I found Rom today. I'm very unhappy right now. (Spoilers)

I don't believe this guy. This is unbelievable. I mean... I don't believe this. I feel like FromSoftware don't actually know how to make games. Or they don't know how to pace them at the very least. What the fuck is this fight? Why is the final boss located randomly in the middle of the game?

A boss with a veritable mob that all hit like trucks? Death from above magic attacks with random spray that can kill you in one blast if you're unlucky enough to get hit with three or more? AOE blasts that take 3/4ths of your life? Instant kill tantrum attacks? And he teleports. Not to mention it took me a day just to figure out you could jump into the lake without dying. I'm so salty that your reward for a leap of faith is this fucker.

This is probably the hardest Souls/Borne boss I have ever seen. Worse than Capra Demon. Worse than Bed of Chaos. No surprise at all it involves the absolute mess that is fighting more than one enemy at a time. I realize that FromSoftware will never develop a combat engine with group combat in mind. I accept that. But this is too much. It's like they remixed the giant spider fight from Dark Souls II and made it way, way worse. I have never missed a shield so damn much.

Obviously tips are appreciated, although my major concern is execution. It seems like the little bastard spiders don't respawn, which isn't a problem on the first wave. But as soon as Rom starts crapping blue death from the sky it just seems like a matter of time before I take an unlucky blast and get killed instantly. I just don't know how to get in on this guy. I feel like I just have to get lucky.

Use tonitrus, charged with L1 before attacks. Should kill the little spiders in two hits.

First, kill the little spiders

Then attack Rom on the side of his body (i.e., not his head) with the charged tonitrus. You should be able to get him down to about half health before he transports.

From that point on, ignore the little spiders and focus on Rom. You need to look for openings to sprint through the spiders to hit Rom in the side. If you see spiders jumping at you gfto of there. Same if Rom rolls over. Try to stay close enough that he doesn't use his rain attack. I killed him before he teleported a third time using this method.

@sarumarine: Don't worry, there are harder bosses to come.

Also, if you know the rain attack is coming, unlock and spam your roll button in a single direction

Biggest tip for beating him, don't even worry about the stupid little spawn in spiders. They are slow and don't due much damage. Rush him to his side and attack him with two heavy hits, and run away. Rinse and repeat. Also when he is vanishing he is vulnerable for massive damage.

Don't go after Rom until you've killed all his spider buddies. The little spiders take significantly more damage from behind. Strafe around the group until you've isolated one on the outside, bait its attack, dash forward past the creature to evade and counter.

Position yourself so you can keep an eye on Rom at the same time. When you see him raise his head up, start running, dodging, jumping to get away from his meteors. To quote the movie Win Win, do "whatever the fuck it takes" to avoid them.

If you're fighting this like a group fight, you're doing this wrong.

Alternatively, you can try just going straight for Rom while dodging like mad. The game will only allow a certain number of spiders for performance purposes, so you'll only ever have to avoid a certain (still very high) number of them. He'll teleport and summon more, and some of the old spiders will disappear. I never tried this, but it might work.

EDIT: And don't stop attacking Rom when he starts teleporting. You can continue doing damage for quite a while.

Get a large weapon and ignore the little spiders, because they will keep spawning if you try to clear the arena. Rom laughs at r1 spam, try Ludwigs, Logarius's Wheel, the cannon, or Kirk and stay to his right side. Don't stand in place or the adds, or his verticle soul spear attack will punish you. All of his attacks have warnings, so keep him in the camera, but DONT lock on.

I really hated this guy. It took me a long time to get past him, and even then only after I pumped VIT for a handful of levels. Like everyone else has said, kill the first spiders because that's free damage. Afterwards, ignore them as best as you can, attack Rom at his side and then roll away when you see him charging up his AOE. Make sure not to go too far or he'll do his missile attack. The geysers are easier to dodge.

I think if you have a flamesprayer upgraded far enough you can kill him in his first phase, but I had no luck with that. He'd get about 60-70% down on his health before teleporting.

