From Software 'n such

[Sumez]

I do agree that experience with Souls playstyle helps a lot, and even then there's a lot of variance with difficulty that comes into play due to both the rpg elements and players general strengths and playstyles (every single person I've ever talked to has a different ranking for bosses and games difficulty wise). But that being said, I think Demon's Souls is objectively the easiest. It's almost shocking how much breathing room bosses give you in that game, if you come to it after Bloodborne or 3.

Yeah, it's really interesting how much opinions differ on those subjects. I just (to torture myself I guess?) watched this video of a guy ranking all the Nioh bosses, and I don't think I've ever disagreed more with anything. I think my list would be almost the exact other way around. That also reflects the discussions I usually have with other Soulsborne players, too. Nothing hurts your ego more than frantically spending more than 40 attempts getting your ass kicked by the same boss only to be told by someone else that it was the easiest boss in the game.

The only boss everyone seems to agree on is hard is Ornstein and Smough...

However, it's definitely time for me to replay Demon's Souls soon. I haven't even touched the game since well before Dark Souls 1 came out, and I'm curious to see how the game feels to me now with all this new experience with the series and style of game.

[Immryr]

yeah, my experience is pretty similar to squire's, except i played dark souls 2 first!

demon's souls is significantly easier than the rest of the series, especially the bosses. i still love it though.

bosses in particular get harder as the series goes on.

[Sumez]

One thing I guess is screwing my perspective a bit is that bosses come across much easier when you realise that you can just run from every enemy all the way back to the boss (this didn't happen to me until my fourth game in the series...), thus decreasing the delay from losing an attempt to beginning the next one.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the bosses I recall as really hard in DS,DkS1 or DS2 actually didn't take me more than 4 or 5 tries maybe.

Also, after playing Nioh, I expect every Souls boss will feel fairly easy. :\ I'm pretty sure I spent like 30 tries on a few of those. I kinda wish the games would log statistics about those things, embarassing as it might be.

[Obscura]

I'm really surprised by the discussion of DS3 being the hardest; I thought it was the easiest by quite some measure. The DLC is another story (or at least the bosses are, the areas are also pretty easy I find), but DS3 seemed a lot easier in that boss fights didn't last nearly as long as in the other games, so I never had to really be consistent in dodging anything; I only had to be able to hit hard and chug through most of them, and learn some gimmicks on a few of them. Also surprised to see Squire saying the early game seemed easy and then it ramped up, for me it was the other way around with Lothric Wall kicking my ass, the undead town that I can't remember the name of being a bit easier, and then none of the other areas really giving me any issues other than maybe Irthyll Dungeon and its jailors.

Mind you, DS3 is still my favorite of the trilogy.

[Bananamatic]

dks2 early game is the hardest
your roll sucks to the point of getting hit through super armor, your item use speed sucks and you have only 1 estus and the enemies in the forest are bullshit (tiny shields on spear knights that are practically unbreakable by force)
once you get agility up and get more estus it's way easier

[Marc]

One thing I guess is screwing my perspective a bit is that bosses come across much easier when you realise that you can just run from every enemy all the way back to the boss (this didn't happen to me until my fourth game in the series...), thus decreasing the delay from losing an attempt to beginning the next one.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the bosses I recall as really hard in DS,DkS1 or DS2 actually didn't take me more than 4 or 5 tries maybe.

Also, after playing Nioh, I expect every Souls boss will feel fairly easy. :\ I'm pretty sure I spent like 30 tries on a few of those. I kinda wish the games would log statistics about those things, embarassing as it might be.

I loved what I played of Nioh, but gave up on the 3rd/4th boss (flying thing that shoots paralysing bolts at you). Think I made 20+ attempts, and just couldn't dedicate myself to something that was going to take me so long to master. Shame as I was really enjoying it up until then.

I think that Souls games get harder as they go along, but maybe that's partly because they changed the systems slightly with ever one, and it's the original I'm most comfortable with. I remember struggling with some of the mobs on 3 (the stabby people in the snowy bit), only bits that ever really destroyed me on 2 was the DLC - which I thought pretty poorly designed. Loving Remastered though, so much easier to parry/backstab at a solid 60FPS.

