Salt and Sanctuary Bosses: Ranked Easiest to Hardest

[@4589dude]

The difficulty in each boss is clearly gonna change depending on your loadout, stats and abilities, so of course you'll personally find some things on the list questionable

[@Sleksin]

Like the nameless god. From my experience, you pretty much need to have a light roll, otherwise his attacks pacing is almost impossible to dodge. This is, at least, what I found. Some bosses I found were mainly about learning and anticipating the moves. First time around The Third Lamb was real difficult for me, but second time I knew all it's moves and the windup to them so i beat it with little trouble. Personally the easiest boss for me was the Untouched Inquisitor, purely because of how much you can dodge by being under it and the fact that all you do is press roll the moment the windup ends and the blades start moving and you are pretty much guaranteed a dodge for almost all attacks.

[@4589dude]

Yeah, like I personally found The Nameless God kinda difficult cuz I was stubbornly going for the heavier knight loadout in my first playthrough :P

[@sammcarthur864]

For me i have to say the Queen of Smiles was hardest, but that was probably because it was my first playthrough... and It was a no shield run :>) SHIELDS ARE FOR THE WEAK, YOU COWARDS!

[@Sleksin]

Sam McArthur The only time I used a shield was against her on my first run. On my NG+ playthrough I didn't though and I was happy.

[@gordonmckee7562]

I feel like i'm the only one who has never used a shield... Just two-handed the largest weapon I could carry

[@Matthew-jb4cc]

That witch with the fucking machine_gun killed me 12 times

[@oscarofastora7422]

Killed me 9 times

[@KRASHMAN669]

Silveer .Craft I must be the only one who kill her at the frist try, no joking

[@Matthew-jb4cc]

ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUSSSSSS?

[@Matthew-jb4cc]

Parzival what were you wearing and what weapon and rigs were you useing?

[@KRASHMAN669]

well...I dont remember everything but this is what most help me: the silver shield IV The Doppelsoldner armor IV the faithfull ring sparkling ring and the impen charm (because her weeknes is fire) the trick is to always stay close to her, especially Under her. and if she use that fucking machine_gun thing xD you just jump she is very easy actually, you just have to be quick I hopes that helps

[@rickblue2165]

the first time i saw cursejaw i was falling from the sky

[@TheeSilly]

Me too, i fell and actually lived then had to fight

[@igntablecorner]

@@TheeSilly im assuming you won the fight because carsejaw is a jome

[@igntablecorner]

@@TheeSilly joke*

[@TheeSilly]

@@igntablecorner hell yeah i did

[@TheTariqibnziyad]

the witch killed me 112 times, that's what you get when you fight her while being sleepy at 2 PM

[@charlienelson8826]

Ibnziyad Tariq do you mean AM

[@TheTariqibnziyad]

Charlie Nelson yea sorry i wrote this comment while it was 1 AM

[@diegodd3324]

Ibnziyad Tariq git gud dude 😂

[@Nutt_lemmings]

Me too I play this game at night too...uhhh....theres gonna be school tomorrow huh.....shiiit....only 3hrs of sleep

[@TheTariqibnziyad]

Lemmings-Gaming i know the feeling, its like when someone is trying to suicide, you don't give a f***

[@natashagalaxy7228]

The Third Lamb....so many nightmares

[@oscarofastora7422]

He's easy if you over-leveled yourself to shit and did an unnecessary amount of damage like me

[@TheTariqibnziyad]

+Oscar of Astora me too I was way powerful when I faced her?...it? whatever

[@raphaelmerino100]

he is easy if you are not a block head, and actually went with fast weapon.

[@Nutt_lemmings]

For mages...ohh god I never wanna go back

[@Nutt_lemmings]

And also guess what...my first time I was a spell sword never knowing about different spells and wasn't spending points into mage but other classes like swords and shields and heavy armor and stuff...mistake made I was like doing 5 damage to everything

[@alicemalice2597]

Where are the spindle beasts on this list?

[@michaelramon2411]

They're #0. Hardest bosses in the game without a doubt.

[@anders6326]

Alice Edgeworth can you parry those cretins? God, I died ten times before managing to kill all three with magic and my greatsword- _-

[@WildArmACF]

Man i hate those things.

[@Jeeves_0]

Yup fortunately there are only three in the entire game (that I've seen) unfortunately you have to get past them to continue with the game.

[@bltsevdallarfanclub641]

Alice Edgeworth ? What are you talking about ?

[@Subject98]

Everyone's list is going to be pretty different their first time through the game because many of the bosses are weak or strong to different player builds. For example, the tree of men's head has 5 times the amount of slash resistance as blunt, so players using a mace or hammer will do a lot more damage to it than someone using a sword. Fighting that thing, the dried king and the coveted with a blade weapon will feel like you're hitting them with a toothpick.

[@Fortissax]

Yeah the Dried King took so fucking long, also the Kraken Wyrm.

[@Youkakun]

Oh yeah, the coveted with a poleaxe was a big time consumer. During the fight, i looked often on my clock.

[@Jeeves_0]

Yep definitely fortunately for me, I use regular swords, the dried kings attacks are petty easy to dodge and the coveted are optional (there are a lot of optional bosses on this list)

[@sablonanime650]

I had to use the stained paper to do arcane damage so I could beat the coveted. I had a dex build with the taichi. I ended up beating the game with a taichi IIV.

[@adecs1422]

@@sablonanime650 Tachi IIV? That would be just Tachi III lol, I gues you mean Tachi IV

[@thewickedwon354]

10:50 'i don't get why he was voted so high?' - lvl 90 greathammer build

[@tarisco614]

kraken wyrm 4? wow. didnt even hit me. just rush to the side he's coming from and his flane will go in front of you, giving you free hits. i love how this and souls is so unique. one boss may be easy mode for one guy, and hardest boss in the game to another. I think strategy and style having such a large impact indicates good boss design.

[@Kirokill1]

Tony614 His problem is that he's so random. His fire breath attack and tail swipe are close to each other on animation and come out quick. Which means that if you guess wrongly you could get one shot. He's a punk all around if he decides to not fly.

[@BlazingEternal]

Kirokill Honestly, for his ground fire breath and his head swipe, I was in the air and hitting him with a lightning infused sword

[@iceinhuman9139]

the thing that got me alot with the kraeken wyrm was the fires hitbox existing after the animation finished, locking me in place for one of its melee attacks.

