The Fume Knight: Strategies and Approach for Co-op

A brief overview of basic co-op strategies for taking down DS2's hardest and best boss.

Introduction

This guide lays out several broad concepts and fundamental strategies for dealing with the most notorious boss in this game. It's intended for co-op, but if you're taking him on solo you may find some of the ideas and tips here useful also.

I decided to put this together after running into a number of players seeming to miss a few very important elements of this fight, and hope it will make it easier for new players to get a good start on the learning curve.

I've tried my best to keep it at a good balance point between short and thorough. I don't go into a play by play breakdown of all of his attacks, and don't intend for this to be a substitute for experience and practice.

Preparations and Approach

There are four ashen idols that surround Fume Knight’s arena. If he is near the walls while you are inside fighting him, they will heal him for a substantial amount. Destroy them with smelter wedges. There are enough you can find even if you’ve already used some on other idols before this point. One or two remaining are manageable, but four make this fight needlessly difficult. You need to eventually destroy all eleven anyway with eleven smelter wedges. There’s no reason not to do this now.

It is possible to reach Fume Knight’s arena from the lower level bonfire without aggroing the flame-barfing giants outside. Just go directly forward from the bonfire until you’re at the arena wall, then hug the wall as you make your way to the fog. If you do aggro them, just run and go through the fog.

Steelheart Ellie is terrible. She boosts Fume Knight’s tankiness by being summoned, does almost no damage, and on top of all that, gets in your way from fleeing or hitting him with short range weapons. Don’t summon her.

Carhillion doesn’t seem quite as bad, but he’s still not worth it.

The idiocy of the NPC phantoms is compounded if there are any ashen idols remaining outside the arena. See the first point in the next section.

If you are being summoned as a phantom and not the world host, use your Redeye Ring to take as much aggro as possible. No one gets anything out of this if the world host dies. It’s completely acceptable for the host to just run away the entire fight if necessary and leave you with all the risks. I'm told that he completely ignores this ring, but my personal experience says otherwise. If you think you can confirm one way or the other, I'd love to hear feedback.

Don’t wear Velstadt’s Helm please. Anyone. It makes him mad. Rage phase Fume Knight is way tougher. Let’s keep that part at only ~50% of the fight instead of all of it.

Shields are not recommended. Neither is heavy armor. Particularly if you have several players, dodging and managing both your aggro and collateral damage is a far superior tactic. I recommend packing light.

Having a decent amount of fire and dark defense on the other hand, probably via rings, I do recommend. His rage phase attacks deal some of both, especially the two attacks you are most likely to accidentally get caught by when you thought you were safe. It's good to give yourself the best chance you can to not get one-shot by these when you inevitably miss your dodge.

In that same line of thought, I find Great Magic Barrier to be useful if you have the ability to use it.

The Fume Knight has a very high, obvious resistance to fire damage. Spells of all sorts seem comparably weak to just good old-fashioned beatdowns. Unless you're the world host trying to stay back, fight with honor and take this guy on the way he deserves.

Because he is relentless, I strongly recommend using a weapon that is at least somewhat fast. You will have time to swing with anything, but your window is smaller than most bosses. If you are confident enough to handle that handicap, the team will surely welcome the higher damage.

Fight Tactics

If for whatever reason the world host couldn't be bothered to destroy all the idols, for the love of God don’t stand next to the only one remaining and just block or cast away. I feel like most of the time people just don’t know realize what’s happening here, but he can easily heal 50% of his health in just 20 seconds from one idol. If there's only one, it’s possible to still defeat him if you just shrink down the effective arena to only the other side, but there’s no way you’re going to burst him down while he’s constantly healing.

After you enter the fog, wait for a second for your team to gather and apply any buffs needed and then rush together. Fume Knight comes out of the ash only after you approach him and there’s an opportunity to get a few safe hits in right away while he’s gearing up. Especially if you aggroed the armor guys outside, give yourself and your team an opportunity to buff without wasting free hits.

There are two opportunities in this fight to get in perfectly safe strikes. When he's spawning, as just mentioned, and when he channels his greatsword. If the fight is going on long enough, this second opportunity might be better used to reapply a buff if it has ended. Fire and dark resistance becomes important at this stage.

If you are the world host and have summoned players, especially if you summon more than one, let them do the bulk of the work. They get nothing out of this if you die, and should accept that as such, they need to take the bigger risks.

In most cases, phantoms are veterans of this fight. They know his attacks well, and know how to survive. They can handle the aggro. If they can’t, they should be trying to farm souls and Sunlight Medals from other bosses. Again, your primary job as the world host is staying alive.

Raime's attacks, especially in phase two, have excellent arcs but often short reach, especially for such a large arena. In many cases it's sufficient to simply take a few steps out of the fight to give yourself an opportunity to heal. The larger the group you're with, the more likely they are to take the aggro somewhere well away from you, and the more true this becomes.

Try to avoid getting pinned between him and the wall. This might seem obvious, but it's the most common way I see experienced players still die. The spinning dark fire orbs can be particularly brutal if you can't easily create separation.

For his sweeping flame beam, by rolling towards and through it you can buy yourself plenty of time to attack multiple times, even with slow weapons. This attack covers a huge arc and reaches almost directly behind him, so don't try and run in the same direction he's swinging. If you need that time to heal instead, just roll away as its range is still limited. There might be enough time to rebuff here if absolutely necessary, but I recommend against it.

Don't attack him while he is blocking in phase one. He knows if you try to heal as well, and will punish you for it if you have his aggro.

I don't plan to go into great detail for his other attacks. He varies his combos frequently, and several come with hefty feints. The only real way to get these down, in my opinion, is to just see them all and get used to them. If you keep your stamina high and greed low, it really isn't too difficult.

Be patient. Focus. Think. If your health is low and you're debating whether to heal, it's better to wait. Your odds of dodging and getting a better opportunity momentarily are better than your odds of receiving mercy.

Some Thoughts

This is my favorite boss in this entire game and among my favorite bosses in any game. I've fought him several times myself, both alone and with others, and farmed a solid number of Sunlight Medals from him as a phantom.

Personally I think the developers nailed every aspect of good design here, from the viability of almost every strategy with some drawbacks, the variety of counters and defenses that change as he enters the second phase, the overall emphasis placed on perception, timing, and experience instead of just giving him tons of health and damage, and the amazing flavor and atmosphere. Between the art, animations, and sounds, he really feels as menacing and as powerful as he is and it drives home the unrelenting tempo of the fight.

Although I wrote this guide specifically for co-op perspectives, if you have not already done so, I highly recommend taking him on solo. It took me 23 tries and 7 human effigies before I was able to finally best him the very first time. This fight is very challenging, but a loss has never once felt unfair, and the following satisfaction was worth it.

Test yourself. If you've gotten this far in a Dark Souls game already, the notion must appeal to you on at least some level. You won't regret it.