Bloodborne Boss Rundown, Parts 3 & 4

Stuffed to the brim with bosses!

     I got kind of behind on the boss posts, so I'm going to roll up last week's with some of this week's. This is gonna be a lengthy post, so buckle in, grab some coffee (or beer), and get ready to vicariously experience thrilling boss fights through the eyes (words) of yours truly.

Maneater Boar

 

 

    Super easy. By far the easiest boss in the game. I almost think the Chalice Dungeon bosses should be in their own category. Maybe at a later date I'll split the regular bosses and the Dungeon bosses. I even hesitate to call this a true boss, but it has a health bar and a unique name, so a boss he is.
    This boss is identical to the pig enemies that are found throughout the game. Right down to their attacks and even look.

Sorry to disappoint anyone that was expecting a Demon's Souls Maneater/Dark Souls Armored Boar clash-up boss

He's really lovable

    If you are far away, he'll charge. You can dodge to the left or right to avoid this. If you go on his side, he kind of rears his head around and hits you. If you stand directly behind him, he'll kick you with his back legs. All you have to do is get on his side and slash away. Even if he hits you, it isn't going to do much damage. He will do another attack where he lands on his belly, and this gives you ample time to hack away. He doesn't have much health either, so this should be a short two minute battle. Really, if you need help with Maneater Boar (at least in this current situation), maybe you've chosen the wrong game to play


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 Vicar Amelia

 

 

    As I’ve mentioned, even though I’ve been reading a decent amount about this game online (almost all strictly online forums over at Giant Bomb. Anyone that is interested in reading/discussing this game should head over there), I’ve spoiled very little for myself. I’m 21+ hours in, and I still have no idea what’s coming, in terms of story, enemies, bosses, levels (design and aesthetics) , loot, or anything like that. During some of my browsing, I had come upon the name of a boss that seemed to be giving people a real problem. This boss was Vicar Amelia. Suffice to say, I was nervous to fight her when I finally found her. Does she live up to the reputation I had seen online previous to encountering her? Read on to find out.
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    In a word: no. At least not for me. Not counting my very first encounter when all I was doing was taking screenshots (I never counted my screenshot-taking-attempts as actual deaths) and not attacking or learning her attacks, I didn’t die to Amelia. I killed her my first try. Not that she was an easy boss necessarily, but she was one that I was fairly well adept at fighting. Sort of like the Cleric Beast.

    When you walk into the large room where you eventually fight her, you see a lady clad in white robes. She’s praying, or so it seems, at some kind of altar. She’s clutching a gold pendant. She then transforms (off screen, unfortunately) into the beast you fight for the battle. First off, I think Amelia looks great. Pretty unique for a “Souls” game. She’s a large, white, hairy deer-like monster. Her hair is long and flow-y and it might even be patchy. Like, it’s not full coverage. Her neck is also elongated. Overall, very sinister. I might have said the Undead Giant was my favorite boss design, but I think we have a new champion with Amelia. I have a feeling that’ll probably change several more times as I find more bosses.

From the cut scene, right before the battle starts

    This battle isn’t terribly different than some of the other big beast battles. Amelia will hop around the large room and swipe with her claws. She can do some damage if you get caught in one of her longer combos, but she doesn’t seem to do this as much. She can also leap across the room to attack. Finally, she’ll slam her fists onto the ground in front of her, causing a massive smoke cloud to shoot out. Most of her attacks are easy to dodge by, well, being locked on and strafing/dashing. The timing is pretty easy to get down on her, I thought.

     However, when she gets down to a certain amount of health, she will stop and heal herself pretty substantially. This is something I saw on the forums that people really had a tough time with. I didn’t, mainly because she only used this once, and I punished her for it. See, she stands still for several seconds while healing, and this is a great opportunity to whale on her. So that’s what I did, and I think it interrupted her healing. After this, I fought her normally as I had, and she didn’t try healing again.

Never stops smiling though.