[Sumez]

That boss is actually one of my favourites in the game. She doesn't have any attacks that force you to stay on your toes (unlike something like the giant toad or Okatsu, who give you absolutely no breathing room), so if you need to get your bearings you can always just back up, and stick to stabbing her a couple of times before retreating again.

She's also a good example of a boss that that video listed as one of the hardest, but I found to be one of the easiest. :\

I actually recorded a video of me fighting her (on the harder post-game difficulty, but the fight remains the same, mechanically) simply due to the ridiculously disappointing way it ended out (skip to 4:10), but despite taking some stupid hits near the beginning of the fight, I remain completely safe for the remainder of it, and I think it's a good demonstration of an easily manageable way to take her on if you aren't trying to speedrun or something.
Here ya go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s51xMdXJLs

Btw what makes the bosses in Nioh harder than the ones in souls/borne (IMO), is not so much the way the fights play out, but the fact that every one of them can destroy you in one or two hits from even their most basic attacks.

[Necronopticous]

It's the Dark Souls of rings.

[Square_Air]

I found DS3 to be relatively easier than the other games, but having played it soon after SOTFS (easily the hardest DS game IMO) might have altered my view of it. DS1 was a struggle in the beginning since it was my first game, but after 7-8 playthroughs and an SL1 run it's really hard to compare it to a game I've only played once. I haven't played BB or DeS, but I would rank them SOTFS>DS1>DS3>DS2. DS1 & DS3 might be equal, but I need to put more time into DS3 before I really decide, but I don't want to play much more of it until I get a better PC that can actually run it properly. When I fought the Dragonslayer Armour it ran at about the frame rate of an episode of Speed Racer.

some of the Lord Soul bosses are kind of poorly designed IMO (and I'm not just talking about everyone's favorite "puzzle" punching bag, Bed of Chaos).

I don't find anything to be wrong with Nito or Four Kings, but I think Seath is disappointing and easy. The only interesting/difficult part to Seath is cutting his tail.

After being interested by your rating of the DeS bosses, I figured it would be fun to try and rank the bosses of all the DS games. These games are different experiences for everyone, so I expect people to have drastically different opinions. I made this list relatively quickly, so there's lots of bosses that could probably move up or down, but I'm happy with the tiers and general location of bosses within them, just understand that it's not a 100% accurate representation of my thoughts.

I'm ranking the bosses while ignoring broken cheese strats, but I've marked the ones that can be easily cheesed with an asterisk. I also added in the twin Pursuers fight from NG+ in SOTFS since it's way harder than most bosses in the series if you don't carefully despawn one. I fought them with a bonfire ascetic in NG, so I've tried to estimate where they would fit while having a higher SL and better defensive armour.

-Expert-

-Fume Knight
-Twin Pursuers*


-Difficult-

-Sir Alonne
-Darkeater Midir
-GANK SQUAD
-Darklurker
-The Bed of Chaos*
-Lud and Zallen
-Ancient Dragon
-Soul of Cinder
-Artorias
-Nameless King
-Manus*
-Pontiff Sulyvahn
-Smelter Demon/Blue Smelter Demon
-Centipede Demon
-Lothric and Lorian
-Burnt Ivory King
-Sister Friede
-Belfry Gargoyles
-Dancer


-Standard-

-Dragonslayer Armour
-Slave Knight Gael
-Demon Prince
-Champion Gundyr
-Priscilla*
-Aldrich
-Ornstein and Smough
-Kalameet**
-Elana
-Gwyn
-Nito
-Sinh
-Sanctuary Guardian
-Royal Rat Authority
-The Pursuer
-Twin Dragonriders
-Abyss Watchers
-Crystal Sage
-Aava
-Velstadt
-Watcher and Defender
-Lost Sinner
-Aldia
-Nashandra
-Four Kings
-Quelaag*
-Ruin Sentinels
-Halflight
-Old Demon King
-Gwyndolin
-Moonlight Butterfly
-Stray Demon
-Oceiros
-Guardian Dragon
-Old Iron King
-Executioners Chariot
-Demon Firesage
-Champion's Gravetender
-Sif
-Iron Golem
-Looking Glass Knight
-Scorpioness Najka
-Capra Demon*
-Bell Gargoyles


