OK, so a little while back on this blog I did a list of the top 9 toughest bosses in Dark Souls III, which was a list that limited strictly to the original game and not the DLC content.
However since then I have had a go at all of the DLC bosses now, so I figured this was as good a time as any to update my original list to incorporate the bosses that featured in both DLCs for the game. So, this means there will be quite a few changes from the original list but some of the originals will of course still show up here.
So, with that said let's take another look at the most hellish of hellish bosses in the final game of the Dark Souls series...
10. Pontiff Sulyvhan
So, at No.10 is a boss is Pontiff Sulyvahn, who appeared in my original list but he is worth relisting here again due to his difficulty. The Pontiff himself is a large imposing figure, who was formerly a sorcerer but became corrupted by the Profaned Flame.
However when I originally did my first list I had left Pontiff off it because I was always able to summon two NPCs for his fight, making him significantly easier to take down. However on another playthrough I did (as a cleric in which I mucked up several questlines so I deleted it!) I was only able to summon one NPC and by God it was a completely different fight and one which I seriously struggled with!
As for what makes Pontiff so tricky??? Well, the guy has his share of aggressive attacks and they are hard to get a read on as he tends to mix them up and they are also quite long and sweeping in style and yep they deal out ALOT of damage! Pontiff also at around half way through his health bar will enter a second phase (yep that dreaded second phase!) and produce his own clone, which carries a series of pre-emptive attacks, which the real Pontiff will then also perform on you. So, this all adds up to a pretty tricky fight!
As how to deal with Pontiff Sully? Well, in my cleric playthrough (I mucked up!) I actually wasn't able to beat Pontiff with just the one NPC summon but I came very close though but with the two summons he is MUCH easier to take down. So, what I would suggest for the fight is to get those two summons to make your life easier (and don't mess up Anri's questline like I did as she is the other summon I failed to get last time!).
However NPCs aside, you need to time your rolls to evade Pontiff's attacks and keep rolling to his left to avoid them and when he produces his clone in the second phase, try and kill his clone as fast as you can and your are best using a buffed weapon for this (either use magic or lightning) as this clone is largely immune to physical damage. You should also take note that if Pontiff has enough health left and you have killed one of his clones then he will try and summon another, so you need to keep killing his clones over and over until you can get Pontiff's health bar diminished completely.
So, overall Pontiff Sulyvahn is a boss I really underestimated here initially as he can prove to be a serious handful and definitely one of the tougher bosses in the game. Thankfully there are summons there to help make this fight way easier but if you go in alone or just with the one summon you are bound to be in for a tough fight, so here it sits at No.10.
9. Dancer of the Boreal Valley
Next up is the only one of two female bosses in the game, Dancer of the Boreal Valley, who can be found in the Hall wall of Lothric area of the game but you fight her just inside the entrance of Lothric castle.
Now, I had originally placed the Dancer much higher on my list due to the difficulty I had with her on a melee basis however in light of the DLC bosses, there are so many tougher ones than her to be found in the game, so the Dancer has put back up the list a bit more due to this. However, that doesn't mean you should underestimate the Dancer's difficulty.
So, why is the Dancer of the Boreal Valley a tricky boss??? Well, it simply comes down to just how hard this boss hits as she can dish out some MAJOR damage to your character if you aren't wary (or even if you are wary!). And the Dancer's most devastating attack comes in her first phase where she performs a grab move, where she literally grabs you and you get impaled onto her sword, which is basically a one-shot kill if your health bar isn't high enough! Her second phase is no joke either as the Dancer will pull out a second sword and start swirling them around the room, which can inflict large amounts of damage again if her hits connect with you.
As for how I got on with this boss, I have to say in my first playthrough as a pyromancer I managed to kill her off quite easily with dark pyromancies, using Black Fire Orb, which wiped her out fairly quickly as she is weak to dark. However, I did another playthrough as a melee character where I struggled against her big time as I failed to get the timing on my rolls right to evade her attacks, which as I said hit pretty hard!
So as for strategies, well its another case of getting good at timing your rolls to avoid her attacks and roll through them and when she attempt to grab you back way off! In fact there is a ring in the game, which could prove a good help in this fight, which is the milkus bloodring that gives you room for what is called invcibility rolling, which is where you can roll more efficiently to avoid enemy attacks. So, basically get your rollls down, back off when she does the grab attack and get your hits whenever you can after she has finished her own attacks. However, I would still suggest using pyromancy to kill her or ranged attacks as a melee approach definitely provides a greater challenge against this boss. In fact in my latest playthrough as a sorcerer, I was able to defeat her with just one attempt, so being caster for me personally is the best way to go with this boss.
So, the Dancer still can remain a tricky test for melee characters to take on due to her large damage potential and her powerful swings can be tough to time and dodge (which is were I suck at in these fights!). However if you are a caster, then you will surely find her to be an easier boss to overcome and I personally think there are much tougher bosses in the game than her. Still the Dancer can be tricky and as such still deserves a place on the list.
8. Demon Prince (Demon in Pain & Demon from Below)
OK, so at No.8 is this boss from the Ringed City DLC which is two demons combined into one fight and its overall a very tricky one and it sets the tone for the difficulty of the Ringed City DLC itself.
As for the boss itself, there are two demons, the Demon in Pain & Demon from Below, who both have two different modes of attack at each time, as one will be flaming in which they will glow and they will attack you with melee lashes. The other mode is burnout where the demon will stop glowing and exhaust its flames and instead unleash a toxic attack.
