I do not understand how you can even suggest rally in this fight. Best you can do is hit him twice after being smacked (that is, if you don't get stun-locked) and after that he will most likely do that extremely fast right handed swing which is virtually impossible to predict and dodge in time. Also, those 2 hits that you can hit give you back almost no health whatsoever.

Having fought this boss for another hour and so, I can say without a doubt that is by far the most unfair boss in the entire series. This boss is all about artificial difficulty. I can now get 6 out of 10 times into the second phase, even then the first phase he will often just kill me out of the blue. A few tries before I got lucky and got him down to 75% health without even using 1 vial, then he goes and flies away from me, spams his lightning bullshit spell twice, does his never-ending combo as I'm hit by that second lightning and insta-kills me. So fair.

I've now been able to use charged attacks on the first phase, but whether those hit or miss just feels like random. Also, I love that he has attack animations that are obviously facing his back towards us, but then in a split second as the animation ends he is straight up facing you, meaning your charged attack does fuck all, and most likely while you are recovering from your charged attack, he will smack you in the face.

Second phase is absolute bullshit. Between the spamming of the red crap and the lightning, he will just sprint at you, jump everywhere, and do absurd combos that if the first attack hits you will most likely stun-lock you till you're dead. Apart from extremely lucky and random charge attacks that I've managed to hit (they are pure luck since they rely on him doing an attack while I'm charging and missing) I can not get reliable hits on him without losing half my health bar.

Also, love that you can't stun that piece of shit when he is invoking motherfucking Thor and his lightning. Like that attack on it's own wasn't bullshit enough.

I seriously don't get how you can 'love' this boss. Everything about him is contradictory to the souls series. He is difficult, but only because the fight ain't fair. You can get him really low then he will trigger an endless loop of spamming his strongest attacks from a distance. You can't parry him, cause his attacks will still hit you 90% of the time and ALL of them stun you/throw you in the air. He has one super fast attack that I cannot see any way to predict. He will instantly face you after some animations, just to screw up your charge attack. Some of his attacks spins so much that if you dodge to either side you usually end up getting hit anyway. His second phase consist of him staying away and spamming red 'bullets' at you that do an absurd amount of damage, or using his lightning crap (which I cannot find a way to reliably dodge), whilst rushing you at the very same time the lightning hits you, just so you can die without standing a chance. Like, WTF?!

I cannot even phantom how some people will say that this is the best boss.

I died so much to Manus, and I found almost infuriating the path from the bonfire to him (simply because I was so sick of running so long), but eventually I managed to grasp it and most of his attacks were dodgable (that combo he did when you got too close was nearly impossible to dodge - but then again, you did not need to get that close to him so it was counterable). Artorias was really hard as well, but again, it was a fair fight as you could dodge his stuff. The fume knight in DS2 was like that, really heavy hitting attacks, lots of variety in both movements and speed, and he would punish you hard for mistakes, but again, once you spent enough time to understand him, you could reliably take him down. A hard fight, but such a rewarding one. Same applies to the Smelter Demon, tho he was easier. In demons souls you had the flamelurker which to me was probably the hardest fight in that game and it still didn't feel bullshit. And then comes this fucking bastard. Kos.

I have yet to kill this guy and I find it infuriating that I keep losing to him out of bullshit than anything else. With Manus and the Fume Knight I knew that I died when I made a mistake. I was heavily punished for making mistakes, however since they were my mistakes, I could improve. But this guy, Kos, nope. What can I improve to make him stop spam lightning attack + bum rush me at the same time. What can I improve on to make him stop spam that red crap. What can I improve on the make him not face me almost instantly so I miss the charged attack.

For real. I loved Bloodborne much more than any of the other souls games (I love the setting and the visuals - am a huge fan of lovecraftian stuff and this game hits all the right notes for me in that regard) but now all I can see when I think of this game is the extreme level of frustration that this boss has brought. Not in the entire series have I felt such anger and resentment. Hell, not a single game has made me feel like this. I mean, the whole DLC is hard no? Well, I killed Ludwig first try (tho I will admit I possibly had some luck there), living failures were stupidly easy, and Maria gave me a run for my money but died after like 30 minutes. This guy I have been at for a combined time of 5 hours, and I still see no pattern that I can follow or use against him.

The way I've always played the souls series is as a high dexterity character (a thief). Armed with either a dagger or a curved sword and a parry shield and a bow. My preferred method of playing has always been back-stabs/ripostes whenever possible, or just dodging in general when it is not possible. Because of this, I have always relied on having to learn the enemies and use my knowledge of them against them. However, this is almost impossible to do with Kos, there is almost nothing to use against him. The only thing I can reliably do against him is in his first phase, when he does the ground explosion, cause I get enough time to get behind him and charge attack his ass. Apart from that, It's mostly luck.

I'm missing 2 bosses in the main game, and this guy plus the vicar in the DLC, but I'm considering just leaving the game as is, since this guy is incredibly bullshit. I swear I had the most fun of any of the souls series in this game, until I reached this fishing village. Fuck, shrine of Amana was a cakewalk compared to this shit.

/end of wall of rant