Friday 16 November 2012

Dark souls boss profiles: Iron Golem

Iron Golem
HP:2800
Skills: Air slash, Stomp, Axe swipe, Grab*
Souls:40000
Difficulty:2/5
Times died on 1st play through:0

Chill for a little while and admire the beauty of Sen's Fortress, the result of all your hard work thus far. Too bad for you its probably one of the worst areas in the game. Ironically, for a f**ked up fortress with traps, snake men and so much other bullshit, the guardian of the said fortress itself isn't that much of a challenge at all. Obviously, the Iron Golem is the boss of Sen's Fortress.



Get out of my way you insect!

For a big dude like that, he sure is a freaking pushover. There's no need to hide it, Iron Golem is one of the weaker bosses in the game, despite being all big and cool. His attacks are slow and they are very punishable, you can easily land in a few hits after one of his attacks, and there really isn't much of a chance for you to die unless you are careless. The arena you fight in is rather small, but with that being said, you can knock him off the arena for an instant kill if your damage output is high enough.


Air Slash- He only does this when you are far away. He swings his axe and sends a projectile towards you shaped like a slash. It can be blocked and it doesn't do much damage, so its not much of an issue. He doesn't use this up close.

Stomp- He...stomps you. When you're close to his feet he will do this, acting as a signal for you to back off. It does medium damage, so back off when you see him raise his feet up high.

Axe swipe- His most used and easiest attack to deal with. He raises his axe arm back behind his head and lets loose a terrifying blow right in front of him. Its stupidly slow, you should never get hit by this. Obviously, it does high damage.

Grab*- His only attack that might get you. Instead of the Axe Swipe attack, he might just swing his hand and pick you up instead, crushing you in his palm and finally throwing you back to the ground. This is unblockable and does high damage.



He doesn't have a lot of attacks, but it doesn't really matter anyway because he will fall quickly. If you have a powerful weapon and can do some severe DPS at this point (you shouldn't be able to), you can just run to him and hit his feet a few times. He will start staggering, hit him some more and he will fall off the roof, giving you a free win. 


Of course, if you don't have such DPS, you have to fight him the normal way, but don't worry, he's easy. The moment you run in he will throw an air slash at you, probably the only one this entire battle if you aren't fighting him from afar (you should fight him melee though, he's so easy). Up close, you will quickly notice 2 things, his repeatedly easy pattern of spamming axe swipes and that you can only hit his feet. Get to it, draw your weapon and hack away at his iron heels.


Axe swipe is a freaking joke. He spams this, and its so easy to counter. Every time you see him raise his axe, just roll between his legs and hit them, its so slow that you might avoid it even if you walk between his legs instead of rolling through them. Just dodging these axe swipes and attacking him will already drop him ridiculously low, because he does this so much, leaving him wide open.


Big guy, but so easy.

He might stomp you if you stick to his legs, so back off a bit. The stomps hurt, but he can't really kill you with it. Just back off and continue your onslaught when you see him perform the animation for another axe swipe. His only real dangerous attack is his grab. While he can only grab in front of him, its faster than axe swipe, and you might not  have time to react to this. It does high damage and he flings you back down to the ground after the attack. If you aren't lucky, he might throw you off the building.


That's all for this boss, you won't need much help for him anyway, trust me when I say you won't be having any problems. If you died you probably rolled off the arena or blocked an attack and was pushed out. You get 40000 souls and the core of the iron golem as rewards, which is a big deal of goodies for such an easy boss.


On to Anor Londo you lazy airheads!


Peace.