Holy moly, I can’t believe you did it. So jealous right now. Well done, Sir.
I shall now double my resolve to actually get his tail first before I try to beat him.
So I tried to get that tail for about 40-50 minutes, and boy I’m not making much progress. I’m trying it today with my Enchanted Claymore+5.
I made a very interesting discovery though, while learning to use the moves on my Enchanted Claymore. I tried the quick strike, the heavy attack, the two handed quick strike, the two handed heavy attack. I tried all these moves on the dogs leading up to Kalameet. The dogs always died on the first strike no matter what move I made, of course.
But wait a minute. Instead of having 900 souls for 3 dogs (300 souls each) when I get to Kalameet, I had 1080 souls. How did that happen? How did I get extra souls? I don’t have the covetous ring on do I? No. So what the heck?
Is it the fact that I’m two handing this weapon? Do I really get 20% more experience for holding a weapon two handed? I tried the same thing with my Iaito+15 two handed instead. 300 Souls. Nope, that wasn’t it. Maybe it’s the Enchanted Claymore? I killed a dog one handed with the claymore. Nope. 300 Souls. Maybe it’s the grass-crest shield that I was wearing on my back when I two handed the Claymore? I changed it to a Sunlight Shield. Nope. 360 Souls, just like with the grass-crest shield on my back.
So two handed stance on an Enchanted weapon, is that it? I tried it with the Enchanted Falcion I found early in the game: Nope, just 300 souls. Maybe it’s only two handed stance on an Enchanted weapon+5? Or only an Enchanted Claymore+5 specifically for some reason? Or a two handed Claymore? After all, I no longer have a plain Claymore I can test with.
And then I had another funky idea. I went in a different direction from the bonfire and killed some native people with the two handed stanced-Enchanted Claymore+5. These guys are normally 400 souls. With this weapon? Still 400 souls! Whaaaaaa? So only the dogs give more experience from dying to this weapon? What kind of a weird ass rule am I looking at here?
Oh well. On my next run to the Dragon, I noticed I had nearly 50,000 Souls altogether, just from doing runs on this dragon and killing the dogs along the way. So I homeward boned home and leveled up my vitality. (Ding, level 90). Maybe I can last a little bit longer against him now.
Yes, but I didn’t talk to him before opening the door. In fact, I can’t even remember seeing him at all, although I was chasing those bugs at the time. When I turned around to head back to Demon Ruins, I was quite surprised to find him sitting there.
I’m going to have to kill Artorias first, because there’s a bonfire right after him right? The run from Oolacile Garden to Kalameet is a royal pain, especially if I screw up rolling past those insects guys and take a hit or two.
It is better from the next bonfire, yes. It is right after Artorias.
I’m a little sad. After I beat Kalameet all I’ll have left is Gwyn and that will wrap my 2nd full play through. I might start a new character just to beat the stone gargoyle solo. I cheesed that fight both times.
Its funny that initially my goal was to finish this game however I could. I didn’t really believe that I will get to see the end credits. As I got better, I started caring about how I achieved my victories. It’s maybe silly to feel this in the context of a video game, but I’m proud of myself for not giving up :)
Congrats marxeil. I’m not sure what it is about this game, but normally after 100+ hours on something I’m quite happy for it to end, so I can move onto something else. Not this time. I don’t want it to end, and I’m even considering trying NG+ - something I never do normally. I suspect I’m more likely to move onto Dark Souls 2, because I prefer new content, but I can see myself coming back to DS in the future.
First, however, I have to actually finish this one…
I think if you “overkill” an enemy, you get some bonus souls. I don’t know what the threshold is, but I’ve noticed that sometimes when you backstab mooks and the like, and your weapon damage is way more than is actually necessary, you’ll get a little bit more in souls sent your way.
So I leveled my Halberd (normal) to +13. Still not even doing as much damage as the Titanite Catch Pole, and certainly not as much as the +5 Gargoyle Lightning halberd. Plus the move set on it isn’t half as good. I guess I should have checked that first. :) So, out with that idea. Still can’t find a decent weapon to damage Artorias with.
The best I can do is get him down to half health, that’s using Iron Flesh and copious +4 estus flasks. I can actually stand there and give him a beating for a while, but then he retreats and powers up. With Iron Flesh I have no chance of reaching him in time, and then he basically one-shots me. So that’s not working either.
I need a weapon that can unbalance him when he’s powering up, and mine just aren’t cutting it. Once he gets that, I’m basically dead. Any tips on weapons?
After another dozen or so attempts, I think I’ve met my match here. I’ve just got no chance at all with Artorius. Once he powers up, there is nothing I can do to stop him, and I’m dead shortly thereafter. Perhaps I need to summon help, I’ve never done that before except with an NPC, and there isn’t one here. Either that, or it’s time to fill up the Lordvessel and try something manageable.
Well, are you comfortable dodging all his attacks? Maybe spend a few tries just dodging instead of attacking.
I’m not very good at dodging, no. But you’re right, I should just try and dodge like a mofo for as long as possible, see if I can learn all the tells. Trouble is, for every 10 attacks on me so far, I usually successfully dodge about three of them. And I can’t find a suitable time to estus up without getting slammed down again.
