Funny that you mention Siegward doesn’t respawn ‘because he isn’t an ashen one’ …because he actually is. After the first fight with the demon he says “we unkindled must put our duties first.” And yes, unkindled and ‘ashen ones’ are the same thing.

"you HAVE to fight gundyr!" let me introduce you to black firebombs

Beating champion Gundyr melee only no items no block no parry is still one of the coolest gaming experiences I’ve had

What's cool about the "I'm on fire now" phase 2, are the bosses are becoming Embered. Like you can with an Ember. Which means more for the Lords of Cinder, since they succeeded in linking the flame the state seems to be more than a health boost.

Oh boy oh boy, a new DS3 essay video to obsess over and fall asleep to? Yes.

The thing I appreciate the most about your analysis is how you are very willing to talk about when bosses under perform in feeling fun to fight. How minor frustrations in design can lead to the overall experience being subpar. A lot of discussion surrounding the boss fights of this series has way too many people being blase about how certain attacks/collision can be annoying to play around and simply not enjoyable. Just saying oh it's a "skill issue", because too many people in the community are living vicariously through no-hit and other challenge runners despite being an average joe amongst the playerbase. I don't like using video analysis to sort of self-validate thoughts I have but yours constantly hits opinions I also share so it's hard not to. :U

Wolnir is my Crystal Sage. Sometimes he’s easy, other times his RNG breaks bad and spams skeleton summons and forward charges until I’m pinned against the wall with 3-5 carthus greatsword knights. Also the greatwolf does have a second phase, where its eyes go red, its wind dash gains a third pass, and he gets more aggressive. Also pretty sure it doesn’t do its frost breath attack until then.

Jerma, trying to remember the name of the ds3 tutorial boss: " what is his name again? Jumex Bunger?"

Soul of cinder was truly a different experience the fight felt so personal like the game was talking to you, the player, for all the time you spent with it. Speaking to you about all your struggles. letting fight yourself, the you from all thoose years since the first game came out. And then when gywns theme hits and he shifts its something akin to the past its like over coming your own triumph in a way that lets you move on from it. The struggle is over.

my fav ds3 memory is dodging the pontiff clone to parry the real one for a riposte win

just a note on yhorm: his arms and head take much more damage and cause him to stagger during his stagger you do thousands of damage to his head this makes his fight much more bearable and engaging as you try to line up opportunities to hit his hand

you're quickly becoming one of my favorite channels to watch, really hope to see you grow soon! this series is golden

KZfaq algorithm please bless this man!

I agree with you on the timing of Lorian's teleports. First time I went up against him, I had nothing but Artorias' gear and high hopes. Got vibe-checked a couple hundred times. Then, I realized that his attacks are perfectly in time with the Macarena, and it took five attempts because I also timed all my moves with the Macarena. Funniest thing ever, I tell you.

Oh holy shit man these vids are SO GOOD i'm so hyped for yet another lets goooo

Finally, a fellow Old Demon King appreciator

Finally a relatable take on the crystal sage! I still have nightmares because of a INT only run I did while playing with keyboard and mouse. The sage was one of the most frustrating fights in the whole series!

Tbh I stumbled upon your bloodborne video and then suddenly was wondering wish he had a ds3 video so I could watch that too and here it is

I've probably beaten this game 40 times. One of my all time favorites

You changed my mind about Aldrich, and that's a tall order. Thank you my friend. Fantastic video.

Your character's face, lord have mercy

Loving the thoughtful, entertaining analysis-making me want to replay these for the 30th time

Jumping to the latest video to say WOW I so enjoyed your boss breakdowns, and agree with many of them. Keep up the amazing work, it's great to see new names in the Souls yt community.

Was waiting for this vid man!! As usual you knocked it out of the park.

One interesting thing about the Abyss Watchers is that if you lure the two nearby Darkwraiths toward the arena the boss will try to attack them through the fog wall, I once had a Darkwraith glitch into the arena and briefly help with the fight. Apparently their AI is built to recognize and prioritize eachother as enemies

Mild take but DS3 was the peak of the series

Just came to say, I absolutely adore your boss analysis, I've practically binged the entire set. I just love how you've taken the time to think about each boss in a deeper way and your clarification of your preferences helps a lot, I feel like there are a lot of fights I've grown to appreciate far more, whether I liked them a lot or not. I am very curious about the opinions you hold for the future games from here, but I can wait patiently for such fantastic content!

