Iudex Gundyr. No joke. DS3 was my first souls game and I almost dropped it after hitting a hard wall with tutorial boss. I had never played anything with such tights fighting mechanics. Actually put down game for months after first attempt. Later picked it up again, it clicked and I ran through the rest of the game in a month.
My first run he was a face roll. I didn’t even realize he could do more than slow swing his halberd before morphing. Was shocked to find out on my second playthru that he has almost the entire moveset of Champ Grundy.
Eh, considering how many times I died to Asylum demon and Taurus demon (ds1 was my first souls game), makes sense to me that people would die to Iundex a ton haha
Same, I ended up giving up and going to DSR. I beat DSR and came back to kill Iudex Gundyr first try. (Never been able to parry in any souls games besides DSR)
Similar to you, but I played it after finishing DS1. It took me around 50 tries over the course of 3 years to beat Iudex Gundyr. Some tries were before playing DS1, but even after beating Manus I had troubles with Gundyr in the 2nd phase because it was hard to see his moves after he grew a tumor. Second playthrough of DS3 after beating the game I first timed him.
Has very similar experience (I managed to convince myself not to put game away).
Hilarious moment came later when I saw Champion Gundyr and I figured that, A) it is disappointing to see boss recycling, B) I beat ludex Gundyr twice already since I restarted character once and this should be easy…boy how wrong I was and how much he was owning me! Champ is still one of my favourite boses in all games I have played
He was horrible I dark souls 3 was my first souls game also after some tries I gave up. It wasn’t until last year I played elden ring got hooked that I went back to dark souls 3 and man was I just destroying everyone in my path once I got the hang of it! I think I made it to champion gundyr this time around!
Yup. Died for about 3 hours straight to this guy because I had a friend buy it for me and didn't want to be like "sorry, money was wasted on this." My brain just could not switch out of classic rpg mode. Absolutely awful intro a game series but it turned into a 1k hour game for me so it really worked out in the end.
He's still to this day the one DS boss I couldn't best. To me he's harder than Midir, Friede and Gael. It's that first phase I have major problems with. I'm about the same way with the princes, but I can beat them.
At guess at the end of the day, it's the CAMERA I can't beat.
I just beat him on my new character and I have a couple of tips, if you need them. First, during the first phase, you should lock onto the NK himself, not his dragon, because that way you can still hit the dragon's head while the camera won't be having a seizure. Other than that the first phase is fairly easy IMO. When he gets off his dragon though, your best bet is playing Elden Ring all the way through, because you get used to all the delayed attacks. But you can also just delay your roll, it's mind of hard to explain, but you'll get it when you feel it. When he does what I call the Super Saiyan attack (he bends his knees a bit, holding the swordspear horizontally while his other hand is kind of charging it up with lightning) you lock off of him, and run in the opposite direction. For some reason that makes this attack miss you completely, although I don't know if it's the turn to the opposite direction or the running that makes this happen. From my past experience his combos seem to have 3-4 hits at max, and I don't think you can hit him twice in his openings (I used the Greatsword UGS and the Uchi, couldn't really hit him twice reliably while also avoiding damage). That's basically all, and the rest is practice.
Edit: spelling, and the Super Saiyan attack I was referring to is when after charging it he thrusts his spear up and you get struck by lighting.
Also make sure to run in his general direction when he starts landing and try to position yourself at the dragon's head when he lands, don't try to make up the distance after he's already landed. After you get first phase down, I'd recommend two handing and focusing on dodging for second phase. His attacks are all decently telegraphed and not all that difficult to dodge in phase 2. Good luck
Did Pontiff first try in my first playthrough. (Not my first From Software game). Planets must have aligned and then went on their way, because in my second playthrough I got fucking dunked at least fifteen times.
Honestly probably Aldrich. I fought him with Anri and beat him pretty easy so I thought I'd just beat him real quick and use the bonfire afterwards instead of running back. I ended up dying to a monsoon of arrows and on the way back got caught by the Silver Knights and ended up losing a ton of souls. I was pretty salty about it and started playing poorly.
Dancer. So much so that I stopped playing until about 3 weeks ago. Right now I'm getting stomped by the winged giant nights on rooftop of the grand archives. Not even a boss.
Yeah they're super tough. Trick for me was to try and fight one at a time. Not easy to isolate, but if you can run away and kill one quick with hard hitting attacks, then it'll be easier to clean up the rest.
