If you'll allow me to shill a bit - Videos of this length take a lot of time to edit. Time that's afforded to me by the graciousness of my channel members. If you enjoy watching or listening to this video & you want to see more long-form edited content, consider becoming a channel member. It's 4,99 a month, keeps the channel going, and helps me in ways I cannot express. Much love, death to Lud & Zallen, thank you!
Sorry, I'll like and subscribe though. I have a phobia of recurring payments. Although I have been known to drop a few bucks to prospering smaller RUclipsrs that leave their PayPal in the description 😉
I going to be frank here, I completely forgot what I wrote. Listening to the first comment for freja had me relating so hard then I realized I wrote that
Reminds me of a story I heard about game devs who had a very specific issue with their code. They google'd it, found a forum thread with a solution, realized THEY made the forum thread two years before.
Being the person who wrote up the Guardian Dragon essay, I had the exact opposite experience lmao. I was just eagerly waiting to see if my comment was going to be included
It’s awkward to gauge difficulty in the DS2 bosses. Many of them are quite likely to kill you, but not because they’re hard, if that makes sense. It’s easy to call the Iron King fight easy, but not really, because of The Hole. Royal Rat Authority is easy, except not really, because of its pre-boss minions. It’s the game where I’m most likely to walk out the other side of the arena after dozens of deaths and still feel disappointed in the lack of challenge, and that’s because I didn’t learn anything. The fight that only takes one attempt to beat, but I spend the whole time flying by the seat of my pants trying to form a strategy mid-fight, I’m going to remember as being far more difficult than one that kills the player by any means necessary. Unfortunately, DS2 bosses approach being difficult in a way that loses sight of being thrilling, which I consider more important.
HOLY SHIT YOU'RE BILLYBAE10K?! I used to watch your Minecraft Raven, Ninja Warrior, and Survivor videos religiously as a little kid, and now I watch your Dark Souls vids religiously. It's like I'm destined to love your content!
I'm one and the same. I actually do have one Minecraft Raven season on this channel, it was meant to be a final send-off to the series, but has insanely high production value. So if you're interested, maybe go back and give it a watch ^^
Hiiiii, Guardian Dragon defender lass here~ I'm not one to comment on RUclips videos much, but thanks loads for featuring my essay, Billy! It was a blast writing up my feelings on it and I'm very happy to see that you enjoyed reading through my ramblings. Made my day really! I love to hear people's takes on Soulsborne bosses that differ from the norm as well, and when I saw your community ranking form, I figured I'd share one of my own. I don't really care if nobody agrees with me, as just having others understanding my perspective even a little bit is already really really cool, much like how I find it really really cool when I see others defend bosses that I myself malign, and I wish this kind of sentiment was more common in the community. I mean, all I'm saying is... if someone's least favorite boss in the series is Gael and their favorite is the Bed of Chaos or some shit, I'd wanna marry that person
Honestly, probably one of my favourite comments in the video I got to read, because not only was it a lovely story & a great insight into what you enjoy - But you also managed to tie it back to the themes of difficulty by actually explaining how your build helped your boss encounter. I think a fun video idea might be going through the bosses of each game & giving them a compliment - Something they did correct, to try and bring about some more interesting opinions ^^
@@BillySYT Oh my, I appreciate that haha. In hindsight, I probably should've gone into slightly more depth on GD's difficulty since it's the main point here, but it's nice to know that the little I did comment on was good enough. And that's a refreshing idea, I'll be looking forward to such videos if you do choose to make them :)
honestly i think prowling magus + congregation would be all right if they had a gimmick. like maybe the magus teleports to try and avoid the player until you kill his congregation, but the more of his congregation you kill, the stronger he gets/the more spells he has
1:07:35 Let's not forget that in NG+, you can get jumpscared by her early on and any damage you do to her carries to her proper boss encounter. She's the only boss who got got the privilege of showing up out of nowhere, and any damage we do to her WILL carry into the actual fight. We don't get it for that dragon in the first game's DLC, or the other dragon in DS3. Why can't we get this in all soul games?
Yeah the Shulva gank squad was stupidly hard and poor designed, but damn the tension, the feeling of always being chased and having to run through the whole arena for 15min XD
Sir Alonne was essily my hardest boss fight in the game. Most DS2 bosses i was able to best within 5 attempts, but not this asshole. He took about 30 attempts and that run is horrible. Still love the fight. Disagree with whoever said there's no healing windows though. You heal after he attacks and instead of attacking back you have to heal instead.
The torch was the only reason I beat brightstone cove, something about the spiders there absolutely terrified me. Her placing is about right I think, it's not very difficult
Hey, my comment on The Ivory King made the cut! Also, it’s adorable to hear Billy talk about his boyfriend in nearly every episode I’ve seen. Easily my favorite ship in Soulsborne.
I'll hopefully be getting him on the channel a bit more often in the future. He deserves more than the occasional smash or pass videos (He hasn't played Sekiro yet, so we might do a video showcasing his first run)
In my honest opinion. Hardest boss: Darklurker Easiest boss: Covetous Demon Best boss: Fume Knight Coolest looking boss: Burnt Ivory King Worst boss: Royal Rat Authority
I totally agree that there is just no tension in this game. I'm a bloodborne superfan, so I hope you can understand that dark souls just doesn't get me the same adrenaline rush as Bloodborne in general. I didn't play ds1, and my experience with ds3 was a lot better, Ds2 was actually my first dark souls. If I hadn't heard from the fans that it was the worst one, I probably would never have gotten bloodborne. Because even back then, the difficulty just didn't sit right with me. Yeah, it was hard, but I never felt like I had really overcome a great challenge. I just played through it again and breezed through most of it. It never really made me feel anything. I hope it gets a complete overhaul some day, because I do like parts of it, but just a touch up in graphics won't do for a Ds2 remake, if that ever were to happen.