Having to play DS games sound like shoving hot needles under your fingernails so I really enjoy these well-made videos that give us the good parts. Thanks!

I am playing DS3 for the first time ever right now, and also fought the Abyss Watchers 3rd. I just went straight! Then they were the next ones in my way.

I've been watching all these souls game boss analysis videos, they've been great. I was happy to see you comment on the ds3 protagonist getting into a lot of fights because they try to touch something, it is pretty funny. One of my earliest souls memories is someone describing them as "Ashen One, Toucher of Things"

Great video and analysis! Can’t wait for the ELDEN RING VIDEO let’s goooooo

These videos are great, I hope you get more recognition!

Even with the second phase, Crystal Sage is an absolute pushover

This is a solid analysis and your channel is definitely underrated

Not that it would change anything, but did you know the cursewood has a rare attack where it stands up , walks a few steps toward you then falls and tries to face plant on you lol its great with massive intimidation and comedy.

I love your energy and passion, wishing you many more subs

god, I love this game! finally got time to watch this, and you didn't disappoint so glad i could find someone to agree on the crystal sage

Oh boy, been waiting for this one

Dragonslayer Armour catching people off guard with the fake stagger before Lies of P did it 😮

What a fantastic video. Very happy I found this channel. Especially when I saw you have a AP of the single best ttrpg system out today, P2e

My favorite concept from Dark Souls III was without a doubt in the second DLC where another player is the boss, it was so cool to be the boss and fight other players trying to progress

FINALLLY I THOUGHT I WAS TAKING CRAZY PILLS. Crystal Sage is one of the hardest bosses in this game for me, prob usually cause I'm low damage and hp but still.

These vids are fire you deserve more subscribers

Quality content and a list I almost completely agree with. Good stuff!

I just got into this video series a day ago, this is just perfect for me!

Another Vordt Greathammer enjoyer! Kudos I gotta say, you are the first person besides me claiming CrystalSage is a difficult boss. Even after couple tens of full playthroughs I'm still usually losing once or twice against him on any NG+0 run. Amazing video as always, thanks a million for that!

Great video, great series and I’m hoping you do analysis on bosses in series outside of Soulsborne! I do wish you would put up timestamps for each boss to make finding specific ones much easier, but that aside I loved this!

found you from your bloodborne video, staying for everything else

I remember thinking DS3 is Bandai being greedy and wanting something magical to happen. And yet I've grinded until platinum, and in retrospect it has several wonderful boss designs and a great conclusion to Dark Souls series. Great analysis on Bloodborne, glad you've continued.

DS3 has the best boss design and mechanics in the entire series. Easily, by far.

Amazing vid! Really agree with most bosses. Surprised me with the sage take tho. My strategy to cheese the sage's 2nd fase, is throwing any type of projectile to the copies (throwing knives for example). If I'm not wrong they insta die with any hit, making it only a few spells coming at you.

I love dark souls 3, probably my favorite game of all time. The lore, the call backs to the original (even if everyone writes them off as fan service.) the bosses. I love bloodborne and elden ring but DS3 is what got me really hooked on the series.

I’m so hyped for this vid

1.5 hour analysis of a fromsoft game? you spoil us. great vid

I love this game so much. Big agree with you on Yhorm. On my last playthrough I killed the dancer as 2nd boss and your STILL get teleported after the 3rd lord. Thankfully, I didn't do Yhorm last so I got to finish Siegward's quest properly

Hell yes, so excited for your ds3 takes

fantastic video like the rest! but I must say I was very surprised the Nameless King got 0 mention of his story, it's one of the highlights of the whole game for me. I can forgive new players for glancing over the nameless King's identity if they haven't dug into the lore, but if you're familiar with the first game it should at least be familiar. but no mention at all? I find that a bit confusing, that alone easily makes it an S rank fight. but hey your list! and I'm enjoying it a lot.