[@Noblehardt]

Tony614 The Wyrm was one of the funniest bosses for me. My first playthrough, I went with a spear/halberd focused build, using it onehanded with a gun or twohanding it with a simple stamina regen charm. I think I died at least 15 times, as I was learning its moves. Then come my second playthrough, which I decided to do using daggers. I beat him on my first try, and I don't think I got hit more than once or twice.

[@pachicore]

when i fought him on my second character he killed himself lol

[@Lazypackmule]

This game got progressively easier as it went on for me, I exclusively used two handed greatswords with heavy armor and in the latter half of the game I would routinely kill bosses on the second or even first try, including the forgotten king which was surprisingly a breeze The witch was also easy as hell once I learned to avoid the murder rays, only died twice Hardest I can remember was probably ronin cran, for some reason his attack pattern kept catching me off guard

[@Richie_Godsil]

Lazypackmule 2 handed sword with heavy armor for the win! The complete opposite of my Souls play style, ironically

[@tomvandl]

Sodden Knigt Boss Sword, and never switched to another weapon after I was able to handle ist. More or like spamming square-button with a bit of rolling.

[@user-xn1wi6kk3b]

Seems like mace weapon is op in this game. I used spears and that was hard. No stuns and pretty low dmg vs bosses. ~25 hits for final boss and atleast 15 tries.

[@Sleksin]

Greatscissors are my favourite. The two handed strong attack is fun, strong and chains together quickly, very good for stunning bosses. Even in NG+ I could almost stunlock some bosses, were it not for the occasional attack that breaks through and the stamina cost.

[@Ghost_Unknown_Fade_Away_]

My friend that is on NG+7 said you can stunlock all the boss using Trinity Scepter. Imagine if you upgrade it too VII with Bloodflower charm and ring while wearing it as a 2-handed. I looked at the list for hammer because Flanged Mace was counted as a Hammer category. I would say Greathammer, Greatscissor & Greatsword when it comes to strength build. It's not the weapon that is "overpowered." It's the build of the class and by far, Mage is the most overpowered class in the game. Go research for the facts if you want to know more about it.

[@snickeringtortoise]

I don't get what you mean with optional bosses, I mean you can skip A BUNCH of these bosses, the ones you called optional are the ones I guess I would call secret, or whatever. I mean, I've heard you don't need the brand that makes you go through the red walls, there is nothing behind Carsejaw... Etc

[@snickeringtortoise]

The tree of men is skippable, first playthrough I came at him from the wrong side.

[@snickeringtortoise]

I came up behind the bloodless prince, he is skipable

[@snickeringtortoise]

The queen of smiles is completely skippable

[@carterkapele8046]

Snickering Tortoise behind carsejaw is the knight (if you follow his storyline) which if you talk to him he'll give you 1 kings orders and a trophy

[@snickeringtortoise]

Yeah, I worded that pretty poorly, I meant to write "There is nothing essential behind Carsejaw." or something like that.

[@bugsy0422]

why does everyone think The Third Lamb is so hard. It took me 3 tries whereas the Husk took about 15

[@btchiaintkidding7837]

I am great at spacing, so 3rd lamb was easy and fun af. if someone is bad at spacing then i am sure the third lamb will be nightmare to deal with

[@LEWIS1992]

Sadly much of this list isn't relevant for magic users - many bosses that are resistance to melee are weak to magic and vice versa. Mages may need to reverse a lot of this list.

[@GamesBrained]

Mages shoulda' voted then.

[@Nutt_lemmings]

Lolz ikr...btw how dafuk is the lake of the whatever hard??? U guys do realize u just have to out the wardens shit on to arcane defense with that one ring then use holy magic or poison...or just pick up a great sword and keep close to her and when she's gonna attack dodge to go behind her and hit her and do not ever jump!!!

[@nope2670]

The dragon guy just kinda fukin flew around as I beat him to a pulp.

[@theskeletonposse6432]

Skourzh should be pronounced like "Scourge" is what I think. Zh is used as a soft j sound in Chinese transcriptions, and I don't know of any other use for it.

[@GamesBrained]

Yeah, I am familiar with the Chinese 'zh' (I use it everyday, lol) but it is totally anachronistic with the rest of his name then

[@SJNaka101]

The claymore is called Kureimoa in this game so I think this is probably a solid explanation

[@ursarare9507]

How to win: 1. Get the Great Sword in the Village of Smiles 2. Join the Water Cult 3. Do a quest to get the Page of Light 4. Roll Heavy Armor, at endgame I wore the White Set from the guy you give the Bag of Earth (Say your looking for peace but haven't found it) you only need 34 endurance to tote this and the Jaws of Death and fast roll 4. ??? 5. Profit, stun lock and heal through damage to win

[@ursarare9507]

Idk if the White Set gives magic/fire defense, but I could actually take any of the Witch of the Lakes spell volleys and have the time to heal after

[@Orthos4]

Also, use Guardian Blade to add massive poise damage

[@Nutt_lemmings]

How to win..use salt glitch or join the betrayers cult as mage then ur op!!!!

[@Nutt_lemmings]

Or watch her booty, stay begin dat phat ass and beat it hard, dont jump...

[@hopoutattheafterparty6245]

Xiruslol The fuck is the water cult?

[@antoineyoffe642]

Let try NG+ and your rank will changed.

[@merogic]

Anton Katz True, Carsejaw was really hard for me, Tree of Men was all the terror from the first playthrough all over again, Kraekan Wyrm lives forever, Witch of the Lake killed me all the time with a maximum of 4 particles at full health, Nameless King(s) lived forever and ever and Emboweled Husk needed super precise rolling

[@felix1845]

one time the kraken dragon fell through the floor and was stuck, this happened two times!

[@EhmAmATANK]

“One time this thing happened two times”

[@yaboi2500]

Kraeken Wyrm will sometimes glitch himself and fly off the screen, giving you a quick, easy victory.

[@MrDrProfessor4]

Across 3 playthroughs the witch killed me 180 times. Second place was the Disembowled Husk at only 2 deaths... Everything else in the entire game killed me either once or not at all.

[@Jeeves_0]

MrDrProfessor4 WHAT!!! 180 I I WOULD HAVE COMPLETELY GIVEN UP BY THEN!

