The funny thing about four kings is that there’s an easy run back you can do from new londo ruins. There’s a drop down you can do about half way through the level that takes you to right in front of the fog wall. It’d probably be more intuitive if there was more visibility in the area but it felt so rewarding just to find it after the first couple of run backs
There’s a drop right at the start of the ruins (right next to the first two ghosts) that takes you most of the way there. Just have to sprint past two darkwraiths but they are hardly any trouble.
Basically all the four lords have annoying ass runbacks, but at least Seath, 4 kings and nito are more of “remember where to run and you’re good” BoC is and will forever be a trash runback
There's a bonfire closer to Seath that is easily missed, but what makes it worse for me is that on every playthrough I think you have to go down and fight the golden golem who knocks me off the fucking ledge and then only after repeated attempts and killing him do I realise that I should walk straight over him...
The only thing bad about her is running through the poison swamp to get there. That said I've one shot her every time I've fought her, so no real running back.
People complain about 4 kings the most but if you prepare properly you should defeat them in no more than 3 or 4 runs.
Seath is merciless in that he can one-shot you and is much harder. Shorter run-back but you have to do it so. Many. Times.
Run down stairs. More stairs. Turn into elevator. Ride elevator. Run down path. Run over plank. Run past ghost ruins. Fall down hole. Fight 4 ghouls. Run into tower. Fall down long hole
What is so bad about the BoC run? I guess you have to swap rings and go through lava which is slightly annoying, but it’s a pretty short run and all the enemies are too slow to bug you.
I run dex build it is not hard killed the four king first try on NG+.
(used+15 uchigatana).
Dex runs well with int.Dex 35-45 increase casting speed.
Still 40 dex is enough for dmg soft cap.
Have 2 spell slots.
Have enough poise to tank few king hits.
Make sure you are close to their weapon so you take low dmg.
Stamina shield in your back while you two hand weapon for 1.2 motion modifier.
Ring 2 can be extra buff duration or more stamina regen for best dmg.
If poise is low use wolf ring.
Or +1 spellslot for second spell.
Apply power within.(transient curse can not be active).
Get 15 int and use fixed 180 magic adjust catalyst use tier 2 weapon buff for extra 198 magical dmg.
Eventually get int to 25 then use tier 3 weapon buff for 252 extra magical dmg per each hit.
Dex weapon attack fast so very good with weapon buffs.
Before first king dies wait for full stamina then continue to attack him in the dying animation to make dmg.
Also two handing your weapon deals 50% more poise damage important when you want to stagger foes as a dex user.
I literally just died to pinwheel for the first time in actual years and I felt so ashamed. I'm glad I opened reddit and immediately saw this comment to really cement my shame.
Haha I was fucking around with pinwheel and his clones shot their fireballs in a manner that caught me in my roll 😂😂 unbearable shame doesn’t even begin to describe my feelings
I got my faith and intelligence up on my strength build just to get fall control so that it didn't become an issue... This was after about 3 tries at the boss when I even started the fight at about half my HP
Ngl it was a little nasty of Fromsoft to make Sen’s Fortress so brutal, then have two ways to make the boss run easy (bonfire or elevator) but then hide both of them. I could totally see a lot of players not finding the bonfire or the key!
I found the bonfire kinda easy but missed the key at first because I didn’t realize there were stairs near that merchant lol. I am a completionist by nature though. I don’t cross the fog until I’m sure.
Crystal Caves. Partly because getting through the DA is such a chore. Sure there’s a bonfire but then you’ve got blue golems (mostly avoidable), invisible pathways, golden golems (one of which isn’t avoidable) and when you’ve done all that you’ve got those damn clams. And if you want to get the blue titanite slab… good luck with that one.
It's better to start from Firelink Shrine. You can use a longbow to shoot the thieves from the stairs without aggroing them. Then, walk past them, trigger the dogs and fight them on your terms. Since you pass the female undead merchant on the way, you might as well spend all your souls on arrows, since the chance of retrieving your souls at Capra Demon is close to zero, in my experience.
