Ranking DARK SOULS Bosses from EASIEST to HARDEST - Tier List 

Personally find sif the hardest fight, as its too difficult to see through the tears in my eyes

7:24 Hundreds of hours on this game, and I've never seen that spider butt attack.

The homeward-bone dryness of the humor in this video is impeccable

The fun thing about Kalameet's “he breathes fire” intro is that it's fire in appearance only - when in fact, it's a dark sorcery dealing magic and physical damage.

16:37 "and he also has a super rare backflip attack" 1000+ hours and I've never seen this attack, wow

My personal hardest in Darksouls 1 (and third hardest in the Darksouls trilogy) is Manus because of how relentless he attacks. Will you do a DS2 list soon too btw?

The fact that this tier list is almost in linear order really shows how finely crated DS1 was, despite it's lack of polish

Currently replaying DS for the 7th time and so far I have died the most to Capra and O&S. On my first playthrough, I think Kalameet was the hardest. And the Nito gank was a nightmare before I figured out you have to stay where you land.

It’s amazing how if I put together my own list how it would probably look almost entirely different. Not that that’s a bad thing, I still find it so cool how some people can find certain bosses so easy while others feel like they’re up against a wall.

Not really a comment on the difficulty of the boss but when I was about 9 and playing dark souls for the first time (and being a dumb kid no where near beating it)… I remember vividly going on the wiki and looking up things about the Taurus demon and gold pine resin and Uchigatana and falling in love with the game because I truly felt like I was learning everything I could just to have a slight edge against this game that was out to get me… 9 year old me still couldn’t beat Taurus but it’s the thought that counts

I feel like the zweihander breaks half the bosses. Just beat my first playthrough with a basic str build and for some reason I beat many of the "hardest bosses" in 2 tries (O&S, Five Kings, Sif, Nito, Capra) yet somehow Stray Demon and Bell's Gargoyle absolutely pushed my shit in

23. Pinwheel 22. Moonlight Butterfly 21. Asylum demon 20. Gaping 19. Priscilla 18. Gwyndolin 17. Firesage 16. Stray 15. Ceaseless (only up higher because I couldn’t perfect the cheese for many tries) 14. Iron golem 13. Seath 12. Quelaag 11. Centipede 10. Capra .. (more so the arena and his dogs) 9. Sif 8. Nito 7. Sanctuary guardian 6. Kalameet 5. Gwyn 4. Bell gargoyles (really destroyed me early game) 3. O&S 2. Artorias 1. Manus I think that’s all of them !

we all know Solaire sad ending mini 'boss' should be on s tier because how hard it is to kill our best companion...

I love getting your perspective on these sorts of things with how talented you are at FromSoft games! I'm surprised you had Seath so high, maybe I'm just OP by the time I get to him, but I've never found him difficult. Also, I didn't know about the Taurus Demon ladder in my first playthrough haha

Learning O&S is one of my favorite memories ever playing games

Sif's fight might be B tier, but refighting him on ng+ is easily an SS tier based on emotional damage alone.

The hardest boss is tricky but for me it's probably always gonna be kalameet. Gwyn is really not that hard parrying in dark souls 1 is very easy especially with his massive jumpslash.

Not gonna lie, I didn't know there was a ladder in Taurus Demon's arena for a long time, and I played the games in reverse (3 -> 2 -> 1). Going from the high-speed of everything in 3, and slowing down to the pace of 1, it was actually a challenging fight. But I agree that it is a solid early boss that forces you to really learn to play the game am its slower and more measured pace - Asylum Demon really is just "get behind it, and roll when it wants to butt slam you", which just isn't enough.

I had the most trouble with Manus and Kalameet on my playthrough. Manus because I could not grasp dodging his mega combo attack, and Kalameet because I could not accept beating him without cutting the tail. O&S also took me a ton of tries - I feel like patience is such a huge key with them (for separation) and I'm terrible at it.

“Just don’t tell anybody I’m trying to grow the channel.” For that, I’m a sub

Bed of Chaos is the only boss in the game that will always give me a hard time no matter how many times I fight it. I have no idea why. It isn't "hard" and with speedrun strats you don't even need to get into its "bed of chaos". I just always get swiped or slip off the tree roots.