A point that also gives more difficulty to some bosses in DS2 is the low durability of the weapons. This is especially relevant in fights like Aava or Sinh, where you have to repair your weapon during the fight or change your weapon, which adda a extra layer of strategy in the battle. Appreciate your hard work moderating all the comments and rankings.
I keep seeing bosses so high up and I'm like, "Really, THIS boss scored so highly on the rank?" But then I see the actual difficulty ranking and I'm like, "Yeah Velstadt being like a 6/10 tracks."
Funny fact: I steamrolled Belfry Gankgoyles so hard that I don't even remember the fight, discovered the light switch for Lost Sinner just by having normal RPG "go the wrong way first" instincts so I beat her easy and I keep forgetting the Shulva trio even exist. But Velstadt? That was my brickwall. Worst brickwall for me in the entire base game. Worse than Amana Shrine and I've only played SotFS. His runback where you can either spend an additional 5 minutes disabling the alarm every time (and possibly accidentally trigger it in doing so) or Naruto run right into some very angy Pyromancers and THREE knights did not help that.
Fun fact: on the Vanilla version, each Lord summons 4 skeletons. So 4 armoured skeletons, 4 naked skeletons and 4 bonewheel skeletons. On Scholar, it's more like 2 bonewheels, 10 naked skeletons and 5 armoured skeletons.
dude I am SO excited for every site of grace in Elden Ring ranked, the one by the gate where Melina gives you torrent and Jarburg better be around the top, at LEAST.
Hey, Billy! I’m the guy who reviewed (almost) every boss in that insane wall of text (except for Executioner’s Chariot cause I forgot), and it seems my rambling paid off (12 of my comments made it in)! I can’t imagine how long it took to edit this video, but I think it was well worth the effort. I don’t know why it took me so long, but I’ve finally subscribed to the channel! (Also, nice Doctor Who reference.) Edit: Also, since you and a lot of others brought up the differences between the original version and Scholar, I bought the original and started a series on my channel comparing the two, and I feel like a lot of people view vanilla through rose-tinted glasses - it is better in a lot of places, but Scholar also doesn’t get enough credit for better enemy placement or mechanics in some areas, like Drangleic Castle or Dragon Shrine. (Did you know that in Scholar, wearing the King’s Ring stops the statues in the big room near the King’s Gate from waking up and attacking you?)
Your comment was definitely one of my "go-to's" in case there weren't enough from other voters to go around, so I appreciate the effort. I also don't doubt that I view the original through rose-tinted glasses, but I still attest that the enemy placement is far less "ganky", and certain locations like the Iron Keep are more manageable there. Had no idea about that King's Ring trivia, nice to see I'm still learning about DS2 all these years later ^^
"His only attack that really got me was his thrust. As the range of his hammer is extremely long. Him poking me with the blunt end of his weapon became a regular occurance during the fight." You think you're sly, Billy. But I see through your sneaky words and phrasing.
The chariot boss fight if you run past the enemies on the run back, jump across the platform to the right side before the boss room those enemies will go back to their position. Some will even fall off the bridge.
I ran into the dragon rider, screaming and yelling and terrified. but when I saw him drop down I had run to the exit door trying to get away and he had killed himself.
Feels so bizarre watching the sinh segment where he "stays grounded enough for the player to attack" but the gameplay has him in the air or out of reach three quarters of the time
I love community rankings. That's trully the best way to measure the difficulty of the bosses because we all have different experiences in souls games. Somebody that beat Fume Knight on the first try may have died 10 times against Old Iron King because of that hole in the middle of the arena lol
Tips for beating Lud & Zaled 1.Attun Climax 2.Use helm that increase spell uses/item that restore spell 3.Make sure put soul item to your inventory 4.make sure attack him until 60% health bar and then use Climax
Im gonna come in here to Elana's defense a bit with the summoning. After playing ranged combat styles in a lot of games, you kinda need that aggro draw away from you. The way she uses Velstadt or other summons, similar to Rennala in Elden Ring, gets your attention off of her. It is also EXACTLY what I use my summons for in Elden Ring. Taking my opponent's attention off of me and having them have to keep track of my ally (I run bows as my primary weapons in these games. Not necessarily magic like she does here, but close enough). Usually, it's Tiche and Finlay in the base game, or with the inclusion of Shadow of the Erdtree, its the two bleed sisters or the golem. Regardless for ranged bosses to not go the way of Gwyndolin where they are kinda really easy they usually have to incorperate some level of fuckery with summons and aggro splitting. So her doing summons doesn't take away from her in my book.
So, about Elana (sad to see my comment not featured 😭), I think the fake Velstadt is a stain in what would be a great boss, simply because it's pure RNG. If you're lucky enough that she never summons fake Velstadt, she is a perfectly manageable boss, but if she does, you're very likely to be screwed, because even if you beat him, she can summon him again. It would have worked as a second phase, maybe something she does when she is at 40% health, then it would be consistent, but because it's random, it just makes the difficulty of the boss shoot up randomly.
There were a lot of Elana comments saying roughly the same stuff, so it was hard to feature all of them without going too repetitive. I appreciate you leaving your comment though ^^
She is too easy without her summons in my opinion. You can run away from Velstadt and just keep hitting her, but I understand not everyone wants to be a headless chicken. Great moveset and it's one of my favorites but maybe her summons could've been more fair, because without them she isn't as great, but I also love the idea of her summoning Velstadt. I completely agree with the last part though because it doesn't really make a lot of sense to summon Velstadt if she's at like, 70% health. What a cheater. 😒
Honestly, I love that she can summon Velstadt. You get to choose between managing a few small, fast summons, and one big, slow, dangerous summon. And I feel like their attacks coordinate pretty well
@@Bendanna93 You don’t have to kill him immediately but you can hit him overtime if he’s really a problem and struggle to dodge Elena’s attacks. Also, If she summons skeletons you should be able to kill 1 or 2 pretty quickly. There’s opportunities to deal extra damage when she’s summoning.
