Twin Princes boss fight = garbage [UPD: not really]

[polyneutron]

Sooo I'm basically almost 100% 'done' with DkS3's Twin Princess boss fight. Got to 2nd phase just to get hit again by his stupid hugearse oneshot swipe attack, that I actually escaped, but the game decided otherwise. Oh, and Lothric shoots his magic mumbo jumbo when I desperately try to chug estus when I suddenly do manage to evade. BRILLIANT!

I've never ever had so much trouble with bosses in any other Soulsborne game made by FROM, like I do now. This is so bad and broken it's not even funny, this hitbox is downright trolling and I seriously consider looking up for cheats/hacks to play this boss fight with invincibility enabled, or smth. Basically, it's now "the boss is clearly cheating, why can't I cheat as well then?' kinda thing.

And yes, before you might ask me of improving my skills and whatnot: I am good enough to play the game fair in most cases, I don't need to 'git gud' ya know. If I could cheese the fight (like I did back then with Manus in DkS1) I most certainly would, but I can't do so here.

For real, I hate it so freaking much. I don't even know why am I still posting this, but I feel a bit better after writing it down like this now, honestly.
Curses upon anyone who brought this oneshot crap into the final game. Like, was it even tested, how could it pass QA and stuff?
Why the hell it's made that hard artificially through one shot attacks and bosses' huge health pool? I don't have THAT much time, will & patience to continue banging my head against the wall trying to beat this boss only to fail again. Why I should feel ashamed of using cheats where devs already cheated on me that much?

*sigh*
I'm not co-op'ing this because that's how I do my NG: I may help others playing as a SunBro myself, but I go solo for the most part (sometimes I summon NPCs). I'm lvl 59 with Claymore +6 which I used to slay most of the bosses (some offered a challenge, others didn't), and I can get to TP phase 2, not every single time, but I can. It's just that particular attack that bothers me so much.

UPD: edited phrasing and stuff
UPD2: The fight is over now, thank you all for your support!

[ēdiššu]

Boy, you're mumbling because of the boss. You need to git gud.

You're possible 'cheeses' are: parying, Vow of Silence, fire+lightning, dodging.
You have 2 NPCs for that fight if you're chasing their questlines.
There are at least two sort-of-a-glitches in this fight (2nd stage opening, soulmasses displacement).

[GZQRing]

I think its a easy one.I even solo this in NG+2 without melee weapon
The only one i feel very hard is Oceiros.

[Hems]

You're at the Twin Princes at level 59? That seems quite low to me, I usually end up around 80-90 depending on if I end up farming for gear.

Maybe try sunbroing for a bit until you can put enough points into Vigor so that you can no longer be 1 shotted?

One thing I keep in mind is that no matter how hard a Souls boss is for me, somebody else probably beat it at soul level 1 without taking a single hit, and if they can do that then surely I can beat this boss (even if it takes me hours!).

[Artek [General]]

Yeah, the Twins are a big pain in the ass when you meet them for the first time.
I know that i'm fighting a real Dark Souls boss when i die 5+ times to him and get incredibly angry (like shouting at my screen).

But once you get used to them they're not that bad. Hell, i helped someone to beat them as a cooperator when the host was SL15 or 20 which meant one hell of a down-scale.

Basically here's the advices that i can give:

1) Get used to Lorian's rhytm. Its actually pretty monotonous, always dodge to the oposite side of the attack, abuse rolling attacks - you can almost forget about normal ones unless you feel confident he won't recover quick enough to hit back.

2) Get used to his teleporting habbits. Get ready to dodge when you see him teleporting, try to manually find where he's coming from. The biggest issue is when he teleports on top of you. I can't quiet figure out what triggers that one and timing the dodge for it is quiet hard.

3) In phase 2 Lothric tries to compensate his brother's passsivenes. If they are far away - Lothric almost always will use the magic spear. He also uses it to punish healing. Yes, that's intentional. Either try healing with better timings to prevent him from that (he only can shoot when Lorian is facing you) or hide behind pillars.

4) The many small projectiles attacks are ALWAYS followed by Lorian teleporting and trying to stab you at the same time the projectile home-in on you. Dodging Lorian is more important than dodging the projectiles - they do not hit as hard and i dont think they stagger. Not sure.

5) Again, rolling attacks are you best bet - try to roll BEHIND Lorian as he attacks you and do rolling attacks from the flank. This will hit both brothers shortening the fight greatly.

In short: its git gud time. Just practice until you roll over them. You might even start enjoying the fight, like i do.

