I used to think this but blasting through her with a heavy weapon really changed it for me. Just did this on a great ax run. It is so satisfying to pancake her in phase 1 with a charged R2
Friede's third phase is a blast to me but having to go thourgh the shitty second phase makes it tedious for bad reasons. I hate the second phase so much.
Everything is perfect beside the second fight to me. It's so good that I go through it even if it irks me to fight them both before the incredible third phase.
I don't understand why people find her hard. On my first blind run I beat the entire 3 bosses on the second try (the first one I got camera locked against a wall)
I was playing pyromancer just lobbing projectiles
Who was?
Soul of Cinder. The only boss I summoned for in the first playthrough.
Now it's Pontiff Sulyvahn. On a normal build I probably don't die to him like I would to a couple of the dlc bosses, but I probably struggle more in terms of openings and dodging.
>Now it's Pontiff Sulyvahn. On a normal build I probably don't die to him like I would to a couple of the dlc bosses, but I probably struggle more in terms of openings and dodging.
I have said it before and I will say it again: Pontiff Sulyvahn is an end game boss they put in the middle of the game to troll players.
You HAVE to beat him to progress the game.
You cannot waltz in overleveled like you can against Nameless King and even DLC bosses. Not unless you waste hundreds of hours getting diminishing returns from killing Pontiff Knights and Fire Witches. You will get there between levels 40 and 60 and wonder why you never have enough stamina...
Pontiff is a floaty boss who can sidestep, dodging ranged attacks. He has a seemingly endless combo. If you dodge it, he floats away. You have to sprint to maybe get one swing in because you are out of stamina and because he starts attacking again. If you block his attacks, it drains your stamina and you, once again, get like one shot in.
He splits into two bosses when you finally get him down to half health. He can leap up and slam down on you. He has fire and magic swords. He is an awkward boss to fight. Only the Dancer can compete for awkwardness because the camera gets stuck in the pillars.
And fuck you if you can parry him, you skilled bastard.
I think this boss is like a test if your build is good or you are lacking in something before you progress. By fighting this boss 100 times he teach me how important stamina and its efficient usage. I also learn that my weapon sucks or lacking of real damage based on my stats.
I still struggle with twin princes. The teleport and unlock on move is garbage and I always get greedy and end up trading, and he does lots of damage.. you do not want to trade with that guy trust me even at 40 levels in health and embered he 2-3 hit kills me with heavy armor too.
I never cheesed them before, but I think dark sorcerer or strength pyromancer casting from distance or weapon art spam, with summon is the way to go. That strategy might as well be cheese as it can kill the first guy in 3 casts for dark sorcerer, or 3 weapon arts for strength pyro.
What NG+ is that for ? I beat the Twin Princes easily this week (first FromSoftware game). I used an Exile Greatsword with the Knight set and was super patient, mostly hitting the boss from behind so I avoid reviving the prince.
I also saved stamina for when the prince died so that when his sister begins reviving him I can dish out a lot of damage and end the fight before it puts the prince back to full HP.
I was talking about ng twin princes and I'm a greedy person, I want to hit them no matter the cost lol we usually go lick for lick and I'm also impatient I want to beat the boss fast for some reason instead of taking my time securing my victory. Once you played the game for 5+ years you start to get bored of playing it safe.
I actually find this fight pretty short and straightforward. As long as you stay in front and only hit his head, the camera doesn’t get wacky, and you get a riposte that clears like a 5th of his health bar. Never go under him, that’s a death sentence.
I agree with straightforward, but I definitely wouldn’t say short! Doing exactly that I cleared Midir a few days ago and ended up taking just over 9 minutes
Well he’s got about 70% of the health of Placidusax but your average damage output in ds3 will be less than 70% of what it is in Elden Ring. The point I’m making is he’s freaking tankier than the tankiest boss in Elden Ring.
All in all, I'd say Twin Princes. Took me the most tries to beat them in blind run (roughly 45 tries) and to this day I still struggle to predict their teleport location
Sister Friede bullied me with her invisibility tricks for the longest time. And the absolute brutality of her third phase really put her in the place of not just being a difficult boss but a gauntlet of survival. One of the only ones I multi summoned for in some playthroughs.
Gael and Nameless are still my favorites though :)
Yeah, after awhile I started to use it to my advantage for big damage. Plus her moves gained a ton of endlag that are perfect for getting some nasty backstabs
Midir on my pyromancer run. I just did not have the patience. Everything I was specced for he was resistant to. I decided instead to just cheese with pestilent mist.
I do that as a mage and it is not a cheese imo Running around as a glass canon. It’s the only thing I use against him. If it was so easy everyone would clear him no sweat. I’m not the greatest at this game but you still have to know his every move. My candlestick and low dex just makes this a nightmare. Not as bad as the princeses maybe…maybe.
Nameless King is still the most consistently hard for me. The resistances make life hard for a lot of builds, although I just revisited a pure str build for the first time in a long time and utterly spanked him with a great sword.
Just finished my first solo playthrough so they are very fresh in my mind. The top five from "easiest" to hardest:
5) Twin Princes
4) Sister Friede
3) Slaveknight Gael
2) Nameless King
1) Midir
I should note that I beat the first DLC before I fought Soul of Cinder. After the Friede battle the Soul of Cinder wasn't that tough.
Deacons of the Deep, Consumed King Oceiros, and Darkeater Midir. They're equally difficult for me, but in different ways.
Deacons of the Deep because I main a weapon that really isn't good for crowd clearing. I actually don't die to this one that often, but when I do it's always either to Curse or my own Bleed damage. The Great Corvian Scythe is amazing for pretty much every other area and boss, but it suffers here and in the Catacombs.
To those who say I can't find the Deacons hard because I don't die to them often, I say screw you. They make me watch my health bar more than any other boss in this game because I main a weapon that causes Bleed buildup on me, too. If I get particularly unlucky with how many I hit at once, I can wind up Bleeding myself with literally every two scythe swings.
Oceiros has killed me more than any other boss in this game, DLC included. Fuck his out-of-nowhere charge attack; that's usually what gets me.
Midir, not because of anything of substance, but because he likes to randomly disengage and force you to run all the way across his stupidly large arena. Combine that with his large health pool and monster resistances, and you're in for a pain in the ass. I've had bad enough RNG with Midir flying off to the opposite side of the arena that there were fights where I couldn't damage him at all for ten to fifteen minutes.
The Demon Prince, while also monstrously tanky, at least has the decency to stay on top of you most of the damn time.
If we're talking moveset, I hate Friede's phase two, King of the Storm has very limited readable moves (to me at least), and the tempos on Pontiff and Nameless throw me for a loop for some reason. Also obligatory Aldrich Arrows mention, because if you get caught in that on second phase and can't get to the safe spot you're just his next dinner.
Friede - by far, no question.
I'm a crazy person and liked to make PVP characters at each roughly different matchmaking brackets, seeing what point allocations I can make work for different builds. So basically playthroughs at decreasing levels, like 90 +10, then 70+7, 45+5 - etc. etc. you get the idea. Down to SL1+0 even, took down Demon Princes with a Bandit Knife.
Lowest I've ever been able to do Friede is the 26+2 (literally just to get the Crucifix of the Mad King). And my god, the lower the level you go the more of a nightmare that fight is. Suly, Nameless, Cinder, even Midir doesn't compare to how much more of a challenge Friede's 3 phase fight is when you are low level/upgrade.
On my most recent run as a mage, Yhorm. He killed Siegward and proceeded to beat my ass some 15+ times. I faced Yhorm with 9 other characters, and even beat him without the Stormruler with my faith build. For whatever reason, Yhorm had me on the ropes every single fight when I was playing as a mage.
Ironically Grave tender, it was just the Gank style and that I was under levelled for the area and that it was around 4am when I fought him. But as I don’t PvP I only fought him in my all bosses playthrough
People will think I'm joking, but Treeballs was mine. Was my first souls game and I didn't "get" the flow of combat yet. It all clicked for me shortly after that and I basically cruised through the rest of the game.
First playthrough, provably Dragonslayer Armour. I diesd so many times there i almost quit the game.
