@yummylee, @militantfreudian

Congrats on beating Nameless King! I love how some bosses in games like this and Castlevania can be broken down to a science. It's one of my favourite things about action/adventure games in general.

Totally true! Considering how much Armour is de-emphasised in this game, it is totally viable to go with the Dragonslayer Greatshield. I personally unlocked Nameless King before the Dragonslayer Armour though, so I didn't have access to it.

My only real gripe is, though, is that the dragonslayer greatshield has a strength req of 38 - MAN that's high. That said, a lot of peeps go strength (I went quality so only got to 40/40 through Winged Knight farming after Princes) so that may be do-able for some. Also, that 74 BASE stability is mighty nice. My endgame shield (Black Knight Shield) only had like 67 at +4.

I thought Yhorm the Giant was so imposing, but he had this honorable presence about him. And the lore descriptions as this valiant leader just made him seem like a good man/giant with tragedy in his past. "It is stated that he lost someone dear to him and, as a result, he forsook his greatshield, possibly as gesture of his inability to protect his loved ones"

Doing barely any damage seemed nuts but I liked fighting him the long way, but then figuring out the trick was really satisfying, too. I like the arena and everything. A cool, undervalued boss.

@undefined: The Abyss Watcher was awesome. I thought the Cyrstal Sage was great. There was something about the Decans that I love. The Giant with Onion bro is really cool.

But personally for me it was High Lord Wolnir. It is basically solely based on the visuals of the fight. Sure it was pretty easy and straight forward, but seeing him in that dark room for the first time got a jaw dropping, verbal "WOW!" from me and still stands out.

Oh, also I should ask are we asking favorite from a gameplay perspective or a visual/design perspective? I've found the two to be kind of mutually exclusive.

For example, the gameplay of Sulyvahn is really good, but outside of the initial entry to the arena where he lights his swords, the impact of the fight was kinda "meh" since the camera was moving too fast to really appreciate the detail.

On the other hand, I just beat Oceiros, and while the fight itself was really run-of-the-mill and kinda easy, the boss itself, with his whole "talk to the dead baby" thing was creepy as fuck. Same goes for the Abyss Watchers - fairly easy boss but the visual of an bunch of insane immortal knights whaling on each other was really cool.

Mannnnn, I really wish I liked the nameless king fight more, after getting down the first phase down easy and still learning a lot of the second, it ended up feeling like an extra long 10 min walk from the bonfire. He kinda ended up as a pincushion who never ran. The way the Soul changed forms in the first phase was pretty amazing, wish it lasted longer though, I only saw two of the four my first playthrough. Champion Gundyr was also surprisingly cool, getting the chance to fight him at his absolute prime rather than when weakened by (Probably?) Abyss.

I'm one of the dumb stubborn idiots who beat Yhorm solo without using the Storm Ruler. I got it and tried to fight him with it, but I didn't figure out that the weapon art required charging. So yeah, I had to time all the downward swings of my Hollowslayer Greatsword to hit his unarmored sword hand to do enough damage and get him to drop for a critical attack on his face. It took me over 15 minutes. Certainly colored my view of the battle to be more positive, because it was definitely the most "epic" struggle I've had to endure in a single boss fight in the series.

But it doesn't top my favorite battle in this game. The honor goes to the Abyss Watchers because of that right balance of spectacle, music, challenge, and story implications that have reverberated throughout the series. I think if the fight weren't so trivial when co-oped, it would have been perfect. Nameless King comes second since it also hits all those right notes, but it just fell short of the emotional resonance that the Abyss Watchers gave me.

Soul of Cinder is third and only comes second to Gehrman for main game final bosses in the series. Like other hardcore Souls fans, I got chills when that piano kicked in and the boss started doing those familiar moves.

I do believe that as an overall package, DS3 has the tightest collection of main game bosses. There really isn't a bad one in the lot, with my least liked ones still being interesting on some level.

My thoughts on Nameless King in audio form:

Haven't made my way through very many of the game's bosses, but I though the Curse-Rotted Greatwood was real fucking stupid.

I get what you're saying... but I think it's a combination of both. Oceiros was cool, but his boss fight was so... boring that it didn't leave much of an impact. The love the princes because it combines it all, at least for me.

@fredchuckdave: Solid analysis and I'd also take Cinder and Sulyvahn over Namless King (in addition to Champion Gundyr).

I found a lot of the last areas of DS3 were overly short too. I was wondering how many peeps aside from myself also spent only like 1.5h in Dragon-whatever.

I don't mind if they're short... Ash Lake is my absolute favorite area/moment from any of these games, and that place is tiny.