EDIT:
i almost forgot!
6) The mega-charge attack is only countered by well-timed roll to the side. Not diagonally, only to the side. Dodge at the last possible moment or the lignering hitboxes will get you. You can also try to rush towards them and get behind before they do the attack.

Side note: they always follow-up that attack with something.
If you are far away - Lothric always shoots a magic spear.
If you are close - Lorian almost immediately starts swinging his sword.
Don't get greedy on this.

[polyneutron]

Originally posted by ZłowrogiKsiężyc:

Boy, you're mumbling because of the boss. You need to git gud.

You're possible 'cheeses' are: parying, Vow of Silence, fire+lightning, dodging.
You have 2 NPCs for that fight if you're chasing their questlines.
There are at least two sort-of-a-glitches in this fight (2nd stage opening, soulmasses displacement).

No, I don't. But thx for the suggestion.
-I'm terrible at parrying, especially in this game, sorry
-Low Attunement, INT, & Faith (basically STR+DXT build) and not planning on upgrading it for this (NG) playthrough, so no VoS either
-Tried fire & lightning, I think it's not that helpful to me
-Even after a sudden perfect dodge the attack still hits me (90% of cases one-hitting me)

The thing is that I see how it can be beaten in a fair fight, and I don't mind having a 15+ mins fight either (just like I had against Yhorm w/out a Storm Ruler that I just can't use at all. And I enjoyed soloing that boss fight immensely!); I just keep getting killed by these inescapable (either swipe hitbox, or brother's magic homing stuff) attacks, that's the real problem to me.

Originally posted by GZQRing:

I think its a easy one.I even solo this in NG+2 without melee weapon
The only one i feel very hard is Oceiros.

I'm glad you got it easily, really I do! About Oceiros, I just slain him recently without breaking a sweat with a frieldy NPC summon. Like, I thought 'That's it???' after the very 1st try, no matter how intimidating he looked.

[polyneutron]

Originally posted by Hems:

You're at the Twin Princes at level 59? That seems quite low to me, I usually end up around 80-90 depending on if I end up farming for gear.

Maybe try sunbroing for a bit until you can put enough points into Vigor so that you can no longer be 1 shotted?

One thing I keep in mind is that no matter how hard a Souls boss is for me, somebody else probably beat it at soul level 1 without taking a single hit, and if they can do that then surely I can beat this boss (even if it takes me hours!).

I leveled up to lvl 59 when I went completely bonkers losing over and over again to Abyss Watchers early in the game (yes, I couldn't get over them, so I farmed. Like, a lot), and then I never ever touched the fire keeper again.
I'm around ~4 mln souls now, but I just don't feel like doing it.
Or it might be just me wanting to beat this challenge 'as is' now, no matter how unfair hitboxes seem to be. :shrug:
(Also, obvious save backups are obvious. But I earned the right to use this kinda cheese long ago, playing the first two games, and recently - Bloodborne, so I don't feel like I'm doing smth wrong here )

Originally posted by Artek General:

Yeah, the Twins are a big pain in the ass when you meet them for the first time.
I know that i'm fighting a real Dark Souls boss when i die 5+ times to him and get incredibly angry (like shouting at my screen).

But once you get used to them they're not that bad. Hell, i helped someone to beat them as a cooperator when the host was SL15 or 20 which meant one hell of a down-scale.

Basically here's the advices that i can give:

1) Get used to Lorian's rhytm. Its actually pretty monotonous, always dodge to the oposite side of the attack, abuse rolling attacks - you can almost forget about normal ones unless you feel confident he won't recover quick enough to hit back.

2) Get used to his teleporting habbits. Get ready to dodge when you see him teleporting, try to manually find where he's coming from. The biggest issue is when he teleports on top of you. I can't quiet figure out what triggers that one and timing the dodge for it is quiet hard.

3) In phase 2 Lothric tries to compensate his brother's passsivenes. If they are far away - Lothric almost always will use the magic spear. He also uses it to punish healing. Yes, that's intentional. Either try healing with better timings to prevent him from that (he only can shoot when Lorian is facing you) or hide behind pillars.

4) The many small projectiles attacks are ALWAYS followed by Lorian teleporting and trying to stab you at the same time the projectile home-in on you. Dodging Lorian is more important than dodging the projectiles - they do not hit as hard and i dont think they stagger. Not sure.

5) Again, rolling attacks are you best bet - try to roll BEHIND Lorian as he attacks you and do rolling attacks from the flank. This will hit both brothers shortening the fight greatly.

In short: its git gud time. Just practice until you roll over them. You might even start enjoying the fight, like i do.

