tips & tricks for fume knight if you struggle vs him

[NightCoreMoon]

every time i used a sword and shield and played defensively i got reamed. or should i say "raime"d. but with the following build, i am the one who is doing the raime-ing. reaming. whatever. this guide assumes you're PvE and don't care as much about PvP, flexible and willing to adapt and learn so you can make it past this roadblock, and smart enough to a) know the basic game mechanics and b) read and c) not complain about how dark souls 1 is so much better and dark souls 2 sucks so bad and blah blah blah beating a dead horse.

my armor is tseldora manchettes & leggings, warlock mask, nahr alma robes (for that sweet sweet delicious soul gain). my rings are covetous silver serpent, flynn's, chloranthy, and second dragon (for soul gain, attack power, stamina regen, and max stamina) [you can use third dragon instead but i find the durability loss isn't worth the boost]. i use the blossom kite shield on my back for the stamina regen (it stacks with chloranthy). and i use the blue knight halberd two-handed because out of all the halberds it has the highest physical damage. i also have sunlight blade.
if you didn't kill maughlin at the start of the game, first of all what's wrong with you, second of all you can farm the tseldora spiders for the gear, and third of all anything lightweight will do as long as it doesn't impact your roll tier or your stamina recharge.
if you don't have the covetous silver serpent ring, go talk to melentia RIGHT NOW and get it. if you don't have the chloranthy ring, go to the shaded woods RIGHT NOW and get it. if you don't have the second dragon ring (or the alternative ring of the embedded), go talk to tark (or go to eleum loyce) RIGHT NOW and get it. if you don't have flynn's ring, go to shulva RIGHT NOW and get it. if you don't have the blossom kite shield, the slumbering dragoncrest shield, or the shield of the insolent (any of them will work), go finish the freaking main campaign before you move onto the expansion packs. if you don't have the blue knight halberd, either go kill targray RIGHT NOW and get it, or if you love him and/or like being a blue sentinel, that's fine because you can also use the black knight halberd. you could use roaring or dragonrider halberd too, or raw santier's spear, but those aren't the best choices. if you don't have sunlight blade, crystal magic weapon, fire weapon, or dark weapon will also work. if you don't have any of them go waste more money on resin.

i have minimum 20 strength and 26 dex for weapon requirements, 19 vigor & endurance for the highest effects on the ring of embedded elsewhere, 50 attunement and 33 adp for the extra spellcasts [irrelevant] and iframes [mandatory], 20 int and 25 faith for minimum requirements and sunlight blade (you can find 11 easy skeptic spices on the way), and 14 vitality for flynn's ring full effect. all of the extra points are scattered around dex vigor and endurance. there's 2 soul vessels in brume tower so this shouldn't be difficult to do if you usually powerstance ultra greatswords or spam crystal soul spears or whatever but honestly if you're doing those things you probably have enough experience to beat raime without a guide. here we go.
(*edit- these are just minimums for my most recent attempt, you can have as much dex, str, vig, end, att, adp, int, & faith as you want, just as long as you don't go over 14 vitality because otherwise flynn's ring will do less damage; if you want to have more vitality for the safety net of armor [which ultimately is useless in this game vs how it was in ds1, like how fallout 3 armor is useless compared to fallout new vegas armor], you CAN, by all means, but if you do, then just replace flynn's ring with ring of blades since flynn's is basically just RoB+3. you don't even have to have this many stats, you can have less HP and stamina and damage output and weapon loudout if you want to, but... you should.)

i walk in, sunlight blade, unequip the catalyst, still have less than 30 carry weight, and-
STOP. did you disable all four nadalia idols? save quit now and take care of those. you disabled every single nadalia idol in the tower so far and ran out of smelter wedges??? DUMMY. assuming that you're not a dummy, sunlight blade, unequip, midrolls, initiate.

