cheese strats for bosses people moan about

Vendrick:

I know he is easy but such a long fight and it's just very likely to mess up once and boom over. Therefore, just do him in NG+, you will have 5 giant souls then. I was doing over 1k damage per L2 with dual old whips

Darklurker: don't even read on if you aren't interested in cheesing him

Again, pretty weak to fire and a lot of folks don't find him that tough. Others do. And the run up to him is evil and costs an effigy a pop. So, casting profound still doesnt shut him up completely but costs him his only ohk attack, that dark aoe in front of him, he tries to cast it but to no avail. So now you have the chance to cast chaos storm. Heal and repeat.

Are you serious? Anyways,I don't believe you can summon for either of them, can you? But then they are both optional so why bother ;)

For Vendrick I just hugged his left ass cheek until he died.

Sure, except he likes to jump back and then his cheek and your cheek part ways for a second. And reconnecting them can result in your demise. Especially since the battle lasts for a good ten minutes. So if you stop to scratch your own cheek for even a second in there its game over. So the above tip helps you get it done a little quicker. The mechanic stays the same.

You can get 5 giant souls in NG for Vendrick. Honestly he didn't seem to be all that with 5 souls, doesn't take long at all.

Easiest strat for almost any boss: Great/Sunlight Lightning spears with an A-S chime. Spam a few, dodge once or twice, the end. Darklurker dies before he gets off a third spell. Endboss dies in about 15 seconds right after you zone in. Etcetera. The only mother who doesn't get almost instagibbed and can put up a fight is the big ol dragon.

Anyway it's all hardly cheese. Just in game stuff that is powerful in certain situations/applications.
What I would actually consider cheesy is stuff like: poisoning Manus through beyond the fog, Ceasless Discharge instakill bug that was later deemed "legit".

lol, yea, there are probably degrees of cheese. Was the pre-nerf crystal shield in DkS1 cheese? Or poisoning the false king in demons. Killing the first maneater with arrows through the fog. Or arrowing the spider?

But here it's pretty clear. The decision they are trying to force you to make is either fight this big ass dragon or see if you can continuously circle, dodge, and keep away from walls this scantily clad really slow dude with the massive sword for 10 minutes straight. And the cheese is you can have your cake and eat it ;)

Plus the whip just hurts that mother real good. Works wonders on rotten and the singing frog too! I have helped many lightning users with those battles and I take the aggro plus do more damage than them (admittedly sunblade buffed).

p.s. if you study the level design it is pretty clear to me that they are trying to hint at luring ceaseless down the hole. That's the only excuse for that cheap boss design :p

That's not the level of cheese you could get into in Dark souls or Demon's Souls. You could straight up hide without any risk of taking any damage for multiple bosses in both those games.

Oh, the next thing I plan to cheese is to eat all my boss souls in NG++ to open the door to the castle and buy my way to an easy plat.

Just not sure what the prereq is to get the "examine" on pyro gals statue...

p.s. based on what browsing history do I keep getting a link to someone popping a 25yo zit on this site. Does everybody get that. Damn...

I'm still amazed to see the Ceaseless Discharge instakill described as a bug. You really just need to pay attention to see what happens. There is no bug. There was never any validity to the idea that it was a bug. It was never deemed "legit" or not because it's simply a mechanic of the fight. Don't believe me? Watch the video and pay attention. Don't want to watch it? Fine.

1) Ceaseless Discharge is standing at the edge of the cliff. Player character is out of reach.

2) Ceaseless Discharge jumps towards the character and catches the edge with a single arm.

3) Ceaseless Discharge is holding on for dear life because it's a long way down.

4) Attack his arm until he can no longer hold on.

5) Watch as Ceaseless Discharge loses his grip and falls to his death.

Not a bug/glitch.

Vendrick --- all about the timing. Learn his attacks, roll through his swings, and get a poke in. If you get hit, roll back, and heal if he's stuck in a 2-3 attack animation. Trying to bock Vendrick is generally a bad idea. The 5 giant souls can be got in NG, easily.

Darkluker --- like @haniball said, it's all about the magic attacks. Melee is not the easy path here, though he can be stunlocked with low stamina, high poise damage weapons. All else fails, use dual maces with the stone ring. Otherwise, grab your pyromancy glove and start launching some chaos storms.

Ancient Dragon --- the only consistent method I have found is to have the Gyrm shield, and get naked. Dance in front of his face, start whacking at his front feet when he breathes flame, and if he start flying, book it away and turn around with the shield. I often didn't need the shield, but the few times I did I was glad to have it. It's better than relying on luck, as many of the other strats seem to. (What a poorly designed boss. Ugh.)

The Pursuer --- circle him, roll out of or through his attacks, and never stop moving. He's also easy to parry, but parrying it something that takes practice and can be punished for if not performed correctly. If anyone has any advice on the 2 pursuer fight in NG+, I would love to hear it. I got through that fight, but I wouldn't call what I did strategy. More like a down in the mud, knuckle dragging slug fest.

