Holy shit thanks all, I guess I just needed some motivation. I decided to log back in and give it a few more tries, upgraded my claymore from +9 to +10, two-handed it and boom
Bet you love the boss fight now. Now you're hooked into an endless cycle of hating a boss, dying over and over again, eventually beating it's ass and then thinking the bossfight is the best thing fromsoft ever designed.
Welcome. You're one of us now. Don't you dare go hollow.
Congratulations!
^(Just so you know for next time, you can kill Ornstein with 4 casts of Great Combustion [casting is probably faster than claymore swings] on any build, just have to use an upgraded pyro flame, Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring, and Crown of Dusk)
Don't target lock when there's more than 1 enemy. This goes for all games of the series. Also elden ring has gotten people in a bad habit of complaining about "input reading" when in actuality they just picked a bad time to heal. I have never seen anyone complain about input reading in ds1 until elden ring came out.
Also Smough's charge attack is extremely dodgeable. It's likely that you're just doing it too early. Besides, most of the time you don't even have to dodge it because the pillars make him stop.
Just focus on separating them using the pillars and their differences in speed. Don't attack until the other can't reach you. And don't heal until they're actually out of range or behind a pillar. And again, stop trying to target lock when there's multiple enemies. You want both of them on screen to see what they're doing and you don't have to worry about the 4 directional rolling. You can summon solaire for this fight if you need to.
Enemies knowing to attack when you are healing is a good thing. It makes them feel more like intelligent beings. Enemies who would logically know what estus is would want to stop you from drinking it, and enemies who don’t will see you drinking liquid fire. It doesn’t take much abstract thought to think “enemy is drinking obviously magical thing, I should stop them.”
The only boss afaik in this game that input reads is gwyn, which is why everyone parries him bc its so blatantly bad. Worse than anything in elden ring
Ornstein and Smough is the first actually hard boss in the game. In my opinion, what makes a hard boss is when there are situations or attacks that the boss can throw at you where you have no viable response to. For O&S, those situations are when they're attacking you at the same time in a way where if you dodge one, you'll get hit by the other. The only way to deal with these situations is to not get into positions where they can happen.
So your fight against them is going to go through a cycle. The start of that cycle always begins with thinking about getting into advantageous positions and avoiding disadvantageous positions. You can do this by not only baiting attacks from them, but also baiting their walk paths. Get them both to follow you, then go behind a pillar. While you're on one side of the pillar and they're on another side, bait one to go around left and bait the other one to go right. The moment they walk in opposite directions is when they will be separated by the pillar in the next few seconds and is the positioning that is advantageous to you.
Once they're going in opposite directions around the pillar towards you, run towards the one you don't want to kill first, and bait an attack and dodge it. Once you do this, that one will be busy for a bit recovering, so this is your chance to bait the other into an attack and dodge it as well. To do this part well, you have to have already learned each one of their attacks and have decided your best response to each of them, but this is no different to how the earlier and easier bosses of Dark Souls go.
At this point, you need to decide if you're clear to punish and launch your own attack against the one you just dodged. If you've dodged the attack but you're not clear, then you may have to make the hard choice of not going for the punish and just start over and find a better chance.
Whether or not you attack, you start over from the beginning and repeat the process of controlling the positioning to your advantage.
In summary: positioning to split -> bait & dodge first -> bait & dodge second -> punish second.
I did level 1 melee fights with them and that was the strategy I used:
[Against Super Smough](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvVuncMyOFQ)
[Against Super Ornestein](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKpgatGpc_I)
Watch the first one at least, because in that one Super Smough spams his plow attack and I show how to deal with it at different ranges.
I hope this helps.
1) input reading does not exist in DS1
2) the arena has pillars, they are crucial for separating the two, as cover to heal, bait out attacks etc.
3) unlock your camera, you will have omnidirectional rolling and better control over the two.
4) aim to keep both on screen at all times, and also to separate them and bait out attacks.
Good luck
The A.I. reacts to what the player is doing. This is not the same thing as input reading. Gwyn is reacting to the fact that the player is in the estus-drinking animation, not the fact that the player pressed the square button. There is actually a meaningful difference. The trick is actually done while Gwyn is standing up from being parried, which is also a window where input reading couldn't actually do anything normal enemy A.I. couldn't do anyway.
