How to determine weaknesses?

[9214]

I know that this is pretty dumb question, but how can I figure out weaknesses of enemies and bosess (i.e. vulnerable to some type of attack or damage) without looking up into guides and wikis?

It seems pretty obvious that, say, skeletons (perhaps any other undead creatures?) can be crushed with Divine weapons and that alive creatures don't like Chaos, crystal-like monsters are possibly vulnerable to fire, etc.

Is it just trial and error? Because it's pretty illogical (IMO) that Ornstein is vulnerable to Fire, I mean, he slays things that breath fire (dragons), wtf?

No spoilers please, just leave me some vague hints and tips, I really want to figure out this game on my own on the first playthrough.

[Leeux]

Pretty much trial and error... yes. You have to have a bunch of different weapons with different characteristics and try them one at a time on the same creature/boss.

You can use save "freezing" to repeat a fight several times in a row... or simply after you got your numbers with one, suicide and retry.

That, or maybe having the debug mode build... I think it shows that info too, but not sure at all on this last one.

[solari71]

Most of the time, weaknesses are either easy to guess by looking (ie smash metal, don't try to cut it and don't smash fat, cut it) or basically irrelevant.

Also, if an enemy uses non-physical damage, they usually have high defense against it (ie don't try to kill lava demon with fire).

[MaenaZ]

I wouldn't say Ornstein is particularly vulnerable to anything, in fact he's one of the bosses with better overall defenses in the game. If anything he's weak to Magic, Poison, and Slashing (for someone with metal armor, having a Slashing resistance equal to other resistances is unusual).

How do you determine weaknesses?
You use logic and hit people until it clicks.

If it is seemingly made of rock it is resistant to nonsmashing damage, fire damage, and lightning damage but probably weak to magic.

If it uses an element and that element isn't fire it is probably strong against that element.
If it lives in lava fire probably won't damage it much.

If it is made by the progenitor of sorceries, sorceries will probably be weak against it.

If it's a mythical figure that has been burning away for centuries perhaps using fire on it makes the process faster.
If it is an obvious reskin of a boss who wask weak to fire in an area that was being hurried up then it might be weak to fire.
If it has obviously heavy armor perhaps slashing damage will be weak and blunt damage will be stronger.

etc, etc.

[King Robert Baratheon]

As with a lot of other games it's an known rule that beasts/beast-like enemies are very vulnerable to fire. Also in dark souls beasts are very weak to bleed. I don't there are many beasts in dark souls 1, let alone beasts that have enough defense/hp to let you bleed them out so I'll use a example from dark souls 2. Also the few beasts I can think of in dark souls 1 move too quickly to let you bleed them. The Lion Warriors in the Shaded Woods of Dark Souls 2 are very weak to bleed which is super helpful because they have somewhat high hp, are super resistant to any form of magic damage, and literally have unlimited poise (which actually benefits you because you're guaranted to keep them in melee range if you're using a small bleed weapon like a bandit knife). Dual wielding bleed infused bandit knives causes those lion warriors to bleed almost instantly.

[9214]

Thanks guys!

[linux ISO collector]

Elemental/type damage weaknesses aren't gonna do much for you compared to learning a boss' fight patterns.

[DontWorryImLegit]

I dont use element weapons myself, only sunlight blade and gold pine r, i can tell as a general rule, beasts are weak to fire, undeads, skeletons and such are weak to divine and heavy armoured and metal enemies are weak to lightning, however if you are not using miracles or magic (pyromancies most of the time does good dmg), you dont have to worry about elemental weekness, all enemies al week vs a claymore with 27 STR and 40 DEX

[King Robert Baratheon]

Originally posted by Man of School:

Elemental/type damage weaknesses aren't gonna do much for you compared to learning a boss' fight patterns.

That's kind of silly thing to bring up because learning a boss's weakness is a smart thing to do ahead of time rather than while you're fighting it. Most people know that Artorias is resistant to all forms of magic so even if you can dodge all of Artorias's attacks perfectly you will be doing sh*t damage if you use a weapon that is infused with lightning, fire, divine, occult, or chaos. Or if the weapon comes with one of those forms of magic infused into the weapon.