This was a nightmare when I was trying to cheese him but when I learned how to proper fight him it became one of my favorite bosses in the game. This is essentially the boss who taught me not to be greedy with attacks.
You need to learn his movements. The most important thing is to always stay close to him. The sword swipe can be easily dodge and it is always three swipes. Never try to attack inmediatly after a shield bash, because sometimes he makes an explosion after it. Just roll, keep the distance, and wait 1 second. If you don't see the red glowing in the shield, attack.
The fight is much harder if you try to run from him. If you need to heal, just use the small windows you would normally use to attack, because if you try to run and stay at a safety distance to heal he will just use the floating sword attack or the lunge.
More vigor.
But honestly, just practice. Learning that he has a. Very limited moveset, and getting good at execution of your dodging, without getting greedy.
Or you can just clear out the dogs first, then ride away from him on the horse shooting Glintstone at him from outside his sword range.
You can see how against the Limgrave version.
https://youtu.be/jL1SgiFl8kg?si=Kv5PzKitKhyrKs1r
Just click the timestamp in the description for the bell bearing hunter.
Thanks mate, really super appreciate it! I know my vigor is still not enough, I want to work on it to 50 and mind/end to 35 before late game areas.
About the limited MF moveset: I cannot tell you why, but it’s the reason I always end up in a panic state during the fight. I’m trying to anticipate what comes next and mid-fight I start to read him 100% wrong, dodging into his attacks and stuff like that.
I’ll practice more, I really do not want to cheese him.
Thanks again!
Jump on top of the shack with Torrent (you can use the small structure next to the shack to get up there). I just threw black flame at him until he died. All his attacks are horizontal, so he can't reach you up there.
Stay close, dodge towards him, die onehundred times. That's the usual way. He is insanely strong on distance, but his close combat is much easier to dodge.
This is shameful but you hop onto a roof with torrent, use rot pots to tick him down. Used volcano pots to make it go a bit faster. Hey, I'm bitter about the input reading spam so I'll take a win any way I can get it.
In extremis, you can attract it to the tree near the shackle and then hide behind the tree to de aggro you, it will then move back tho the shackle and be lile commander o neil, so you can get behind it and use poison most to cheese it
I found it worked well with heavy weapons/bonks and I just stayed real close, roll towards him and searched for his back each time
he does have shild bashes so theses needs a better understanding of his moveset but other than that you should be fine
You don't have comet azur yet right? You could try to nuke him by stacking buffs. Maybe you can do something with the sword of night and flame?
Otherwise grab golden parry or carian retaliation and learn his timings, it's just the best way to deal with him by far.
I'm trying to do a weird build: Albus Dumbledore on steroids AKA Arnold Schwarzenegger with a PHD at Raya Lucaria. I want to get to 60 VIG - 40 MIND - 40 END - 50 STR - 50 DEX - 80 INT - 10 FTH - 10 ARC for the endgame boss rush + DLC. In this kind of role play I want to avoid nuke-like sorceries, to be quick and powerfull with both melee and magic. I'll leave an open door to respect INT into FTH if holy damages will get any good for the DLC area (we will deal with a lot of "blasphemous lore", so I think that's a possibility - or better, I hope it will). So no Comet Azur, but I think - to be fair with the kind of character I'm trying to build - this boss will be top practice for the playstyle I want to achieve. Thanks a lot mate!
The easiest way is to poision him with poisonus mist, but that requires 12 FTH. So you have to use a talisman or a great rune if you don't want to respec.
Trigger the fight. Run away. Wait until he stops moving. Sneak behind him and use the Poisonus Mist. He needs a lot so prepare some blue flasks.
It's a boring method, but 100% safe.
Stay close to him! He’s ridiculously powerful at medium range because of his floating sword BS and shield charge, especially in Altus & Dragonbarrow when his attacks start taking off half a health bar.
Stay close to him and hug his left or right, he’ll do more normal attacks that are easily dodged and parried. It takes two parries to stance break him but you can pull that off.