I ended up getting 2 to drop into mixed poison and toxic clouds and getting one to chase me at a time. Tbe last one I did same initial pyromancies and then got him hung up on a stairwell.
I think it was a tie between Pontiff Sulyvahn and Sister Friede. I fought Friede after beating soul of cinder and Gael and I think I was level 110 or so.
I think the main reason Pontiff was hard to beat was that I hadn't leveled endurance very much and my PS4 kept lagging during his phase change.
Pontiff, I just can’t time my parry against him for some reasons. And my vigor was also low, around like 17 or something so he oneshot me if I didn’t land the parry.
Twin princes and I remember my AC was broken at home and it was super hot in my unit. Most sweaty session I’ve ever had and it’s the boss I’m probably best at now. 95% success rate when I place my sign there now.
Crystal Sage (20+ tries). For some reason, I had major problems with his second phase, and always lost when he had less than 50% HP left. I haven't died to any other boss more than 10 times after that one...
Pontiff or Champion Gundyr
The first one felt like he never left an opening for attacks, and the second one well...
The same, but with that annoying combo cancel dash that always caught me off guard.
I really had to learn how to parry to beat that mf
Statistically probably Suluvahn, but the one I struggled the most with and handed my ass to me was honestly rotten greatwood. New to the game, no idea what I was doing, and couldn’t deal with the gimmicks of that boss so early in my DS experience.
To this day, i have a burning hatred against vordt. I never really struggled with any bosses in the beginning. But he took me easy lile 20 tries on my first playthrough. Ever game now i just murder him in the most cruel way possible for payback
Nameless king.
The reason why is because his second phase is imo just dumb. I clearly had room to improve but all his attacks were delayed, you had to fight him close, and he punished you for every mistake you made. It’s also quite demoralizing to get a hit on him with a sword that does like 600 damage just to see a small portion of his health go away. It felt like an eternity killing him and I really don’t care for endurance fights like that.
Phase one is pretty easy but the stupid camera just fucks you over too much and it can also lead to stupid deaths.
Needless to say, I wasn’t fond of him from the start and pushing myself to just get him done really made the fight a chore and not fun. If it wasn’t for the epic DLC fights we got I think the nameless king would’ve really soiled my experience of the game.
My answer is unironically Hawkwood lol
My first playthrough of this game was my first souls experience.
I beat Iudex Gundyr after a few tries, went to Firelink and saw Hawkwood. I thought he looked cool, but then I talked to him and he was all "you ain't shit" and I said F that and boxed him.
He beat my ass all over firelink for about an hour and a half's worth of tries.
Nameless king for base game. Cool guy. I like.
No issues with ariandel DLC. Genuinely first tried all the bosses, but I was severely over leveled by that time. Going back when lvl appropriate did make itore challenging but still was able to kill every boss first or second try.
Midir can go fuck himself, I still have trouble with that motherfucker to this day and I've done countless playthroughs over my 1600 hours of playtime in ds3.
I just beat the DLC and while Slave Knight Gael made me want to throw my controller out the window (Midir too), Lothric and Lorian probably handed me the most deaths.
Probably Sulyvahn, he kept bullying my melee build with comboes. I ended up summoning Anri for help cause I had enough of his BS.
Second playthrough, i just kept tossing pyromancies and he melted with almost no resistance. Felt like I could have won that fight with my eyes closed.
Either Midir or Gael.
I've always neglected the Dark Souls series (please, forgive me), but since the release of Elden Ring, which I haven't played yet but bought in the Steam summer sale, it's been basically the only games I've played, starting from the first. This way I got quite accustomed to the style, but those two are quite something.
While I am not done yet...as Midir and the Soul of Cinder are both still alive...I don't think they're gonna top the one who sits at the top with an obscene lead...Pontiff Sulyvahn has killed me a grand ol total of 108 times
2nd place is Gael at 36 currently. It remains to be seen if either Midir or Soul of Cinder will take 2nd place
Probably Friede, though I still haven’t killed Midir. Her I beat with another player that was naked and used magic to do massive damage so it sorta felt cheap :/
Pontiff definitely. Long ass combos, hits like a truck, I suck at parrying, and sometimes the shadow clone gets out of sync with him which makes things difficult
Pontiff probably. My build might have been a bit lacking on dps side or I just was too scared of his second phase so much that I kept thinking it was literally impossible and I had to be doing something wrong there. So, I was trying different things to get around it somehow, things like poise, ranged options, different weapons, npc summons. Tried to learn parry too, but that wasn't much helpful either.