[@Jeeves_0]

Oh wait... I see... across three playthroughs.

[@KrimzonFlygon1]

Witch actually isn't so bad if you have the Dart Brand: the red ball that explodes into homing shots can be jumped over at the tail end of it. The barrage is pretty much your opening to wail on her, and it won't even touch you if you hug the bitch. She beat me twice: once was the obligatory learning phase, second I got cornered.

[@Mr.Ketchup1526]

the witch killed me 2364 times thought out 14 play thoughts it hurts.

[@raphaelmerino100]

90% of this list is voted by 2 handed users and shield users, you can see that those hard bosses are the ones that punish going the easy route and using heavy gear. As a dagger user with no shield, the worst boss is the Dragon(not the wyrm) as you cannot roll into it fast enough and end up being screwed. Yet i do recommend, play with a dagger or a whips, it will be the most fun you will have in a while, tatic's change a lot, best exemple is the Stench Most Foul, as you won't be killing the minnions, you will have to position them so that when they deactivate, they will not stay in the middle of the stage, but on the sides.

[@ashleycorp349]

Raphael Merino Making the game harder for yourself is not what I would call fun

[@Crouch_Potato]

I've been running a two handed tachi most of my game so far, and I do remember the Kraekan Wyrm absolutely wrecking me, but that was because his fire swoop move stopped happening half way through the field and right at the edge, where I had gotten used to hiding. That fight was a pain, and I am so not looking forward to the Squid Dragon. I NEED MY ROLLS.

[@boosheroo4475]

I was shocked to see nameless god as second, since magic literally invalidates him lol

[@bickflick]

Raphael Merino Poorly statted wizard wielding an arcane great sword here; surprised by a lot of these bosses, including those that were said to be a counter to bladed/melee users. Then again, may have simply been due to good with roll. Witch and dragon surprised the most; kinda felt like nothing to dodge them. Third Lamb was probs my hardest boss.

[@kimbaptempura4073]

There aren't enough swear words in the English language to describe my rage during Witch of the Lake....that was pure rage.

[@bowsmed]

I've beat this game like 100 times through by now and I've legit never seen Saltless Prince's belly flop. I mean I might have and just forgot but tbh I always thought he was one of the easiest. I also think Murdiella Mal is one of the much harder ones, just because she takes up like half the screen, teleports, and her attacks are a lot of barrages that are really annoying, especially with lower balance.

[@christinalucero-macafee3657]

to me, the sodden knight was pretty hard.

[@tarisco614]

Christina Lucero-Macafee first bosses are always tough fot new playets in souls games. kind of a skill check, and also forces you to learn to dodge and block properly. same as gundyr in DS3. i love em

[@oscarofastora7422]

It's the same with every first boss in a new game. like black knight in shovel knight, I am generally good at games but black knight destroyed me. First bosses are like a skill check to make sure you have the skill to make it through the rest of the game.

[@christinalucero-macafee3657]

Tony614 Yea literally

[@christinalucero-macafee3657]

Dave_of_Spades 69 What made the fight hard to me was when he spammed the combos in the second part of the fight.

[@TheTariqibnziyad]

he tells you : welcome to this island!!!

[@umukzusgelos4834]

Difficulty is never a constant factor in this game, for the ones the bosses are harder for the others they are weaker, their difficulty depends on the players unique mood, conzentration, skill and way of approaching so its clear that this list only fits some of the players

[@ylunnryder3494]

2:14 i actually got a way better one: on my first playthrough i went onto the area and saw the boss candle and i was "Ok, heres the boss, so im going to explore a little bit so that i dont miss anything", then i went for some exploring and 4got about its existance for the next 2 minutes. After theese 2 minutes i was about to enter a room when my controller's battery went out, so i reached for it and inocently walked right, that was the other way around the fight entrance and the clueless me was immensely jumpscared by this thing jumping at you out of nowhere(there was no boss introduction nor music when this happened). Funnier as it was, i immediately went back the way i came and actually leaved the boss room, and the dammed jester followed me outside, i was shocked and ran back into the room to fight it, then the boss intro went in and i was "oh thats the boss i ignored a while ago" but i was so scared and confused that i almost died to him, only to realize it had a easy moveset and kill him with 1 hp left. I wish i had recorded that.

[@KuroNoTenno]

Most of these bocome really easy when you're under 25% equip load.

[@Ghost_Unknown_Fade_Away_]

Not really, you need to gear up when you're in NG+ and above.

[@MagatsuRen]

Murdiella mal is still my #1 hardest to this date. Having an upgraded two handed greatsword with a warhorn makes every other boss a joke. But this one boss, regardless of how much dmg i can dish out i would still have to dodge through everything perfectly since her dmg aint a joke

[@spiderlily7058]

For the Nameless God, I found a bug in the fight. If he gets you in that grab hold when you're hugging the far left wall, he can punch you inside the wall, where you'll be stuck. Boom. Instant death.

[@J.Devitt]

Holy crap, can't believe tree of men is so high on the list; he was probably one of the easiest bosses I faced (I was even surprised how easy he was at that stage in the game). I guess it depends what equipment you have on, cause I had a decent fire resistant shield and some other fairly decent fire resistant equipment, so although I was semi-constantly trying to dodge the flames and his strike attack, if the fire hit me sometimes, it didn't do much. I guess it goes to show that most people's boss and enemy rankings will be different based on their equipment and loadout; so it could vary wildly from person to person/build to build probably.

[@Richie_Godsil]

J. Devitt that's funny, Tree of Men was the only road block that actively frustrated me... (2 handed sword, heavy armor, no shield, faith run)

[@thegamesforreal1673]

Absolutely true. As a mage, the witch of the lake was the easiest shit in the world, just stick under her and pelt her with lightning and fire a few times and she's dead. she has stupidly low magic resist for a magic user...

[@senounatsuru6453]

If you can get an Armor Guardian to drop the Iron Rampart with the required skill to use it, it trivializes almost every boss once you upgrade it a bit. 100% resistance to _EVERY_ damage type at Upgrade level 4.

[@KrimzonFlygon1]

My first Souls game was Bloodborne, so I instinctively build my guys in SAS for evasiveness and constant pressure over defense. A lot of these guys like the Husk become a LOT easier when you can roll through all their attacks.