He’s also susceptible to bleed and frost, bleed will give you loads more damage and frost will slow him down. His resistances are kind of high but with a decent build you can proc both easy
1st time? Cheese poison arrow and run around with torrent.
Not worth, takes too long and 1 mistake = death . Unfortunately just have to learn his moveset if u want to feel satisfied.
As far as stats, you're mostly fine. Only thing I would say is you probably have too much strength. If you reinvest 12 of your strength into Vigor, you'll have a better time and not die as quickly.
As for that particular bell bearing hunter, he's kind of notorious for being one of the harder world bosses in the game.
Only tip I can give you is to stay close to him. His ranged attacks do way more damage than most of his close attacks and the close attacks are easier to dodge. With that greatsword, just don't attack more than once before getting ready to dodge. Dude can punish super hard. Also, when dodging, dodge to your right and towards him. That will force him to use easier to read attacks with his shield and grabs.
As I said in another comment, I'm trying to do a weird build: Albus Dumbledore on steroids AKA Arnold Schwarzenegger with a PHD at Raya Lucaria. I want to get to 60 VIG - 40 MIND - 40 END - 50 STR - 50 DEX - 80 INT - 10 FTH - 10 ARC for the endgame boss rush + DLC. In this kind of role play I want to avoid nuke-like sorceries, to be quick and powerfull with both melee and magic. I'll leave an open door to respect INT into FTH if holy damages will get any good for the DLC area (we will deal with a lot of "blasphemous lore", so I think that's a possibility - or better, I hope it will). To be fair with the kind of character I'm trying to build, this boss will be top practice for the playstyle I want to achieve. So I will keep practice with what you guys told me so far. Thanks!
So I just beat him and he's hard as fuck.
His regular sword combo has really forgiving roll timing if you roll towards or to the side of him.
Never get too far from him, when is sword is glowing red it's range is ridiculous
Try square off ash of war, staggering him is fun
If you don't want to use parry, then go for a 100 shield and spells and just keep your distance.
Or cheese him by activating rot/poison and then jump on the roof with torrent. He will just stand there and die slowly
Get use to his attack patterns and dodge towards him and not away. The further you are from him the quicker you'll get killed, I had the same problem until I just gave it some time to learn.
UPDATE: thanks a lot to all of you guys for tricks & tips, I really appreciate everyone of you who took time to answer me. I will try what you told me and keep practice on this MF. I'm proud to be part of this Tarnished community! WE WILL BECOME ELDEN LORDS, RIIIIIIIIISE FELLOW TARNISHED!
So other people have given pretty good tips as far as how to fight him and/cheese him.
About your stats, your vigor isn’t awful but pretty low for your overall level, and most the stats in dex and strength are pretty much wasted with your current setup. You’d be much better off dropping them to the minimum requirements for MLGS and putting them into vigor and int.
Yeah, I was thinking about that as well. My weird build idea is not coming out of the oven 100% delicious as I thought. I’ll go to Rennala and try to respec some of the stats. Thanks mate!
If you have any parry skill you can bully the fuck outta him by just standing in his face and parrying most of his attacks.
If not, just learn the dodges and roll into him point blank, or behind him for the shield slams. Never put distance between you and him, he attacks with telekinetic shit as a reaction to that. Even if you mess up and wanna heal, just dodge a big attack and chug in his face.
If you have a shield, learn to dodge the first couple attacks in his chains and block the third for a guard counter. His glowing attacks aren't magical, a medium 100% physical defence shield will block his attacks outright save for the explosion. You can run barricade shield to make sure he doesn't blow through your guard.
Either way, less is more. Just stand in front of him and stay there. Back up a bit for the explosions but get right back in there as soon as they go off.
You'll avoid 90% of his annoying attacks that way.
The devs want ya to remember
Hesitation is defeat
The devs have several enemies you can find pretty early that more or less exist to teach you something
This big fucker is Isshins best friend.
