Now its time for the second part of my pick for the top 10 hardest bosses in the acclaimed action role play game, Bloodborne.
So without further ado let's get into it and see which brutal bosses made the top 5...
5. Rom, The Vacuous Spider
So, at No.5 is Rom, the Vacuous Spider, who has proven to be the thorn in the side of many a Bloodborne player and certainly was in mine during my first playthrough (not too bad in my second though but still tricky). Yep, Rom is a big female spider with a ghoulish looking head that can only be said to made of concrete by the looks of it and she plays a big part in the story of the game as alot of things will change as a result of you defeating her as the moon will change to blood red and you will be sent into one of the toughest areas in the game later as a result, the Unseen Village (aka hell in Yarnham!).
As for Rom herself, in the first phase she is very passive and doesn't fight back but instead get's her army of spiders to attack you, who are pretty aggressive and can deal out alot of damage and after damaging her so much, she will teleport away across the other side of the arena (which is basically a lake of sorts). In the second phase however this is where Rom will start fighting back as she will do a number of spells such as ice barrages that fall from the sky that can one-shot you if you aren't careful aswell as ones that emerge from the ground before she teleports again. Rom in the third phase will then reappear and this time physically attack you with a body slam aswell as carry out her usual magic attacks aswell as a melee explosion. Add onto that all the spiders trying to get you and it becomes quite a chore to take Rom down.
As for how to actually take her down...well I must say I really did struggle with Rom on my first playthrough as her spider minions can really deal out alot of damage and when Rom starts spamming her ice barrages then there is a strong chance you will get one-shotted by them. So, what I would suggest is either kill the spiders in the first phase to make life easier to attack Rom afterward and it would be best to use a thrust weapon such as the rifle spear to kill them off side on as their concrete heads are tough to attack.
Another better strategy for the remainder of the fight however is to just ignore the spiders and go right from Rom, get in a few hits and back off to evade the spiders and Rom's ice barrages. Also if you bring along a weapon such as the Tonitrus that deals out bolt damage or use bolt paper to buff your weapon with then this will also help make things go a little smoother as Rom is very vulnerable to this. I would also strongly suggest (for once) NOT summoning for this fight because the NPC summoms will most likely get killed trying to fight the spiders rather than attack Rom, so its best you do this solo as the summons will ultimately hinder as you will be taking on a stronger boss with more health.
So, for me Rom is a pretty tough boss in the main game and she can take some getting used to and I would say she has been the one boss that has consistently tripped me up so far in all my playthroughs. However despite that, I would say it is a pretty good fight overall and quite a challenging one to get to grips with and as such, Rom deserves her place at No.4.
4. Laurence, the Vicar
At No.4 is a DLC boss, Laurence the Vicar, who can be a real tricky customer and is one of the many beast bosses in the game. However in the game, you don't actually fight Laurence first off when you encounter him as he is in an inert state and you instead need to get his skull and place it on him before the fight starts.
As for the fight itself, Laurence can be quite a pesky character to deal with as he deals out alot of potent fire damage as he tends to do a number of claw swipes that are pretty capable of one shotting you. Also he has three stages and in the second phase, he will develop new combos and become more aggressive (and squealy but hey that's Bloodborne!) and in his third phase he will be even more dangerous as he loses his legs and starts leaking lava behind him and he continues with some punishing combos. In fact I think its safe to say that Laurence's final phase is definitely the hardest given that his lava spills are almost impossible to avoid!
So as for how to deal with Laurence??? Summon! ;-) Yeah well to my shame I must admit I felt I had to summon to get him dealt with as he is pretty difficult and his combo attacks are pretty fierce. One thing I would strongly suggest is to put on an outfit with high fire defense such as the charred hunter outfit aswell as wear the Caryll rune, Fading lake, which offers fire damage resistance aswell. Again I would strongly suggest using a hit and run approach here and get in a two or three hits max and then back way off before he performs another punishing attack on you and the same applies for his final phase where he crawls on the floor leaking lava everywhere, which is easily the toughest part of the fight.
So, yep Laurence, the first vicar is no joke and he deserves his place here on the list for sure as he can be quite a pesky beast to deal with and as such deserves his spot at No.4.
3. Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower
So, at No.3 is Lady Maria, who is probably the coolest (and undoubtedly the best looking) boss in the entire game and appeared in the Old Hunter's DLC and boy is she a tough one and this boss was originally No.6 on the list but her difficulty has warranted a rehash of the list.
