Ancient Dragon

King of the one-shot kills!

    This was the boss battle I was most worried about. From reading on forums, I thought this would be the one boss I just couldn't beat. Or it would take endless attempts. In actuality, it took only (I use the term loosely here) thirteen attempts, and twelve deaths, to take this behemoth of a dragon down. You first meet this dragon towards the end of the game. You talk to him (telepathically I guess?), and he gives you the ashen mist heart, which allows you to enter the Giant and Dragon Memories. After that, you're free to aggro him. I would suggest doing it in the end game, before starting NG+.
    This boss is tough for one simple reason: that fucking flying fire breath bullshit! It'll kill you. And kill you. Aaaand kill you. Blah blah, you get it. It one-shotted me. Every. Single. Time. I'm not sure it's possible to survive his fire breath attack. Other than that tiny little detail, this fight is eazee peazee!
    First off, you fight him on a HUGE outdoor platform. It's gotta be the largest boss area in the game. The Ancient Dragon himself thankfully looks way cooler than the normal red dragons flying around (not that they look bad, just bland). Ancient Dragon, besides being completely, absolutely fucking huge (seriously, probably at least three times the size of the Guardian Dragon), is a gross, brown color. He just looks old and withered, yet full of wisdom. Too bad it's not even a real dragon. As far as moves for this bastard, he has a few, but really, like I said, only one to be worried about. If you're directly in front of him, but kinda far off, he'll shoot fire from his mouth. He shoots it in a wide arc in front of him. Very easy to dodge, just run to his side. This is important, and it's integral to the strategy to take him down.

Before you aggro him...

     If you're closer to his face, he has a biting attack. I only saw him do this once, so it doesn't seem to be terribly common. If you stick around his back feet, he'll stomp those, similar to the Guardian Dragon. And finally, yes, the flying fire breath. Similar to the one he uses to sweep in front of him, but this one he flies up in the air, and breaths down hellfire in an AMAZINGLY large area underneath him. If you are anywhere close to him when he does this, you're dead. Simple as that. One goddamn hit. Souls games are always very fair about bosses not being able to one-shot you. Try to think of other bosses, from any of the games, that can do this. Unless you are severely under-levelled, it basically doesn't happen (recently defeated Vendricks does spring to mind, but he wasn't a one-shot machine). Ancient Dragon almost exclusively one-shot-kills you. If he was a required boss, I think this would be problematic. Seeing as how he's optional, I don't mind it. And he's still not the hardest boss in the game anyway.
    This is an annoying battle no matter how you cut it. The strategy I used worked pretty well once I got the pattern down, but it was time consuming. My sword was doing puny damage, but I just had to deal with that. One final note, the run-up to the boss is annoying too. You have to run through (or fight, but this would be super time consuming to do every time) I believe nine of those big Drake Keeper knights, one magic-wielding priestess, and four gold-clad agile knights (that remind me of Yurt from Demon's Souls, or Lautrec from Dark Souls). They can be run past, usually with no damage taken, but I did get killed a few times because I got caught in a group of them.

He's truly large

    My strategy, which is the generally accepted one I believe, was to get in front of the dragon, and bait him into his normal fire breath attack. This allowed me to get to his front foot and get in between 3 to 5 hits. After that, I walked (don't run yet, save that stamina) away from him, and waited for his flying breath attack. The split-second he starts this, I hauled ass in the other direction, towards the edge of the platform. I was unscathed. He'll eventually end this, and land again. Now, I ran back to him, directly in front of him, to bait the ground-level fire breath. When he did, it was time to get a few more attacks in on his foot. Then I walked away, waited for the signal, and ran like mad again. Rinse and repeat for quite a long time (dude has a crazy amount of health). If done correctly, you can dodge his first fire attack, hit him, run from his flying fire, avoid the regular fire, and keep him in this pattern.
    It sounds easy, but it truly isn't. Remember, one hit and you're dead. No if's, and's, or but's. So you gotta be careful. Eventually you can settle into a nice routine, but I was still tense and nervous for the whole battle. But, for this reason, I didn't bother with any armor, and I unequipped my shield, to get my stamina recovery to be juuuust a bit faster. You could use the Red Tearstone Ring too, for a little extra damage. Ultimately, this boss took me about 30 tries less than I was expecting. From everything I read, I was expecting this battle to be total hell, and for it to take me literally days and days. It was pretty hard, but Smelter, Lost Sinner, Darklurker, and the Throne knights were definitely harder. Just don't get too scared before you go in. You'll get killed a bunch, but you should be able get through it!

This is what I looked like after victory!

Times I died: 12
Difficulty: 9/10
Rating: 8/10

Up next, we have the final boss of my NG playthrough. Join me for a ridiculously tough boss battle, in the very depths of Darkness itself.

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BOSS SOUL DESCRIPTION: "Soul of the great ancient dragon that stands magnificently, deep within the shrine; This powerful being stands and waits, for whoever may visit him; Use the dragon soul, created by those who peered into the essence of the soul..."