Hello everyone. I recently beat Dark Souls 3 The Fire Fades for the first time and I wanted to talk about my experience.
The super short version of this review is that I really enjoyed my time with this game. Dark Souls 3 might now just be my favourite Soulsbourne game I ever played. Ashes of Ariendal was decent but I was less fond of the Ringed City.
Now for the longer version of this post:
I started off making my character. An abomination with disfigured nose and eyes, neon green skin, golden tattoos and astonishingly blue hair. I called him "Elden Lord" and set him loose in the world as a sorcerer since I loved magic/tank hybrid builds in Dark Souls 1, 2 and Elden Ring. I am not the best at Souls games so typically, I find being a sorcerer gives me a lot more of a safety net. However, I found my poor character's magic was barely tickling enemies and that his starting sword was more effective.
The weird giant crystal lizard that loved to cosplay Pinwheel and the first proper boss, Iudex Gundyr, took quite a while for me to whittle down with my small sword. They were really fun fights at least. Iudex Gundyr was amazing and I loved the encounter greatly. Even his weird second phase where he turns into a "a giant Cerberus/Venom hybrid" was fun even if I had a tough time visually parsing what he was even doing. I'd love it if Iudex Gundyr had a rematch or second phase that was just his first phase but he became faster and more aggressive.
I looked online and apparently, sorcerer builds struggle a lot in the early to mid game and only start getting good "once you dump 45 points into intelligence". And there would be enemies that would be near impossible to magic my way through. So, with a heavy heart and much sadness, and for the first time in my Souls career, I restarted with a purely melee character in the Knight (excluding Bloodbourne since that's the only kind of character there).
"Elden Lord 2 The Knight" was the long lost twin brother of "Elden Lord 1 The Sorcerer" and a knight and this character immediately starting paying dividends. His armour and health let him tank a surprising amount of damage. Often being able to tank 4-6 direct hits in a row even from bosses. That weird giant crystal lizard and Iudex Gundyr went down really fast this time. Even I was surprised. Guess "Elden Lord 2 The Knight" is who I am sticking with. Another advantage of this boi is that I didn't have to split my level points as much as I would have with my original Knight/Sorcerer Hybrid nor make too many drastic changes to my gear. After an initial (admittedly large) infusion of Strength, Dexterity and Vitality so I could fast roll with a Claymore, my boi is pretty much as decked out as he would be for the rest of the game (hopefully).
I then arrived at Firelink Shrine. And I was confused why it looked so different from the Firelink Shrine in Dark Souls 1. I'm still not entirely sure on the story of this game and it feels just as confusing as ever. I probably should have watched some Vaati. You could tell me that Yhorm the Giant is secretly the ex of the Firekeeper and they broke up because Yhorm committed tax fraud which is why the Firekeeper has a special grudge against him or something and I'd believe you.
From what little I got from the cutscenes, apparently, we are still in the fading Age of Fire and it's time for someone to link the flame again. My character in Dark Souls 1 chose to go for the Age of Dark Ending. So either the Link the Flames ending of Dark Souls 1 is canon or somebody else linked the flames while my character was busy hanging out with the snake bois😤.
However, it seems nobody was up to the task for doing it in Dark Souls 3, so 4-5 champions that rekindled the flame previously got resurrected to go rekindle the fire again. For some reason (probably because getting burned to save BlightTown isn't exactly a worthwhile cause), they refuse to. My character apparently was resurrected to try, might have died before and was re-resurrected as a "chosen undead" as the ultimate long shot. It's up to "Elden Lord 2 The Knight" to go toe to toe with the most powerful Gods in all the land (and Wolnir) with nothing but a Claymore and a Dream in the ultimate suicide mission.