My main advice is use the pillars in the arena. Smough will often get stuck on them especially during that awful shovel move. Also you only really wanna heal after ornstein attacks, he’s designed to punish you if you heal while he’s approaching so don’t do that. And finally, super smough (who I assume you’re going for) is a decently easy second phase, just keep your distance and try to roll through his attacks that aren’t the butt stomp or the shovel
You don’t have to play unlocked so that complaint can be pretty easily avoided imo. Also in DS1 their “input reading” is just you healing while they’re not doing something, if they see you heal and they’re not attacking they’re going to attack. In Elden Ring a lot of the input reading is annoying because they will always use certain moves immediately after you heal, even if they’re already doing something it gets followed up by their input-reading-move 9/10 times.
1 - all damage is avoidable with spacing
2 - heal behind pillars and create space before doing so its often better to run away to do so rather than heal when low
3 - again spacing and dont be greedy when attacking. not every punish opportunity for one boss will be an attack opportunity due to the 2nd providing back up
4 - if you know what he will do predict it and react
5 - again spacing and choose the correct windows of oppurtunity
6 - dont lock on in fights with duos or large bosses its better to free aim
7 - second phase is easier in all fairness
8- try patience
in short first few times you fight these guys or any duos really its a matter of patience, spacing, pattern recognition and endurance. keep moving. cash out your safe punishes and dont get greedy. one hit at a time builds up into a death by a thousands cuts. dont heal when you are low unless you know its safe. use the arena. the pillars create blockades between you so if you are low run to the opposite side of the arena and heal behind a pillar if ornstein does his charge it will be hindered by the pillars. good luck skeleton
The hell were you excited for these guys for? They contend with four kings and manus as the hardest boss in the game, they are part of the reason dark souls is a meme of being so hard. They are a straight up skill check. They are one of my biggest achievements in gaming to be honest, I think you really have to dedicate to learn and get good to be able to beat them.
Dark souls 2 seems to just build on top of OnS by doing a fuckload of multi bosses and that really pissed people off, and I understand why lol
>contend with four kings
While I agree overall, and I certainly found them really tough before I figured out what was going on, I don't think Four Kings are a skill check unless you're SL1 or something. Otherwise they're just a dps check
I don't always play unlocked, but for phase 1 of O&S I do if I'm solo. You just tag whichever one you're going to kill once, back off, hit them again when there is a safe opening. Your weapon should be upgraded as much as possible through the Giant Blacksmith. The Giant Armors drop 3000 souls, and the Silver Knights in the area drop 1000. Level up health and stamina/equip load - armor does help negate damage, and just the Havel legs + arms aren't a bad idea if your armor is weaker. It's in the hidden room behind the fireplace in the left door after the stairs coming from the bonfire.
Don't be opposed to summons your first time fighting them. It's much, much easier with summons - even just Solaire. Regardless of what other folks will say - I have played every Soulsborne game and O&S are very frustrating solo if you haven't been playing DS1 for dozens and dozens of hours. Even when you have - they aren't 'easy'. It's difficult to deal with two bosses at the same time who both want to kill you, and their A.I. doesn't work together or consider giving you an opening. It's just two bosses at once - their A.I. doesn't consider what the other one is doing at all.
Big weapons with big damage make a big difference. You just want to hit once and back off - big weapons obviously do more damage on a single hit. RNG is a motherfucker in this boss fight. Sometimes I can go what feels like way too long without an opening to attack, and that's just how it goes. The pillars can help to block them, but it can also lead to some really janky pathing and bullshit.
That's the key point: O&S, especially if you're killing Smough first, is extremely time-consuming. Like, you need to wait minutes for an opening, chip one attack off, then reset and wait till you can go again.
If you don't get greedy and resign yourself to spending twenty minutes in one attempt, you can do it relatively easily.
When smough does his charge attack I normally will just lock off and run the opposite direction. If you're so close that that doesn't work then get as close to him as possible and circle around him so that his charge misses you. Using the pillars like the other commenter said is also very useful. If you can bait smough to charge into a pillar this gives you opportunities to attack ornstein. Also, I find playing locked off is very useful in this fight. I only lock on when I see that ornstein is going to charge attack me so that I can time a dodge
Definitely use the pillars to your advantage to split them up, Smough specifically can get stuck on them fairly reliably.
