Boss health
HP:Varies
Skills:Basic jabs, Uppercut, Rolling swipe, Parry and riptose, Homing soul arrow*, Soul ray, Heal
Difficulty:*/5, 1/5
Times died on 1st playthrough:7
Once more we are back with demons's souls boss profiles. We are nearing the end of this long series of posts, excluding the old monk, there are only 2 bosses left (No im not doing the king allant boss fight, I find there to be no need for one). Well, for today, we are going through old monk, the final boss in the tower of latria. Needless to say for me, after beating the maneaters, there was nothing much left to do, all bosses in other worlds (minus the castle of boletaria) have already been slain, so I just forged ahead. The tower of latria is a terrifying stage, probably the most terrifying one amongst all 5 worlds. The old monk boss fight however, is rather special, and you will definetely be in for a suprise. The old monk is the boss of 5-3, maneater's archstone.
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| Thats one big turban. |
Theres nothing much for me to say about the old monk, because hes more of an event than a boss fight. When you have PSN turned on when playing demon's souls, the old monk will 90% of the time call another human player to fight you as a boss. When you put your soul signs around the tower of latria, or try to break into someone else's world in the tower of latria, theres a good chance that you will get called upon the old monk to be a boss. As the old monk, you get the monk's head collar wrapped around you and you will gain a ridiculous HP boost. And when battling other players who become the old monk...its all a matter of skill, cause you will never know how your opponent is going to fight back, theres really nothing I can tell you. For now though, I will go through the AI controlled black phantom, which appears to fight you when a human opponent cannot be found by the time you reach the old monk's chamber.
Basic jabs- The phantom just jabs you quickly. Nothing special, it has pathetic range and shitty damage.
Uppercut- The phantom charges for abit and lets loose a powerful uppercut. Does pretty good damage, but has pathetic range.
Rolling swipe- The phantom rolls and does a swipe afterward. Has crappy range and damage.
Parry and riptose- Very rare. The phantom parries a blow from you and riptoses you for some big time damage. Not much you can do about this, just dont hit him mindlessly and look out.
Homing soul arrow*- The phantom does this when he hits a certain HP level. He whips out a few homing soul arrows that alone dont do too much damage, but together can be potentially dangerous. These will increase more and more, making it quite a dangerous attack if you underestimate it.
Soul ray- The phantom whips out his insanity catalyst while you are far away and lets loose a soul ray at you. Nothing you haven't seen. It doesnt do that much damage at all.
Heal- The phantom eats some grass while you are far from him.
As you can see, the AI controlled old monk black phantom is a total pushover. Sure he has that giant boss health bar, but overall, he's nothing but a piece of crap. He has a pair of claws for weapons, but the range on those things is so ridiculously short that he has to be very close to you to actually hit you. Most of his attacks wont connect, unless you are stupid. Even if they do connect, the damage isn't fantastic, so you can actually take alot of hits.
You wont have to worry about many things, you may not even get a chance to see some of the attacks listed above, since you're probably going to have a swift victory. He'll switch to soul rays if you tend to stray away from him, and up close hes just going to jab you continuously, occasionally throwing an uppercut or 2 your way. Seriously, just keep hitting him, he wont do a thing. He might rarely parry and riptose you though, and that would be pretty painful. Still, it isnt as painful as the one garl vinland can pull off against you, you probably wont die when you parried here.
When he gets low on health, he starts using his only potentially dangerous move, the homing soul arrows. He calls out only 3 at 1st, and as the battle drags on, he will summon more and can summon up to a total of 5. As you approach him during this part of the fight, the arrows will home in on you and hit you. Alone they arent too much of a problem, get hit by 5 however and you are going to receive massive hurt. The homing soul arrows can be dodged, so approach with care and bait the arrows, then hit him when his empty. Soon, he will fall without much of a challenge.
Human players being old monks will be a true challenge to beat at most times. You will never know what they are going to pull off, so its going to be hard for me to help you. But I died a good number of times on my 1st and consequent playthroughs against the human player old monks, so I can give you some tips.
-Try to use lightweight armor, trust me, you will need that fast roll.
-Thief's ring is a good ring to have with you.
-When you enter the fog, look behind, some sneaky players may be waiting for you to walk in and backstab you for some nasty damage.
-If you have god's wrath, use it behind the fog gate, you might hit those sneaky guys trying to backstab you behind those walls.
-Always go in blocking, some fag might be launching soul rays or pelting arrows at you.
-If possible, bring in a few blues with you.
-Watch out for those with big swords, they can dish out some painful damage, and you probably wont be able to block them.
-Firestorm is a nasty nasty skill to deal with, pray your opponent doesnt abuse firestorm.
-Likewise to you, if you have firestorm, do not hesitate to use it.
-Be careful of of people who cast clouds, this happened before and its BEYOND frustrating.
-Some people will just roll around the entire field and fling throwing knives and stars at you, make sure you have some sort of countermeasure to this.
-Some players are just PERSISTANT. They will run away time and time again to eat grass. CHASE THEM DOWN, I get pissed by players who run away all the time and eat grass when they are so close to death.
-Be sure to bow when you win!
These tips may or may not be useful, depending on the types of opponents you face. From the opponents I face, these are the tips I can come up with. Once again, the people you face will play very differently, and its very hard to anticipate what their fighting style is going to be. For this boss, you will have to count more on skill than luck. Good luck trying to fend off those human players, for this can be a very frustrating boss fight if you keep running into incredibly skilled or incredibly pussified players.
Peace.