Those are the only ones that I had to really nail down the strategy for. I cheesed the NG+ Lost Sinner fight, so I have no advice there.

@golguin: Hmmm, ok fair enough, that animation kind of sells it. I've just seen it done and done it myself when there was no animation like that, he simply got stuck at the edge of the area and then died by himself. Still feels like cheese to me tho as it basically avoids the whole fight, when you can just fight him through normal means.

It does essentially avoid the whole fight. I've always fought him because I feel that every Dark Souls boss should be killed via melee combat.

Having hard time in Dark Souls II? Switch to spellcaster. Boom. Easy mode is on.

You can make Dragonrider fall off the platform after he takes 6.5 steps towards the entrance fog gate.

You can 1 shot Royal Rat Authority by casting the Dead Again on the corpses of his minions.

You can 1 shot all the rats in Royal Rat Vanguard by casting Soul Appease.

You can stunlock the Ruin Sentinels with powerstanced club/maces L2 attack.

This thread has made me think of cheese based dishes themed around Dark Souls bosses. Would any of you eat something called cheesy rotten, cheesy discharge or ancient cheesy dragon?

64 slices of hollowed cheese *gaargle*

@mosespippy: I would devour an Ancient Cheesy Dragon dish. I would attempt to try the others.

Don't forget sitting in an alcove and shooting the Chariot until he can't make the leap over the pit in the arena.

@mosespippy: Cheese Artorias almost sounds legit.

Ancient Cheesy Dragon : Sprint to his rear legs, stay between them, between the toes, to be precise. If you stick to one toe, he will stomp, you run to the other leg, he will stomp. Sometime, he will rise slowly to breath fire under his belly, but this is slow enough to let you run away, before coming back. Rarely, he will do his AoE fire breath, but that's really rare if you follow this strategy. Even more rarely, he will jump sideway, as an evasive manoeuvre... you just run back under him. I wasn't naked (60% load) and I didn't use Gyrm Greatshield using this strategy.

Cheesy Vendrick : Get the giant souls, which isn't so difficult. Then run close to him, straffing right (his left). If done right, you don't even need to roll to evade his hits, but you may want to anyway, just to be sure (died a few time, because of my overconfidence).

Cheesy Endboss : Flame Swathe + NPC white phatom. The NPC will aggro her most of the time, allowing you to burn her to death. Just be carefull, if she rise her hand, it means ray of doom.

Dual Pursuer : Use poison. Always lock on the one to your right, even if he is far away, evading attacks to the right. Use poisoned weapons, because of the too few openings.

@golguin:I don't get it. Why being fair to a game that isn't fair to you ? Dark Souls 1 and 2 will take every opportunity to kill you... and you are supposed to exploit the ennemies weaknesses.

@tennmuerti: That isn't a bug. Its actually coded into the game. If it was bug, that sequence wouldn't happen the exact same every single time. I actually think its how your supposed to beat him. Its just that people figured out how to fight him without using that sequence.

I don't understand "cheese". You use what works. Turning it in to some macho game about winning by the least effective and weaksauce strats possible is dumb.

The Ceaseless Discharge thing only looks weird because he loses his health before he actually smashes in to the ground below. So in that way it can look like you just randomly did 100% damage to him with a punch. If he simply fell away and had some audio equivalent of "noooooooooo...." and then died after a few seconds, it would look better.

@myrmicus: Better way to cheese the dual persuers is to PURPOSELY get hit by that blue curse stab by one of them. It will cause the other one to despawn you, because you are impossible to hit / target during that attack, thus the other one despawns. Then kill one then leave, come back, kill the remaining one. Easy peasy.

Vendrick was a nightmare for me. I died so many times on him. Then I leveled Adaptability from the cleric base to 20 and killed him my first try. You simply cannot afford to block his hits. He's like Artorias in that regard. With 20 adaptability his attacks became very easy to avoid. I would then use Fire Storm on him for loldamage since it has a chance to hit him multiple times. One lucky fire storm with high enough stats can take about a forth of his hp off.

You also need five giant souls. You can get the fifth from the big dragon or use a bonfire ascetic at the black gulch and kill the hidden giants again. I went with the hidden giants since magic makes them a pushover.

The best way to cheeze any boss is to just over level your toon. SL300 seems about right for NG.

@clonedzero: thanks man. I had him despawn once and wondered what it was! Might be the one thing i do in my cheese sunbro eat boss souls ng++ run.

Maybe they changed it or maybe it bugged but I distinctly remember losing all my giant souls on NG+. I was actually kinda bummed out because I was hoping to not have to go through those memories anymore.

@herbiebug: From what I understand, cheesing isn't about using the least effective way to win, but to use the MOST effective way to win. So effective that it throw all difficulty by the window. It may or may not be by using a weaksauce weakness. Most of the time it uses some IA/aggro/attack proc flaw at your advantage. Sure if you wan't some challenge, you shouldn't use cheesy strategies but if you're really stuck and haven't the experience nor level necessary to win at the time, it's an alternative to dying over and over again.