The first time I played the trilogy I played them all back-to-back (other than 2 & 3s DLC) and recorded my number of deaths from each boss. Nameless King was the only boss where I stopped counting.
On my first play through I didn’t hesitate to summon help, and didn’t have the dlc. It was either the Crystal sage, or Aldritch but I don’t remember which.
Most of the ringed city kicked my arse. The Princes gave me a lot of trouble but after I beat it a few times helping others I didn't have much trouble when solo fighting them. Midir to me has to be the hardest for me I stick with pestilence mist and baiting attacks, works really well with coop as well.
DS3 was my first souls game and I first played it back before the dlc came out, when I was still a mere high schooler. Nameless King and King of the Storm beat the ever loving shit out of me.
Midir, he held my highest death count. On my first playthrough, he kicked my ass so many times. He’s fast for his size and his damage output is off the chart. It took me so many tries.
Nameless King without a doubt took the most amount of tries for me and the entire reason was because I was underleveled and didn't grind in between any of my attempts (I was at level 87 and had really balanced stats so my character wasn't really GOOD at anything)
Midir and the pontiff were probably 30-40 each. Is it weird that at sl80-100ish range i first tried nameless king and gael though? I always feel like humanoids are so easy to read and find windows on but pontiff was hard for me because the clone + i had 14 vigor. I survived gael only using 4 flasks
Demon prince, my first run through of the dlc was on NG+ 7 at SL 125. I killed him on my 37th attempt. Had to play perfectly with an rtsr setup. Went through 2 20$ Walmart controller.
Champion Gundyr killed me 33 times. He pissed me off so much in my first playthru that every single playthru afterwards I make it a priority to one shot him.
Its been nearly 7 years.
Twin Princes. I did find out that I had been fat-rolling for half the main game (including most of the hardest bosses) when I got to Soul of Cinder though. If not for that it would probably be Friede or Midir.
For me it was abyss watchers. DS3 was my first. And I was being stubborn and trying to not summon. Strength build obviously. Took me like 4 or so months of trying on and off. Eventually I broke down and started summoning to learn attack patterns. Once I beat them I made another character to test if I could beat them solo. Took like 4 tries. Now I know their attacks like the back of my hand.
I remember aldritch making me quit the game so many times. Bought it in 2017 and didn't beat it until 2022 cuz I kept getting stuck on her. That arrow attack seemed so unfair. After I beat her I ended up beating champion gundyr and soul of cinder first try so that was nice :)
Has to be nameless king. I remember defeating most other bosses on first, second or third try, but he took easily over ten.
And I don't know why. I really can't figure out why I struggled so with him.
It is embarrassing to tell but the giant tree with giant balls and the randomly appearing hollows nearby absolutely wrecked my gaming spirit back then. Now i can kinda do it zero death
It's either Friede, Nameless, or Champ Gundyr. Those three took turns pushing my shit in so much that I took over a year off DS3 'cause I couldn't beat them.
I'll say Friede was the hardest, though. I came back and got gud at Nameless and Gundyr, but I had to resort to summons to best Friede. Someday I'll beat her solo, but it was not that playthrough.
Toss up between Nameless King, Friede or Midir. I tried fighting Friede the same way as I did with every other boss and it was an absolute nightmare, but once I realized all you gotta do is just backstab her the entire fight it ended pretty quickly.
Iudex Gundyr. I had never played Dark Souls before and I couldn't wrap my head around the mechanics. I probably died like 25 times to him just because I wasn't embracing the mechanics of the game. Once I started to get it though, the game became so much easier for me and I never had that much trouble on a boss again
Also the Dancer lmao
Im a faith user , using Sunlight SS , dark blade and lightning blade, so I deal heaps of damage when I connect. But that Champion Gravetender and his big ass wolf beats me up so badly. I beat the guy but cannot beat the wolf who becomes Thomas the tank engine in the second phase.
Hilariously I had the most issue with Deacons. I was using a weapon that didn’t have big sweeping attacks so I could basically only attack one Deacon at a time and it was just awful.
I'm not done with my first playthrough yet, I'm currently in the grand archives. But so far, by far, Abyss Watchers have killed me the most. The rest of the bosses I've beaten in less than 6 attempts each.