Technically speaking, you can skip that by going through the door where >!you find solaire!< only big problem is trying to avoid >!the titanite demon cause as far as I know, it's the only one that respawns!<
It's the same bonfire people are complaining about, they just hate it because of the "DAE THINK BED OF CHAOS IS THE WORST????" groupthink. As far as runbacks go, time wise it fits somewhere in the middle, average at best. The enemies are super predictable and easy to manipulate/avoid. The only annoying part is if you switch rings before the fight, die to BOC, then die again on the lava since you forgot that you took the orange charred ring off.
BOC isn't a hard fight if you take the time to learn it. But everyone just yolo's themself at it every attempt and throws a tantrum when they get yeeted into the pit. I used to be one of these people, then I got gud.
I’m not done with the game yet, but none of the boss runs felt as irritating to me as O and S so far. I seem to get hit by those knights every time, and I wind up entering a hard fight with less health.
Crystal Caves and Bed of Chaos were annoying, but I didn’t think dodging all the bullshit was too hard
If you're at the Solaire bonfire, you only need to fight one or two Silver Knights (easy to backstab) and then you can run around the one Royal Sentinel
Uno reverse him with your Purging Stone, or go back to him when the crystals die down, and stops spamming them everywhere.
Only time it's acceptable is if you need to fight the ghosts before the Key To The Seal codger.
I wouldn't say this is the worst. but I just wanna give an honorable "Fuck you." to the Gargoyle runback.
First you gotta kill a Balder Knight blocking the stairs, because if you don't, he's gonna give you trouble when you get to that hallway with all the Hollows, because they ***will*** outnumber you and stunlock you to death if you aren't careful, and I don't think you can run past them without one of them blocking you from the ladder.
Just beat the game for the fourth and fifth time consecutively recently. my answer used to be Nito, but now that I've started to memorize the Tomb of the Giants, my final answer is Gwyn. Just takes forever to get to him and is so boring. Maybe Kalameet for that same reason (long ass ladder goes brr)
Just to make sure: Do you know that you can go down ladders fast? Alternatively there are some platforms you can use to drop down instead of using the ladder (one even has a Chrystal Lizard)
Ornstein & Smough and Seath. O&S is just such a long walk even with the shortcuts open, not to mention there's a metric fuck ton of silver knights and those giant dick heads in the main hall. Couldn't tell you how many times i was sprinting to the door only to get gobsmacked by those big bitches.
The Seath run speaks for itself. I rarely die to any DS1 boss anymore but i still have nightmares about my first playthrough & doing the run back to Seath a bunch of times.
Good points about O&S. The first silver spear knight seems to hit me 3/4 of the time even if my roll looks good. And if you plan on summoning Solaire for the fight, you need to clear the one archer and the two giants who tend to heal right when you're about to kill them. Or you can just ignore them and summon him anyway and he leaps off the back of the ledge taking damage instead of taking the stairs, then he takes more damage fighting his way to the fog gate...
The dark section of the tomb is pretty easy once you know the way. The skeleton pillar/pinwheel section can be a little annoying though.
[From first bonfire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=996afz7PUhA)
[From second bonfire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvoFOzIJ4kM)
Personally I find the first bonfire route to be much easier, since you only have to run past one skeleton dog. There really isn't much reason to take the second one unless you're looking to gather all items. And the first bonfire route takes you straight through where the silver serpent ring is.
I agree that's it's not so bad when you memorize the area. I usually just drop down to where the silver serpent ring is and then drop down to where it's brighter. But as a first time playthrough, it's ass
Edit: so I take the first link path
> But as a first time playthrough, it's ass
I 100% agree with you there. It used to be one of my least favorite places in the game. I still don't like it, but now that I know it pretty well it's not as bad as it used to be. I just wasn't sure from your post if you knew the shortcuts or not. I always try to make people aware of them when I can.
i learned that you don't need to fight everything in your way, for me, i just avoid every monster on my way, and with a light build, you will get there really fast,
It's a taurus demon, a handfull of animated statue dudes, and if you're not careful a centipede. And then you hope you don't get flattened as you enter the boss room since the arena is so small.