Has to be Dancer and Pontiff. Both were really fun bosses that took me a lot tries but if i have to pick one it is Dancer.

The way she looks and moves is so elegant and the only thing i didn't like was her near unending spin.

Also, fuck nameless king and the camera crap in the first phase, instant dislike.

@selfconfessedcynic: Thanks. I thought some of the areas were appropriately sizable (Farron Keep is gigantic) but you definitely got some shorter spans toward the end; though to be fair this is a common issue in many of the Souls games.

I just fought The Adventures of Pete & Pete (read: Lorian/Lothric), and holy shit I didn't expect that to be so good.

That was really good.

my favs

1. Twin Princes

This boss is pretty much the complete package for me. Yes, it's certainly not the most difficult fight there ever was but that's not the only determining factor of a good boss imo. I like their visual design and animations a whole lot. It takes the boss reviving gimmick from Throne Watcher and Defender from 2 and does something a thousand times more memorable with it. There's an interesting story between these two and it's actually reflected in the way they fight. That's rad, good music too.

2. Abyss Watchers

A boss that fights itself is one of those ideas that's so compelling to me that it's weird that it hasn't been done before in Souls. Like the twin princes fight, I appreciate how the boss's own lore is implicated in the fight. It's essentially a band of warrior who've carried on the duty of fighting the abyss in the name of artorias, only the abyss has infiltrated some of their ranks and they're eternally trying to squash it. Very interesting first phase followed by a good straight up fight in the second.

3. Soul of Cinder

While the Gwyn element definitely got me teary-eyed, I was still maybe more struck by the message in this boss's first phase. They did a really clever thing by using the armor set from all the promotional art. The boss instantly registers as the player character of these games and the notion that we're fighting the essence of these games and the people who play them is kind of a beautiful concept. Extremely fun fight too, although that big insta-kill combo in the second phase is kinda irksome honestly.

4. Champion Gundyr

This was a fight this game desperately needed. As much as I love variety in my boss fights, it would've felt strange not having a good straightforward fight. It's funny because I think this fight is easily overlooked because it doesn't really do anything new, but at the same time I think it's just as good as artorias or any other more straightforward fight from the series.

5. Nameless King

This is a phenomenal fight that will probably climb higher on my list as time marches on. The idea of fighting Gwyn's firstborn is incredible and the spectacle here doesn't fail to deliver. I think I agree with most people here though in that the second phase became more of a nuisance than anything. Honestly, some depth perception issues and the overall size of the boss in the first phase made me experience the worst camera troubles I've ever had in these games. I don't even dislike the first phase, it's a fun fight, but coupled with the second it becomes a little tiring. In any case, the second phase is absolutely thrilling and well worth the praise it's receiving. Probably the only boss in 3 to give me a sense of accomplishment that really rivals past games.

EDIT: okay played nameless king again... yeah he deserves a higher spot

@fredchuckdave: Pretty great analysis there. Man, I have some really conflicted thoughts about Nameless King. I'm not surprised upon Googling about the fight that there are some pretty conflicted opinions about him. There's a Reddit poll I saw where he was the only boss with double-digit percentage points in both the favorite and least favorite boss categories.

If we're getting down to pure ranking, I think Namess King would be somewhere in the middle of my favorite bosses in the game. Abyss Watchers, Pontiff Sulyvahn, Soul of Cinder, Twin Princes, Dancer of the Boreal Valley and Champion Gundyr were the standout bosses to me. Tree Butt, Ancient Wyvern, Deacons of the Deep, Crystal Sage, and High Lord Wolnir are easily the bottom five (Crystal Sage is the only one of the group that wasn't a total dud there, but the mini-boss version of him later in the game was closer to what they should have gone with IMO). I'd also put Aldritch and Dragonslayer Armor above NK.

I might do a more in-depth look at him in a blog post as I haven't had so many complex thoughts about a boss in a while. But the basic point I think you nailed is it feels like this was two different bosses mashed together that resulted in two half-developed fights Most two-phase bosses in the Souls series have some kind of overarching theme and progression to them, which isn't present here. The horrible camera in phase one is indefensible. And you allude to the other issue I have with him: he feels like an out-of-place, half-developed Bloodborne boss. And it's not just the speed of the fight, as they pulled that off with several other bosses. But whereas Soul of Cinder felt like the culmination of the whole game, Nameless King felt like an overly ambitious attempt to make a culmination of the whole Souls series ultimate boss.

I'm like two weeks behind everyone in finishing the game.