[@turntapeover5749]

Once you realize the witch is stupid weak against fire, she becomes a lot easier. What I actually hate about her is when she flies off screen, that being said, her magics are dodgeable (what can I say, after dying 50 something times on your first play through, you live and you learn), and she gives you SO many open windows to just bash her pointy hat into oblivion. I admit at first she was THE hardest boss, and an actual road block for a while, but as of now, with the experience I have with her, if she gets to kill me once on a playthrough, she's lucky in her RNG or I played like shit. On the other hand, one boss that still kicks my ass once in a while is the third lamb. So in retrospect, Witch would rank in the easiest (seriously now I just can't believe I died so much to her on my first playthrough) and Third Lamb the hardest.

[@TheRealSuperKirby]

I agree with the disibowled husk and the bitch of the lake But (maybe I was over leveled) I didn't find the nameless god that hard he hit like a truck but died really fast I thought that was how it was supposed to be because the sad music, his sounds of pain, his story, I thought he was intentionally easy to reflect on his character

[@logansehy5677]

if you use heavy armor for the bloodless prince and just block with a good shield, he can't hurt you. Even if he depletes your stamina with pounds, when you get stunned it doesn't hurt you for some reason.

[@Zeybrin]

The unspeakable deep is easy as hell. Get naked and watch him miss all the things with a simple tap of the roll button. He is just exhausting to fight with some starting classes. I one shot the Witch without knowing anything about her... she hit me once or twice. I just rolled through her magic. Granted I was using the Jaws of death and Creed Pitchfire.. so every strong attack I did took a great big chunk out of her health. I was like... that was it? Maybe I got lucky. Everytime she was out of reach I ran away from her so her magic was more spread out by the time it got to me so it was easier to roll through. Dark souls taught me how to deal with filthy magic users. Distance is their strength but too much distance is a weakness. I do the same with the third lamb if I know I won't get close fast enough when he starts charging up his laz0r. Also I was surprised Soden was that far up. He has never killed me. You can throw anything at him when he is jumping at you to make him not reach you which is pretty funny. I HATED the mad alchemist when I first fought him. I didn't realize there was a sanctuary next to his arena so every time I died (which was like 6-8 times) I had to run back from the Smiles Sanc... I got really good at that area though. lol Also the Wurm really chapped my ass I don't even know how many times he killed me. But now I can reliably one shot him. I didn't realize you could jump over his flames/tail attack and my weapon did PITIFUL damage.

[@GamesBrained]

Mad Alchemist is one of my favorites, but damn that experience of yours sounds terrible. That's how I felt on the run to the Husk over and over. I got good at the area, but the Hager's Cavern I eventually just started trying to skip all the enemies I could to preserve my healing for the fight. I don't really know if Sodden should be that high either. I suppose it can be a shock for people who aren't as used to Souls/Salt levels of necessary focus. I am surprised about your story with the witch, I tried sooo many different ways to take her, but I have to admit the thing I didn't do was put more range between us. Very interesting, I may try that next time myself.

[@davidmurray3542]

+GamesBrained with The Husk, I found him easiest on my fastroll / dex character because if you time it right you can get through his forward shot with your invisibility frames. As far as the route to reach him, I found it so much easier to get the dart brand first so you can skip across to the platform with the armor mite and you don't need to go down to where the banshee and shield skeletons are.

[@serlistogiette4168]

Saltfin creature really takes the cake every boss i did on first try

[@the_kovic]

I have no idea why Nameless God is so high. He has to little health to be able to pose a real threat. With the fire buff item, my character killed him in about eight hits.

[@turntapeover5749]

Beating the witch 101: 1- Put an alchemist in Siam Lake Sanctuary (Mag res Up), 2- Put gear with high resistance to Arcane but low in weight to still allow for quick movement, 3- She is stupid weak to Fire, Holy and Poison so if you stack for example a fire wpn with Impen charm+Pitchfire buff, she'll be dead quickly.

[@arshana4081]

Is im the only one that experience the moment where Kraekan Wyrm jump outside its boss arena and make himself killed?

[@yaboi2500]

Arshana 40 I had that happen. Saved me about 8 minutes of struggle.

[@tomvandl]

7 years later, he still glitches out of the game.

[@jabbablade1884]

Welp, the thing that makes Nameless God harder is his glitch attack when he grabs you and slide forward and put you inside a wall and then you are stuck and then you die unable to dodge his attacks. I hope that glitch will be fixed someday, otherwise it's not that annoying if you dodge his grab attacks or if you are far enough from the wall when he grabs you, you wont have problems with him.

[@688208]

I beat the witch first time in my first playtrough, on my second run I did die 2 times to her tough, but two bosses managed to make me rage quit, the alchemist and the nameless god.

[@GamesBrained]

I am really interested at how different the experience can be for different players. What was your build / play style?

[@688208]

GamesBrained My character that is now on NG+, has the following equipament: Jaws of Death +7 used mostly as a two-handed weapon together with the Impen's charm, since I'm not using a shield I opted for the Demon Set that is fully +6, my rings are as follow: Bandaged, Relentless, Mossy and bloodflower, he is lv 83 with 40 points in str, 37 in endurance and 27 in willpower, I gave him swordfigther and heavy armor 5 and added a few points in shield even tough I don't really use it, my playstyle was very agressive, spamming my weapon's heavy attack (buffed with the stone you get from The Iron Ones) whenever it was possible and tanking trough hits with my heavy armor while chugging healing items.

[@N3v3Off]

I beat the witch on my first playthrough and on my first try. I just read what element she's weak to and then 1)flame barrage, 2)flame barrage, 3)flame barrage, 4) the witch is ded

[@tarisco614]

Yeah, good job reading the wiki before every boss. in summary, Git Gud.

[@N3v3Off]

Tony614 um, thats basically is what getting gud is knowing your opponent and advancing your skill guess you're salty because you weren't smart enough to look it up yourself? ;)

[@Kirokill1]

Witch of the lake is number 1 because she one shots and she guarantees that you can't go under her by hint out of bounds. That's just bs.

[@swezface3916]

I beat the Kraeken Wurm first try, but only because a few seconds after I walked into the arena, he got glitched in the floor, where he couldn't hit me. I also got the Coveted to throw the axe outside of the arena, and the ghosts stopped attacking me, so I just spammed throwables until I killed it. When I got to the false jester fight, I was really confused because before I even knew there was a boss there, he jumped at me through the door and started attacking me, so I kind of just ran in the opposite direction, and never even realized that he was a boss until I watched this video.