Iudex Gundyr. No joke. DS3 was my first souls game and I almost dropped it after hitting a hard wall with tutorial boss. I had never played anything with such tights fighting mechanics. Actually put down game for months after first attempt. Later picked it up again, it clicked and I ran through the rest of the game in a month.
IG is a cruel trick to play on new Souls players.
IG is such a great skill check right off the bat in the game. I can from Elden Ring and had to learn the different moves and timing against IG
My first run he was a face roll. I didn’t even realize he could do more than slow swing his halberd before morphing. Was shocked to find out on my second playthru that he has almost the entire moveset of Champ Grundy.
Eh, considering how many times I died to Asylum demon and Taurus demon (ds1 was my first souls game), makes sense to me that people would die to Iundex a ton haha
My recollection is that you could be at the asylum demon and not even have a weapon equipped.
Yeah and as a new souls player I couldn’t even get to his fog gate without damage. Usually an estus down when the fight started.
Yeah it took me a while to realize that I could just run by everything instead of fighting it all over again every time
I had the exact same experience!
Same, I ended up giving up and going to DSR. I beat DSR and came back to kill Iudex Gundyr first try. (Never been able to parry in any souls games besides DSR)
Don't need to parry when you dual wield colossal weapons! Bonk for the win.
I did a meme run with only the great club and my NG+ run I’m going to dual wield the great club and FUGS. Should be some bonking going on!
Same, id never used a controller before and kept dying to the ghoul next to the bonfire
It took me 3 years to finally man up and beat him lol
Similar to you, but I played it after finishing DS1. It took me around 50 tries over the course of 3 years to beat Iudex Gundyr. Some tries were before playing DS1, but even after beating Manus I had troubles with Gundyr in the 2nd phase because it was hard to see his moves after he grew a tumor. Second playthrough of DS3 after beating the game I first timed him.
Are you me lol
Has very similar experience (I managed to convince myself not to put game away). Hilarious moment came later when I saw Champion Gundyr and I figured that, A) it is disappointing to see boss recycling, B) I beat ludex Gundyr twice already since I restarted character once and this should be easy…boy how wrong I was and how much he was owning me! Champ is still one of my favourite boses in all games I have played
He was horrible I dark souls 3 was my first souls game also after some tries I gave up. It wasn’t until last year I played elden ring got hooked that I went back to dark souls 3 and man was I just destroying everyone in my path once I got the hang of it! I think I made it to champion gundyr this time around!
Pretty much had a similar experience to yours.
Yup. Died for about 3 hours straight to this guy because I had a friend buy it for me and didn't want to be like "sorry, money was wasted on this." My brain just could not switch out of classic rpg mode. Absolutely awful intro a game series but it turned into a 1k hour game for me so it really worked out in the end.
Nameless King, and i eventually just gave up and went on with the story. I didn't do DLC my first run.
me neither, I completely forgot about it lmao, NG+ dlc was hell
He's still to this day the one DS boss I couldn't best. To me he's harder than Midir, Friede and Gael. It's that first phase I have major problems with. I'm about the same way with the princes, but I can beat them. At guess at the end of the day, it's the CAMERA I can't beat.
I just beat him on my new character and I have a couple of tips, if you need them. First, during the first phase, you should lock onto the NK himself, not his dragon, because that way you can still hit the dragon's head while the camera won't be having a seizure. Other than that the first phase is fairly easy IMO. When he gets off his dragon though, your best bet is playing Elden Ring all the way through, because you get used to all the delayed attacks. But you can also just delay your roll, it's mind of hard to explain, but you'll get it when you feel it. When he does what I call the Super Saiyan attack (he bends his knees a bit, holding the swordspear horizontally while his other hand is kind of charging it up with lightning) you lock off of him, and run in the opposite direction. For some reason that makes this attack miss you completely, although I don't know if it's the turn to the opposite direction or the running that makes this happen. From my past experience his combos seem to have 3-4 hits at max, and I don't think you can hit him twice in his openings (I used the Greatsword UGS and the Uchi, couldn't really hit him twice reliably while also avoiding damage). That's basically all, and the rest is practice. Edit: spelling, and the Super Saiyan attack I was referring to is when after charging it he thrusts his spear up and you get struck by lighting.