My top three in very narrow order:

1. Dancer of the Boreal Valley. I love every aspect of this boss. The creepy entrance, the way she looks, walks, and fights. She's the embodiment of grace in a really grim and brutal world, yet her pose is incredibly menacing. She's far from the hardest boss in the series, though I think she tests your patience and reflexes in a good way. With her unorthodox moveset she can kill you really fast if you're careless, but she'll never aggressively steamroll you like her dual wielding cousin Sulyvahn (nor summon a bullshit shadow).

2. Champion Gundyr. This is probably the polar opposite to Dancer. Gundyr is a relentless force of aggression with an answer to every angle you attack from. His wide and diverse moveset looks and feels like it was taylor-made to beat you into a pulp. The first time I fought him I thought to myself "no fucking way you brought the same boss back...", though I quickly regretted those words. This is in my opinion the hardest boss in the game and has brought me to the brink of controller-smashing frustration but I can't help loving his design. He elbows you in the face if you try to circle behind him, that's just brilliant.

3. Nameless King. I don't need to explain why this is a great boss, seems like everyone agrees with me already. He's a frickin' super saiyan riding a dragon. How much more badass can you be really? There are two reasons for why he's nr 3 on my list. First, fighting his dragon is just an exercise in frustration because of the lack of perspective. It's not hard, it's a guessing game because it's impossible to judge your distance. Second, fighting the King himself is little more than a leveled-up version of the Dragonslayer Armor. The worst thing to happen in a souls game is feeling you've seen something before, at least for me.

Honorable mentions: Aldrich, great boss but the arrow rain makes me tear my hair off. Yhorm, the first giant in a souls game with the might of a giant. Shame he was relegated to a gimmick weapon tutorial. Pontiff Sulyvahn, amazing until he spawned a twin. I hate that mechanic more than anything in these games.

I'm really surprised to see so much love for Abyss Watchers. I thought that boss (bosses?) was kinda boring. It would have been better if they really leaned into the idea of the watchers attacking eachother. Maybe have several spawn at once and have it be really chaotic until one's left. Then the cutscene happens and the remaining one absorbs the power of the dead and the second phase starts.

Toss up between Twin Princes and Nameless King. I'll go with the twins because it was less stressful than NK for me :D Both were epic encounters - the style and the music, just great.

I voted Abyss Watchers for having such a great first impression for what the Lords of Cinders would be like, but it was still a tough pick between that, Nameless King, and Soul of Cinder. I guess call me boring, but I thought all three of these fights had good spectacle, and were a decent challenge. I'm totally aware that Abyss Watchers could've been done better, but for me, it hit a sweet spot in difficulty, and the the atmosphere of the fight was rad. I didn't have as much trouble with Nameless because I just used magic to take care of the first phase, but I'll admit that I think I would've liked this fight a little better if the two phases were separate, and the Nameless King part was expanded upon. That aside, this is another fight with a killer atmosphere, and it was a fun challenge too. Soul of Cinder is honestly the best final boss in the series (Gehrman comes really close, and might be even better in some respects, but he's technically not the "true" final boss, and I'll admit, I was also way overpowered when I fought him), and perfectly finished off the Dark Souls trilogy with fun, difficult, and beautifully cinematic fight.

Other bosses I'd like to mention: Yhorm, while really easy with the Storm Ruler, I just want to give credit to for being an actually cool puzzle boss. When you look back on the likes of Bed of Chaos, I think this fight pulled off the idea of fighting a boss in a unique way much better. I also really enjoyed the Dancer, for being a really cool-looking fight with a creepy atmosphere, and also being a fun challenge. Last but not least, I'd say both the Twin Princes and Aldrich were really good fights lore wise, even if they were a little frustrating in some aspects.

I know this is very vague, but there's a real tragedy to fighting the Twin Princes that really lends it a certain feel. Even if you're not deep in the lore, there's still a lot of signs that what you are doing is not the 100% right thing to do.

@hott8bitaction: while i was figuring out how the fuck to use weapon arts with that sword (never used them all game), poor Siegfried that I'd valiantly fought to keep alive having completed his quest line bloody died on me on attempt one! I took revenge for his fallen corpse but was so pissed off

I loved the Abyss watchers. The fight was great, the feeling of sadness was great, the lore callbacks to Atrorias and Sif were great!

Special mention to Yhorm though. I did that fight the HARD way, then learned about the sword. Went back and did it the right way and it's really fun. That's also a great boss to be summoned for, then watch 3 people charge up Storm Ruler at the same time. Good fun!

I kinda want to see what summoning for Wyvern looks like.

