Poll of the Day > Bed of Chaos is a trash tier fight in a top tier game.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Love me some Dark Souls, but my god is the boss "fight" infuriating.

Anywho, g'night PotD.
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If you enjoy the rest of the game enough to replay it frequently you should consider learning the pro strat to cheese it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ0csuFo5vY
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Man, we forgot to play L4D2 this Halloween.
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funkyfritter posted...

If you enjoy the rest of the game enough to replay it frequently you should consider learning the pro strat to cheese it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ0csuFo5vY

I really should. I've played the game so much, but just brute force throw myself at the boss until it works.

AwesomeTurtwig posted...

Man, we forgot to play L4D2 this Halloween.

We most definitely did :(

And for once I wasn't even doing anything and totally could have played.
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The 4 bosses were supposed to represent the 4 aspects of gameplay - with Bed of Chaos representing the platforming/movement elements.

So, naturally, if that's not what you like in the game it will fall flat.
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Lokarin posted...

The 4 bosses were supposed to represent the 4 aspects of gameplay - with Bed of Chaos representing the platforming/movement elements.

So, naturally, if that's not what you like in the game it will fall flat.

Is this true? Can we get a source on this

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Lokarin posted...

The 4 bosses were supposed to represent the 4 aspects of gameplay - with Bed of Chaos representing the platforming/movement elements.

So, naturally, if that's not what you like in the game it will fall flat.

This sounds like a bunch of bullshit you hear on a YT theory vid. What do the others represent then?

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]



That's the thing, Bed of Chaos in super random, sometimes you do it perfectly and other times it's a bitch and a half.

Dynalo posted...

just brute force throw myself at the boss until it works.

yup

Cruddy_horse posted...

This sounds like a bunch of bullshit you hear on a YT theory vid. What do the others represent then?

or what are the "4 aspects of gameplay"?
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Sahuagin posted...

or what are the "4 aspects of gameplay"?

Dark Souls combines 4 main aspects

Navigation and Puzzle Solving (Bed of Chaos)
Handling small monsters (Dead guy... Nero? Nico?, it's been a while)
Handling large monsters (Seethe the Scaleless)
Timing (4 Kings)

Defeating Bed of Chaos all comes down to surveying the area, finding the weak points, taking them out, and even ends with having to make a jump onto a gimpy branch

The skelemanz has only one major attack, Gravelord Sword, which is difficult to listen for - but is constantly throwing little skeletons at you (well, they run out, and you can defeat them with divine attacks)

Seethe the Scaleless is very large and doesn't move significantly, so it's all about managing magic damage from a boss while applying force over time

4 Kings is very fast and there are no distractions in terrain, all their attacks are extremely powerful but are heavily telegraphed. Timing more than damage wins this fight, even if you wait until all 4 kings are up.

EDIT: Also, that's just my opinion - I MAKE GameTheory ... well, not videos, but text posts I guess. I'd totally make videos if I knew how.
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I've been putting off fighting Gwyn again for so long. I can't get the party down just right, and if I try to use a potion during the wrong point in one of his animations he insta-leaps at me, and then I gotta sprint for another two minutes to get back to the boss door after I die

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Lokarin posted...

Timing more than damage wins this fight, even if you wait until all 4 kings are up.

lol

By far the best way to handle the fight is to just havel up and tank hits while swinging nonstop. If you don't havel up, you should aim to dish out as much damage as humanly possible in the shortest period of time. You really don't want more than one King on the screen at a time

Even this run as a sorcerer, I didn't feel like timing was that important as I never really thought of the 4 Kings as "fast".

Metalsonic66 posted...

I've been putting off fighting Gwyn again for so long. I can't get the party down just right, and if I try to use a potion during the wrong point in one of his animations he insta-leaps at me, and then I gotta sprint for another two minutes to get back to the boss door after I die

This is the first time in like 200+ hours of playing Dark Souls that I did a pure sorcery build... And my god does magic tear through him. He could dodge the soul spears, but each one that hit took off like a quarter of his health.

I've gotten pretty good at parrying him though, so even my melee runs have been pretty good. Oddly though, Artorias always gives me trouble, no matter what my build is.
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Dynalo posted...

Even this run as a sorcerer

If you are a spellcaster your whole game is about timing... unless you only ever cast instant spells
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Lokarin posted...