Back to the gameplay, Dark Souls 3 seems to move away from Dark Souls 1's "expertly interconnected first half" and something closer to Bloodbourne's "You have a central hub for upgrades that's disconnected from the rest of the world. The rest of the game is a mostly linear affair" approach. And I personally kinda prefer this approach. While it does feel less replayable at first compared to DS1, I enjoy the pacing and forward momentum of DS3. You zoom through areas, killing stuff with far less backtracking. Upgrading and levelling up is in an easily accessible location so it doesn't feel as "tedious" to backtrack through multiple areas to reach a blacksmith. I will complain that having to fast travel back to Firelink Shrine just to level up and then Fast Travel back to the level did start to feel a bit annoying.
I liked DS1's "just level up at any bonfire" approach. I suppose the reason why DS3 does this is because you can fast travel back to Firelink Shrine whenever you want and wants you to interact with the Firekeeper for lore reasons. Whereas since Fast Travel was a mid game item in DS1, it would be more convenient to level up at bonfires rather than backtrack to Firelink.
Dark Souls 3 as a whole, feels closer to Elden Ring than Dark Souls 1 in terms of combat. Enemies and bosses especially are much faster, way more aggressive with way more combos and varied attacks. Bosses like Gundyr, Pontiff or Abyss Watchers could easily fit as the final bosses of Dark Souls 1. They feel much more complex, varied and aggressive than Gwen. The player character, also feels much more mobile and powerful. I feel I'm rolling and attacking more than I did in Dark Souls 1, about the same in Bloodbourne but less than in Elden Ring. I'm really grateful for the way healing works in DS3 as having 10 Estus Flasks (that I can use while moving) really saved me more times than I could count. I do miss having my Mimic Tear from Elden Ring though😭.
The bosses as a whole in DS3 also feel great and are some of the most fun I had. If DS3 had a "menu to let you replay bosses just for fun" mode, I'd probably use it more than any other Souls game. Even at its worst, I feel the bosses in DS3 are "C Tier". There were no bosses I hated like Bed of Chaos in DS1 or Rom and Micolash in Bloodbounre. Gundyr (both versions) were amazing fights that were a joy to dodge and weave through and learn. For round 2, he moving too fast for my poor character to keep up. He kept sucker punching me with his roundhouse kick. I did have to cheese it by putting more points into Vitality so I could equip a greatshield (and wear lighter armour) so I could block more of his attacks.
With my 30+ Vigour, I could take a few hits even when I messed up but I do feel I could eventually beat it with my regular loadout if I had more attempts at it. I later saw online you could parry him which blew my mind. I tried for the life of me but I couldn't parry anything in DS3 for some reason 😭. I will complain the runback was annoying.
Pontiff Sulyvahn was the first time I realized my character was a lot tankier than I originally thought even in his default loadout. He could take 4 of Pontiff's hits point blank and usually survive. He could block 1-2 of his hits safely even with his regular Dragon Crest Shield. And his +7 Claymore wasn't doing bad damage. The challenge usually was simply finding chances to safely heal or attack since in my weakened state after taking a few hits, my poor character would die soon afterwards. I actually didn't even realize that Pontiff's shadow clone mimics him which would have helped me so much more. I felt I got lucky in my winning attempt. But now I kinda want to retry that fight with my new knowledge in mind. In any case, amazing boss.
Vordt, Dancer of the Boreal Valley, Abyss Watchers, Lothric/Lorian were also great bosses I'd love to rematch one day. Dragonslayer Armour was fun but his twig dragons kept sniping me which hurt my enjoyment. Aldrich was in a similar position. His fight was perfect minus his arrow attack. It would track and oneshot my poor character. My winning attempt was the only one where he didn't use that attack. Oceiros felt a bit...."janky"? with how he moved around? Yhorm was a fun puzzle fight (that did require me to lookup how his sword worked). For some reason, after killing him, I was instantly teleported to the boss fight with The Dancer without any time to prep. I was able to quickly slip on a Ring of Sacrifice before I went down and lost my souls.
