Yes, that's right, it took me four hours to beat the tutorial boss...with my bare hands.

For some insane reason I felt compelled to beat the Asylum Demon (the boss at the end of the tutorial) upon first encountering him, without just running away from him and coming back once the game gives you the rest of your class equipment and the estus flasks and all that.

It took me around four hours to get the fight down to a perfect strategy. I was playing as a Thief and started trying to use the broken sword you start the game with. Probably after about two and a half hours or so I finally opted to use my bare fists instead of the broken sword, discovering that punching the demon did just as much damage, but was a faster swing.

So, for the first couple of hours I probably spent most of the time trying to learn how to read his abilities, this was probably one of the hardest parts. It didn't take me too long to recognize that he has around seven different attacks. It took me quite a while though to be able to read when he was going to do one swing attack compared to another, that some swing attacks were the starting part of a combo and others weren't. For most of this I stuck to a strategy of running in, punching him, then trying to run away before he could hit me.

This worked for the most part, but since I was using the sword during the first few hours I could usually only get one hit in before having to run away, and some attacks were really difficult to dodge (such as the pound attack.) Doing this I found that I could get him down to around 50% health, but, usually would get caught in some bad moves and just burn out around there.

So, about two and a half hours in or so I realized that there had to be a better way, which was around the time I started experimenting more. I switched over to punching the demon with my bare hands as opposed to trying to stab him with the sword. This was already a great improvement since it let me get in a lot more attacks and the rolling attack did 2 damage instead of the swords rolling attack 1 damage. Unfortunately at this same time I thought it would be a good idea to completely change my attack pattern as well.

I started trying to attack the demon from the sides and from the back. The benefit of this was I was able to attack much more frequently since my dodging didn't take me AWAY from the demon, but left me in contact with him at his blind spot. There were two main downsides to this. The first was mechanical; trying to stay at his back and his sides left my dodging skills suspect to the game's whims at times. I would roll just to find myself getting stuck on his foot or on his back leg or on his tail, I would roll too early and he would still turn enough that the backswing on his mace would still catch me and send me flying, I would roll too late and the game wouldn't register the roll in time so I would take another mace to the face, I would roll just at the right time just to have his tail swing back just at that exact moment and push me back into the way of the mace. The second downside was that I was visual - I was stuck staring at the demons's fat ass and crotch constantly, and that's just demoralizing.

Now, it was at this time that I threw my hands up in the air, realized I was getting angry at the game, and knew that I needed to take a break. So, fastforward to today, I acknowledge that my strategy from last night wasn't working. I only ever got maybe 1/3rd of his health down trying to stay to his back and sides. I'm sure some people can do the fight that way, but, it wasn't working for me at all. So I went back to my old strategy.

I dodged, I dipped, I ducked, I dived, and I dodged, I also rolled. I did a lot of rolling. I also did a lot of punching. I walked back before he swung to his left and rolled in with a counter attack. I walked and rolled back to avoid the pound attack. I rolled to the right when he swung to his right and followed up with a forward swing. I waited patiently as he flew his fat ass up into the air and butt stomped on nothing. For a good twenty minutes I kept this up, punching him goro style in the crotch every chance I got, and finally, the big fat flying bastard went down!

And what did I get for my troubles? Why his weapon of course! I got a giant two mace that's bigger than I am! ...That I also can't use because it has a 46 strength requirement!

So I'm curious, has anyone else gone for the challenge of beating the Asylum Demon first go? Does this inspire anyone to try to kill him on the first encounter? If you have tried how long did it take you to do a perfect run of the boss? To those that haven't done it, does the knowledge of getting a (mostly) useless weapon encourage you or discourage you from doing it? Do you think you'll just wait to do it on your new game plus? Or heck, has anyone tried doing anything similarly crazy on any of the other enemies so far in the game?

Edit: Now with pictures of my reward! Sadly, since you can't pause during Dark Souls, I'm somewhat reluctant to try and take this crappy camera done screen shots of any part of the fight against the Asylum Demon, but, I could probably still manage it if I really tried.

@FateOfNever: Now beat his second form.

Immediately after watching the Quick Look I decided that I'd kill him during the first encounter. I figured you'd get something cool for doing so (which you've now confirmed).

I love this game. So cool of them to give you an item for doing that.

