THE DIARY OF THE MASOCHISTIC MONK [DARK SOULS TOO BAREHANDED CHALLENGE]

I was doing 15 damage per hit with doublehanded fists. Just to put this into perspective for you, the dagger found in the tutorial level does about 45 damage per hit, and the Foot Soldier's Sword, dropped from a basic Hollow Soldier in the first area, does about 96 damage per hit. At least with my current setup.

It was a good decision to do this. Or so I tell myself.


Masomonk's stats at the start of the fight. He looks rarin to go, don't you think?

My first glimpse of the Last Giant when walking into its lair was the sight of it collapsed on the ground, his limbs either buried underneath rubble or chained down like a prisoner. At this point in his journey, Masomonk had no idea what meaning this scene carries. Why was the Giant entombed here? What kind of creature was it originally? Is it hostile or friendly? Of course, I, the player, have proper context to the appearance of this Giant, but at the time, I was so curious.

But Masomonk isn't. He is dead set on testing his true might without the aid of silly weaponry, and the Last Giant is nothing more than his first target.

As the Giant stirred, Masomonk knew he would find an answer to at least one of these questions. Raising its head and catching a glimpse of the human that had invaded its domain, the Giant roared and began viciously struggling against its bindings. After some effort, it squeezed out from underneath the rubble, and with a mighty yank, broke free of the chains binding its feet. Wasting no time with its newfound freedom, it charged at Masomonk with reckless abandon, and the battle began.

To Battle!

Due to the Giant's size, I could only keep its legs in constant view. This meant that, while I could easily dodge the stomps, it often caught me off guard with a random hand strike. These hand strikes clocked poor little Masomonk in the face and sent him flying across the battlefield enough times to burn through both Estus Flasks and three of his five Lifegems before even inflicting 1/4 damage to the boss.

For the uninitiated, an Estus Flask is an item that restores a chunk of health, and a Lifegem restores a comparatively larger amount of health over a longer period of time. Estus Flasks are restored every time you die and respawn (or rest at a Bonfire), but Lifegems are permanently consumed upon each use.

The Estus Flasks were an acceptable loss, but I didn't intend on using the Lifegems on the first fight! I only had 5 Lifegems, and I wanted to save them when I was done testing the waters! Well, no time to second guess myself! Now that I burned through the Lifegems, I had NO CHOICE but to bring this jerk down!

Needless to say, I didn't. I got so nervous after the realization that I just burned through half my Lifegems and the boss wasn't even halfway dead that I started getting jittery, which is an emotion Souls games feed off of. I simply couldn't get a handle on the timing of this monster, and the Giant's back hand decked poor Masomonk's face so many times I'd swear there was a permanent imprint left. After 5:40 minutes of being the Giant's plaything, I eventually ran out of Lifegems completely and the last of my health was drained away.

Annoyed, but confident about the bosses attack patterns now, I felt okay with having no Lifegems and challenged the boss a second time. I'll give you three guesses as to whether or not I was successful. I got smacked around and stomped to death after a mere 1:30 minutes into the fight.

Attempt 1: 5:40 minutes. Attempt 2: 1:30 minutes. Yep. That's apparently what I felt was progress. The third attempt didn't fare much better, unfortunately. Like the second attempt, it only took about 1:30 minutes before french kissing the back of the Giant's hand to death. Attempt number four, after carefully analyzing my patterns and the moveset, led to my death after only 2:40 minutes.

Attempt number 5 fared far better! I somehow managed to bait out easily dodged attack and dropped its health down to 1/4 of his max! I knew I could do it! However, the bastard must've flicked on a friggin lag switch or something, because one of its stomp attacks which CLEARLY DIDN'T HIT ME managed to kill me. I thought Phantom Range was a phenomenon that only occurred when facing laggy players? Asswipe!

Do you notice a pattern here? Out of all the fights I had, the first one was one of the closest I had ever gotten to winning, and subsequent fights turned out not nearly as lucky. I have died four times now and the most damage I inflicted on the Last Giant at once hasn't gotten its health down even halfway. And considering MY health was dropping at a constant rate, I knew a change of plans necessary.


"I'm having a good time. I swear."

Oh, did I forget to mention the penalty for death? In the Souls universe, dying sets your character down the process of Hollowing, meaning that the character's mind and will begins to crumble until they lose their sense of purpose, devolving into a zombie-like state. In Dark Souls 2, this process is represented via gameplay by reducing your maximum health by about 5-10% per death, up to a maximum of 50%. So getting impatient and dying over careless errors meant that your pool of available health would get smaller and smaller! And it was happening to me. I was Hollowing out. Something had to be done.

And that something... was nothing!

Break Time!