    Besides the healing aspect, which seems to be the focus of the misery that a lot of people are facing, this is a pretty basic Bloodborne boss battle. I really would love to write more about it, because if I think back to my Dark Souls II boss posts, almost all those were pretty long. Not that I need to compare those posts to these ones of course. I’m a little more crunched for time to do these. It’s self-imposed, but I still feel it. Right now, as I sit on my lunch break on April 6, I have my newest Diary write-up to finish, plus last week’s Boss Rundown to start-and-finish (which you are currently reading but which is also currently not finished. Aah, the magic of the written word. Stephen King likened it to time travel once I think. That’s a perfect way to describe it) [let me but in with an AUTHOR'S NOTE: As stated above, I'm smashing the two Boss posts into this one here. I want to keep that dumb parenthetical line though], PLUS notes for the next Boss Rundown to start. Yikes. That’s a lot of shit. It’s tough trying to get essentially four posts a week about this game up. Tough, but fun, and it’s something I really enjoy doing. I hope you Bloodborne fans enjoy reading it all half as much as I enjoy writing it. Shift your eyes down ever-so-slightly to read the next boss account!


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Witch of Hemwick

 

 

    At the end of the small-ish Hemwich Charnel Lane area is this peculiar, yet easy, boss fight. The arena is small, but that isn't a problem. There's a ground floor plus some ramps that allow you to get off the ground.
     The fight starts with one enemy (called a Soot Monster. I believe they appear somewhere in that general area too. They are black, tall, lanky, and they carry a scythe) being summoned from the ground.

These are the Soot Monsters. I didn't realize that they actually are made of Soot

    I wasn't sure exactly what the battle was about at this point, so I killed the monster. Another one spawned, and I killed him. A few more spawned, and it was then that I realize there was someone orchestrating the spawning: the Witch of Hemwick. It's pretty hard to see exactly what she looks like when you fight her, since she is small and turns invisible, but if you look at a wiki, you can see she's a very decrepit, hunched-over lady with eyeballs all over her body. She looks grotesque and great. So here's how the battle plays out: she appears and disappears, and she'll continue summoning the monsters for you to deal with. The monsters don't count towards the Witch's health, so your main concern should be finding the Witch and whooping her ass. You can find her easily enough by either just running near her (she becomes visible if you are close to her) or seeing her red glow when she's summoning the monsters. Once you've located her, just whale on her until she disappears. She'll re-appear somewhere else. At the beginning of the battle, I fought the monsters, but after I bit I basically ignored them, unless they really got in my way.

Peek-a-boo!

    When I killed the Witch, another one appeared! I don't know if she appears after the first one dies or if she's on a timer and I just very coincidentally killed the first at the right time. At any rate, the second one is the same as the first, except she has a ranged magic (magic!!??) attack. Kind of like the old homing soul spear spells. They are easy enough to dodge though. She will also revive the other Witch with about a quarter-or-so of her health back. Even with two of them alive, it's an easy fight. Just avoid those monsters, find the Witch(es), and take them to task. Two final notes: I don't know if there is a max number of those monsters they can summon, but I don't think I saw more than three at a time. Secondly, I don't know what the deal is with the second Witch. Is it like her sister? Is it the same Witch? Or most likely it's another witch, but they all have the names, "Witch of Hemwick".

Best picture of her eyeball coat

    The best part of this battle is after its done. You can go into a small room that has a tool that allows you to use Runes finally! I was very excited by this, because I had been wondering about it for some time. I only had one Rune to use, but it's still great to open up another well of possibilities for your character (plus there will obviously be some awesome Runes out there).


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Watchdog of the Old Lords

 

 

    This is the boss to the third Layer of the first Pthumeru Chalice Dungeon. He's a giant dog engulfed in flames, basically. He shares similarities with a dog, although I think he has some lizard qualities as well. He has an almost-Mohawk which is pretty cool too. As far as dogs go though, he's no Sif (close enough) or Royal Rat Authority, that's for sure. And also his whole body isn't flaming, only parts. It makes him look better I think. If he was totally engulfed in flames, I think he'd like like a big orange blur. And what fun is that?

Eh, make up your own caption!

    He uses a variety of attacks, as you would imagine. He will snap at you with his mouth. He can do this from either left to right, or right to left. He will shoot fire, almost like a flamethrower, out of his mouth. This has a very short range, as he only does it to his immediate front. He can also stop and throw up a large amount of lava (very reminiscent of Quelaag's lava attack). He will also generally jump and hop around the arena. Also, he can swipe with his front paws. This hurts, but it will leave some flames in its wake. He can charge ahead, leading with his head. Finally (maybe not finally. Like a dumb asshole, I didn't write any notes down for this boss, so I'm using a combination of my memory and YouTube to compile this. So maybe he has more attacks. Whatevs) he will use an area-of-effect fire explosion thing if you stand next to him for too long. He telegraphs this by stopping and shortly gathering some energy.