Crystal Sage, Curse-rotted Greatwood and Deacons of the Deep were....fine. Got nothing to complain nor especially praise. Though, I did learn I was right to swap from Sorcerer to Knight. It would have been painful as some bosses like Greatwood's eggs can't be targeted with magic so I would have had to go in with melee as a squishy wizard. And others like Pontiff, Dragonslayer and Gundyr moved way too fast so fighting from range would have opened me up too much. I had much more success making sure my Knight's face was shoved into every boss's knees as this limited them to swinging attacks I could sometimes shuffle around causing them to miss their larger attacks.
High Lord Wolnir was funny. In my first attempt, I was completely caught off guard by him so I attacked his fingers. I died when I he charged me and I think I got crushed under his ribcage? In attempt 2, I decided to attack his ribcage and I died 4.3 seconds into the fight😭. His runback was absolute torture so I explored the area as much as I could before do attempt 3.
I even looked at maps on Fextralife to see if I could find another bonfire. It showed there was this area, "The Smouldering Lake" near the bridge before the bossfight and accessible through a ladder somewhere. I searched and for the life of me, I couldn't find the ladder. So I assumed I'd backtrack here later or something. Sadly, in this attempt, I had been ambushed and followed by every skeleton, pinwheel and rat along the way and had to burn so much health and Estus just to kill them all. I wasn't feeling confident in my chances but still decided to give Wolnir a shot. On a. whim, I decided to go after his wrist bracelets and I killed him in 10 seconds. I started laughing out loud after this. My family was concerned and what was so funny. I couldn't explain it to them.
Soul of Cinder was amazing. Another S tier boss and probably the most fitting way to end the game. His first phase feels like he's an amalgamation of every player/build that linked the flames before. He pulls out weapons, moves and abilities regular players could use. I was doing that "DiCaprio pointing meme" as he crushed my poor character's bones with sword, staff, dagger and magic attacks I recognized from Soulsbourne games. Makes sense the final boss would specialize in PVP strats😤.
Unfortunately for just me, Soul of Cinder feels like he was made to counter my 2 main ways of playing Souls Games: Magic characters and blocking characters. He moves, dashes and attacks so fast, with so much damage that I imagine if I was using my typical magic characters this time, I'd get crushed before doing significant image. And while my Tank character could tank 5-7 of his attacks, it hardly felt better. His multi hit combos often required me to block even if I dodged his initial hits. His final combo hit would break through my block so by the time "Elden Lord 2 The Knight" recovered from the guard break, Soul of Cinder would resume attacking. I was sometimes able to dodge away or recover enough stamina to block a bit more but normally this resulted in me eating quite a few hits. And attacking him with my +8 Claymore was often a liability as even 1 attack took so much time and stamina to do that he could recover and hit me back before I could dodge or block.
Initially, I felt he was at his scariest when he switched to a magic staff as he could have small magic orbs following him. I was spooked that those would tear through me that I was worried of approaching him. But after realizing that -1- they did pitiful damage -2- it was easy enough to dodge most of them -3- all his magic attacks were generally quite limited in range, mobility and threat. It was easy enough to get behind him, dodge his magic greatsword swing or Kamehameha and wail on him that I always became excited whenever he entered magic attack mode. It feel the game was taunting me and "Elden Lord 1 The Sorcerer" by having him be at his weakest as a magic user😭.
It took countless attempts but I eventually optimized my game plan. I may not have been to parry him, or block all his attacks, or dodge all his attacks, or even get frequent attacks off on him. But a combination of "shuffling into his crotch to allow certain attacks to miss me", and being careful when to block and dodge to get 1 hit in started to pay off. It took forever, but I finally managed to whittle his health down to 0. I was relieved. I finally did it. I got revenge for "Elden Lord 1 The Sorcerer" (and probably accomplished some other lore stuff idk). Only for him to get up, knock my poor character down in an explosion and enter phase 2. And even worse for me, he was done playing around. Soul of Cinder seemed to remember how I beat Gwen back in DS1 by parrying him and how I beat Soul of Cinder Phase 1 with my "shuffle, block, dodge" strat and took it personally.
