How do you beat the Stray Demon?

[Shierke]

I've been stuck on this mofo for an hour now and cannot beat him. His shockwave attack is brutal and his melee attacks get me down to like 5% of my HP, and his HP bar is so huge.

[The Backlogs]

His first attack is the worst - with the fall damage already tacked on, if you don't book it behind him, you'll get one-hit-KOd. Your best bet is to remove any heavy armor you may be wearing so that you can run quickly, then get behind him and wail on his ass. Unfortunately, you have to keep sidestepping and rolling to keep behind him - if he lines himself up in front of you, you'll get another wave of red hot death again.

TLDR: Move fast. Poke in ass. Dodge and roll to stay behind. Hit until he dies.

PS - Don't stay too close to his ass...he does a ground pound.
PPS - If you're STILL having trouble due to your damage being too low, leave. You can always come back - he's an optional boss.

[Shierke]

Originally posted by Nuncest:

What build are you using?

Might be helpful:

- Either hug him and roll through his melee attacks and run to heal or when he does his AoE or keep out of his range and use ranged attacks.
- You need stamina recovery; stay below 50% equip burden.
- Flash sweat helps wonders.
IIRC hes weak to lightning. I know for sure hes weak to bleeding, you should make him bleed with three to five hits each (*cough, katana cheese, cough*


I´d suggest you accomplish his defeat on your own but you could also see http://darksouls.wikidot.com/stray-demon for guides.

Originally posted by SubmergedLemon:

His first attack is the worst - with the fall damage already tacked on, if you don't book it behind him, you'll get one-hit-KOd. Your best bet is to remove any heavy armor you may be wearing so that you can run quickly, then get behind him and wail on his ass. Unfortunately, you have to keep sidestepping and rolling to keep behind him - if he lines himself up in front of you, you'll get another wave of red hot death again.

TLDR: Move fast. Poke in ass. Dodge and roll to stay behind. Hit until he dies.

PS - Don't stay too close to his ass...he does a ground pound.
PPS - If you're STILL having trouble due to your damage being too low, leave. You can always come back - he's an optional boss.

Thanks for the advice guys, I removed all my armor and got him to 1/4 of his HP before he got me with that shockwave again. It's really confusing to know whether he's gonna melee or shockwave. I don't have any bleed or lightning weapons, and am only doing him to get the last titanite chunk I need to get my Uchigatana to +10.

Should I upgrade my shields and armor? They're all normal and I'm SL 40.

[LarsenB]

If you have a shield block build/playstyle, you need to revert to fast, dodge tactics with this boss

Keep you distance and quickly close in after one of his attack; he's extremely weak to bleeding, so a Katana, Morning Star or similar will do wonders: after his "butt move", for example, you have a very large window of opportunity to rush in and chain 3 attacks to trigger the bleed effect (as usual, don't get greedy!)... repeat 3 times or such, and he's gone

[LarsenB]

Originally posted by CrankcaseDOTM:

Thanks for the advice guys, I removed all my armor and got him to 1/4 of his HP before he got me with that shockwave again. It's really confusing to know whether he's gonna melee or shockwave. I don't have any bleed or lightning weapons, and am only doing him to get the last titanite chunk I need to get my Uchigatana to +10.

If you have an Uchigatana, then you have a bleed weapon, that's plenty enough... even more so if it's already at +9

[Crombell]

After all the other advice already given, you should probably know this:
When he's charging up any attack, you can clip through the space between his fat arse/stomach and his leg, making it very easy to get behind him.

[Shierke]

Thank you all so much! I finally beat the bastard. You guys rock! Flash sweat, light equipment, havels ring, dual wield uchigatana and I beat him. Never knew it had a bleed effect :P

[Llamatron]

Or you could try this...! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fzaYtILrSo

[Crombell]

Originally posted by CrankcaseDOTM:

Thank you all so much! I finally beat the bastard. You guys rock! Flash sweat, light equipment, havels ring, dual wield uchigatana and I beat him. Never knew it had a bleed effect :P

Congratulations!

Oh, and I think his AoE attacks are magic damage, so flash sweat probably won't decrease the damage.

[Roxx]

Hes much easier if you don't lock on to him as well.

[MinionOfWar]

@deggenbe

+1

I was just about to add that!

[Crombell]

Originally posted by Ozz3605:

Flash sweat is for the fire version of him that you encounter later on..and even then i didnt use it hes one of the easyest guy top beat :)

The third incarnation (or second, depending on if you do the asylum prior to the Izalith), also does magic damage with his AoE.

[Sticky White Stuff]

Originally posted by Crombell:

Originally posted by Ozz3605:

Flash sweat is for the fire version of him that you encounter later on..and even then i didnt use it hes one of the easyest guy top beat :)

The third incarnation (or second, depending on if you do the asylum prior to the Izalith), also does magic damage with his AoE.

Which makes no sense whatsoever. It's one of the larger flaws Dark Souls has. Fire based enemies (or that which deal obvious fire damage) do orange/yellow/red AOE attacks.
If you didn't look at the wiki, you wouldn't really know if this is your first time playing. And even if you have beaten the game you couldn't know unless you paid attention that almost every, if not every AOE boss attack is magic, despite their looks and abilities.

[Crombell]

Originally posted by Stab Variation:

Originally posted by Crombell:

The third incarnation (or second, depending on if you do the asylum prior to the Izalith), also does magic damage with his AoE.

Which makes no sense whatsoever. It's one of the larger flaws Dark Souls has. Fire based enemies (or that which deal obvious fire damage) do orange/yellow/red AOE attacks.
If you didn't look at the wiki, you wouldn't really know if this is your first time playing. And even if you have beaten the game you couldn't know unless you paid attention that almost every, if not every AOE boss attack is magic, despite their looks and abilities.

Actually, in regards to the Demon Firesage, I am not sure if it is an oversight. Let's take a look at the demon's catalyst's description:

Demon catalyst formed from Izalith molten
rock. Can be used as fire weapon.
The Demon Firesage was the first demon,
and the last master of the original fire
arts before the Witch of Izalith was
engulfed by Chaos, creating pyromancy.

Then, if we look at the Izalith catalyst's description:

Catalyst of the Witch of Izalith of long ago,
when her daughters were still flame witches,
before they were engulfed by the Chaos Flame.
Before the birth of pyromancy, their wands
were mediums for sorcery, but knowledge
of this flame sorcery has long since vanished.

[Chessnuts]

it took me a stupid long time to beat him too, but what I found is

Try to remove as much armor as you can so you get a fast roll

dual wield because blocking isn't terribly effective this fight

Try to stay relatively close (about a tails length away) so that you can circle easily.

When you see him raise his sword straight up, get behind him (roll under his legs) and wait for shockwave - Then hit him a few times

If he does the same move, just keep staying behind him and attacking afterwards

If he jumps to slam his butt on you, move away and roll away.

Then stay fairly close, rolling from his sword swing.

most importantly find his patterns and be patient