-Basic-

-Vendrick
-Ceaseless Discharge (without easy method)
-Deacons of the Deep
-The Rotten
-The Skeleton Lords
-Seath The Scaleless
-Curse-Rotted Greatwood
-The Dukes Dear Freja
-Old Dragonslayer
-Demon of Song
-Ancient Wyvern (the run up to it)
-Vordt
-Flexile Sentry
-Iudex Gundyr
-Mytha
-Gaping Dragon
-Giant Lord
-Tauros Demon
-Asylum Demon
-The Last Giant
-Dragonrider*


-Pathetic-

-Royal Rat Vanguard
-Yhorm (with Seigward questline)
-Covetous Demon
-Prowling Magus
-Pinwheel
-High Lord Wolnir
-Ceaseless Discharge (with easy method)

*A broken method exists that makes this fight trivial

**Fighting Kalameet under the waterfall to limit their moveset was considered for this placement

[Obscura]

Following that format, I'd say:
(From hardest to easiest within each tier. Note,there's a few optional bosses I've never bothered with, and thus they aren't ranked. Also, I'm not counting Halflight because how hard or easy he is is largely random)

Code: Select all

EXPERT:
Sister Freide  (Only "mandatory" boss I've never beaten without summoning.  Also, this fight is stupid fucking bullshit, fuck this boss so hard, and this whole DLC was total trash.)
Throne Watcher & Throne Defender
Ruin Sentinels
Belfry Gargoyles
Burnt Ivory King
Darklurker
Alana (without cheese.  Also, terrible.)
Champion Gundyr

DIFFICULT:
Ornstein and Smough
Sir Alonne
Fume Knight
Manus
Gaping Dragon (I realize I'm probably alone here, but I've always had a bitching hard time with this boss)
Gwyn
Gael
Vendrick
Twin Dragonriders
Artorius
Pontiff Sulyvahn
Bed of Chaos (also, terrible)
The Lost Sinner
Looking Glass Knight
Velstadt
Abyss Watchers
Dragonslayer Armor
Demon Firesage (his room makes him harder than Stray Demon)

STANDARD:
Sinh
Duke's Dear Freja (Very build dependent, much harder with STR than DEX.  With DEX, drop her to about where Nito is.)
Nameless King
Aldia (I love this fight because it reminds me of Dracula from Castlevania)
Cool Ranch Smelter Demon
Spicy Nacho Smelter Demon
Ringed City Demons
Aava
Nito
Aldritch
Soul of Cinder
Dancer of the Boreal Valley (build dependent, much easier with DEX)
Stray Demon
Demon of Song
Capra Demon
Executioner's Chariot
Scorpioness Najka
Taurus Demon
Ceaseless Discharge (I never figured out the exact nuances of cheesing him)
Bell Gargoyles
Four Kings (hard to rate this one, since it's so knowledge-based)
Pursuer
Royal Rat Vanguard
Giant Lord
Alana (with cheese)
Curse-Rotted Greatwood (also, terrible)
Crystal Sage
Old Demon King
Yhorm (also, terrible)
Lothric (hard to rate, very easy with DEX, a lot harder with STR)

BASIC:
Old Dragonslayer
Dragonrider
Vordt
The Rotten
Royal Rat Authority
Iron Golem
Asylum Demon
Priscilla
Seath
Centipede Demon
The Last Giant
Wolnir (also, terrible)
Skeleton Lords (move to "DIFFICULT" on NG+)
Old Iron King
Flexile Sentry
Guardian Dragon
Nashandra
Iudex Gundyr
Ancient Wyvern (also, terrible)
Prowling Magus and Congregation
Kalameet (hard to rank, I've never died to him, but have only ever bothered with him twice)

PATHETIC:
Moonlight Butterfly
Oceiros
Pinwheel
Mytha
Covetous Demon
Deacons of the Deep
Gwyndolin
Sif (One of only two bosses I've never died to, across multiple playthroughs)
Queelag (One of only two bosses I've never died to, across multiple playthroughs)

[Immryr]

i'm quite surprised at people finding the ruin sentinels so hard. are you guys just immediately jumping down to the floor and fighting all three? if you just stay on the platform at the top it's dead easy.

there isn't really much nuance to cheesing ceaseless, obscura. you just sprint to the fog gate as soon as you pick up the gold thread set.

what is the broken method of cheesing manus, square?

