consort Radahn, 8 days of trying and learning. Amazing feeling afterwards, still like this boss (gameplay-wise) even though i understand all the hate around it.
Malenia was tough as well, i remember i gave up on her in the first playthrough and summoned people. On replay I killed her with two halberds doing insane amount of damage from jump attack and it felt underwhelming. Then i replayed the game again and defeated her using a twinblade, was very satisfying properly learning the moveset.
In souls series Friede was the toughest one, spend 5 nights on her (5 nights at Friede’s lol). And I consider this fight the best in the series overall, especially story-wise. The buildup is an absolute masterpiece: how you meet her as a nice friendly NPC, then discover her dark secrets, then fight with Vilhelm, find Ariandel—and the fight itself as the climax of the story. Absolute cinema
I never had that much trouble with Friede, but it’s def a fight I don’t have to re-learn after a year or two away from DS3 - feels 1337 af to beat that fight “first try” & I look forward to that again in a few years.
I had the same with Gael. All his combos cut into my muscle memory
Oh, yes, def, Midir too, but they were easier to learn imo/for me (a bit more telegraphed in their movement).
I usually don’t have too much trouble with bosses. Sometimes it takes a dozen tries over the course of a day or two. But Slave Knight Gael was just impossible for me. I tried for a good week, switched up my gear, and just never could beat him. I finally conceded and decided it wasn’t worth the frustration. He’s the only boss that I haven’t beaten at least once.
Sir alonne with his walk up drove me crazy.
Longest was ludwig on bl4 200+ attempts. Four kings and ornstein and smough were easier on sl1
I freaked out on sir Alonne runback and killed every mob 12 times until they disappeared. Then killed Alonne in the very next try
I caused extinction events on a couple different boss run-ups, I remember doing this for blue smelter demon as well. It is both practical and therapeutic.
Oh, yes, this - def the boss I needed most attempts to beat him the first time around.
I was under-leveled (mostly one hit death) and a pure caster (slow casting vs a fast long-moves boss with rapid attacks).
The 4 kings become bothersome on ng+s when you can’t kill them fast enough (on any sl) so they just keep spawning & sometimes you can get 4 (or more?) attacking you at the same time … and sometimes they just politely wait their turn like in the movies. Pretty rng-ish.
I gave up killing Smough before Ornsten on sl1, I just can’t/don’t want to git gud at herding them around long enough to kill the fat bitch first.
They were a chore for sure. 4 kings killed the run tho. Rng dps race are letters that should not be combined.
Oh jesus fuck, you just reminded me that I also couldn’t beat Ludwig on my BL4 run. That was so horrible
I brick walled at the dps race known as living failures. Hated that 4 kings style shit. Also what killed my sl1 run IIRC
His moveset is still living in my brain
Days
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