Gwyn, The Lord Of Cinder
HP: 4186
Skills: Sword swings, Leap strike, Grab*, Kick
Souls: 70000
Difficulty: 1.5/5
Times died on 1st playthrough: 10+ (Ironic, right?)
And here we are after years of posts about bosses in "Dark Souls". After you beat the Bed Of Chaos, you legitimately have everything you need to challenge the final boss of the game, Gwyn, the lord of sunlight, or as they call him now, the lord of cinder. He resides in the Kiln of the first flame, guarding the fire that keeps the current world in check. So...now that you've come to your journey's end, what does the game throw at you? Apparently, not much, as Gwyn is probably a complete joke if you play this right.
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| Big old man with a big flaming sword...scary~~~ |
The entire area itself is a f**king breeze, filled with black knights that charge at you one by one, and Gwyn himself? If you don't know the trick to beating him, he can be the hardest boss in the game, no joke. He will cut you down relentlessly without mercy, swinging his blade time and time again....and you will have NO answer to it but just blocking until you run out of stamina...eventually falling to his blade. Your stamina regen will NOT out-sustain Gwyn as he will just repeatedly slash you over and over without any form of resting. HOWEVER, take that to mind and think. How do you deal with regular enemies with mindless and relentless attack patterns? That's right, you parry them.
Sword Swings - Probably his only answer to you the moment you stand in range of his giant sword. He swings at you over and over like a mad man without stopping, eventually overwhelming you since you don't have the stamina to continuously take hits from him, even with a decent shield with fire resistance. Blocking is your only answer, but you won't be able to withstand him for long. Dodge and he'll come after you with his blade swinging once again, he runs crazy fast.
Leap Strike - He only does this if you're far away from him. He'll leap at you from a distance and perform a slash of decent coverage, dealing massive damage. Blockable if you have a good fire resistant shield, otherwise, it's easily dodged by rolling in front at the right time.
Grab* - Probably his only noteworthy move that can destroy you if you play this right. He'll stop for a VERY SHORT moment, doing nothing, then he raises his hand and lunges forward, grabbing you. If it connects, you'll explode, taking massive damage and causing knockdown. You can't block this, dodge.
Kick - He kicks at you, simple as that. The range is pathetic, and it does almost no damage. This will, however, completely deplete your stamina and put you in a defenseless state if you are blocking, making you open for more sword swings. Just...move back or roll away.
The moment you walk into the boss area your life is in immediate danger...as you see an old man with a flaming sword running at you FULL SPEED. Then he leaps at you with all his might and performs a leap strike, a move that you'll probably only see once the entire fight. Roll towards him for an easy dodge, then the fight begins for real. If you intend to beat him man to man...look elsewhere, because I'm going to just cover the parry strategy. To fight him WITHOUT parry you'll need equipment that has been prepared SPECIFICALLY just to fight him...I won't be going into that.
Anyway, once the battle starts, stay in melee range of Gwyn, you'll never see leap strike again. Keep your shield up, he is going to begin his mindless slashing. If you know how to parry...you know what to do. If you don't, here is the gist. Gwyn will swing at you like mad, notice the way he swings his sword...he has a rhythm. Time the swings nicely so that before the blade touches your character's hitbox, you hit L2 (or LT if you're on XBOX), you'll parry him and put him in a parry state. Now just proceed to hit the normal attack button to massively hurt him. On my 1st run (he has only 4k HP here), a parry with my Demon Great Axe on my Strength character easily did 1/3 of his health.
You know how it goes from here. After getting parried once, Gwyn's AI will not change at all. The moment he gets up, stay in melee range, and he'll start swinging again. Parry him again, he falls, he wakes up, stand in front of him when he does, he swings again...rinse and repeat. This will be the fastest boss in the game other than the pinwheel, if all goes well. However, Gwyn might switch things up abit, so look out for his animations. A grab can instantly screw up your attempt, as you'll either die instantly, or the moment you wake up, he tries to grab you again...OR he instantly slashes you without the time for you to react and you die. A kick will also ruin your day, especially if you're holding your shield up. Otherwise, just keep parrying and you'll be done in no time, Gwyn is quite fragile compared to the soul lord bosses.
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| You won't die with that health bar... |
For a last boss, he's quite the wimp. The parry strat is the easiest, least complicated way to defeat him IMO. This works as long as you have a melee weapon...even if you're an INT, FAITH or DEX based character, you'll have melee weapons that scale, just equip those and parry away. Hell I even did it with a lightning spear without upgrades...it just took awhile to kill him. 70000 souls is a steal for a loser like him. He has quite the badass back story though.
And with that, you've beat the game. I may be doing the DLC bosses...but if I don't then it ends here. Thanks for sticking around.
Congratulations on beating Dark Souls!
I'll probably be doing another series when "Dark Souls 2" drops, stay tuned till then.