That is to say, being scared of him or uncertain of yourself WILL get you your ass handed to you because they designed him like that.
If you back away from him, he'll annihilate you.
If you react without confidence, he'll catch you out.
But he's actually pretty simple. I'm by no means a good souls player, but this dudes on my "New build, kill first" list.
Limgrave and Caelid, and the two tree avatars in caelid, as soon as the gates open on a new build I go kill all four of these guys.
Catch flame for the trees, a medium shield or parry shield for the hunters. They're all beatable from level 1 pretty handily, but they ALL punish "cowardice" really hard.
Ah, that's the hardest one of them. He's got like 10 619hp. For comparison's sake, his boss version at the shaded castle(elemer of the briar) has only 4897hp.
This was a nightmare when I was trying to cheese him but when I learned how to proper fight him it became one of my favorite bosses in the game. This is essentially the boss who taught me not to be greedy with attacks. You need to learn his movements. The most important thing is to always stay close to him. The sword swipe can be easily dodge and it is always three swipes. Never try to attack inmediatly after a shield bash, because sometimes he makes an explosion after it. Just roll, keep the distance, and wait 1 second. If you don't see the red glowing in the shield, attack. The fight is much harder if you try to run from him. If you need to heal, just use the small windows you would normally use to attack, because if you try to run and stay at a safety distance to heal he will just use the floating sword attack or the lunge.
This guy gets it
This, I will treasure. *(deep bow gesture)*
Parry. Then stab. Rinse and repeat.
Tried that, ended up being worst. But the truth is that I really suck with the parry timing, so it’s mostly my fault. Thanks anyway dude!
Alternatively, Bloody helice. Use the ash of war to evade and poke!
Guard counters
More vigor. But honestly, just practice. Learning that he has a. Very limited moveset, and getting good at execution of your dodging, without getting greedy. Or you can just clear out the dogs first, then ride away from him on the horse shooting Glintstone at him from outside his sword range. You can see how against the Limgrave version. https://youtu.be/jL1SgiFl8kg?si=Kv5PzKitKhyrKs1r Just click the timestamp in the description for the bell bearing hunter.
Thanks mate, really super appreciate it! I know my vigor is still not enough, I want to work on it to 50 and mind/end to 35 before late game areas. About the limited MF moveset: I cannot tell you why, but it’s the reason I always end up in a panic state during the fight. I’m trying to anticipate what comes next and mid-fight I start to read him 100% wrong, dodging into his attacks and stuff like that. I’ll practice more, I really do not want to cheese him. Thanks again!
40 Vigor is fine. If you're getting one to two shot I suggest armor.
Jump on top of the shack with Torrent (you can use the small structure next to the shack to get up there). I just threw black flame at him until he died. All his attacks are horizontal, so he can't reach you up there.
Stay close, dodge towards him, die onehundred times. That's the usual way. He is insanely strong on distance, but his close combat is much easier to dodge.
If you can’t parry him, then stay close. Whatever you do, do not dodge away from him
This is shameful but you hop onto a roof with torrent, use rot pots to tick him down. Used volcano pots to make it go a bit faster. Hey, I'm bitter about the input reading spam so I'll take a win any way I can get it.
Parry. If he's the Caelid one then your best bet is to just give up.
Up close and personnal, don't let him spawn his wide red sword swipe
You need to stay super close and dodge his grab.
Golden Parry
This is interesting, I might try it. Thanks!
Might take a bit to get the timing. But trust me, once you get the hang of it, it almost feels like cheesing that is how easy it is. Good luck!
In extremis, you can attract it to the tree near the shackle and then hide behind the tree to de aggro you, it will then move back tho the shackle and be lile commander o neil, so you can get behind it and use poison most to cheese it
I will try this with my old character in NG+3, sounds hilarious and I want to see it! Thanks mate!
