So I decided to document my attempt to go through my first playthrough of Bloodborne and its DLC, all bosses, without dying to a boss. I know a few streamers I watch and communities I'm in do this kind of death count thing with souls-borne bosses and I thought I'd aim for 0 or as little as possible to add a fun little extra to the game. I'll be writing this as I go along with maybe a little description of how the boss went and what I thought if the fight, maybe tips of sorts etc.
Also, I don't expect anyone on here to read or care about this, I'm mostly just using this sites blog as a place to host this to send to various social circles of mine in order to document my run through, as a few of them would as well. And, hopefully *cough* they might want to *cough* sign up and put me down as a referral *cough* (please)
https://www.truetrophies.com/registerpsnid.aspxDeath Counter:
Cleric Beast - 0
Wasn't really expecting to die on a first boss anyway, this guy seems like a good learning tool for the mechanics as he seemed fairly slow to recover and gives you a chance to get to grips with basically fighting a boss in this game. As far as dodging his attacks go he was easier to dodge than the enemies before him, but his health pool gives him a basic consistency challenge. When he does hit you, he doesn't deal too much damage, granted one of the attacks that didn't hit me might do more, but I can see you being able to take 2-3 hits from this guy without dying, and as long as you keep topping up your health with Vials he is no problem. I got hit a couple times from getting greedy, never went below 50% health though since it's easy to get away from any follow up attacks and heal.
Father Gascoigne - 0
OMG this guy had the same kind of weapon as I did! I chose the axe and here he comes using the axe on me. I feel like that made the fight more dramatic to me, it pretty much felt like some kind of epic fair duel between us. Using the environment and the extended charge R2 spin attack I got some nice heavy blows on the dude in the early forms, as my stamina recovered I could sneak in a couple regular hits too, then once he transformed a nice sprint R2 hit and run tactic served me wonders.
Blood-starved Beast - 0
This guy liked to move a bit faster around the place and recover at a decent speed, he got a fair few swipes on me as I tried to gauge just how greedy I could be with attacks. I used the axe extended for the extra reach so I didn't need to be in his face and so I could also make use of the environment a little here as well with the spin attack but only during the first phase of the battle as I didn't see any good opportunities to charge later in the fight.
Vicar Amelia - 0
This one was quite easy, I'd say the easiest so far. I decided to not use my extended axe this time around and just get in close, I circled around her a bunch, mostly sticking to her side and dodging to the left and just kept to that until a visceral opportunity arose, but I never managed to hit the actual visceral, so I just used the stun period to slash her more, occasionally I'd back away just in case another phase started and had some dramatic new tricks up their sleeves to 1 shot me, this is souls-borne after all.
Witch of Hemwick- 0
No comment, seriously though, did ANYONE die here? Raise your hands? DOES THIS BOSS EVEN HAVE AN ATTACK? Seriously, unless my game is bugged, I was never attacked by this boss, just the occasional goon she summons which is easily dispatched of... My god, they actually gave a boss health bar to this... This must have been accidental, I don't feel like they would have intentionally made her this easy? Is this a troll? Hardest part for me was actually realising how to get to her, I forgot there was a pathway I didn't follow from the Cathedral Ward area, I was looking around for ages for somewhere to go.
Shadow of Yharnam - 0
Okay, I survived but this took me a little while, a lot of running around and dodging until I could figure out a smart way to handle this since there were 3 dudes all actively going for me. Quite good that this boss, although they're not passive, they are easy to avoid if you want a quick break to think lol. What I decided I wanted to do was get the sword guy fairly close and block the ranged guy with the environment, the third guy was a bit annoying as I was fighting the main sword guy but once I took out the dude with the sword I felt like I had more flexibility and freedom so I carefully took out the guy that kept spewing a short range flamethrower like attack, mostly by baiting and circling them, and then the poor little guy remaining was easy fodder for me by that point. Longer fight than it should have been but I was glad I took the time to think it out.