Phase 2 Soul of Cinder felt like he swapped to a build designed to hard counter me and get revenge for Gwen. I heard the familiar "Plin Plan Plon" as he switched to a familiar and purely fire greatsword and lightning bolt setup. If it was hard getting hits in before, Phase 2 was rough. His combos were longer, wider and faster. It felt like I needed 3x the 20 stamina I had just to stand a chance. In particular, he had this charge sword strike that broke my block after the 1st or second hit, then did what felt like a 6 hit combo where he juggled my poor character in the air before knocking me to the ground and stabbing me in a massive explosion. It felt like an Anime finishing move. Yet my character would usually survive this with 10% health remaining. Probably cursing his fate at the punishment he just endured.
This was the first time I truly felt bad for my poor character. Even against earlier bosses that gave me trouble, they either killed my boi here quickly enough or the attacks didn't feel too bad visually. But even I was wincing in pain at the ass whooping Soul of Cinder was giving poor "Elden Lord 2 The Knight" with even basic attacks. Poor guy was a punching bag who, after barely surviving what feels like tactical nuke, would get up, chug an Estus and keep going despite probably being in agonizing pain and suffering from 3rd degree burns. It felt like that "I didn't hear no bell" meme personified.
Unfortunately, I feel I played the game wrong. After beating it, I looked through a few videos and saw I missed a lot of stuff that would have helped me in my playthrough. I recruited that one surviving pilgrim but couldn't find him later in Firelink Shrine so I couldn't get the free 5 levels that would have come in clutch. Normally, I don't find much use for boss souls in Souls games so I just eat them. I didn't even know you could transpose boss souls since I missed the NPC despite him literally being on the thrones until the very end. But if I did know, I could have gotten Havel's Ring which would have helped me out so much😭. Even more than that, I missed areas like Smouldering Lake which could have given me more items or levels. Even the Painted world of Ariandel. I didn't even realize it was a DLC area. I figured it was a secret area I needed something later to open. I left when the princess told me to leave and never came back😭.
My only option was to double down on my poor habits, eat as many boss souls and sell equipment to get 32 Vigour and figure out how I could beat a boss that could hit me faster than I could hit him and burn through all my stamina. My only advantage was that I was bulky af and could fast roll. Meaning so long as I was above 80%-ish percent health, I could survive his worst attacks. With 10 Estus and a Sun ring, I could probably win a war of attrition. It's how I beat Lothric/Lorian. However, it felt like Soul of Cinder had prepped for that. He was the 1 boss I kept running out of heals on.
So I came up with a big brain plan. Get good at dodging his phase 1 attacks as much as I could. Then, try and minimize damage on phase 2 and save my Estus for recovering after his juggling combo attack as in all of my countless attempts, I only dodged it successfully like once. And so it went. I threw myself at him in countless attempts. Often eating a few minor hits in phase 1. Phase 2 was rough. I could barely get hits in without getting smacked in return. Yet I couldn't risk trading hits since I needed to save my heals for his juggling combo. It was a dance of me barely shuffling, dodging and blocking, occasionally getting a hit in before running away. My solace tended to be his "Gwen Grab" and "Gwen regular Lighting Bolt" since I could dodge them and it were his only Phase 2 attacks that felt long enough for me to get 1-2 hits in and still have enough stamina to retreat.
I did have the fight bug out on me once. Once I hit him enough, he'd stagger and enter a stunned state giving me a few extra hits in. Once when I did that, he "countered" and did a parry/riposte on me despite being stunned? I survived his parry/riposte (and died later to his juggling combo) but thankfully he never did it again.
It took countless attempts. One particular went started off poorly. I got poisoned. Had to back off and apply a cure. Burned through 2-3 of my "Juggling Estus" before Phase 1 was over. Entered Phase 2. Lost 5 more Estus to a combination of his regular hits and juggling combo. I was more surprised when I ended up getting one final roll + Claymore Strike to defeat him that I let out a biggest sigh of my life. My family nearby were half convinced I had an asthma attack or something.
