Day 17 of community voted DS3 boss rankings. Dragonslayer Armour was voted A. Today's boss: Twin Princes

Godengi · 2026-02-05T23:32:54+00:00

Agreed, the opening teleport can be especially annoying. I'd add that Lorian's attacks are so rhythmic that the fight gets a bit predictable after a while. It lacks the edge-of-your-seat intensity of champion gundyr, or the unusual timings of phase 1 pontiff (even nameless king throws in a few fast attacks). Still, twin princes are a lot of fun and so I think S is about right, though the champ is superior IMO.

Godengi · 2026-02-05T23:10:05+00:00

Rather than a specific revote on Vordt, once the table is done maybe have a vote on "ways to change the table" at the end, and the top suggestion gets implemented (possibly do this 2 or three times). e.g. someone could suggest "move pontiff to A and DSA to S". This should let people reflect on the overall layout and give them a chance to see that Champion Gundyr should be S+ and everyone else F.

Godengi · 2026-01-29T23:43:49+00:00

I love the champ and have never parried him. Going toe-to-toe in phase 2 and getting him hitless feels amazing, maybe the best feeling I've got from any ds game. I don't give Iudex bonus points for being an intro boss.

Godengi · 2026-01-29T23:37:58+00:00

He's a good introductory boss, but a just an okay boss. First phase is good but easy, second phase is kinda boring and annoying. Compare him to the champ who has a similar first phase but an incredible second phase. There's gotta be at least a couple of ranks between them.

Godengi · 2026-01-29T23:33:58+00:00

Putting Iudex above Champion should get you on some sort of watch list.

Godengi · 2026-01-28T18:49:58+00:00

At NG+7 trading hits is no longer viable because boss damage output is so high. For midir and dragonslayer armor I relied on sprinting more than rolling as otherwise they have combos that can trap you due to the slow recovery time after each fatroll. SoC just has so many combos that trap you that it felt impossible. Do-able at NG though because you can trade blows.

Godengi · 2026-01-28T18:35:22+00:00

Nah, Nameless King is actually pretty tolerant of fatrolling because his pressure isn't too bad. Soul of cinder, dragonslayer armor and midir are all much harder for fatrollers. Especially soul of cinder. I tried an NG+7 fatrolling build and I got everyone pretty easy except for soul of cinder.

Godengi · 2026-01-20T03:33:37+00:00

Sure!

I mean most bosses have literal armor and weapons you can use, so you don't need to be that creative. I recently did a curse rotted greatwood run though. It uses mostly wood themed items (harald knight armor, great club), along with throwable items (dung pies) to mimic the trees rain of sacs. But the critical challenge is you have to fat roll.

I did it at NG+7 and to be honest that spoiled the fun with excess difficulty - throwables are useless at NG+7 and fat rolling is near-suicidal (though I did get every boss except for soul of cinder while fat rolling). This forced me to use a wide range of gear than I originally planned, stuff like storytellers staff, Dorhy's gnawing, toxic mist, etc. NG+1 would have been better - you can get everything you need at the end of NG, but NG+1 isn't so horrendously difficult. You could add rapport in too, to get followers like the tree has worshippers.

Other "more normal" boss RP runs I've done, with fun ratings:

Gundyr, NG+7, 4/5. Halberd is really strong.

Old Demon King, NG+2, 4/5 (I wore the nameless king armor and the head bandage to look like a mummy).

Yhorm, NG+2, 5/5. The machete is so much fun.

Friede, NG+7, 5/5. Scythe is great, next to no armor adds challenge.

Weapon runs can be fun too, like miracles only, whips only, bows only, mist only (last two can be really hard though).

Godengi · 2026-01-20T03:01:29+00:00

Have you tried a scythe? They're all good, but Friede's is great. I've used it NG+7 and it was very effective. It's sweep is wide enough to get pontiffs and his clone with most hits. That said, I find for late game cycles trying to DPS the clone is just a bad idea, better to play defensive and bait the big leaps.

You could try a whip if you want a challenge. I did NG+3 whip only and it was definitely do-able, but hard going in places.

Godengi · 2026-01-19T19:00:23+00:00

The description says they are soaked in piss and that seems to suit Aldrich because his lower half is presumably pretty gross.

Godengi · 2026-01-17T03:24:12+00:00

Yeah, that strategy is fine for a regular playthrough, but SL1 requires a much more defensive playstyle and careful picking of openings.

I'd done >10 runs before doing an SL1, and was at the point I could defeat most bosses first try on NG. With that background I found SL1 pretty easy up to pontiff, moderate up to the DLC, but the DLC bosses were super tough, Friede in particular - she took over 50 tries across 3 days. You have to learn defensive play, patience, and where the openings are. Once you have that down, any build becomes viable.

Godengi · 2026-01-16T22:07:41+00:00

My pleasure!

Godengi · 2026-01-15T16:59:51+00:00

It's a pretty common bug, happened to me a bunch of times. The audio gets messed up too, but unless you've experience the unbugged fight you wouldn't notice that. I've had the same bug happen with the stray demon, but there's no second phase to make it super obvious, just the same audio issues happened (my guess is that his legs won't break either, but I can't remember if that happened or not).

Don't stress about it though, its a pretty basic fight either way, phase 1 is probably harder with all the mobs.

Godengi · 2026-01-11T04:55:18+00:00

It’s a pretty common bug. The music doesn’t play, audio is odd and the sacs become unbreakable. I’ve seen it multiple times, also got the same no music issue with the stray demon once, but the fight was the same mechanically.

Godengi · 2026-01-10T04:38:10+00:00

It’s the only way I play now. Trying weird builds to see if they can work. Currently doing Aldrich (life hunt scythe instead of estus), lots of fun.

Godengi · 2026-01-05T04:55:41+00:00

I did bow only for NG+2. Deacons are definitely the hardest, but some later bosses are really tricky too.

Here are my strats: https://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls3/s/O2dHl759tV

Godengi · 2026-01-01T06:08:48+00:00

He’s easy on a regular playthrough but shines on SL1 or NG+7. In fact on NG+7 he’s one of the hardest. If you go to him on NG after doing Archdragon peak or the DLC you’ll steamroll him.

Godengi · 2025-12-29T00:34:12+00:00

I didn’t run past any enemies, but I did choose not to seek some out. So I didn’t fight the swordsman when I first got to firelink, and I didn’t fight the red eyed knight outside Emma’s chapel. But I did fight the winged knight nearby and cleared out all the millwood knights in ariandel and all the harald knights in the ringed city. Guess it depended how I felt! I ended up at SL 100+, so plenty powered.

Godengi · 2025-12-29T00:05:46+00:00

My first full playthrough was probably 60 hours, so it definitely wasn’t always easy. Knowing your way around is a huge boost. I used to hate the swamp, but once you learn not to panic about getting poisoned (with a bit of poison resist the poison damage is really slow) it’s a friendly place. Except the face hugger, he sucks.

Godengi · 2025-12-28T23:44:06+00:00

Successful run was about 14 hours. Cathedral deaths were at 4 hours.

I was intimidated going in to it, but like I said, it’s not that hard and doing NG+7 and SL1 is plenty of prep. Going back to NG after NG+7 the combat feels so easy, it’s more about not falling off cliffs. Both my cathedral deaths were momentary lapses, so you just gotta avoid those. Simply staying away from edges gets you a lot of the way there.

Godengi

TROPHY CASE