In my opinion, after just completing DS1 for my first time, Kalameet is 10 times harder than Ornstein and Gwyn. The rest of the list isn't bad up until that point. Gwyn was a joke I brought Solaire just because I could, but I ended fighting and killing Gwyn all on my own. Glad they made him a lot harder as the Soul of Cinder.

Manus was by far the hardest for me when playing through the first time. To be fair, I was crippling myself by only using 10 +1 estus (cause I was an idiot) during the fight and mid-rolling. He took me about 2 hours while all the other boss fights at most took me 2-4 tries. It’s definitely a very subjective topic though. I believe most people will have a similar-ish top 10, but the top 3 has big potential to be vastly different amongst other people. My brother, for example, beat Manus first try but was decimated by Stray Demon…while I kicked his AOE spamming ass first try lmao. It’s all about your experience, play-style and perception. But hey, thats why souls tier-lists are dope!

Man, my first playthrough, it took me 3 weeks to beat O&S, the amount of achievement i felt after i finally beat Super Ornstein was astronomical.

Safe to say you did a good job with this and we'd like to see more. I'd put Gwyn lower only because about three parries you can beat him, but good list.

Please for the love of God, do the rest of the series This is the first video from your channel I've ever seen and I was planning to watch the rest only to get bummed out that you had just uploaded this one today lmao Love the humor especially

The Heide Dragon Rider is the hardest of all the games, cant think of any way to cheese him.

Dude I really feel like you and your content are way over looked. I thoroughly Enjoy your videos man. Keep it up!

Gywns easier to learn imo then O&S

For me after multiple playthroughs 26. Moonlight Butterfly 25. Asylum Demon 24. Pinwheel 23. Ceaseless Discharge 22. Iron Golem 21. Taurus Demon 20. Gaping 19. Demon Firesage 18. Gwendolyn 17. Bed Of Chaos 16. Crossbreed Pricilla 15. Gravelord Nito 14. Stray Demon 13. Seath the Scaless 12. Sif 11. Bell Gargoyles 10. Centipede Demon 9. Quelaag 8. Gwyn, Lord Of Cinder 7. Sanctuary Guardian 6. Bed Of Chaos 5. 4 Kings 4. Manus 3. Ornstein and Smough 2. Artorias 1. Kalameet

Dope I literally just beat the game for the first time LMAO the timing

Hardest one for me (i speedrun a lot) is o&s. On my first playthrough it was manus.

I just finished Ds1 a few weeks ago actually. Funnily enough alot of the hardest bosses ( 4 kings and Gwyn ) I breezed through but then some of the earlier bosses gave me alot of trouble. It also made me realize how op poise is pls Elden ring re-add it

Time to add this to the commands! Wonderful video as always :)

I used to have a harder time with Manus than Artorias. Artorias is easy to dodge roll but Manus goes all wild and scared me.

I had the most trouble with Gwyn, Manus, and the Moonlight Butterfly. I beat many of the proclaimed hardest bosses on my first try (though I did have Solaire for O&S) -- but ran across darkroot garden at least a couple dozen times to trying to kill that damn butterfly! Gwyn had me screening obscenities for hours, and I just gave up and cheesed Manus with arrows from the ledge before the white wall (going back for the black bow and feather arrows became its own sub-quest).

Edit: If you want a emotional fight for Artorias and Sif: Restriction and Pledge for Artorias and Torn Apart (Bleach) for Sif after you finish the DLC.

i would've never expected this kind of video from you but god i'm happy

Squilla: "memes are dumb and degenerate" also Squilla "memes in every single boss description"

The Sir Artorias & Sif really hit hard on the feelings.

The true hardest boss is Centipede Demon when you're doing a pyro run and you didn't realize he was immune to fire :)

I wanna know how I can listen to the music you're playing in the background. Listening to this felt like a nice, soothing head massage, even while it was juxtaposed with clips and commentary of some of my most incredibly rage-inducing memories. Fantastic combo.