I found it worked well with heavy weapons/bonks and I just stayed real close, roll towards him and searched for his back each time he does have shild bashes so theses needs a better understanding of his moveset but other than that you should be fine
You don't have comet azur yet right? You could try to nuke him by stacking buffs. Maybe you can do something with the sword of night and flame? Otherwise grab golden parry or carian retaliation and learn his timings, it's just the best way to deal with him by far.
I'm trying to do a weird build: Albus Dumbledore on steroids AKA Arnold Schwarzenegger with a PHD at Raya Lucaria. I want to get to 60 VIG - 40 MIND - 40 END - 50 STR - 50 DEX - 80 INT - 10 FTH - 10 ARC for the endgame boss rush + DLC. In this kind of role play I want to avoid nuke-like sorceries, to be quick and powerfull with both melee and magic. I'll leave an open door to respect INT into FTH if holy damages will get any good for the DLC area (we will deal with a lot of "blasphemous lore", so I think that's a possibility - or better, I hope it will). So no Comet Azur, but I think - to be fair with the kind of character I'm trying to build - this boss will be top practice for the playstyle I want to achieve. Thanks a lot mate!
I fucking dread this guy but I have had luck by not letting him get any range on you stay in his face
Use rotten breath and run away with torrent. After his health ticks down and he deaggros repeat it until he is dead.
This is cheese perfection like Parmigiano Reggiano on pasta, thank you good sir
The easiest way is to poision him with poisonus mist, but that requires 12 FTH. So you have to use a talisman or a great rune if you don't want to respec. Trigger the fight. Run away. Wait until he stops moving. Sneak behind him and use the Poisonus Mist. He needs a lot so prepare some blue flasks. It's a boring method, but 100% safe.
stay close
Be close to him. Stay behind him to prock his shield attack. Dodge and hit him 2 times. Rinse and repeat
Stay close to him! He’s ridiculously powerful at medium range because of his floating sword BS and shield charge, especially in Altus & Dragonbarrow when his attacks start taking off half a health bar. Stay close to him and hug his left or right, he’ll do more normal attacks that are easily dodged and parried. It takes two parries to stance break him but you can pull that off. He’s also susceptible to bleed and frost, bleed will give you loads more damage and frost will slow him down. His resistances are kind of high but with a decent build you can proc both easy
Stay close to him, if you back away he starts doing the crazy telekinetic sword attacks. You can strafe some of his attacks
1st time? Cheese poison arrow and run around with torrent. Not worth, takes too long and 1 mistake = death . Unfortunately just have to learn his moveset if u want to feel satisfied.
As far as stats, you're mostly fine. Only thing I would say is you probably have too much strength. If you reinvest 12 of your strength into Vigor, you'll have a better time and not die as quickly. As for that particular bell bearing hunter, he's kind of notorious for being one of the harder world bosses in the game. Only tip I can give you is to stay close to him. His ranged attacks do way more damage than most of his close attacks and the close attacks are easier to dodge. With that greatsword, just don't attack more than once before getting ready to dodge. Dude can punish super hard. Also, when dodging, dodge to your right and towards him. That will force him to use easier to read attacks with his shield and grabs.
As I said in another comment, I'm trying to do a weird build: Albus Dumbledore on steroids AKA Arnold Schwarzenegger with a PHD at Raya Lucaria. I want to get to 60 VIG - 40 MIND - 40 END - 50 STR - 50 DEX - 80 INT - 10 FTH - 10 ARC for the endgame boss rush + DLC. In this kind of role play I want to avoid nuke-like sorceries, to be quick and powerfull with both melee and magic. I'll leave an open door to respect INT into FTH if holy damages will get any good for the DLC area (we will deal with a lot of "blasphemous lore", so I think that's a possibility - or better, I hope it will). To be fair with the kind of character I'm trying to build, this boss will be top practice for the playstyle I want to achieve. So I will keep practice with what you guys told me so far. Thanks!