Navigation and Puzzle Solving (Bed of Chaos)
Handling small monsters (Dead guy... Nero? Nico?, it's been a while)
Handling large monsters (Seethe the Scaleless)
Timing (4 Kings)

- "small monsters" and "large monsters" is waay too vague a categorization of the game's enemies

- 4 kings being about timing is definitely hard to agree with. 4 kings is normally thought of as a DPS fight. either you can DPS them fast enough to not be overwhelmed or you can't. if you're saying you can fight them even when they've all spawned, and you can survive because you know the right timing, that might be interesting.

- but even then, timing is not particularly specific to 4 kings. timing is a fundamental part of everything the player does, from movement, to all forms combat, to healing, etc. every single thing the player does is about timing.

a problem here is that at least 2 of these 4 bosses are broken. none of them are designed well at all, and so they end up being about nothing. 4 kings is about DPS. Seethe is about nothing since he's too easy. Nito is maybe about dealing with adds and AOE, but he's also kind of about nothing since he's too easy since his HP is so low. Bed of Chaos is about nothing because it's just throw yourself at RNG till you win (with maybe a little bit that blocking, caution, and timing can help, but usually not.)
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I don't think I died once against Seethe. I basically just wailed on one of his side "tentacles" as he slowly tried to rotate in my direction

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There's several large monsters in the game where your lock-on is more of a detriment than an ally. The Hydra, for example. Seethe's lock on point is so high up it's almost worthless, plus it takes your eyes off the ice field where you might get unexpectedly cursed.

4 Kings has no field at all, just a blank Abyss. Just you and the monster with zero gimmicks.

Nito has a rather tight battlefield with a mound in the center... but I can see how it wasn't executed the best way, with the Rotten fight in DS2 being a much better version of a similar concept.

Actually, Dark Souls 2 and 3 work on these same concepts in much better ways. Their Horde fights are much hordier and their terrain fights are much terrainer. Executioner's Chariot is a far better Nito in both concept and execution, and Demon of Song is a much better positioning/puzzle fight than Bed of Chaos
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You wanna play L4D2 next weekend maybe?
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Lokarin posted...

There's several large monsters in the game where your lock-on is more of a detriment than an ally. The Hydra, for example. Seethe's lock on point is so high up it's almost worthless, plus it takes your eyes off the ice field where you might get unexpectedly cursed.

the hydra it makes sense since you can't reach the body and are interested in the heads which are not targetable. (though archers and casters may still want to target the body.)

seethe... honestly I don't know how that fight was intended to be fought. I just take the fight as broken, strafe him to death and move on. it's not the same as the hydra where there's two ways of killing him, he just happens to be broken so whatever the intent of the fight is just gets ignored. (though I'm starting to wonder if there's a "correct" way to fight him...)

Lokarin posted...

Executioner's Chariot is a far better Nito in both concept and execution

can you explain this? Nito is an poor to ok boss, but EC is a terrible boss. Nito is maybe about fighting the boss while watching for AOE attacks and avoiding/dealing with adds. EC is about... surviving a gauntlet, knowing about the necromancer/skeleton thing, and then fighting the chariot afterward which is more like fighting the Armored Boar than Nito.

Lokarin posted...

Demon of Song is a much better positioning/puzzle fight than Bed of Chaos

do you have the wrong boss name here? I guess they both have sweeping arms? the fights are not similar at all.
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Sahuagin posted...

an you explain this? Nito is an poor to ok boss, but EC is a terrible boss. Nito is maybe about fighting the boss while watching for AOE attacks and avoiding/dealing with adds. EC is about... surviving a gauntlet, knowing about the necromancer/skeleton thing, and then fighting the chariot afterward which is more like fighting the Armored Boar than Nito.

Yes, it's about prioritizing and managing threats. You know where the boss is and how often an attack will come (Nito's gravelord sword is on a timer), so you have to attack/advance in between the gaps in the timing.

Sahuagin posted...

do you have the wrong boss name here? I guess they both have sweeping arms? the fights are not similar at all.

I wasn't considering the sweeping arm part, but rather the nuances of positioning. Demon of Song is one of the EASIEST bosses in the game if you know his positioning quirks... so much so he might be one of the few bosses that's easier solo than with a team simply because you don't want the wrong move to go off.