After spending hundreds of hours playing DS1 over the last 10ish years, I've decided that Manus is the hardest boss. His attacks are relentless and he has a bunch of moves that you need to watch for. Plus he has a ton of health (WAY more than Gwyn), and can't be parried. I honestly think of Manus as a sort of alternative final boss, representing darkness and humanity, acting as a foil to Gwyn who represents gods and light.

Squilla long time stream watcher from 2014 to 2018-ish (life got busy) this was a GREAT video, first of your videos i've seen of this type, your voice is concise as ever, and i'd love more of this content from you.

i literally beat ds1 for the first time like 30 minutes ago so here i am

It was only until very recently that I decided to give these games a try mainly from watching your videos that I accidentally stumbled on but anyway I ended up buying Bloodborne and DS3 with all dlc. Now I see why this series is so praised because i’m having a blast with both titles and plan on buying the older ones too. Thanks for the content and thanks for unknowingly inspiring me to try this series out you have earned a sub.

I just completed DS last week, killing every bosses for the first time, after having played through Bloodborne, Sekiro and DS3 multiple times in the last year and a half, and having completed DS2 one time. I have to say that in over 600 hours of Fromsoft games, the first few hours of DS were the only times I felt frustrated. There was a lot of bullshit here and there that you mentioned and I did not enjoy much, except Sif, Sen’s Fortress and the Tombs of Giants. The DLC was fun too, but damn Manus did beat my ass. After I couldn’t time the rolls correctly every time, I tried to get the pendant to help me with the magic attacks. Looking on the net, I figured it was not surprising I hadn’t find it earlier (an invisible wall unlocked by casting a light in an area which is well-lit). I had sold my bug helmet for some souls after I cleared the tombs of giants, so no light there. I also exchanged the lanterns for the fog ring, so not that way neither. And I had killed that mushroom lady from a distance with like two arrows, thinking it was a monster, so she couldn’t sell me the light spell. I resigned to learning how to dodge every spell. After so many deaths, and thinking I couldn’t do it, I decided to go for the ninja roll ring to see how little it would help. I got him down to one hit that try, and killed him easily the attempt after. So weird that dodging feels wrong in this game, and that the ring that makes dodging intuitive and closer to the other games is from speaking to a cat hidden in the forest and then pushing a ninja down a cliff. Kalameet was a blast with that ring too, took me three tries. It was the best boss in this game. (Also I never summon, those that summon must have a different take on difficulty I guess).

Seath was too high imo, all you have to do is stay in front of him. Its harder to cut his tail off, because of his tentacle move, but overall the boss is pretty easy. Also I think manus shouldve been higher. Also gwyn wasnt too bad for me with or without parrying, its definitely way harder to dodge but it still was manageable if you get behind him

Ornstein & Smough were the second hardest fight for me. It took me 20 attempts to defeat Manus in the DLC.

My first play though of this game has been so weird compared to most others I feel. Since I played Elden Ring first, which is what got me into souls, this game was pretty easy. I took the 4 Lord Souls in just 2 sessions and beat Quelaag, Seathe, Nito, and Sanctuary Guardian, on my first attempt. I have a feeling it’s because when I got to Nito and Seathe, it took so long to get to them, that I knew I couldn’t run back and it would have to be first try. I literally randomly guessed the to hit Seathes crystal because idk gamer instincts. All of this isn’t to say I’m good or better than anyone. I think it’s remarkable that by already having an idea of what the game was going to be about and what approach to take to things it made it so much easier. If dark souls had been my first, I would’ve been just as lost as when I first entered Limgrave, but that background context goes such a long way. (Btw I was pure strength build using Battle Axe which evolved to Golem Axe)

I had barely any trouble with Dark Souls until I got to kalameet. I beat O&S on my first try. I really didn't understand the hype afterwards.