[@filipgrodzicki9407]

I killed the Third Lamb first try with a whip dexterity build almost completely in surprise. Am I god or super lucky?

[@iii408]

Filip Grodzicki super easy for me as well

[@Crouch_Potato]

I apparently fought him a bit early, and character basically uses the tachi two handed to wreck everything so far. I use the whip for its range when travelling between dungeons, but I've never really used the whip too much in boss fights. Just feels too slow on recovery to make it useful. Plus the extra range means nothing when its a boss who can hit you basically everywhere on the map.

[@Ghost_Unknown_Fade_Away_]

Usually, most of the dex weapons are kind of useless when it comes to NG+ and above.

[@xSayPleasex]

Third Lamb can be easy to just overpower or blitz/heal through... but if your going for a technical fight... let's say "no-dmg" it probably gets my vote for hardest, or Tree of Men.

[@Ghost_Unknown_Fade_Away_]

xSayPleasex I believe spears with attack reach charm will work especially they're on dex category and are dex type. Either you add an elemental buff, prayer buff or incantation buff against the Tree of Men.

[@bloodredroses88]

The sodden knight can be killed using the 5 Granada's you pick up on the way to him. You don't even need to use a weapon to kill him...

[@Firewater513]

Most the ones I remember as being insane were near the top. Personal thoughts and contributions: Kraekyn(sp?) wyrm was my original "Holy shit this is hard!" fight... but only because I was stupid and stubborn. First time playing I played a Str build. Big two handed swords for damage that far outclassed any other weapons I could use at the time, plus lots of stagger. Offense > defense, and I just trusted myself to dodge. Dodge... not block. I was very bad at blocking, worse at parrying, and didn't get the hang of using it against certain enemies until future playthroughs. So I didn't change my strategy when fighting this guy. He's a CAKEWALK if you pick up the fireproof shield you can find shortly before him... but I didn't do that. No, I stubbornly tried to fight him while just AVOIDING all his fire. The fire that would melt you in seconds, and frequently cover most of your arena. It took a LOT of attempts to get some perfect fight against him where my heavy armor wearing ass could chop him enough times before getting burned to death. Yay for fighting bosses on unintentional hard mode? (future souls-like playing has shown I do that a lot, kicking myself in hindsight.) Disembowled Husk was my first thought on 'hardest fight'. I forget which path I took, but apparently it wasn't the 'right' path to get to that point. I fought through some area I was apparently VERY under leveled, and managed to get through it and beat the boss. That was hard. But nothing compared to this guy. The other area might have 'supposed' to be harder, but this boss was FAR harder than the other, and I was still under leveled. I just couldn't beat him. Period. It's not that he made me rage quit the game, but I still hadn't beaten him by the time I got sidetracked and stopped playing the game for a while. When I came back to the game, I decided to start over from the beginning (and beat the kraeken wyrm the easy way that time). It was a BIG accomplishment for me when i beat him this time around and progressed past where I left off. Witch of the Lake... yeah, I agree. She's the hardest. Husk might have been my bane first time through, but SHE is the real hardest in the game. Those spells are just unfair. They're not the hardest things to dodge, but one you want to be closer to her for, the other far. If you get too much distance from her she'll almost always punish you by using her machine gun spell while you're at a spot with no way to dodge. And really it just takes one slip up and you're one shot. Nameless God. I kinda agree he shouldn't be #2, but I'm not oblivious as to why. If you just fight him legitimately, he could be called the hardest fight in the game. Even over the Witch. His attacks aren't THAT hard to dodge, but they can be unrelenting, and punishing. Like the witch, small slip up and you will get HURT, unless you're just wearing all the armor in the world. The reason he's not THAT hard is because a few popular builds make short work of him. If you go big two handed str builds (like my first run), well he staggers REAL easy for a final boss. Keep the pressure on him and he's not really that hard. And if you run an evil caster build, you can melt him in mere seconds. Like.. quickest fight in the game he'll just die that fast. Anti-climactic after all the buildup. But, if you just use some random sword or something and try slugging it out with him... yeah, he's a proper souls-like boss. You'll spend more time dodging than anything and just be trying to whittle his health a few hits at a time.

[@Yoshistar81]

Real surprised to see third lamb so high up. Took way less tries than most other bosses so far. Maybe it was just from attacking at a distance via whip the whole feet keeping me out of burst range? But I didn't have much trouble dodging once I learned the attacks

[@hainsay]

You can avoid quite a few of Third Lamb's attacks by jump attacking when they attack, and following to a roll if it's a delayed attack.

[@Vladimir-xe7cp]

This video was made 5 years ago, and for the sake of god after hearing what he said about "the nameless god" being ez, i am gonna throw myself in the front of a car at 100mph This boss made me unninstal the game with his magic attack that litterally one shots me with the shield up, after 27 tries i killed him and i was so happy (i had the game free from epic games store, installed last week finished 2 days ago)

[@aphextwinkie410]

Wait...people found the witch difficult? I showed up late game with jaws of death IV and absolutely wrecked her.

[@Ghost_Unknown_Fade_Away_]

Wait, till you reach NG+ above without buffs or creed buffs. You'll see what I'm saying... in the end. You'll be the one who'll be wreck if you don't gear up.

[@robertsilvermyst7325]

I felt the Untouched Inquisitor was the easiest boss battle ever. Not just in S&S, but out of every boss fight I have played in my life. Every attack is so easy to dodge, and I usually end up wrecking her in less than a minute.