Rom's attacks are more predictable the closer you get. The tantrum AoEs are easier to deal with , so I would try to stay close enough so he doesn't do his bullshit ranged attack.

Bolt paper is good if you didn't happen to level up a tonitrus.

Don't mind the spiders. Rather than killing them try to find openings and dodge a lot( since you don't see attacks coming, assume you are going to get attacked, spiders are dumb so you only need to not be there when they do). You can try to get rid of the first wave or you can try to go for it and ignore them on all stages.

Welcome to Shitty Phalanx.

"A Hunter Is Never Alone! Therefore, Cooperators!"

They don't do much damage? The little spiders can nearly one shot you if they jump and land on you

This is true. I was dumping a lot of echoes into VIT and probably had a little overkill health when I fought him and if the spiders do the attack where they dive bomb you it can be some lethal damage.

Use Tonitrus, click L1, smack away to victory. It seems very overwhelming with everything happening on screen, but it's actually pretty easy. He teleports once his health gets to a certain point and when he teleports, he spawns more spiders. So there's a couple ways to do this... You can try killing him as fast as you possibly can by just standing near him , avoiding the spiders jumping attacks and his AOE. The trick being to kill him before he teleports numerous times and overwhelms you with spider minions. The other being to play it slow, avoid the magic attacks, clear out a good portion of the spiders by hitting them from behind, then attacking Rom. Rinse repeat with this technique.

The spiders and Rom are partially weak to Bolt, so use Bolt paper or Tonitrus (enemies spiders are weaking to blunt weapons) and you should be able to beat him easily. Also, when he does his AOE blast, he raises his tail before doing it. That's a good indication to get the fuck out when he does that. When he does the magic meteor attack thing, run towards him and you should be able to avoid it.

He sucks. I took out the first wave of spiders to reduce the mob for later. Just get behind them to kill them in a hit or two. Then wail on Rom in the side or back.

After that first wave, just run in for a hit or two, then back out. Lots of dodging, lots of quick strikes, watch his position to see if he's about to shoot and get the hell out. Fire paper is handy. But this is one of the bosses that a summon makes way easier (I tried and no one joined so I had to do it legit).

I spent a lot of time clearing the area of spiders. I'd clear the area and get my free hits until he teleports. After that you know the story about the aerial ice chunks, the AOE, and the Ice Circle that spawns ice chunks from the ground. The ice or AOE thing kept killing me even as I was trying to be careful.

I changed my strategy and just want balls to the wall and spammed attacks on him until he teleported away. I ran to the area I believed he would teleport next and wailed on him. I kept on running to his next location and i just healed through his AOE that could almost one shot me, but I had enough time to escape and heal up before I charged in again. I kept doing that till he died. You want to finish this fight as fast as possible because you can't dodge the ice attacks forever.

Don't stand still and they will never be able to hit you. They are slow and have terrible AI.

Use lightning. Ignore the small spiders. Never spam R1 more than twice and keep moving at all times. Rom telegraphs his attacks very clearly. If he looks up he's about to AoE or shoot magic up from the ground. Get the hell away from him.

Most importantly, stop blaming the game for your frustration. Have some patience or summon some help if the fight is causing you that much grief.

My big tip for Rom is to just keep dodging, and by that I mean lock-on dodging. For me it was the boss that made me realize that you should just use the lock-on dodge/dash to advance on your opponents throughout the entire game. Personally I find him to be one of the easiest bosses. Just dash around the sides untill you single out a spider and get behind it, then kill it and move on. Repeat untill spiders are dead then wail on Rom himself. Sure, you will take some damage from the missiles now and then, but unless your HP is complete garbage you just heal up and move on.

I found Rom to be the hardest boss in the game, just the long range magic it used would usually hit no matter when i dodged i would still get hit...and hit again after being stunned and die. I just stayed within a range where the magic would come from the ground, since that showed where they would emerge. I would also clear out some of the spiders but not all. Fully Charged stake driver does some great damage on him.