After a night of heavy drinking

    In the end, he took me five or six tries I believe. He was hard, but nothing out of the ordinary. It wasn't a frustrating battle either, which I was happy about. How did I beat him, you might be wondering? If you are wondering that, well you're in the right place! If you don't care, well, what the hell are you doing here? Get out!
    I did use some bolt paper throughout my several attempts, but I don't even remember if I used it when I killed him [author's note: I did]. I might have, but it isn't necessary at all. The damage increase is close to negligible. I would generally lock on to him and dodge to his side when he swung his head to bite (this seems to be his most prominent attack). On his side you can get some good hits in. I would also wait until he did the lava throw up attack, because this animation is protracted and drawn out. It's a good time to get a nice charge attack in. Be careful, because this seems to be when he loves to do that AOE explosion. I got caught in it several times.

See? Lizard features!

    That's basically all I did to achieve victory. I thought that being on his side/behind him was the best place to be, but I've watched a few videos online, and it seems there's a better (albeit more lengthy) strategy: stand in front of his face, and he'll continually try to bite with his mouth. If you are out of range, he'll snap at you, but miss. Then you have a chance to hit his face once, before he attacks again. He doesn't totally stay in this pattern, but if you're having a problem with the battle, this could help.
     For beating this boss, you get the Chalice for the next Pthumeru Dungeon.


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Shadows of Yharnam

 

 

    [Author's note: please excuse the overabundance of the term, "fireball guy" or any variations thereof]
    This is an interesting boss battle. It's at the end area of Forbidden Woods (which can be accessed very easily and quickly from the Lantern once a few elevator shortcuts are unlocked). You step into a large, mostly open outdoor area. Three black-robed figures run towards you. And they are not happy to see you, no siree.

U mad bro(s)?

 
    These are three humans (I guess? Who knows what's under those robes?) wearing what resembles the Gold Hemmed Black Set from the original Dark Souls. They look pretty cool to me, and pretty mysterious. Each one has a different weapon/attack method: one has two katanas (so nice to see these swords! Makes me yearn for katanas!); one has a katana and a candle that he blows fire from (essentially a flamethrower); finally the last one hangs back and shoots three fireballs at you. I'm not sure if this guy has a melee attack. The two with swords are pretty aggressive too.
    Too start this battle, I went after the fireball shooter. I figured he would be the biggest pain. Luckily none of these three have a huge amount of health. I just went up to fireball caster and whale on him. Be mindful of where the other two are, but in general fighting toe-to-toe with Fireball Joe here (note: may not be his actual name) is pretty easy. However, things get decidedly less easy soon.
    On my first attempt, once I got that fireball guy down to a quarter health, he sprouts some snakes (or what I can only assume are snakes) out of his chest. In fact, all three sprout these strange snakes. Also, the one that uses his candle as a flamethrower gets a flaming sword.

Fire sword and snakes

    Shortly after, I bombarded the fireball guy and killed him. So now there were two Shadows left, both with snakes sticking out of their chests. Besides their normal attacks (sword slashes and that flamethrower) they can now attack straight ahead with their snakes. The snakes strike out like their own melee weapons (kind of reminds me of Kratos's blades from God of War). These snake attacks have a CRAZY long range. You think you're out of range, but bam! You still get hit. Luckily, the attacks aren't mega powerful.

Great (fire)balls of fire(balls)!

    On my first attempt I died shortly after taking out the fireball guy. For my subsequent attempts, instead of focusing on that fireball guy, I decided to equally attack all three. So when the first "snake part" happens, the other two have half health or less. Once you kill two of the Shadows, the final one summons two HUGE snakes from the ground. They burst through the earth and try to attack you. Luckily, they only stay up for a second or two before going back down. They are easy to avoid too, because they can be run from.

    So basically, my winning plan was: focus on fireball guy while still dealing damage to the other two (two handed charge attack of the Hunter's Axe does wonders here). Once he's dead, focus on the dual-katana guy (get some hits on the other if you can). Finally, obviously take out the remaining one. All of their attacks can be easily dodged and the katana guys can be pretty easily parried.  I didn't have a huge problem with these guys, but they can be tricky. I actually really like this battle a lot too, because it's pretty unique and interesting. I'm continually impressed with the boss battles in this game so far. Most have been either easy or middling-hard, but I don't care. I was one to defend Dark Souls II and its glut of bosses, but these ones are definitely better so far, in comparison.


