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[DJFloppyFish]

for the record, ludwig and orphan took me DAYS to beat. last Souls boss that took that long for me was fume knight, and this DLC had two bosses that took that long. also I'm pretty sure I will never beat laurence on ng+3, like i don't even wanna try.

this dlc felt like a serious response to complaints about bloodborne's difficulty, like the section with the two Cthulhu executioners and the way you get the rakuyo just feel like From trolling fans. In fact, the sharkmen and the Cthulhu executioners in general feel like From issuing a smackdown. I almost always get hit by Cthulhu man, especially after that ridiculous AoE buff he gives his axe.

[InfiniteStateMachine]

i didn't really like those additional pursuer fights tbh. i don't think he is an interesting enough enemy to fight him over and over again and also not worth the risk of potentially losing your souls when you can just run away.

I rarely engage but it's still cool that he's actually pursuing you more now.

[s0]

fuck the cthulhu executioners, seriously.

maybe bloodborne is easier to some people because it plays a little more like other action games than the souls games? i don't play many action games anymore and was never good at them so maybe that's why bborne is harder for me.

[Thomas Finch]

I actually really liked the additional pursuers and I liked that they were optional. I enjoyed him as a boss fight despite him just being a big guy with a big sword. I also loved that killing him in Undead Burg 2.0 made it so you skipped his actual fight.

[s0]

I also loved that killing him in Undead Burg 2.0 made it so you skipped his actual fight.

ooooh i didn't know that. yeah that's pretty cool.

[SousaVilla]

I didn't have much trouble with those bosses, but I used the bowblade on laurence second form and spammed parries with a +10 evelyn on the orphan. You can't be a turtle in Bloodborne but there are ways to damage enemies and take less risks using bloodtinge builds.

I want to play this fights again without theses easy ways out and see how hard they actually are because it honestly felt like cheating.

[DJFloppyFish]

It all depends on how well you were able to dodge while using parries. I personally think orphan w/ no parries is the hardest boss in the game, but I have a friend who just kinda immediately understood the second phase and had no major troubles with him (neither one of us parried in this fight). Although if there's a lot of moves you never learned to dodge because of parrying then yeah, it's gonna be waaaaaaaay harder.

I think I may exaggerate the difficulty of the second forms in the DLC just because getting that far increases my chances of choking by million percent. Like, I can see how Ludwig's second form isn't that bad, but I can't tell you how many times I've been immediately killed after reaching it.

[s0]

i think my problem with orphan is this: i can dodge him all day erryday, but when i try to attack him outside of the obvious backstab and parry opportunities in phase 1, i often get killed by a combo. basically i have no idea what to do in phase 2 and advice ive seen so far has been vague.

im using the rakuyo btw

[DJFloppyFish]

Yeah, second phase orphan leaves very few opportunities to attack. I honestly haven't figured it out past engaging in something of a war of attrition, just getting little hits in as he recovers from his longer combos.

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

i think my problem with orphan is this: i can dodge him all day erryday, but when i try to attack him outside of the obvious backstab and parry opportunities in phase 1, i often get killed by a combo. basically i have no idea what to do in phase 2 and advice ive seen so far has been vague.

im using the rakuyo btw

still haven't beaten him, but gotten him below a quarter of healthbar several times and can beat the first phase without healing unless I fuck up.

Stuff I've learned:

Phase one: Dodging forward and left (his right, club hand) is almost always safe. Dodging back from any of his close combos is always safe -- but he will follow any of his one-handed overhead attacks (whether the single attack or in combo) with his dashing uppercut 100% of the time if you dodge back from it. This is pretty exploitable since it's very easy to parry. None of his combos are parryable after the first attack if you got hit. 4 hits for my weapon (buffed up one-handed LHB) will always stagger him, which you can get in to interrupt some combos if you dodge behind him.

[s0]

oh yeah i already have a reliable strat for phase 1. clawmark rune + viscerals means i don't have to use vials. it's phase 2 that worries me. i've been kinda doing the same thing as floppy. i also managed to parry him occasionally but idk about the timings and some of his attacks like the forward charge can almost 1shot me.

[DJFloppyFish]

not sure how much it will help you but I found I had a lot more luck in phase 2 by going out into the water. the extra space really helped me learn his charges/stupid projectiles and they give the player a surprising amount of room to move around out there.

[s0]

funny thing is, i actually found it easier to fight him on land so far, for 2 reasons:

1. there's an invisible wall in the water (not very elegant level design btw lol) and i can never remember where it starts so i often get backed against it by accident.

2. the scenery on land will often block his projectiles

[DJFloppyFish]

ah that makes sense, but I always panic dodge into those trees/rocks soo

also I noticed the level geometry on the shore being a little fucky, especially near Kos's hot bod

also also I just watched my fight with him in NG and I didn't heal in his 1st phase at all, but in his second phase I used 14 vials lololol

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

discovered his 2nd phase was staggerable/backstabbable, beat him, laurence, gerhman and moon presence R I P bloodborne.

[s0]

ya but WHEN do you backstab him? maybe im stupid but i can't see any real openings.

[Thomas Finch]

When I first started playing these games I was AWFUL. Like... died constantly, ran out of humanities/effigies, etc. I couldn't get past the Pursuer in DS2 (it was the first one I tried). So I'm very proud to say I think I've officially 'got gud'. I mean I had already become pretty decent by the time I beat DS1 and I was great by the time I beat DS2... but playing through Bloodborne I finally feel like I'm actually good at these games. I beat Ludwig on the second try with no summons and no idea what the fight was going to be like. My heart was pounding the whole time, but I kept dodging every attack perfectly. Not trying to brag or anything, but this is a proud moment for me guys...

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

Thomas cool! You did it! Beating bosses first/second try is so satisfying in bb, it almost always feels well earned even if the fight goes 'easily'.

ya but WHEN do you backstab him? maybe im stupid but i can't see any real openings.

He has pretty terrible tracking in phase 2, so dodging in with the intention of charging an attack is viable on almost everything he does. Aside from his long smash the ground combo, most of his melee attacks are super punishable, especially if you have a long range weapon (you can start charging attacks while standing safely out of the range of some of his closer sweeps.) His overhead slams, like the one at the end of his smash ground combo, are long enough to punish if you correctly identify which attack he's doing and dash + charge before he's finished it. On my most successful fights with him I started using charged r2s as my basic attack on him, always aiming for his side or 3/4ths, and ended up picking up some backstabs from it just cause of how he moves.

You don't need to move around that much to dodge most of his attacks -- usually one well placed dodge at the start and you're safe.

I've actually come around to really liking his design, although I don't usually appreciate Super Hard bosses. He's more like a lot of bigger dark souls bosses than he seems at first, it's really cool how it goes from being this unmanageable, fast, frenzied fight to something reasonably predictable where you can use slower attacks as you learn all of the dead spots of his attacks.

The elevator ride before him is bullshit tho considering how fast the fight can end.

[s0]

yeahh, i guess i move around and panic dodge too much. will try your tips and then REPORT BACK

i like his design too, i think he's much better than e.g. fume knight.

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

yeahh, i guess i move around and panic dodge too much. will try your tips and then REPORT BACK

ya I think he's intentionally designed to punish that --for example his phase 1 double 360 sweep basically only hits two places: backdodge range, and dodge behind him range. Everything else is almost completely a safe zone. All of the sweeps he follows up on knockdowns with will hit if you dodge any direction as soon as you can from getup, but are easily dodgeable if you wait just a little longer, etc. Plus his really high damage and fast windups naturally puts you into a panic mindset. Realizing i needed to slow down with him (but stay close) was the key to making progress.