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Tuesday 25 October 2011

Boss battle strategy: Ornstein & Smoug

OK, before i start on the strategy for this boss(es) battle I'd to highlight a couple of things I've been informed of which are important to know before you start the fight and a possible glitch which I've experienced too.

So, apparently the order in which you kill the bosses affects which items you receive afterwards. For example defeating Smoug first grants you much better loot than vice versa. If you do manage to defeat Smoug first apparently you get Ornstein's armour, however defeating Ornstein first gets you the Leo ring (which increases your counter attack ability - not quite sure how this works yet!). GLITCH(?): When i went in i managed to kill Ornstein first and ran to his corpse to loot the Leo ring however i got killed by Smoug afterwards but i kept the ring. I later returned for round 2, again killing Ornstein first and got ANOTHER Leo ring - possibly worth exploiting although I'm not sure how precious or valuable the Leo ring is.

Defeating Smoug first is very difficult in my opinion as he's by far the slower of the two and you'll have Ornstein sweeping around stabbing you in the back the whole time with his speed and reach, therefore this strategy will be advising you to do it in the reverse order, however if you're really keen on getting the Ornstein armour it may be advisable to try and do it, i just didn't know about it at the time.


On with the strategy! -
Preliminaries:
You will want to equip yourself with some very good armour before entering this battle and i wore the Havel's armour set. You can find this in the fireplace near the bonfire after you fall through the glass when making it past the two pain in the ass archers outside. There's an illusionary wall and when you hit it you will go down into the basement behind the fireplace. Be weary of mimicry chests here, a good tactic for checking each chest is to hit it first then back away, try to do this a couple of times on each chest as your first hit may not make contact and the mimicrys generally kill you in one with their first attack.
The Havel's armour will blunt Ornstein's attacks quite a lot however, and Smoug's hammer blows but ideally you will want to be dodging the latter all together as they're very devastating! The armour itself is very heavy, and it's a good idea to wear it in conjunction with the Havel's ring - i explained where to find and loot this as part of my Hydra guide. Make sure you have enough stamina for running around and deflecting Ornstein's hits using your shield - you can do this by eating the green blossom mentioned in my capra demon guide or equipping the grass crest shield.
Secondly make sure you're stocked up on arrows before you enter and have you're bow equipped as a secondary. You can buy some sweet arrows from the giant smith in Anor Londo but they're f***ing expensive for what they are if you ask me! - i generally go for standard arrows and spam but i guess for this boss battle it might be worth splashing your souls on some sweet magic arrows, just be careful not to waste them! Also note that the dragonslayer arrows are only usable with the dragonslayer bow which can be found outside the Anor Londo great hall roof, accessible by jumping through the broken glass on the top floor and looting the shining skeleton corpse visible on the roof. Haven't tried this bow myself yet, but it looks awesome and very powerful!!

Strategy:
Start off by running behind a pillar so you position Smoug behind it. You'll want to keep your eyes on Smoug for most of the battle as hes got the stronger attacks, always hide behind the pillars from him and Ornstein will generally come around to get you - these are your best chances to attack him. I used pyromancy on him which killed him in around 4 spells but if you don't have that try some strong sorcery spells or even pure strength attacks - whatever you go for, just go all out on him to finish him quickly. Once you've killed Ornstein, grab his Leo ring and again, position a pillar between you and Smoug.
Smoug's hammer is now powered up with lightning making it even  more powerful so stay out of the way of those blows!! Keep a pillar between you and him at all times by running round in circles, and use ranged attacks to kill him. He's greatly exposed just after he comes up from his long sweeping attack, use spells or arrows on him now into his belly. He doesn't have too much health and without the help of his buddy Ornstein is a bit useless!

Victory!
Once you defeat him go up either of the lifts and explore the top floor before going through the large door beyond the bonfire as theres some nice armour up there!

Hope that helped and you now have one of the most annoying boss battles out of the way! :D

Thanks to Andy for the info on the order of the bosses.

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