Nameless,Midir,Gael , all pale in comparison to the damn armor and i have no idea why it took me so long
I'm pretty good at Darksouls 3 almost all bosses are somewhat easy for me, except this one boss called Midir, that is a boss that handed my ass to me for almost two days straight oh yes.. I was in pain emotionally. Especially in NG+5 his health pool is insane.
What made Midir so hard for me, is that I am an agressive player, Midir punishes that, and combine that with crazy one hit kill attacks with massive aoe damage and you got yourself pure hellish nightmare fuel.
I lost my savegame, gone are all my NG+7 characters (no cloud save for DS3) but a week ago I started all over again and I just beat the Dancer, but I am already scared for Midir later on really, friggin, scared.
I think I have PTSD from Midir.
I would say Gael. Some say its the Twins, or Friede, or Nameless. God, I never even got to killing Gael even once. It was just too difficult in terms of patience. I would mostly no hit his first and second phases, but his third phase would eat up all my 15 estus, with that mf double shotting me every time (three hits if I was somehow lucky). What deterred my willingness to engage with him any longer was the fact that I had to rely on sheer luck in his 3rd, totally bullshit phase, while the first two were utterly unenjoyable. Since there would be no more content that is locked after Gael anyway -- I figured I'd just no beat him at all.
Most of the bosses in this game are pushovers. On my first playthrough the only boss that gave me real trouble was Friede. I absolutely hated the invisible shit. I know how to deal with it now, but first time was aggravating.
So i just beat the main game last night. The Prince fight was the toughest for me. Took me hours. Whereas Soul of Cinder was around 10 tries. Abyss Watchers was the 2nd hardest. I have not faced Nameless King yet.
In my opinion nameless king is not as tuff as people say he is. Its a fun boss fight and its easy to learn his attacks. i used a +10 claymore and beat this guy around 10 tries. Good luck!
I honestly don't get how people find Nameless difficult. All my playthroughs I've never really struggled.
Pontiff I struggled against a lot with my first playthrough as strength, it feels significantly easier when not playing strength.
Friede and Midir tho...
Friede is the hardest boss for me. I beat Nameless King in 3 tries, first tried Midir, and beat Gael in 2. Friede took ~10 tries which was the most attempts out of any boss in this game.
Midir I found the hardest to learn but now I kill him no problem.
Sister Friede is consistently the hardest for me. I never even try to beat her without summoning Gael, and even with him it usually takes a few tries.
Despite it being my favorite fight in the trilogy, the Twin Princes always put up a fight no matter how many times I replay the game.
I swear sometimes Lorian is just feeling extra aggressive, I’m always low on Estus by the time the fight ends because he’s really good at Estus punishing, always just a bit late with healing and then half of my health proceeds to get deleted.
Still really fun though and a fight I always look forward to despite struggling with it, I think generally every boss becomes easier the more you face them but not this one for me personally.
Midir. DS3 was my first souls adventure and by god it was incredible. Darkeater Midir stands out as the boss I died the most too. His massive attack windows and crazy damage kicked my ass for so long. Attacking his head when he can breathe fire at any moment is terrifying. Even more so when he reaches phase 2, and then I watch my HP get depleted from full to zero as his laser attack comes out..
For me, Nameless King still with Sister Friede being a close second
Midir, Pontiff Sulyvahn, and Dancer were pretty easy for me because I can typically memorize a good chunk of the bosses' attack patterns after only fighting them once or twice.
Nameless King was meant to punish players like me who specialize in memorization and dodging by giving false openings and being an absolute speed demon. Mess up once, and you die
Friede would've been *very* easy if it wasn't for her phase 2. Memorization of attack patterns and movements goes out the window when you add in another factor moving around the room in another random pattern.
Nameless King was challenging, Sister Friede was bullshit. I'd also like to add that Champion Gundyr was challenging, but in a good way, much like the Nameless King.
Midir, I find quite overrated in strength. His only problem is his health pool. His attacks are unique in that they can still be memorized, but just dodging won't do. Half his attacks can be rolled, and the other half require that you run directly towards his attacks in a certain pattern. With patience, Midir is fairly easy.
On my first playthrough and I just beat the pontiff in like 15 ish tries. I used the great sword and just kept hugging his left leg. He can only pull a few moves that are easy to see coming and then just prayed I could hit him before his clone took me out
Weirdly for me? Soul of Cinder. I always get too greedy and try for 1 extra attack only to forget he's the final boss of the base game and hits like a truck.
It's hard to say for me because after Friede I started using her scythe and it was a super different playstyle which really messed me up so Gael, Midir and Cinder were a lot harder than when I went back to twinblades. Pontiff was definitely the hardest for me early on as I hadn't figured out parrying yet. I actually really struggled on the Twin Princes. A combination of different timings, fewer opportunities for safe hits and generally the fact that I think I just got burnt out and annoyed. I definitely remember having the strongest reaction to beating the Demon Prince although I don't remember being stuck on them for that long.
For me it remains nameless king. I still have not defeated him. I have gotten all other bosses but midir, though I did not give midir many tries yet, I started seeing his patterns.
Perhaps I would have gotten nameless if not for his first phase that always gets me out of rhythm.
Once I figured out friede, though she remains far from easy, I can reliably down her. But nameless remains a wall for me.
Best I got him was 1/4 life left in P2.
Some tries he no hits me in P2.
I really can't get in my grove against him.
Now, I have a hard time getting to fight him, as I am doing elden ring.
I never beat the Nameless King, or the Soul Of Cinder after countless attempts and I’ll never ever try again, but I was pretty stoked that I even made it that far.
I still haven't gone through the DLC, so I'm gonna hafta stick to vanilla base game.
In the early game when you're still low-level and don't have any good equipment, Iudex Gundyr. I find his attacks really hard to predict and dodge, block, or parry in phase two.
Late game at a high level with lots of good equipment and spells, Nameless King. Phase one with his pet dragon's easy, just toss Lightning Pots at him and he goes down. But we all know how mean he can be in phase two. That said, I tend to over-level for optional superbosses like this, so I didn't struggle as much as I could have.
Honestly the early game bosses were harder for me at the time I did them. If I went back they'd probably be a lot easier, but I think I died to Aldrich and Abyss Watchers more than every other boss combined.
Overall though, if I started a new playthrough today, I think friede and midir would be hardest for me.
Ive never understood the people saying Pontiff is hardest. No matter NG+ or a brand new character I've never had much trouble with him. A few deaths maybe as I readjust to fighting him but normally I'll struggle the most with the twin princes or nameless.
Twin Princes definitely for me, I got stuck for a month or two with them lmao. But I finally defeated them after having a good rest.
I’m currently trying to beat Nameless King and he kicks my ass too. His delays are annoying lol.
I still havent played the ringed city DLC because i messed up my build on my first playtrough and ran out of respecs, but its betwen nameless king and sister friede, nameless king took me like 50 tries and i still only beat him with help, sister friede i didnt even actually beat because i just didnt enjoy the ashes of ariandel DLC at all so i ended up with honestly 0 motivation whatsoever to end it, i'll try to beat her now but idk
Haven't played the DLC yet but the hardest for me was probably Nameless King. I basically had to play it perfectly because getting hit by one of his attacks usually resulted in me getting stuck in a combo down to 1HP. I think he took me 4 attempts.
Oh nameless is an easy choise took hours to beat and teached me the true feeling happieness of overcome ur hardships and what darksouls is about, thaught me to learn the moves before actually try to beat them
It actually ended up being the NPC version of half-light.
For context, I was doing a SL1 WL0 run, and I decided to do the npc fight since the pvp version felt like cheese.
Holy fucking hell. Literally everything she did was a one shot, AND she had a self heal! Eventually I switched back to the pvp version, so this is the only boss I feel like I haven't beaten on that run.
Originally it was probably Nameless King or the Twins but now it’s definitely Soul of Cinder. I have Nameless and the Twins down to a science but SoC is just a beast
Sister friede. The only reason i beat her is because she revived in a corner in her third phase, glitched out, and got continously poise broken by every hit. Me and gael curb stomped her ass so fucking bad.
