Can't defeat first boss with mercenary class...

[Dysbro]

Omg tried 17 times and I just can't defeat that fat ass! HELP

[DamnImDead]

Takes a bit on your first trys but after that you can basically beat him with just fists if you can perfectly time your rolls.

[Doghead]

Originally posted by Dysbro:

Originally posted by Larzech:

Not as veteran as thief. Knight is the typical noob class. Cleric is another noob class for having heal spell at the beginning.

Well, since I'm Noob as f*ck, Knight may be the best choice for me.

There's another benefit as well. Unless they've fixed it, apparenlty the knight class, for whatever reason, prevented a lot of crashes for PC users.

Bizarre, to say the least.

[Red Phantom]

Originally posted by Dysbro:

Well, since I'm Noob as f*ck, Knight may be the best choice for me.

Try not to rely on your shield too much because it will handicap you eventually. Practice rolling.

[MrFluffyWolf]

Originally posted by Doghead:

Originally posted by Dysbro:

Well, since I'm Noob as f*ck, Knight may be the best choice for me.

There's another benefit as well. Unless they've fixed it, apparenlty the knight class, for whatever reason, prevented a lot of crashes for PC users.

Bizarre, to say the least.

If it's the bonfire crash, it might be because the helmet hides your hair, reducing physics objects, and there's no flowing cloth items on the armor at all, also reducing physics objects.
The bonfire crashes seemed to be from some sort of physics/particle overload.

[bloodymonarch]

I beat Gundyr at level 1 as a deprived with a club. You can beat the guy with mercenary.

[ImHelping]

Asylum demon in DS1 is a chump compared to DS3 (as is much of the DS1 early game). But people love to consider throwing black firebombs at it a "Pro Strat" while complaining the DS3 first boss being merely vulnerable to fire makes it "Easiest souls boss ever". Whooooo tunnel vision!

For some practical advice. If you haven't found them yet, down the side of a cliff before the boss is x5 Firebombs. These do not respawn, so if you haven't found them/used them yet, save them for when it looks like you might finish the boss off.

Your shield is not particularly strong with a warrior. It has less than 100% physical (meaning, some damage bleeds through even if you block), and it has low stability (the stat that determins how much stamina you lose when blocking).

It could help out in the first phase, but the second phase even a Knight is better off dodging everything. Eventually the hardest part of the boss is trying to see through it while you are in melee range.

Your Warrior's axe has a damage buff weapon art. When two hand wielding, hit L2 for the damage buff (this will also change the attack animations on your strong R2 attacks while it lasts). It's not a HUGE buff, but every bit helps and not like you are using your FP (your blue bar) for anything else as a warrior.

People suggesting"LOL just parry" are just being eliteist D bags. Because you're not exactly going to parry a three story tall giant snake in his second phase. Though it can be helpful against his weapon attacks that can actually be parried, you should probably just focus on not being hit for now, unless you are feeling confident and want to make the first phase go faster.

As for dodging. It's counter intuitive for a new player, but it's usually best to dodge roll TOWARDS attacks, or at least far enough to the side they miss you even when trying to track you. (this isn't 100%, but it covers a lot of attacks in the game)

This lets you spend the least amont of time inside the attack itself while you still have invincibility frames. If you dodge away, the attack will track you better and just hit you at the end of your roll (particularly with the big halberd swings he has).

Like, don't dodge into the vertical slams that don't track your position so well, but totally dodge "Into" horizontal sweeps, because if you dodge away it will just catch up with you at the end of your dodge instead of passing harmleslsy through you thanks to VIDEO GAMES.

I'm not what you would call "Pro" at these games, but I belive in you. Knight is a more newbie friendly class though.

Could be worse. You could have picked "Warrior" in Darksouls 2. Uuuuuuugh. It's not the broken sword they start with that's the problem. Warrior (and Bandit) only have 5 Dodge I frames in DS2 to start with.

For reference, the worst possible I frames you could have in DS1, while flopping onto your back like a fatty, was 9.

EDIT: Oh right you picked Merc, not Warrior. Uh, dissregard all my advice about the Axe's buff weapon art.

You should still focus on dodging over blocking though, because the "Wooden shield" will only block about half the damage you would have taken. (A knight, and Herald, starts with a 100% physical shield, so you'd take no damage so long as you have enough stamina to block it. But, well, huge attacks are huge).

[Donaldo Trumpado]

I started the game as a merc, and the trick is to stay close and strafe right.

[Flatbuffer]

It's pretty hard when you're not used to it. When you look back on that boss later you'll realise it was pretty easy.

[Cohnway]

Don't dual-wield early on. Pretty sure you only get real positive returns on dual-wielding as you pump stats into Dexterity.

[Tolna]

Don't let the community intmidate ya too much, Dark Souls 3 is pretty damn tough, even by darksouls standards.

Luckily after the first boss you start openly getting tools to really help you, one being more Estus, the other being armor, a weapon you may like the feel of better, and of course upgrades.

I'd reccomend getting strength up a bit, and when you get access to them, grab a Greatshield and use that. It makes the game SOOOOOO much easier because with them you can gaurd a majority of attacks (even bosses) without losing a lot of stamina and needing to roll as much.

Which is extremely helpful when you start getting bosses that do elaborate combo attacks.

Luckily after the first boss you can then summon help for bosses, including NPC's

[Shot]

Hey whats up OP... honestly most people are here are giving you some decent advice don't listen to anyone who says what your doing is noob or blagh blagh ez mode... or other Douche bag crap

Play Dark souls like you want to play dark souls, if your having fun your doing it right.

Get use to rolling and the fact that its basically a way to roll through dmg if you time it so the start of your roll takes you through it and also the first boss is really a precursor to alot of the fights in the sense getting far from him gets you killed.

Seriouslly I know you probably don't believe me now but the fact is (I should point out I dont use lock on mode) that getting farther away from most of the bosses like the first one which are tall humanish like with big weapons will just get you into their swings and killed.

You want to be close and rolling behind him ESPECIALLY once he goes second phase you'll think that big giant shadowy crap will eat me close but not really it lunges and swings in a direction but if you happen to roll behind as it attacks its not really got some amazing back swing you can get your hit in and get out and rinse repeat.

I found this true of alot of fights for melee with slow 2handers the only way to beat the boss is to get in close and dance around him. Of course that was just me and my warrior playthrough with the Greatsword (the big giant one you find in the swamps) as my weapon of choice and before that the wonderful butchers knife axe (has a great weaponskill called sharpen and if you make it raw it gets an A strength attack boost)

[Surretttun]

Honestly I rage quited this boss a fair few times. But with any dark souls game try,try and try again and then you will just kill him :)

[Fang]

Now do it again as a Deprived! :D

[Mowanudown]

weird enough I had a harder time defeating 1st boss with Mercenary too...took 6 attempts, while with deprived I killed it on the 1st :D Try Pyro If you are new to the game, it's easy to kill it with fireballs and magic helps when you are still trying to learn to roll and parry :)

[Whizzard]

Cmon, I am no expert at Dark Souls but I beat the first boss with deprived class... it is not that hard.

On the other hand, I did that after beating the game once, so I probably could beat him with my bare fists by now, anyhow.