[@karlwittenburg5868]

GUYS! GUYS! GUYS! Melee characters can pretty easily cheese the Tree of Men! Step one, get class 3 swordfighter Step two, transmute a great sword into the shrouded bulwark, and get it upgraded to at least level 3 or 4 Step three, use an attack range charm Step four, one hand the sword(hence class 3 skill) and have the Phoenix rondache as your shield After you kill all the hanging caged men, and he goes into stage 2, stand on the left side of the stage on the second platform from the top. Whenever he uses that attack where he slams his arm across one of the platforms, he'll pull back slightly before he swings. Stay on the platform, and watch for whenever he pulls back to launch that attack. Once he does that, the attack will go through on whatever platform you're standing on when he starts the windup, but can't change if you move to a different platform before he executes. Simply watch for the wind up, then jump up to the next platform and swing at his head which should be almost level with your sword. If jumping up will cause you to get fireblasted on that platform, jump up anyway and immediately block, as the fire jet might stop before the boss raises his head again and you might be able to get in a swing or 2. Remember, you will still block the damage if your guard is up even if you take it from the back

[@TheSamuraiGoomba]

The trick to the Tree of Men is to not worry until the second phase. Take all the time you need to avoid the flame-throwing guys and kill them. Use the charm that increases your reach if you are using a melee build. Learn the timings on when the flames shoot out vs when the light appears. The key to the second phase, which is the phase that always killed me, is to stay in the upper left two platforms. The top left and left middle platforms are where you need to be. If you stay there, you can coerce the Tree to do his slamming attacks, which you can then jump over. Then you have time to hit him. If you try to do pretty much anything else, the Tree quickly becomes very chaotic in concert with the fire spurting everywhere. I recommend staying in the upper left and jumping when he swings his arm, and just focusing on getting the timing down to avoid the fire and his arm swings. It's the safest tactic.

[@Xellos14]

I don't remember much of Salt and Sanctuary aside from getting the giant iron shield from the huge knights right before the dragon boss fight early on, leveling it up to almost full damage negation, and running with that for the rest of the game. My memory might be failing me, but I think it blocked pretty much all damage of all types. I didn't even wear armor, for it being so heavy.

[@camicom1515]

So many factors involved in determining boss difficulty. The most important being poison. Are you a Stoneroot? You should be, because poison murders everything, including the Witch of The Lake. I slaughtered her almost exclusively with a barrage of wraithfangs. Seriously, don't underestimate the Stoneroot creed, or anything poison.

[@jeremywellman3518]

with the mad alchemist, he always just jumps to one of the edges for me and dies about ten seconds later since i don't have to deal with the slimes.

[@erberor8007]

Listen you try going after the kraeken wyrm with a poleaxe and tell me how far that gets you. Okay, now do it with a knife. Without the shield. The shield does make the fight vastly easier, but if you can't invest the points to get level 2 shields for one fight, you're stuck with trying to mitigate it with fire resist gear, and while the blacksmith set+the impen ring gives you some really high fire defence, getting hit by more than a couple frames of the wyrm's fire attacks can leave you dead, and the wounding you get from that only makes it more likely that you'll die more as the fight goes on. Now, most people are probably using a bladed weapon of some sort, which means their fight with the wyrm is going to be LONG with how resistant it is to slashing damage. Combine this with the wounding issue I mentioned, as well as running out of heals, and you have a recipe for a very hard battle.

[@angobongothelastofthemohic3632]

Ng++++ how god help me I hate myself

[@merogic]

true

[@kyleauthinus7517]

Get blood magic from the betrayers and get fire and sky creed and get the two non healing items. Its the only way

[@wrestlingconnoisseur]

The secret to beating the Witch of the Lake is chiefly to run the fuck away from her when she's loading up to machine gun the crap out of you, as the fireballs tend to lack ranged accuracy. Still she kicked my ass probably more than forty times.

[@luciuspentagone1286]

There's more than just 4 optional bosses in this game. Actually only about more than half are mandatory. The 4 bosses you refer to are "Hidden" bosses (apart from Unspeakable Deep which is mandatory to encounter). Example: You take the shortcut from the village of Smiles and drop to Sunken Keep, Queen of Smiles, Mad Alchemist and False Jester are all optionnal. And I will need to finish my current playthrough to confirm, but so far (now at the Crypt of the dead God) the whole Redshift path is optionnal (meaning the Tree of Men, Disembowelled Husk and That Stench most Foul are also optionnal). Oh and Carsejaw is also optionnal and btw I believe you mixed his lore with Ronin Cran because Carsejaw was the bastard son of a Tristini noble that usurped power by instigating a witch hunt to get the people support, was made duke, and eventually lost people support because he went too far and killed too many innocents. But he died to fever (which could explain his overall lack of any physical prowess) depriving his people of vengeance. He was an ass hole. xD

[@misterG2006]

The Disembowled Husk caused me so much trouble....even more annoying when I realised you don't need to kill him. You can skip Hagar Cavern and most of Hall of Red Cages.

[@forbjok]

A good number of the bosses in the main list here are also completely optional: That Stench Most Foul, Carsejaw The Cruel, Bloodless Prince, Queen of Smiles, The Coveted, Tree of Men and Disemboweled Husk. Mad Alchemist, False Jester and Kraekan Cyclops are sort of optional as well, although you do have to kill either the cyclops or the other two.

[@janpavlik3170]

the thing about SAS bosses is that every build has different experience with the battles and more importantly they attacs are quite random and do not usually follow up, so for exapmle fi you are lucky (like I was in my last playthrough) then the mad alchemist will jumt to side of the arena and just throw the poison guys over and over again down to the smaller arena... you can just oblitera him right there with no problem and the boss would end on the last spot, but if you are unlucky (like I was in my first playthroug) then the bos will fuck the poison guys and spawn the black, blue and red potions one after another and that will obliterate you without many chances to heal and trade :D same goes for the witch, you can be lucky and she wont use her machine gun magic when she is far from you and same goes for all the other bosses, the nameless god can rip you apart if he will do his light spawning attack often with the grab, but if he will do the sword throw often, then you will take him down easilly... murdiealla mal is the same example, she has hard to dodge and easy to dodge attacs... it goes for almost all bosses the same... BUT when the boss hass lots of HP then he is more likely to use all his attacks enough, that is the case of Skourzh, you have to deal a lot of damage before you takehim down you you probably will have to deal with the lightning ball and his dragon breath, and the most funny thing that proves my point? That stench most foul has an insane attack almost nobody ever saw... but if he eventually does it, and you are caaught in it, then you are just gone :D he killed me out of the blue this way :D I think the developers wanted to balance him to have this attack but not to live too long so he wont spray you with it... that is good, but they should add feature that ensures he does the attack when he is around 40 or 30 HP, that would be great for all the bpsses to be certain, they will use all the atacks they have... enough of my SAS blabering :D (check out saltandsanctuary pictures on deviantar, I am making series of all bosses there :-) )

[@arieldawn3452]

I DESPISE THAT DAMN WITCH!!!!! I thought the tree of men was obnoxiously hard with it's flamethrower platforms and hard to hit weak spots, but then I got to the lake and I was just enraged by how psychotic the amount of damage her spells could cause. It ultimately felt like the only reason I was able to win was because I got lucky. It even hurts re-playability, albeit slightly. Shows how good the rest of the game is I guess.