Poor "Elden Lord 2 The Knight" had done the impossible after a long and gruelling 16 hours. And, in honour of his predecessor from Dark Souls 1 all those years ago, walked all the way back to Firelink Shrine to trigger the Age of Dark ending. Except....that didn't do it? Unlike DS1, you actually have to do some side quests or something earlier on to get different endings? With a sigh, Poor "Elden Lord 2 The Knight"returned to the Kiln of the First Flame. Went over to that bonfire, put the flame on himself. Which honestly probably felt better than the fire the Soul of Cinder was beating him with earlier. He took a seat, watching the weird eclipse thing in the sky as he wondered if this was all even worth it.......
PostScript: Originally, I ended this post here. After all, I beat the game and had a rather poetic ending to my post. But I visited my cousin's place who is a huge Souls fan. Man completes new DS1, 2, 3, BB and Elden Ring runs for fun and uses dex builds😱. How does he play without a shield?
He was showing me how the twin blades are apparently beyond OP in DS3, Chalice Dungeon exploits in Bloodborne and all the boss weapons and ashes in the new Elden Ring DLC. Including the final boss. Shadow of the Erdtree really feels the most anime out of these souls games.
I was talking with him about what I did in my recent DS3 playthrough and his response was "Bro, you missed half the game and all the good content! Get your ass back in there and follow these non-spoiler instructions I made for you!"
My first stop after beating Soul of Cinder was to go near Pontiff Sulyvin's boss arena to find an illusionary wall (thanks to a message that wasn't there the last time I played) that led to a secret area where fought these rat/crocodile hybrids that dropped the Ring that Lauthric had in DS1 that gave me extra health, stamina and equip load. Perfect for me 😇.
Then I went where I fought Wolnir as he showed me that you could attack bridges to make them collapse and climb them like ladders which I never would have seen coming. I followed it to some Demon Ruins and fought enemies that reminded me of the demons in DS1 and that one meme that was like "Gee, there sure are a lot of demons in these ruins. They should have called this game 'Demon Souls'.....wait a minute...."
I came into this valley that had giant crossbows sniping me. But at this point, with my 40 vigour and thicc armour and sun, I could tank a few hits. I ran into this giant centipede that kept knocking me away and was really hard to fight while getting sniped. As I was fighting him, I saw an orange message and went to read it. It said something "ahh Respite" and as I was upvoting it, I noticed the centipede taking damage from the crossbow so I just waited it out. Easy W there.
I then went into the fog wall that centipede was guarding and ran into the Old Demon King. A throwback to the Demon Firesage from DS1. An easy boss thanks to my endgame stats. I'm not complaining.
Next step was to go to Irythyl Dungeon and take an elevator to where some statues where chilling on a blanket. I had to do the "Path of the Dragon" emote I got from beating Oricalos 10 hours earlier which would teleport me to a hidden area. Again, I had no idea this was the way. I followed this area and was told my by cousin to run past the dragon and just find a way up to plunging attack to 1 shot him. My cousin then refused to give me any more instructions for some reason and told me to play on my own with a grin on his face.
I kept playing. I found Havel the Rock who killed a dragon leading me to wonder what the timeline for this game was given I killed Havel back in DS1 and how much time had passed? But I got his greatshield so I was happy until I looked at its weight. Swapping my current +4 Dragon Crest Shield would put my Equip Load at 103%. There goes my plan to block everything😭.
Then, I came across this weird bell on a raised platform. I rang it and noticed it made fog everywhere and a fog wall in front of me. I wondered if I could walk on the clouds until an orange message reassured me. I did so and followed it to the fog wall. I entered it and kept moving forward until this giant turkey-like creature came and started attacking me, triggering a boss fight. This was rough at first. The Turkey and its rider's attacks actually did over half my health despite my vigour. The worst was its overhead fire attack which I could never seem to avoid.
