Look up the definition of the word parry dude ;p. It does not include "shooting a person in the face thereby stunning them".

By far the best thing that I personally found for the Cleric Beast was to hug his ass. Get right behind him and stay there, he seems completely helpless and doesn't even really try to turn around all that much.

DS 1 and 2 seemed more open so far, imo. Thus far in Bloodborne it seems like there are several paths that lead to the same spot. It took me forever to find the 2nd bonfire thing too... I just kept finding shortcuts to the first bonfire. I'm still early on so I assume it will open up more. But I do really love the Demon Souls callback with the main hub area.

Fuck this game is hard. Maybe it's my old man tendencies but it's way faster than previous games and the reaction times are kicking my ass. Struggling quite a bit with F.G. right now. Any tips? I've gotten him down to the beast phase a couple times but just get annihilated at that point.

There is an item you can find that helps. Talk to people in town

From after the second boss on you can go into like 4 different huge sprawling areas and the possibilities become infinite when you get access to chalice dungeons

@karkarov: it's still mechanically a parry.

I was surprised how easy I found the Cleric dog thing. The first time I reached him my weapon was busted so I had no chance, but the second time I was surprised how manageable he was. Now, the second boss. He's super easy... for about 3/4 of the fight. I WILL beat you stupid gun-hat-axe-man.

I'm sorry for the extremely noobish question, but...how do you parry? (Don't crucify me please)

@supermonkey122: Using your ranged weapon as an enemy attacks will stun him. You have a small window to then attack him with your main weapon.

Christ the camera in that area though. I found fighting him incredibly difficult because the camera kept going outside the bridge and when I'd get close enough to attack it would position itself in such awkward angles that half the time I didn't even know where I was.

I found this fight way tougher than Father G just because I couldn't tell what was going on half the time. Didn't anyone playtest that area?

@fredchuckdave: Can't wait to try them out!

@humanity: Had the exact same problem, got him to maybe 20% on the first try and then the camera appeared to decide that the side of the bridge was much more interesting and then I got destroyed as I just started rolling to try get some space. Other than that, the first fight definitely seems manageable.

I didn't have a problem with the camera there, but by that point I was probably so overleveled I didn't have time to notice. Father G however gave me trouble because of the gravestones. I got stuck so many times.

@refactored: yah it's pretty bad. His patterns are pretty straight forward, slash, slash big slash, overhead - it's all very telegraphed.

When he rears up and goes red I hit him with my main weapon and that put him into a stunned state letting me do the critical. I wasn't able to parry any of his moves with the gun though, once again, the timing on that seems all over the place. For some enemies it's right as they begin their "strike" or others it seems just before you get hit. In the case of a boss fight I wasn't really in the mood for experimentation.

The third boss seems even more hyper active than Father G, although I only fought him as a supporting phantom for another player. Three of ass wailed on that thing and just as the triumphant Prey Slaughtered screen came up the host died from poisoning and I don't think I got anything out of it.

@sethphotopoulos:

The part I linked to about a minute in is what I'm talking about.

I was under the impression that you shouldn't attempt the Cleric beast until you have some levels. I took on the graveyard boss first and only did Cleric because I was lost it seemed.

@kishinfoulux: Cleric Beast seems to have more health but it's attacks are more manageable than Father Gascoigne so if you're careful you can beat him early on although it will take a while. I beat Father G and then gained a few levels and even upgraded my weapon and the Cleric Beast was still taking only 30 damage or so from each hit, although I'm using the sword cane which is fast but weaker than all the other starting weapons (it does have B stat scaling though)

Cleric beast with the cane is simple. Just go crazy on its legs with the whip and it can barely touch you. And if that somehow doesn't work just target its head and whittle its health down slowly by whipping it in the face when you have an opening.

Just shoot it in the face twice, then parry and repeat. Also used Threaded Cane.

Oh hey, turns out Cleric beast REALLY doesn't like fire. If you can find some firepaper and get some molotov cocktails its basically GG

@zevvion: I feel like finding ways to force parry's on bosses will be essential in fighting bosses the easier way. I just wish there were more bullet drops. I usually have way more healing items than bullets and end up having to sacrifice health to get some more.

How is the Cane when upgraded a little? I'm thinking of messing with it, at the very least, for crowd control.

@kishinfoulux: It's fine. I beat most bosses with it so far. Does do less damage than other weapons though. Also, the whip-form is actually rather slow and thus not as amazing for crowd control as you'd think.

I like the moveset and I've been heavily investing into Skill.

As far as numbers go, I have the cane at +3, with some attack bonus gems slotted in and Skill at 24 and my damage is 137 on it. In more meaningful terms thats like those white hooded guys in old Yarnham dying in 3 hits.

The whip is great for taking out crows and managing mobs of smaller creatures.

It's the only weapon I've really used so far because it's the only one that has good skill scaling of which I've found. The one thing I kind of don't like about it is that it has pretty short range compared to some of those saw weapons in unfolded mode.