[@TheSamuraiGoomba]

The easiest will always be Queen of Smiles. You cannot possibly lose to her if you have any decent shield. Even the wooden targe is fine. The BEST she can do is some gradual chip damage off whatever shield you use to block her attacks. Dried King can't do anything either. You can just equip fire-resistant gear and the amount of damage you do to him/whether or not you can stunlock him will be irrelevant. He winds up way too slow to hit you 90% of the time and the other 10% you can just block with the rondache.

[@purehollow]

I am not lying if I said that I died to kraekan cyclops more than the witch of lake and the nameless god or any other boss in the game , took me seven attempt to beat him , his insane range and hit box was so annoying and hard to dodge that's why he is tge hardest for me

[@Archygoo]

How is the Witch number one? She was so easy to learn. Basically while she's floating, you just have to be below her so her minigun attack doesn't hit you. Her homing orb things are easy to dodge cause they'd hit the ground all at once if you time the dodge correct, and her melee attacks are easy to predict. She was no problem for me. The biggest problem for me was probably The Nameless god.

[@vLarsn]

Finished the game earlier today and the hardest bosses for me was: The Kraeken Wyrm, Nameless God and The Tree of Men was by far the hardest for me. I think my damage was very low for Kraeken Wyrm and Tree of Men. I was surprised to see the Witch, Third Lamb and Disemboweled Husk so high on the list. Died once to the Witch and first tried the other two. And I see why you didn't find Nameless God hard. You were dealing an insane amount of damage. I don't think I even did 1/3 of that.

[@Crazyoldman84]

The witch of the lake is one of the best fights and really clever design. At first she seems tough but after you learn her moves it becomes a really fun fight. No Shield is best.

[@vladi3862]

the stench most foul is literally one of the hardest bosses in ng+ because his little shit minions take at least 3 hits to kill with a decent weapon

[@Ghost_Unknown_Fade_Away_]

Iron Rampart (VI) - It negates all attacks that it receives from the enemy except it can't block the type of enemies that grabs players. It's like part of the newbie set. It can be obtained from Armor Guardian from Castle Storms. You can see a lot of information in the menu about the loots of the enemies that you've slained in the game itself. It records the enemies that you've slained and how many times you've have been killed by a specific enemy. Note that it can block the enemy's attack from behind even though you're blocking while facing away to the enemy. It's like a glitch and is the most strongest shield in the game. Indeed, it's the heaviest shield among them all. Well, I'm not sure about the items from the Cat Merchant from Floating Island that is isolated from the start of the game. Because they removed it from the story of the game. There's also Wolf Armor Set (unknown) that cannot be obtained through story but can be obtained through the Cat Merchant. Which can only be reached the island by using ladder glitch to get there or using the glitch method from this link: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qHmXqX9oqNOFjtk

[@AdjustedDisparity]

actually i somehow killed the witch of the lake on my second try on my strength character. i dont remember her doing like any spells and she just floated around until she died

[@FerunaLutelou]

The tree of men is so easy. Just equip all of your fire resist gear (blacksmith set + Ring + pumpkin) and Fire will deal almost no damage to you. If you block (doesnt matter that much if you use or dont use a shield) when flamethrowers or the boss attack you with fire you will get even less damage. Get yourself a weapon with good range and beating this boss will be easy. Same set up for the Dragon on top of the casstle. Same set up for the diseboweled husk, but also get a shield (any shield is fine). He doesnt have that much HP and most of the damage you can get from him is fire damage.

[@nuneselso]

The third Lamb and the pirate were pain pain in the ass

[@thealdoc]

You can dodge through the third lamb's lightening. I never se people knowing that for some reason.

[@hounddog5]

Very interesting! I agree with most of the list, although I found the witch and husk much easier, and the alchemist much harder. My first play through was a dodgy ninja sword guy...good at dodging, bad at getting hit. The witch and husk I both beat first try as I was fast enough to avoid all the attacks. The alchemist messed with the environment so much that I had a hard time avoiding all the attacks. Since you said you didn't understand, I think anyone who was in my position would have a difficult time beating the last boss. I was dodging in the 25-50% range, and it's just too slow to properly avoid attacks, but doesn't provide enough protection to avoid getting two shot. Someone on reddit suggested going naked and I beat him first try after that...just increasing the rollspeed was enough.

[@GamesBrained]

I was on the other end of the spectrum. I was sometimes even going fat-rolls with something like 88 - 90+ percentage, and I crushed him. Dodging was hardly an issue, I just tanked the damage and kept on smackin' him.

[@hasibullah3902]

the witch of the lake took me about 70 or more tries.1 magic spell combined with the machine gun spell is the deadliest.

[@joshdoughty1789]

I fought the witch this morning for the first time and didn’t even get enough souls to level up

[@dylanr.cerezo4325]

Those fucking Unicorns in Siam Lake killed me more than 90% of the bosses.

[@wr5488]

For the final boss I noticed that bigger, heavier weapons work best against him. Same with Carsejaw (on one file I 3 shotted him). The opposite is true for the Bloodless Prince however, big weapons are horrible against him. My top 5 hardest are: 1. Witch of the Lake (but I found this fight to be unbalanced, sometimes you just can't dodge when theres multiple attacks on screen at once). 2. Nameless God 3. Murdiella Mal 4. Third Lamb 5. The Coveted My top 5 easiest are: 1. False Jester (never lost against across 6 characters) 2. Sodden Knight (never lost against across 6 characters) 3. That Stench Most Foul 4. Dried King 5. Disembowled Husk

[@dragoslayer1327]

Lists are gonna differ, that's whatever. I think Mal is easily the hardest optional boss, but that's just because I love heavy weapons and dodging her slashes is basically impossible if you don't have max roll distance. But I take major issue with saying there's only 4 optional bosses. There's multiple skippable ones. Cyclops or False Jester are skippable if you kill the other, and Coveted can be skipped if you take the path down before the boat towards Carsejaw, who can also be skipped by just not going towards him, and do some butthole clenching dodges around the Spindlebeasts. Not to mention Bloodless Prince, who, just like Ronin Cran, Carsejaw, and a few others,you have to go out of your way to fight Edit: This doesn't actually count, but some are also skippable via tech (not glitches), like using the roll/jump boost to jump the torch bridge in the Dome, thus skipping Untouched Inquisitor and/or Third Lamb

[@TaoScribble]

I didn't even reach the unspeakable deep, but the other optional bosses were a cakewalk. The Forgotten Three weren't even a threat to me. Weird. Personally, I put the Disemboweled Husk as harder than the Witch. With the Witch I understood that she was giving some sort of tells that I was too busy panicking to learn. With the Husk I tried everything except change my build and was still getting wrecked. Ugh, that guy.