EDIT: For DS3, I'd put High Lord Wolnir in this category since it's all about the breakage and predictability... 'cuz if you force an unrealiable move you're gunna get gassed.
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Lokarin posted...

Yes, it's about prioritizing and managing threats. You know where the boss is and how often an attack will come (Nito's gravelord sword is on a timer), so you have to attack/advance in between the gaps in the timing.

yeah but every boss is like that to some degree. you're basically just describing all of the game's gameplay here, nothing specific to Nito.

Lokarin posted...

I wasn't considering the sweeping arm part, but rather the nuances of positioning. Demon of Song is one of the EASIEST bosses in the game if you know his positioning quirks... so much so he might be one of the few bosses that's easier solo than with a team simply because you don't want the wrong move to go off.

I agree he's easy, but that doesn't make him like Bed of Chaos. It's just a dodge/attack/dodge/attack/dodge/attack boss, which there are many of in DS2.

there is the chance that you're fighting these bosses differently than I am or than most people do, but if so you're not describing it very well.

you've implied that you can fight 4 kings regardless of how many spawn. is this true? you make it sound like you can do Bed of Chaos *without* throwing yourself at the RNG and hoping you make it. can you? can you do Bed of Chaos without dying once? or at most dying twice? (ie: can you destroy both sides in the same go, or the second side and the center in one go?)
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AwesomeTurtwig posted...

You wanna play L4D2 next weekend maybe?

No can do. I'll be out of town from Friday night until Monday night.

Metalsonic66 posted...

I don't think I died once against Seethe. I basically just wailed on one of his side "tentacles" as he slowly tried to rotate in my direction

I think every death I've had against him was because I wanted to chop off his tail and the god damn tail would just be in the wall out of range. So I'd die trying to kite him into a spot where the tail wasn't buried 30 feet inside a damn wall.
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Sahuagin posted...

Lokarin posted...
Yes, it's about prioritizing and managing threats. You know where the boss is and how often an attack will come (Nito's gravelord sword is on a timer), so you have to attack/advance in between the gaps in the timing.

yeah but every boss is like that to some degree. you're basically just describing all of the game's gameplay here, nothing specific to Nito

Pretty much. And a divine weapon completely trivializes that entire fight.

Even just limiting it to bosses where there are multiple enemies, the Gargoyles does the "managing threats" aspect way better. The Capra Demon does it, but in a cheap way. Ornstein and Smough is pretty much the pinnacle of "managing and prioritizing threats". And Pinwheel is a thing, probably a more interesting fight if anyone ever bothered doing it early on, but everyone does it late in the game.

Nito actually does it worse than any of them save Capra Demon, because there isn't really any "managing" of threats. If you're using a divine weapon, then quickly kill the skeletons, then Nito. If not, focus on Nito and drop him in a few seconds because he has such low health. The correct way to manage the threats is basically to ignore them...
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Sahuagin posted...

can you? can you do Bed of Chaos without dying once? or at most dying twice? (ie: can you destroy both sides in the same go, or the second side and the center in one go?)

Can I? Now I can... at the time I certainly couldn't.
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Lokarin posted...

Can I? Now I can... at the time I certainly couldn't.

well I can't... >_>
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Imagine if your progress in the Bed of Chaos fight reset on death.
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Zareth posted...

Imagine if your progress in the Bed of Chaos fight reset on death.

I'm honestly not sure if I'd have ever finished the game.
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VioletMassacre posted...

Me neither, but I liked an easy boss after the hell to get there.

Fuck those wizards

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I liked the concept of having a boss fight that didn't reset on death and I liked that it wasn't a 'traditional' boss fight. I think what really kills the boss is the run up to the arena. It's a boss fight where you're literally expected to die repeatedly. The slog of getting to the boss room makes it annoying as fuck.
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Smarkil posted...

I liked the concept of having a boss fight that didn't reset on death and I liked that it wasn't a 'traditional' boss fight. I think what really kills the boss is the run up to the arena. It's a boss fight where you're literally expected to die repeatedly. The slog of getting to the boss room makes it annoying as fuck.

Yup, both the hidden bonfire in Lost Izalith and the shortcut via the Chaos Servant covenant are still quite far away. Sucks running for like 5 minutes just to be bitch-slapped down a hole 4 seconds into the fight.
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And it's not even like it's a challenging run to the boss (though that would be bad in its own way). Just long.
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