1st time ever beating fume knight it took me hours and I couldn't dodge anything in phase 2 but when I reached him in ng+ I beat him on my first attempt without taking any hits but sir alonne is way harder because you are afraid to do the run back again and do mistakes. Honestly amazing video hope you reach your 2024 follower goal.
Great video, really appreciate you touching on as many of the voter comments as you did. Makes the community feel heard, especially by covering the good and bad sides of the boss roster. I was the commenter for SL1 on burnt ivory king. Anyone feel free to ask if you have any questions on SL1 runs in soulsborne, I've completed all games except ER. Cheers 🍻
I absolutely love DS2, but admittedly most bosses could be better. I say they remake the game, changing almost nothing except getting Miyazaki's consultation on the boss battles.
I maintain that DS2 would’ve worked better as Demon’s Souls 2. So many bosses are demons or people that turned into demons, and the exploration of what makes a true ruler would’ve been more in line with Demon’s themes and aesthetic.
It'd also have made the world design easier to incorporate, as you'd be able to split the realms into archstones, thus removing how there's this gigantic land of fire in the middle of Drangleic that you never see from anywhere else.
In terms of Level and enemy design? Absolutely, 100% In terms of lore? This game is too important for the overall franchise, and likewise the rest of the franchise is very important to it.
@@BillySYT I know you've probably been around these parts of the internet for a while, so maybe you've heard of this. But if I recall correctly, Earthen Peak originally faced away from a volcano, which is where Iron Keep was supposed to take place, but this was removed, creating the world's funniest elevator.
Looking back I was probably a bit harsh saying Belfrey gargs were worse than the Valiants but in my defence I did finish my 100% Plat playthrough recently and fighting them at bonfire level 4 after I used an ascetic on them for the Gold Covetous +2 in my original ng was sooooo painful. I just needed to vent, def 2nd worst garg fight tho. I'd rank them if you count Demon Princes as (DS3>DS1>DeS>DS2>ER)
Honestly I love the last giant just for the fact that he's the giant king and the reason he wants to fight you is because he recognizes you from the past memory
Dark Souls 2 SoTFS was my first foray into the Fromsoft games and I maintain it has forever warped my view on these games, I am more than certain I would see every game in a completely different light, probably the 'tough but fair' mentality, but thanks to ds2 being my first game I have always had the opinion that these games are not like that (call me whatever you will idc, I got through the Shadows of the Erdtree with a mod giving me inf health w/no shame in it whatsoever). DS2 was so brutal when I first tried it it just effected everything about these games in my brain. Edit: making themed and creative builds is the thing that keeps me coming back, not the challenge or 'satisfied" feeling of challenge overcoming, I just wanna make a themed build or a build around a dmg type and call it good.
I missed the poll, but, i enjoyed Najka a lot. It felt like a good call back to Quelaag, i didnt know the stone trick so I'm sure itll lower the difficulty for me. That whole "under the ground" thing activated the same fear that oceans give me. That and I guess I just suck at fighting her so she gets me once or twice lol. Definitely see why she's on the weak side for most people, but dammit she gets me everytime. I'm also a super Quelaag fan, so, Chaos Servants slay for life.
I checked out your ld channel billy, and discovered you had played some of Make A Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level and was pleasantly surprised, as I've been in the community for that fangame series for years
Yeah, I did a full let's play of MaGMML2 - I'm not the best Mega Man player, but I love a platformer, and I totally want to do some videos on the main series on this channel one day.
its crazy when i hear people who claim theyve played ds1 struggle with anything in ds2. i cam into ds2 after only really playing turn based stuff or shooters and and hearing someone struggle with the last giant reallly baffles me. i played ds1 after and it just felt the same with the only difference i felt being the 4 way lock on roll
As someone who just finished Dark Souls 2 basegame not a couple days ago, I gotta say, very few bosses gave me any trouble in this game. I dunno if it was legacy skill from playing through DS1 beforehand or the bosses are juat easy overall. Only ones that really challenged me were Smelter Demon (due to his passive fire damage melting my melee build's health bar) and Ancient Dragon (who's health was so high it took me like a year to whittle him down and I would always get caught by his fire breathing straight down move, while my melee build could never hit him in the air). No other boss took me more than 2-3 tries tops. I'm sure once I get to the DLC those bosses will be far, far tougher to handle
The DLC bosses are, in my opinion, where the difficulty of the game lies. Base Game Dark Souls II was sadly not particularly balanced, though I'm happy to hear Smelter still gave you trouble - He's one of the few bosses I feel was well balanced in the game (even if people disagree).
@BillySYT Smelter was really cool! Fun fight, fair and challenging. Though getting to him was a real pain, I had a tough time with that furnace room in the Iron Keep, ended up despawning pretty much all the alonne knights and captains in there
My list is way different, due I have been playing dark souls 2 beyong NG+7, which basically is a factor to change the difficult on bosses, whilst throne watcher and defender can be easy on NG, on NG+4 they are a nightmare, same for lud and zallen, Elana, and many others
Wen you were talking about how we all have that one boss we struggle against but everyone else finds easy, mine is Executioners Chariot. Maybe its because I didn't know to level adaptability, or maybe I'm just awful at that fight, but he legit killed me sooooooo many times on my first playthrough. O&S, Kapra Demon, Fume Knight, Dark Lurker, Nameless King, so many other bosses that are far more challenging technically but I actually cleared them with less attempts than that damn chariot.
To be fair to you, I think the Chariot is more difficult than the fans ultimately voted. I wouldn't feel any shame at struggling with him, he's a toughie.