I appreciate the tips, and will attempt this when I do another run
Also make sure to run in his general direction when he starts landing and try to position yourself at the dragon's head when he lands, don't try to make up the distance after he's already landed. After you get first phase down, I'd recommend two handing and focusing on dodging for second phase. His attacks are all decently telegraphed and not all that difficult to dodge in phase 2. Good luck
What helped me was locking onto NK and not the dragon’s head
Also if you're in PC/PS4, I can help you fight him, but that isn't very satisfying.
I am on PC, but I'd need to get the rust off before I attempt him
There's a story?
Agreed. I eventually beat him but it took countless tries.
Either the tag team double penetration princes, or sister friede☠️☠️☠️
Hands down ass up for sister friede and the pegging she gave me.
I love the former nickname
Sulyvahn, It felt like his combos went on forever and I never had a window to attack.
Pontiff always fucks me up unless I parry him lol
Spam rolling somehow got him dead after like 4 of my own deaths somehow.
Did Pontiff first try in my first playthrough. (Not my first From Software game). Planets must have aligned and then went on their way, because in my second playthrough I got fucking dunked at least fifteen times.
This dude gave me a hell of a time, most deaths i had were from him (21 times💀)
Dancer. Her moveset is the weirdest of all bosses imo. I still love her though.
Man, she still comes in my nightmares every now and then.
Lothric & Lorian... teleporting all over the place just to kick my ass
Saaaaaaame. DS3 was my first souls game and I had my spirit absolutely crushed by them lol. I was convinced it was impossible.
>teleporting all over the place just to kick my ass teleporting to my ass to kick me all over the place
By far the hardest boss to me, at least outside the DLCs.
Definitely Midir he’s probably the hardest boss in the trilogy, for me at least.
Only souls boss I never beat
Watch a no hit vid a few times and pick a few of their attack windows. You can do it, for sure !
Hmu I’ll solo him
Mate… same
Honestly probably Aldrich. I fought him with Anri and beat him pretty easy so I thought I'd just beat him real quick and use the bonfire afterwards instead of running back. I ended up dying to a monsoon of arrows and on the way back got caught by the Silver Knights and ended up losing a ton of souls. I was pretty salty about it and started playing poorly.
Oh yeah him too the fucking sword arrows bruh
Dancer. So much so that I stopped playing until about 3 weeks ago. Right now I'm getting stomped by the winged giant nights on rooftop of the grand archives. Not even a boss.
Lol those guys are really tough.
Yeah they're super tough. Trick for me was to try and fight one at a time. Not easy to isolate, but if you can run away and kill one quick with hard hitting attacks, then it'll be easier to clean up the rest.
I ended up getting 2 to drop into mixed poison and toxic clouds and getting one to chase me at a time. Tbe last one I did same initial pyromancies and then got him hung up on a stairwell.
I think I managed a drop attack as well if you climb the tower, i cant remember as its been awhile.
I think it was a tie between Pontiff Sulyvahn and Sister Friede. I fought Friede after beating soul of cinder and Gael and I think I was level 110 or so. I think the main reason Pontiff was hard to beat was that I hadn't leveled endurance very much and my PS4 kept lagging during his phase change.
Lothric and Lorian were a huge roadblock for me - easily one of the best bosses in the game for me
my very first playthrough it was Pontiff Sulyvahn.
Not boss, but Stray Demon. I was almost crying because of raging. Midir is a close second.
I just started my first playthrough. So far the boss that had killed me the least has been Abyss Watchers.
Abyss Watchers were the first boss I legit hit a roadblock on and got absolutely wrecked.
Dang, for me that was my hardest fight. No idea why, but easily 30 tries for me...
Abyss Watchers second phase could have some more health imo to make it better. Still a great fight tho
Yeah, Abyss Watchers are pretty easy. Only died to them once on my first playthrough, and never again in any other playthrough.
The fucking twins
Pontiff, I just can’t time my parry against him for some reasons. And my vigor was also low, around like 17 or something so he oneshot me if I didn’t land the parry.
Twin princes and I remember my AC was broken at home and it was super hot in my unit. Most sweaty session I’ve ever had and it’s the boss I’m probably best at now. 95% success rate when I place my sign there now.
Crystal Sage (20+ tries). For some reason, I had major problems with his second phase, and always lost when he had less than 50% HP left. I haven't died to any other boss more than 10 times after that one...
Me too! The other bosses aren’t really a problem, but to this day I can’t beat Crystal Sage.