For exemple, I always cheese the Ancient Dragon, because I hate the fact that he has so much health, one hit kill you, combined with his stupidly large AoE attack. It means that any error on your part, and you're rosted. And by "any error" I mean "Didn't react in the half second needed then ran in the right direction, which is random because when he jump in the air it's not assured he turn in the right way."

Vendrick is much more manageable for exemple. Chariot Executionner too, but it's tedious (and gets annoying after a few tries)

If I wan't to be all macho man on a boss, I'll say "killing *insert boss name here*with a spoon" And you can do it. I did it.It was a ladle actually, but still... or maybe it's not macho man, but more kitchen girl using her natural toy (now that was macho).

@clonedzero:Where were you when I killed those guys by myself ? I hate you ! ... ... kidding ^^

Thanks for the tips, My main character already have the ring of blades +2, but I know what to do if I wan't it again (and doesn't want to bother with the fight)

Another cheesy stratagy : cheesy dragon shrine, two words : Poison Arrows.

Cheesy Smelter Demon : Gyrm greatshield

Cheesy Baneful Mytha : Summon a Jester and look at him go all Black Iron Tarkus on her. And don't forget the popcorn.

@humanity: intersting. I kept mine. They were tasty. I actually did off vendrick in ng though. Maybe they are on to my cheese! In that case the anyways cheesier and smarter ascetic in the gulch would be the better, ie only, option to go in at 5 souls without dancing with the dragon.

It always surprises me that people struggle with the Pursuer. If you parry him he freezes for about 4 seconds, giving you loads of time to either whack away with your weapon, or run around and hit him with one of the siege weapons, which takes off about 70% of his health in one hit.

Cheesy Discharge doesn't sound bad, maybe it needs a little pepper and paprika? Cheesy Rotten I would avoid though, it gives you the runs.

@sweep: Toward the end of my Dark Souls II adventure I found the pursuer to be one of the easiest bosses in the game(though they were all pretty easy at that point). But I played Dark Souls and Demon's Souls largely by leaving myself very small windows to dodge or get my shield back up. Dark Souls 2 felt very different mechanically at the start of the game, so getting used to it was what made him difficult. I would guess that that's the case for some others as well.

What I don't understand, is why people find Ancient Dragon so difficult. I found him incredibly easy to manipulate. First, get naked. Then you just stand slightly to the right of his face and out of melee range. When he rears up you run in and whack his foot a few times and then back out to the same spot. When he starts flying you just sprint to the right in as straight a line as you can until you reach the edge of the arena, for safety follow the edge a bit. I never even got close to being hit doing this. Repeat and he dies.

@sweep: Well, you're asking people to parry him. Dark Souls 2 is my first Souls game. I never used parry on anyone and just killed the dragonriders in Drangelic Castle. The Pursuer is still the hardest fight I had (but that might be because I was still learning the ropes).

@fear_the_booboo: I say this from my own perspective as the worst Dark Souls player of all time (@matt will confirm this). His swings are so predictable and laborious that it's almost as though they deliberately included the boss as some kind of parry tutorial.

Did anyone beat him when you run into him the first time, when that bird drops him on the roof? What repercussions does that have?

@sweep: You gain nothing (more) from beating him early on : He drops the pursuer soul, the ring of blades, same amount of souls and don't appear in the boss room (boss rooftop, actually).

@sweep: That's fair.

Actually the second time I saw him (in the Smelter Demon room) I killed him on my first go so I'm pretty sure that people having problems with him are still learning how to play.

Platinum has been acheesed. But My cheese was not strong. I killed sinner and then picked on rotten til the door to the castle opened. I could have saved a good few runs had i sold all my stuffs to havel.

If you guys want tip on how to beat the bosses more easily go to twitch and watch the people doing all boss speedruns in like 2 hours. Lots of good positioning and efficiency tricks. I couldn't even beat the havel black phantom in the third abyss dungeon but after watching a speedrunner and seeing how borderline broken power stance dual mace is I immediately cleared all three of those places like that.

@neocalypso: A fun thing I discovered with phantom Havel, he gets super staggered by the Alone greatbow to the head, so much so that the second arrow/lance flips him backwards over the edge, poor guy never even gets a chance to move :P

There is no such thing as cheese. Only what you can accomplish.

What a cheesy thing to say.

Just beat Nashandra on first try by lightning spearing her while Vengarl and Jugo distracted her.

That defender greatsword is pretty sweet when infused with lightning. Kind of sucks you can only acquire it by the end game.

There was a boss in Dark Souls 1 that you could beat by standing outside his fog gate, lobbing poop over the wall, and then waiting for toxic damage to kill him. Even by Souls standards, that's kind of cheap.

(not that I'm complaining, I actually used that tactic in one of my playthroughs)

Ya, but fuck the capra demon.