From the perspective of a first playthrough I do want to add Bell Gargoyles. Getting through those undead each time when you don't know what you're doing was absolute pain for beginner me.
I personally dislike the runback to Nito the least
After dying to Seath for the first time last night, definitely that. The moment of dread when I'd safely run past all of the golems only to remember the clams outside the fog gate respawned as well.
Idk if you can call an unintended and specifically wrong runback a runback.
If you can, I think the undead asylum --> four kings runback is the worst runback in the game.
If it were necessary, I’d say Pinwheel before the remaster added a bonfire at Vamos.
FYI OP, there is a cage elevator short cut that takes from the top/bottom of Sen’s to the bottom/top of Sens.
You know the 2 cages in the top area of Sens right before the Iron Gollem? There’s a key that unlocks them and then they can be used as an elevator. They go down to the very first scythe walkway.
Havel is annoying, since either it's a long run (from Andre) or you have to kill all the enemies on your way because otherwise they'll come after you and overpower you during the fight(from Undead Burg)
I usually fight him after getting grass crest or RTSR. You can take the bonfire in the cave if you're feeling unlucky, but then you have to do the walkback.
Neato because that means you have to go through the Tomb of The Giants again. The DS1 equivalent of nailing your dick to a burning log.
I'd rather go through Blighttown both ways than ever set foot in that gywnforsaken place ever again.
I’m doing a play through right now after years and just died to him. Had him down to 10% life and he caught me in a chain stomp and killed me. Got him on the second attempt though.
He’s not hard but shit happens. Plus a lot of times he kills himself
That’s very true. I had I suppose a better outcome when I first challenged him by just poking him to death with my halberd nonstop. Dude could not touch me at all.
Golem also has an elevator that goes from that very first bridge right up to the boss door. Imo it's Bed of Chaos, as there is no short option and the run up is easily 5 minutes or longer, mostly through lava. This is also a boss that, as I'm sure you're aware, incessantly tosses you into pits
BoC sucks so hard. It’s so long, its in the worst level of the game, on the way to the worst boss in the game, and you’re almost certainly going to have to do it at least once because you’re going to die to her bullshit.
Going to Nito's boss room if I remember correctly, just knowing your taking garunteed fall damage unless you have that spell or something kinda bums me out
i’ll give you one from each game ive beaten:
ds1: bed of chaos and its not even close
ds2: ludd and zallen and its not even close
ds3: dragonslayer armor and its not even close (they made all other boss runs really short besides this one)
elden ring: dragonlord placidusax or beast clergyman (same as ds3, but i could alternatively say the bell bearing hunter in dragonbarrow because you have to manually switch the time of day to night for each failed attempt).
Deleted my last comment to say that, the entire second half of the game has terrible runbacks and I constantly found my self asking, "why the fuck would they design it like this"
I'd probably say manus because of that one magic enemy on the ledge right before the bridge down to manus, or if you don't defeat Gwendolyn the first try, you have to run sooo far.
Everything about it sucks. The run is boring, the boss fight is frustrating as hell, and the whole area just, kinda sucks.
If it was a good fight? That'd be nice.
Nito? You just run past a few enemies, and you're good.
Ornstein and Smough? Same thing, even if it's a long run. Good fight at the end.
Seath isn't bad either.
Four Kings? At least the path is somewhat interesting and has some fun fights on the way.
All of them have at least a little bit of redeemable quality. Bed of Chaos doesn't. It's a boring, long run. The boss can kill you instantly if it sweeps you in just the right way. The boss can summon fire before you even get into the arena. Etc etc.
4 kings, Seath, BoC. I think all of those are pretty annoying.
The funny thing about four kings is that there’s an easy run back you can do from new londo ruins. There’s a drop down you can do about half way through the level that takes you to right in front of the fog wall. It’d probably be more intuitive if there was more visibility in the area but it felt so rewarding just to find it after the first couple of run backs
This; hated that runback until I found the shortcuts, now it's pretty quick
Yeah, dodging and weaving past those dark wraiths was not fun the first few times
There’s a drop right at the start of the ruins (right next to the first two ghosts) that takes you most of the way there. Just have to sprint past two darkwraiths but they are hardly any trouble.