FINALLY, SOMEONE WHO PRONOUNCES “SIEGWARD” CORRECTLY

roughly 300 hour in DS3 and I'm only just now learning Deacons has an instant kill move that allegedly adds urgency to the end of the fight. I've never died to them, not even on my SL1 run

Pretty much agree with everything else sans Spear of the Church, who's easily an A in my books. I don't personally run an amazing build for PVP, but I am quite versed in it so that skill isn't an issue. I find SoTC to be too easy most of the time, as the first painting guardian is fairly easy to kill alone, leaving you with a player and another painting guardian down the line. The player boss doesn't have any poise it wouldn't have normally if you fight it alone except after it uses the unique spear move given to it, so pressuring the guardian while the boss tries to keep it alive is really the last hurdle the fight has in store. Mind you, even if it takes a bit, the painting guardian only casts the AOE heal twice, so past that its not going to punish you further. Once you kill the guardian, its basically just a PVP fight where you have your remaining estus versus a guy with no estus. It doesn't take many hits to finish the fight against any build and while I agree that some builds can be insufferable, a lot of the people I find as SoTC are either clueless or doing a fun boss cosplay, so its never really that bad. I do enjoy seeing the unique things people come up with though, trying to make their boss experience. It was a good sendoff to the best PVP Fromsoft has done in their games to this point, seeing how horribly things went regarding PVP in Elden Ring.

Ancient Wyvern is cool. It’s a spectacle encounter. If it didn’t have a boss health bar, people would probably see it for what it is: an epic interactive cutscene.

1:27:18 one of my favourite little details there is that the soul of cinder looks directly at the player as it dies.

What saves Iudex Gundyr's second phase for me is that the first phase teaches you that when you roll you really are impervious to any attack, so for phase 2 all you have to do is dodge. Don't overthink it

I remember playing Darksouls 3 for the first time when I was a kid and it took about 2 days to bet Gundyr. I felt unbeatable when I finally beat him😂

One thing i think would be interesting is so to look at the unique bosses added by the Convergence Mod. It's very interesting how the mod changes boss locations are straight up makes new bosses to make up for the games flaws.

Soul of Cinder is 100% my favorite fight ever thematically the idea of not only fighting yourself but everyone else and all the previous bosses in one I like that the fight is so straightforward it feels so personal and poetic

18:34 Your wife is right; because the scenario you described for fighting it early as being unlikely is exactly what I did on my first playthrough 😅 granted i had played other souls games, so while it did seem like a difficulty spike it wasn’t TOO bad for me. EDIT: also didn’t even realise about Wolnir’s mist mechanic, since he went down so fast…

Yes, indeed. It is called KZfaq , where aspiring video essayists and 14 year old basement dwellers converge. In venturing north, the youtubers discover the truth of the old words: "The quality fades and the viewers go without dopamine." When the well of content is threatened, the notification bell tolls, unearthing the old Lords of dark souls KZfaq from their graves...Vaatividya, Saint of lore... twitch’s live-streaming Legion... And the reclusive lord of the backlogs, Lemon the challenge runner... Only, in truth... the Lords will abandon their videos... And the Akasharose will rise. Nameless, less 1000 sub KZfaqr, unfit even to be cinder. And so it is, that I am subscribing! May your view count rise evermore!

I agree with your wife. Abyss watchers are clearly the 3rd boss and should be fought at level 25 lol (totally not speaking from experience)

fun lore facts, the demon prince fight takes place in ds1 firelink shrine. Midir takes place in the "rise of the lords" in the ds1 custscene when all the would be gods claim their lord souls and rise into existance. Some opinions on the bosses you said were bad, halflight... his damage i am pretty sure is BEYOND what a player can do with frayed blade.. the dark dmg on it is minor and the bleed does not matter cause i have never died to the bleed from him EVER on any build. It's always his katana laser that offs me if not his r1 SPAM. Now of the bosses i have EVER done without being hit are judge and champion gundyr,gael,cinder,dragonslayer armour,old demon king,aldrich,dancer cause.. bleed or magic build super EZ,wolnir,lothric,nameless. Every other boss has hit me at least once on every build and every run nearly. One last fun fact, cinder can PARRY you, i think its in his pyro phase. Anyway, i am loving these dissection vids on these games so souls or not i hope to see more from you.

Damn, you have (so far, surely that'll change)

Oh! So for crystal sage, he’s a guy! The one in Lothric Archives is the female one (she has visible hair while the farron one is bald), they’re like a brother-sister duo that serves the undead legion, and are possibly the reason why Seath is omitted from the trial of the legion (the flame extinguishing we do, behind the bowls (which are meant to symbolize the lord vessel) are depictions of Nito, Izalith, and the Four Kings) as Seath is like; the sorcerer’s God And their crystal ball is actually a big prism stone!

I'm glad you share my excitement about the bisses in the game, but that's to be expected. And if Midir is THE dragon fight for you in gaming, then check out Dragon's Dogma for Grigori. Haven't gotten to him yet on the sequel so I can only speak for the first game, trust me, you'll love it.