[Blinge]

Think you've got Rat Vanguard and Authority mixed up. Altho it's hardly a henious crime haha.

I'd defo say Fume is harder than Ivory King, although I've never bothered fighting Ivory without sealing his men.

Freide, really? I found a strat that makes the second form a relative cakewalk..

Spoiler

She really doesn't chase you down, but father ariandel will. So let him come at you with wild swings, get a fuckton of damage in once he stops, rinse repeat.

Also Kalameet gave me trouble in my first couple of playthroughs, whenever i didn't use shield. I wouldn't put him in basic.

Oh shit, I totally forgot I can be that guy today!
lol beat ruin sentinels first time. No, really. ;]
Immaryu is right.

[Square_Air]

As I expected, there's a lot of difference between people's experiences.

i'm quite surprised at people finding the ruin sentinels so hard. are you guys just immediately jumping down to the floor and fighting all three? if you just stay on the platform at the top it's dead easy.

Oh shit, I totally forgot I can be that guy today!
lol beat ruin sentinels first time. No, really. ;]
Immaryu is right.

I just realized I accidentally left out the Ruin Sentinels, so I've placed them just under Quelaag near the middle of standard. They can definitely be nasty if you're fighting them all at once, but I layed on the DPS one at a time and didn't have much trouble killing them on my first try, you just have to take them out before another jumps up to help.

Also, I'm not counting Halflight because how hard or easy he is is largely random)

I ranked the NPC Halflight, not the Spear of the Church PVP invasion.

I found Watcher and Defender to be easier than O&S (which I think has their difficulty a little overrated by the community), and I didn't have much trouble taking them out my first try either. Sister Friede is a fairly difficult fight during the third phase where her damage skyrockets, but I still only lost once and didn't struggle while soloing. Quelaag & Gwyndolin at the very bottom beneath garbage like Pinwheel and Covetous Demon is criminal though! Same with Kalameet being beneath Wolnir. Gaping Dragon has never given me trouble, and Vendrick has a blindspot where he can never hit you.

The only boss I ever really struggled with was Fume Knight which took me at least 5 hours to finally take down, even without the healing crystals.

what is the broken method of cheesing manus, square?

Outside of his fog gate if you look down into the darkness below you can see his red eyes glowing. With a hawk ring on you can just stand still and snipe him dead without having to even encounter him.

[Immryr]

oh yeah, i completely forgot about that.

[Sumez]

I can't even remember half of these bosses. I really need to get to replaying... pretty much every game in the series aside from DS3 and BB. Fortunately both DS1 and DS2 have remakes that could help shake things up just a little.

[Necronopticous]

Shadow Tower down! Holy hell! What a game.

[Sumez]

God damn you're fast. I was planning on starting out on the KF games ASAP, but I still haven't gotten through Prey 2017 during the time you've gotten through like three PS1 Fromsoft games.

[Bananamatic]

and even beyond that some of the Lord Soul bosses are kind of poorly designed IMO (and I'm not just talking about everyone's favorite "puzzle" punching bag, Bed of Chaos)..

"some"
nah, they're all crap
nito and seath just sit there and barely do anything missing you half the time, bed of chaos is bed of chaos and 4 kings are just strafe, dps and hope they don't spam magic

idk why people consider fume knight that hard beyond his moveset swap that throws you off, sir alonne is way worse because you can't even estus against him without dodging first, try to sip and he immediately dashes across the room and hits you
getting the sudoku animation wasn't even that different from a regular fight because he really doesn't want you to heal

[Marc]

Been trying to remember which bosses ended my Solo runs - have attempted one in every game and run across one boss that pissed me off.

Think with DS1 it was actually the final boss - I got fatigued and couldn't be arsed to drag it out any longer.
I know DS2 was The Rotten.
Funny thing is I can't remember which one it was that did me on DS3 - even though I know I had no PL+ at the time and subbed just to pass one particularly aggravating boss. Whole game didn't leave much of an impression if I'm honest.

[Sumez]

Funny, The Rotten was probably the only DS2 boss that didn't bother me in any way, aside from how boring it is. I don't think I got it in the first try, since it packs a pretty heavy punch. But all the attacks are slow and super telegraphed, and it only has like 3 different ones.