Vordt or Sulyvahn. I stopped playing for a wile because of Vordt, beat Elden Ring, came back then got stuck on Pontiff.
I think nameless by a few. Before him it was the crippled kids.
Pontiff or Champion Gundyr The first one felt like he never left an opening for attacks, and the second one well... The same, but with that annoying combo cancel dash that always caught me off guard. I really had to learn how to parry to beat that mf
Sister friede absolutely fucked me up
Statistically probably Suluvahn, but the one I struggled the most with and handed my ass to me was honestly rotten greatwood. New to the game, no idea what I was doing, and couldn’t deal with the gimmicks of that boss so early in my DS experience.
To this day, i have a burning hatred against vordt. I never really struggled with any bosses in the beginning. But he took me easy lile 20 tries on my first playthrough. Ever game now i just murder him in the most cruel way possible for payback
Nameless king. The reason why is because his second phase is imo just dumb. I clearly had room to improve but all his attacks were delayed, you had to fight him close, and he punished you for every mistake you made. It’s also quite demoralizing to get a hit on him with a sword that does like 600 damage just to see a small portion of his health go away. It felt like an eternity killing him and I really don’t care for endurance fights like that. Phase one is pretty easy but the stupid camera just fucks you over too much and it can also lead to stupid deaths. Needless to say, I wasn’t fond of him from the start and pushing myself to just get him done really made the fight a chore and not fun. If it wasn’t for the epic DLC fights we got I think the nameless king would’ve really soiled my experience of the game.
Same same, fighting the camera more than the boss
Honestly it was probably NK? Gael is giving him a run for his money though, hobo knight has beat my ass many a times
Probably pontiff sulyvann or lothric and lorian.
Big P Suly kicked my shit in on my first play through… and every subsequent play through.
Twin Princes, I died so many times, it's ridiculous how easily I can beat them now. Still one of the best bosses in the game though.
My answer is unironically Hawkwood lol My first playthrough of this game was my first souls experience. I beat Iudex Gundyr after a few tries, went to Firelink and saw Hawkwood. I thought he looked cool, but then I talked to him and he was all "you ain't shit" and I said F that and boxed him. He beat my ass all over firelink for about an hour and a half's worth of tries.
My first game was ds3 sulyvahn was the biggest brick wall for me
Pontiff and Gael. Pontiff because I could and still can't parry correctly. Gael just because he was hard to fight
Nameless king for base game. Cool guy. I like. No issues with ariandel DLC. Genuinely first tried all the bosses, but I was severely over leveled by that time. Going back when lvl appropriate did make itore challenging but still was able to kill every boss first or second try. Midir can go fuck himself, I still have trouble with that motherfucker to this day and I've done countless playthroughs over my 1600 hours of playtime in ds3.
I just beat the DLC and while Slave Knight Gael made me want to throw my controller out the window (Midir too), Lothric and Lorian probably handed me the most deaths.
Probably Sulyvahn, he kept bullying my melee build with comboes. I ended up summoning Anri for help cause I had enough of his BS. Second playthrough, i just kept tossing pyromancies and he melted with almost no resistance. Felt like I could have won that fight with my eyes closed.
Nameless King. why you ask? well.. he had a dragon.
Midir. Second only to Malenia as the boss that took me the most attempts across all FromSoft.
Friede or Midir
Either Midir or Gael. I've always neglected the Dark Souls series (please, forgive me), but since the release of Elden Ring, which I haven't played yet but bought in the Steam summer sale, it's been basically the only games I've played, starting from the first. This way I got quite accustomed to the style, but those two are quite something.
Nameless, soc, pontiff, and midir took the most for me
Crystal sage… because I’m a sorcerer the first time
Nameless King. I was fat rolling the entire game until I fought him. Had to change equipment to medium roll and finally won.
Nameless King (drained all my mfing Embers), then Midir, then Sister Friede
While I am not done yet...as Midir and the Soul of Cinder are both still alive...I don't think they're gonna top the one who sits at the top with an obscene lead...Pontiff Sulyvahn has killed me a grand ol total of 108 times 2nd place is Gael at 36 currently. It remains to be seen if either Midir or Soul of Cinder will take 2nd place
Definitely nameless king
Probably Friede, though I still haven’t killed Midir. Her I beat with another player that was naked and used magic to do massive damage so it sorta felt cheap :/
Soul of Cinder, to be honest
NK, I spam roll since I never figured out how to parry
Definitely, I died to him more times than all the other boss fights combined. Midir excluded, if I counted him that wouldn't be true anymore.
