Top 10 Hardest Bosses in Dark Souls II

The first phase is a nightmare with Dark Souls II's stiffer controls and the ADP stat. This guy is almost too aggressive for that game's speed. The second phase is slightly easier but not by much. It's easier to dodge his attacks since he only uses one sword, but the damage this guy does in this phase is immense. He'll pretty much two-shot you if you aren't careful.

If he isn't already hard enough, there are statues around his arena that will heal him if he gets close. You must have enough wedges to stop them, or this fight becomes a frustrating disaster.

Oh, and if you summon phantoms to help, good luck. That only makes the fight harder since he'll annihilate them in a couple of hits and leave you soloing a boss with double, triple, or quadruple his already tanky base health.

The boss fight itself is pretty difficult owing to the hit radius and power of their attacks. Plus, there are two of them.

However, the true cruelty is the abandonment of Dark Souls' "hard but fair" mantra. You have to traverse a difficult and expansive stretch of frozen wastes every time you attempt this boss fight. Hard-hitting enemies with lightning attacks will continually spawn and force you to burn precious healing items.

There's no bonfire adjacent to the boss's room, which means every failed attempt results in a lengthy and difficult journey just to get another crack at them.

The whole affair feels unfair and unnecessarily frustrating. It is the first point in the game where I said to myself, "This is no longer fun."

All of the other bosses solo took under 10 tries, with a few under 20. While I was tired and wanted to beat this boss and go to sleep, I found it extremely difficult and it took me probably 70 or 80 tries.

I may have been under-leveled. I'm not sure. However, he consistently killed me in 2 hits or 3 if I was lucky. I found certain attacks very difficult to dodge and couldn't find good windows to heal outside of the AoE attack.

The run-up to this boss is also only second to Lud and Zallen, which isn't hard to beat, but it's pretty horrible. Overall, it was a difficult boss but a well-balanced one.

One-hit kills... I remember that my Dragon Shrine stage was already without enemies, given the times I completed it after several deaths at the boss fight.

The boss isn't that hard, but the one-hit kills and the very large HP transformed it into a test of patience where one mistake was fatal. Escaping from that diving fire breath was very hard and tricky.

Just tedious and boring. Run in, take a few hits, and run away, then run back and repeat. If you do it wrong, he one-shots you. Fun.

The hardest boss in the vanilla game so far. It is almost impossible to beat him if you're a melee character. Somehow, you're forced to use lightning spells or fireballs to kill him when he uses mitosis before he kills you.

He has a huge variety of spells, and some of them are very hard to avoid (like the dark bomb), especially when he ganks you doing the same attack divided.

Every other boss I can pretty reliably take down in no more than 3 tries, or they have decent NPC summon options. Not this guy. I've only beaten him twice, and both times it was by cheesing him down with pyromancy.

I must have burned through close to 20 effigies before landing the perfect firestorm.

The difficulty of this boss is due to facing him at the very beginning of the game. Being gank-spanked by those two (or three if you messed up the fight) agile Sentinels was excruciating.

The windows for attacking were so rare.

I blew these poor bastards out of the water with nothing but a tower shield. They are a nightmare for newbies and a nothing boss for veterans.

Kind of an underestimated fight. As a melee build, it is very hard indeed. You have to be very aware of the environment, and there is no place to rest. It is such a tense fight.

And the journey to the arena is painful also.

Another awesome fight! It isn't that hard because you can block all of his attacks with the Royal Kite Shield, the most basic shield in the game. If it weren't for that, this would be one hell of a hard fight.

Again, another hard path culminating in a boss fight without a bonfire along the way.

This guy should be right under Fume Knight. He is astronomically difficult! I had no luck blocking at all. I had to dodge and two-hand my weapon.

He does huge damage with that dai-katana and has considerable health. I think Fume Knight is hard for strength, and this one for dexterity.

This fight is absolutely epic. The knights getting ready, the entrance, the fight before the king shows up, the boss fight - everything. I loved this fight.

One of the best boss battles of all time. Very tricky but fair, to be honest. Very doable as long as you pay close attention.

Definitely one of the best fights in this game. He's fast, difficult to dodge, has high DPS, and has above-average health.

The boss isn't that hard. What is hard is the rats at the beginning. If you get toxic, it's all over from there. The best thing to do is lure them and use Lingering Flame.

This and the Smelter Demon are the only ones I'm yet to beat in the vanilla game first section (getting the four great souls).

My brother brought his friend over for the weekend once, and they played against this boss. It was very entertaining.

This boss is a pain. Either you rush it, or you have to kill three or four at the same time. Especially if they stay compact together, it gets really frustrating. This is the only boss I never killed in the entire Souls series.

The boys! I fought these guys after Belfry Sol, so I didn't expect guards other than gray phantoms. But these guys knocked me flat. Turns out Disney's Hunchback severely underestimated the power of gargoyles.

The reminder of the frustration in the Bell Gargoyles boss fight in the previous installment comes immediately as soon as you enter the arena. Thought facing two gargoyles was hard? Imagine five!

Not the hardest, but one of the best fights, with the ambiance of the arena and the looming, brooding, silver knight who claps lightning while you're wet.

I had a really huge Greatsword (Ultra Greatsword), and when it hits the shield's hitbox, it bounces right off. Fun fight. Definitely worth the duel.

One of the best bosses in the game.

Without using the ballast, this boss takes 20+ tries on the first go. What a headache for newer players. Once you're a veteran, it's a bit easier as long as you roll and poke him with your sword.

You must exclude the (cheap) ballista and rate the boss itself.

This is a hard-hitting boss with a good bit of health. It was one of my more difficult fights in the game, but it never felt too unfair other than some big hitboxes.

Very fast enemy that's tricky to beat. Nowhere near as hard as the battle where you face two of them, but still rough.

What I intended to do was use my Bastard Sword +8 on the path to him, and then switch to my Raw Bastard Sword +10 for the actual fight. I forgot to switch. That would have made it easier.

My armor was Vengarl's armor and gloves, and the hood and leggings from Straid. I also had Idol's Chime and 44 Lightning Spear.

This guy. If you're going solo, you're screwed, not to mention Agdayne being barely any help. It's best to bring Scarlett if you can, as she's tough and will actually heal herself.

Velstadt is a giant tank that hits like a truck, but his attacks are predictable (although the AoE makes it hard to dodge).

It depends, really. If you don't have Giant Souls or don't have 5 of them, good luck. His defense multiplies by 72 without Giant Souls, whereas it's pretty weak if you do have 5.

An Old Whip and Soul Appease will put him down quickly, but be careful, as his attacks are devastating (although predictable).

This is one huge adrenaline rush. Managing two well-rounded characters that are scaled for the endgame means you're in for quite a fight. Be sure to kill them quickly, or one will revive the other.

The challenge here is to beat them solo! I wasted four effigies and 25 gold pine resins (approximately 40,000 souls) to do that. Their ability to revive each other after one is killed is a real pain.

This fight is easy if you know what to do. Bring alluring skulls to group the skeletons, kill the necromancers, and hide in the doorways when the boss rides by.

After the skeletons are dead, use Lingering Flame with the Hexer's Hood for the bonus. After his health is down enough, he won't be able to make the jump. Hit the horse once, and victory is achieved.

This boss is cool because of the correlation between him and the area where we meet him.

Having to hit the heads only was the trickiest part. And the spiders that attack you.

Nothing too terrible but can be incredibly agonizing to get to.

To sum this bugger up: high resistance to everything, high health, fire damages nearby players, giving the middle finger to melee users, highly damaging spells, and worst of all, absolutely nothing meaningful as a reward for beating him.