But after a few attempts, I managed to optimize everything else. I swapped to the Grass Crest Shield to give me extra stamina regen and 2-handed my +9 claymore. I was jump for joy whenever the Turkey would go for his "grounded fire attack" since that gave me 4-5 clean shots on his head and tear off a massive chunk of his health and often give me a chance for a critical shot.
Killing the massive turkey led to phase 2 against the supposed hardest boss in base DS3: The Nameless King. And I believe it. Nameless King seems to follow Soul of Cinder's philosophy of "being super effective against my playstyle". His attacks would frequently punch through my blocking and do nearly 40% of my health per hit. It was hard to find opportunities to heal or do consistent damage at first. And eventually, it became rather tedious to keep having to do phase 1 to take shots at the really fun phase 2.
After what felt like an hour of attempts, I felt like Neo in the Matrix (kinda). I felt that 80% of the time, I could reasonably predict what moves he was doing and would do. Before if I took a hit, I'd try to panic roll or heal away as quickly as possible which only worked sometimes. But now, if I took a hit, I'd "play it out" for a while. Dodging through some of his later attacks with my health at 30% until I'd find myself instinctively healing in between his attacks. Was this how pro Souls players feel? Is this the power of Ultra Instinct?
Sadly, it wasn't 100% reliable. There were times Nameless King would do follow ups to his attacks. Such as a 3 hit version of his basic swipes instead of 2 or add 1-2 extra attacks to his lunging heavy attack and jump attack. I couldn't tell what version he was doing until waiting a bit extra to see what he was doing which made it harder to get hits in with my slow claymore. Most of my mistakes were from this as I'd sometimes land a hit and roll through his follow up at what felt like the last possible millisecond. And others, I'd get an ass whooping. I also could never dodge his lighting AOE attack properly. Suffice it to say, I wished I had more than 11 Estus for this fight.
Adding to my worries was his lighting sword which would drain a bit of my health on blocks which was still one of my main approaches. But despite all that, I was really enjoying this phase. He felt less aggressive than Soul of Cinder with more opportunities to safely punish him. With Soul, it felt like he was made specifically to counter me. Nameless King felt like he took more pauses between his attacks which was made for me. Eventually, my strat was "equip the Grass Cress Shield and 2 hand my claymore and complete phase 1 using 1-2 heals, then switch to the Etheral Shield for better lighting resistance for phase 2".
My victory was climactic. Nameless King did his overhead attack and I audibly said "checkmate" as I went in for 2 R1s to get that Dub. It was the first boss where I felt I saw my victory was guaranteed and inevitable 3 seconds before the fight ended in such a clear way.
I took a break from the content to look through the weapons I had at this point. I wondered if I had a dagger or spear or something I could use while holding my shield up as a backup weapon to my claymore. Something faster for enemies Like Soul or Nameless King I'd encounter in the future. But sadly, everything I could equip seemed either too weak or required me to put 16-18 points into Dexterity and I was unwilling to level up Dex in the event it turned out to be a waste. So I decided to continue with my Claymore as my only weapon.
Next up was the Ashes of Ariandel. I skipped this area my first time through because the people at the church told me to leave and I didn't know this was a DLC area so I figured I'd have to come back later or something. My cousin showed me where the ladder was so I followed that to a snow village, fought some NPCs, made it through some catacombs with mosquitoes. My cousin told me I could use a torch to undo the bleed buildup since it was being caused by leaches. I pulled a lever and saw a cutscene of a statue moving at the church from earlier. I fast travelled back thanks to the Sword I learned was an infinite fast travel thing now.