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Rom, the Vacuous Spider

     What a crazy boss battle this is. After I get done talking about how the Shadows above are "pretty unique and interesting", Rom comes in and blasts them off the "unique boss map", as it were. Once you get through Byrgenwerth and get through the college, you need to jump into the idyllic lake that stands near the college. Instead of dying you'll fall through the water and land in an area very reminiscent of Ash Lake from Dark Souls. It's all water. It's damn breathtaking. But off in the distance you see some thing, and it's tough to tell exactly what until you get closer.

I know I used this pic in my recent Diary post, and I hate reusing pics, but this one is too good not to

    As you can see in the picture above, this is basically the scene as soon as you land. You orient yourself and you see this big giant rock-looking thing in the distance. Since there isn't anything else to do in this area, you might as well go up to it.

Up close and personal. What the hell?

    It's completely passive to you. It doesn't acknowledge you at all. It's up to you to take the first swing. Once you hit it, its name and health bar appear. Soon after this, Rom calls down a hell storm of spiders onto you. Check it out (those with arachnophobia should perhaps not?):

Yikes.

     I usually don't like to blow my load of pictures so soon (ew, sorry), but these all serve a better purpose in the beginning of the post compared to the end. Once the spiders come down, the battle can really start. First of all, both Rom and all the spiders have stone-hard faces. They take very little damage from the front. So to kill the spiders you have to go around to their sides/back. Then, one heavy attack should kill them (did for me anyway). For Rom, you also have to go to his side. His side is quite a bit bigger so it's easier to position yourself over there.
    This battle kind of has three phases. First off, he calls down the spiders. You can either fight them or ignore them and just deal damage to Rom. In the end I decided to ignore a large number of them, but they are very dangerous. Don't let their size fool you, because they can, and will, one-shot you. I died a handful of times by a spider's attack. With full health, mind you. But you can either spend time killing all the spiders, or ignore them and attack Rom. At this point, he doesn't have any kind of attacks. He just moves around. It's pretty easy to get some good damage on him (that damn charged R2 attack of the long Axe does wonders against Rom). Once he's taken a good amount of damage (probably a third of his health is depleted), he disappears, only to re-appear further away.
    At his new spot, he'll call down more spiders to fight for him. He's not so content to just sit by anymore, so now he can actually harm you. He can shoot large blue crystals that come down from the sky. They are tough to dodge. He will also call up those same blue crystals from the water. They jut up to hit you. These are very easy to dodge because you can see where they are gonna come from before they arrive. I believe he only does this attack if you get close to him. When he starts casting these spells, the battle becomes much harder. Besides having to just dodge (or again, kill. Too time consuming though) those spiders, you have to be aware of the magic he attacks with. After dealing more damage to him, he'll disappear a final time.
    Run to his new area, but be mindful of the magic he has. He'll again call down spiders, but he also has a few new tricks up his sleeve. Firstly, he can thrash his head around to hit you if you're near it. He also has an area-of-effect spell that can hurt. These, on top of his spells and the spiders, make the final "phase" of the battle pretty tough. Luckily by this time he shouldn't have much health left, and a few of those charged attacks should do him in.
    My strategy was to largely ignore the spiders and just whale on Rom. I would kill any spiders that directly interfered, but I left them untouched. You really need to keep your head on a swivel in this battle. The spiders, besides hitting you with their legs, will also jump and land on you.
    On my successful attempt, I summoned in help from my friend Joseph. As in other Souls games, when you summon help, the boss's stats are buffed. So Rom had more health than usual. My co-op buddy was killed pretty quickly (read the account of that here. Scroll to the bottom), so I had to do the fight by myself, with the buffed stats. I considered not even bothering with this attempt, but then I thought, "I might as well just ride it out." Amazingly, I beat him this try. I was pretty pleased.
    This boss, it seems, has some bigger story implications. I honestly have no idea what these are. I have only the vaguest grasp of the story as it is. That's not something I'm gonna worry about until I beat the game at least.


    That's is folks! I know it's taken forever, and this post (along with my diary post) is super long. I got behind. Hopefully it won't happen again. I did fight another boss in this time, but he was a pathetic Chalice Dungeon boss. I'll include him first in the next Boss Rundown post. Thanks for reading and catch y'all soon. Time to get some Cool Ranch Doritos.