Rom is not hard, just go ham on his butt and never stop. Dodge, dodge, dodge. Ignore the spiderlings. Trust in the beast.

EDIT: Basically, dodge until you are in the Souls-butt area and swing until Rom decides to puss out, then look around and sprint towards where you see his big fat dumb ass re-appearing. Destroy the Souls-butt area. Repeat.

EDIT2: Bolt Paper is your friend.

I beat him in like 4 or 5 tries.

First few times I tried to just fucking bum rush him, but it gets to be too much. Last 2 I just played it cool, killed all the spiders, and then wailed on him.

The magic nukes are complete fucking bullshit though, I'll give you that. I burned through my healing supply in that fight pretty well.

Exactly the same for me. Finding him in a chalice dungeon waaaay later on was a chance for revenge considering how high a level I was at that point. Bosses that need mob assistance are the goddamn kryptonite of the Souls' games. Capra Demon is trivial when his pets are dead. Duke's Dear Freja is laughably easy once you get rid of a wave of her brood. Rom? Rom just fucking teleports away and summons and surrounds himself with another pack of spiders.

Also, about not finding out about jumping in the lake, usually there is a message or two at the end of the pier, not to mention Willem, the guy in the rocking chair, points his staff there everytime you "talk" to him.

Not killing the spiders only works on the first playthrough consistently, after that it's pretty RNG if you don't at least kill the first wave (and tremendously more RNG the less OP your build is). The Chalice version of Rom is much easier if you kill every single spider that spawns.

I'm gonna be the asshole who tells you they beat him in only 2 tries. I found I could reliably dodge his DFA attack by sprinting and then rolling, while looking up to time my rolls better.

I've fought him 3 times and the strategy I use never failed me. I just play fast and loose with the health vials, just vial right in his face if he isn't charging up an attack. Force him into melee mode, never let him launch missiles, wail on his side. I never had a problem with the spiders, I don't think I've ever killed more than one of them, I just kept bum-rushing him until he died. It's definitely a fight that gets harder the longer it goes on, so ending it within 2 minutes is ideal.

If a boss is killing you, then it's poorly designed and bullshit. If you kill a boss, then it's a watered down baby game for casuals.

I understand getting frustrated when you're up against a boss that seems insurmountable, but here's the truth: You just suck at the fight. You won't always suck at the fight. You'll eventually figure it out, so what makes you think it's the game's failing and not yours? I took down Father G on my first encounter with him, but I died like 10ish times to the Blood-starved Beast, a boss considered fairly easy by most.

My point is that different play styles work better against some bosses than others. Your play style is obviously flawed against this boss, so try something new instead of calling it a broken, poorly designed fight. I beat him using the blades of mercy by running all the time to avoid the death rain, then diving in for a quick combo before dodging away when I saw his AoE wind-up. Didn't have to kill a single spider, and I used maybe 2 blood vials.

It's a poorly designed fight but mostly because of the cheap homing missiles that come at you from off-screen. If he had all his moves but didn't have those hard to dodge missiles I would say it's a fairly easy fight. As it stands I was unable to properly dodge them half the time.

I beat him by staying close in his 2nd and 3rd phases, dashing in for a couple of hits if I saw an opening. The little spiders hit hard but they don't react fast, take advantage of that. He seems to use the air strike missile attack less if you are up close, favouring the AOE or the rising missile, both of which telegraph heavily and are easy to dodge. Take advantage of openings to either hit him or take out a little spider, use heavy attacks over light attacks, stay mobile and wail on him when he teleports, you've still got 3-4 seconds where you can do damage.

I had the saw cleaver. Put fire on it, ran up to him, smacked him. He teleported, I ran after him, kept smacking him. Never dodged, never cared. Suddenly he was dead. That was it... I thought that fight was easy as fuck, the spiders never did anything neither did the boss when you were close to him (He did some stuff, like a blast and some rolls or whatever, but they were easy to dodge/stay away from). And no, I didn't have "easy-mode" bug on.