Great video! Looking forward to the elden ring one eventually

I wish they dynamically adjust the camera distance farther away based on the boss size.

Would you consider making an analysis of the Convergence mod bosses for DS3?

i'm with you on crystal sage. it was extremely frustrating until I learned that throwing knives actually help a _ton_ because they let you dispell the clones quickly and at a distance. Also, the sage has probably the worst runback in all of ds3

Lmao yeah that Crystal Sage difficulty opinions is definitely wild, even on my level 1 play through I beat him 2nd try but that’s Souls difficulty for yah, different for everyone

On my first play through, I was so frustrated with Midir that I wound up cheesing him with mist. I just couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do, or when I was supposed to do it. It wasn't until my third playthrough (I skipped him on my second) that it finally clicked for me; Midir doesn't have moves, he has _strings._ There are exceptions like various breath attacks, but most of Midir's attacks throughout the fight link into each other in a set sequence. He has multiple sequences, but those sequences never change, and they all end with a pronounced period of vulnerability where his head is within reach. You can tell from his first claw swipe or bite what his next six or seven attacks will be, always coming with the exact same rhythm and ending with a nice long pause where his head is defenseless and very within reach. And once I understood this, Midir went from my least favorite boss, one I was so frustrated with I almost deleted the game out of pure spite, to my favorite boss, one I looked forward to on every playthrough, a battle I knew like a dance with an old friend. I'll always remember him for that

I'm somewhat surprised about Aldrich. I agree with everything except not mentioning the way his second phase bow attack is kind of a mess. It's a great concept, objectively, but the fact he can do it repeatedly and without any clear trigger makes it go from what could be the ultimate "get off me" punish to a flatly oppressive and annoying "stop fighting for 10 seconds" spam. It detracts from my enjoyment to the point I think it takes him from an A, maybe S tier boss to a C or low B.

Crystal Sage drove me insane until I figured out that Throwing Knives delete the clones in seconds from basically anywhere in the arena, and they're hella cheap. Also, I recently finished my first DS3 SL1 run and Halflight was definitely the hardest, ended up cheesing him with a crossbow.

Funny you should mention that you don’t think that the Abyss Watchers will be someone’s 3rd boss, they were for me. I didn’t know that the Crystal Sages existed until after I got blocked going into Ithrill. I found the entrance to a poison swamp and having played the previous games… I assumed I was goin in the right direction. Abyss Watchers kicked my ass tons of times since I was using a Greataxe before the strength weapon patch. Best feeling of that run was beating the Twin Princes since I could ONLY attack after Lorian does his fire sweep, and my Vigor was so low I would get two shot by any attack

my friend you totally missed what actually happened in the oceiros fight. you didn't kill the baby, and the animation was off screen during your footage. Oceiros blames the baby for him losing the fight and he goes BERSERK, flinging himself across the battlefield and slamming the baby against the ground over and over. That moment still haunts me after all these years.

I think Ds1 is the best for lore and atmosphere. Ds3 is also fantastic. Ds2 exists and is a video game.

ROYAL RAT VANGUARD SHOUT OUT!!! WE UP RAT GANG!

18:50 I missed the Sages at first on my first playthrough, so I got all the way to the bridge to Irithyll before doing them. The Abyss Watchers quickly became my favorite boss, and I was a little disappointed on subsequent playthroughs with how easy they became after doing the Cathedral first.

Some critiques of this video: 34:42 btw this is blatantly false the game waits for his dialogue to finish before it teleports you to the dancer. He says “best of luck with your duty” and then you get teleported. 43:11 This also isn’t true. The Dragonslayer Armour’s lore is that he is the armor of a knight who served under the Nameless king and Ornstein. This is heavily implied by the description of the Sacred Oath miracle you can get from the sunlight altar outside his arena after you turn in 10 sunlight medals. This also means that the original owner of the Armour was the first Sunbro 56:15 That isn't Artorias' grave. It's the grave of the Champion that the Champion's gravetender is guarding. The Champion was the Champion of the undead match and he gifted his weapon, the Valorheart, to his page, the gravetender 57:04 This is also wrong, the greatwolf does have a second phase. When the greatwolf reaches half health it will howl loudly and its eyes will turn red like Champion Gundyr’s did. It will immediately become 3x more aggressive and it will start using triple charges and a frost breath attack. Also if the champion is still left alive when the greatwolf howls he will gain a permanent damage buff signified by a red aura permeating off his weapon. He also becomes way more passive while the greatwolf is in the arena, using sorceries and actively attempting to distance himself from you. 1:13:24 Halflight doesn’t lock you out of two bosses. He only gatekeeps Gael, you can fight Midir before defeating Halflight all you have to do is knock him off the bridge which is before Halflight 1:23:51 this is just a nitpick but the soul of cinder didn’t bring you back to life, the bells of awakening did. The soul or cinder is the guardian of the first flame and it is the creator of all ashen ones. When an Ashen One fails to link the flame due to not being powerful enough to defeat the soul of cinder they are burnt to ash and only reawakened if the link of fire is threatened, which it was because the lords of cinder chose not to do their jobs