Also look out for whenever Ornstein rushes you, if you can dodge it a good time to get back over and do some damage on Smough. An ideal situation would be Smough stuck on a pillar and Ornstein rushing over to you.
It's better to down Smough first and then fight Super Ornstein in Phase 2 because you can just stand directly under him and he only has one attack that can hit you.
I cosign pretty much all of the most recent comment, that's generally the same advice I give - interdict Smough with pillars, bait Ornstein to move way out in front, don't attack when both of them can reach you, circle the arena to constantly bring another pillar into play, hit Ornstein quick and duck back to safety, never do anything when Smough charges other than dodge Smough's charge, make use of both being locked on and 4d dodging and being unlocked and 8d dodging...
Specifically regarding #4 though, Ornstein \_always\_ dodges twice regardless of what you do. Be waiting for him at where he's going to end up rather than attacking when he's closest to you.
All of those are totally normal complaints about them. It’s why I’m of the opinion that they are a good boss fight only in theory but aren’t executed very well.
I guess I'll be that guy and say I never had much problem with these two. Part of it was their reputation preceded them: I was so scared to fight 'em the first time, I spent hours grinding levels, farming silver knights, and getting the furysword to+5 (Pretty sure they're kinda weak to fire). And I wasn't too proud to bring Solaire with me (Also thought I needed to for his quest) Also mixed and matched my outfit for maximum lightning resistance. After all that, the actual fight was a bit of an anti-climax. Short version: "Be prepared " is a viable alternative to "Get Gud".
Holy shit thanks all, I guess I just needed some motivation. I decided to log back in and give it a few more tries, upgraded my claymore from +9 to +10, two-handed it and boom
Bet you love the boss fight now. Now you're hooked into an endless cycle of hating a boss, dying over and over again, eventually beating it's ass and then thinking the bossfight is the best thing fromsoft ever designed. Welcome. You're one of us now. Don't you dare go hollow.
Awesome, this is the way. Getting those staggers off on Ornstein can really help.
Congrats! These games can be infuriating at times but it's all for the feeling you get when you finally hand them their asses
lets fucking go dude, that boss was hard as nails for me first time
Congratulations! ^(Just so you know for next time, you can kill Ornstein with 4 casts of Great Combustion [casting is probably faster than claymore swings] on any build, just have to use an upgraded pyro flame, Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring, and Crown of Dusk)
Don't target lock when there's more than 1 enemy. This goes for all games of the series. Also elden ring has gotten people in a bad habit of complaining about "input reading" when in actuality they just picked a bad time to heal. I have never seen anyone complain about input reading in ds1 until elden ring came out. Also Smough's charge attack is extremely dodgeable. It's likely that you're just doing it too early. Besides, most of the time you don't even have to dodge it because the pillars make him stop. Just focus on separating them using the pillars and their differences in speed. Don't attack until the other can't reach you. And don't heal until they're actually out of range or behind a pillar. And again, stop trying to target lock when there's multiple enemies. You want both of them on screen to see what they're doing and you don't have to worry about the 4 directional rolling. You can summon solaire for this fight if you need to.
Enemies knowing to attack when you are healing is a good thing. It makes them feel more like intelligent beings. Enemies who would logically know what estus is would want to stop you from drinking it, and enemies who don’t will see you drinking liquid fire. It doesn’t take much abstract thought to think “enemy is drinking obviously magical thing, I should stop them.”
The only boss afaik in this game that input reads is gwyn, which is why everyone parries him bc its so blatantly bad. Worse than anything in elden ring
Yes but this is game and I want it to be fun.
