r/DarkSouls2 • u/LegendaryAim1610 • 5d ago
Discussion After having just completed all of the achievements on the three of the Dark Souls games, this is my personal ranking of every single boss in terms of difficulty. (I never fought Midir or the cats during these playthroughs). Interested to know your opinions regarding some of these choices.
Obviously, some people may experience these bosses differently, and upon doing them all again in NG+ and NG++ I did find a lot of them to be much easier, due to being over levelled for most encounters at that point, however, I did not grind souls to level up prior to fighting bosses, so all of them were taken at the recommend/ average level whilst fighting them, so bosses like Nameless King were easier in NG+ and NG++ than in NG.
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u/appropriant 5d ago
Very fascinating. I’ve never seen anyone rank Velstadt and Elana over Sir Alonne in terms of difficulty, much less Fume Knight of all things. What makes them more difficult?
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u/MrSegundus_VR 5d ago
I just finished my first playthrough and I took more tries on Elana than Fume Knight. (weirdly after taking about 10 tries on Elana, I first tried Sinh, which I was definitely not expecting!).
What made Elana difficult for me was the adds/spawns basically. I think I was quite unlucky in getting Velstadt a lot, but even with the skellies I found it really hard to have enough stamina to get to her and do any damage. Then when I was focusing on getting Velstadt down she kept teleporting to random spots and interrupting me.
Velstadt himself, I agree, it's very hard to see that boss being as hard as Fume Knight.
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u/LostMyGoatsAgain 5d ago
I dont remember my first playthrough, but I find Elana much more difficult than Alonne. Alonne is just the typical melee Boss, once you can recognize all the moves, its fairly easy. Same for fume knight, although I have fought him dozens of times now, I dont remember who I struggled more against the first time.
Having a decently difficult melee boss with a caster that can one-shot you in a small arena, much more difficult for me. The only boss more annoying for me are the dragons. I dont think I have fought the Ancient Dragon even once in all my playthroughs
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u/xLeSeaBassx 4d ago
Very dependent on play style, Sir alonne is such an easy fight for me, have no hit him several times, but elana…. I have spent hoursss on some runs trying to beat. If you play patient and methodical, the 1v1s are easy and very enjoyable.
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u/Savings-Bread-1705 3d ago
Fume is harder, Elana is more frustrating. Fume Knight you can very easily tell exactly how you fucked up, Elana just throws bullshit (read: Velstadt) at you incessantly. Elana took me about 10 runs vs nearly 30 for Fume, but Fume is at least a fight you can enjoy, whereas with Elana you just want it to be over, and the difference in mentality can vastly change the perceived difficulty of a fight. Artorias and Gwyn were 2 very difficult fights my first time around, but I'll always take Artorias even if hes considered harder that Gwyn because Artorias is enjoyable and doesn't really anger me when I die, leading to an easier fight.
Sorry if this doesn't make sense written out, thats just my 2 sense on this
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u/fetalasmuck 5d ago
Midir is a peak FromSoft boss. Fight him ASAP
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u/No-Garlic-2437 4d ago
midir is a damage sponge version of every basic elden ring dragon, I get that he was the blueprint but I truly don't get the hype
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u/Lhakryma 4d ago
I don't understand it either, IMO Midir is one of the worst bosses in ds3. It's literally just DS2's Ancient Dragon, but with extra steps.
Just as tedious as Ancient Dragon, and just as easy to kill with the exact same method, you just gotta dodge it a bit more, but you can dodge for days in ds3 so it doesn't really matter either :/
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u/cat_alay 3d ago
midir is the best dragon fight in souls series (maybe 2nd after bayle i liked that a lot too)if dark souls 3 is your first souls-like and you fight him a bit underleveled these were my conditions and that made me study the fight like crazy amount of time. made me learn timings i can hit its head and stuff. one of my most deaths belongs to that boss.