Okay hear me out, The Royal Rat Vanguard is actually hard on a complete first blind playthrough if you're dumb enough to go down the well in the early game. If you're too stupid(like myself) to notice the mohawk rat then the health bar makes no sense and is really frustrating.
Honestly I feel like a lot of people don’t remember this game had to run on an Xbox 360 I’m sure that limited how crazy they could get with boss movements
It's funny that I'd personally rank many bosses easier than the twin dragonriders, however I think they're the boss that I've died to the least in my many runs. Last giant included.
In DSII NG+ I ran straight into the Prowling Magus fight, mistimed the first roll and got instantly one-shot by the congregation's spells. It is my deepest shame.
While I can admit the gargoyles are possibly the worst I will never forget the satisfaction of my mage beating them when waddling them down when fighting like 5 at once.
Aww yeah, finally you're doing another video about my favorite game!! thank you Billy, even though I'm sure you're (justifiably) going to hate on a lot of the bosses.
It's the toughest of all the games to get into IMO, because it feels so drastically different. I do think it's worth toughing through, but to each their own ^^
Shulva gank squad is a great fight. It took me probably 35 attempts, but it taught me how to parry and meticulously time my counter attacks. Now whenever I get invaded, I'm the threat 😈
How many people have the Illusory Ring of a Conqueror since they feel that the game is so easy? All the bosses need to be harder so I guess most people have the ring except for me who still has a hard time with most bosses.
What a nice video, i really wish ds2 bosses were better tough. For me, looks like all the bosses are lame and boring excluding like fume knigh and sir allone, and by far the biggest disapointment has to be the ancient dragon. When entering the arena you get surprised about how epic and cinematic it looks, the dragon itself looks preety cool and menacing , BUT, once you start the bossfigth you realize it was all fake, its just another boring ass dragon figth but with an legandary skin on it, the attacks have wierd hitboxes and having an attack that hits basicly the whole arena its just stupid in my opinion, but the worse part by far has to be the runback, my god, what an atrocius run. Btw, something a bit off topic, but am i the only one that despised the mid-endgame of bloodborne?(not counting DLC and secondary stuff) The bosses in the mid-end game are diabolicaly bad, just look at the sequence of bosses that you have to figth to reach the end gameWitches of- Hemwick - Shadow of Yharnam - Rom - The One Reborn - Micolash. And im also not a big fan of its aesthethic, in the start is super cool to see the gothic buildings and dark theme of the game, but the longer i played the more seasick i started to get, every area you past trough looks the exact same, and that combined with the mid-end game bosses makes me like it even less. Sorry for the yapping(and bad english) lol. PS: why dont you camera lock?
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
If you'll allow me to shill a bit - Videos of this length take a lot of time to edit. Time that's afforded to me by the graciousness of my channel members. If you enjoy watching or listening to this video & you want to see more long-form edited content, consider becoming a channel member. It's 4,99 a month, keeps the channel going, and helps me in ways I cannot express.
Much love, death to Lud & Zallen, thank you!
Sorry, I'll like and subscribe though. I have a phobia of recurring payments. Although I have been known to drop a few bucks to prospering smaller RUclipsrs that leave their PayPal in the description 😉
I going to be frank here, I completely forgot what I wrote. Listening to the first comment for freja had me relating so hard then I realized I wrote that
Reminds me of a story I heard about game devs who had a very specific issue with their code. They google'd it, found a forum thread with a solution, realized THEY made the forum thread two years before.
@@BillySYT I really only wrote this to hate on freja. Love the videos, keep up the good work
Being the person who wrote up the Guardian Dragon essay, I had the exact opposite experience lmao. I was just eagerly waiting to see if my comment was going to be included
@@malozen glad to meet another chosen one
@@Conimon Cheesed to meet ya, also 🤜🤛
It’s awkward to gauge difficulty in the DS2 bosses. Many of them are quite likely to kill you, but not because they’re hard, if that makes sense. It’s easy to call the Iron King fight easy, but not really, because of The Hole. Royal Rat Authority is easy, except not really, because of its pre-boss minions. It’s the game where I’m most likely to walk out the other side of the arena after dozens of deaths and still feel disappointed in the lack of challenge, and that’s because I didn’t learn anything.
The fight that only takes one attempt to beat, but I spend the whole time flying by the seat of my pants trying to form a strategy mid-fight, I’m going to remember as being far more difficult than one that kills the player by any means necessary. Unfortunately, DS2 bosses approach being difficult in a way that loses sight of being thrilling, which I consider more important.
HOLY SHIT YOU'RE BILLYBAE10K?! I used to watch your Minecraft Raven, Ninja Warrior, and Survivor videos religiously as a little kid, and now I watch your Dark Souls vids religiously. It's like I'm destined to love your content!
I'm one and the same. I actually do have one Minecraft Raven season on this channel, it was meant to be a final send-off to the series, but has insanely high production value. So if you're interested, maybe go back and give it a watch ^^
Can’t wait for the fragrant branch of yore use tierlist!
Writing that one down because I could write paragraphs on the flagrant Fragrant Branch of Yore statue placements
Hiiiii, Guardian Dragon defender lass here~
I'm not one to comment on RUclips videos much, but thanks loads for featuring my essay, Billy! It was a blast writing up my feelings on it and I'm very happy to see that you enjoyed reading through my ramblings. Made my day really!
I love to hear people's takes on Soulsborne bosses that differ from the norm as well, and when I saw your community ranking form, I figured I'd share one of my own. I don't really care if nobody agrees with me, as just having others understanding my perspective even a little bit is already really really cool, much like how I find it really really cool when I see others defend bosses that I myself malign, and I wish this kind of sentiment was more common in the community. I mean, all I'm saying is... if someone's least favorite boss in the series is Gael and their favorite is the Bed of Chaos or some shit, I'd wanna marry that person
Honestly, probably one of my favourite comments in the video I got to read, because not only was it a lovely story & a great insight into what you enjoy - But you also managed to tie it back to the themes of difficulty by actually explaining how your build helped your boss encounter.