[Square_Air]

idk why people consider fume knight that hard beyond his moveset swap that throws you off, sir alonne is way worse because you can't even estus against him without dodging first, try to sip and he immediately dashes across the room and hits you
getting the sudoku animation wasn't even that different from a regular fight because he really doesn't want you to heal

It's not that hard to use estus on Sir Alonne, you just chug in place of an attack like on other fast bosses. He does put on really crazy pressure, but he's less versatile than Fume Knight and more punishable IMO. The large size of the room allows you to bait and punish charge attacks, but with Fume Knight the arena is so small that you're almost always in range of that much more dangerous ultra greatsword, forcing you to get up close and contend with that diverse moveset.

[Immryr]

Who uses estus in ds2? Just spam infinite life gems.

[Immryr]

Been trying to remember which bosses ended my Solo runs - have attempted one in every game and run across one boss that pissed me off.

Think with DS1 it was actually the final boss - I got fatigued and couldn't be arsed to drag it out any longer.
I know DS2 was The Rotten.
Funny thing is I can't remember which one it was that did me on DS3 - even though I know I had no PL+ at the time and subbed just to pass one particularly aggravating boss. Whole game didn't leave much of an impression if I'm honest.

Are you telling me you usually summon for bosses? How can you even look at yourself in the mirror?!?

[Bananamatic]

I only summoned for frigid outskirts
fuck that entire area, it's designed for you to summon 4 npcs and casually walk through it

[Marc]

Been trying to remember which bosses ended my Solo runs - have attempted one in every game and run across one boss that pissed me off.

Think with DS1 it was actually the final boss - I got fatigued and couldn't be arsed to drag it out any longer.
I know DS2 was The Rotten.
Funny thing is I can't remember which one it was that did me on DS3 - even though I know I had no PL+ at the time and subbed just to pass one particularly aggravating boss. Whole game didn't leave much of an impression if I'm honest.

Are you telling me you usually summon for bosses? How can you even look at yourself in the mirror?!?

Damn right. Remember playing the first, loving the world and atmosphere, and bouncing off the difficulty after the first dozen hours. Went back a few months later with the mindset that I wanted to see the rest of the world and summoned when I felt I was hitting a brick wall.

2 I felt was cheaper in a lot of ways, so fuck that game.

3 not longer have the time to 'git good'.

I promised myself I wouldn't start another From game, but somebody gave me remastered as an early Bday present so....

[Obscura]

i'm quite surprised at people finding the ruin sentinels so hard. are you guys just immediately jumping down to the floor and fighting all three? if you just stay on the platform at the top it's dead easy.

there isn't really much nuance to cheesing ceaseless, obscura. you just sprint to the fog gate as soon as you pick up the gold thread set.

what is the broken method of cheesing manus, square?

I know about staying on the platform for Ruin Sentinels but that fight... ruins... me anyways. The first one is no problem, but then I have to deal with two of them on that tiny little platform, and if I make a mistake, I end up having to fight on the floor with their expanded movesets (seriously, UGH at their spin2win), which goes really badly for me.

Think you've got Rat Vanguard and Authority mixed up. Altho it's hardly a henious crime haha.

I'd defo say Fume is harder than Ivory King, although I've never bothered fighting Ivory without sealing his men.

Freide, really? I found a strat that makes the second form a relative cakewalk..

Spoiler

She really doesn't chase you down, but father ariandel will. So let him come at you with wild swings, get a fuckton of damage in once he stops, rinse repeat.

Also Kalameet gave me trouble in my first couple of playthroughs, whenever i didn't use shield. I wouldn't put him in basic.

Nah, I don't have RRV and RRA confused. Maybe I just suck at multi-part bosses, but RRV's crowd control isn't trivial. RRA can't do anything as long as you kill his poison buddies quickly.

The thing that makes Ivory hard is that the bit with the swarms of his buddies can be rough, especially if you get unlucky and the helper knights decide to just stand there with their thumbs in their butts and let you take agro from all of the buddies. Ivory dude himself is probably slightly easier than Fume, but I don't think Fume is really that tough, either (he's durable, but he's not very fast, so timing rolls on him is easy compared to, say, Alonne).

I tried that strategy on Freide, and what always inevitably happened is she either blasted me with a spell through Ariandel or she just did her dash attack invisibly straight through him, since her attacks totally ignore collision with him (which is stupid and cheap as hell).