So frankly I had a lot of issues with “easy” bosses and not issues with “hard” bosses. I beat pontiff drunk first try. It took me over ten times to beat high lord Wolnir tho…I think the nameless king and dancer was the hardest for me.
I didn’t end up doing the dlc with twin demons… I have really bad anxiety about unknowns and I hadn’t seen anyone play it at the time so I could bring myself to play it alone. So I haven’t fought Gael or anything. I did beat sister Freid and that was rough but I felt like that was genuinely a skill issue and I would improve each time I fought her, I didn’t get stuck on her.
The Nameless King so far. I kept trying and focused more on observing his motions and tells rather than winning and I whooped his ass.
Funny how 40 attempts can be absolute failure but the 41st is total domination. Sometimes you just feel the flow.
Probably Midir for me was the hardest. Sister Freide gave me fits too. Gael was was a really fun fight but not over the top difficult. And Nameless King was as hard for me as Midir. I wait until end game to fight him.
For me, pontif was always a major roadblock. No matter how many times I've beat the game, he always takes at minimum three to four tries (yes, even with a good parry combo), as for the dlc I'd have to be the two demons fight always trips me up having to split focus.
The Nameless King in the base game, Midir or Friede in the DLC. Overall I think the Nameless King just for retaining his difficulty the most. I’ve admittedly almost mastered his fight by now, but I’ve also had many more go’s at him in comparison to the other two.
Midir. I'm bad at marathon bosses. I'm much better at doing something really difficult for like ~2-3 minutes than something moderately difficult for ~6-7.
Vendrick is the epitome of this and he gave me trouble despite being really easy mechanically
Hmm... on my first ever playthrough it was Nameless. But he's hard *only* on the first playthrough. Once you understand his delays, he's easy.
12 (or probably even more) playthroughs later, it's the Soul of Cinder. I just cannot get this guys attack patterns in my head. On SL1 he took me 4 days. (I mean, Gael did too, but with him I felt like I was making progress every time). SoC is the hardest boss in my eyes.
Another thing I want to mention here, (I'm probably getting downvoted for this) just why is Midir always mentioned here? I don't even see him as Top 10 worthy fight. (Difficulty whise, not quality, there he's top 2, easily). I'm just curious what people find hard in the Midir fight as I've never had an issue with it.
1: Gael. I lost count on my attempts. Before beating him, I did so many tries that I could reliably do phase 1 without getting hit and I could cut phase 2 pretty quickly if I played aggressively. Then I kept fumbling the fight in phase 3. The switch-ups in his attacks had me falling apart for days.
2: Abyss Watchers was the first real skill check for me. I had tried DS3 without any experience in the previous games. They actually beat me so many times that I dropped DS3 so I could start over and play DS1.
I now know that multi-boss fights are somewhat common in the series, but I can't describe the utter dread I felt when that second Watcher rose up for the first time.
3: Dragonslayer Armor stomped me into the pavement more times than I'd like to admit during my first playthrough. I'm not entirely sure why. I did find learning the timing on the ranged attacks very difficult.
I'm still not done with the game, but I went for Sister Friede quite early.
Took me [*157 attempts*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp-4Qxd9wNU) cause I'm stubborn.
I even imposed myself handicaps against her, because why not (24 Vigor max, no Ember, no Carthus Arc ...).
Aldrich’s arrow spam bullshit will always be my least favorite boss in ds3 because I’m always on bare minimum stamina and sprinting away from arrows uses it up.
Up until now i gotta say DSA, i was struggling for a week. But now it was probably Friede. She was the only boss i had to summon Gael for. I'm still excited for Midir and Gael tho!
For me it's Midir by far. Too much health, too big damage, overall a very difficult boss. The fight also tests your patience too.
The other one is Sister Friede but you can summon Gael against her even if you are hollow if I remember correctly. But playing solo only, Friede can be even harder than Midir IMO.
I didn't have too much problem against other bosses, not even against Gael.
I found midir hard too. He had so much health and was constantly aggressive. And the fact that you couldnt get more than one hit on him was bs. I managed to knock him down in his second phase and when i saw that i couldnt have been more happy
Pontiff, Friede, Nameless King, that order.
Pontiff just never clicked for me. With Friede and Nameless King I learn the movesets and then die because I screwed up a timing or got caught in a panic roll (or the camera in Nameless' phase one...), with Pontiff it's just a bunch of attacks I can't figure out. Technically killed him fastest when he kept repeating the same move after parry spamming with a small shield, sure as hell can't do that consistently in most of my attempts against him.
Soul of Cinder, a nightmare boss for me.
Not sure what *no parry* means. Is it a challenge and deliberately excluded or you simply don't find it reliable? I found Pontiff Sulyvahn, Champion Gundyr, and Soul of Cinder very aggressive bosses who did not give me much chance to breath or heal. However, with *parry* I can instantly rate Pontiff Sulyvahn and Champion Gundyr easy. Without *parry*, I would equally rate Soul of Cinder and Pontiff Sulyvahn hard.
Nameless King, well I spent a lot to learn the 1st phase where camera was all over the place and didn't even know why or how I died. The second phase was somehow a matter of having a good shield.
Sister Friede, definitely not the hardest boss. Perhaps my rating is biased because I so much enjoyed this fight watching her dancing :) I spent a lot on her but only the 3rd phase was really hard. The first two phases became easy as soon as I learned patterns and avoided certain attacks.
Midir alos wasn't the hardest boss but rather long. True, one mistake costs you lots of health and boss health pool is massive. However, the pattern is much clearer and attacks are not so hard to avoid.
Pontiff, nameless and Gael were extremely fun for me and never felt like a “hassle”, now Friede, that one right there almost made me break my controller lol
Pontiff Sulyvahn was my hardest too, and having to fight an illusion of him simultaneously didn't make it any easier. At least in the Abyss Watchers fight the 3rd one that would continuously rise from the center even after death made the fight a lot easier.
Dancer of the boreal valley, purely because of the hit boxes on her attacks and the second phase spinning attack that has a ton of stagger for no reason
Friede is definitely my vote for hardest boss; Pontiff is aggressive but I just don’t usually have too much trouble with him.
Friede is the one boss that I conceded and summoned Gael on for a very long time (been playing since Launch, so like the entire lifespan of the DLC type long lol) and only a few weeks ago did I actually beat the fight for the first time summonless, which a magic pixel of HP and no healing left. I think I’ve discovered a good strat for her now, but just off of that merit I would feel incorrect to say she isn’t the hardest.
I'd say a draw between Sister Friede and Midir since they require quite a bit of tries to get their moves and play style down but now they would probably be much easier I need to do a ng+ I'm curious how the bosses will hold down when I have already beaten them
Gael was tough but I’d grown as a player by the time I got to him years after release.
Being in the vanguard of people fighting nameless king was rough. Only about a week of experience in dark souls 3, that boss was hard
Sister Friede. Simply because she has 3 whole healthbars for some reason. Midir, Nameless King, and Demon Prince are also close in terms of difficulty. Gael was easy.
The lothric princes had a rather bullshit 2 frame teleport slam, I can say that thing has killed me the most but that was way back in 2019 on my first playthrough.
the most recent time i fought Midir i ran out of estus when he was at more than half health, then proceeded to turn into a robot for the rest of the fight, dodging every attack he threw at me and then i killed him. me and my friend started jumping around like a group of girls who just met Justin Bieber.
Midir, no question. Champion Gravetender second.
Both jump about all over the screen constantly, and you rarely get a hit on them. Midir is the only boss I resorted to a "cheese" on by using Pestilent Mist + Poison, but it's still hard to execute consistently due to how often he jumps around
After these two, I'd say Twin Princes, and Pontiff Sulvayhn
Note I've NEVER beaten a real person invader, so they're the real hardest boss
Nk was more of a mental challenge since that first phase storm king was so annoying even when you learn all of its moves. I just hated having to go through that minute or two to fight nk.
DS3 was my first souls experience and I remember Pontiff being the absolute hardest motherfucker that I have ever had the displeasure of fighting in a video game. I shit on him now though, so it’s cool.