[@datboi2250]

Alchemist should be the first one. You stand above him and hit him with like 5 lightvessels. Done. Also the wyrm is super easy. You don the Blacksmith clothes, get a shield and then you severely inconvienience him with your sword until he commits toaster-bath.

[@dmua9551]

I myself kinda moped the floor with the forgotten King by just wearing Titan Armor (Save the Helmet) And just Messing them all the hecc up with mah Greatsword.

[@hostmonkeyjezriel6432]

I killed bloodless prince, witch, Lamb and many other by turtling-up like behind my almost max-out Iron Rampant sheild. That soak-up all the damage but because of its weight I had a hard time dodging the small doll ceramic-like knife weilding that looks like the "The Cruel" sword and unicorn that somehow goes through my almost unreachable sheild.

[@cogwheel6076]

I honestly had the most troubles with the false jester..it was probably since I was playing an archer.

[@deon6045]

"I'm not including any optional bosses" *first boss is optional* So much for that I guess. If I could nitpick a bit two years after the fact... I didn't even know about the Stench Most Foul boss, or the trigger happy corpse-pirate(disemboweled husk) that comes before him in my first playthrough. They are completely optional. I'm pretty sure the same is true of Carsejaw, but I'll give him a pass since I might've just forgotten whether it gives some mandatory item or something. The False Jester, funny enough, is also skip-able by taking an alternative route to get to the NPC giving the brand. I'm pretty sure the Bloodless Prince is also optional, since I remember specifically having to backtrack on my second playthrough of the game, thinking to myself "wait, I'm at the end of the game already? Wasn't there some giant boss or something in this game?" Was there an update some time after this video in which these skips became possible?

[@mc9723]

Only reason I lucked out the witch 3rd try was she didn't use that insane pseudo-beam move at all the attempt I killed her. Annihilated me the other two times.

[@mic01851165]

Although aside of that stupid Witch and The Third Lamb, none of the bosses in this game is all that difficult, but the feeling, the design, the environment really makes this game incredibly good. Kinda hope From funded them so they can have a sequel which is more polished and balanced!

[@desquitadoralphrendezd.3226]

the tree of men was a bit easy if you concentrate enough to know your environment. The kraekan wyrm also is placed too high though different players use different playstyles but still its easy. Disemboweled husk too was placed higher than expected. Tip: just be versatile and you can beat these bosses with relative ease

[@redrounin1440]

The nameless god has a machine gun magic spray that will stunlock you to death if you let it, probably why he's so high. I died to that a few times before i figured out you can knock him out of it if you're close, and if you're far you can run away and jump up the walls to dodge it. He's got nothing on that witch though. It took 20 deaths before I was willing to take off my heavy armor. Once I did, to be fair, dodging that bs was a piece of cake. Ditch your armor, two hand something strong, buff that shit and go to town. Probably the quickest bossfight once you know how to handle her.

[@tealkanderson5796]

redrounin I never taken off my armor and never used a shield and it taken me 5 tries to kick her FUCKING ass. I was using the cruel's great sword and was using the sodden's armor.

[@9553shadow]

the sodden knight is the easiest boss by far I can beat him without leveling up. all you need to do is to block his attacks (when he uses his lightning back away from him before his fist hits you and breaks your guard) and then attack him 2 times and go back to blocking, keep doing that and you will win easy.

[@echoesofdisgrace1598]

In my current playthrough of this game, I've fought the Sodden Knight, Mad Alchemist, Queen of Smiles, Kraekan Cyclopes (fuck that thing), and the False Jester, in that order. the Queen is the ONLY one that I have not died to. It honestly suprised me that she was that high on the list. Also, I'm still stuck on the Jester and the Cyclopes

[@markgaskell5370]

Strange how this game has such wildly different boss experiences for gamers. I found the with to be really easy, I stayed close to her, her machine gun attack was easy to get behind and her swipe didn't worry me, damage wise, the homing blood missiles were easy to jump over as was the circling things. The mad alchemist though. Fuck that guy.

[@smockytubers1188]

If you use a shield against the golem he pretty much can't do anything, and he's so slow there's like no way to not block in time. I could see it being tough for non-shield guys though.

[@smockytubers1188]

Also, I actually wasn't fuming at the Witch. I enjoyed losing a few times to the Nameless God because the aura was cool, and I thought the Dragon was legitimately hard, and it was my fault I died as many times as I did. The one that did piss me off royally was the husk. I even had enough fire resistance to take practically no damage while blocking, but he would just sit there and spam non-stop as it knocked me backwards until I ran out of stamina. The AOE rain was what killed me 9/10 times, but it was really because my stamina was ALWAYS gone from the straight shots, and that was with me barely getting a strike in edgewise. Overall, it took forever to usually end up failing, then you have to go through those troll skeletons (the real worst enemy of the game) to get back to him again. Honestly, I usually tried to just fall and take 90% of my health as damage rather than tangle with the angsty bones.

[@leld211]

the dificcult depends on your build and class the hardest for one can be the easiest for another.

[@Lucifierium]

I took the Witch of the Lake first try first playthrough. Really no idea how people's experience with the difficulty varies so greatly from person to person. The Nameless God took me the most tries for sure

[@ravendeath19]

Look for all who have trouble with bosses and elemental attacks the tower shield iron ramant is the beat one there its a class 4 tower shield with base 1 grade states over 90. Level this bad boy to 5-7. And the only thing stoping u is grabs and stagger. HINT: this shield is very heavy but managable is u use the right gear