I've never fought Kalameet with a shield, but I've only fought him twice (and won twice). Every time I've fought him, it's just "get close, mash R1, estus occasionally, then he flies around and wastes a bunch of my time, then he lands and I go back to R1 mashing, and he dies before I do".

I found Watcher and Defender to be easier than O&S (which I think has their difficulty a little overrated by the community), and I didn't have much trouble taking them out my first try either. Sister Friede is a fairly difficult fight during the third phase where her damage skyrockets, but I still only lost once and didn't struggle while soloing. Quelaag & Gwyndolin at the very bottom beneath garbage like Pinwheel and Covetous Demon is criminal though! Same with Kalameet being beneath Wolnir. Gaping Dragon has never given me trouble, and Vendrick has a blindspot where he can never hit you.

I find W+D harder than O+S, mainly because I can't just focus my damage on one of them and dealing with the other in peace. Having to handle two dudes for the entire duration of the fight makes it much harder. Quelaag has to be at the very bottom, though; one of only two bosses I've fought 4 times and never lost to, even on my magic build where the fight went on fffoooorrrreeeevvveerr because my damage to her was so low. Just stand beside her and laugh because all of her attacks other than the really telegraphed "explosion" only hit directly in front of her. Gwyndolin is also a big nothing, just run towards him and roll... what a fight. I've only bothered with him once, so I can't put him down with Sif or Quelaag, but Pinwheel killed me my first time fighting him, and Covetous Demon managed to get me on my third DS2 playthrough, so they've got the leg up on Gwyndolin for sure. Likewise with Kalameet vs. Wolnir; Wolnir has actually killed me, Kalameet hasn't.

[Necronopticous]

God damn you're fast. I was planning on starting out on the KF games ASAP, but I still haven't gotten through Prey 2017 during the time you've gotten through like three PS1 Fromsoft games.

I also played through both King's Field 2 & 3 twice, hah! Had to test out that level 1 run. Unfortunately Shadow Tower is not really suited for that type of thing, but I am sort of considering trying to see if I can make a mad dash to the bottom of the tower without killing anything. I've got to do something to keep myself in the zone until Echo Night arrives in the mail.

[Bananamatic]

kalameet is fun if you have a scaling build
if you go in with a chaos zweihander or something elemental you're in for a bad time, it does less damage to the dlc enemies than the drake sword

[Square_Air]

I only summoned for frigid outskirts
fuck that entire area, it's designed for you to summon 4 npcs and casually walk through it

There's actually a really consistent way to deal with the area solo, but it's so fucking boring. There's about 5 or 6 spawn points for the reindeer and you can farm them each 10-15 times to permanently cut off that one spawn point. I ended up cutting off about 3 or 4 spawn points so I could consistently run through, as with right timing you can skip some spawn points when the blizzard isn't up if you've removed some. It's easy to trigger 2 reindeer though, and at that point you're probably dead or wasted a ton of estus you wanted for the boss. What a stupid area.

[JBC]

King's Field is my bag. I've never played them before until now, but saw a screenshot from III that got me interested. I've put about 5 hours into III using Retroarch & Beetle, as I cannot stand to wait any longer for my PSIO to arrive. I'm using a 4:3 monitor & nice CRT filter so it's as legit as it can be this way.

I decided before I progress any further I should go back to the beginning & play King's Field I with the translation patch. I applied that patch & then found out about KFIII: Pilot Style, the prologue for III. I jumped through a few hoops and managed to get it patched last night. The patch is by the same kind soul who made the patch for KF1.

I'm really enjoying the atmosphere & deadly beasts. Yes, it's slow, but after I got mentally adjusted I found that pace adds to the creeping tension. Also, if you speed it up using the emulator's features projectiles become nigh unmanageable lol. I haven't been cheating this way because it would ruin the game, but I lost my first save file 5 hours in after I accidentally crashed Retroarch while fiddling with resolutions & used it to catch back up. Save states had originally been toggled on, which bafflingly overwrite the virtual memory card files. An irritating setback, but I used the opportunity to optimize my progress on the second go. I had originally sold my Excelletor (or whatever it's called) in order to afford armor I would have just discovered on my own anyway, and also missed the spider cavern.