I think a fun video idea might be going through the bosses of each game & giving them a compliment - Something they did correct, to try and bring about some more interesting opinions ^^
@@BillySYT Oh my, I appreciate that haha. In hindsight, I probably should've gone into slightly more depth on GD's difficulty since it's the main point here, but it's nice to know that the little I did comment on was good enough.
And that's a refreshing idea, I'll be looking forward to such videos if you do choose to make them :)
honestly i think prowling magus + congregation would be all right if they had a gimmick. like maybe the magus teleports to try and avoid the player until you kill his congregation, but the more of his congregation you kill, the stronger he gets/the more spells he has
Okay THAT is cooking with fire. FromSoft, hire this ferret.
A Doctor Who reference too? Mate ya spoilin me with the little fun bits along with it being a ginormous video. Cheers!
I won't lie, the video's long enough I forgot most of the script, but I will assume I made a Doctor Who reference and people enjoyed it
1:07:35 Let's not forget that in NG+, you can get jumpscared by her early on and any damage you do to her carries to her proper boss encounter.
She's the only boss who got got the privilege of showing up out of nowhere, and any damage we do to her WILL carry into the actual fight. We don't get it for that dragon in the first game's DLC, or the other dragon in DS3. Why can't we get this in all soul games?
2:08:28 Happend to me too (I cried) but an excellent boss fight overall when not accounting the runback.
I did not expect feature-length films from you but I'm here for it 😅
I've made TV-Shows before on RUclips, feature length film is nothing for me lmao
Yeah the Shulva gank squad was stupidly hard and poor designed, but damn the tension, the feeling of always being chased and having to run through the whole arena for 15min XD
Just what I needed to get through this afternoon of work. Thanks for the content!
Sir Alonne was essily my hardest boss fight in the game. Most DS2 bosses i was able to best within 5 attempts, but not this asshole. He took about 30 attempts and that run is horrible. Still love the fight.
Disagree with whoever said there's no healing windows though. You heal after he attacks and instead of attacking back you have to heal instead.
The torch was the only reason I beat brightstone cove, something about the spiders there absolutely terrified me. Her placing is about right I think, it's not very difficult
Hey, my comment on The Ivory King made the cut! Also, it’s adorable to hear Billy talk about his boyfriend in nearly every episode I’ve seen. Easily my favorite ship in Soulsborne.
I'll hopefully be getting him on the channel a bit more often in the future. He deserves more than the occasional smash or pass videos (He hasn't played Sekiro yet, so we might do a video showcasing his first run)
covetus demon is moisturized, flourishing, and is in his lane
33:10 “can’t say I’m shocked” haha I see what you did there
Actually unintentional lmao
In my honest opinion.
Hardest boss: Darklurker
Easiest boss: Covetous Demon
Best boss: Fume Knight
Coolest looking boss: Burnt Ivory King
Worst boss: Royal Rat Authority
I totally agree that there is just no tension in this game. I'm a bloodborne superfan, so I hope you can understand that dark souls just doesn't get me the same adrenaline rush as Bloodborne in general. I didn't play ds1, and my experience with ds3 was a lot better, Ds2 was actually my first dark souls. If I hadn't heard from the fans that it was the worst one, I probably would never have gotten bloodborne. Because even back then, the difficulty just didn't sit right with me. Yeah, it was hard, but I never felt like I had really overcome a great challenge. I just played through it again and breezed through most of it. It never really made me feel anything. I hope it gets a complete overhaul some day, because I do like parts of it, but just a touch up in graphics won't do for a Ds2 remake, if that ever were to happen.
Honestly Darklurker is my favorite ds2 fight, and imo it’s worth jumping through all the hoops.
A point that also gives more difficulty to some bosses in DS2 is the low durability of the weapons. This is especially relevant in fights like Aava or Sinh, where you have to repair your weapon during the fight or change your weapon, which adda a extra layer of strategy in the battle.
Appreciate your hard work moderating all the comments and rankings.
I love this ranking, it made me feel cozy and actually made me wanna play through DS2 again. :)
I keep seeing bosses so high up and I'm like, "Really, THIS boss scored so highly on the rank?" But then I see the actual difficulty ranking and I'm like, "Yeah Velstadt being like a 6/10 tracks."
Mhmmmm
Funny fact: I steamrolled Belfry Gankgoyles so hard that I don't even remember the fight, discovered the light switch for Lost Sinner just by having normal RPG "go the wrong way first" instincts so I beat her easy and I keep forgetting the Shulva trio even exist. But Velstadt? That was my brickwall. Worst brickwall for me in the entire base game. Worse than Amana Shrine and I've only played SotFS. His runback where you can either spend an additional 5 minutes disabling the alarm every time (and possibly accidentally trigger it in doing so) or Naruto run right into some very angy Pyromancers and THREE knights did not help that.
Yesss - this will be my entertainment while I’m at work today. Let’s go!
Enjoy ^^
I love Skeleton Lords. My only wish for that fight was more Bonewheel.
Fun fact: on the Vanilla version, each Lord summons 4 skeletons. So 4 armoured skeletons, 4 naked skeletons and 4 bonewheel skeletons. On Scholar, it's more like 2 bonewheels, 10 naked skeletons and 5 armoured skeletons.
Pure evil
this is the first poll i voted on and i wasn't shocked but happy to see fume knight at the top
dude I am SO excited for every site of grace in Elden Ring ranked, the one by the gate where Melina gives you torrent and Jarburg better be around the top, at LEAST.
