Belfrey Gargoyles (pt. 1)

...or, UUUUGGGH

(this doesn't follow the end of my Dragonrider post, where I teased Pursuer. I meant to have that one next, but I couldn’t resist putting this one first. Pursuer should be tomorrow)

    You've just fought through a small secret area (which you gained access to with the cool Pharos Lockstone) filled with strange, black (phantom? I don't think so, but that's what they look like) dwarves and invading gray phantoms (part of the Bell Keeper Covenant I have since found out from joining it myself), and now you stand in front of a fog gate. Boss imminent? Oh, most certainly.
    You walk through, and immediately you're met with a sense of nostalgia. You're on a rooftop. This sure looks familiar, you think to yourself. Then you see the name at the bottom of the screen, over the health meter: "Belfry Gargoyle". Flashbacks of the painful Bell Gargoyles fight from Dark Souls rush back to you now. Okay, another Bell Gargoyle fight, you might think to yourself. I mean, no HUGE deal right? They were tough, but certainly manageable.
    You see the first Gargoyle hop down from his platform, and the battle is on. You go in closer, annoyed that you can't immediately lock on. About five seconds after the first one hops down, a second Gargoyle swoops down behind you (and perhaps catches you off guard, especially if this is your first time fighting them). You circle around and get both of them in front of you. Okay, two Gargoyles, not a huge deal. Didn't we just recently beat THREE Sentinels?
    You start fighting away at these two, carefully keeping them in front of you, and noticing thankfully they share one health bar (like the Four Kings from Dark Soul–more on them in a bit.). This ultimately doesn't matter though. A little bit into this battle, a THIRD Gargoyle hops down to join in on the fun. Well, you think to yourself, now a little more than weary, that's certainly different than the Dark Souls battle. Luckily, one of the first two is most likely almost dead, so you can quickly bring this back to a 2-on-1. Or you could, if he wasn't cowardly hiding behind the other two, breathing all matter of hellfire at you. But you're resilient, and you carefully block and roll around, whittling away at the health of the other two, while the first still blows fire right up your ass. Pretty tough, but as soon as you get that fire breather dead, this will be...oh hell, what's that noise from behind you? Oh, just a FOURTH Gargoyle joining the battle. Hip-hip-hooray!
    And at this point, you've either been killed, or you managed to kill one of the first three, bringing this back to a "manageable" 3-on-1. I'm not sure how many can gang up on you at once, I never saw more than four, but I imagine if you don't kill them fast enough, they just keep joining. And that's the real issue with this battle, you gotta do it fast. Well, fast-ish. First, let me go back to the Four Kings battle. I'd feel no embarrassment saying this Belfry Gargoyle battle is more difficult than Four Kings. The mechanic is similar (IE, one shared life bar, and enemies appearing after a certain amount of time), but I never had a HUGE problem with the Kings. I could run up to the first one and slap him around good enough, so when the second one appeared, the first was either dead, or almost dead. I withstood their attacks well. But these Gargoyle assholes? I died 17 (SEVENTEEN!!!) times last night fighting them. I don't think, over my two main characters and 200+ hours with Dark Souls, I died 17 times to the Four Kings (even through NG+ and beyond).
    Now, the fast aspect. I basically start the battle by getting one or two hits in on the first Gargoyle, then becoming super defensive and hiding behind my shield while I either strafe around or straight up run to the other end of the rooftop. So I'm taking this battle very slowly, patiently, methodically. The Gargoyles will have none of that. The window to attack these guys is razor thin, too, so that doesn't help. It adds to my being slow. I'm sure there are players who can take the first two Gargoyles out before the third enters (that's impressive, the third one comes in after a minute, maybe less), but I certainly can't. Luckily I'm rocking a Halbred +4, and it has a crazy good reach. I can stay just out of reach of their short weapons (more on those very soon) and get in an attack, then roll back to get my bearings. It's gonna be a slow war to take these guys down.
    I'd like to quickly describe the general look of these guys. Firstly, THANK GOD THEY AREN'T VAGUELY HUMAN KNIGHTS! These Belfry Gargoyles look more like stone Gargoyles than the Bell ones in Dark Souls. The ones in the first game look more like actual creatures (they have axe-tails and shields, I feel this supports the creature look) as opposed to statues that have come to life. Also, they (Bell G's) have some color. The Belfry counterparts are a stony gray color, and, well, look like stone. They are basically one uniform color. They have a strange weapon, one which I can only describe as a short, two-pronged speared. It seems more ornamental than an actual weapon (lending creedance to the fact that these guys are/were statues). They can attack with their tails, and they have that lovely fire-breath when their health gets low enough. They have a seldom-used lighting attack, which I think is a small AOE deal.
    Finally, I've decided I'm beating these guys alone. Solo. I'm not summoning anyone to help (to make up for my previous two summons for bosses I probably didn't need them for). I want to prove to myself I can take them down alone. It goes without saying (and I'll stop saying it soon) that summoning one or two other phantoms will make this battle IMMENSELY easier (but still no cakewalk). I did put some summon signs down last night, and I was helping one guy, and we got them down to probably 20% health left, maybe only two Gargoyles left, and the guy died. I was heartbroken, and it wasn't even my game. He must have been pissed. Another good thing about this battle? The trip from the bonfire to the fog gate is super short. Takes maybe 30 seconds, and the small amount of enemies can all easily be avoided.
    That's all I have for now. As a note, I'm putting these posts up in the order I beat the bosses, with this exception. I don’t have these guys beat, and I have three others beat I can write about, but I thought my experiences last night should immediately be typed out. I'll make another post when I take theses guys down. Tonight, maybe? For you keeping track at home, I've died 18 times to them so far.

To be continued...