Are you suggesting that if he powers up, I just try and dodge until he powers down again? How long does that thing last anyway?
He has one attack in particular that gets me every time; a mid-air roll followed by a sword smash. He’ll do this repeatedly if I let him, and it’s tough to get away from. Perhaps I need instead to go super light, less than 25% armour?
Ok, ok… going back in…
Mid-air roll followed by the sword smash: just dodge to the side right when he’s upside down in mid-air. You’ll get it.
As for weapons, I liked the Silver-Knight Sword+5 against him, but in the end I ended up going full bore with my Iaito+15. I just love the speed of that thing. It gives me the chance to hit him AND dodge him when he is doing the mid-air roll followed by the sword smash. But that’s risky, so on my more patient runs, I just dodged that move every time instead of trying to hit him and dodge.
But even when I was using my Silver-Knight Sword+5, that’s a fairly fast weapon that feels almost like the Drake Sword from the mid-game. Remember that sword? If you knew the moves and timing of that one, the Silver-Knight Sword has the same animation and moves and timing. And I mention it here because it only takes 10 Twinkling Titanites to fully upgrade the sword, and you no doubt have it in your inventory from fighting all those Silver Knights in Anor Londo.
Generally in these games it’s only safe to chug when you’ve successfully maneuvered to the point where you could’ve attacked (except you’ll be healing instead).
Are you suggesting that if he powers up, I just try and dodge until he powers down again? How long does that thing last anyway?
My original boss guide was that if you have trouble with a boss, concentrate on avoiding attacks without counter-attacking until you’re comfortable with all of them. Then start working your own attacks in there. That way in a real fight you only take damage when you make a mistake, not when you encounter an attack you’re not ready to handle.
You could also use a shield. I think that’s how I originally beat him.
re: Twinkling Titanite (Rock8): Not any more, I spent it all upgrading my Black Knight Armour set to +4. Much good that is doing me. I need 80,000 souls to buy that lot from the giant blacksmith, I might give it a shot.
I followed Tim’s advice, then doubled down and stripped down to <25% max weight to get the faster roll. It certainly help, and I’m up on my feet again much faster (with the armour on, I feel like an old lady getting up, by which time he’s on me again). I’m getting pretty good at him now pre-power up. I can usually go without getting hit more than once or twice. But again, once he powers up, I’m dead within seconds. That leap of his seems to have a much wider area of effect, and it knocks off about 70% of my full health bar. Then he follows it up with something else, and that’s me toasted. I guess it’s down to more practice.
I may have to call it a night though (not a knight) otherwise I’m going to burn out on the fight. I don’t think I have Rock8’s infinite patience. ;)
I just enjoyed the fight so much that “it ain’t no thaaaang” to be forced to fight it over and over. It was, bar none, my favorite fight in the game.
One thing I noticed is that you’re mentioning falling down. I decided pretty early on that falling down was pretty horrible. Like you said, once you’re down, getting back up you get hit again. And against an enemy this fast that’s not advisable. There’s many ways to go about this fight, and I tried a lot of them, but I vastly preferred high poise in this fight. Such high poise that getting hit doesn’t stagger me or make me fall down in any way. But I also like speed in this fight, because you need it to dodge out of the way. So for me the setup that worked was Havel’s ring combined with Havel’s armor for the most part. I believe maybe the helmet or the gloves were different to bring the weight under 50% so that I wouldn’t fat roll. (I love that term, whoever used it upthread: thank you so much).
For me, this fight IS Dark Souls. Distilled down to it’s purest form.
But if you get it below 25%, you roll and move even faster! It’s great, actually, such a sense of speed and mobility. For me that meant getting my weight below 30, so I dropped the shield, and rolled up the best armour I could within that limit. Perhaps the shield might be useful, but without it I can double-hand my weapon and that gives me quite a bit more damage output. I’ve never had much luck with poise, never really seemed to get it high enough, but I’ll see what I can do here. Poise tends to come from heavier armour though, which is counter to my rolling around like a crazy person strategy. I tried heavier armour, but found that I was getting caught within the damage field of certain slam attacks more often.
I tried spellcasting, but that was a disaster. You can rarely get the spell off fast enough, and besides he shrugs them off anyway. I also tried tanking, including Iron Flesh and the heaviest armour / shield combo I had. Definitely gave me the best results in terms of getting his health down (50%), but once he powered up I couldn’t move out of the way of his flying slam attack, and that thing wrecks whatever defenses you think you have.
I’d like this fight more if I wasn’t so far away from it. The run there is just far enough to be annoying.
This is very true. In that way, the fight against the Sanctuary Guardian was the best in the whole game. Almost right next to the bonfire!! That was soooooo awesome.
In comparison, I hate the run down to fight Kalameet. It’s not that long, but just long enough to be annoying.
Scuzz
2739
Just don’t become one of those guys who say if you can’t beat all the bosses naked with a dagger you aren’t really playing the game. :)
Scuzz
2740
I found hm at the bonfire right after beating the Centipede Demon. I think I returned to the pyromancer above and when I came back I went into the area with the door, found I could get in, killed the sunlight maggot and then returned to where Solaire was. After that he seemed fine.