But how could you forget the absolute classic of... *checks notes* um... Altar South
@@BillySYT oh yeah...altar south, that certainly was a site of grace, I remember that one time I did that really cool thing there (scene missing)
Hey, Billy! I’m the guy who reviewed (almost) every boss in that insane wall of text (except for Executioner’s Chariot cause I forgot), and it seems my rambling paid off (12 of my comments made it in)! I can’t imagine how long it took to edit this video, but I think it was well worth the effort. I don’t know why it took me so long, but I’ve finally subscribed to the channel! (Also, nice Doctor Who reference.)
Edit: Also, since you and a lot of others brought up the differences between the original version and Scholar, I bought the original and started a series on my channel comparing the two, and I feel like a lot of people view vanilla through rose-tinted glasses - it is better in a lot of places, but Scholar also doesn’t get enough credit for better enemy placement or mechanics in some areas, like Drangleic Castle or Dragon Shrine. (Did you know that in Scholar, wearing the King’s Ring stops the statues in the big room near the King’s Gate from waking up and attacking you?)
Your comment was definitely one of my "go-to's" in case there weren't enough from other voters to go around, so I appreciate the effort. I also don't doubt that I view the original through rose-tinted glasses, but I still attest that the enemy placement is far less "ganky", and certain locations like the Iron Keep are more manageable there. Had no idea about that King's Ring trivia, nice to see I'm still learning about DS2 all these years later ^^
"His only attack that really got me was his thrust. As the range of his hammer is extremely long. Him poking me with the blunt end of his weapon became a regular occurance during the fight."
You think you're sly, Billy. But I see through your sneaky words and phrasing.
Okay so... It was completely unintentional, your mind is in the GUTTER!
@@BillySYT This coming from the person who did the Smash or Pass vid for DS1.
....DS2 edition when? >w>
I'd watch a video of you rating all the Sites of Grace!
Would love to give my opinion on one of these in the future. Great content!
DS3 will be up next. Just keep an eye on the channel's community tab ^^
The chariot boss fight if you run past the enemies on the run back, jump across the platform to the right side before the boss room those enemies will go back to their position. Some will even fall off the bridge.
I ran into the dragon rider, screaming and yelling and terrified. but when I saw him drop down I had run to the exit door trying to get away and he had killed himself.
Great video as always
Billy called me a God wrap it up I’ve peaked ❤
Feels so bizarre watching the sinh segment where he "stays grounded enough for the player to attack" but the gameplay has him in the air or out of reach three quarters of the time
I love community rankings. That's trully the best way to measure the difficulty of the bosses because we all have different experiences in souls games. Somebody that beat Fume Knight on the first try may have died 10 times against Old Iron King because of that hole in the middle of the arena lol
Tips for beating Lud & Zaled
1.Attun Climax
2.Use helm that increase spell uses/item that restore spell
3.Make sure put soul item to your inventory
4.make sure attack him until 60% health bar and then use Climax
Im gonna come in here to Elana's defense a bit with the summoning.
After playing ranged combat styles in a lot of games, you kinda need that aggro draw away from you.
The way she uses Velstadt or other summons, similar to Rennala in Elden Ring, gets your attention off of her.
It is also EXACTLY what I use my summons for in Elden Ring. Taking my opponent's attention off of me and having them have to keep track of my ally (I run bows as my primary weapons in these games. Not necessarily magic like she does here, but close enough). Usually, it's Tiche and Finlay in the base game, or with the inclusion of Shadow of the Erdtree, its the two bleed sisters or the golem.
Regardless for ranged bosses to not go the way of Gwyndolin where they are kinda really easy they usually have to incorperate some level of fuckery with summons and aggro splitting. So her doing summons doesn't take away from her in my book.
So, about Elana (sad to see my comment not featured 😭), I think the fake Velstadt is a stain in what would be a great boss, simply because it's pure RNG. If you're lucky enough that she never summons fake Velstadt, she is a perfectly manageable boss, but if she does, you're very likely to be screwed, because even if you beat him, she can summon him again. It would have worked as a second phase, maybe something she does when she is at 40% health, then it would be consistent, but because it's random, it just makes the difficulty of the boss shoot up randomly.
There were a lot of Elana comments saying roughly the same stuff, so it was hard to feature all of them without going too repetitive. I appreciate you leaving your comment though ^^
She is too easy without her summons in my opinion. You can run away from Velstadt and just keep hitting her, but I understand not everyone wants to be a headless chicken. Great moveset and it's one of my favorites but maybe her summons could've been more fair, because without them she isn't as great, but I also love the idea of her summoning Velstadt. I completely agree with the last part though because it doesn't really make a lot of sense to summon Velstadt if she's at like, 70% health. What a cheater. 😒
Honestly, I love that she can summon Velstadt. You get to choose between managing a few small, fast summons, and one big, slow, dangerous summon. And I feel like their attacks coordinate pretty well
The problem is if you ignore him, she can summon another summon while he's still there.@@LuckerStomp
@@Bendanna93 You don’t have to kill him immediately but you can hit him overtime if he’s really a problem and struggle to dodge Elena’s attacks. Also, If she summons skeletons you should be able to kill 1 or 2 pretty quickly. There’s opportunities to deal extra damage when she’s summoning.
1st time ever beating fume knight it took me hours and I couldn't dodge anything in phase 2 but when I reached him in ng+ I beat him on my first attempt without taking any hits but sir alonne is way harder because you are afraid to do the run back again and do mistakes. Honestly amazing video hope you reach your 2024 follower goal.
Stop lying little bisch ahh
Great video, really appreciate you touching on as many of the voter comments as you did. Makes the community feel heard, especially by covering the good and bad sides of the boss roster. I was the commenter for SL1 on burnt ivory king. Anyone feel free to ask if you have any questions on SL1 runs in soulsborne, I've completed all games except ER. Cheers 🍻
I absolutely love DS2, but admittedly most bosses could be better. I say they remake the game, changing almost nothing except getting Miyazaki's consultation on the boss battles.
