Ava, The King's Pet
HP: 8930
Skills: Paw Swipe*, Lunging Bite*, Lunging Claw*, Icicles, Explosion, Ice Pillars
Souls: 78000
Difficulty: 4/5
Deaths: 10+
The final post about "Dark Souls 2" and we'll be covering the final set of bosses from the DLC. Out of the 3 DLCs, the Ivory King DLC is probably my favorite one in terms of map design, NOT INCLUDING the Frigid Outskirts. The kingdom of Eleum Loyce is simply so beautiful and enchanting, it even has such an interesting architecture, there's no way not to lose yourself in its beauty. However, the bosses in this DLC are pretty tough, so take note. As with the Iron King DLC, the first boss in this 3rd DLC is pretty freaking tough....Meet the invisible ice tiger, Ava.
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| That's one dead dude. |
The first time you fight Ava, he's probably going to be invisible and he's probably going to massively whoop your ass. You can only properly see the kitty cat after subduing the blizzard in the shrine later into the area. Ava is a BIG kitty, and that pretty much means he packs a massive punch. He's intimidating, and he's incredibly powerful, he probably took me more than 10 tries on my first play through against him with my mage character. Unless you're completely stacked up, prepare for a tough one.
Lunging Bite* - He charges from afar and lunges in on you with an unblockable bite attack. Once he grabs you he does insane damage.
Lunging Claw* - He charges from afar and lunges in on you with a claw swipe. Like the regular Paw Swipe this one hurts and homes quite a fair bit.
Icicles - He roars and spawns a bunch of icicles which home in on you from afar with some slight tracking properties. Simply sprint towards him on either his left or right from a distance to completely derail the icicles.
Explosion - After doing nothing for awhile, Ava lets out an explosion like a fart, doing AOE damage. Simply move away once you see his model go stagnant.
Ice Pillars - He roars and summons some ice pillars around him that appear in random areas. Can be easily avoided by simply moving away, the pillars take some time to form.
He might seem like he has a lot of attacks, but honestly, you only need to worry about his melee attacks. Ava's magic attacks and projectiles can be easily dealt with after some getting used to, and they don't do nearly as much damage as his melee strikes. Ava is huge, so he is easy to see coming, but his attacks have some delay, so it'll take some time to get used to the proper timing to dodge them. His general attack pattern mostly involves going in on you for a few melee attacks, before backing off far away to launch Icicles at you, then he proceeds to try to melee you again. It's an easy pattern to learn, but once he nabs you, you're probably screwed, since he does a ton of damage.
To start off his pattern he usually goes with the standard Paw Swipe, before backing off for Icicles. Run up to him while he channels and misses Icicles to get a few free hits in. If he's far away he'll try for a Lunging Bite or Lunging Claw attack, the former of which is a more dangerous attack, but both are equally scary. The dude does have long recovery times, so you can use that opportunity to get a few good hits him. Again, the timing to dodge his attacks is crucial, and a single screw-up will probably cost you the match, seeing as he does a butt load of damage.
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| F**king cat mate. |
That isn't all he has up close however. There are times where Ava will stand still and roar when you're close to him. This isn't him using Icicles again, and is probably one of his other 2 magic spells that he likes to use up close. One is Explosion, the other is Ice Pillars. Explosion can catch you off guard at the start, but its honestly easy to see coming after awhile. Ice Pillars is a bit tricky, but its so RNG based that there are times that none of the pillars will hit you at all, even if you go completely ham on attacking Ava. Either way, the safe option is to back off when he starts to channel anything at all.
Ava is quite bulky, but after multiple punishes, he goes down like a champ. That's not the last you'll see of the damn tiger, but for now, you get 78000 souls for beating him. Beating him grants you passage to proceed deeper in, where you unlock more areas in Frozen Eleum Loyce.
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Burnt Ivory King
HP: 8040
Skills: Leaping Slash, Sword Combo*, Impale*, Ice Pillars, Sword Buff*
Souls: 92000
Difficulty: 4/5
Deaths: 10+
It is highly recommended that you gain alliance of all of the knights before you attempt this battle. The Old Chaos packs a LOT of charred Loyce Knights that are incredibly powerful on their own, NOT COUNTING THE BOSS. I can't count the amount of times I died BEFORE even getting to see the boss, even with ALL of the allied knights unlocked from their slumber. It's a battle of attrition more than anything, and I can easily say that you're going to be in for a loooooong fight here.
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| Scary looking mother f**ker. |
75% of the actual battle is actually just you against the charred Loyce Knights. There are 3 portals that constantly spawn these knights and they will very easily overwhelm you after awhile. The knights are strong individually, they either pack a shield and one handed weapon, a two handed axe, or wield pyromancy. Of the 3 variations, the pyromancy ones are the most annoying, and these niggas spew out of the portals so quickly that its so f**king irritating. Your very own knights will sacrifice themselves to seal off a portal after awhile, so with 4 knights, you'll get one remaining knight to fight alongside you when the big daddy shows up. Honestly though, the knights aren't that much use, since the charred Loyce knights always go after you instead of them, and since they hurt, you'll die unless you run around like a headless chicken as your knights seal off portals. Also, if the big daddy shows up and there are still charred Loyce Knights around, consider the battle lost, you can't take them together.