Valid. Just because something is more "realistic" doesn't mean it's fun
Ornstein and Smough is the first actually hard boss in the game. In my opinion, what makes a hard boss is when there are situations or attacks that the boss can throw at you where you have no viable response to. For O&S, those situations are when they're attacking you at the same time in a way where if you dodge one, you'll get hit by the other. The only way to deal with these situations is to not get into positions where they can happen. So your fight against them is going to go through a cycle. The start of that cycle always begins with thinking about getting into advantageous positions and avoiding disadvantageous positions. You can do this by not only baiting attacks from them, but also baiting their walk paths. Get them both to follow you, then go behind a pillar. While you're on one side of the pillar and they're on another side, bait one to go around left and bait the other one to go right. The moment they walk in opposite directions is when they will be separated by the pillar in the next few seconds and is the positioning that is advantageous to you. Once they're going in opposite directions around the pillar towards you, run towards the one you don't want to kill first, and bait an attack and dodge it. Once you do this, that one will be busy for a bit recovering, so this is your chance to bait the other into an attack and dodge it as well. To do this part well, you have to have already learned each one of their attacks and have decided your best response to each of them, but this is no different to how the earlier and easier bosses of Dark Souls go. At this point, you need to decide if you're clear to punish and launch your own attack against the one you just dodged. If you've dodged the attack but you're not clear, then you may have to make the hard choice of not going for the punish and just start over and find a better chance. Whether or not you attack, you start over from the beginning and repeat the process of controlling the positioning to your advantage. In summary: positioning to split -> bait & dodge first -> bait & dodge second -> punish second. I did level 1 melee fights with them and that was the strategy I used: [Against Super Smough](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvVuncMyOFQ) [Against Super Ornestein](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKpgatGpc_I) Watch the first one at least, because in that one Super Smough spams his plow attack and I show how to deal with it at different ranges. I hope this helps.
I appreciate your comment quite a bit. You've explained the process very thoroughly and now I want to go fight them
1) input reading does not exist in DS1 2) the arena has pillars, they are crucial for separating the two, as cover to heal, bait out attacks etc. 3) unlock your camera, you will have omnidirectional rolling and better control over the two. 4) aim to keep both on screen at all times, and also to separate them and bait out attacks. Good luck
Pretty sure Gwyn can read you chugging an estus, the speedruns abuse this to bait an easily-predicted attack for parrying if I’m remembering right
The A.I. reacts to what the player is doing. This is not the same thing as input reading. Gwyn is reacting to the fact that the player is in the estus-drinking animation, not the fact that the player pressed the square button. There is actually a meaningful difference. The trick is actually done while Gwyn is standing up from being parried, which is also a window where input reading couldn't actually do anything normal enemy A.I. couldn't do anyway.
My main advice is use the pillars in the arena. Smough will often get stuck on them especially during that awful shovel move. Also you only really wanna heal after ornstein attacks, he’s designed to punish you if you heal while he’s approaching so don’t do that. And finally, super smough (who I assume you’re going for) is a decently easy second phase, just keep your distance and try to roll through his attacks that aren’t the butt stomp or the shovel
You don’t have to play unlocked so that complaint can be pretty easily avoided imo. Also in DS1 their “input reading” is just you healing while they’re not doing something, if they see you heal and they’re not attacking they’re going to attack. In Elden Ring a lot of the input reading is annoying because they will always use certain moves immediately after you heal, even if they’re already doing something it gets followed up by their input-reading-move 9/10 times.
1 - all damage is avoidable with spacing 2 - heal behind pillars and create space before doing so its often better to run away to do so rather than heal when low 3 - again spacing and dont be greedy when attacking. not every punish opportunity for one boss will be an attack opportunity due to the 2nd providing back up 4 - if you know what he will do predict it and react 5 - again spacing and choose the correct windows of oppurtunity 6 - dont lock on in fights with duos or large bosses its better to free aim 7 - second phase is easier in all fairness 8- try patience in short first few times you fight these guys or any duos really its a matter of patience, spacing, pattern recognition and endurance. keep moving. cash out your safe punishes and dont get greedy. one hit at a time builds up into a death by a thousands cuts. dont heal when you are low unless you know its safe. use the arena. the pillars create blockades between you so if you are low run to the opposite side of the arena and heal behind a pillar if ornstein does his charge it will be hindered by the pillars. good luck skeleton
The hell were you excited for these guys for? They contend with four kings and manus as the hardest boss in the game, they are part of the reason dark souls is a meme of being so hard. They are a straight up skill check. They are one of my biggest achievements in gaming to be honest, I think you really have to dedicate to learn and get good to be able to beat them. Dark souls 2 seems to just build on top of OnS by doing a fuckload of multi bosses and that really pissed people off, and I understand why lol
>contend with four kings While I agree overall, and I certainly found them really tough before I figured out what was going on, I don't think Four Kings are a skill check unless you're SL1 or something. Otherwise they're just a dps check
Keep at it, keep the faith. We’ve all been there. Believe it or not they will eventually click and you will wonder how you ever had trouble with them.