Rom, the Vacuous Spider - 0 (1*)
Okay, this guy was pretty easy but all those spiders (who did get the occasional hit on me, they can take a nice bite out of your health) make this feel quite pressured, I guess you could probably safely take out all the spiders and play the long game but I, whilst fighting it, thought they would probably respawn... Hmm, maybe that's something to Google later lol. Anyways, hit and run worked great here, first phase I just went full attack because why not but after he teleports for the first time I would sprint R2 attack once then roll out immediately (no lock on) and then either repeat that immediately when my stamina refills or prepare to dodge his attacks.
*side note: I did die to a spider at the same time as successfully killing him, technically the deathless attempt has been failed at this point, however, I could still technically finish the run getting each boss in my first try as this counted as a success and I didn't need to re-fight him, therefore I will continue to track my attempt.
Darkbeast Paarl - 0
CHAAAARGE! This is a boss that I ended up pretty much going full hack and slash on, I started the fight cautious like any other but when I went in to attack I knocked him down and got to deal a bunch more damage, if I had more stamina I'm sure this fight would have been quicker because I just couldn't hit enough times to make the most of his openings. Once he got up I went back to the ol' dodging about then charged him down yet again, full attack served me well here, this dude can't seem to handle a full on aggression strategy. I liked this boss, maybe it was just the electricity, but he did look pretty cool.
The One Reborn - 0
I wasted some Vials here when I really didn't need to. So first up I took him on cautiously, mostly sticking to his side, getting hit a few times but then I noticed a stairway, so, I went up to kill those pesky spell casters and then rejoined the fight. From here I mostly just kept being greedy and slashing his sides and getting hit after a while by whatever it is he's dropping on my head, I'd retreat to the stairs any time I dropped to 50% health to heal up, must have used a good 10+ Vials on this fight since my glass canon build resulted in any attack dropping my health to 50% or less xD, maybe that's something fun I could have been tracking, vial usage, too late now I guess.
Amygdala - 0
I probably should have mentioned this sooner but I had moved on since the axe and started using Ludwigs, nice and versatile and also good damage on my glass canon build, the reason I point this out here is the transformed Ludwigs was a great heavy hitter on his face. This guy was fairly interesting, the beginning of the fight was your standard hit and run as is common with most the big guy fights but what I kinda liked was when he started using these laser attacks because they had this like delayed explosion and it was just pretty cool to watch him sweeping this laser around to hit me.
Micolash - 0
Hi Hermes, nice to see you again, been a while since God of War 3... But really, he was a bit of a dick running so frequently. As far as the sections where you're in a room fighting him, he does basically nothing, this boss was nothing compared to basic enemies at this stage of the game so just dodging his easily telegraphed moveset (more like just one move) and slashing him down was a piece of cake.
Mergos Wet Nurse - 0
So, she didn't seem to pose too much of a threat, trying to stick to her rear seemed to work well especially when she started doing a super long slashing attack animation and I can just unload on her back. Couldn't seem to get a good opportunity to hit her when she turned the arena dark, probably isn't a good idea to try but it sure does take a while for that to end, I just assumed it was how the next phase would play out.
Martyr Logarius - 0
With my visceral damage skyrocketing during the course of the game with my glass canon build the fact this guy was so god damn easy to get into a visceral state just made this a complete joke of a fight. Thanks for the crown buddy, I'm a king!
Celestial Emissary - 0
So, where's the boss? Oh, he's one of these little guys, I see it, I'm doing damage to it now... Heh, this seems a bit of a joke fight? BOOM, he's a big guy! Oh wait, he's still equally as easy and goes down super quick with my DPS.
Ebrietas - 2
And I was so close to finishing the base game... WHY?! I'll tell you why, because I got too greedy, going that "1 more hit" when I shouldn't have. Honestly this fight wasn't all that hard after ballsing it up twice, getting in there and doing a bunch of damage and then NOT going for 1 more hit, instead evading an attack, that worked... *sigh* I feel like the 2nd death was more due to the disheartening realisation that my first death ruined the first try streak.