I killed him with blackfire bombs on my first character. Not as cool, but oh well. Second character i just ran past him because I didn't want to pick blackfire bombs again, and I wasn't planning on using the weapon anyway.

I think I saw a YouTube video of this. It was sped up so as to not be so long. I still didn't get to the end of the video though. Nice to know you get something cool but I could never do that. I'm sure Dark Souls is hard enough as it is, I don't want to spend four hours punching a dude to death! Good on you for that though. You crazy, crazy man.

A very interesting read.

You masochist.

Did someone drip hot candle wax on your chest and whip you while you played?

You get his weapon? Okay, that's crazy awesome, I might just do this myself now.

don't you fight him later?  or is the weapon not available if you don't defeat him the first time?

@Mrsignerman44: Yup. Just be aware that since it has a strength requirement on it of 46 (though you need less to be able to use it two-handed instead of one-handed), you'll have to dedicate a lot of your souls to upping your strength just to be able to use it properly, and may not be able to even use it for most of the game. It does look pretty cool though, and I'm personally really interested to see what it looks like when you can use the weapon properly.

It's awesome that they have a reward for the people crazy enough to do that.

That's fucking amazing.

@FateOfNever: Yeah the 46 strength requirement is kind of a big hurdle but so is beating the first boss bare handed hahaha, I think even though it may be an mid-endgame weapon that club might still be worth getting.

@Marz: You do fight him later (the tutorial area circles back around to him), but if you run away from him the first time the game makes note of this and he doesn't give you his weapon if you defeat him after getting all your equipment. To get his weapon you have to beat him the first time you see him, otherwise, no go.

@FateOfNever: Man, that's awesome work. I don't suppose you have a way to screenshot how the weapon looks like when wielding it?

You're a straight-up beast, man. I wouldn't even think of trying that shit.

Cool that you got a reward for your troubles too.

Jesus Christ... People who play this game are crazy...

That's some real dedication, it's great to see you were rewarded for your effort.

I'm afraid somebody has done this before you....but in all seriousness that's quite interesting of you to do it. That's one way of putting it anyway.

That's F'in crazy and I love the fact that the game rewards you for being completely insane.

thats why this game is great. massive risk = massive reward.

the tought crossed my mind when i popped the game, but then i decided to just walk past it.

You sire are a fucking boss!

dunno if the weapon is worth it because I have 2 pretty good weapons 1 katana and a drakesword. How much damage does it give?

@Cincaid: Can't take good and proper screen shots, but, these camera pictures of a the screen should still serve their purpose I think. The first is just standing around with it, the second is when you hold down the guard button with just it equipped.

Gallery

That's really cool, but horribly lame that you can't even use the mace yet.

Mad respect. I do want to try this when I get the game. I'll maybe just run past him on my first character, then start again and keep trying it after a few hours. Do you think it would of been easier if you choose a different class? Congrats again dude. What console were you on?

I am totally going to do that now.

@Hooded: 360, and from my understanding, class doesn't really matter too much. There is an easier way, to just grab the firebombs as your starting item, but considering the long term value of a lot of the other items you can choose to start with, the firebombs are one of the worst items you could probably pick to start with, especially considering how easy those are to get throughout the rest of the game. But from my understanding both the broken sword and your fists are pretty much capped out at (around) 2 damage per hit. I may start a new game with a class with more strength just to see if it can add another point of damage or anything, but, I don't think it effects too much. They also lock away all of the items needed to cast spells or anything, so spellcasters aren't at any kind of advantage to the rest of the classes since they can't cast any of their spells at that point in the game.

You are crazy. And I love you.

Will be to impatient to get to the real game when I get Dark Souls tomorrow, but some day I will try this.

I'm so trying this when I get the game tomorrow.
 
I admire you.

@FateOfNever:

I hate to tell you this, but I hear that if you take the Firebombs as the starting gift he is INFINITELY easier. It shortens the fight quite a bit. Still a good find with the punching though.

@Rayeth: He is a lot easier if you take firebombs, the problem is that the firebombs are one of the worse items you can take as the starting gift, especially since one of the other items has story implications, and several others are more useful/harder to come by in the game and the ones that aren't just one use are better to take for the long run. Especially since the hammer isn't even really usable when you first get it. So you'd be taking a subpar item for a non-usable item over more useful ones in the long run.