I never through my 400 hours of DS1 knew that iron golem had a falling animation where he does a 360 flip before dying

I started my first play through two weeks ago and I managed to kill O&S on my third try thanks the the many hours Ive seen you play on Twitch. Most difficult boss for me was Manus because I was super clumsy switching between the silver pendant and the Estus lol 😅

I like this list a lot. Most other lists seem to be made with the hindsight of hundreds (or even thousands) of hours of playtime, but you seemed to tailor yours to the perspective of a newer player. I like that. Good job!

Personally have never had issues with O&S. But it took me god forever to beat Nito, Artorias, and Manus my first time through

For me, the top tier in the series for SL1 from easiest to hardest is: 5. Four Kings (when you SL1 at around NG+2, it gets rough) 4. Smough and Ornstein 3. Demon in Pain and Demon From Below 2. Soul of Cinder 1. Manus Father of the Abyss Honorable Mention: Friede and her 3 phases P.S. I never felt comfortable to use the pendant in the Manus fight, so that might have affected the difficulty for me. It felt like any mistake in positioning, stamina, or movement would lead to death, once he started unleashing his magic. The latter two thirds of it were stressful enough that Manus was the only boss I felt I could only beat in hypermode (and with a decent pattern). I could rant about why Manus is so difficult but I don't think it really matters here. He was challenging in a way that was fun/enjoyable to deal with, but it was more like "oh thank god, it's finally over." I think Friede is the BEST boss which is also very difficult, because she is fun to fight and shares player mechanics. Being able to stagger her consistently means you can be aggressive and play your game to an extent. It doesn't just feel like sitting around and waiting for punishes.

Artorias fight best boss fight in my gaming history, its an epic experience where you learn your enemy then defeat them instead of cheese rushing them or them just butfukkin you out of existence

My list (Difficult -> Easiest) 1. Manus, Father of the Abyss 2. Black Dragon Kalameet 3. Ornstein and Smough 4. Gravelord Nito 5. Knight Artorias 6. Bed of Chaos 7. Gwyn, Lord of Cinder 8. Seath the Scaleless 9. Four Kings 10. Capra Demon 11. Great Grey Wolf Sif 12. Chaos Witch Quelaag 13. Demon Firesage 14. Centipede Demon 15. Sanctuary Guardian 16. Iron Golem 17. Bell Gargoyles 18. Moonlight Butterfly 19. Dark Sun Gwyndolin 20. Gaping Dragon 21. Stray Demon 22. Priscilla 23. Taurus Demon 24. Asylum Demon 25. Ceaseless Discharge 26. Pinwheel

I one shot both manus and Gwyn, but artorias destroyed my ass like 20+ times before I bested him.

Its been a long while since i played ds1. I mostly play ds3. But if i remember correctly the ornstein fight is the hardest. Because you are met with two over powered monsters that can time you from behind while the other is busy takin u down from front. Both have large hp. And icing on top of the cake is that theres a phase 2 where one of them gets super charged. And if you pick ornstein to kill last... then you're one of the brave ones !!!

easiest: BoC with cheese hardest: BoC without cheese need i say more?

Remember pondering the name of ‘Ceaseless Discharge’ with my friend a while back. We eventually settled on forever referring to him as ‘Never-ending release of load’.

My opinion of DS1 boss difficulty. 1. Manus (Hardest boss) 2. Black Dragon Kalameet 3. Four Kings 4. Ornstein and Smough 5. Capra Demon 6. Gwyn, Lord of Cinder 7. Artorias the Abysswalker 8. Gwyndolin 9. Sif the Wolf 10. Bed of Chaos 11. Gravelord Nito 12. Seath the Scaleless 13. Quelagg 14. Sanctuary Guardian 15. Firesage Demon 16. Stray Demon 17. Centipede Demon 18. Ceaseless Discharge 19. Bell Gargoyles 20. Moonlight Butterfly 21. Gaping Dragon 22. Priscilla 23. Taurus Demon 24. Asylum Demon 25. Pinwheel (Easiest boss)

I believe this is the first video of yours I have ever come across. I enjoyed it and will be checking out more of your content.

Squilla goin for content!, i'm delighted, best of luck killa

Thanks for the fun video. I didn’t know that my notifications weren’t on but they are now.