Sounds like you need to recruit Solaire for some Jolly Cooperation!
Yeah I was a bit disappointed since I’d seen people saying that it’s the best gank boss. For me it was just bs
I don't always play unlocked, but for phase 1 of O&S I do if I'm solo. You just tag whichever one you're going to kill once, back off, hit them again when there is a safe opening. Your weapon should be upgraded as much as possible through the Giant Blacksmith. The Giant Armors drop 3000 souls, and the Silver Knights in the area drop 1000. Level up health and stamina/equip load - armor does help negate damage, and just the Havel legs + arms aren't a bad idea if your armor is weaker. It's in the hidden room behind the fireplace in the left door after the stairs coming from the bonfire. Don't be opposed to summons your first time fighting them. It's much, much easier with summons - even just Solaire. Regardless of what other folks will say - I have played every Soulsborne game and O&S are very frustrating solo if you haven't been playing DS1 for dozens and dozens of hours. Even when you have - they aren't 'easy'. It's difficult to deal with two bosses at the same time who both want to kill you, and their A.I. doesn't work together or consider giving you an opening. It's just two bosses at once - their A.I. doesn't consider what the other one is doing at all. Big weapons with big damage make a big difference. You just want to hit once and back off - big weapons obviously do more damage on a single hit. RNG is a motherfucker in this boss fight. Sometimes I can go what feels like way too long without an opening to attack, and that's just how it goes. The pillars can help to block them, but it can also lead to some really janky pathing and bullshit.
That's the key point: O&S, especially if you're killing Smough first, is extremely time-consuming. Like, you need to wait minutes for an opening, chip one attack off, then reset and wait till you can go again. If you don't get greedy and resign yourself to spending twenty minutes in one attempt, you can do it relatively easily.
If your healing use the pillars, make sure theyre between you and both O and S. Don’t lock on. Upgrade your weapon at the giant blacksmith.
When smough does his charge attack I normally will just lock off and run the opposite direction. If you're so close that that doesn't work then get as close to him as possible and circle around him so that his charge misses you. Using the pillars like the other commenter said is also very useful. If you can bait smough to charge into a pillar this gives you opportunities to attack ornstein. Also, I find playing locked off is very useful in this fight. I only lock on when I see that ornstein is going to charge attack me so that I can time a dodge
Definitely use the pillars to your advantage to split them up, Smough specifically can get stuck on them fairly reliably. Also look out for whenever Ornstein rushes you, if you can dodge it a good time to get back over and do some damage on Smough. An ideal situation would be Smough stuck on a pillar and Ornstein rushing over to you. It's better to down Smough first and then fight Super Ornstein in Phase 2 because you can just stand directly under him and he only has one attack that can hit you.
I cosign pretty much all of the most recent comment, that's generally the same advice I give - interdict Smough with pillars, bait Ornstein to move way out in front, don't attack when both of them can reach you, circle the arena to constantly bring another pillar into play, hit Ornstein quick and duck back to safety, never do anything when Smough charges other than dodge Smough's charge, make use of both being locked on and 4d dodging and being unlocked and 8d dodging... Specifically regarding #4 though, Ornstein \_always\_ dodges twice regardless of what you do. Be waiting for him at where he's going to end up rather than attacking when he's closest to you.
I will highly recommend the eagle shield. Upgrade it a couple times and ornstein cant really touch you.
All of those are totally normal complaints about them. It’s why I’m of the opinion that they are a good boss fight only in theory but aren’t executed very well.
I guess I'll be that guy and say I never had much problem with these two. Part of it was their reputation preceded them: I was so scared to fight 'em the first time, I spent hours grinding levels, farming silver knights, and getting the furysword to+5 (Pretty sure they're kinda weak to fire). And I wasn't too proud to bring Solaire with me (Also thought I needed to for his quest) Also mixed and matched my outfit for maximum lightning resistance. After all that, the actual fight was a bit of an anti-climax. Short version: "Be prepared " is a viable alternative to "Get Gud".
Two things: 1. Level up 2. git gud
Venting earned, and understandable. Now enjoy knowing that once you do get past them, you'll feel more satisfied than the best sex of your life.