Leaping Slash - The King comes in on you Gwyn style, slashing a huge area in front of him as he leaps in. Easily dodged or blocked.
Sword Combo* - The only thing that should kill you. A combination of slashes and stabs that usually go to 3-4 hits. Just back the f**k away as he doesn't move much while swinging. Combined with the buff this is quite deadly, so take note.
Impale* - He charges for a short while before stabbing his sword forward for an unblockable grab styled attack. Does tons of damage, like most grab moves.
Ice Pillars - Similar to Ava's attack with the same name. Just move around frantically to dodge.
Sword Buff* - He coats his sword with a white aura and increases his damage drastically. Lasts for a few seconds at best.
When the charred Loyce Knight portals are completely sealed off, the Burnt Ivory King makes his entrance. It helps drastically to have a Knight with you, as you would have exhausted a good deal of your Estus supply dealing with Charred Loyce Knights. While your ally knight does little damage, he can take aggro from the King and let you get some free hits in. Because of the nature of this battle, the King himself isn't that durable, so you can take him down quickly with a powerful weapon. Note that once your buddy goes down, it'll much much tougher one on one.
Because of how relentless the King is, there is actually not much of an opportunity to heal here. Once he goes in on you he rarely gets out. You can only heal if he's in a middle of a combo and you somehow manage to get out while he's still swinging, even then, he closes the gap quickly. Another safe opportunity would be when he's buffing his sword, but you'd want to use that time to actually deal damage to him. He is mostly a closed ranged fighter with a slightly longer reach than usual because of his long sword. He uses his Leaping Slash to get in from afar, and up close he usually relies on his combo and Impale, both of which are his best moves.
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| Let's get him together buddy! |
He has slight delay between attacks, meaning you can punish him now and then, though his damage is ridiculously high like all DLC bosses, so take extreme care about not getting hit. He can use Ice Pillars, similarly to Ava, but again, moving around will get you out of it easily. He doesn't have a massive health pool, so rushing him can take him down quick. Honestly, the hardest part of this fight is just the charred knights before him, so there's that. He grants a massive 92000 souls reward.
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Lud, The King's Pet
HP: 5070
Skills: Paw Swipe*, Lunging Bite*, Lunging Claw*, Icicles, Explosion, Ice Pillars
Souls: 56000
Zallen, The King's Pet
HP: 5070
Skills: Paw Swipe*, Lunging Bite*, Lunging Claw*, Icicles, Explosion, Ice Pillars
Souls: 56000
Difficulty: F*ck You/5
Deaths: Over 9000
Behold, the worst thing of the entire "Souls" franchise. Not only is the Frigid Outskirts the worst designed map in the ENTIRE "Souls" franchise, this boss just infuriates the living shit out of me for its very existence. After braving through possibly the most brutal, boring and uninspired map, EVER, your reward is facing a palate swap boss from the very same DLC. Holy. Shit. Talk about lazy. At least the Blue Smelter Demon was a swap of a boss from the main game, these guys have the audacity to palate swap RIGHT from the very DLC that they was from. Ugh.
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| F**king tigers. |
Alright, so instead of one Ava, its 2 Avas now, whoop de f**king doo. Adding an additional kitty cat into the mix doesn't make it a tougher, better boss, its just lazy and ridiculous. If you managed to triumph Ava completely, then good for you, this battle is more or less the same, just that you can't make as many mistakes as before. If you thought Ava was hard like I did, this battle is a freaking nightmare. The worst thing about it is the fact that you need to run across the entire shitty wasteland of the Frigid Outskirts to even GET here....Why they didn't add any bonfires to that area is BEYOND me.
So these dick bags have the exact same moves as Ava, so there's really no need to go through them again. 2 BIG, deciding factors to this fight. There are 2 tigers, and instead of a gigantic, linear arena, we have a smaller, enclosed space. Both are bad news, if both tigers join in on the fight to gang bang your ass, you stand no chance, literally. The best strategy to this battle, and the ONLY strategy for me to actually win, is to BURST down Lud before Zallen can even hit you. If you're solo, Zallen only comes in after you've all but nearly taken down Lud, so f**king light your weapon on fire and go ballistic ape shit on Lud to kill him.
If Zallen is all that's left, then congratulations, it's just you fighting Ava again one on one in a smaller arena. If Lud is still alive when Zallen arrives, then you're practically f**ked, one swipe from each tiger almost always ends in your demise. And once you die, you need to cross that shitty Frigid Outskirts again, I cannot stress that enough. That alone makes this fight so unbearably disgusting.
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| Oh god I hate this so much. |
One more thing to take note is that the final remaining tiger will go into a berserk to increase its damage and health regeneration in exchange for defense...only when he's near death. At this point, he's very easy to take down, but his damage is significantly higher. Fortunately I only had to see this once, because when I got to this point, I had already died so many times to the point of me being insanely good at fighting these guys, so one of them going berserk almost meant nothing to me. Just take him down and put the tiger out of his misery.
As a last note, taking two of these guys down only gives you 56000 souls, when the original Ava gave you 78000. F**k this shit, what a sour way to end this series.
If you've stuck with me all this way, then you have my thanks. With this out of the way, I'll either move to the "Bloodborne" or "Dark Souls 3" bosses....
Or both, who knows. Peace.
