Gehrman, The First Hunter is wrecking my shit over and over again, forcing me to farm blood vials and causing my blood pressure to spike over and over. I'm somehow unable to determine any of his parry windows, his combos all do 9/10ths of my health and any time I would want even a little respite he appears next to me and spikes me across the map. It can't be Insight, I've spent myself down to 1, so I can only assume that I'm maximum shit or I'm missing something majorly.

It took me a decent number of tries, and I still feel like I sort of lucked into my victory due to some lucky patterns. There was one attack in particular that I found extremely easy to parry, whichever one where he winds back before charging in. That was the key to my fight strategy. Also, if you're using the Blunderbuss, I suggest switching to the pistol for this fight in particular as its speed is a huge boon to parry timing. For the first half of the fight, I sat back as far as I could and looked for openings. You can actually keep him staggered with a fast weapon, swinging until you run out of stamina, which is a good way to do damage.

After he buffs up, however, this doesn't work any longer. It was at this point that I looked for that windup attack and parried him whenever possible. It certainly seems like a fight where you need to figure out his parry timing in order to beat him. Keep at it, and I'm sure you'll start to see the patterns. It's a bummer that doing so requires constant farming (I managed to just avoid having to do this, as I ran out in the fight I beat him during), but it seems like the only real way to manage it.

So I looped this boss all the to the last 5% of his HP and then he tried to enter his third phase, where I just wrecked him while he was changing.

The trick was to just shoot him once during his initial horizontal scythe swing, visceral attack, and then bait the uppercut move he does with the scythe. He'll swing it up and then back down and you just back up to avoid it, wait for the 2nd attack to whiff, and then jump attack (I did this with the kirkland hammer, in hammer form) and then rinse repeat all the way to death.

For some reason the edit didn't go through. Here's footage of my fight, doing the strat I mentioned. You don't even have to parry/visceral attack. Just dodge the two swings, jump attack or do something to knock him down, and then bait his next attack and dodge it. Then punish the whiff scythe 2nd hit with another jumping attack. then repeat. http://www.twitch.tv/the_macechist/b/642189207?t=9h04m51s

I just beat him this evening, and how it did it was kinda cheap feeling, but he destroyed me so many times I don't feel bad. I just abused items I hardly used the whole game. 20 throwing daggers? At his face. 10 Molotovs? At his face. Two cannon shots to put him on the ground to give me a few hits on him. Otherwise it was me getting some lucky dodges. I still don't know how to do visceral attacks well on anything, so I had to result to jamming the Circle button.

Good luck duder. That guy is a pain! But if you go for the secret ending boss, know it's much easier in comparison!

He is a tough boss. There are many ways to beat him though. I went with the oldschool 'learn his patterns then try to dodge and get attacks in when possible'.

You can stagger him with a hit, with the exception of one very specific move he does. It should be an easy fight (after you've learned his moves that is) until halfway. Then he goes into stun-immune mode, and you'll have to just be more patient and decrease the number of attacks you get in before you get out. Here is my fight with him:

I can't beat him either. I was able to solo every boss in the game after 1-4 tries, but this one I just can't. Even parrying his moves, sometimes the parry just doesn't work, even during his launch move or very telegraphed moves. I don't even really care anymore either. I talked to him before using the Umbilical cords anyway so I can't get the true ending. 40 hours down the drain. Whatever, entire game was a huge let down, I'll just youtube the ending swap this out for the Ps4 version of DS2.

I'm really looking forward to getting to fight this guy. I've felt that the Souls games, for how good the bosses usually are, have had fuckin' terrible final bosses. All three of the previous games' final bosses I have beat on the first try.

I stun attacked him with R1 while he wasn't charged, saved my QS bullets for when he charges up because then he can't be staggered, so first half of the fight I just R1'd him and then countered him for the second half of the fight.

I think you may have been overleveled, but I definitely feel they've gotten less deadly, King Allant was an actual challenge and freakin' badass, Gwyn hit like a truck but was really easy to read, Nashandra was a push over, like unbelievably easy, the twin boss fight just before her would have made a better final battle.

I have high hopes for Bloodborne's though.

@viciousreiven: Bloodborne's bosses are all easy. To the point of me beating the majority of them on the first try. The only one that had my number was Gerhman. That said, I should note that I played the Souls games to death and with a variety of builds. Some people are shaken up by only being able to take on this game with one specific playstyle. It was a playstyle I was already used to in other Souls games and I felt immediately at home. So I'm guessing, depending on your past experiences with Souls games, Bloodborne may either be very challenging, or the easiest one yet.

Actually, you can use the umbilical cords so long as you use them before you defeat Gerhman. You don't have to do it before you talk to him.

Here - I'll actually answer your question since this thread has degenerated into BB is hard/No it isn't! bickering. Equip a pistol and clawmark/Blood Rapture rune. Forget you can do anything but shoot and do visceral attacks. It's time to become zen.

Stay roughly outside his maximum melee range. On his shoulder mounted charge attack wait for it to go through and shoot him on the backswing. He'll engage his second attack directly into the shot and become ripostable. On his quick overhead strike, do the same. Wait for his attack to go through and fire. His second attack will once again stun him. If he attempts to pull you, dodge to the left if you're too close then dodge forward and he'll miss his entire combo. If you're positioned correctly, he'll wiff the pull and move into his short ranged follow up that can be easily parried at no risk.

For his second phase just stay at the same range and dodge either left or right on his melee combos. You can parry these attacks but it's risky so I don't recommend it. Occasionally he'll roll directly towards you - when he does, shoot him immediately. He'll end his roll directly into your shot and become ripostable again. Once in awhile he'll cut his roll short and shoot you in the face. Just dodge to the left or right once you recover if he's close. Otherwise, shoot him and he'll become stunned again.

At roughly 40% he'll stare into the moon and glow. He'll gain the ability to stand still and then explode for lethal damage. Simply run away once he losses interest in you. His scythe stance gains an attack where he'll rapidly fly toward you and attempt to land a strong but slow physical overhead attack. Dodge to the left or right. You can parry him out of this attack but it's risky and the follow up will one shot you. His blade and gun phase gains an attack where he fires a solid round. This would normally be a very bad thing as it stuns you and renders you susceptible to riposte but since you've been keeping a safe distance (You have been keeping a safe distance, right?) you'll recover before he has a chance to gut you.

I too was having problems with this boss until I realized that I had spent the entire game doing the same thing regardless of what a mob did. It was time to learn to respond to a boss for once. I went from being unable to land even a single hit to being able to do the entire encounter with nothing but blood bullets in a little less than an hour. Just watch and respond. He's not so bad.