I absolutely agree with Gwyn at No. 1. I just recently beat DS1 for the first time about 6 months ago, and even Artorias felt more doable at first (shout out to Havel Poise and the Dragon Tooth two handed roll attack) but Gwyn absolutely gave me the most trouble. His fast slash is impossible to react to, but if you hold up your shield, you might be able to parry the second hit. If you do hold up your shield, however, prepare to be grabbed and your face pumped full of fire. If you try to heal behind pillars, his insane range from his sword or the almighty Gwyn Leap of Death slaughters you. I died to Gwyn probably twice as much as Artorias, because I could at least place my shots with him. Also this content is great Squilla, definitely had to pause because I was laughing too hard at Spidermelons. Well done.

This video made me want to become a youtuber. Thank you so much squilla. You're the real og

Gywn's fight is also very hard to find time to heal in. He's absolutely relentless and does big damage so on a first playthrough if you're hit once you can easily get caught in a bit of a spiral of trying to heal and getting hit again.

I love watching these boss rankings cause you get to see what was more challenging for other players. Personally I beat Gwyn first try on my first playthrough, but I had loads of trouble with Stray Demon.

Thanks for the list always interesting to hear what challenge runners think

I'm actually REALLY glad you put Gwyn at number 1. He is by far my hardest boss still. Everyone always says "oh he's easy, just parry him", but there's so many inconsistencies in trying to parry him due to the wide variety of delays on his different attacks and the only safe time to heal is during the grab attack normally. I died to him like 50+ times over the course of over 2 hours on my last SL 1 run, by far the most of any boss in the game.

Honestly, nothing was ever as hard as Manus in the Dark Souls trilogy though a few did come close. Manus had a variety of different moves that look similar, but have different timings, and generally all of these moves chain to other moves as well which means that you don't have to dodge precisely once, but dodge precisely multiple times in that given moment. He also has an insane combo that is very difficult to dodge since its wind-up is very quick. Manus literally ate my ass inside out, especially on NG+.

Just finished it yesterday. As a veteran of two Monster Hunter games(definitely a different ball game, but somewhat similar in premise), I had some experience coming in. The hardest boss for me was absolutely Artorias. Even Havel’s armor can’t tank him out when he’s fully powered up. Ornstein and Smough gave me the next amount of trouble, and then Kalameet and Seath were probably tied, as it took me about four tries each to get.

I don't know why but Seath has usually been pretty easy for me. I stick to his left tentacle where it doesn't trigger his tail/tentacle swipe attack, and just lay it on it. You also stay out of range of his cursed crystal beam or whatever if you stick to the very edge of his left tentacle and never go behind it. If you go behind the tentacle and towards the tail, he'll do that wild swiping attack. Of course, this method means that you can't go for the Moonlight Greatsword, if you play it this safe.

Ornstein and Smough can be cheesed, just farm a whole bunch until you can wear full havel gear without breaking your back. Then just summon Solaire and go ooga booga monkey mode on Ornstein while chugging flask, and then do it again once Smough becomes big chungus.

Here is my bump for an algorithm. I wish you success in growing your channel, Squill.

"And this detached eldritch torso has snakes for legs... That's sus" Bruh 🤣🤣🤣 that delivery had me rollin

First ever play-through of the Painted World of Ariamis, I was so underleveled and didn’t have any ranged weapons capable of dealing with the toxic hollows. I was too scared to even fight the Phalanx guys and open the shortcut. Naturally when Priscilla gave me a choice I fucked off and thanked my lucky stars she was optional.

When I got to the DLC, Manus and Artorias honestly felt like Dark Souls 3 bosses in DS1. Having played DS3 first, I got them quickly, but actually beating them with Dark Souls 1 movement was the real challenge.

Artorias is definitely one of the most fun boss fights in the game. My favorite boss however is Sif. The easter egg with him if you beat Artorias before you fight him is a nice touch.

The one that beat me to tears was 4 kings. That one stands out to me. I had played DkS so much when the DLC launched so I could manage those bosses pretty well, but they probably would have murdered me otherwise... I found that lots of players struggled with the fire lady-spider in the swap so it became one of my go-to--places for soul farming. I just joined other players and killed her over and over until I learned her well enough to never take damage from her. It might not have been the most effective way to farm souls, but it was way more fun than the other known methods.