WOOHOO BIG DADDY MOHAWK RAT FEATURE LETS GOOO
i t w a s y o u
love a fellow gay souls lover, its so refreshing haha
Would they collect Homosouls from you lot that are extra fabulous?
Gay souls fans rise up
R e a l
Here!
That's the reason of why curved greatswords are my favourite weapon class 🤔
Holy shit this is a long one, so excited to watch this repeatedly
My decision to make the Community Ranking series one video each coming back to bite me.
I maintain that DS2 would’ve worked better as Demon’s Souls 2. So many bosses are demons or people that turned into demons, and the exploration of what makes a true ruler would’ve been more in line with Demon’s themes and aesthetic.
It'd also have made the world design easier to incorporate, as you'd be able to split the realms into archstones, thus removing how there's this gigantic land of fire in the middle of Drangleic that you never see from anywhere else.
In terms of Level and enemy design? Absolutely, 100%
In terms of lore? This game is too important for the overall franchise, and likewise the rest of the franchise is very important to it.
@@BillySYT
I know you've probably been around these parts of the internet for a while, so maybe you've heard of this.
But if I recall correctly, Earthen Peak originally faced away from a volcano, which is where Iron Keep was supposed to take place, but this was removed, creating the world's funniest elevator.
I thought of burning the windmill without looking up a guide. Technically a friend told me, but I still didn’t need a guide.
Looking back I was probably a bit harsh saying Belfrey gargs were worse than the Valiants but in my defence I did finish my 100% Plat playthrough recently and fighting them at bonfire level 4 after I used an ascetic on them for the Gold Covetous +2 in my original ng was sooooo painful. I just needed to vent, def 2nd worst garg fight tho. I'd rank them if you count Demon Princes as (DS3>DS1>DeS>DS2>ER)
To this day i thought the royal rat vanguard died based off how many rats u killed
Honestly I love the last giant just for the fact that he's the giant king and the reason he wants to fight you is because he recognizes you from the past memory
He's a Grade A professional hater and we stan
Dark Souls 2 SoTFS was my first foray into the Fromsoft games and I maintain it has forever warped my view on these games, I am more than certain I would see every game in a completely different light, probably the 'tough but fair' mentality, but thanks to ds2 being my first game I have always had the opinion that these games are not like that (call me whatever you will idc, I got through the Shadows of the Erdtree with a mod giving me inf health w/no shame in it whatsoever). DS2 was so brutal when I first tried it it just effected everything about these games in my brain.
Edit: making themed and creative builds is the thing that keeps me coming back, not the challenge or 'satisfied" feeling of challenge overcoming, I just wanna make a themed build or a build around a dmg type and call it good.
I missed the poll, but, i enjoyed Najka a lot. It felt like a good call back to Quelaag, i didnt know the stone trick so I'm sure itll lower the difficulty for me. That whole "under the ground" thing activated the same fear that oceans give me. That and I guess I just suck at fighting her so she gets me once or twice lol. Definitely see why she's on the weak side for most people, but dammit she gets me everytime. I'm also a super Quelaag fan, so, Chaos Servants slay for life.
I'll be posting the DS3 poll today in the community tab, so if you want to take part, keep an eye out 👀
I checked out your ld channel billy, and discovered you had played some of Make A Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level and was pleasantly surprised, as I've been in the community for that fangame series for years
Yeah, I did a full let's play of MaGMML2 - I'm not the best Mega Man player, but I love a platformer, and I totally want to do some videos on the main series on this channel one day.
What a long video, I’m excited!
Thx for including my comment for covetous demon. He’s just a happy guy 😊
Ive personally never had an issue with the shulva gank squad I've always beaten them first try, I think it's a pretty well balanced and good boss
"Prowling Magus and the Congregation" would be a sick band name.
Please do a DS2 Bosses ranked by lore. I know it would be like 12 hours long but that just means you need to get started now
1:35:24 tryna call fume knight sexier than veldstadt is the real crime my strength faith hex belldaddy will not be disrespected like this
What runback to the rotten? There's a bonfire right next to his room
its crazy when i hear people who claim theyve played ds1 struggle with anything in ds2. i cam into ds2 after only really playing turn based stuff or shooters and and hearing someone struggle with the last giant reallly baffles me. i played ds1 after and it just felt the same with the only difference i felt being the 4 way lock on roll
Yessss, love me a long ass video! Did you already do a community poll for DS3?
It'll be out this week. It was supposed to be out today but I was lowkey exhausted
@@BillySYT understandable, this video must have taken so long to put together! I'll keep an eye out for the poll then 👀
As someone who just finished Dark Souls 2 basegame not a couple days ago, I gotta say, very few bosses gave me any trouble in this game. I dunno if it was legacy skill from playing through DS1 beforehand or the bosses are juat easy overall. Only ones that really challenged me were Smelter Demon (due to his passive fire damage melting my melee build's health bar) and Ancient Dragon (who's health was so high it took me like a year to whittle him down and I would always get caught by his fire breathing straight down move, while my melee build could never hit him in the air). No other boss took me more than 2-3 tries tops. I'm sure once I get to the DLC those bosses will be far, far tougher to handle
The DLC bosses are, in my opinion, where the difficulty of the game lies. Base Game Dark Souls II was sadly not particularly balanced, though I'm happy to hear Smelter still gave you trouble - He's one of the few bosses I feel was well balanced in the game (even if people disagree).