I tried to fight the spiders once but just got my ass kicked so I didn't see it as a viable strategy. The weapon I used (cane) didn't seem all that useful since it wasn't a high damage weapon I guess. I really hated this fucker.

I noticed during his "Homing Missiles" phase, that if you stay close enough to him to trigger his AoE attacks, he very rarely does the homing attack. Knowing that, I would just circle-strafe the spiderlings at that AoE threshold and take them out fairly easily. Blades of Mercy works well since a dodge/attack combo has you immediately dash to their weak spot for a 1-2 hit kill. Once the spiders are gone, the fight is much more manageable as his AoE attacks are easier to avoid.

FWIW I do think scaled up infinitely Rom is the hardest boss in the series, but again not particularly tough on the first playthrough. Of course Shadow of Yarnham and Moon Presence benefit from scaling a lot too.

Don't even know what you're talking about. He was a joke, just keep running to make space between the spiders and attack him and run away. Repeat. Prey defeated.

I didn't even give a fuck about those smaller spiders, just jerk around them and nail the boss with some quick strong attack (I used the running R2 of the Kirkhammer).

@blommer4: I found the chalice dungeon version easier. I didn't even kill the other spiders, I just kept chasing him and only hitting Rom.

Maybe it was because I was using a strength weapon, but I hit the little spiders on the masks on their face 3 times. The first 2 times would do little damage but after the 2nd hit the spider would be stunned and the 3rd hit would do a few hundred damage and kill them. I would always keep ROM in my peripheral and roll whenever he does magic attacks + avoid the spider divebombs. Fight isn't too difficult.

In his second stage he has two different attacks - the one where he raises his head and missiles fall from the sky, and his second where he raises both his head and tail and blue shit flies up from the ground around him. I found the trick is to basically stay in a close enough proximity that he only uses the second, close range attack, as it's much easier to dodge. You basically just need to keep moving, dash in for one or two quick attacks, then back off again - but never too far. He respawns all spiders whenever he teleports, so you don't need to worry about clearing them so much after the first stage, but if you see an opportunity to kill one you should still take it. You can knock away half his health in the first stage if you clear the spiders first, as he doesn't attack.

A lot of people swear by arcane weapons but I was doing just as much damage using a standard sword. I know a lot of people also use their great big heavy weapons as the default as well, but I found using a small quick blade to dash in and do some chip damage, then dash out again, was much more effective. Also if you have any armour which boosts arcane resistance, wear that. The spiders will kill you in one hit regardless, and this will at least give you some protection from his AOE shit.

I know purists don't like to summon but for this boss I feel like it's needed. At the very least it means his ranged attacks are split between two targets.

The best piece of advice is - don't lock on. And always be rolling.

Rom becomes signifigantly harder the more insight you have. I played him at like nearly 40 insight and his meteors were damn near PERFECT homing to the point where you would basically have to i-frame dodge them. Get down to under 15 insight and the meteors track a lot less allowing for a WAY easier time.

I just ran in with the Axe 2H and hit the L2 sweep attack and then backed off essentially doing hit & runs. Worked like a charm. Actually the Axe is the problem solver for like most of Bloodborne... its just fantastic.

I had no problem with it, one of the easiest bosses in the game for me. I had much more trouble with the blood starving beast. Different play styles maybe?

Wow, I had a completely different experience with Rom!

I had no problems finding or killing this boss. I don't read spoilers or hints, I play offline so there's minimal messages on the ground. The old dude on the "porch" pointed towards the ledge, so I stepped up to it and looked down, figured the shiny in the water had to be something so I jumped in. On the third attempt me and my wife figured out that I should just ignore everything and run in from the side of Rom and stab it a few times (using Ludvig's sword in 1-hand mode.) making sure to time it so I avoid the AOE during his 3rd phase. In some cases I lured the tiny spiders out to jump at me so I could one-shot them from the side. I also noticed if I didn't lock on to the tiny spiders, I could easily run around them and kill them with a strike or two.