Spider-Melons back to back with Dragonlady Feet? OK, I'm subscribing.

bro was it really necessary to give a dark souls tier list a genuinely awe inspiring soundtrack

oh man... I was waiting for this inevitable list! Squilla bout to knock Demodcracy out of the limelight.

11:05 Actually Big Hat Logan can tell you that, if you have done his questline so far and release him from prison

The video has much great insight into this game with enough humor to make me want to watch it again.

When you called Sif Artorias' partner instead of pet, my heart snapped.

Love this new video type you are trying out! Hope you keep making more of them

On my first playthrough in 2019, the Capra Demon gave me the most grief. Artorias is still one of my favourite bosses, because he was the one where everything really 'clicked' for me. Plus 💖😭🐕 Hundreds of hours later, & on my recent Platinum run, I got the Bed of Chaos on my first try ever. I couldn't believe it & just sat there shocked & laughing!!😂 No bow, firebombs, quitouts etc, just RNGesus was on my side that day🙌 God, I love Dark Souls 💓💗💟

That pinwheel theory is long debukned

awesome vid Squilla, nice job

Ceaseless discharge is what happens when you don't cast a protection wrap spell on your 1h sword before you go diving into unfamiliar catacombs, remember ashen one, don't be a gourd...remember to cast a protection spell on your sword!

I REALLY look forward to your Sekiro ranking! Great video. Super funny!

The problem i had with gwyn is that he did not let me recover with estus. I run around that stone pillar and wait for his slow grab attack and as im drinking, he flies over to me with a thrust throw the pillar

15:36 I didn't know that Artorias was blind...

That Iron Pineapple joke made me ROFL. XD

I am going in to this fully expecting the number 1 spot to be SquillaKilla

I really like how you gave us a little bit of lore too. I know DS is full of rich lore. But like most people, I find it difficult to follow

I ended up having absolutely no trouble with Gravelord Nito or Demonfire Sage on my first playthrough with no hints. On Demonfire Sage, he was just a carbon copy of Aslyum Demon and Stray Demon, and I had no problem avoiding his attacks. For Gravelord Nito, when I first killed the skeleton adds and saw they'd probably be respawning, I made sure to kill them all well away from Nito, then hit Nito a few times, then run away as the skeletons respawned, kill them away from Nito, and repeat. It didn't take that many cycles, and I don't think I was ever close to dying. I may not have even needed to heal, but I probably did at least once. Seath is also really easy if you don't try to melee. I had trouble figuring out how to get to the immortality switch originally, but once I hit it, I just kept away from him and shot him with my crossbow. I guess I should probably mention that I tried to stay at range and shoot with the crossbow for pretty much every boss, since I had a terrible time trying to avoid attacks while in melee range - trying to practice to roll to avoid attacks when the death runs are as long as they are just didn't seem to be a good use of time compared to being a coward and using a ranged weapon. On O&S I eventually managed to kill Super Ornstein by taking out most of his life while he was stuck wanting to exchange ranged attacks, so I just dodged and kept shooting until something broke him out of the loop and I had to figure out how to not die while taking out his remaining health. Maybe Smough is easier in Super Mode, but in my attempts I always fared much worse with that so I focused on killing him first; I probably managed better on Ornstein since he had the chance of getting stuck wanting to do ranged attacks. I never thought about trying to plunge attack Taurus Demon after the first time I climbed the tower to kill the Hollows there, when he climbed up before I finished killing them. I probably had time on future attempts, but I was too scared to try, thinking he was going to be jumping up just as I got to the edge and before I could plunge. Based on number of attempts and how well I did during them, I'd say the hardest was Four Kings, then O&S, then Sif. I never found the Gwyn- boss you fight in the long corridor in Anor Londo, nor did I find how to access the DLC, so I can't rate them. I'll need to be out of new games to play before I ever come back and try again, and that's very unlikely to happen given my backlog.