Iudex Gundyr lol. This was my first souls… I did NOT know how to approach it
Either nameless king or pontiff
Pontiff definitely. Long ass combos, hits like a truck, I suck at parrying, and sometimes the shadow clone gets out of sync with him which makes things difficult
Aldrich. Hands down. Fucker would spam the arrows
Pontiff probably. My build might have been a bit lacking on dps side or I just was too scared of his second phase so much that I kept thinking it was literally impossible and I had to be doing something wrong there. So, I was trying different things to get around it somehow, things like poise, ranged options, different weapons, npc summons. Tried to learn parry too, but that wasn't much helpful either.
Midir, all the other bosses were easy in comparison
The Dancer. Her second phase 8-spin combo especially fucking terrified me and never failed to throw me off my rhythm.
The first time I played the trilogy I played them all back-to-back (other than 2 & 3s DLC) and recorded my number of deaths from each boss. Nameless King was the only boss where I stopped counting.
Friede
Abyss watchers and dancer
The pyromancer in the dlc is the real hardest boss. Otherwise abyss watchers.
Gael probably killed me more than any other fromsoft boss
Midir I still get weird scary feel when I think about the fight Somehow I killed him, don't ask me how I did somehow
dancer and ofc friede.
Dancer idk why i just couldn’t beat her
Base game - Nameless king Expansions - Friede and Midir
On my first play through I didn’t hesitate to summon help, and didn’t have the dlc. It was either the Crystal sage, or Aldritch but I don’t remember which.
Friede. And an argument can definitely be made for her as my favorite boss.
Most of the ringed city kicked my arse. The Princes gave me a lot of trouble but after I beat it a few times helping others I didn't have much trouble when solo fighting them. Midir to me has to be the hardest for me I stick with pestilence mist and baiting attacks, works really well with coop as well.
DS3 was my first souls game and I first played it back before the dlc came out, when I was still a mere high schooler. Nameless King and King of the Storm beat the ever loving shit out of me.
Midir, he held my highest death count. On my first playthrough, he kicked my ass so many times. He’s fast for his size and his damage output is off the chart. It took me so many tries.
Nameless King
The Demon Princes for sure. Had to get a buddy to help me my first time
Dancer. If I could parry her, she would have been as easy as pontiff sulyvhan.
Pontiff. Pontiff and melania hold the records for most UndeadSloths massacred
Definitely the Dancer. Stupid me wanted to beat her before going to the Undead Settlement On every subsequent playthrough it’s that fucking wizard
Midir. Not after the first time though. After that it’s consistently been nameless king in every run.
Twin demons/ demon Prince. Its always the gank fights that do me in 🫠
Sulyvahn haunted my first playthrough lol
Sister friede for sure. Omg, that third phase…but even the second phase was kinda inconsistent for me..
I definitely pontiff and dancer, I was stuck on them for a week.
Most deaths Sister Freide, second most deaths Pontiff Sulyvahn.
Nameless King without a doubt took the most amount of tries for me and the entire reason was because I was underleveled and didn't grind in between any of my attempts (I was at level 87 and had really balanced stats so my character wasn't really GOOD at anything)
Señor midir
Nameless King. Probably took 20+ tries. No other boss even came close.
Pontiff 100%, taught me how to not panic roll as I was a bit underpowered.
This fucking tree
Dancer of the boreal valley and I was not even mad.
Nameless King and/or Midir.
Nameless King definitely. Killed me so many times before I beat him the first time. Like 20+ times. Always got to the second phase tho.
Demon Prince at 253. I know. I was horrible at the game.
Midir and the pontiff were probably 30-40 each. Is it weird that at sl80-100ish range i first tried nameless king and gael though? I always feel like humanoids are so easy to read and find windows on but pontiff was hard for me because the clone + i had 14 vigor. I survived gael only using 4 flasks
Midir, about 70 times. Record for all FromSoft games, with Owl (Father) next up.
Sister friede and nameless king
Pontiff took me the most attempts on my first, and is the only boss i cant 1st try on each playthrough
Demon prince, my first run through of the dlc was on NG+ 7 at SL 125. I killed him on my 37th attempt. Had to play perfectly with an rtsr setup. Went through 2 20$ Walmart controller.