I put down the controller, left my seat, and poured a glass of water. There, I cleared my head of frustration and allowed myself a moment of relaxation. After a brief moment of zen, I had to ask myself, "What was I doing wrong? What can I possibly do to give myself a better edge?"

Then it occurred to me: I had forgotten to grab a couple of very important rings in the level!

After a few more deaths which don't count since they're not from the boss, I managed to scour the level and collect these two rings: The Life Ring, which boosts my max HP by about 40 (the rough equivalent to an extra point in Vigor), and the Chloranthy Ring, which boosts the speed of my Stamina regeneration. I'm a little angry at myself that I forgot about them in the first place, since I was sure I wouldn't need them for the first boss at least, but whateevr. Live and learn. Emphasis on live. The next step in preparation was to pay a visit to the Merchant. Thanks to my exploration, I had collected a fair amount of Souls I could use to purchase 10 Lifegems. These ought to give me the edge I needed.

Before returning to the battle, however, there was one last step I needed to take: Returning to the garden of zen in my mind, I used one of my Human Effigies to reverse my Hollowing.

To reverse Hollowing can be interpreted many ways. My interpretation is to reaffirm my purpose in this game. To give up would mean I would lose my purpose, and turn into a Hollow. This was the first step in my journey, and I can't allow myself to Hollow out any more! The Effigy reminded me of my purpose, my reason for continuing on. I felt energy flooding my limbs. My health bar regained its former length, reinforced further thanks to the power of the Life Ring.

It was time to challenge the Last Giant again!

Back to the Fray!

Exhilarated, I made my way back to the boss for the next round. Lo and behold: the new Rings, complimented by my calmer self, saw an 8:40 minutes fight that got the Giant down to about 1/8 health! Still not quite there, but hey! This was, by far, the best fight so far!

Once the boss got to half health, it changed his tactics. To resume it normal battle stance back in its prime, it needed a weapon. Finding none fit for its size, it reached over to its non-dominant arm and tore it right off! Now, with a "longsword" in his hand, it recalled its moments of glory before settling down in this final resting place. The damage inflicted by its new "weapon" was much higher than before. However, the beast was not the only one that got stronger! MUAHAHAHAHA!

Oh, but can you imagine the rage I felt when the boss, who tore its freaking hand off, managed to clock me and win? I was angry, but I was excited. I finally did it! I found the wining formula. Now all I needed to do was bring it home.

Reminding myself to not get overzealous, I steeled myself for the next battle. I ran up to the Fog gate, started going through...

... Then was caught by some jackass Hollow hiding behind the corner. Thanks to DS2's lack of invincibility when traversing gateways, the Hollow stabbed me right in the pooper, knocking me out of my animation. I didn't have any weapons equipped, so I was caught completely off guard! The Hollowed Butt Plug, as I've come to call it, caught me with a 3 hit combo attack, then killing me with a finisher before I got my bearings.

Screw zen. Screw calm. The rage of a thousand suns burned in my belly as I breathed my last. I will have REVENGE!!

... It wasn't satisfying. It was just a common Hollow Soldier. It wasn't hard to fight once I fought it with a weapon. Bleh.

So I fought the Last Giant one more time. By then, I was in the zone. I dodged with perfect timing, I learned to count the exact number of attacks I could afford while leaving enough Stamina to roll away from counters, and my brain was locked in to the fight to the exclusion of all else. There could have been a bomb that went off behind me and I still wouldn't have noticed.

And it happened. After a grueling, 8:40 minute fight, The Last Giant, once a proud leader of an army of Giants, was felled by a single, unarmed, naked man.


Came out of the fight smelling like roses!

Rubbing Salt in the Wound:

Now that I've beaten this little turd stain, I'd like to take the opportunity to kick it while it's down. You might be interested to know that his title of "The Last Giant" is a complete and total LIE!! There is an area later in the game, called the Black Gulch, that houses a secret zone. This zone is home to not one, but TWO other Giants just as happy to see me as this punk was. So if this thing had just decided to get out and make some friends, then maybe, just MAYBE, it would have been a much happier Giant.

But NOOOOO. It was willing to sulk in its room, deluding itself into thinking that it was the only Giant left in the entire world, and wallow in its own angsty moodiness without any regard for reality. The Last Giant really is nothing more than a special snowflake, thinking it's somehow special and that no one in the world understands it. Pfft.

Well, I was happy to put it out of its misery. And thanks to the massive Souls from both its drop and the Giant Soul item I can cash in for even more Souls, I'll be all the stronger for it. No one likes an emo, Last Giant. In the words of Smash Bros' Ike, "You'll get no sympathy from me."

