Blood starved beast help

Ive used all my insight, fire paper, and i try to use the visceral attack as much as possible. Still cannot beat it need some help.

Circlestrafe to the right (yours, not the beast's). Sometimes, if possible, without roll-evading. You can get behind it to land a couple of easy hits this way. If looking to parry, the easiest time to shoot is actually during its combo-swipes.

I wouldn't worry about trying to parry it straight up. Especially head-on. A lot of the beast's attacks whiff even if you're only walking to the side but are tricky to parry. Watch for the poison attacks later on (including an area-of-effect poison shockwave).

I used the Threaded Cane-whip early on, then switched to the Axe Cleaver once the beast began with its transformations.

I had a lot of trouble with this fight at first. Was trying to roll inward to the left. Once I started going right, the battle got much easier.

Yah you should mostly quick step to either direction all the time. Generally 3 consecutive quicksteps towards his back area will evade all three of his sweeps and get you right behind him ready for a few strikes.

Also use the charred hunter's gear if you found it. It has better poison resistance than the normal stuff and made the difference for me. If you haven't found it, go to the area where you fought the hunter (not on the roof, the other one) and go where the three crows are. Fall off the ledge there and you'll reach a building with the garb inside. Careful though, lots of enemies in there.

@christopherson329: I don't know if this is helpful or not but this is the video of when I beat him.

Basically you can see I keep dodging multiple times to either side whenever he begins his slashing. It's one of the few bosses in the game where lock-on is actually helpful.

Always dodge forward and to the right no matter what attack he does, the boss doesn't track at all after the first dodge. Actually very easy when you get the hang of it. As far as first playthrough goes you can beat it slowly and methodically but really this boss almost never hits me now; he might still poison me and I have to remember to occasionally heal because of that but that's about it. I'm pretty sure the wheel is the worst weapon in the game to fight him with. Strafing seems rather inefficient in general, you get the best baits from the front.

I struggled with this guy for days, and I found my big problem was that I wasn't aggressive enough. Short sidesteps to avoid attacks should almost always be followed up with a couple swings with your weapon. The visceral attack is super important, but relying on it solely results in getting baited into his one hit kill attacks. If you're close enough to its front, a lot of attacks go right over your head. Also, learn to identify the attacks: the easiest one to parry is when it raises its right hand to do a single swipe so that's when you parry. When it raises its left, it's about to do the one hit kill. When it rises up on its hind legs, dodge right behind it and get a few hits in. I also recommend wearing full Gascoigne armor as it has the highest poison resist. My final tip might not be applicable to everyone, but when I get bosses down to their last slivers of health I get anxious and fuck it up, so I always keep some molotovs on my quick select to finish them off. Your quick select bar should only have antidotes and molotovs so you don't get confused.

Finally, just relax. Like all Souls bosses it's sometimes best to take a break and achieve something else in game, or try it again in the morning. And don't do what I did and try some gimmicky ways to beat it like blood cocktails or cheesing it with the pillars - not only is it ineffective and slow, it also won't help you to get good at the game.

Pretty much this, although I always strafed around him to the left (the boss's right) so that I could see his arm extend for his lunge attack.

Also, what is the axe cleaver? You mean the axe or the saw cleaver?

Kite him around the columns.

Haha.

Saw Cleaver. That's the one. My mistake.

I primarily use the Cane-Whip. I just sidestepped to the left with every one of his attacks and I dodged pretty much all of them. In his last phase, attack him a bit then get some distance. Keep doing that and you'll win. Timing is the most important thing with the evade button. I beat most bosses by just abusing the invincibility frames of that dodge/roll.

what i basically did was two handed axe and did a charge attack so the character will spin 720 degrees with the axe, dealing a great amount of damage and often stopping the enemy's attack then when he got low enough to get a little more crazy and had poison i just threw molotovs at it.

the charge attack on the twohanded axe was so powerfull that it was pretty much my only move against any enemy. just stand back and judge there attack move. so that the charge would go off just as they got in range. for a few enemy types i used the rifle spears charge attack since it does a very long thrust move. so good for single targets. it was not until the very lategame i used the kirkhammer in sword mode since it did more damage. although with big enemy types that both needed alot of damage and dealed a great amount as well. i used the kirkhammer in hammer move and walked slowly up behind them and then charged attaked them followed by as many hits as i could get in

It's interesting hearing everyone say to go to your right. When I beat him I went left, wide of that attack he telegraphs by sticking out his arm. I'd do one dodge to the left, if he did the no follow ups it was cool, if he did I just circled a little more left and got some hits in. The key difference in the run where I won was that I used the pillars to get the necessary space to safely use an antidote and heal. Also having some fire paper on hand doesn't hurt for the final stage. In early runs I popped my paper too early and wasted it on early stages which aren't even that bad.

Oh I was switching between the 2h axe and the sword mode of kirkhammer on different runs and when I beat him it was with the sword, which I had found a preference for in some of my earlier runs.

For me, the kicker was fairly simple: I wasn't successfully dodging around/through the attacks going left. And it--at least in my case--appeared to lead with its right hand more often than not. Going to my right presented an easy solution to my dodging woes, and gave me more opportunities to be aggressive with impunity.

I've seen people drift and evade to the left. It clearly works. Anecdotally, I just couldn't swing it.

@historyinrust: Thanks for the advice to go right. After doing that (and realizing the smoke in the air was poisoning me) I was finally able to beat this guy.

Glad it worked!

Thanks Everyone!