Dark Souls III

Don't lock the camera on and wait for it to do the horizontal fire sweep. Tends to be a sure fire way to get the first half done; never found redoing that part too bad.

Two-handing doesn't do more damage by default in 3 the way it did in 1, so you only get the 50% bonus from strength scaling. You still pay the extra stamina cost, though, so it's usually better to just one-hand a weapon even if your shield is useless.

Huh, didn't realize that. Oh well, back to not two handing then.

Finished my replay of the game. Gael was so much easier for me to beat then Friede or the Champion Gravetender were. Felt so much nicer a fight too though because of his phases not having separate health bars. Went and beat the Soul of Cinder, then had the Firekeeper extinguish the Flame. Hadn't done that ending yet.

Depends on the weapon scaling and if you need that off-hand for something else, obviously. And movesets. Parrying isn't really a PvE concern.

I always found Friede to be the worst boss, largely because of that second phase.

Two-handing confers different benefits based on the weapons in the third game. Naturally, STR-scaling weapons gain the most damage bonus. I know that ultra weapons can't be parried when wielded two-handed, and have more poise. I think two-handing greatswords and halberds also give you poise that you don't normally get when one-handing them.

All other weapons the changes are strictly moveset-related, though generally anything that isn't a massive weapon is better one-handed, unless we're talking weapons like paired weapons. I think the only weapon I will ever two-hand regularly is the Sellsword Twinblades.

I didn't find phase 2 very hard, more just annoying because I'd need Gael to distract to handle the two of them enough that I could be incredibly aggressive attacking.

Learning phase 3 was such a pain because of how long it would me to get there. I'd often not last very long to get used to her attacks because of mistakes in the earlier phases. Really wished it would save on the third phase so to not have to redo the last two. Or not even get to phase 2 when I mess up with her invisibility.

I'd been two handing the Washing Pole. But I only have the minimum strength needed and don't really prefer the slightly different moves over the other.

I keep trying to avoid using Gael for the fight.

x5 I think you might be the first person I've ever seen say that Gael is easier than the Gravetender.

Also, Friede made me cry. I'd rather go back and face the Demon of Hatred in Sekiro without any Emblems than fight her solo ever again.

Man, looking forwards to fighting some of these bosses when I get back to trying to polish off DS 3.

Count me as someone who also summoned Gael for Freide. I did it for the same reasons as doineedaname described.

Yeah, my thoughts on Friede are similar as well. She definitely wouldn't be so much of a pain if she didn't take so goddamn long to fight. Any two of her three phases put together would be fine (although I do wish her invisibility had a decent tell- it took me like a dozen tries or more to figure out how to properly read the snow plumes, and even then they weren't particularly helpful), but all three in a row is just way too much of an endurance match, and phase three's attacks in particular are annoying enough to learn already.

Edited by EndlessSea on Oct 5th 2020 at 2:13:47 AM

Gravetender kept being a colossal pain purely because of the shield giving me a hard time killing them fast. I'd so often go for an attack at the same time and then see the Washing Pole ding off it, getting me hit when I failed to hit and stagger. Then end up with both at once.

It's not so much that it was harder a fight, but that it took more attempts and was way more annoying to deal with since I'm terrible at the shield kick. Whereas Gael I've gotten so used to rolling that I just need to get a hang of the timing and his hardest hitting attacks weren't the worst for me to dodge.

Edited by doineedaname on Oct 5th 2020 at 4:26:10 AM

Oh, yeah, screw the kick in Dark Souls III. It'd be super useful if it actually came out with any sort of consistency, but it just refuses to read inputs correctly, and half the time they come out right when my opponent is lowering its shield anyways so I don't even get much of an opening.

I like the atmosphere and lore of the Friede fight a lot, but I agree three stages was way too much. To me, the main problem is the second one - it just takes an eternity to get past and it's also not fun to fight.

Having to go through the second stage every time means it takes way longer to get used to the third stage. Which is the one with the really nasty attacks rather than just chaotic ganking.

The only real way I found to deal with the third stage (especially given the amount of time it takes to get there) is to stay as far away from her as possible and only chip her when it's absolutely safe.

I'm not gonna lie, I felt a relief like no other when I finally beat her.

This is immensely satisfying to watch after all the pain I've gone through to kill her.

That do be how it is sometimes. :D

Edited by doineedaname on Oct 14th 2020 at 9:06:10 AM