So, let's continue the countdown for these hard-ass bosses...
4. Soul of Cinder
So, at No.4 is the final boss of the 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!
In summary, Soul of Cinder really is a pretty brutal boss and he is a worthy challenge to end the game and the Dark Souls III series with and he more than deserves his place on this list.
3. Aldrich, Devourer of Gods
Up next is this guy...Aldrich, Devourer of Gods...oh God indeed!
Yep this guy has to be the most difficult mage boss in the entire series. Period. Aldrich has the most potent magic attacks of any mage boss and indeed even any boss in this game 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 three different enemy bosses from previous games (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 was a horrendously 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 and he more than deserves his spot on here.
2. The Twin Princes: Lorian, the Elder Prince & Lothric, Younger Prince
And then at No.2 we get these two guys...the Twin Princes...oh my God!
It actually has to be said that I had a tough time deciding between who of the top 2 bosses were tougher but in the end I had to put these two guys in the runner spot but only just! The Twin Princes themselves as a boss are a mammoth challenge and are not only one of the hardest bosses in the game but one of the hardest bosses in the entire Souls series!
Yep these two guys gave me no end of trouble in my initial playthrough and they had me almost throwing my controller out the window and yelling expletives at my TV and calling these guys all the names under the sun (and over it!).
So, what makes these two bosses SO difficult? Well, let's take a look at the two princes first, who are both crippled and can't walk, so they crawl around on their knees throughout the fight (well Lothric actually sits on Lorian's back in the second phase) and this is because they are victims of the curse bestowed upon them. So, in the first phase, Lorian will teleport around the room (and its Lothric that is doing all the teleporting with his miracle powers) and try and whack you with his firey greatsword, which deals major damage.
However, after the first phase and killing off Lorian, Lothric will then join in the fight and use his magic powers to ressurect his fallen brother and piggyback on Lorian, who will revive and continue to try and hammer you with his great sword as the two of them teleport around the room. And to make matters worse, Lothric will join in by using his magic attacks on you, which include homing projectiles and soul spheres and if you kill off Lorian, Lothric will just keep reviving him and the fight will continue.
So...as you can imagine I had a horrendous time trying to deal with these two as they use the ultimate cheap shot tactics of teleportation, hammering you with firey great sword swings and miracle magic spells to try and finish you off! And yep I must have spent almost five days trying to take these guys down (yep five whole days of attempts!) and tearing my hair out in the process!
As for how to defeat them??? Well, in the first phase you basically need to just kill Lorian using either melee attacks or pyromancy, miracles or sorcery (which can be trickier) and I found playing as a pyromancer that it was quite easy to kill off Lorian using Great Chaos Fire Orb or Chaos Bed Vestiges spells. In the second phase however you really need to change over to using melee attacks because to end the fight you need to kill Lothric and as Lothric sits on Lorian's back you NEED to get behind Lorian to attack him. So, you can either keep attacking Lorian until he dies after which Lothric will fall off and then try and revive his brother and then strike Lothric as many times as you can, or you can keep trying to get behind Lorian and attack Lothric as much as you can. This of course is all easier said than done and is complicated by Lothric using an AoE miracle (which I think is Wrath of the Gods) which causes a blast that will deal damage to you if he suceeds in reviving Lorian.
So, I would for this fight recommend using a fast straight sword weapon such as the longsword to get in fast strikes or even katana of some kind that dish out fast strikes and good damage. You can also buff you weapons with magic or lightning to inflict damage on Lorian however Lothric only appears to be vulnerable to physical strikes and nothing else and seems to have a larger health pool than his brother, which is funny when you see how skinny he is!
In summary the Twin princes is unquestionably one of the toughest bosses in Dark Souls 3 and indeed the whole series and its ultimately the teleportation aspect that really makes the fight challenging overall. However despite the anger and frustration I felt after being beaten so many times, I must admit its a pretty good boss fight and one of the best in the game and it more than deserves the runner-up spot.
So, now onto the toughest boss of the game at No.1, which is...
1. The Nameless King
Yep at No.1 is this guy the Nameless King. The Nameless King...or his accurate name: well there are too many you could call him but how the Nameless Prick (sorry about the language!).