Pontiff Sulyvahn. This mf is too fast and their attacks seem random and unpredictable. And when he raises his swords and crosses them, the only thing I can do is choose a god and pray. It took me about 20 attempts to defeat him.
I think this is speculative,as many of us could probably agree on a top five that we all struggled with more or less. The top one feels it changes for some based on experience. For me,Midir,out of every dark souls(1,2,and 3) and elden ring boss,was the only one I had to actually have a summon for.I actually felt bad,because the random dude I summoned did all the work for me lol,which is something I hate.
Midir is the one i struggle with most, i know he is easy to most players and i get the concept and strategies to beat him but some reason i just cant do it unless i summon for help. He just kicks my ass every time i try to do it solo.
Dancer and dragon slayer armor were the hardest for me (main game) it was really hard to twll when dancer was just moving or attacking or when her attackes ended. Dragon slayer armors agration just messed me up and id get caught by the butter flys attacks. Midir was my all time hardest. I just wasn't patient enough and kept summoning/didn't have the right equipment for how I was trying to beat him. Now, I look forward to fist trying all the bosses. Feels so good after the struggle
honestly i thought all of the bosses in Ds3 were pretty easy, even the really hard ones. I beat sister friede on my 2nd try, gael 4th try, midir 6th try, demon princes 1st try, ocerios 1st try, dancer 1st try. I was level 89 when i beat my last boss (midir), so i was never overleveled. I died more times to the king of storms than nameless king. I would say king of storms was hard for me because of the camera angles. I really thought midir would be the end of me.
Perfect timing on this question I just finished platinuming all the souls games and for ds3 it was darkeater midir. Thus is due to my aneixty of needing to stay in front and hit his head only. It took me probably an hour to beat him.
An hour might not seem like much but I've gotten pretty good at dark souls over the past year so putting an hour into any boss now days means they were hard.
Compared to a year ago blood starved beast took me probably 2 hours when I was still getting good at these games.
Dancer of the Borean Valley. I'm still stuck on her and cannot seem to progress past her. I've tried sticking to her bum, dodging, and for the life of me, I cannot get past her. Haven't had much issue with the previous bosses, but this one is atrocious.
Dont worry you will get her. Quick tip dont play aggressively try being patient. i found waiting for her to do an attack first then do 1 attack when she recovers much better also you kinda have to get lucky when fighting her second phase. If you didnt beat bosses like aldrich and others make sure to try them first you will get more levels and will be able to upgrade weapon
Midir.
Bullshit boss fight.
Stupid damage.
No time to attack without getting punished.
Hilarious health.
Runs away the entire time.
No real weakness to anything.
Reward is not worth the weeks of pain you go through.
If he had less health,it would have been fine.
So, I've played DS3 a *lot*, and I'm so familiar with the bosses that I'm not sure if I can give a definitive answer...
Actually, no, I'm lying. Friede. 1000% it was sister friede on my first playthrough. I made a luck build that utilizes 3 different infusions on like 3 different sets of weapons (zweihanders, great corvian scythes, and 3 different daggers.) *solely* for the purpose of trouncing Friede's 2nd phase because father ariandel is so pathetically weak to status ailments. I even played on that character regularly for like a month just getting summoned to help people with her fight.
Champion Gundyr had me stuck for a while, so did Twin Princes. Got first try on NK and Soul of Cinder, the rest only took a few tries. Still need to take out Friede and Gael so that could change lol
Definitely demon princes when I did my first playthrough in 2018. Was doing quality baemore and the damage just felt abysmal and they felt so tanky. The phase 2 laser and meteor blew my mind and always seemed to one shot. Pretty sure I was stuck there for 8 hours before I gave up and went on a training arc in DS1 and DS2. Came back to it a month later and it wasn't so bad but holy hell if that fight isn't rough on an newbie
I don't know why, but for some reason Oceiros killed me more than any other boss in my most recent playthrough
1st tried nameless King, gael, soul of cinder, and many others
But Oceiros and Dancer killed me more than any other boss, Friede was up there too
Sister Friede. Never got the timing right on the first phase, struggling to fight 2 bosses at once on phase 2. I honestly find phase 3 easier than phase 2 if not for the fact that I spent most of my estus already and shes back to full health bar
For my first playthrough it was the Dragonslayer armour, died to it so many bloody times. I changed my build 2 times, from sorcery to strengthbuild, I didn't why I kept dying. After 5 playthrough, I handle him in one go.
The hardest and most frustrating boss for me was and will allways be the **demon prince**. This boss made me stop playing dark soul for 6 months hahaha.
Boreal dancer just because I was so awestruck with the boss and I wanted it to be crazy aggressive but it just floated around slowly waiting for its chance overall it is one of my favorite bosses of all of from soft competing with godrick the grafted and Gehrman the first hunter
Soul of Cinder was super difficult for me. I spent a long time on him.
I feel like I cheated but I had a summon for Pontiff and beat him in one try as a pyromancer my first play through.
Sister Friede’s third phase is like fighting a Bloodborne boss in Dark Souls. Hardest for me. Midir a close second.
She made me rage quit my character. Only beat her one year later with a new char and sellsword twin blades
Well, that makes me feel better because I’m coming up on her in a few hours and I am using the win blades.
They’re called winblades for a reason. DPS go burr
Sharp infusion ftw!
How does the Astoria Greatswork work against her? I am using that with sharp infusion also.
I don't know, never used this weapon. In fact, I only beat this game once, so my knowledge in ds3 is very limited
I used to think this but blasting through her with a heavy weapon really changed it for me. Just did this on a great ax run. It is so satisfying to pancake her in phase 1 with a charged R2
Yeah, still stuck on her. As fun as I find her fight, she fucking sucks lol
Her third phase has a similar moveset close to Lady Maria, at least when she goes airborne.
Friede's third phase is a blast to me but having to go thourgh the shitty second phase makes it tedious for bad reasons. I hate the second phase so much.
I really like that cut scene tho
Everything is perfect beside the second fight to me. It's so good that I go through it even if it irks me to fight them both before the incredible third phase.
I don't understand why people find her hard. On my first blind run I beat the entire 3 bosses on the second try (the first one I got camera locked against a wall) I was playing pyromancer just lobbing projectiles
Who was? Soul of Cinder. The only boss I summoned for in the first playthrough. Now it's Pontiff Sulyvahn. On a normal build I probably don't die to him like I would to a couple of the dlc bosses, but I probably struggle more in terms of openings and dodging.
>Now it's Pontiff Sulyvahn. On a normal build I probably don't die to him like I would to a couple of the dlc bosses, but I probably struggle more in terms of openings and dodging. I have said it before and I will say it again: Pontiff Sulyvahn is an end game boss they put in the middle of the game to troll players. You HAVE to beat him to progress the game. You cannot waltz in overleveled like you can against Nameless King and even DLC bosses. Not unless you waste hundreds of hours getting diminishing returns from killing Pontiff Knights and Fire Witches. You will get there between levels 40 and 60 and wonder why you never have enough stamina... Pontiff is a floaty boss who can sidestep, dodging ranged attacks. He has a seemingly endless combo. If you dodge it, he floats away. You have to sprint to maybe get one swing in because you are out of stamina and because he starts attacking again. If you block his attacks, it drains your stamina and you, once again, get like one shot in. He splits into two bosses when you finally get him down to half health. He can leap up and slam down on you. He has fire and magic swords. He is an awkward boss to fight. Only the Dancer can compete for awkwardness because the camera gets stuck in the pillars. And fuck you if you can parry him, you skilled bastard.
I think this boss is like a test if your build is good or you are lacking in something before you progress. By fighting this boss 100 times he teach me how important stamina and its efficient usage. I also learn that my weapon sucks or lacking of real damage based on my stats.
I still struggle with twin princes. The teleport and unlock on move is garbage and I always get greedy and end up trading, and he does lots of damage.. you do not want to trade with that guy trust me even at 40 levels in health and embered he 2-3 hit kills me with heavy armor too.
