Still fighting them, in the latest attempt I walked in with a head full of plans, switched my shield for the moonlight butterfly one hoping to get some cheap hits in before they're upon me, the dragonslayer closed the distance in under two seconds, I didn't switch back fast enough, three seconds later I was dead.
I'm convinced this boss fight is designed to be a giant "fuck you" to anyone without xboxlive.
@Cognisant
I killed it on my second attempt playing offline. Just back-pedal around the room with shield up and Ornstein will chase after you. After you block or he whiffs an attack, switch to two-handed and get in a hit. Out of curiosity what weapon/shield combo and build are you using?
I was using the Black Knight Greataxe on my first kill. On my next one I used a Divine Gargoyle's Halberd. If you have it, you can use any variation of a high-level spear. Spear+10, Lightning/Divine/Fire Spear all works. Being able to attack with a shield up is a huge bonus. The fight will take longer this way since it doesn't deal as much damage as two-handing a weapon with really high base damage, but as long as you're patient you'll have no problems.
If you have one, try to use a Greatshield, it will stagger Ornstein on one of his specific attacks when you block and gives you a free hit. The high stability really helps with Smough. I used an Eagle Shield + 5 for the high lightning resist.
Also, don't even go near Smough until Ornstein is dead. Just keep baiting out Ornstein who is faster. When Smough gets close just keep manoeuvring away, don't worry about attacking until you're out of his range and can attack Ornstein again.
So basically the easiest way to win the fight is:
- Greatshield
- High-level Spear OR weapon with high base damage that you can two-hand
- Don't worry about Smough, just kite him around the room and whittle away Ornstein when he leaves an opening
Might take a few goes, even though I killed it on my second attempt it still took me 4 attempts on my next character. I haven't played up to this point on NG+, if I remember to update here I'll let you know how it goes.
I don't really like games where you are just expected to beat yourself up for hours on end until you do something perfectly correctly. I think the last game I played where I invested so much time was when a guy at college convinced me to invest in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out on the SuperNintendo (I think). Oh my. I had all the patterns memorized, and I did beat the game... but never again.
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