Now when it comes to gaming there are plenty of challenging bosses out there and plenty of frustrating and difficult challenges to overcome but THIS guy takes the biscuit barrel and runs away with it! The Nameless King had me in fits of anger and frustration like I have never encountered with any other game boss in history as he is incredibly, infuriatingly difficult to take on as a boss and thank God he is an optional one in the game as I would have no hair left if you had to beat him to complete the game!
So, why is the Nameless King the toughest boss in the game??? Well, I have to start by saying I found this fight to be a little bit gimmicky in its difficulty, particularly in the first phase as it relies heavily on using annoying camera angles to knock off your concentration and disorientate you, which leads to plenty of deaths alone. In fact I'm just getting angry thinking about those bloody annoying camera angles and the trouble they caused me in this fight! Secondly, in the first phase the Nameless King is seen riding his dragon (King of the Storm) and he will repeatedly try and hit you with his large hyrbid sword-spear weapon, which inflicts major lightning damage aswell as physical damage. Now these attacks can even result in insta-kills and I was killed four times with NK's charge attack right at the start of the fight and his lightning attack can virtually do the same! And to top this off, his dragon will also start breathing fire at you and if you are in his way this can also one-shot you.
As for the second phase...oh God! This is where the fight becomes even more difficult as after you kill off the Nameless King's dragon, you will take him on in combat and he is no joke whatsoever here. And the Nameless King's attacks include a mixture of spear slash combos, lightning spear slam attacks (that cause Area of Effect damage) aswell as aerial swoop attacks all of which can deal MAJOR damage. He also deploys an lightning attack from the sky in his second phase, which can roll to avoid or block with your shield but this will also cause alot of damage if you get caught in it.
So, with all that said you can imagine the difficulty I faced in trying to beat this guy and it took me 193 attempts before he finally went down (yep I counted them as I just had to given his reputation!) and it took me 17 attempts before I even reached the second phase! And the main problem I often encountered was that this guy alone must be the cheapest boss in the history of gaming because he repeatedly cheap shots you with his spear throughout the first phase, which can result in insta-kill or death by lightning attack or just a melee spear slam!
And in the second phase I found it very difficult to time my rolls to evade his attacks as he often would knock me into the ground with spear thrust/combo attacks or his spear impale move, which also can take a generous amount off your health! So, this fight really did up to one of the most frustrating experiences I have ever faced in gaming history!
As for how to beat him???? Good question! Well, I found in the first phase the best strategy was to get as close to the side of the dragon's neck as possible, so you can evade the majority of NK's spear attacks but you can still take damage from his lightning spear attacks though as they have an AoE impact. I would also suggest that you roll either side of the King when he swipes his spear at you left and right to avoid take big damage either that or stay down if you get hit once. You also need to kill the dragon in the first phase of course, so for that I'd recommend using a weapon buffed with lightning as the dragon is highly vulnerable to this and I opted for the Lothric Knight Crossbow and lightning bolts to finish it off.
Also if the dragon does hit you with his flame attack and you have enough health, just stay down and DO NOT try to get up because if you do you will take even more damage and most likely die. Again to mitigate the fire damage here I would highly recommend boosting your fire defense by using red bug pellets, flash sweat (a pyromancy fire defense spell) or some other fire resistance item.
In the second phase, its simply a case of getting good as timing your rolls to avoid the Nameless Dick's attacks (and I'm being polite here!) and get your hits in just after NK has finished them. I also found that ranged attacks work quite well against Nameless and in the end I used the pyromancy spell, Chaos Bed Vestiges to kill him off, which is a powerful projectile fireball that hits its mark pretty effectively but melee is a different matter altogether!
So, for me the Nameless King remains the hardest boss in Dark Souls 3 and is an incredibly frustrating and punishing fight that will test any gamer to the limit (and if you said you beat him easy then you must be lying surely!). However there is no denying it is a really intense battle with awesome cutscenes and an excellent music track (which is way lighter in tone to the rest of the Souls 3 soundtrack!). And its the mixture of annoying camera angles, cheap shot spear attacks and the King's brutal second phase that add up to make this an extremely difficult fight and one that deserves to take the top spot.
Right, so that's it for now and I hope you have enjoyed this list and I will be back soon with another post, which will now of course not be before November (its nearly November already! Unreal!).
So, until then its bye for now!
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