The Conclusion:

Being the first intended boss of the game, I was not expecting to have as much trouble as I did. Granted, I haven't touched any Souls game in a few months, and Dark Souls 2 in around a year, so some growing pains was expected. Just not as much as I ended up having. However, I'm broken in and committed to doing as much as I possibly can. So I'm in this for the long haul!

I hope this was an entertaining read! Please let me know if there's anything I can do to make this better for you!

Death Count::
- The Last Pimp Hand (backhand attacks): 3
- Goomba Stomp (stomp attack): 2
- Mr. HandyGiant (attacks with its own torn off arm): 2
- Whiny Tantrum (multiple stomps): 1
- Phantom Foot (death by shockwave from a foot stomp): 1
- The Hollowed Butt Plug (I hate this guy): 1

TOTAL DEATHS (this boss): 10
TOTAL DEATHS (all time): 10

SUCCESS!

Thanks! I hope to have the next part up in the next day or two.

Yeah, I stole this and a couple other pictures from the Dark Souls Wiki. This guy was so boring my brain totally didn't remember to snap pictures of these guys. Fite me.

I was doing 50 damage per hit. My fire Longsword was doing 150 per hit.

If you've played Dark Souls 2, then you'll know that this is one of the easiest bosses in the game. Hell, he was so easy that I was debating whether or not to even include him in my report! This guy was just easy Souls to power up dear Masomonk in preparation for a REAL fight. In the end, I decided to have a go at him and if I died more times than expected, I would go ahead and document him here.

.... I know. You don't have to post that comment I know you're thinking about. Since you're reading this now, that means.... *sigh*

To Battle!

Since I knew the Dragonrider wasn't going to be difficult on its own, I gave myself a challenge. Well, a challenge other than fighting him with my bare fists. See, a unique gimmick with this boss is that his battle arena can be manipulated. If you rush straight to the boss without flipping any of the switches you find on the way, the arena will be half its normal size, with death surrounding you on all sides. I chose not to flip any switch and fight the boss in the small arena.

Boy did I regret it. I died a grand total of four times during this fight, and three of them were due to falling off the edge.

Other than those blunders, however, the fight itself was a lot easier than I hoped. Compared to the Pursuer, on whom I was doing about 15 damage per hit, I was inflicting a good 50 damage per hit with my fists, so I finally dropped its health Honestly, I was expecting a little more than that. But whatever.

It didn't take long after I got my brain in gear and remember how to properly dodge to finally do in the Dragonrider in a single, 3:48 minute round.


Masomonk: *Sniff* I miss my pants...

Rubbing Salt in the Wound:

There is literally no reason for this guy to exist. His design is boring, his big twist is just an arena gimmick that just makes it more annoying than interesting to fight, and he's not even a unique boss since two of them show up later in the game and have a MUCH more interesting fight. Given the fact that another FAR MORE interesting boss lies just five minutes from the Dragonrider's position, I don't understand why this guy is even here.

I really wanted to get worked up about this fight, but I just couldn't. This guy bored me to tears so much that it was hard to put any passion into this write up. I was ready to get good and angry about how lame his attacks were, or about how unfair the small arena made it, but... I just can't.

... So instead, I found another victim to take my frustration out on.


I HATE THIS WOMAN!!!

Oh yeah. This no good double-crossing hollowed-brained zealot won't be escaping the wrath of a TRUE monk! Nope. In fact, she's such a two-face that I won't even fight her honorably! I'll just use my last Human Effigy to reverse my Hollowing from the boss fight, pull out my Fire Longsword and make short work of- I fell off the edge.

... So I whip out my Fire Longsword, ambush her while her back is turned, and hit her enough times to- she spammed Wrath of the Gods and killed me.

... So I managed to knock her off the edge, but she landed on the staircase below me and I had to go down to finish the job. I did it, but the forward momentum of the sword strike that pushed her off the edge threw me off as well...

...



... worth it.


The Conclusion:

I apologize for such a short entry today. However, I felt it was best not to have a single entry ecmpassing two bosses. Besides, the next boss I plan on fighting will give me plenty of material to work with, I imagine.






Death Count:
- Skinny dipping: 3
- Dragonrider the Impaler: 1

TOTAL DEATHS (this boss): 4
TOTAL DEATHS (all time): 23

*murders a cleric spreading divine miracles in cold blood*

*praised for stripping naked*

Moments like these are what make this entire series worth it.

Sorry about the delay. Life has decided to load up a bunch of stuff for me to do recently, and stepping up as a mod hasn't exactly cleared my plate. This kinda got shifted down on the priority list.

I'm done with the rough draft of the next boss, but I didn't think it was entertaining enough to warrant a release here. However, since the thread has been dead for so long, I might as well polish it up and release it just to show some proof that I'm still working on this.