Crystal Sage I find to be pretty fare. Just keep attacking the purple one and it'll end pretty quickly.

Rarely do I ever watch 1hr+ videos but this was a great watch!

Id also like to aknowledge how amazing the OST of DS3 Is. I know most people hate the CRG and there are some legitimate criticisms there. But that boss music is PERFECT and some peak Dark Souls in terms of atmosphere. I submit Crystal Sage as another kinda flawed boss with outstandingly creepy music

One thing you didn't mention in the Halflight fight is that the host can summon too. Which makes the fight extremely unbalanced, but the other way around. They have one player available to focus on each enemy, and when the painting guardians are down, it becomes a 3v1. If the team is well prepared and came with a balanced setup including one mage, there's very little you can do as Halflight. In normal invasions the invader has the other enemies and element of surprise to help them. In this fight, you just get ganked as the painting guardian is usually dead by the time you spawn.

Was looking forward to this vid since Ds3 is my fave of the series, will there be an Elden ring video?👀

If YT were a Stock Exchange, I’d be dumping money into your channel right now. I look forward to watching your subscriber count skyrocket.

Very curious to hear your opinion on elden ring bosses

I feel like there was a missed opportunity in the design of Aldrich. Would have been way cooler if gwyndolin(maybe even more gods) were just in the goop of Aldrich - in the game it very much looks like you’re fighting gwyndolin riding the goop. Another is oceiros - to me, he kinda just looks like a standard enemy and really needed the actual baby in his arm to make him stand out. Would much rather see a more humanoid failed morbid dragon experiement than this skinny dragon common enemy thing. Closer to the wretch enemy which is an amazing design to me Okay hot take over.

Champion gundyr became over time my favorite boss from the base game, he dosen't look like anything special at first especially on regular new game where you can sometimes cut the fight short but on higher cycles he starts to really shine The 2 main things that sets him apart from the other fights are pacing and style His more physical and almost wrestling like moves are really unexpected from a knight type boss, the shoulder bashes and kicks also mean you have to keep consistent eye on his left hand and leg because he can combo these moves with any number of other moves which helps make him more dynamic and less predictable The pacing of the fight is what really elevates it tho because while other fights give you clear windows of attack gundyr can combo chain his attacks almost endlessly which gives the illusion that he never stops attacking sometimes however here's the trick, he chain those combos with a slight delay which allows you to punish him mid combo which if mastered will make the fight incredibly fast paced, this combined with his wrestling style creates the most fun dance for me in the game outside some dlc bosses I also want to highlight his ultra high tracking charge attack because I think it's really brilliant how many ways there to counter this one attack, if you're close the best way is to roll the initial roar and circle around him, if you're in a medium range the best way is to dodge into him in particular timing then dodge into him again to avoid the follow up (hardest and fanciest dodge in the game imo) or if you're far away you space out the initial charge by walking backwards then dodging into him for the follow up, I highlight this because this move is either over looked or harshly criticized for how unfair it might seem on the surface

Really good video, but you've given some hints that lead me to get the eerie feeling I am not going to like your Elden Ring video...

Would you do a vid on the best fromsoft boss designs across soulsborne and sekiro?

Ey, love the videos! Could you do 60fps if possible for the next? Binge watched all today but watching was kinda painful at low bitrate 720p. Thanks! Amazing videos tho, really good points

I always assumed Vordt's behind weakness was an intensional choice by fromsoft to help players understand how much of a role positioning played. Iudex can be defeated easily by only standing in front of him, rolling his glave (and standing far enough to avoid punches), but tail hugging is a tried and true strategy in dark souls that will continue to play a role even against bosses and enemies that do have moves that respond to it.