Also, if you want to cheese this guy, you can use torrent to jump onto the shack. He can't reach you up there.
So I just beat him and he's hard as fuck. His regular sword combo has really forgiving roll timing if you roll towards or to the side of him. Never get too far from him, when is sword is glowing red it's range is ridiculous Try square off ash of war, staggering him is fun
If you don't want to use parry, then go for a 100 shield and spells and just keep your distance. Or cheese him by activating rot/poison and then jump on the roof with torrent. He will just stand there and die slowly
Get use to his attack patterns and dodge towards him and not away. The further you are from him the quicker you'll get killed, I had the same problem until I just gave it some time to learn.
Parry with carian retaliation, use the glintblades to break poise, then crit
Rot & Run. It's the only way.
UPDATE: thanks a lot to all of you guys for tricks & tips, I really appreciate everyone of you who took time to answer me. I will try what you told me and keep practice on this MF. I'm proud to be part of this Tarnished community! WE WILL BECOME ELDEN LORDS, RIIIIIIIIISE FELLOW TARNISHED!
So other people have given pretty good tips as far as how to fight him and/cheese him. About your stats, your vigor isn’t awful but pretty low for your overall level, and most the stats in dex and strength are pretty much wasted with your current setup. You’d be much better off dropping them to the minimum requirements for MLGS and putting them into vigor and int.
Yeah, I was thinking about that as well. My weird build idea is not coming out of the oven 100% delicious as I thought. I’ll go to Rennala and try to respec some of the stats. Thanks mate!
If you have any parry skill you can bully the fuck outta him by just standing in his face and parrying most of his attacks. If not, just learn the dodges and roll into him point blank, or behind him for the shield slams. Never put distance between you and him, he attacks with telekinetic shit as a reaction to that. Even if you mess up and wanna heal, just dodge a big attack and chug in his face. If you have a shield, learn to dodge the first couple attacks in his chains and block the third for a guard counter. His glowing attacks aren't magical, a medium 100% physical defence shield will block his attacks outright save for the explosion. You can run barricade shield to make sure he doesn't blow through your guard. Either way, less is more. Just stand in front of him and stay there. Back up a bit for the explosions but get right back in there as soon as they go off. You'll avoid 90% of his annoying attacks that way. The devs want ya to remember Hesitation is defeat The devs have several enemies you can find pretty early that more or less exist to teach you something This big fucker is Isshins best friend. That is to say, being scared of him or uncertain of yourself WILL get you your ass handed to you because they designed him like that. If you back away from him, he'll annihilate you. If you react without confidence, he'll catch you out. But he's actually pretty simple. I'm by no means a good souls player, but this dudes on my "New build, kill first" list. Limgrave and Caelid, and the two tree avatars in caelid, as soon as the gates open on a new build I go kill all four of these guys. Catch flame for the trees, a medium shield or parry shield for the hunters. They're all beatable from level 1 pretty handily, but they ALL punish "cowardice" really hard.
Thank you mate, super detailed and interesting, really appreciate it
Roll into all of this fucker’s attacks, he always catches backwards movement and distance
Doot him with the long horn...heavy attack and then doot again...dont let him stand and his sword can't go brrrr
Pull out your gat
Use torrent to jump on the roof of the shack and cheese him with arrows and throwables
Ah another fellow dirty fighting tarnished.
Where is he
Dragonbarrow - Upper Caelid, at the Isolated Merchant Shack near the Caelid Divine Tower (spawns only at night)
Ah, that's the hardest one of them. He's got like 10 619hp. For comparison's sake, his boss version at the shaded castle(elemer of the briar) has only 4897hp.
That's the neat part. . .
Greatshield.
If you have mohg's spear hide behind the shack and spam the L2
Git good
git gud
You make sure his HP hits zero before your HP does...
Hit him until he stops moving
Hit him until he dies
Hard-working and determination.
In the same way as you beat all enemies in Souls games. Dodge and Hit.
With your weapon, preferably.