Strategies for Artorias

[The Dogfather]

I am finding this boss the most challenging in the game so far. Can anyone suggest an armour load out for my specs below or a simple strategy.

I have the Power within spell which I cast before as it helps with the damage but I can only ever get him below half of his health before he kills me. Its just that no matter what shield I use he seems to slice through it. I am also using Lifehunt Scythe + 5 with a dps of about 275 as currently its the highest damage output weapon I have. I tried using my utchigatana + 15 but the scythe pips it when fighting bosses.

My current stats are:-

Endurance 41
Dexterity 40
Vitality 23
Intelligence 17
Strength 20

I have also equipped Havels armour set with his ring to lessen the burden of the armour load and the wolf ring for extra poise

[slacker]

Do you cancel his power ups? If you dont they will stack and ♥♥♥♥ you up. Use a fully upgraded Silver knight Shield as it works wonders as the highest stability medium shield.

[The Dogfather]

I have a Silver Knight Shield + 5 but oddly enough I see that is the one shield I have not tried....I must have missed it :)

[Error]

My strategy when I beat him low level can work for any level... I use a red tearstone ring and hurt myself enough for it to be active before I go through the fog gate. Then I dodge and wait for him to do his power ups and run full force and bash him then dodge more. I also wait for him to do his jump move where he lands next to you when he tries to hit you, which leaves him open for a hit as well. If you have decent pyromancy, you could also equip a Crown of Dusk and Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring to make the pyro attacks more powerful and wait for the same opportunities. Red Tearstone, Crown of Dusk, and Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring all stack for pyro attacks too. The armor doesn't matter since if he hits you while using this strategy you are gone.

[Vlad]

i agree with Shatter...Just learn artorias's attacks and timing, if you can time things correctly to dodge, which I'm assuming you already know that dodging has invincibilty for a certain time. Side roll has the most invincibility and forward roll has a decent amount of invinciblity as well. As frustrating as it might be, don't give up and just learn the timing, unless your trying to Tank him then thats a different story, i would just use heavy ass armor with a big shield, you'll just need some stamina, but for this fight, i don't recommend it. It's far more epic to just dodge accordingly and get many close calls, because at the end of the fight you just say,"♥♥♥♥ YEA, ♥♥♥♥ YOU Artorias, ♥♥♥♥♥♥ YOU!" then jack his armor! lol hope this kinda helps.

[Jintek]

Shatter is correct. The best way to beat Artorias is to just get in there and master his timings with Red Tearstone. Your best opportunity to get off a decent R2 (or a R2+R2 depending on the weapon for a crit) is when he does his leaping attacks. If you time it perfectly as he's rolling away after that you'll get additional crit damage on him which feels great.

[jim]

You really just need a shield. Just block all his hits and attack once (MAYBE TWICE, depending on how fast your weapon is... if it's really fast, then twice. But with a scythe, I'd say once)

Just keep wearing him down over like 10 minutes. When he jumps back and channels his power up, go 2h mode and just smack him twice, and it should cancel his powerup.

Havels is cool, but you really just need a 100% block shield. The shield from Sif's soul is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cash money baller status for fighting Arty.

[Kamen Kreuz]

When fighting him, I just went full tank. I used my best shield+Green Blossoms and blocked almost everything. Be sure to roll out of the way of his jumpflip and high jump attacks, they destroy stamina and health.

[Onion]

artorias? lol... wait for manus.. :D

[Shoepots]

Eh, all I did was get iron flesh, wear the best armor I had (havel's full set at the time), get 20 estus flasks, 2 hand my weapon (was using the lifehunt scythe for the running strong attack even while in iron flesh to cancel his power up), get the grass crest shield, and attacked to no end until he died. With healing when it was needed of course.
I actually forgot to go to the DLC area in my first playthrough, so this was what I did in NG+.

[Slug Camargo]

I did the opposite as most people here: I put on the lightest set I could find while still keeping a good def/poise (a combination of Armor of the Glorious and Havel's Gauntlets is quite nice); took a good, high stability shield; and I focused on avoiding his attacks while being quite conservative with mine, using a Black Knight Sword +5.

One thing I found to work quite well was running towards his right (my left) and attacking his side (or his back whenever I managed to get behind him). Moving in that direction seemed to make avoiding his swings easier.

Originally posted by Tenshi / Katawa:

artorias? lol... wait for manus.. :D

Manus wasn't that big a deal in my experience, actually. I could block all his attacks -even the combo ones- and come out with enough stamina to land a hit or two. Artorias would eat up my whole stamina bar and sometimes even bite into the health one.

Now, Kalameet --that's a proper ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[TheSilverPalm]

Shields? Heavy armor? For Artorias fight??? He is the easyest boss in the game in terms of dodging. Oh you guys need to see this...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmZkcJkXtEY

[Big Boom Boom]

Originally posted by Tenshi / Katawa:

artorias? lol... wait for manus.. :D

You could always cheese Manus with 100 Feather Arrows.

Kalameet, yea he's frigging hard. I just defeated him with the help of two summons. Though near the end one Phantom got one shot by him. Too scared to solo it D:

[Error]

Originally posted by Big Boom Boom:

Originally posted by Tenshi / Katawa:

artorias? lol... wait for manus.. :D

You could always cheese Manus with 100 Feather Arrows.

Kalameet, yea he's frigging hard. I just defeated him with the help of two summons. Though near the end one Phantom got one shot by him. Too scared to solo it D:

The hardest thing about Kalameet is trying to cut his tail solo. I've managed to do it before, but in my latest character I killed him out of sheer frustration since there are very few opportunities to hit his tail when you're the only one battling.

[slacker]

Originally posted by Tenshi / Katawa:

artorias? lol... wait for manus.. :D

I cheesed Manus with Black Bow of Pharis, Hawk Ring, and Feather Arrows. Standard arrows work too though.

[Slug Camargo]

Originally posted by Assassin Of Mist:

Shields? Heavy armor? For Artorias fight??? He is the easyest boss in the game in terms of dodging.

This kind of internet-tough-guy speech really gets to my tits. So some youtube guy can stand through a 10-minute fist fight with Artorias without getting hit. Good for him. Some people can paint the Doni Tondo on a grain of rice too; but that doesn't necessarily mean that painting on a grain of rice is easy, and it *certainly* doesn't mean that anyone can paint like Michelangelo.