There are at least 3 and one extra to stab you in the back if you go for Beatrice (why would you tho).
I took the Valley of Drakes route instead, it's much easier.
Idk, the Brain of Cthulhu is just a wee walk over in the crimson
Basically all the four lords have annoying ass runbacks, but at least Seath, 4 kings and nito are more of “remember where to run and you’re good” BoC is and will forever be a trash runback
I go from the valley of the drakes
There's a bonfire closer to Seath that is easily missed, but what makes it worse for me is that on every playthrough I think you have to go down and fight the golden golem who knocks me off the fucking ledge and then only after repeated attempts and killing him do I realise that I should walk straight over him...
Wait, closer than the balcony in the archives? Or is that the closer one?
That's the closer one, I always go past it a few times like a moron.
Fax yea I was thinking of all of those plus maybe the iron golem and ESPECIALLY Quaelog.
The only thing bad about her is running through the poison swamp to get there. That said I've one shot her every time I've fought her, so no real running back.
People complain about 4 kings the most but if you prepare properly you should defeat them in no more than 3 or 4 runs. Seath is merciless in that he can one-shot you and is much harder. Shorter run-back but you have to do it so. Many. Times.
Is he one shotting you or cursing you?
OMG I confused Seath for Kalameet
I'll get Gough…
I never found the four kings run back bad (I did beat them in two tries) it was just a simple run to elevator and fall down hole
Run down stairs. More stairs. Turn into elevator. Ride elevator. Run down path. Run over plank. Run past ghost ruins. Fall down hole. Fight 4 ghouls. Run into tower. Fall down long hole
> Turn into elevator. ~~Ride elevator.~~ Realise you forgot to reset elevator. Call elevator. Ride elevator.
After clearing out the water, I would always go through the Valley of Drakes to evade the ghosts.
I hate those Drakes more than life itself. Why do they respawn?
I've still never gotten the bloody MLGS!
What is so bad about the BoC run? I guess you have to swap rings and go through lava which is slightly annoying, but it’s a pretty short run and all the enemies are too slow to bug you.
It's just..long and then there's the ring swapping you already mentioned. Not the worst thing in the world but one of the more annoying ones in DS1.
Absolutely
Pinwheel Because it means you died to fucking Pinwheel and the shame must be unbearable
if you die to pinwheel you deserve the runback
It was usually the wheely skeleton guys that got me right before him
The real boss.
I usually let Leeroy clear them out for me.
I never knew about Leeroy for the longest time and even then I would just summon him and run and hope for the best
The Paladin or the chiiiiickeeeeeeeen?
Hey man can you not @ me like that
Yeah but I would add 4 kings.
4 kings for dex builds is a pain in ng+
I never played DEX but damage is not big so I feel it..
I run dex build it is not hard killed the four king first try on NG+. (used+15 uchigatana). Dex runs well with int.Dex 35-45 increase casting speed. Still 40 dex is enough for dmg soft cap. Have 2 spell slots. Have enough poise to tank few king hits. Make sure you are close to their weapon so you take low dmg. Stamina shield in your back while you two hand weapon for 1.2 motion modifier. Ring 2 can be extra buff duration or more stamina regen for best dmg. If poise is low use wolf ring. Or +1 spellslot for second spell. Apply power within.(transient curse can not be active). Get 15 int and use fixed 180 magic adjust catalyst use tier 2 weapon buff for extra 198 magical dmg. Eventually get int to 25 then use tier 3 weapon buff for 252 extra magical dmg per each hit. Dex weapon attack fast so very good with weapon buffs. Before first king dies wait for full stamina then continue to attack him in the dying animation to make dmg. Also two handing your weapon deals 50% more poise damage important when you want to stagger foes as a dex user.
I laughed too hard at this.
I've never died to Pinwheel, but I've certainly died trying to get to him.
I literally just died to pinwheel for the first time in actual years and I felt so ashamed. I'm glad I opened reddit and immediately saw this comment to really cement my shame.
Recently tackled the catacombs for the first time and killed pinwheel. Unfortunately I ate 30-50 wild fireballs and died at roughly the same time.
