Not really a secret. He's weak to lightning and there is a powder you can find right before him that adds temporary lightning damage to your sword. The game never gives you indication he's weak to it, but that powder wrecks him. In all the speedruns that actually play the game (like all boss runs or glitch less runs) that's the strat. It's cool because anyone can do it and it requires nothing but grabbing the item and thinking to apply it right when the fight starts. The game is FULL of stuff like that
Still, I have the same critique about the combat mechanics themselves. That sounds like a clever secret, but I'm more complaining about the fact that you can't dive in to stuff, barely dodge, or keep something stunned etc, and come out better for it. Or at least that's what the first few hours of the game tell you. You're waiting like 10 seconds for some guy to open himself up, hitting him ONE time, and then waiting again. The game seems to punish you for trying not to being really goddamn bored.
That's a fair criticism. I think that what folks miss (and/or just straight up don't like, which is totally fair) is that none of the souls games are HARD per se, but they do absolutely require you to learn the patterns of enemies and bosses AND learn the patterns of whatever playstyle you want to use. All playstyles are effective against all bosses (although of course some will be easier than others depending on what you do), but the key to "getting gud" is to learn the patterns. Every boss has tells for what they're going to do and a very limited moveset....I think most bosses have only like 5 total things they can do and they're all telegraphed. The first thing you must do is learn that moveset and the tells, and then the second thing you must do is figure out how to use your moveset to exploit it. That sort of game is not for everyone; you cannot just walk into a bossfight with your big beefy +10 giant weapon of doom and expect to oneshot them. You have to basically wait around, try to bait out all of their moves, learn what they'll do, and then figure out how to exploit it. But once you have learned what they can do and learned how to exploit it, the game is super fast. I'd definitely encourage you to watch a speedrun sometime; runners can kill dark souls bosses in seconds. All of them. Without cheating. It's nuts.
The fun (for me anyways, and I think a lot of players) is figuring out how to really exploit every last thing an enemy will do. Let's take the very first boss for instance; if you stay basically right on his tail, he only has one attack he can hit you with, and it's SUPER telegraphed (he jumps up into the air first). So actually that boss you can just run around in a circle while attacking his butt and kill him super fast. But the only way you're going to know that is to try it, and plenty of bosses actually actively punish you for being behind them. Some bosses want you to be to the left of them, or to the right of them, or directly in front of them (there's literally bosses that basically cannot attack directly in front of them and they're funny AF). So with the asylum demon you can actually just walk behind him and wail on him as much as you want, and when he jumps you just walk away, wait for him to land, and then get behind him again while he does his ridiculously slow standing up animation. Unless you're a shield user (and have a big enough shield which you won't by the first boss), at which point your strategy changes ENTIRELY. If you shield and spear for instance, you actually just want to stand in front of him, block all his shit, and then poke him a few times with your remaining stamina; rinse repeat till the fight is over. If you're a magic user you can actually just wait for him to start a combo, dodge back once, and then blast him while he wails at where you used to be. Etc, etc. Or you can throw bombs at him. Or you can shoot arrows at him. Etc etc. The second boss actually you want to be directly underneath him, he has 0 attacks that hit directly underneath him. So you can stand under him and just wail on his leg until he jumps back; get back in range, rinse repeat.
So yeah....the game punishes you for running in without a plan, but once you know what the bosses can and cannot do, then you can create a plan, walk into the boss fight, execute that plan (whatever it is, and almost every boss can be beaten with almost any plan), and win every time. I think this is true for most games honestly, the difference is the souls games punish you more than most for not having a plan. So first playthroughs are a bit slow while you work out what an enemy can or cannot do, but that's part of the fun of it. But that's what gets people; its sold as an action adventure RPG, but it's not. It's a turn based tactical RPG played out in real time, and approaching it that way makes it make so much sense.
And if all of that fails, just grab a friend and participate in some jolly cooperation. Definitely not for everyone but I love them to death :)
Ah is it basically like a secret that you can do that? Does the game tell you or do you have to basically read it online or try weird random shit?