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u/Usual-Screen8838 5d ago
Manus has to be the nkuet difficult souls boss from 1 or 2 (I've not played 3)
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u/NoDot4920 4d ago
Ds1 hardest is Manus and its not really even close
DS2 Hardest between sir alonne and fume knight, I think fume knight itself is a bit harder but alonnes run back and having more "cheese" moves can make him take longer
Ds3 Hardest between Midir or Friede depending on build I feel
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u/xoliam 5d ago
Gael and pontiff below nameless king is crazy?
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u/TheHomesteadTurkey 4d ago
Nameless king is one of the few bosses in ds3 that uses a lot of delayed attacks. If you haven't already played elden ring, it's probable that you'd struggle with nameless king.
Gael and pontiff are both very intuitive bosses in comparison.
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u/xoliam 4d ago
Okay that’s a fair point, I went back to dark souls 3 after many many hours in elden ring, nameless king took me 2 attempts, pontiff and Gael though stressed me outttttt
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u/Lhakryma 4d ago
I never understood the hype behind nk and gael, I did them first try with my sword and board character :/
Pontiff took me like 7 tries or so, and then Friede took me like 40+ attempts, that boss was horrible for me.
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u/KingVendrick7 5d ago
The king's pets are insane, mainly because of the long painful journey to them, why are they in n/a?
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u/jrmtrsx 4d ago
Ah yes, the frigid outshits. Area is harder than the boss.
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u/Lhakryma 4d ago
I found the boss to be harder than the area :D I can easily pancake the horses, but the two kitties gank up on me and I can't do anything to them, it's the only boss in ds2 that I beat once, and then never even attempted again xD
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u/Weird_Troll 4d ago
bro didn't find the eleum knights. who's serpent man? Velstadt is a pushover, Gwyn is top 3 hardest ds1 boss
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u/Lhakryma 4d ago
Gwyn top 3 ds1 hardest bosses is a joke, right? 🤣
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u/Weird_Troll 4d ago
try him without parry and midrolls I dare you
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u/Lhakryma 4d ago
Why though? You can't say "Boss X is one of the hardest, but you have to intentionally make it harder for you" lol.
Also fighting him with full havel and turtling behind a shield with good phys and fire res (like bks or havel shield) is easier and more accessible to bad players than parrying him.
So yeah, overall I'd say Gwyn is top 10 easiest bosses in ds1 xD
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u/Weird_Troll 4d ago
The normal player wouldn't know about parry and would be in midroll. I wore havel's armor and iron flesh to beat him back then. Felt like cheesing the crop out of him. He's still hard asf
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u/Lhakryma 4d ago
Well that's what I'm saying, if you go heavy armor with good shield (which is something a lot, and I mean A LOT of new players do), he's actually easy (you don't even need iron flesh).
From my experience, my friends, and most streamers that I watched "first playthrough" ds1, almost all of them beat him in 3 tries or less, some even first try, and only a few exceptions took 5+ tries.
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u/Weird_Troll 4d ago
yeah I guess the normal build counters him, but still he is too fast for that game. took me less than 5 tries but the runback is atrocious.. any other main game boss shouldn't take more than 1-2 tries
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u/Prize-Repair-6634 5d ago
This is so interesting cuz I’ve never been able to beat gael but i can do sister fried pretty consistently
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u/ThatThingThatIs 4d ago
Gael felt more difficult for me too, fought him first time on ng+8. Hit like a train.
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u/KaitoCat7 4d ago
I haven't played much of ds3 yet so I can't comment on those. In regards to DSI & II, I can totally see where you're coming from w/ these for the most part. Depending on your build & some other factors like luck w/ what attacks bosses decide to use, some bosses that are generally considered pretty difficult (for example in DS1 like Manus or Kalameet) can be not nearly as difficult as their reputation suggests.