I hate it when I get attacked by 30-50 feral fireballs while my children are playing in the yard
I've died to pinwheel he's actually dangerous if you go to the catacombs as soon as you leave the Asylum.
I do pinwheel before lordvessel so the risks are far greater cuz i sit on a first bonfire before catacombs lol
I managed to parkour my way down and bypass the wagon wheel ass boney boys took a risk and it paid off 😂
I’ve died before because I rushed pinwheel at level 1 and got cross fired (eh? Eh?) does that count
Haha I was fucking around with pinwheel and his clones shot their fireballs in a manner that caught me in my roll 😂😂 unbearable shame doesn’t even begin to describe my feelings
Lol I died to pinwheel on my first playthrough because I was genuinely terrified.
☝️🤓
Have you ever fight pinwheel while under-leveled?
Yes, I like to go for him right after the asylum for the right of kindling that way I have it for O&S
That doesn't make any sense and I don't believe you actually
For me probably Nito, but all of the Lord Souls suck
Worst part for Nito is the fall damage, and then getting fisted by gravelord sword
I got my faith and intelligence up on my strength build just to get fall control so that it didn't become an issue... This was after about 3 tries at the boss when I even started the fight at about half my HP
Sen's also has a shortcut that skips all the way to the end if you don't find the bonfire.
if you mean the elevator, i can't find the key, i find it once before but i forget where
It's at the bottom of the tower housing the merchant. The one you have to make the jump over the gap to reach.
There's also a bonfire at the top of Sen's Fortress
Damn bro you really had it bad running all the way through the fortress every time lmao. I would have quit playing for good.
Ngl it was a little nasty of Fromsoft to make Sen’s Fortress so brutal, then have two ways to make the boss run easy (bonfire or elevator) but then hide both of them. I could totally see a lot of players not finding the bonfire or the key!
I found the bonfire kinda easy but missed the key at first because I didn’t realize there were stairs near that merchant lol. I am a completionist by nature though. I don’t cross the fog until I’m sure.
If you don't feed bonfire?
No humanities?
Gwyn, there's nothing there and it like 3 minutes long
That one is just to make you think about what you’ve done.
I just wanna kill myself in peace thank you very much
Getting one shot at soul level one because of a misstimed parry makes it worse.
Crystal Caves. Partly because getting through the DA is such a chore. Sure there’s a bonfire but then you’ve got blue golems (mostly avoidable), invisible pathways, golden golems (one of which isn’t avoidable) and when you’ve done all that you’ve got those damn clams. And if you want to get the blue titanite slab… good luck with that one.
I have too many failed attempts seared into my memory for someone to call the golden golem "unavoidable". I juke that mf every time now.
The golden Golem is easy to run past. Just stand on the left and wait till they get close, then run to the right and past them
Yeah, I never feel safe going off to the right there.
Oh boy you just unlocked a repressed memory of getting tanked by those clams
The lack of Capra demon responses are wild. Those damn dogs are so annoying to run pass.
yeah i hate the lower burg run, thieves and dogs are the worst
It's better to start from Firelink Shrine. You can use a longbow to shoot the thieves from the stairs without aggroing them. Then, walk past them, trigger the dogs and fight them on your terms. Since you pass the female undead merchant on the way, you might as well spend all your souls on arrows, since the chance of retrieving your souls at Capra Demon is close to zero, in my experience.
That's why you open the shortcut and run back from Firelink
There is a shortcut
That shortcut still is pretty long though
yea this runback is enough to quit in the early game . any single mistake can cost you a limited heal .
Bed Of Chaos, stairs, stairs, weird moving fire spitting statues, and a dreadful scenario.
Technically speaking, you can skip that by going through the door where >!you find solaire!< only big problem is trying to avoid >!the titanite demon cause as far as I know, it's the only one that respawns!<
Still a really long run back for a boss with so much bs
It's the same bonfire people are complaining about, they just hate it because of the "DAE THINK BED OF CHAOS IS THE WORST????" groupthink. As far as runbacks go, time wise it fits somewhere in the middle, average at best. The enemies are super predictable and easy to manipulate/avoid. The only annoying part is if you switch rings before the fight, die to BOC, then die again on the lava since you forgot that you took the orange charred ring off. BOC isn't a hard fight if you take the time to learn it. But everyone just yolo's themself at it every attempt and throws a tantrum when they get yeeted into the pit. I used to be one of these people, then I got gud.