Not really a secret. He's weak to lightning and there is a powder you can find right before him that adds temporary lightning damage to your sword. The game never gives you indication he's weak to it, but that powder wrecks him. In all the speedruns that actually play the game (like all boss runs or glitch less runs) that's the strat. It's cool because anyone can do it and it requires nothing but grabbing the item and thinking to apply it right when the fight starts. The game is FULL of stuff like that
Ah that makes sense.
Still, I have the same critique about the combat mechanics themselves. That sounds like a clever secret, but I'm more complaining about the fact that you can't dive in to stuff, barely dodge, or keep something stunned etc, and come out better for it. Or at least that's what the first few hours of the game tell you. You're waiting like 10 seconds for some guy to open himself up, hitting him ONE time, and then waiting again. The game seems to punish you for trying not to being really goddamn bored.
That's a fair criticism. I think that what folks miss (and/or just straight up don't like, which is totally fair) is that none of the souls games are HARD per se, but they do absolutely require you to learn the patterns of enemies and bosses AND learn the patterns of whatever playstyle you want to use. All playstyles are effective against all bosses (although of course some will be easier than others depending on what you do), but the key to "getting gud" is to learn the patterns. Every boss has tells for what they're going to do and a very limited moveset....I think most bosses have only like 5 total things they can do and they're all telegraphed. The first thing you must do is learn that moveset and the tells, and then the second thing you must do is figure out how to use your moveset to exploit it. That sort of game is not for everyone; you cannot just walk into a bossfight with your big beefy +10 giant weapon of doom and expect to oneshot them. You have to basically wait around, try to bait out all of their moves, learn what they'll do, and then figure out how to exploit it. But once you have learned what they can do and learned how to exploit it, the game is super fast. I'd definitely encourage you to watch a speedrun sometime; runners can kill dark souls bosses in seconds. All of them. Without cheating. It's nuts.
The fun (for me anyways, and I think a lot of players) is figuring out how to really exploit every last thing an enemy will do. Let's take the very first boss for instance; if you stay basically right on his tail, he only has one attack he can hit you with, and it's SUPER telegraphed (he jumps up into the air first). So actually that boss you can just run around in a circle while attacking his butt and kill him super fast. But the only way you're going to know that is to try it, and plenty of bosses actually actively punish you for being behind them. Some bosses want you to be to the left of them, or to the right of them, or directly in front of them (there's literally bosses that basically cannot attack directly in front of them and they're funny AF). So with the asylum demon you can actually just walk behind him and wail on him as much as you want, and when he jumps you just walk away, wait for him to land, and then get behind him again while he does his ridiculously slow standing up animation. Unless you're a shield user (and have a big enough shield which you won't by the first boss), at which point your strategy changes ENTIRELY. If you shield and spear for instance, you actually just want to stand in front of him, block all his shit, and then poke him a few times with your remaining stamina; rinse repeat till the fight is over. If you're a magic user you can actually just wait for him to start a combo, dodge back once, and then blast him while he wails at where you used to be. Etc, etc. Or you can throw bombs at him. Or you can shoot arrows at him. Etc etc. The second boss actually you want to be directly underneath him, he has 0 attacks that hit directly underneath him. So you can stand under him and just wail on his leg until he jumps back; get back in range, rinse repeat.
So yeah....the game punishes you for running in without a plan, but once you know what the bosses can and cannot do, then you can create a plan, walk into the boss fight, execute that plan (whatever it is, and almost every boss can be beaten with almost any plan), and win every time. I think this is true for most games honestly, the difference is the souls games punish you more than most for not having a plan. So first playthroughs are a bit slow while you work out what an enemy can or cannot do, but that's part of the fun of it. But that's what gets people; its sold as an action adventure RPG, but it's not. It's a turn based tactical RPG played out in real time, and approaching it that way makes it make so much sense.
And if all of that fails, just grab a friend and participate in some jolly cooperation. Definitely not for everyone but I love them to death :)