Did it at sl150, wyrm curved gs +10. Notes for solo melee follow:
PHASE 1:
-should never have gotten him hooked on the deathroot, now he's absolutely zooted on the stuff,
-Absurdly erratic and spazzes about incessantly, like my neighbor's pitbull when i fed some of grandpa's special jellybeans to it.
-mercifully little health, if this boss had Malenia levels of HP i'd just give up.
-Get too greedy and you won't have enough heals to survive phase 2. Therefore, be patient. Also, use a fast weapon if at all possible, good ****ing luck ever hitting him without trading damage using a slow weapon. Here the hit opportunities i mostly relied on:
-right after he does a projectile attack (big rock, pebbles, ground waves)
-when you're behind him after he's done with a melee combo.
-right after he uses the big reverse grip dagger swipe to open a combo.
-The big dagger slash from your left that cleaves the ground. This one can be dodged just by strafing to the right on occasion, which saves stamina, so i'd recommend it.
-Being hit by one attack in a melee combo will easily mess up your timings and cause you to get hit by the rest too.
-The pillars and edge of the arena can sometimes mess with the roll timings, as his dodge timings assume that he'll be dashing around while doing them. Be aware.
-Next, more specifically on some moves:
-The pebble throw has a crazy amount of variance in terms of timing. You're going to have to just learn this by heart. That being said, it basically always signals the end of a combo.
-The 8-directional shockwave can be insanely janky to dodge if you're next to him. The Method i used is to dodge into his arm right as it's released, I-framing through the shockwaves. The way to differentiate this move from his regular ground stab is that he stabs the ground with his knife (right hand), and does shockwaves with his claw (left hand)
-The move where he pulls rocks out the ground and sends them back down can go **** itself. My advice? Run far away, to outrange the potential pebble throw move he uses after it that you can't actually see being wound up.
-That double dagger slash is insanely erratic. He just sort of does it whenever, it feels janky and broken.
-you have just enough time to heal right after the phase switch. This may well be the last opportunity you get to heal in this fight, so use it well.
PHASE 2:
-you know i'm starting to think this might be furry bait fr. Like seriously, his armor bares the midriff and crotch, and he has a kind of slim, twinky physique. Not that I'm complaining.
-The blasphemous claw might be powerful here, but i never once managed to actually pull the parry off. It's kind of cumbersome to use (fiddling with the d-pad menu is kind of a pain), and reaction parrying is straight impossible. You have to know not only when to parry, but which moves can even be parried.
-Leveled vigor enough to not get oneshot? Don't worry, His projectiles can unlevel it for you. While also dealing DoT.
-The DoT from his attacks is nullified by healing. I'm not *sure* on that, but it seems to be the case. Therefore, slow-acting heals may be very useful here.
-He doesn't have that many different moves. On the positive side, this means you'll learn them by heart quickly. The bad side is that you'll have to, or he'll erase you from existence faster than you can blink.
-The twirly move he does in the air while throwing projectiles at you might as well be an instakill if any of the projectiles hit.
-When he pulled that Isshin Ashina one mind bullsh*t from out of nowhere I had flashbacks of Malenia. Thankfully it isn't that bad, but i have no idea how to dodge it still.
-He is relentless, so I advise you to be as well. One of you is going to be dead in 90 seconds, your goal is to make sure it's not you. There aren't a lot of opportunities for damage or healing due to the long comboes, so seize every single one of them.
-He once clipped into a pillar, vanished, appeared behind me and instakilled me. So that's a possibility. It only happened once though.
-Beware the pillars, or invoke the wrath of the secret deity, "Camerajank"
Honestly, this fight would be improved immensely if phase 1 was a separate fight you only had to clear once. The movesets are so radically different that it's basically two separate fights anyway. I had a lot of fun with phase 2, but every time i died to it i'd have to deal with the really unfun phase 1. Anyway, this guy is the third anthro guy in this game now, so overall a dub for us furries.
