Lorian and Lothric Kicking My Butt

After starting up a new character and playing through a bit of the early stages of Dark Souls 3, I decided to hop on my original character.

This guy was actually mostly through the main game. He only had three non-DLC bosses left - Lothric/Lorian, Nameless King, and Soul of Cinder.

Of those, I imagine Lothric/Lorian is probably considered the easiest, but man are they kicking my ass.

I have a fully-upgraded Hollowslayer Greatsword and a lot of Dexterity (I keep wanting to say Skill, which is the Bloodborne equivalent stat) so when I do actually land my hits, they hit hard. But Lorian is not messing around. His sword seems to take half my health each time he hits me, and he does not leave much time to heal up.

So I've been using Profuse Sweat to increase resistance to some of his damage and I've managed to get the fight phase two a couple times.

For those unfamiliar with this particular boss fight, Lothric is the younger prince and the last Lord of Cinder you've been sent to collect. In fact, unlike the other Lords of Cinder, Lothric never linked the fire. It's implied that the current crisis (no one linking the fire) is due to Lothric's refusal to do so - that this is the destiny he turned down, finding the whole cycle to be pointless. Which means that Lothric Castle, which you spend the beginning and later stages of the game fighting through is the most "modern" area, whereas presumably places like Irithyl had their glory days of significance and faded... maybe. I mean, Dark Souls lore is so open to interpretation that you could probably convince me of a dozen contradictory theories.

Anyway, Lothric was born sickly and frail, while his older brother Lorian was a great champion. Lorian was cursed - I think somehow taking on some of his brother's weakness - and so he kind of crawls around on his knees. This does not, in any way, make him less of a danger.

The real trick to this fight, other than Lorian's massive sword that deals a boatload of damage, is that Lorian frequently teleports around you, dodging your attack and then coming in with his own while you're off balance. Sometimes he teleports far away and prepares a big holy blast that deals even more damage and requires you to dodge at just the right moment.

When you take him down, Lothric teleports onto his brother's back and revives him. In addition to dealing with Lothric's spells and Lorian's continued assaults, any time you take down Lorian, Lothric will revive him again. So you need to position yourself around Lorian's back and strike at the younger brother - only killing him will end the fight, and I sure as hell haven't gotten there. I think my best attempt I got Lothric down to about 75%.

Now, to be fair I'm out of practice and also Dark Souls bosses tend to take some learning before you actually stand a chance.

Anyway, I think you need to get access to the final boss before you can do the Ringed City stuff, so that will be cool, though I think I should try to finish Ashes of Ariandel before working on Ringed City.