Hey, many thanks for these advices! I noticed things you've described in 1-2, and now I can go through his 1st phase almost unharmed (still missing some teleported jumps on me), but your points about magic and rolling directions in 3-5 are incredibly helpful.
Good message!

UPD: Saw the 6th one, and again it's greatly appreciated! However, I do think I got some successful diagonal rolls, but it could be just my imagination messing up the memories.
Also, tried to roll in the last moments before he lands the attack, but still ended up getting hit by AOE dmg, I dunno. Probably I need more luck with it (and I mean 'luck' because 'more practice' is definitely an obvious option I'll try my best to train upon)

[Artek [General]]

Originally posted by polyneutron:

Hey, many thanks for these advices! I noticed things you've described in 1-2, and now I can go through his 1st phase almost unharmed (still missing some teleported jumps on me), but your points about magic and rolling directions in 3-5 are incredibly helpful.
Good message! :cupup:

Originally posted by Artek General:

EDIT:
i almost forgot!
6) The mega-charge attack is only countered by well-timed roll to the side. Not diagonally, only to the side. Dodge at the last possible moment or the lignering hitboxes will get you. You can also try to rush towards them and get behind before they do the attack.

Side note: they always follow-up that attack with something.
If you are far away - Lothric always shoots a magic spear.
If you are close - Lorian almost immediately starts swinging his sword.
Don't get greedy on this.

[Bongo Bongo]

I use vow of silence and laugh as the little brother struggles to cast anything at all.

[polyneutron]

Just got these bastards. Just like @Artek [General] said, indeed, in the end I enjoyed the rythm here, especially while memorizing the 'swipe, then magic arrow follow up' pattern, and was kinda disappointed that the fight abruptly ended after the death of Lothric, even though his brother still had a half of his HP bar. I mean, sure he already was brought back to life 3 times in a row, but I wouldn't mind having another good old fashioned sword fight here.
I expected it to continue now on a more 'fair' 1v1 no magic bs ground, but eh, I guess that's it.

I dunno, some side rolls proved to be 100% effective (=no dmg received) against his Ultimate swipe attack, and some did not, since my full bar was cut in half every now and then. So, it wasn't a one-shot kill any more, but the rolls still got me hit, presumably by AOE.

*sigh* It's over now. I need lotsa good ol' Granny's sedatives now.
Thank you all for helping me!

[PictusCZ]

Don't wanna start a new thread, so I hope the OP won't mind asking here. Especially at Phase 1, when the first prince fights solo, on my first playthrough, when I was sometimes shooting him with bow, I noticed that sometimes he just keeps crawling on his knees slowly (and I was able to score numerous hits with a bow), sometimes he just chases the player all over the room quite aggressively, teleporting over and over again. Just a question/thought, is this purely random or triggered by something (distance between player and boss, or something else)? Or is this a "pattern" as a whole, that he keeps chasing the player for a while and then he "takes a bit of rest" and crawls on his knees for a while instead of teleporting over and over?

I know that for example, when you enter the room and don't move at all and just shoot a bow, he will crawl all the way to you (although he will do one teleport - but to the very same spot), is there similar mechanic during the fight, have you guys noticed something like that?

[Artek [General]]

Originally posted by PictusCZ:

Don't wanna start a new thread, so I hope the OP won't mind asking here. Especially at Phase 1, when the first prince fights solo, on my first playthrough, when I was sometimes shooting him with bow, I noticed that sometimes he just keeps crawling on his knees slowly (and I was able to score numerous hits with a bow), sometimes he just chases the player all over the room quite aggressively, teleporting over and over again. Just a question/thought, is this purely random or triggered by something (distance between player and boss, or something else)? Or is this a "pattern" as a whole, that he keeps chasing the player for a while and then he "takes a bit of rest" and crawls on his knees for a while instead of teleporting over and over?

I know that for example, when you enter the room and don't move at all and just shoot a bow, he will crawl all the way to you (although he will do one teleport - but to the very same spot), is there similar mechanic during the fight, have you guys noticed something like that?

I honestly don't know. Usually from programms mobs to react agressively towards range-fighting players. They always focus archers and casters first, even if they deal WAY less damage than that UGS over there.

My expectation would be for the guy to go ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ insane on you with every arrow shot, but apparently not...
Yeah, could be his rhytm. I noticed too that he often decided to randomly chill during the fight.
He could get confused by range too. Maybe not far away enough for some ultra-ranged attacks, but not close enough for normal combos. The weird safe-spot. I can only guess.