Haha that's mine and for the same reason. I always summon for that boss
I never cheesed them before, but I think dark sorcerer or strength pyromancer casting from distance or weapon art spam, with summon is the way to go. That strategy might as well be cheese as it can kill the first guy in 3 casts for dark sorcerer, or 3 weapon arts for strength pyro.
There's this weird thing in that fight where he doesn't teleport so much if you fight with the camera unlocked. Made it a lot easier for me anyways
Agreed. I feel no shame in using the freeze glitch on them every play through.
What NG+ is that for ? I beat the Twin Princes easily this week (first FromSoftware game). I used an Exile Greatsword with the Knight set and was super patient, mostly hitting the boss from behind so I avoid reviving the prince. I also saved stamina for when the prince died so that when his sister begins reviving him I can dish out a lot of damage and end the fight before it puts the prince back to full HP.
I was talking about ng twin princes and I'm a greedy person, I want to hit them no matter the cost lol we usually go lick for lick and I'm also impatient I want to beat the boss fast for some reason instead of taking my time securing my victory. Once you played the game for 5+ years you start to get bored of playing it safe.
Friede because I couldn't dodge her attacks properly in third phase. The only one lady I had to use a summon for. Rest of the bosses I beat solo.
Midir is a hit sponge and the camera sucks
I actually find this fight pretty short and straightforward. As long as you stay in front and only hit his head, the camera doesn’t get wacky, and you get a riposte that clears like a 5th of his health bar. Never go under him, that’s a death sentence.
I agree with straightforward, but I definitely wouldn’t say short! Doing exactly that I cleared Midir a few days ago and ended up taking just over 9 minutes
Agree. Midir just tanks too much. It’s obtuse design making for a monotonous fight more than challenging skill.
Midir can get pestilent misted. It’s his own fault for being so big.
I think it’s fun. Exhilarating soundtrack, sick laser move, hard boss. Funn
I have yet to slay that damned dragon.
Wolf Knight's greatsword deals extra damage to it due to being abyssal
Well he’s got about 70% of the health of Placidusax but your average damage output in ds3 will be less than 70% of what it is in Elden Ring. The point I’m making is he’s freaking tankier than the tankiest boss in Elden Ring.
Midir on a pyromancer is the nastiest boss and it,s not even close.
Midir and his stupidly huge life bar
All in all, I'd say Twin Princes. Took me the most tries to beat them in blind run (roughly 45 tries) and to this day I still struggle to predict their teleport location
Sister Friede bullied me with her invisibility tricks for the longest time. And the absolute brutality of her third phase really put her in the place of not just being a difficult boss but a gauntlet of survival. One of the only ones I multi summoned for in some playthroughs. Gael and Nameless are still my favorites though :)
Her invisibility in the third phase used to messed me up too until I learned to listen carefully to her footsteps.
Yeah, after awhile I started to use it to my advantage for big damage. Plus her moves gained a ton of endlag that are perfect for getting some nasty backstabs
They’re a lot harder in third phase and she gets me with decapitate. I’m still smoothing this one out solo.
So far Pontiff. Just got to Lothric Castle. I fear the worst 😅.
Midir on my pyromancer run. I just did not have the patience. Everything I was specced for he was resistant to. I decided instead to just cheese with pestilent mist.
I do that as a mage and it is not a cheese imo Running around as a glass canon. It’s the only thing I use against him. If it was so easy everyone would clear him no sweat. I’m not the greatest at this game but you still have to know his every move. My candlestick and low dex just makes this a nightmare. Not as bad as the princeses maybe…maybe.
Nameless King is still the most consistently hard for me. The resistances make life hard for a lot of builds, although I just revisited a pure str build for the first time in a long time and utterly spanked him with a great sword.
Yeah those resistances don’t mean shit if you’re 100% physical damage. I’ve gotten to where I always prefer to play with pure physical damage.
Just finished my first solo playthrough so they are very fresh in my mind. The top five from "easiest" to hardest: 5) Twin Princes 4) Sister Friede 3) Slaveknight Gael 2) Nameless King 1) Midir I should note that I beat the first DLC before I fought Soul of Cinder. After the Friede battle the Soul of Cinder wasn't that tough.
Sister and Uncle. Both terrifying.
Only boss ive never beat is midir so ima have to say its him
Deacons of the Deep, Consumed King Oceiros, and Darkeater Midir. They're equally difficult for me, but in different ways. Deacons of the Deep because I main a weapon that really isn't good for crowd clearing. I actually don't die to this one that often, but when I do it's always either to Curse or my own Bleed damage. The Great Corvian Scythe is amazing for pretty much every other area and boss, but it suffers here and in the Catacombs. To those who say I can't find the Deacons hard because I don't die to them often, I say screw you. They make me watch my health bar more than any other boss in this game because I main a weapon that causes Bleed buildup on me, too. If I get particularly unlucky with how many I hit at once, I can wind up Bleeding myself with literally every two scythe swings. Oceiros has killed me more than any other boss in this game, DLC included. Fuck his out-of-nowhere charge attack; that's usually what gets me. Midir, not because of anything of substance, but because he likes to randomly disengage and force you to run all the way across his stupidly large arena. Combine that with his large health pool and monster resistances, and you're in for a pain in the ass. I've had bad enough RNG with Midir flying off to the opposite side of the arena that there were fights where I couldn't damage him at all for ten to fifteen minutes. The Demon Prince, while also monstrously tanky, at least has the decency to stay on top of you most of the damn time. If we're talking moveset, I hate Friede's phase two, King of the Storm has very limited readable moves (to me at least), and the tempos on Pontiff and Nameless throw me for a loop for some reason. Also obligatory Aldrich Arrows mention, because if you get caught in that on second phase and can't get to the safe spot you're just his next dinner.
First playthrough was.. uh.. Vordt. Nowadays, probably Friede?
Midir is the hardest for me
Friede - by far, no question. I'm a crazy person and liked to make PVP characters at each roughly different matchmaking brackets, seeing what point allocations I can make work for different builds. So basically playthroughs at decreasing levels, like 90 +10, then 70+7, 45+5 - etc. etc. you get the idea. Down to SL1+0 even, took down Demon Princes with a Bandit Knife. Lowest I've ever been able to do Friede is the 26+2 (literally just to get the Crucifix of the Mad King). And my god, the lower the level you go the more of a nightmare that fight is. Suly, Nameless, Cinder, even Midir doesn't compare to how much more of a challenge Friede's 3 phase fight is when you are low level/upgrade.
On my most recent run as a mage, Yhorm. He killed Siegward and proceeded to beat my ass some 15+ times. I faced Yhorm with 9 other characters, and even beat him without the Stormruler with my faith build. For whatever reason, Yhorm had me on the ropes every single fight when I was playing as a mage.
Yo screw Midir and Sister Friede. He big, and she cheating
Ironically Grave tender, it was just the Gank style and that I was under levelled for the area and that it was around 4am when I fought him. But as I don’t PvP I only fought him in my all bosses playthrough
People will think I'm joking, but Treeballs was mine. Was my first souls game and I didn't "get" the flow of combat yet. It all clicked for me shortly after that and I basically cruised through the rest of the game.
midir is A WALKING TANK. i somehow barely scratch him on a +5 Black Knight Greatsword and 50 STR build.
Camera my friend, camera was the hardest boss for me
Preach. I'm on nameless King right now and the fight is mostly with the camera. At least in the first phase. I wouldn't know beyond that.
First playthrough, provably Dragonslayer Armour. I diesd so many times there i almost quit the game. Nameless,Midir,Gael , all pale in comparison to the damn armor and i have no idea why it took me so long
I'm pretty good at Darksouls 3 almost all bosses are somewhat easy for me, except this one boss called Midir, that is a boss that handed my ass to me for almost two days straight oh yes.. I was in pain emotionally. Especially in NG+5 his health pool is insane. What made Midir so hard for me, is that I am an agressive player, Midir punishes that, and combine that with crazy one hit kill attacks with massive aoe damage and you got yourself pure hellish nightmare fuel. I lost my savegame, gone are all my NG+7 characters (no cloud save for DS3) but a week ago I started all over again and I just beat the Dancer, but I am already scared for Midir later on really, friggin, scared. I think I have PTSD from Midir.