The Church held a boss fight with Sister Friede. Her gimmick was Frostbite which kept messing me up. But I managed to brute force through her Phase 1 with 3 Estus remaining. Phase 2 had her 20 ft and lumbering dad step up for a tag team. I initially decided to keep attacking Friede since I was worried she's jump me while attacking her dad and her dad seemed too slow to counterattack. But eventually, after multiple attempts, I learned that Father Ariandel should be my target given his slow lumbering nature and Friede being relatively passive. And that Friede can be backstabbed when she's going for a heal so I got my strat down.
I eventually completed phase 2 and got a Titanite Slab for my troubles. Not really useful for me at this point since I already had a +10 weapon and wasn't willing to upgrade anything else but I'm not complaining😇. But the game threw me a curveball. Despite giving me reward and appearing like the fight was over, Friede got up for a Phase 3😱. With only 1 Estus remaining, Blackflame Friede turned my bones into dust and told me to leave.
I considered changing up my stratgedy to better have more healing coming into phase 3. Friede's "invisible attack" in Phase 1 always got me. So I decided it was finally time to learn parrying. Better late than never. But I changed my mind after -1- only successfully parrying her on 20% of my attempts and -2- taking more damage despite doing a successful parry (around 10% of my health) vs a block (around 1% + some frostbite buildup) and -3- my regular attacks would stagger her and I could dodge most of her attacks.
Finally, a boss that rewarded my caveman playstyle. With a fair amount of patience, I could get 2-3 stun lock hits on Frieda in phase 1, bully Father Ariandel in Phase 2 and make it to phase 3 with around 7 Estus left and only a few Frostbite procs. From there, it was a matter of biding my time, waiting for Blackflame Frieda do one of her bigger attacks that left her vulnerable and get my hits in. My winning attempt did almost go poorly with me getting greedy, getting too many frostbite procs and almost dying and running out of heals. Not my best win but a win is a win. Still a fun boss. I'm still sad there are no PSN trophies for the DLC😭.
Next up was the Ringed City DLC. Apparently, you can access this from the Kiln of the First Flame as there is a bonfire that will warp you there. But I missed it on my first run because I figured that bonfire would warp you back to Firelink Shrine. Even my cousin pointed out how dumb my thinking was with "Bro, why would they put 2 bonfires next to each other?"
While I really enjoyed the base game and felt Ashes of Ariandel was fun, I wasn't fond of Ringed City. The area before the Demon Prince in the toxic swamp with the butterflies sniping you was rough. The Demon Princes themselves were annoying as one would always toxic me and then double team me. They were fun and easy to fight solo. It got to the point where I swapped out my armour for something with more poison resistance but had no luck so just decided to use my usual armour with the Grass Cress Shield and 2 Handing my +10 Claymore and hope I'd kill them before the toxic got me.
After an embarrassing number of attempts, I got toxic-ed very early but decided to play it through. It was rough but I killed the boss at the exact second my HP hit 0 from the toxic and I had burned through all my heals. I didn't get the Souls for the kill but it counted as a kill and ember-ed me up. So I just had to return, grab my green souls, get a level in Vigour and continue on.
The next area with the ambushes, 4 giants, giant swamp, witches cursing me, ghost archers and Dragon Slayer Armour and mini Souls of Cinders that would pursue me to the ends of the earth were extremely frustrating to play through. I was half considering quitting at that point. I did fight a dragon on a ledge shooting fire and crystals while hitting the ground but killing it didn't give me any souls but did clear the bridge for my future crossings.
The next bossfight was rough. Church of the Spear summons a real PVP player as a boss and sometimes I got really easy players I could have beaten if I didn't get jumped by the white maidens. Sometimes I got a giga chad that beat me before I even knew what I was doing. My winning attempt was against a player that just laid there and let me get the win. I don't know who you are, but you are my hero and I love you.
This whole section really felt like DS3 was channelling DS2 and I really disliked it. I'm glad I got the Fire Fates Edition at a discount because it would have been demoralizing to pay for this DLC separately. It has the only bossfight in DS3 I've played I'd put at F tier.