now, phase 1 isn't too bad assuming you have enough stamina to roll four times. which you definitely should, with a few pixels remaining. do not use a shield. do not use a shield. DO. NOT. USE. A. SHIELD. cosplay fred durst and keep rollin rollin rollin. raime is DESIGNED to destroy shield users. greatshields will MAYBE work but not with this build. no, instead, you have to roll INTO his swings so that your iframe window meets his hurtbox window. don't spam either, you have to match your delays with his. ONLY ATTACK WHEN IT'S SAFE. this is after three or four swings depending on the combo. if he swings four times, you're clear to hit him twice. if he only swings three times, hit him once, then roll away or else he'll backhand you across the arena. yes this is slow. yes this is tedious. yes it's artorias again. learn the attacks, dodge dodge dodge, punish, and make sure you don't die. this is only the first half of the fight, you cannot afford to be greedy and make mistakes. unless you're distortion2, squillakilla, the happy hob, or any other professional with 1000 hours in the game, YOU WILL NOT SPEEDRUN FUME KNIGHT. if you're resorting to a guide then YOU'RE NOT EXPERIENCED OR SKILLED ENOUGH TO SPEEDRUN THE FUME KNIGHT. alternatively if this is STILL too difficult for you, wear velstadt's helm when you walk in. this puts him right into phase 2, which is easily the more technically demanding phase, but provides you with more safe opportunities to hit him.
*he also has a vertical downswing (delayed roll to the side), a running thrust (delayed roll to the side), and a block that's a trap (don't attack or estus, you'll be punished). if you're going to heal, do it when you have the opportunity to attack otherwise you'll die. this is common sense stuff for the rest of the game but i still feel the need to mention it here.

phase 2 sucks. it's 2 fast, it's 2 furious, and if you make a mistake you're going 2 die. strategy remains the same. roll. he no longer has 4 hit combos, only 2 and 3 hits. only attack him or heal after the third hit unless you know the timing well enough; it's possible he may only strike twice but don't take that chance. he has a long slow sweeping attack from his right to his left, so just roll forward and to your left underneath it. if he stabs the ground, put some distance between you and him so you don't get caught in the kaboom, and roll through gaps in the fire orbs. i'm not sure if the hitbox is a solid ring and the orbs are just particle effects or if the hitboxes are attached to the orbs themselves, but either way you can easily iframe through them. he may also do a running stab, which- again- delayed roll to the side. also his recovery animations may just not happen. he may just snap from having his sword inside the ground to swinging right at you even though he shouldn't, but keep an eye out. you have 12 estus and +5 [you do have 12+5 estus right] so if you have full health and aren't hollowed out to heck and back you can survive one hit at a time, and the animation drop won't happen that often unless something's up with your framerate or RAM or some other technical issue.

a quick note RE: halberds. i know a lot of the fanbase HATES ds2 halberds because of the sweet spot mechanic, making it so you do less damage when you're too close. here's an easy fix for that: don't stand so close when you attack. if you connect with the blade, especially with counter damage, you'll do hundreds of damage to him with each strike. halberds are the most stupidly overpowered weapon in the whole game that melt late game bosses like they were made of paper and that's why i'm saying you should use them if you're struggling. if you get the technique of sweet spot down, it's not too difficult to get the technique of dodge rolls down too. it's all just hand-eye coordination and muscle memory and recognizing patterns and quick reflexes and timing. just like guitar hero.

it may take several minutes of constant concentration but eventually he will go down and you will get the spellcaster's best friend, the crown of the iron king, and access to the best and coolest fight in the game, sir alonne. you'll also get raime's soul which you can use to get one of two mediocre swords. congratulations and you're welcome for the 100K souls.

if you follow this guide to the letter and STILL struggle against fume knight, i recommend taking a break from the game itself. tilting is the number one killer against raime. don't tilt. maybe you don't have to go outside or play a different game, but if you get tilted against raime you're not going to beat him and even if you do you might just feel empty inside. if you start fresh and you're in your prime at the top of your game and try him again and STILL have trouble, let me know and i can go more in depth on the specific issue you're having down in the comments.

here's hoping you claim that crown.

EDIT- also you can use green blossom, brightbug, orange burr & dark troches, elizabeth mushroom & dried root, and balms to increase your stamina recharge, damage output, defense, resistances, hp regen, and stats, but those are ultimately meaningless if you don't roll through his attacks and die anyway, and you'll waste your expensive and rare items and tilt even more. i haven't tested the effective usage of spells such as iron flesh, denial, long term HoT miracles, magic barrier, etc, but theoretically they should also work and help out.