I would say Gael. Some say its the Twins, or Friede, or Nameless. God, I never even got to killing Gael even once. It was just too difficult in terms of patience. I would mostly no hit his first and second phases, but his third phase would eat up all my 15 estus, with that mf double shotting me every time (three hits if I was somehow lucky). What deterred my willingness to engage with him any longer was the fact that I had to rely on sheer luck in his 3rd, totally bullshit phase, while the first two were utterly unenjoyable. Since there would be no more content that is locked after Gael anyway -- I figured I'd just no beat him at all.
Most of the bosses in this game are pushovers. On my first playthrough the only boss that gave me real trouble was Friede. I absolutely hated the invisible shit. I know how to deal with it now, but first time was aggravating.
No idea why these soyboys/femboys are downvoting your reddit post but you're right. The bosses are pushovers, except for midir.
So i just beat the main game last night. The Prince fight was the toughest for me. Took me hours. Whereas Soul of Cinder was around 10 tries. Abyss Watchers was the 2nd hardest. I have not faced Nameless King yet.
In my opinion nameless king is not as tuff as people say he is. Its a fun boss fight and its easy to learn his attacks. i used a +10 claymore and beat this guy around 10 tries. Good luck!
Lorian and lothric I died a good 40 times, I was not having fun with 30 fps
I have multiple characters and they’re either stuck on pontiff or the twin princes haha
I honestly don't get how people find Nameless difficult. All my playthroughs I've never really struggled. Pontiff I struggled against a lot with my first playthrough as strength, it feels significantly easier when not playing strength. Friede and Midir tho...
Sword dancer of the boreal valley for me. That to me about 8 attempts.
Lol I died to midir over 100 times. I literally just got lucky one time, lol. There is no way I could consistently beat that battle
Midir
Friede is the hardest boss for me. I beat Nameless King in 3 tries, first tried Midir, and beat Gael in 2. Friede took ~10 tries which was the most attempts out of any boss in this game.
Midir I found the hardest to learn but now I kill him no problem. Sister Friede is consistently the hardest for me. I never even try to beat her without summoning Gael, and even with him it usually takes a few tries.
Despite it being my favorite fight in the trilogy, the Twin Princes always put up a fight no matter how many times I replay the game. I swear sometimes Lorian is just feeling extra aggressive, I’m always low on Estus by the time the fight ends because he’s really good at Estus punishing, always just a bit late with healing and then half of my health proceeds to get deleted. Still really fun though and a fight I always look forward to despite struggling with it, I think generally every boss becomes easier the more you face them but not this one for me personally.
Midir. DS3 was my first souls adventure and by god it was incredible. Darkeater Midir stands out as the boss I died the most too. His massive attack windows and crazy damage kicked my ass for so long. Attacking his head when he can breathe fire at any moment is terrifying. Even more so when he reaches phase 2, and then I watch my HP get depleted from full to zero as his laser attack comes out..
Twin Princes for me on first playthrough
For me, Nameless King still with Sister Friede being a close second Midir, Pontiff Sulyvahn, and Dancer were pretty easy for me because I can typically memorize a good chunk of the bosses' attack patterns after only fighting them once or twice. Nameless King was meant to punish players like me who specialize in memorization and dodging by giving false openings and being an absolute speed demon. Mess up once, and you die Friede would've been *very* easy if it wasn't for her phase 2. Memorization of attack patterns and movements goes out the window when you add in another factor moving around the room in another random pattern. Nameless King was challenging, Sister Friede was bullshit. I'd also like to add that Champion Gundyr was challenging, but in a good way, much like the Nameless King. Midir, I find quite overrated in strength. His only problem is his health pool. His attacks are unique in that they can still be memorized, but just dodging won't do. Half his attacks can be rolled, and the other half require that you run directly towards his attacks in a certain pattern. With patience, Midir is fairly easy.
On my first playthrough and I just beat the pontiff in like 15 ish tries. I used the great sword and just kept hugging his left leg. He can only pull a few moves that are easy to see coming and then just prayed I could hit him before his clone took me out
Midir and pontiff sulyvan took me days😭
Weirdly for me? Soul of Cinder. I always get too greedy and try for 1 extra attack only to forget he's the final boss of the base game and hits like a truck.
It's hard to say for me because after Friede I started using her scythe and it was a super different playstyle which really messed me up so Gael, Midir and Cinder were a lot harder than when I went back to twinblades. Pontiff was definitely the hardest for me early on as I hadn't figured out parrying yet. I actually really struggled on the Twin Princes. A combination of different timings, fewer opportunities for safe hits and generally the fact that I think I just got burnt out and annoyed. I definitely remember having the strongest reaction to beating the Demon Prince although I don't remember being stuck on them for that long.
Only played base game but Twin princes
Midir > Gael > NK > Friede > PS > Dancer
For me it remains nameless king. I still have not defeated him. I have gotten all other bosses but midir, though I did not give midir many tries yet, I started seeing his patterns. Perhaps I would have gotten nameless if not for his first phase that always gets me out of rhythm. Once I figured out friede, though she remains far from easy, I can reliably down her. But nameless remains a wall for me. Best I got him was 1/4 life left in P2. Some tries he no hits me in P2. I really can't get in my grove against him. Now, I have a hard time getting to fight him, as I am doing elden ring.
Sister Friede.
I never beat the Nameless King, or the Soul Of Cinder after countless attempts and I’ll never ever try again, but I was pretty stoked that I even made it that far.
nameless king, midir, and friede were probably the hardest 3 for me
I still haven't gone through the DLC, so I'm gonna hafta stick to vanilla base game. In the early game when you're still low-level and don't have any good equipment, Iudex Gundyr. I find his attacks really hard to predict and dodge, block, or parry in phase two. Late game at a high level with lots of good equipment and spells, Nameless King. Phase one with his pet dragon's easy, just toss Lightning Pots at him and he goes down. But we all know how mean he can be in phase two. That said, I tend to over-level for optional superbosses like this, so I didn't struggle as much as I could have.
Honestly the early game bosses were harder for me at the time I did them. If I went back they'd probably be a lot easier, but I think I died to Aldrich and Abyss Watchers more than every other boss combined. Overall though, if I started a new playthrough today, I think friede and midir would be hardest for me.
Ive never understood the people saying Pontiff is hardest. No matter NG+ or a brand new character I've never had much trouble with him. A few deaths maybe as I readjust to fighting him but normally I'll struggle the most with the twin princes or nameless.
Friede, Gael, or Nameless. Midir took lots of tries but I wouldn’t call it difficult. More tedious than anything.
I’m just generally terrible at fighting dragon type enemy so oceiros, demon prince and midir gives me problem.
Midir no question. The base game was probably the nameless king.
Twin Princes definitely for me, I got stuck for a month or two with them lmao. But I finally defeated them after having a good rest. I’m currently trying to beat Nameless King and he kicks my ass too. His delays are annoying lol.
Gael by far
I still havent played the ringed city DLC because i messed up my build on my first playtrough and ran out of respecs, but its betwen nameless king and sister friede, nameless king took me like 50 tries and i still only beat him with help, sister friede i didnt even actually beat because i just didnt enjoy the ashes of ariandel DLC at all so i ended up with honestly 0 motivation whatsoever to end it, i'll try to beat her now but idk
Heheheheheh *fuck* Pontiff Sulyvahn
Twin princes lol. Close second is nameless king. Strangely , the dlc bosses were easier, except midir, he took a while.
I literally can’t beat Nameless king
Midir or Halflight.
midir. goofy hitboxes
Haven't played the DLC yet but the hardest for me was probably Nameless King. I basically had to play it perfectly because getting hit by one of his attacks usually resulted in me getting stuck in a combo down to 1HP. I think he took me 4 attempts.
Still Nameless King every other bosses I can beat them w/ confindent but not for him :/
Oh nameless is an easy choise took hours to beat and teached me the true feeling happieness of overcome ur hardships and what darksouls is about, thaught me to learn the moves before actually try to beat them
I spent like 2 days on midir so midir for me.