All in all I felt a little sad about killing Rom since he/she didn't seem like he wanted to fight in the first place.

Anyone else besides me murder the old man before Rom? If you do you get a pretty decent rune.

Outside of Ebrietas, I had the most trouble with Rom. He became pretty easy once I decided to just patiently kill all the spiders first while staying close enough to him so that he wouldn't spam his shards of ice from above thing. After all the spiders were dead, I'd hit him a few times, dodge his area of attack, then go back and do the same. If you can hit him with a charged attack as he's vanishing, it cancels out his animation and you can get a few more swipes in.

I beat him on my third try.

First time I killed all the spiders, then Rom just rolled over me. Second time I tried killing the spiders again and Rom killed me with one of his ice attacks. Third time I just said "Fuck the spiders." and just killed the first couple that appear (since Rom doesn't do anything anyway), for the next to phases I just ran in for a hit and then dashed out again. Turns out this method is very effective, since he went down quite fast.

Also, yeah, I killed the weird NPC dude.

Cooperation ahead!

So I summoned a buddy, and beat him on our first try... :)

I'll be an asshole right there with ya buddy.

L2 strikes with Ludwig's sword while straffing to the sides of the spider minions will dispatch them in one shot. Then just go beat on Rom until death. Just take your time, it's a surprisingly leisurely fight.

I beat him on my first try with the Saw Cleaver. For me, the battle was just a matter of being careful with the camera. I would focus on killing the spiders closest to me first after they did their big jump attack while keeping the camera pointed at Rom to watch his moves. Anytime he looked up or down, I just sidestepped a few times, occasionally taking a hit from his ice rain attack. When I was hitting him, if he moved, I just dodged backwards as much as my stamina would allow until he was done with his attack, then sprint in for a few more hits. Just be careful not to get overwhelmed by the little spiders and the battle isn't that bad.

It took me about five tries. For first playthrough, honestly I feel like my best advice is don't bother killing the spiders. It makes the fight so much more frustrating when you spend ages whittling at his minions only to get dunked by a giant blue star. Sure, it's a lot more hectic when you're ducking and weaving between spiders while hammering away at him, but if you do it that way at least every failed attempt is only like a couple of minutes long, as opposed to seven minutes of tedious crowd-management and then sudden death. Also, crucially, DON'T GET GREEDY ON HITS. His "tantrum" attack, and most of the similarly devastating moves he has, have very obvious tells that give you the opportunity to roll away as long as you don't keep smacking on him.

Remember to stay calm. Almost every player has at least a couple of bosses that fuck them up over and over (Ebrietas and Blood-starved Beast for me), and it's only in retrospect that we can think to ourselves "eh, I guess the boss wasn't so bad". If it really gets too much, try some more Chalice Dungeons; at most you'll get some cool loot and level-ups, at least you'll have some time away from Rom to rethink strategies.

@sethphotopoulos: If you're using the cane, put it in sword mode and you should be able to hit the little spiders 3 times from the front and kill them. The first hit will do little damage, the second will do little damage but cause them to rear up exposing their stomach a bit, and the third hit was doing enough to basically one shot them since it was hitting their stomach.

A few other people already half-pointed it out, but do not try to kill the spiderlings from their front, they are armored. Their butt is their weakness. I basically just walked past them to their right (I hadn't realized you could sprint by holding circle yet...) and did the large sweeping attach with the with the extended axe and it would dispatch of the spiderlings in one hit.

However, as others have also already pointed out, you don't really need to kill all the spiderlings. I died on my first couple of attempts on this guy due to getting repeatedly accidentally hit by rom's ranged attack because I was concentrating too much on clearing out the spiderlings. On my successful attempt I only dispatched the ones that were in my way and focused on rom as much as possible. Also, always rush out of rom's range as soon as he curls up, don't get greedy or the AOE will devastate you.