Fortunately, the DLC seemed to have realized my pain and decided to make its last section the best it could be to recover. After a weird cutscene where this woman's egg created a sandstorm, I emerged into this grey desert world where I ran into Gael. The guy who trapped me the Ashes of Ariandel Painting in the first place. I wanted revenge on him for making me play the Ringed City DLC. His boss fight was great with 2.5 phases. The first phase had him channelling Vordt with him walking on all 4s and doing really wild sword swings that were relatively easy to dodge, block, shuffle and then punish. His one purple lunge especially, gave me 2 hits on him guaranteed.
Phase 2 has him standing and doing wild sword swings + a magic cape aftertrail that did some magic damage that would damage me through my block. I found it hard to dodge as it seemed to 2 attacks in 1 as I could dodge the sword swing but not the cape stuff. Phase 2.5 had him summoning lighting and red magic skulls. My main approach was to just run away and hide behind cover while his lunging attacks got stuck for a while to wait out the hazards. But he became so fast and frantic that I couldn't visually parse what was even going on anymore with his attacks.
At this point, I felt a bit burnt out. I had played for nearly 4 hours straight by that point intending to finish Nameless King, Ashes of Ariendel and Ringed City in 2 days. Ringed City took a number on me. At that point, I wasn't interested in learning a boss' moveset, getting ultra instinct and winning in a proper duel like I did with Soul of Cinder, Nameless King and Sister Friede. I wanted to win. So...... I decided to give into my inhibitions and commit to the playstyle I was on the edge off. Noticing that Gael's attacks didn't break my block as easily gave me an idea. It was time for my final form.
I equipped most of the Winged Knight Armour Set, Havel's Greatshield, my trusty +10 Claymore that was inseparable and tweaked my load-out until I was at 98.6% equip load. I was ready. Gael may be faster than me, stronger than me, cooler than me, have more rizz than me, but I am chonkier. I aimed to block most of his attacks and only fat roll through like, 2 of them. His lunging grab (since that goes through my block) and his overhead arrow slam and lighting follow up.
One of Gael's tricks is that his attacks are somewhat delayed and not in a consistent rhythm. Making it harder to properly dodge or parry them. But those worked for me. I could hold L1 to block his attack, let go to recover most of my stamina by the time he follows up and then punish. As a bonus, it seems Gael was designed that most players would be moving around him. He has a lot of attacks that swing around to catch players dodging around him and relatively few "get off me attacks". But this meant that me being relatively stationary and shuffling around let me avoid most of his attacks. It didn't take long to consistently get through Phase 1 without using any heals.
Phase 2 was tricky. While I could consistently minimize the damage I took from Gael, I found it hard to punish him. He'd recover relatively quickly and get hits in. Stamina management and timing became crucial as I had to time my blocks to recover enough stamina as possible so when I got 1-2 hits in, I could fat roll through one of his follow up attacks and still have enough stamina for 1 final block. Eventually, I found I had to be patient and punish only his overhead slam or his 2 sweeping combo.
Phase 2.5 threw a wrench in this as he'd now optionally extend his combos. Sometimes his overhead slam would get an extra 2 attacks. Or he'd do 3 sweeps. His magic would do like 5% of my health so I couldn't block forever. God, I wish I had 1 more Estus Flask. His lighting was especially rough. But despite all that, I felt this was the first time I had a build that was generally super effective against a boss on a conceptual level rather than because I was good with my skills or overlevelled. Gael didn't have the kind of attacks like Soul of Cinder that would consistently punch through my blocks and then punish me. So I didn't have to really learn this boss.
Like, I feel I have most of Sister Freya, Soul of Cinder and Nameless King's moves memorized. But for Gael, I feel I only have like, most of his Phase 1 and like a couple of his phase 2 moves memorized. That's how useful my build was.
I won the fight with my save file telling me I beat all this in 23 hours. I enjoyed most of DS3 and Gael ended it on a high note. Too bad I feel I can't accurately judge him because I don't feel I even fought him properly lol.
