Belfry Gargoyles
HP: 1400 (5)
Skills: Double slash, Pole arm smash, Sweep, Flying tail whip*, Tail whip*, Fire breath, Aerial Fire breath, Lightning storm*
Souls: 25000
Difficulty: 3/5
Deaths: 2
So you think you're ready to move on with your adventure? Not quite yet friend, there's still something you need to do at the Lost Bastille. Make it to the first bonfire after killing the Ruin Sentinels, go down a ladder in the corner where a lone wild hound awaits. Kill it and examine the walls for a weird face, enter with a Pharos Lock-stone. You'll now find yourself in Belfry Luna, a tower meant to worship the princess who yearned for her prince. Anyway, operate yourself past this tiny tower and you'll find yourself in the fog gate, enter it to face an old friend (another one) from the previous game.
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| Aw come on, 1 game later you guys STILL can't fight fair! |
If you've fought these guys in the previous game, you know that they are complete f**king sons of bitches that never play fair. Unfortunately, they still don't play fair here, and to make things even worse, they brought EVEN MORE backup. Remember how in "Dark Souls" you had to fight 2 of these guys and they would kick your newbie ass? Now, you fight 5 of these guys, and up to 3 of them can gang up on you at once. The struggle is real, ladies and gentlemen. However though, they are a lot easier to kill INDIVIDUALLY this time, and with the proper steps, they can be defeated without too much trouble.
Double slash - A simple double swing from the bell gargoyle. Easily blocked, no issue here.
Pole arm smash - He smacks his weapon down hard. This can still be blocked, but expect a big stamina cut. This is easily dodged too, so try that.
Sweep - He flies up into the air and sweeps down to hit you for some damage.
Flying tail whip* - This move is stupidly annoying. He flys over you and cancels your lock on, then smacks you over from above. Its stupidly painful, and since it disrupts your lock on you will have a hard blocking it.
Tail whip* - He turns his ass towards and swings his tail. It looks slow, but be warned, this will probabl crush your guard and leave you under his tail, doing big damage. Its not advised to dodge it either, so just run far away when you see him do this.
Fire breath - Not only does this deplete alot of stamina when blocked, it does ridiculous damage and staggers you. Just back the hell away when he does this.
Aerial Fire breath - Just Fire breath, but in the air. Heavily telegraphed, so you can just back away when he does this.
Lightning Storm* - A new, dangerous attack that the Gargoyles got in "Dark Souls 2". They do a quick charged lightning bolt that spreads out into a fairly large area. You have some time to react, so just roll away.
This seems like a really extensive move list, and it is, but you don't have to worry as much. Most of the moves the Belfry Gargoyles have are similar to the ones that they had in the previous game. You are fighting 5 gargoyles, with the maximum of 3 ganging up on you at once. This sounds terrible, and it is, but at this point of the game, the gargoyles wouldn't be 3 shotting you unless you're in the champions covenant, so not all hope is lost. Each gargoyle can use every one of these attacks, but as long as you keep your cool and chop away at these assholes one at a time, you'll win this.
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| Its always good to get up close and personal. |
The gargoyles mostly attack at mid range with their massive halberds. They have a few basic swing variations, basically horizontal or vertical, and their combos can go up to 3 hits depending on how healthy they are. At this point, you are mostly safe, since these guys don't do a lot of stamina chip on block, and even if they do connect, the damage isn't too devastating. It is however, if they hit you all 3 at once. The game is very generous with its arena here, so you can run around to kite these guys, separate them, or just to find a safe spot to heal OR duel with the gargoyle.
More so than in the previous game, the gargoyles love to take to the skies more, meaning that you'll have to deal with a lot of aerial attacks. In a way, this is good. In the air, their attacks may be harder to avoid, but they are generally more predictable. As long as one gargoyle remains in the sky, you can spend more time on the others. Also note that the gargoyles tend to get really trigger happy with their fire breaths, so be sure to steer clear.
As you kill gargoyles, more will appear to replace their fallen comrades. These guys all share one health bar now, so it'll be awhile before that thing whittles down. As usual, be wary of attacking them from the back, as they have a habit to swing their axe tails to crush your health and/or stamina bar. When these guys get low, they'll use a new attack called lightning storm, which covers quite a decent AOE and does good damage. Be special careful about this once since you have little time to react, be ready to roll.
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| Wait wait, everybody hold the f**k up and let me heal. |
Since these buggers only have 1400 health a piece they WILL go down really quickly, one by one I mean. As you thing up their numbers the battle gets easier, and when you finally narrow them down to 2 and then finally 1, the battle becomes a breeze. Defeating these 5 guys give you 25000 souls, so its 5000 each. Quite worth the effort I say.
Next time we FINALLY move on to a different path. Peace.