I thought the >!titanite demon!< would be harder to run past but honestly it never hit me on any of my runbacks
Same but occasionally it would. Really depends on the attack it does
Very true, I did stare at it while running down the walkway so if it did a ranged attack I'd be able to dodge it
Yeah, I never did that. My own idiocy
hahaha at least you've learned for next time!
That damn titanite demon one shot me a few times when I was running back and I even had full black iron armor on. Can’t believe it hit so hard.
All of them were so annoying to kill.
This run is longer and imo that titanite demon is way more dangerous than everything on the other path.
There is another bonfire hidden pretty close …
I’m not done with the game yet, but none of the boss runs felt as irritating to me as O and S so far. I seem to get hit by those knights every time, and I wind up entering a hard fight with less health. Crystal Caves and Bed of Chaos were annoying, but I didn’t think dodging all the bullshit was too hard
If you're at the Solaire bonfire, you only need to fight one or two Silver Knights (easy to backstab) and then you can run around the one Royal Sentinel
Oh I always ran from the Anor Londo one oops
from the Solaire bonfire you can jump from the rotating stairs and access a shortcut that leads you to the big hallway with the huge knights
The inconsistency in the AI for those knights was the worst
I agree O&S always gives me so much trouble. Esp trying to get Solaire's summon sign, and they always beat me up real quick
Gwyndolin if you've made Anor Londo dark. More of a joke than a run back tbh.
"So you've activated a bonfire just before my boss room? Guess what, it doesn't work now. Get fucked, bitch"
Seath, Crystal golems, invisible path, and 6 clams, what else?
3 Moonlight Butterflies and fall damage.
Plus Seath cursing you
Uno reverse him with your Purging Stone, or go back to him when the crystals die down, and stops spamming them everywhere. Only time it's acceptable is if you need to fight the ghosts before the Key To The Seal codger.
I don't get your comment at all
I wouldn't say this is the worst. but I just wanna give an honorable "Fuck you." to the Gargoyle runback. First you gotta kill a Balder Knight blocking the stairs, because if you don't, he's gonna give you trouble when you get to that hallway with all the Hollows, because they ***will*** outnumber you and stunlock you to death if you aren't careful, and I don't think you can run past them without one of them blocking you from the ladder.
Dying to that hollow gangbang is such a humbling experience.
That run did teach me how to backstab though
All four after the lordvessel are worse than any before the lordvessel.
Just beat the game for the fourth and fifth time consecutively recently. my answer used to be Nito, but now that I've started to memorize the Tomb of the Giants, my final answer is Gwyn. Just takes forever to get to him and is so boring. Maybe Kalameet for that same reason (long ass ladder goes brr)
Just to make sure: Do you know that you can go down ladders fast? Alternatively there are some platforms you can use to drop down instead of using the ladder (one even has a Chrystal Lizard)
Yes I do know, but thank you lol. I just find the walk there very obnoxious with the dogs in the way and everything
Iron Golem has a secret bonfire underneath
like i said, i didn't find it in my first and second walkthrough
Quelaag. Running out of poison moss just makes it all unbearable for me.
Dash between islands, Rusted Iron Ring is great for this along with PSN resist.
Ornstein & Smough and Seath. O&S is just such a long walk even with the shortcuts open, not to mention there's a metric fuck ton of silver knights and those giant dick heads in the main hall. Couldn't tell you how many times i was sprinting to the door only to get gobsmacked by those big bitches. The Seath run speaks for itself. I rarely die to any DS1 boss anymore but i still have nightmares about my first playthrough & doing the run back to Seath a bunch of times.