Even if he wasn't too difficult? I loved fighting against Dragonslayer Armour. Some of his moves caught me off guard and really made me laugh, because of how much clever they were (e.g. Slamming the greataxe while he'd downed on a knee). The side rails of the bridge falling apart upped the danger which was fun. The Dragons butting into the fight was a cool little distraction. Sulyvahn would have to be my favorite as far as challenge. He was the boss I've Been the most frustrated with, probably in either DS1 or DS3. He's just relentless with his attack speed, frequency, and area he covers with his swings. Gundyr is an honorable mention for me because he's just fun to fight. His moveset was fun to maneuver against.

I'd like to say Twin Princes were fun but I beat them on my first try. Soul of Cinder was cool for the variety but too easy. And I can't say Nameless King AT ALL because that first phase is god-awful. Locking on is suicide because the camera is all over the place and not locking on is terrible because depth perception is absent, thanks to the environment hardly having any reference points. When he flies in the air for his fire-breathing, I couldn't tell at all where I was in relation to him. The King alone was alright but just too easy.

Edit: Oh man, Crystal Sage was a fun one, too! Totally forgot about that. I loved the structure of that fight and dealing with the slow tracking crystal in combo with it's other spells was fun!

So, am I the only one that didn't realize you're suppose to keep running past the Ancient Wyvern and just fought it straight up? The only way to do any damage was to attack its tail or head; the tail being high off the ground with my Dragonslayer Greataxe barely reaching it, and his head very rarely in a safe position for an attack. It took forever and was so boring. After a good start it just turned into a battle of attrition.

I thought the Nameless King was the coolest looking boss fight but I'd be lying if I said it was fun for me.

Dancer I love because of how different she is compared to a lot of the bosses. She's very slow and deliberate while a majority of bosses are hyper-aggressive. I had the most trouble with her my first playthrough because of that.

I really liked Treeboss also. It was a fun gimmicky boss with an interesting arena.

Must say Wolnir. He stuck with me somehow. He's one of the more unique.

Just finished the game last night.

Were it not for the fantastic art design in Dark Souls 3, I think a lot of these bosses would bleed together for me. Hell, most of them already do. Largely, I disliked most of the bossfights in the game post-Pontiff, because the bulk of them felt very similar. I felt pigeonholed into dodging all the time everything always, and grew weary of every boss having some form of second stage, especially when the fight required you to drain a health bar to even reach the second stage. Moreover, nearly all of the bosses featured some obnoxious wrinkle to inflate the difficulty in ways I found mostly artificial--like the butterflies lobbing magic at you from off-screen in the Dragonslayer fight, or Twin Princes/Pontiff/Nameless King just flat out deliberately breaking the camera.

Abyss Watchers still stand out, despite being one of the game's early bosses. It was the one boss fight where it seemed From really nailed what they were going for with a faster, hyper-active combat style in a Dark Souls game. The two stages made more sense here than in most other places throughout the game, and the echoes of Artorias are obviously a welcome callback.

Pontiff Sulyvahn was my favorite, really cool visuals married to an neat gimmick. Others in order are:

2. Nameless King

3. Oceiros

4. Soul of Cinder

5. Aldritch

Favorite: Prince Lorian and Prince Lothric

Least favorite: The framerate in certain parts of the game and input lag.

Pontiff is senpai. He's so cool. He's hard but so frickin' cool yo!

I voted Twin Princes, but honestly my favorite fight in the game was Leonhart when you use the grey eye orb. That curved sword and the damage it did negated my build and I had to really focus on dodging everything he did. It was a good 10-15 minutes of wearing him down until he was out of estus flasks, so basically it was like he had multiple health bars because I was never able to get in there and kill him before he had a chance to heal.

Pontiff for me was the best fight, but Lord of Cinder has the lore importance and music going for him.

What’s with all the sudden DS3 talk?

I guess my favorite is Soul of Cinder.

@thechris: A spam account bumped a dozen DS3 threads.

Oh gosh, I can barely remember most of the fights in this game. I guess it would be the one where you fight the two people. Big dude (I think he was on a throne and carried a bunch of stuff on him?) and a little person. It was very difficult and I remember pulling two other people in to help me, we got most of the way through the fight and right near the end they both died. I had such a panic and barely clinched it; felt great.

I voted for Twin Prince before I beat Soul of Cinder but now that I've beaten Soul of Cinder, I would like to change my vote to Soul of Cinder. However, if we include DLC, it will be like this.

1. Slave Knight Gael

2. Soul of Cinder

3. Sister Friede (harder and better fight than Lady Maria)