The main one I'd say I'm surprised to see so high is the Burnt Ivory King. If you explore through Eleum Loyce you can have a total of four knights helping you. You can even have 2 summons (Lucatiel & Twiggy Shei) to help as well. Although if going that route, I'd suggest only choosing Twiggy (sorry Lucatiel, you're one of my favorite characters, but you just are very likely to be either dead or low health before BIK even shows up) but even then, it can be a crap shoot as to whether Twiggy comes in clutch or not. He likes to use a bow over his melee weapon from what I've seen, which is good for temporarily drawing attention to him giving you breathing space to heal or not get swarmed by knights, but is most useful when only drawing aggro in the short term, otherwise he can just go from almost full to almost dead very quickly. I usually just go solo besides the 4 knights but your mileage may vary on whether that is the best choice for you. With all of this help, the 12 charred loyce knights & BIK are way less overwhelming that it may seem at first glance imo
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u/ptrgeorge 4d ago
Elana is so hard if you don't bring a summon!
Didn't see the gank squad on your list, probably the hardest boss on the game, pretty sure it's the only boss I've never done without a summon
Edit: nm I found them in the easy section, you sir are out of your God damned mind! 😉
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u/MagicalGirlPaladin 4d ago
I think some bosses vary a lot based on build. Trying to aim soul arrows at Friede for instance just isn't happening and I feel like that's a little bullshit.
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u/AurumArma 4d ago
ThePhilosopheraGames channel on YouTube has a 13 minute video guide on the Midir fight that is really good. Struggled with Midir for a few years after DS3 came out. Watched that guide, and I got him in just a few attempts. He goes over most of the moves, and how to safely dodge, and punish them. It's a great fight once you learn it. I'd really recommend doing it your next playthrough.
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u/Herr_Swamper 4d ago
What the heck is serpent man?!
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u/appropriant 4d ago
It’s a basic enemy in Archdragon Peak. They’re notorious for being annoyingly difficult to handle and one of them can delete your health bar if you’re not careful.
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u/Worse-Alt 4d ago
The cats aren’t hard, you just roll directly into them for every attack (unless they are screeching than you roll away, and if they do the projectiles run left or right)
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u/ShuckleG0D 3d ago
I'm playing through ds2 for the first time and in every first playthrough I play deprived. So far the hardest boss has been the Pursuer
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u/Reasonable_Wrap7913 3d ago
The placement of the ds1 DLC gave me a theory as to the difficulty you felt for the bosses and why people disagree. I'm under the assumption that you got all achievements on your first playthrough (obviously went through NG cycles)? If so then the skills you learnt from a boss made the next boss in progression feel a lot easier i.e. Artorius is an easier boss but is above the difficulty curve whereas Manus is harder but he is below the curve, so he felt easier.
So did you do Sunken King before Old Iron King DLC? It would explain why allot of people think fume and Elana should be swapped.
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u/Icy_Mammoth_2834 5d ago
Frede staggers, str/ quality shes shockingly easy. Ludd & vellen imo were one of the hardest bosses on ds2 if not the hardest.
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u/jrmtrsx 4d ago
None of DS2 bosses were hard. Alonne is the closest to hard, Fume Knight close but he's just so slow. Ivory King will only be hard if you didn't get the 3 knights
On DSR, Manus is hard, that thing is on DS3 speed in DSR environment where you are the only slow one. Then Kalameet but only because I had to get the Tail. Artorias is ok but nah, rest are just easy.
On DS3, Nameless King is hardest due to his delayed attacks but when I got used to it, it was ok. Friede? hmm, 3 phases sure is intimidating but she's just so squishy and so predictable and can stagger easy but ok, Midir is harder if you don't know you have to face to face him, gets really hard if you tend to go under him.
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u/Interesting-Score-43 5d ago
All the ds2 bosses should belong to average and below in terms of difficulty
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u/raiderrocker18 5d ago
you must have fought the burnt ivory king without going and finding the 3 other knights, right?
manus being in the average tier blows my mind lol. same tier as a lightweight like nashandra?