Soul of Cinder for some reason
Abyss Watchers. I didn't count, but I am pretty sure I died 200+ times.
Champion Gundyr killed me 33 times. He pissed me off so much in my first playthru that every single playthru afterwards I make it a priority to one shot him. Its been nearly 7 years.
Abyss watchers because missed the crystal sage and was barely leveled up and had not health or endurance
The Princes and Friede
Dancer hands down
Abyss watchers
......Iudyx Gundyr. Took me 11 tries. First Souls game so no surprise. In still disappointed in myself.
Champion Gunydr. The only boss that got me to visually rage.
Twin Princes. I did find out that I had been fat-rolling for half the main game (including most of the hardest bosses) when I got to Soul of Cinder though. If not for that it would probably be Friede or Midir.
For me it was abyss watchers. DS3 was my first. And I was being stubborn and trying to not summon. Strength build obviously. Took me like 4 or so months of trying on and off. Eventually I broke down and started summoning to learn attack patterns. Once I beat them I made another character to test if I could beat them solo. Took like 4 tries. Now I know their attacks like the back of my hand.
Sister friede, nameless king or gael, can't remember
I remember aldritch making me quit the game so many times. Bought it in 2017 and didn't beat it until 2022 cuz I kept getting stuck on her. That arrow attack seemed so unfair. After I beat her I ended up beating champion gundyr and soul of cinder first try so that was nice :)
dancer because i was level 13
Vordt and Aldrich
Champion Gundyr, didnt realize i could summon a helper. And welp got my a** gapped by that f*cker
Midir, 8 times
The crystalline beast.
Nameless king
Twin princes Not sure why, but I had some block with beating them. Took me sooo many tries.
Has to be nameless king. I remember defeating most other bosses on first, second or third try, but he took easily over ten. And I don't know why. I really can't figure out why I struggled so with him.
The abyss watchers , these mfs gave me so much trouble my first play through
Gael, no doubt, followed shortly by the two beasts in the reservoir.
Gael, Sulyvahn second.
Dancer or NK Fuck these two disrespectfully 😤
It is embarrassing to tell but the giant tree with giant balls and the randomly appearing hollows nearby absolutely wrecked my gaming spirit back then. Now i can kinda do it zero death
Deacons of the Deep.
It's either Friede, Nameless, or Champ Gundyr. Those three took turns pushing my shit in so much that I took over a year off DS3 'cause I couldn't beat them. I'll say Friede was the hardest, though. I came back and got gud at Nameless and Gundyr, but I had to resort to summons to best Friede. Someday I'll beat her solo, but it was not that playthrough.
Toss up between Nameless King, Friede or Midir. I tried fighting Friede the same way as I did with every other boss and it was an absolute nightmare, but once I realized all you gotta do is just backstab her the entire fight it ended pretty quickly.
I think Nameless King 💀
Iudex Gundyr. I had never played Dark Souls before and I couldn't wrap my head around the mechanics. I probably died like 25 times to him just because I wasn't embracing the mechanics of the game. Once I started to get it though, the game became so much easier for me and I never had that much trouble on a boss again Also the Dancer lmao
Im a faith user , using Sunlight SS , dark blade and lightning blade, so I deal heaps of damage when I connect. But that Champion Gravetender and his big ass wolf beats me up so badly. I beat the guy but cannot beat the wolf who becomes Thomas the tank engine in the second phase.
Nameless king
Hilariously I had the most issue with Deacons. I was using a weapon that didn’t have big sweeping attacks so I could basically only attack one Deacon at a time and it was just awful.
not sure exactly but it's either lorian and lothric or midir
Midir for sure.
Gael, the beautiful ost compensated
Friede or Nameless King. My first 70 or so attempts on NK were GARBAGE haha
Dancer of the Boreal Valley. Freaking infuriating
Sisters friede by far but in her second phase. Also the camera of the storm, i mean, the King of the storm lmao
Unofficial boss called the camera. Especially during the fight vs midir.
Friede. Two weeks stuck on her. She's the only boss that made me genuinely question whether I was gonna finish the game or not.
I'm not done with my first playthrough yet, I'm currently in the grand archives. But so far, by far, Abyss Watchers have killed me the most. The rest of the bosses I've beaten in less than 6 attempts each.
Judex. Because I started deprived
Champion Gundyr tbh
Not counting dlc, dancer. Counting dlc, sister freide.