Lady Maria here is basically a walking corpse as she apparently had committed suicide, so when you first approach her, she appears dead but she suddenly grabs your hand and tells you "a corpse should be left well alone" as she then rises and produces what is arguably the coolest looking weapon in the game, the Rakuyo.
So, what follows is a pretty brutal fight as Lady Maria is very punishing and fast in her moveset as similar to Soul of Cinder in Dark Souls 3, she barely gives you any window to heal up as she just keeps charging at you, making her a real nightmare. And in her second phase she will stab herself with the Rakuyo, which buffs her weapon with blood attacks that have greater reach and more damage of course! In her third and final phase, Lady Maria will then deal out similar attacks but only now they have fire damage to go with it to make your life even more miserable!
As for how to deal with Lady Maria??? Summon lol! Yeah, summoning is a good option here as two against one will soon break her down alot faster but one on one is a different story altogether. For solo, I would strongly suggest using a fast weapon such as the blade of mercy or even a saw cleaver so you pull off fast attacks. I would also suggest being on your dodge A-game here as she is mighty aggressive in her attacks and also quickstep to the left (her right) to avoid most of her furious combos. Parrying and visceral attacks are key here too and if you have high skill then you will be able to deal alot of damage to her with these attacks but its just a matter of getting your attack window just right.
UPDATE ON FIGHT:
Well, since I have written this initially, I finally managed to beat Lady Maria solo and by heck it was pretty tough going! I really found I was struggling alot with her BS in the 2nd and 3rd phases with her extended blood and fire attacks, which got pretty annoying. However...after many failed attempts, I read that its best to stay close to Maria in the 2nd and 3rd phases as she will punish you alot more if you back off given the big range her attacks have. So, instead I changed up my strategy and fought close to her and kept dodging left as much as possible to avoid her attacks and with my bloodtinge Chikage (the game's katana) build I was able to beat Maria FINALLY!
So for me, Lady Maria is definitely one of the hardest bosses not only in the DLC but also the game overall as her punishing attacks, quick speed and added blood and fire damage make her a formidable foe and she deserves her spot at No.3.
2. Ludwig the Accursed/Ludwig the Holy Blade
So, the runner-up is of course none other than the infamous Ludwig the Accursed/Holy Blade, who is often regarded as one of the most challenging bosses in the whole game and it would be hard to argue with that and infact he often tops many players most difficut lists but not quite on this one.
And Ludwig has been placed this high on the list for very good reason as he is an incredibly difficult challenge for any player and he really is a pretty imposing and rather grotesque figure given that he appears to be a mutated man/horse beast who can stampede all over you like a crazy horse that has had been zapped by a cattle prod!
As for the fight, the first phase is particularly brutal as Ludwig's form is so crazy and all over the place as he can slash at you with his hands, leap into the air (for several seconds and you can't even look up to see where he is all this time either!) and do a plunging attack on you aswell as spray you with a tide of water and just generally charge at you like a horse would! And all this time Ludwig screeches LOUDER than any other boss in the game! I mean for half the fight you would be extremely hard pressed to find a noisier guy than this!
In the second phase however, Ludwig will find his beloved Holy Moonlight Sword (cue a pretty awesome cutscene where Ludwig wields it!) and proceed to stand up like a man and beat the ever loving crap out of you with it and this is where things get even harder as his sword can do tremendous arcane damage that acts pretty much as a one-shot. Thankfully however by then he's stopped sequling like a tortured pig and sounds more like a man as he twats you with his sacred holy sword.
As for how to deal with Ludwig??? Summon, yep just summon lol! I have to say that Ludwig's reputation proceeded himself as he is a pretty brutal foe to take on one to one, so if you struggled just like I did then I would strongly suggest you go for the summons. There are actually a few summons available for this fight but the best one is Valtyr, who has that rather cool looking whirligig saw, which he can do some pretty nifty damage with and Valtyr also has a decent amount of blood vials to keep him going in the battle. I would also just do my best to try and evade his charge attacks and listen out for his scream for when he will do his bodyslam plunge attack on you. In the second phase basically stay WAY back when he does his AoE with the Holy Moonlight Sword as it will practically one-shot you. But yeah seriously if you do get stuck the summons is a valid way to go to help banish Ludwig (I really will need to have a better go at him one on one, so help me when I do lol!).
UPDATE 04.04.19
Well well well, I did put Ebrietas at No.2 thinking she was the tougher boss and boy was I wrong! This is simply because I had not truly faced Ludwig one to one but have since done so and by God he's brutal! But...I'm happy to say that I was able to beat him after maybe 40 or 50 goes and will share with you my thoughts and strategy more properly.