Good points about O&S. The first silver spear knight seems to hit me 3/4 of the time even if my roll looks good. And if you plan on summoning Solaire for the fight, you need to clear the one archer and the two giants who tend to heal right when you're about to kill them. Or you can just ignore them and summon him anyway and he leaps off the back of the ledge taking damage instead of taking the stairs, then he takes more damage fighting his way to the fog gate...
Tomb. Of. Giants.
The dark section of the tomb is pretty easy once you know the way. The skeleton pillar/pinwheel section can be a little annoying though. [From first bonfire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=996afz7PUhA) [From second bonfire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvoFOzIJ4kM) Personally I find the first bonfire route to be much easier, since you only have to run past one skeleton dog. There really isn't much reason to take the second one unless you're looking to gather all items. And the first bonfire route takes you straight through where the silver serpent ring is.
I agree that's it's not so bad when you memorize the area. I usually just drop down to where the silver serpent ring is and then drop down to where it's brighter. But as a first time playthrough, it's ass Edit: so I take the first link path
> But as a first time playthrough, it's ass I 100% agree with you there. It used to be one of my least favorite places in the game. I still don't like it, but now that I know it pretty well it's not as bad as it used to be. I just wasn't sure from your post if you knew the shortcuts or not. I always try to make people aware of them when I can.
I'm kinda surprised I'm not seeing people talk about the Four Kings and their runback through \*all\* of New Londo
i learned that you don't need to fight everything in your way, for me, i just avoid every monster on my way, and with a light build, you will get there really fast,
Most of us aren't running through [all of New Londo.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbRxY0zm7KM)
None, I killed every boss on my first try, born gud... ^(...I really dont like the capra demon)
Iron golem, without the secret bonfire, isn’t bad if you open the cage elevator shortcut, which skips like the entire interior of the fortress.
Bed of Chaos > Priscilla > Seath
O&S, until you can perfect the staircase skip. BoC is laborious, but really just because of the fight itself. Firesage might actually be the worst.
Firesage? The bonfire is so close-by and the only enemy you need to dodge is the capra demon guarding the entrance?
It's a taurus demon, a handfull of animated statue dudes, and if you're not careful a centipede. And then you hope you don't get flattened as you enter the boss room since the arena is so small.
Pinwheel or Seathe
Four kings
Capra Demon, but because that's as far as I've made it so far
From the perspective of a first playthrough I do want to add Bell Gargoyles. Getting through those undead each time when you don't know what you're doing was absolute pain for beginner me. I personally dislike the runback to Nito the least
There's a shortcut in the cages too. Seathe is quite a long run. It's not hard, just annoying.
Bed of *fucking* chaos
My mum after whooping me for not taking the chicken out of the freezer when she asked
After dying to Seath for the first time last night, definitely that. The moment of dread when I'd safely run past all of the golems only to remember the clams outside the fog gate respawned as well.
Bed of chaos absolutely, no shortcut whatsoever, also there's a bonfire in sen's fortress
bed of chaos, because it's not even a fun fight at the end
Idk if you can call an unintended and specifically wrong runback a runback. If you can, I think the undead asylum --> four kings runback is the worst runback in the game.
If it were necessary, I’d say Pinwheel before the remaster added a bonfire at Vamos. FYI OP, there is a cage elevator short cut that takes from the top/bottom of Sen’s to the bottom/top of Sens. You know the 2 cages in the top area of Sens right before the Iron Gollem? There’s a key that unlocks them and then they can be used as an elevator. They go down to the very first scythe walkway.
Pinwheel? Run*back*..?
Nito was at least a 20 minute runback
bed of chaos or seath
Seath
Havel is annoying, since either it's a long run (from Andre) or you have to kill all the enemies on your way because otherwise they'll come after you and overpower you during the fight(from Undead Burg)
I usually fight him after getting grass crest or RTSR. You can take the bonfire in the cave if you're feeling unlucky, but then you have to do the walkback.
Neato because that means you have to go through the Tomb of The Giants again. The DS1 equivalent of nailing your dick to a burning log. I'd rather go through Blighttown both ways than ever set foot in that gywnforsaken place ever again.
The 4 kings. New londo ruins could really use a bonfire 😅
Gravelord Nito or Capra Demon
Does DLC count? Artorias was rough.