[Squirel_squire]

tldr; be lightweight, manage your stamina, always counterattack and be prepared for his counter. NEVER heal in front of him. GG easy

EDIT: I've no intention of looking down on your post, it's really helpfull for people struggling. I just summarized what I always do in the fight.. Good job skelleton.

I do LOVE that fight, as seen in my SL1 without taking off the idols.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhSYIJX7JRQ

[BenDaBaker]

Originally posted by Squirel_squire:

tldr; be lightweight, manage your stamina, always counterattack and be prepared for his counter. NEVER heal in front of him. GG easy

EDIT: I've no intention of looking down on your post, it's really helpfull for people struggling. I just summarized what I always do in the fight.. Good job skelleton.

I do LOVE that fight, as seen in my SL1 without taking off the idols.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhSYIJX7JRQ

I always heal directly in front of the boss to assert dominance.

[Squirel_squire]

Originally posted by BlueGalaxy:

I always heal directly in front of the boss to assert dominance.

If you do it next to him, his AI is designed to punish. If you do it at low ADP, it takes too long. When I get hit, I always focus on dodging and heal behind him, on cooldown.
Healing in front of him allows you to control his second phase, however.

[NightCoreMoon]

Originally posted by Squirel_squire:

tldr; be lightweight, manage your stamina, always counterattack and be prepared for his counter. NEVER heal in front of him. GG easy

EDIT: I've no intention of looking down on your post, it's really helpfull for people struggling. I just summarized what I always do in the fight.. Good job skelleton.

I do LOVE that fight, as seen in my SL1 without taking off the idols.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhSYIJX7JRQ

your reading comprehension is excellent and your ability to succinctly summarize an essay into one sentence should be applauded. so don't worry, i didn't take offense to it :P

Originally posted by year 2000 was a good one:

important: there's a bonfire on the right side of the room just before his fight, it will save you a lot of time when reattempting him

also important: it's essential that you roll into his ultra-greatsword attacks, as these have a huge aoe and are quite slow, meaning if you roll away from them it's very likely that you will be clipped for damage even if you dodge it initially

his slow sweep when his sword is infused is a risk free way to get hits on him, assuming you can nail the timing on it, also an excellent time to heal if you need to

honestly i liked his second phase a lot more than his first,

you know i didn't even consider that some people wouldn't know that bonfire existed, so that is a valuable addition; thank you!

[Iban The Dude]

Originally posted by BlueGalaxy:

Originally posted by Squirel_squire:

tldr; be lightweight, manage your stamina, always counterattack and be prepared for his counter. NEVER heal in front of him. GG easy

EDIT: I've no intention of looking down on your post, it's really helpfull for people struggling. I just summarized what I always do in the fight.. Good job skelleton.

I do LOVE that fight, as seen in my SL1 without taking off the idols.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhSYIJX7JRQ

I always heal directly in front of the boss to assert dominance.

One of the biggest d*mb things I've heard here, even when Summer used to coment here...

[Yal]

Originally posted by BlueGalaxy:

Originally posted by Squirel_squire:

tldr; be lightweight, manage your stamina, always counterattack and be prepared for his counter. NEVER heal in front of him. GG easy

EDIT: I've no intention of looking down on your post, it's really helpfull for people struggling. I just summarized what I always do in the fight.. Good job skelleton.

I do LOVE that fight, as seen in my SL1 without taking off the idols.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhSYIJX7JRQ

I always heal directly in front of the boss to assert dominance.

This is actually a legit strat, healing right in front of him makes him more likely to do the vertical UGS slam attack to punish it, and that attack buffs his sword in a way that prevents the transition to phase 2. So if you constantly bait that attack before the buff runs out, you can stop his second phase altogether.

(Also if you think the second phase is easier, wearing Velstadt's helmet when entering the arena instantly makes Fume Knight transition to phase 2, so you can pick your poison either way)