I finally beat Ornstein and Smough

Dragon Slayer Ornstein and Executioner Smough beaten. Took me 2 hours. 1 hour of it was spending my hard humanity to summon solace or rando to fight with me and failing. 2 times I died trying to just get to Solace because I hate myself and I'm dumb.

I ended up killing Ornstein first (didn't need the ring) beacuse I have a +10 great club and he doesn't have all that much hp (4 jump attacks). Big Smough is pretty easy when you stand on the other side of a pillar. I would wait for an attack then jump attack him.

Honestly considering how bad they have beaten me before I was kind of suprised how easy the fight ended up being. Big Smough becomes very easy beacuse of pillars and an ai too concerned with charging.

my take away from the dungeon as a whole, why wasn't I using Jump attack more often. The great club jump attack is actually pretty quick considering the weapon.

How was everyone's fight with these 2. I hear that they have quite the reputation.

(sorry for rambling I just got real excited hardest fight so far, by far)

I haven't played through all of DS in almost 3 years now, but they were always the biggest roadblock for me. My first time through I used the unpatched Eagle Shield and mostly blocked them to death. Lack of experience with the style of game made it a hard fight still, but I had good equipment for it. It's subsequent shieldless runs where I run into real problems. XD

Fuck man, I did a uchigatana/no shield run and ended up being pretty underleveled for Anor Londo (45 or so). That might've been the most I've ever struggled with any boss in any of these games. I just died to them constantly for at least an hour or two. +6 Uchi, low level, too many points in Dex, no shield, no poise. THE STRUGGLE WAS TRUE AND STRONG

I sometime wish I went a dex build, the weapon variety seems better.

Congrats! They're definitely a tough one. I did okay on my first character because I was a little overlevelled by the time I got to them and I already had a good shield and 20 Estus flasks. But recently I did a playthrough using just a rapier, and that was a tough fight. Had blitzed through the early game and spent a lot of souls on gear and upgrade materials so I wasn't especially high level. Probably took me about 3-4 hours of solo attempts before I got there. Half the time I was just dead in a corner all of a sudden. Over time I got the hang of listening to Smough's approach and even without having him on-camera I knew when I needed to time my dodges. Although I struggled on this more recent attempt, I definitely know the fight better now than I ever did before - so that'll make any future runs I do a little more straight forward.

Oh man, congrats. Took me 10 hours! I kept needing to farm humanity and I really wanted to beat Ornstein last to get that armour.

To this day, I've only ever beaten them with co-op. I ain't even ashamed.

For me, I wouldn't consider them some of the hardest bosses in the series. I'm currently on three, and I'm playing them back-to-back, so they're all still clear in my mind (though they probably will be some years down the line). I didn't know Orstein & Smough were going to be the next bosses, but before that, the area you're in with the black guards, I sat there for a good while and kept farming souls because it's the best place to do it. By the time I got to them, they were still a challenge, and beat me twice, but after that, I got the best of them. They were neither some of the easiest, nor hardest, it was the typical intense challenge many of the bosses posed. I know many people say they're some of the most challenging, but if I hadn't known that, they wouldn't be worth mentioning (although there's some good stuff in DS2, and DS3 that deals with them). Also, I never summoned NPC friendly's in the first game. Can you do it in Demon's too? If I had remembered you could, I totally would have. In Dark Souls 3, I was fighting a boss named Pontiff, and though I could take his health down okay, his move set was relentless enough, and his attacks were strong enough that I just couldn't beat him. I left and did another section entirely, beating another boss. Figuring out the embers make it so I can summon (I've been freaking selling that stuff), it helped because I beat him my first try after that. One on one though, he was much tougher than Orsten and Smough. Currently on Aldrich. Oh, and also, that part with the black knights and the few mimics, in the basement area there's Havel armor, which was great.

I had trouble with them when I first played Dark Souls so ended up summoning. I felt bad because my summoned helper died near the end of the fight, but they did enough for me to win.

I've since played through Dark Souls 2 and 3 only doing no shield runs, so maybe I am ready to go back to fight these guys solo. I'm still pretty bad at the game though and tend to spend hours dying on each boss.

Interesting thing you mentioned about it suddenly seeming easy once you completed it. It's a weird feeling but I've definitely had that too, even if in reality the fight was close.