First off in the first phase you are best strafing to his right side (your left) as his movements are pretty wild and chaotic and try and get underneath his hind legs to get your attacks in and then quickly back off before he charges it at you again. As for his water attack, you are best trying to anticipate which way the water will spray, if he sprays it left then you go right and there is a good chance he will follow it up with another spray on the other side so just quickstep in other direction. And then we get his annoying as hell plunge attack as he leaps into the air for a few seconds before plunging down on you. To avoid this you are better to continually keep rolling in a straight line and fingers crossed you will miss him as he comes down! Its kind of pot luck but it does sort of work!
As for the second phase what I found was absolute key was when Ludwig starts whacking you with that sword of his, try your best to quickstep around to his side to avoid these attacks and start hitting his legs again whenever possible. As for his arcane attack with his sword, his frontal swipe attacks can easily be dodged side to side. However when Ludwig raises his sword into the air to launch a brutal one-shot magic attack, get close to him and try and get in some hits just before he launches that brutal AoE. But the main thing here is to keep quickstepping to his side and attack him whenever you can and try and get behind aswell to avoid his sword attacks and if you rinse and repeat this then he should eventually go down.
I would also recommend using a weapon buffed with fire as I found using fire paper or arcane fire bloodgems to be quite effective in the fight. In fact I beat Ludwig using a fully upgraded Saw Cleaver (+10) with some fire damage bloodgems and I managed to get some pretty decent consistent damage with that setup and speed of the cleaver made it an ideal weapon to fight Ludwig with. Another recommendation would be to wear the Executioner's set as it offers excellent physical and arcane defences. In fact I would even go as far as to say that the Exceutioner's set is Bloodborne's answer to Havel's armour from Dark Souls!
Anyway if you follow this then hopefully this will be of good help.
So Ludwig definitely deserves his place on the list here at No.2 as he is an incredibly difficult foe to take on and despite his deeply annoying screeching in the first phase, he is still one of the best bosses in the game aswell as one of the most challenging.
So, that means the hardest boss in Bloodborne is...
1. Orphan of Kos
Yep, its not real suprise of course but for me the hardest boss in the game is without a doubt the Orphan of Kos, who is the final boss from the Old Hunters DLC and by God he is a total nightmare to deal with!
As for who the Orphan of Kos is, well he is the orphan of Kosm, who was a sea dwelling Great One who's corpse is found on the shore of the Fishing Hamlet (last level of the DLC) and the Orphan at the start emerges from it to stare at the water and the sun before he turns his attentions to you....
And as for the actual fight...yikes! Well this is where things get REALLY brutal as the Orphan's attacks consist of him charging at you and hitting you with his large placenta (yuck!!) that is attached to his hand and these attacks can also deal out large amounts of damage. These placenta attacks can consists of charged spinning attacks aswell as vertical and overhead attacks and they all do untold amounts of damage. As for his second phase his attacks get even more brutal as he will launch a couple of lightning attacks that consist of waves and projectiles and these are also one-shot material that will send a player a confident "YOU DIED" screen their merry way!
So, how do you deal with this barrage of brutality??? Well...do you want to know how I dealt with it? Summoned! Yep, a real surprise there lol! Yes, I was forced to summon to beat the hardest boss in the entire game because after 20 solo attempts, I was so pathetic at taking him on, I could not even get his health bar below 70% so I was never able to even get a glimpse at his second phase! In fact that is another reason this guy is so hard is because he has a MASSIVE health pool much like Slave Knight Gael's health bar in Dark Souls III! So, yep you can imagine taking this guy down is a real, brutal slog that demands alot of effort and patience.
And that brings up another issue I had with this fight as when I tried to summon for it, virtually NO ONE wanted to do it as I must have attempted to summon at least 20 or 30 times and no one responded! In the end however I did finally get lucky and managed to secure a summon after so many goes and the guy was terrific in the fight as he used his whirligig saw to take down the Orphan with great efficiency that I had almost stand back and watch in admiration as he did it while getting the odd hit in now and then! ;-) So, yep this is one boss fight I am yet to make a proper dent on myself and who knows I might just manage it solo myself one day after maybe 150 goes or so! ;-)
However there are a few things I did learn that are of use in this fight even when I took him on solo and that is for starters, draw the fight out into the water as you will have more space to move around him and allow you to back off easier than you would on the shore. I would also strongly suggest using a bolt weapon such as the tonitrus or a buff bolt weapon as he is pretty weak to bolt during the fight. And lastly his attacks can all be parried if you are able to time it right but since I am pretty crap at parrying in boss fights, I had very limited success when I tried this solo but if you are good at parrying it is a viable solution to taking him on.