@BillySYT Smelter was really cool! Fun fight, fair and challenging. Though getting to him was a real pain, I had a tough time with that furnace room in the Iron Keep, ended up despawning pretty much all the alonne knights and captains in there
My list is way different, due I have been playing dark souls 2 beyong NG+7, which basically is a factor to change the difficult on bosses, whilst throne watcher and defender can be easy on NG, on NG+4 they are a nightmare, same for lud and zallen, Elana, and many others
Wen you were talking about how we all have that one boss we struggle against but everyone else finds easy, mine is Executioners Chariot. Maybe its because I didn't know to level adaptability, or maybe I'm just awful at that fight, but he legit killed me sooooooo many times on my first playthrough. O&S, Kapra Demon, Fume Knight, Dark Lurker, Nameless King, so many other bosses that are far more challenging technically but I actually cleared them with less attempts than that damn chariot.
To be fair to you, I think the Chariot is more difficult than the fans ultimately voted. I wouldn't feel any shame at struggling with him, he's a toughie.
Holy fk, Billy... doing work, sir. You slay. Thank you so much for all this!!
Mama, kudos for slaying that. For spilling 😍
Okay hear me out, The Royal Rat Vanguard is actually hard on a complete first blind playthrough if you're dumb enough to go down the well in the early game. If you're too stupid(like myself) to notice the mohawk rat then the health bar makes no sense and is really frustrating.
Honestly I feel like a lot of people don’t remember this game had to run on an Xbox 360 I’m sure that limited how crazy they could get with boss movements
It's why I find Smelter Demon so impressive. Because a lot of his movements feel excessive in a good way, even with the limitations of the time.
It's funny that I'd personally rank many bosses easier than the twin dragonriders, however I think they're the boss that I've died to the least in my many runs. Last giant included.
We do not appreciate the Rom slight 😢
- Your fans at Byrgenworth♥️
^^ Yea !! another nice video , like always !!
best souls 2
In DSII NG+ I ran straight into the Prowling Magus fight, mistimed the first roll and got instantly one-shot by the congregation's spells. It is my deepest shame.
"seeing the invisible boss doesn't make it easier" okay billy s
I MEAN
1:05:15 subbed for this goated reference
While I can admit the gargoyles are possibly the worst I will never forget the satisfaction of my mage beating them when waddling them down when fighting like 5 at once.
Yo will you ever make a boss arena tier list
One day, sure ^^
@@BillySYT thanks love your videos Billy
@@BillySYT oh and by the way what's your favorite soulsborne boss of all time?
Aww yeah, finally you're doing another video about my favorite game!! thank you Billy, even though I'm sure you're (justifiably) going to hate on a lot of the bosses.
I hate on them with love 🙏
Barely played this game. Would like to but I just haven't been able to get into it. Haven't even killed a single boss yet.
It's the toughest of all the games to get into IMO, because it feels so drastically different. I do think it's worth toughing through, but to each their own ^^
I think I’m the weird one since I beat fume knight first try and getting hit only twice
same i also beat it 1st try somehow and was surprised i took only one try to him and months to shulva gang squad
I think I might have to wait till Friday to watch this...
Honestly, I'd watch it in parts. Like... Get a few entries out the way, then use the timestamps in the description to find your way back.
Where’s that covetous demon in the ice? I’ve never seen it before
Eleum Loyce, if you go to the lower city past the spiky hedgehogs.
Shulva gank squad is a great fight. It took me probably 35 attempts, but it taught me how to parry and meticulously time my counter attacks. Now whenever I get invaded, I'm the threat 😈
Great vid Billy, as always.
Looking back, DS2 is such a bad game compared to 1 & 3.
Still fun but horrible 10 years later
And yet without DS2, we likely don't get a ton of Elden Ring features that we take for granted. Which I find insane tbh
How many people have the Illusory Ring of a Conqueror since they feel that the game is so easy? All the bosses need to be harder so I guess most people have the ring except for me who still has a hard time with most bosses.
LETS GO!!!!
What a nice video, i really wish ds2 bosses were better tough. For me, looks like all the bosses are lame and boring excluding like fume knigh and sir allone, and by far the biggest disapointment has to be the ancient dragon.
When entering the arena you get surprised about how epic and cinematic it looks, the dragon itself looks preety cool and menacing , BUT, once you start the bossfigth you realize it was all fake, its just another boring ass dragon figth but with an legandary skin on it, the attacks have wierd hitboxes and having an attack that hits basicly the whole arena its just stupid in my opinion, but the worse part by far has to be the runback, my god, what an atrocius run.
Btw, something a bit off topic, but am i the only one that despised the mid-endgame of bloodborne?(not counting DLC and secondary stuff) The bosses in the mid-end game are diabolicaly bad, just look at the sequence of bosses that you have to figth to reach the end gameWitches of- Hemwick - Shadow of Yharnam - Rom - The One Reborn - Micolash. And im also not a big fan of its aesthethic, in the start is super cool to see the gothic buildings and dark theme of the game, but the longer i played the more seasick i started to get, every area you past trough looks the exact same, and that combined with the mid-end game bosses makes me like it even less.
Sorry for the yapping(and bad english) lol.
PS: why dont you camera lock?
Billy you re killing us 2 hours come on 😂
This will be a good time watching this video
Lol, Semon of Dong. Great vid.
Where do you vote on the boss polls
I post them in the Community Tab on the RUclips channel. Dark Souls III is up next, and the post will go up tomorrow ^^
Great video as always. I am begging you to at least *try* Fallout New Vegas. I’d love your opinions on Arcade Ganon and Boone!
Sadly I tried getting into the Fallout games and the setting just isn't for me
@@BillySYT I will wear you down over time
Semon of dong charge attack exists!
Sources: trust me
It was reveaked to me in a dream
Left as an exercise to the reader
does the 's' stand for souls mr billy souls
See, that's a smart idea. But it's legit just my surname initial lmao
This is better than half the Avengers movies!
The path to Lud and Zallen are one of my worst gaming experience ever, I made it probably like 15 times, horrible
So long video :)))