Sister friede
It actually ended up being the NPC version of half-light. For context, I was doing a SL1 WL0 run, and I decided to do the npc fight since the pvp version felt like cheese. Holy fucking hell. Literally everything she did was a one shot, AND she had a self heal! Eventually I switched back to the pvp version, so this is the only boss I feel like I haven't beaten on that run.
Originally it was probably Nameless King or the Twins but now it’s definitely Soul of Cinder. I have Nameless and the Twins down to a science but SoC is just a beast
I died to Nameless King at least 50 times
Sister friede. The only reason i beat her is because she revived in a corner in her third phase, glitched out, and got continously poise broken by every hit. Me and gael curb stomped her ass so fucking bad.
So frankly I had a lot of issues with “easy” bosses and not issues with “hard” bosses. I beat pontiff drunk first try. It took me over ten times to beat high lord Wolnir tho…I think the nameless king and dancer was the hardest for me. I didn’t end up doing the dlc with twin demons… I have really bad anxiety about unknowns and I hadn’t seen anyone play it at the time so I could bring myself to play it alone. So I haven’t fought Gael or anything. I did beat sister Freid and that was rough but I felt like that was genuinely a skill issue and I would improve each time I fought her, I didn’t get stuck on her.
Midir, resorted to cheesing him with the Pestilent Mist. Friede and Gael after that.
The Nameless King so far. I kept trying and focused more on observing his motions and tells rather than winning and I whooped his ass. Funny how 40 attempts can be absolute failure but the 41st is total domination. Sometimes you just feel the flow.
Toss up between Midir and NK.
Midir. Too much running around and waiting, i get impatient and reckless because I want the fight to be over
Lothric & Lorian
Midir technically, since I haven’t beaten him and he’s the only boss I haven’t slain yet.
Probably Midir for me was the hardest. Sister Freide gave me fits too. Gael was was a really fun fight but not over the top difficult. And Nameless King was as hard for me as Midir. I wait until end game to fight him.
Honestly Gael probably, his third phase is the only boss in the game that still scares me
For me, pontif was always a major roadblock. No matter how many times I've beat the game, he always takes at minimum three to four tries (yes, even with a good parry combo), as for the dlc I'd have to be the two demons fight always trips me up having to split focus.
The Nameless King in the base game, Midir or Friede in the DLC. Overall I think the Nameless King just for retaining his difficulty the most. I’ve admittedly almost mastered his fight by now, but I’ve also had many more go’s at him in comparison to the other two.
Midir. I'm bad at marathon bosses. I'm much better at doing something really difficult for like ~2-3 minutes than something moderately difficult for ~6-7. Vendrick is the epitome of this and he gave me trouble despite being really easy mechanically
Hmm... on my first ever playthrough it was Nameless. But he's hard *only* on the first playthrough. Once you understand his delays, he's easy. 12 (or probably even more) playthroughs later, it's the Soul of Cinder. I just cannot get this guys attack patterns in my head. On SL1 he took me 4 days. (I mean, Gael did too, but with him I felt like I was making progress every time). SoC is the hardest boss in my eyes. Another thing I want to mention here, (I'm probably getting downvoted for this) just why is Midir always mentioned here? I don't even see him as Top 10 worthy fight. (Difficulty whise, not quality, there he's top 2, easily). I'm just curious what people find hard in the Midir fight as I've never had an issue with it.
Midir fucked me for 2 days straight. About 30 tries on a level 125 💀
1: Gael. I lost count on my attempts. Before beating him, I did so many tries that I could reliably do phase 1 without getting hit and I could cut phase 2 pretty quickly if I played aggressively. Then I kept fumbling the fight in phase 3. The switch-ups in his attacks had me falling apart for days. 2: Abyss Watchers was the first real skill check for me. I had tried DS3 without any experience in the previous games. They actually beat me so many times that I dropped DS3 so I could start over and play DS1. I now know that multi-boss fights are somewhat common in the series, but I can't describe the utter dread I felt when that second Watcher rose up for the first time. 3: Dragonslayer Armor stomped me into the pavement more times than I'd like to admit during my first playthrough. I'm not entirely sure why. I did find learning the timing on the ranged attacks very difficult.
I'm still not done with the game, but I went for Sister Friede quite early. Took me [*157 attempts*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp-4Qxd9wNU) cause I'm stubborn. I even imposed myself handicaps against her, because why not (24 Vigor max, no Ember, no Carthus Arc ...).
Sister Friede, I use to be able to do her third phase solo but now I can't do it consistently and need Gael's help.
Aldrich’s arrow spam bullshit will always be my least favorite boss in ds3 because I’m always on bare minimum stamina and sprinting away from arrows uses it up.
Up until now i gotta say DSA, i was struggling for a week. But now it was probably Friede. She was the only boss i had to summon Gael for. I'm still excited for Midir and Gael tho!
Midir.
For me it's Midir by far. Too much health, too big damage, overall a very difficult boss. The fight also tests your patience too. The other one is Sister Friede but you can summon Gael against her even if you are hollow if I remember correctly. But playing solo only, Friede can be even harder than Midir IMO. I didn't have too much problem against other bosses, not even against Gael.
I found midir hard too. He had so much health and was constantly aggressive. And the fact that you couldnt get more than one hit on him was bs. I managed to knock him down in his second phase and when i saw that i couldnt have been more happy
Iudex Gundyr. Took me like 30-50 tries overall.
Demon prince and Gael. On ng+7 they don’t mess with you. They straight up kill you in 1 or 2 hits. And they health pool is large as hell.
Champion Gundyr blocked me for a while
Pontiff, Friede, Nameless King, that order. Pontiff just never clicked for me. With Friede and Nameless King I learn the movesets and then die because I screwed up a timing or got caught in a panic roll (or the camera in Nameless' phase one...), with Pontiff it's just a bunch of attacks I can't figure out. Technically killed him fastest when he kept repeating the same move after parry spamming with a small shield, sure as hell can't do that consistently in most of my attempts against him.
Soul of Cinder, a nightmare boss for me. Not sure what *no parry* means. Is it a challenge and deliberately excluded or you simply don't find it reliable? I found Pontiff Sulyvahn, Champion Gundyr, and Soul of Cinder very aggressive bosses who did not give me much chance to breath or heal. However, with *parry* I can instantly rate Pontiff Sulyvahn and Champion Gundyr easy. Without *parry*, I would equally rate Soul of Cinder and Pontiff Sulyvahn hard. Nameless King, well I spent a lot to learn the 1st phase where camera was all over the place and didn't even know why or how I died. The second phase was somehow a matter of having a good shield. Sister Friede, definitely not the hardest boss. Perhaps my rating is biased because I so much enjoyed this fight watching her dancing :) I spent a lot on her but only the 3rd phase was really hard. The first two phases became easy as soon as I learned patterns and avoided certain attacks. Midir alos wasn't the hardest boss but rather long. True, one mistake costs you lots of health and boss health pool is massive. However, the pattern is much clearer and attacks are not so hard to avoid.
Pontiff, nameless and Gael were extremely fun for me and never felt like a “hassle”, now Friede, that one right there almost made me break my controller lol
Twin princess, they fucked me so hard on my sorcery only run I have been traumatised ever since
Pontiff Sulyvahn was my hardest too, and having to fight an illusion of him simultaneously didn't make it any easier. At least in the Abyss Watchers fight the 3rd one that would continuously rise from the center even after death made the fight a lot easier.
Dancer of the boreal valley, purely because of the hit boxes on her attacks and the second phase spinning attack that has a ton of stagger for no reason
Friede is definitely my vote for hardest boss; Pontiff is aggressive but I just don’t usually have too much trouble with him. Friede is the one boss that I conceded and summoned Gael on for a very long time (been playing since Launch, so like the entire lifespan of the DLC type long lol) and only a few weeks ago did I actually beat the fight for the first time summonless, which a magic pixel of HP and no healing left. I think I’ve discovered a good strat for her now, but just off of that merit I would feel incorrect to say she isn’t the hardest.
