North Boss help?

[Jack Ketch]

Can anyone give me some pointers on the Northern Boss (he appears to be a bird).

I get that he has two attacks - the following chain attack, and the attack-squares-where-you-are attack. After I whack on his health bar for a while, I think there's a new attack? (which is usually where I start dying).

I have the first dash upgrade and grenade. I did kill the East (frog) boss, which wasn't that hard, but honestly seemed less twitchy than this one. It's not always obvious when I'm taking damage - as there's a lot going on during these fights.

I have cleared East, West and North (well, all four triangles at least) but am now struggling with the North and West bosses.

Thanks.

[YinYin]

Try abusing the shot gun (you should have this - was on a skeleton after the frog boss) + sword slash combo for quick damage as well as getting out of sword slash recovery quickly with the dash (and chain yourself to safety).

If you do damage quickly enough over the half point you can skip the part where his + and x patterns become larger and he starts to do vertical and horizontal attack stripes, where standing in the safe zones is really easy.

[ZeLibertineGamer]

The followers will only turn twice, iirc. That means you can lead them on short corners and then dash back to the boss, shoot him with the shotgun you got from the frog boss, maybe hit him with your sword once or twice, and dash back out.

The second attack 'evolves' throughout the fight. It starts out in an X shape, then it turns into alternating lines, either horizonal or vertical. I can generally find a safe spot that I know the lines won't hit, and pick at him with my gun from afar. He almost always teleports after said attack, and that's the best time to dash in and hit him with a flurry of attacks before resuming your "dance" around the squares of doom.

Hope this helps.

[Wintermute]

Shotgun in his face, sword when he summons minions. And 4 healthpacks. That did it for me

It's pretty easy to generate ammo from either him or summons.

[Gustaw]

1. Upgrade shotgun and use it whenever in close combat with the boss. You get it after the frog.
2. Never get greedy - just shoot once or slash twice.
3. You can use grenade to kill all the birds if you time it right after he summons them.
4. The boss has three different attack patterns and will change them after his health is depleted. Each of them is clear tile pattern, so it is pretty easy to avoid if you time your dash correctly. Third of them covers like 50% of the arena.

If you have problems, you can concentrate on avoiding his attacks instead of dealing yours for some time. The openings on the bosses are really small.

Some advanced techniques is going for fast combos - shotgun followed by a slash to strong slash, dash out. It deals a ton of damage.

[Focksbot]

Just done this today. I can only tell you what worked for me:

1) Spend most of the time running away but hit him close up with the shotgun whenever he teleports back to the centre. This is the longest window you've got where he's not doing anything - he pauses just long enough for a very close blast or two and a dash n' slash (if you have that upgrade).

2) Don't bother trying to kill his minions, except with the dash n' slash - most of them die to the boss's own attacks and their main job is to distract you.

3) Never try to slash him more than twice in a row wth normal X attacks - the window isn't big enough.

4) Keep dashing like crazy, until he's on his final phase and doing his attacks in rows - for these, you can stay in a safe spot.

[Blackyle]

I beat this boss first through much trial and error. The only thing i can mention that hasn't already, is that when he attacks the tiles on the ground and makes them disappear, the tiles don't immediately drop when his attack targets them. You have a second before they drop. Good luck and happy hunting.

[HighLanderPony]

Did with the chain dash and nothing else.

At the start, empty your magazine into him, then keep dodging. When you dodged far away from the seeking squares, you can go in for sword hits. Just be ready to dodge away. Usually, diagonally. He tends to repeat a cross, X pattern for the attacks after the seeking squares.

Every time you hit him with your sword, you get 1 ammo. So use that when you can. When he gets in the middle, spam your sword on him, then empty your gun on him again. Rinse repeat to speed up his death by a lot.

Try to have at least 1 medkit for the last phase. Always stay at at least 3 HP as his attacks deal 2 damage (the squares). For me, dashing to him asap worked for the final phase. Don't stand around for too long, finish it once you know the timing. He's a pain in the arse, but I did it, and so can you.

[Nat]

Oh god just wait until you have to fight him on New Game+
It's awful but I did it third try

[QuantumLeap215]

So I felt like a challenge and fought this guy (his name's The Hierophant, btw. At least according to the trading cards) on a crappy computer using keyboard controls and a trackpad. That said, I still don't consider this guy easy. The best advice I can give you is to try and get past his second stage as fast as possible.

Referring to his stages, his "first stage" is his attack pattern right off the bat. One seeker, two or three targeted attacks, then teleport and maybe summon minions.
Second stage is when he starts sending two seekers and the targeted attacks become much larger and harder to dodge.
Third stage is when he switches to just row and column attacks.

I found that his first stage isn't that bad because the seekers can be avoided with some simple dashes and his targeted attacks generally miss as long as you dash, no matter the direction. And the third stage is vary easy in the sense that you can find a safe spot and just beat the tar out of him as long as you pay attention. The second stage is the worst, because he has two seekers to keep track of, generally while watching for his targeted attacks and trying to get the direction and timing correct to avoid those.

In short, don't be afraid to hit him a few times to get charges on your gun, it's really nice to be able to shoot him from a distance and have time to avoid the seekers. And do everything you can to power through that second stage.

[BlackjackGT]

Just spent about 23 minutes dying on this boss maybe 55 times. Tried everything everyone recommends, I just can't finish him. One try got him down to like the last 10 bubbles on his meter and then everyhing subsequent got worse. Problem is no matter how many times I play him I can't figure out the checkerboard pattern, it doesn't seem anything but random to me.

I know the game's supposed to be hard, and I guess Dark Souls (never played) is hard, I just sometimes question whether dying 125 times or 200 times before something "clicks" and a boss is done is really any fun at all. But there's no other game like this on Steam... so I guess I don't have to worry about running into this sort of Boss masochism again. :)