My first time through Dark Souls 1 I went into O&S not knowing what was coming (no guide for me first play) and tried my until-then successful strategy of tanking-with-a-shield, attacking-when-I-can and got stun locked and destroyed in the corner in a matter of seconds. Second try, I ditched the shield and fucking danced them to death over the course of what felt like three hours (but was probably three minutes.) It was a thing of beauty and cemented the Souls games as some of my favorite ever. Oddly enough, they gave me way more trouble on later play throughs (not NG+, just another play.) The last time I played the game, they killed me a couple dozen times.

Grats! I've known a few people who stop there.

I did it solo but I also dropped my summon down multiple times to learn the fight.

I had SOOOO much trouble with O&S and then my friend beat them on his first try T_T

But then he had some trouble with the Four Kings and I beat THEM on MY first try with V-Bomb's strategy of "stand in one place and let Havel's Armor/Iron Flesh keep you alive as you bash the kings to pieces with a 2 handed weapon"

@bbalpert: That's a strategy I can get behind.

Shield holds up pretty well against O&S, normally when I try to hold my ground against bosses I'm just crushed immediately and should roll instead. I was surprised to see the shield work so well against them.

Honestly I never had issue with the idea of summoning help (I'm not above it) DS is a hard game, but more importantly it creates such a unique level of companionship in players. Reminds me of a Samuari Jack episode where Jack teams up with a gladiator. No words are spoken in the whole episode, but they fight as a team to succeed. Its just a cool element to the game.

I tried Solair for the boss a couple times, but like a numskull the one time I got to large Smough I went stupid and hammed. His lightning but stomp was a one shot and killed me. Sorry Solair = (

I know he tried. Solair such a nice guy, I sure hope nothing bad happens to him...

My last run a couple of months back was the first time I really understood that fight. Although I really need to try beating Smough first. I'm usually using the first half of the game as prep for that fight, though. I usually get a Black Knight weapon, spec towards it and have things set for the rest of the journey. I too don't have an issue with summoning but a lot of fights give you the impression they're doable solo. And they are.

My first run I died a couple times to them but not much more than I did to, say, Capra Demon or Bed of Chaos. On a later run, I wanted to get some PvP achievements so I purposely kept my soul level low to get matched up with weaker players. I probably would have been okay if I had been spending my souls on upgrading weapons and armor but I was still undecided on what I wanted to use, so I ended up making do with whatever I found. The lightning spear got me through Anor Londo but it was a no-go against Ornstein (I wanted to kill him first for whatever reason), so I used the occult club you get in the basement. I think I was SL 16? I realized it would have been smarter to make some decisions on what to upgrade and just do that, but I got stubborn and wanted to beat them as I was. It was an ordeal. Definitely took me a couple of hours and at one point I had to walk away and come back the next day.

I'm not totally through DSIII yet, but O&S remains the only boss in the entire Soulsborne series I never beat solo.

Now that I think about it, I don't believe I ever beat the Ancient Dragon from DSII, either.

@sinusoidal: Yeah it's weird how hard they were coming back there on different characters. Everything else in souls games is easier once you've done it once, but NOPE. Ornstein says no!

It's been so long now, I'm kinda curious if I will still struggle against them if I come back. Especially after kind of breezing through BB and DS3. Did I get better or were the old games harder? Leaning towards the former, but who knows. Really curious to take a weekend and go back to it.

I had a relatively easy time with them so far. Nito is kicking my ass though as I have no divine weapon so the damn skeletons keep getting me.

That fight took me forever. I eventually just gave up using my current build, and equipped the Greatshield of Artorias and Quelaag's Furysword with a super light armor for maximum blocking and rolling, and since both are weak to fire. Only took me a couple tries with that build.

Beat them solo on my fourth try. Wasn't even planning on beating them, just wanted to go in and try to figure them out for the next day. I stuck with my Laito, Spider Shield, and (mostly) Black Iron set (medium roll).

Praise the pillars.

I thought this thread would be someone trying since the game came out and finally did it.

2 hours is not bad at all! took me way longer my first time through the game. GJ!!

When I couldn't beat them, a whole year went by before I came back to the game. I'm just thankful for summoning.

Congratz on beating him! And that fight took me soo damn long my first time. I knew if you (Armor Spoiler) beat Ornstein last you could buy his armor, so that made the fight considerably harder.

But man did that fight take forever for my first time. It took me so long that I got to optimize my run to the boss room with an alarming degree of consistency.

Haha congrats dude. I feel like beating them is a Souls game rites of passage or something. Probably the most iconic boss in the series, in my opinion.

I always summon Solaire and it makes the battle more epic if you ask me.

welcome to the club. Dark Souls is like climbing atop a big hill, seeing another hill and eager to take on another one .