UPDATE (AGAIN!): I have since managed to make a bit more progress with the Orphan as I finally managed to get him down to the 2nd phase but when you get there, its a total nightmare as goes ape and starts flying around like mad and sends waves of lightning etc. So, in this phase I've yet to make a proper dent on the Orphan although I was still able to get his health down to about 30% at best but this is still one that's beyond me solo!
FINAL UPDATE: I FINALLY BEAT THE ORPHAN OF KOS SOLO!!!
Yep, I finally did it and beat the hardest boss in Bloodborne solo! How did I manage it? Well you can read on below to find out...
Well, this was quite a brutal slog I tell you solo as it must have easily taken me over a 100 attempts to beat this guy one on one!
As for fight tactics, as I mentioned above already, its best to take the fight out into the water rather than on the shore because the Orphan can really go to town on you more on shore given his mother's corpse is there for you to dodge aswell as some trees and other stuff. So, I would strongly suggest fighting the Orphan within the middle area of the water and try your best NOT to get cornered by him because then you are basically done for! Try and also be mindful of some of the obstacles in the environment in the water as there are rocks either side and some small rocks in the water you can get stuck on if you don't watch out.
Combat wise as mad as it sounds, you really are best to fight the Orphan up close and keep hugging his right side (your left) to avoid his placenta attacks and get your attacks in after he has performed his own. You can also parry the Orphan in the first stage but I had mixed success with this but his parry windows are more generous in this phase. I would however strongly suggest NOT trying to parry his overhead smash attack as its pretty hard to do so and I never managed it and instead often took the brunt of his attack in the process!
So basically for the first phase, hug his right side, get your hits in between his own combo attacks, if he does his overhead smash or his running jump attack or does his placenta uppercut (he runs it across the ground but this can be parried easily) just back off to keep your distance. Also remember to do the same with his extended placenta range attack as he spins it 180 degrees and its range is unreal and can cause alot of damage aswell as his placenta balls that he thrusts into the ground or chucks at you.
As for the second phase, well this is where I REALLY struggled as the Orphan goes into aggressive overdrive and he two hands his placenta and bashes it around wildly while doing spinning attacks, chucking multiple placenta balls at you aswell as summoning waves of lightning on you! The best way to avoid his placenta spin attacks is to time it carefully as he charges at you and quickstep round to his right side again and its pretty difficult to achieve so it takes time to learn and when he stops, get your strikes in then.
As for his placenta ball attacks just back way off so you don't get caught by them or even use the Loch shield if you have to hand as that can negate alot of his placenta ball attacks aswell as his lightning, which I would strongly suggest just locking off the Orphan and running in between the waves before turning back to him but you need to watch out as he often will do a plunge attack on you at this point.
So, basically for the second phase, back off from the Orphan's placenta attacks, try to quickstep around his right side after he does his spin and bash attacks and then get your strikes in and basically rinse and repeat this process and he should eventually fall. And after about 100 or so attempts that is what FINALLY worked for me in defeating the Orphan of Kos solo!
Weapons wise for this fight, I toyed with alot of different weapons such as the Whirligig saw (which I found myself to be too vulnerable to his attacks when using it) Blade of Mercy (too little damage) and the Rakuyo (which would have been a great choice but I didn't have enough chunks to get it past +6 by the time I got it!). I also tried using the Chikage on the Orphan too as I had some success in getting his health bar way down into the second phase when I had a Bloodtinge(ish) build but gave up before long in my latest plathrough as I felt the damage wasn't enough. I tried the Church Pick too but again its attack speed and power were sadly lacking. And lastly I also tried out Ludwig's Holy Blade but again I could only get it to +6 by the time I decided to give it a go (not enough chunks again!) and its slow pace put me off using it.
So, in the end I finally used the Saw Cleaver +10 with physical attack gems and some bolt paper to get the job done but I strongly suggest using it in its untransformed phase as its attacks are much faster in this form. The only drawback however for the Saw Cleaver in this form is its a bit short ranged, so you need to ensure you are right up close to the Orphan when you use it.
And that's it for how I beat the Orphan of Kos solo!
So for all the above reasons, it is very safe to say that the Orphan of Kos unquestionably deserves to take the top spot as the hardest boss in Bloodborne as his bludgeoning brutal attacks (not helped by his high pitched squeals either!) and his large health pool make him one of the toughest tests in video gaming.
Right, so that's it for now and I hope you enjoyed this list and I will be back next month with more posts.
Till then its bye for now and may the good blood guide your way! :-)
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