@FateOfNever said:

@Hooded: 360, and from my understanding, class doesn't really matter too much. There is an easier way, to just grab the firebombs as your starting item, but considering the long term value of a lot of the other items you can choose to start with, the firebombs are one of the worst items you could probably pick to start with, especially considering how easy those are to get throughout the rest of the game. But from my understanding both the broken sword and your fists are pretty much capped out at (around) 2 damage per hit. I may start a new game with a class with more strength just to see if it can add another point of damage or anything, but, I don't think it effects too much. They also lock away all of the items needed to cast spells or anything, so spellcasters aren't at any kind of advantage to the rest of the classes since they can't cast any of their spells at that point in the game.

Firebombs? Go into detail please, do you get infinate? or are they just so powerful you can kill him with the amount you have?

@Hooded: So, when you start the game and make your character you can pick one gift to start the game with. One of them is a set of black firebombs. They're basically a strong offensive throwable item. The bad thing about them is that you only get 10 of them, and unlike the other available items to start the game with they're pretty easily obtainable by comparison. And of your 10 stack it takes 5 of them (or 4 if you're willing to do some actual hand to hand fighting with the demon) to kill the Asylum Demon. So picking them just to kill the Asylum Demon means that you are basically starting the game with just 5 or 6 of this item that you can get through other means while giving up on a more interesting or rare item.

That is a cool weapon, but I am sure there is now way you can use it effectively until a lot later.

Actually I had heard of the reward and intended to try it once I got the game, hearing your story kind of put me off it though. 4 hours? oh man.

Speaking of men, you are a hell of a one.

@FateOfNever said:

@Hooded: So, when you start the game and make your character you can pick one gift to start the game with. One of them is a set of black firebombs. They're basically a strong offensive throwable item. The bad thing about them is that you only get 10 of them, and unlike the other available items to start the game with they're pretty easily obtainable by comparison. And of your 10 stack it takes 5 of them (or 4 if you're willing to do some actual hand to hand fighting with the demon) to kill the Asylum Demon. So picking them just to kill the Asylum Demon means that you are basically starting the game with just 5 or 6 of this item that you can get through other means while giving up on a more interesting or rare item.

Wow, so its a very easy way to do it. So what item did you choose? Have you found that item useful?

That is really awesome. One of the many reasons why I love this game. So much that you just don't know until you do it.

I'll try it, but I won't persist. I'm going for a faith build, so I won't have enough strength to wield it. It would be nice as a status symbol, but...hours? I'll have to pee at some point, I just know it. Gaming with a full bladder sucks.

For the non-incredible people here you can also get it on new game + where you already have good items to start with

I was going to until I tried and did 2 damage. Noooooooo thanks.

This reminds me of when I beat the tutorial boss in Demon's Souls with no equipment. Half an hour of punching him in the ass, always rolling to the side so I didn't get one-shot.

You only get one chance to do that too. This does sound like it'd take longer, though. Mad props!

nice..I guess you should expect a reward....I ran into the side gate without thinking. Think it closes behind you; so I couldn't really go back and fight him.

Seems like there are a lot of those special things from bosses now. Like you can get a sword from the dragon if you shoot his tail with arrows. Saw a vid of that online. The gargoyle bosses you can get an axe if you cut off the first one's tail (basically the tail is the axe). Did that on accident and was pleasantly surprised.

Shit that never even crossed my mind i figured it was gonna be impossible to beat him then. That is so cool that you got his weapon, this is the first I've heard of this. Nice job.

The gargoyle bosses you can get an axe if you cut off the first one's tail (basically the tail is the axe). Did that on accident and was pleasantly surprised.

I told my girlfriend about this. She looked at me like I was stupid for something that you did. That's how crazy this is.

Bravo man, I got scared :(

Excellent job! Think I'll just take him down via a more conventional way.

That's awesome, but I don't have that kind of patience. So I just chose that badass hammer as my "gift". Actually I chose the black fire bombs, but that's the same as choosing the hammer because it only takes about five or six of the black fire bombs to drop him quick.

Hmmm, which gift should I choose? A crappy ring? A pendant that is supposed to impact the story? How about a bad ass super hammer (only if your interested in investing in the strength stat to wield it)...sure, I'll take the free badass super hammer.

Dude your insane lol i have mad respect for u for doing that tho.