However after you have killed both demons, the last one to die will be resurrected and transform into the Demon Prince itself. And the Demon Prince has his own ferocious fire attacks and one special attack that will differ depending on which demon you killed first. If you killed the Demon in Pain first, then the Demon Prince will fire out a firey laser attack whereas if you kill the Demon from Below first, the DP will launch a series of aerial fireballs instead.
Yeah so this boss can definitely be quite challenging and the main reason alone for that is mainly to do with the Demon Prince's large health pool, which grows bigger with the more summons you have and not to mention the Prince's attacks are also quite ferocious and deal out heavy fire damage. And for me the best way to deal with this boss is to summon the two NPCs you have for it which are Amnesiac Lapp (who turns out later to be someone familiar!) and Slave Knight Gael (who later appears in the DLC as a boss). However as I said with the summons, this boss can be very tanky health wise, which can make it quite challenging and I even found my summonses kept dying on me before I could get the Demon Prince's health bar depleted!
So overall, the Demon Prince remains quite a challenging battle but also a pretty good one too as it really does have an epic feel to it and the summons compliment it very well and it is more than deserving its place here on the list.
7. Aldrich, Devourer of Gods
So next up is Aldrich (or Albitch as some fans mockingly call him!) who I initially placed as in the top 3 of my first list but given some time and reflection and played all the DLC bosses too, I would say there are tougher bosses out there than Aldrich. However this does not make Aldrich any the easier of course because for me he will always be the first genuinely brutal and challenging boss you will encounter in the game.
As for what makes Aldrich so tricky is that he has the most potent magic attacks of any mage boss as they are pretty devastating and when you go into this fight if you are not prepared, then you in for a very tough time. Aldrich himself is a cannibal by nature and his physical presence is a mixture of different enemy bosses from (one of them being Gwyndolin, another mage boss, who appeared in Dark Souls 1).
So, what makes Aldrich so difficult??? Well, put simply Aldrich's attacks hurt...alot! In fact when you go into Aldrich's arena he most likely can insta-kill you right off the bat with his most deadly attack, which is a volley of magic arrows, which will annihilate you if you get the full brunt of them and that is what happened to me in my first attempt at this guy! Aldrich also has other attacks that do brutal damage, especially his soul spheres, which he can fire off up to six times and two of them alone will wipe you out! Aldrich also can deal enormous melee damage to your character with his scythe staff, which if you get too near him to the front, he will clobber you with it and it will take a big chunk off your health in the process!
And the question has to be asked??? How do you beat this guy??? Well, this is something I struggled with really badly as it must have taken me near 100 goes before I finally took him down and I even began to wonder if I could ever beat him! To beat Aldrich however what I would suggest is wearing armour with the best magic defense aswell as using blue bug pellets to increase your magic damage absorption.
And the key to beating Aldrich is that you need to get behind him and attack his tail, which can be difficult as he moves around alot and he also burrows himself underground after you attack him for a bit and he reappears on the other side of the room! Also when he does his magic arrow attack you need to run right behind him in the first phase and in the second run away from him as the arrows fly down in different directions. So, I would recommend using either pyromancy to finish him off (great chaos fire orb works well here) or even buffing your weapon with fire or lightning resins as he is weak to both of these elements.
So for me, Aldrich is an incredibly difficult boss, who gave me no end of trouble and after about three days of trying, I finally managed to take him down and his brutal magic attacks alone make him a very challenging enemy to beat. I have of course since then beaten Aldrich a few times in my playthroughs and with each time he does get a little easier but he's still no pushover and he will always be for me one of the toughest bosses in the main game.
6. Soul of Cinder
So, at No.6 is the final boss of the main game, Soul of Cinder, who after the first two underwhelming final bosses of Souls 1 and 2, more than makes up for this, as this guy is a pretty tough customer to face in any game never mind the final boss.
As for what makes Soul of Cinder so tough??? Well, it comes down to his highly versatile moveset as SOC is a combination of all the Lords of Cinder and anyone who has linked the first flame, so he takes on all their abilities. So, here you will see Soul of Cinder attack you with a mixture of melee, sorcery, pyromancy and miracles. Not only that but he is very agile and his attacks are pretty aggressive and relentless as he barely gives you any time to heal up before he attacks you again, which can be very frustrating to say the least!
So there are two phases in this fight and in his first phase, Soul of Cinder will mix up his attacks using all of the above, so if you get close he will hammer you with melee and if you back up he will assault you with sorcery, pyromancy and miracles. In the second phase however, Soul of Cinder will adopt the moveset of the final boss from the first Dark Souls game, Gwyn, Lord of Cinder, which includes a brutal six-hit combo and his explosive grab attack (literally!).
So, I really have to admit that I struggled quite a bit against this guy and as a final boss he is fitting challenge and I often found myself burning through my estus too quickly to be able to get his health bar down enough to get near victory. I also found this boss incredibly difficult to take on as a melee option given his varied moveset and the ferocity of his attacks, so you have to get good at your rolls and evading his attacks. In the end I was able to finish off this boss using pyromancy (Chaos Bed Vestiges spell) but it took quite a bit of time before he finally went down as I must have had at least 30-40 attempts!
I have also struggled with this guy too on other playthroughs also and using summons tends not to work out too great as they tend to make him super tanky! However on my most recent playthrough I was able to summon both Yuria and Londor Pale Shade for the fight and after a good few goes I was eventually able to beat Cinder down.
So in summary, Soul of Cinder really is definitely a pretty tough boss and he is a worthy challenge to end main the game and for that alone he more than deserves his place on this list.
Right, so that's it for Part 1 of my list and I will be back soon with Part 2.
Till then bye for now!
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