Gerhman - 0
I wonder if you can parry him, I never thought to have tried since a hit and run tactic with a non-transformed Ludwigs worked nicely, could get 3 slashes in easily, sometimes a 4 hit combo each opening, whittled the health down nicely. For laughs I finished the remainder of his health with Molotovs because I had them equipped and he did seem a bit more difficult to get close and attack in his final phase. Also, I like his scythe weapon.
Moon Presence - 0
Easy final boss, not the easiest but it feels a step back from some of the other late game bosses, got hit once and used a vial but mostly just stuck close and kept up the damage, although not a totally similar boss, I used a strategy similar to what I did with Amelia
Ludwig - 0
First boss of the DLC, naturally it's going to be easy I'm not really surprised. First half of the fight I just kind of stuck to his side for the most part using... Ludwigs xD, pretty fun to be fighting Ludwig with Ludwig. Second phase was cool, that epic glowing sword of his. Easily telegraphed attacks though allowing for some basic dodging and slashing but I did like the fight overall.
Living Failures - 0
Okay, these guys were pretty easy to handle, transformed ludwigs, sprint R2, R1 x2. Projectiles were slow, easy to avoid, they moved relatively slow themselves too. If a small crowd formed I'd sprint R1 for a bit of an frontwards AoE but mostly I'd be using my previous combo.
Lady Maria - 0
Give me a boss I can parry and visceral, if I realise it, then things are going to down quite smoothly. First phase I parried/visceral my way then once she gets the blood swords going it was rather similar dodging technique to doing phase 2 on Ludwig, only this time less room for mistakes, which, thinking about it kind of makes Ludwig a nice introduction for the DLC I guess.
Laurence - 4
Most deaths so far and I didn't feel like this was because I got greedy like with Ebrietas. Nah, this one actually felt like it challenged me. Not the 2nd phase, where he's crawling, I did that part first try when I got that far. It was the first phase actually. Although it seemed similar to the first boss of the game I just couldn't seem to get a consistent dodge up close on his swipe attacks to stay aggressive, and considering I'm a glass canon, a hit on me is basically RIP... I mostly waited for one of 3 different moves he did on my successful attempt. The first being where he punches with each arm then strikes down with both arms, running in R2 with Ludwigs put him in a visceral state for good damage. The second being a grab, which I could do a similar visceral state with once he misses grabbing me. The third being where he slams his big arm down and it gets stuck or something, I wait until after the explosion of him pulling out and try getting a sprint R1 swipe on him from the side. I mostly just backed away if he wasn't doing the move I wanted then went in close again to bait him to attack. As soon as he falls to the floor crawling for the next phase it's a cake-walk but that first phase was a nightmare.
Orphan of Kos - 0
One word: Parry. The entire first phase was much like the other bosses I parried to beat, went by without any issues whatsoever, and by this point when I hit a visceral I was dealing like 3000 damage, I don't know if that's "a lot" but it felt like it. I'm not a high level, but my glass canon build must have been working wonders for damage, I am pretty much all Strength and Skill. When he transformed into his second phase he left a window open for me to get like a full stamina bar of slashes in on him. From now on I was mostly dodging backwards as he swiped or leaped forward and waited for him to take a little breather then took 2 slashes (no more) each time. Not sure if the second phase was also parry-able but he was faster and more aggressive towards me so I didn't want to find out, especially since he can probably 1 shot me if it doesn't work. There was one move that was quite intimidating, that was all these lightning bolts, but there were some neat little gaps I could slide through.
Total: 6 (7*)
Final Result: FAILED...
It was a fun ride, I enjoyed it and I'm not too disappointed with how I did. Sure, I was really anticipating finishing the game with no boss deaths as I had done so with Demons Souls in the past but I guess it just wasn't meant to be, I tried my best and I'll take what I've learned to improve the next time I tackle a souls-borne game and hopefully things will go better in that. Failure sucks, granted, but you learn from your failures. Maybe next I'll go for the Dark Souls Remaster? :D
Also, I will do the Chalices, but I don't think I'll track those, I don't really know anyone who really cares about them so much.