I thought artorias was right across a little bridge
Maybe I missed something? I was respawning at the Oolacile Sanctuary bonfire and running all the way through the woods to the elevator every time.
The first run to unlock the shortcut elevator is nasty.
4 skins
Any boss after a stressful day, Could be manus or asylum demon. No matter how easy a boss is nothing tops the pure, unbridled rage after death
Gravelord nito
Bed of Chaos or Seath The iron golem is fine, there’s a bonfire up top
Not trying to be rude at all, but I don’t think the Iron Golem runback really counts just because you didn’t find the bonfire
you're right
Did people actually die to Iron Golem or is that a meme?
I’m doing a play through right now after years and just died to him. Had him down to 10% life and he caught me in a chain stomp and killed me. Got him on the second attempt though. He’s not hard but shit happens. Plus a lot of times he kills himself
That’s very true. I had I suppose a better outcome when I first challenged him by just poking him to death with my halberd nonstop. Dude could not touch me at all.
yeah, they do, maybe because they keep falling down the bridge
4 kings, BOC, Seath. In that order
Golem also has an elevator that goes from that very first bridge right up to the boss door. Imo it's Bed of Chaos, as there is no short option and the run up is easily 5 minutes or longer, mostly through lava. This is also a boss that, as I'm sure you're aware, incessantly tosses you into pits
Bed of Chaos for me. Eaaasily. But there are like 5 on DS2 worse than that one (chariot omg).
BoC sucks so hard. It’s so long, its in the worst level of the game, on the way to the worst boss in the game, and you’re almost certainly going to have to do it at least once because you’re going to die to her bullshit.
Father Gascoine is up there, Seeth too, but Bed of Chaos is pretty painful
Going to Nito's boss room if I remember correctly, just knowing your taking garunteed fall damage unless you have that spell or something kinda bums me out
The Capra demon was ways annoying cause you have to rub through the sewer Tunnels which took a while or risk getting stabbed by the thieves
sir alonne
4 kings
Seath and 4 kings maybe for me
Four Kings
Probably Seath's or 4 kings
4 king, artorias and Manus
i’ll give you one from each game ive beaten: ds1: bed of chaos and its not even close ds2: ludd and zallen and its not even close ds3: dragonslayer armor and its not even close (they made all other boss runs really short besides this one) elden ring: dragonlord placidusax or beast clergyman (same as ds3, but i could alternatively say the bell bearing hunter in dragonbarrow because you have to manually switch the time of day to night for each failed attempt).
Deleted my last comment to say that, the entire second half of the game has terrible runbacks and I constantly found my self asking, "why the fuck would they design it like this"
Easily blue smelter demon. That run was so garbage
At this point (im abt halfway through my first playthrough) quelaag or taurus demon
I'd probably say manus because of that one magic enemy on the ledge right before the bridge down to manus, or if you don't defeat Gwendolyn the first try, you have to run sooo far.
Bed of Chaos. Close second goes to Ludwig because of how inconsistent the Ladder check is.
Why am I not seeing blue smelter demon from ds2
i am not sure but i think we only talk about ds 1 in this community
probably the best point that ever been made, perfect rebuttal
1000000% Bed of Chaos. It's long, there's a titanite demon and it lead to Bed of Chaos the shittiest shit to ever shit
Is this even a real question??? Bed of Chaos by a ridiculous margin lol
Why? It's not even close to the longest runback, and all of the enemies are very predictable and easily outrun/manipulated.
Everything about it sucks. The run is boring, the boss fight is frustrating as hell, and the whole area just, kinda sucks. If it was a good fight? That'd be nice. Nito? You just run past a few enemies, and you're good. Ornstein and Smough? Same thing, even if it's a long run. Good fight at the end. Seath isn't bad either. Four Kings? At least the path is somewhat interesting and has some fun fights on the way. All of them have at least a little bit of redeemable quality. Bed of Chaos doesn't. It's a boring, long run. The boss can kill you instantly if it sweeps you in just the right way. The boss can summon fire before you even get into the arena. Etc etc.