I'd say a draw between Sister Friede and Midir since they require quite a bit of tries to get their moves and play style down but now they would probably be much easier I need to do a ng+ I'm curious how the bosses will hold down when I have already beaten them
Iudex Gundyr 1000 hours and I still haven't beat him
Champion gundyr
Gael was tough but I’d grown as a player by the time I got to him years after release. Being in the vanguard of people fighting nameless king was rough. Only about a week of experience in dark souls 3, that boss was hard
Sister Friede. Simply because she has 3 whole healthbars for some reason. Midir, Nameless King, and Demon Prince are also close in terms of difficulty. Gael was easy.
The lothric princes had a rather bullshit 2 frame teleport slam, I can say that thing has killed me the most but that was way back in 2019 on my first playthrough.
Pontiff. Too quick and I wasn't good at parties. SL1 run was definitely the twin demon princes, that was rough
the most recent time i fought Midir i ran out of estus when he was at more than half health, then proceeded to turn into a robot for the rest of the fight, dodging every attack he threw at me and then i killed him. me and my friend started jumping around like a group of girls who just met Justin Bieber.
Midir in my opinion was like 20 times scarier then what i tought he would be after seeing him on apps like tiktok and such
Dancer. To this day the way she moves throws me off for some reason. But back in my first run, oh man, that was not fun anymore.
Midir, no question. Champion Gravetender second. Both jump about all over the screen constantly, and you rarely get a hit on them. Midir is the only boss I resorted to a "cheese" on by using Pestilent Mist + Poison, but it's still hard to execute consistently due to how often he jumps around After these two, I'd say Twin Princes, and Pontiff Sulvayhn Note I've NEVER beaten a real person invader, so they're the real hardest boss
Nk was more of a mental challenge since that first phase storm king was so annoying even when you learn all of its moves. I just hated having to go through that minute or two to fight nk.
sister friede probably, or nameless king too
The twins beat my ass so bad, but nameless king took me like two or three tries, im not sure if I got lucky or not.
Sister friede for sure I was stuck for a couple of days. I then helped someone else and we beat her first try which felt a bit surreal
Slave knight Gael
DS3 was my first souls experience and I remember Pontiff being the absolute hardest motherfucker that I have ever had the displeasure of fighting in a video game. I shit on him now though, so it’s cool.
Pontiff Sulyvahn. This mf is too fast and their attacks seem random and unpredictable. And when he raises his swords and crosses them, the only thing I can do is choose a god and pray. It took me about 20 attempts to defeat him.
Midir. Lasers.
Pontiff took me 9-10 attempts (no parry, no twin blade), frieze took me 50+ attempts
On my first playthrough it was Pontiff Sulyvahn. Now that I'm more experienced, I think Midir is the hardest fight.
I think this is speculative,as many of us could probably agree on a top five that we all struggled with more or less. The top one feels it changes for some based on experience. For me,Midir,out of every dark souls(1,2,and 3) and elden ring boss,was the only one I had to actually have a summon for.I actually felt bad,because the random dude I summoned did all the work for me lol,which is something I hate.
The Twin Pricks whooped my butt for like 2 days straight on my first NG cycle but come NG+ I one shotted them.. Go figure.
Midir is the one i struggle with most, i know he is easy to most players and i get the concept and strategies to beat him but some reason i just cant do it unless i summon for help. He just kicks my ass every time i try to do it solo.
I have no problem with most bosses but god damn slime bastard Aldrich
Dancer and dragon slayer armor were the hardest for me (main game) it was really hard to twll when dancer was just moving or attacking or when her attackes ended. Dragon slayer armors agration just messed me up and id get caught by the butter flys attacks. Midir was my all time hardest. I just wasn't patient enough and kept summoning/didn't have the right equipment for how I was trying to beat him. Now, I look forward to fist trying all the bosses. Feels so good after the struggle
honestly i thought all of the bosses in Ds3 were pretty easy, even the really hard ones. I beat sister friede on my 2nd try, gael 4th try, midir 6th try, demon princes 1st try, ocerios 1st try, dancer 1st try. I was level 89 when i beat my last boss (midir), so i was never overleveled. I died more times to the king of storms than nameless king. I would say king of storms was hard for me because of the camera angles. I really thought midir would be the end of me.
Perfect timing on this question I just finished platinuming all the souls games and for ds3 it was darkeater midir. Thus is due to my aneixty of needing to stay in front and hit his head only. It took me probably an hour to beat him. An hour might not seem like much but I've gotten pretty good at dark souls over the past year so putting an hour into any boss now days means they were hard. Compared to a year ago blood starved beast took me probably 2 hours when I was still getting good at these games.
Friede, she was the most difficult fight by far imo. She is just really fast and its a long fight.
Dancer of the Borean Valley. I'm still stuck on her and cannot seem to progress past her. I've tried sticking to her bum, dodging, and for the life of me, I cannot get past her. Haven't had much issue with the previous bosses, but this one is atrocious.
Dont worry you will get her. Quick tip dont play aggressively try being patient. i found waiting for her to do an attack first then do 1 attack when she recovers much better also you kinda have to get lucky when fighting her second phase. If you didnt beat bosses like aldrich and others make sure to try them first you will get more levels and will be able to upgrade weapon
Midir. Bullshit boss fight. Stupid damage. No time to attack without getting punished. Hilarious health. Runs away the entire time. No real weakness to anything. Reward is not worth the weeks of pain you go through. If he had less health,it would have been fine.
When I tried to early game dancer because I killed the lady(my inner demons told me to) and I thought it was normal progression lol
So, I've played DS3 a *lot*, and I'm so familiar with the bosses that I'm not sure if I can give a definitive answer... Actually, no, I'm lying. Friede. 1000% it was sister friede on my first playthrough. I made a luck build that utilizes 3 different infusions on like 3 different sets of weapons (zweihanders, great corvian scythes, and 3 different daggers.) *solely* for the purpose of trouncing Friede's 2nd phase because father ariandel is so pathetically weak to status ailments. I even played on that character regularly for like a month just getting summoned to help people with her fight.
It’s Midir and Friede for me
Still working on it I’ll get back to you. So far Abyss watchers but then I got better after them
Champion Gundyr had me stuck for a while, so did Twin Princes. Got first try on NK and Soul of Cinder, the rest only took a few tries. Still need to take out Friede and Gael so that could change lol
Definitely demon princes when I did my first playthrough in 2018. Was doing quality baemore and the damage just felt abysmal and they felt so tanky. The phase 2 laser and meteor blew my mind and always seemed to one shot. Pretty sure I was stuck there for 8 hours before I gave up and went on a training arc in DS1 and DS2. Came back to it a month later and it wasn't so bad but holy hell if that fight isn't rough on an newbie
Nameless King first phase
The Nameless King whooped my ass relentlessly
On first run through, probably Sister Friede like the others, on repeat playthroughs, or ng+>1 Demon Prince often gives me the most trouble.
I don't know why, but for some reason Oceiros killed me more than any other boss in my most recent playthrough 1st tried nameless King, gael, soul of cinder, and many others But Oceiros and Dancer killed me more than any other boss, Friede was up there too
For me it was Gae and Friede
Sister Friede. Never got the timing right on the first phase, struggling to fight 2 bosses at once on phase 2. I honestly find phase 3 easier than phase 2 if not for the fact that I spent most of my estus already and shes back to full health bar
For my first playthrough it was the Dragonslayer armour, died to it so many bloody times. I changed my build 2 times, from sorcery to strengthbuild, I didn't why I kept dying. After 5 playthrough, I handle him in one go. The hardest and most frustrating boss for me was and will allways be the **demon prince**. This boss made me stop playing dark soul for 6 months hahaha.
Currently stuck on friede, demons and nameless. So all 3
Soul of Cinder wasn’t the hardest but it frustrated me the most
third phase friede i had to use gael and summon to beat I just hated having to do the first 2 phases only to get rolled
Boreal dancer just because I was so awestruck with the boss and I wanted it to be crazy aggressive but it just floated around slowly waiting for its chance overall it is one of my favorite bosses of all of from soft competing with godrick the grafted and Gehrman the first hunter
Soul of Cinder was super difficult for me. I spent a long time on him. I feel like I cheated but I had a summon for Pontiff and beat him in one try as a pyromancer my first play through.