Advice for Manus fight

So I'm struggling a little against Manus on a NG+ playthrough with my caster. Using magic/enchanted weapons is really out of the question due to his magic resistance.

I've got a falchion +10 and I have the means to upgrade it to +15 or equally chaos +5. I've got 22 dex so the AR would be 304 if I went purely physical. Would it be best to stick with that and use buffs or go for a chaos +5? (I've got plenty of humanity and Manus is not quite so strong vs fire).

I always say stick to physical and buff buff buff!

Although if you can buff your weapon three times at once you're a hacker

The art of triple buff is just a dark secret we'll keep between ourselves

Thanks for the advice anyhow, I'll take the falchion up to +15 and use charcoal resin on him!

Your best bet is to buff your falchion and I would recommend upgrading it too to +14 if you plan on using that slab for something else.

Also grab the silver pendant if you don't have it and place it in your inventory it helps against Manus's dark magic attacks.

Lol...no problem. Sif was actually a big help for me too. Not that she does a tremendous amount of damage but occasionally Manus will forget you exist for half a second which is nice.

Aaaah Sif..... ...."thaaank yooou"

I did a lot a phantom work against Manus when the dlc came out and everyone at every soul level was there. I had a solid strength build (mid-roller) that used SMS on a fire bonewheel shield for style 8) and a MSGS.

Here's what I noticed. I only seen 1, I mean ONE host go 2-handed and barechested successfully against Manus. He was wearing Velka's face, and the Xanthous hands and legs with a Bastard Sword...he looked like an Aztec or Mayan...it was pretty cool...

...everyone else that tried died.

1) Good shield
2) Silver pendant
3) Avoid Dark Bead, and use silver pendant for all other dark magic.
4) I used maxed out pyros and avoided magic, even on my mage.
5) Sif...I love you ol' boy.
6) I also had success with the Avelyn and Dragon Bow to an extent.
7) When he roars...he spams.
8- I did see some elf ear glass cannon (I assume) mages do okay with CSS, I never tried though.

Good Luck

PS-I always wanted to fight him with the Effigy Shield...it kinda looks like you smacked him in the face with it, kinda like in a cartoon when someone runs arouns a corner and runs face-first into a trash can lid lol.

Cheers for all the advice guys, I just beat him mainly using charcoal resin and the classic strategy of staying as close to him as possible and dodging like mad!

Pilgrim34 wrote:Cheers for all the advice guys, I just beat him mainly using charcoal resin and the classic strategy of staying as close to him as possible and dodging like mad!

Nice job! I coop him often. I just stay behind him, roll through his swipe attacks and hit him once (twice with a fast weapon). Repeat. Tedious, but relatively safe.

Good point about rolling to the side. Except when he roars. Roll away, not to the side.

When he is about to let off Dark Magic, roll to the side first before you spam the Silver Pendent (use the pendant only twice - all you need). The Dark Bead-like spell comes off too fast (when you're up close) to use the silver pendant. If you roll to the side, it'll miss you and you still have time to activate the pendant before any of his other spells hit you.

I've always been a huge fan of mage builds, so I thought I would throw my two cents into the ring.

You want to be able to quick roll. This is key, as I doubt that you can carry a greatshield. You're going to have to avoid just about all of his attacks. Aside from that, heres my strategy with caster build.

First off, equipment. For any of my lighter builds, the first thing I always go for is the hard leather set. When it is upgraded to +9, the defenses are on par with some of the weaker heavy armor sets, but the total weight is still small.
For weapons, logans catalyst (Not the crystal catalyst) and the crest shield (solid physical DEF and magic DEF, but also very lightweight). If you are feeling particularly magic-ey, you could also add in the pyro glove, but I tend not to. And finally, you're going to want the Bellowing Dragoncrest ring and the crown of Dusk (just a heads up, this cuts your magic DEF, so you really want to avoid all of his magic if you can).

With your INT and ATN both at 50 and 30 (or where ever it maxes out) you should be able to take for spells 2xCSS and 4xSS. With all of the magic enhancing items, you should have enough castings to take him out.

In my experience, summoning Sif always helps. He really wont do any measurable damage, but the distraction he can provide is welcome at times in the fight. And it goes without saying, but Silver Pendant!

Thats all I have to offer, so best of luck in taking Manus down.

I've solo'd manus several (10+) times with and without summoning the dog. Mostly I've done it on NG+ and NG++.

A surprising tactic I came up with involves using the Composite Bow. Yup, turns out a BOW is actually his weakness, and makes your life a ton easier. Just equip the DWGR ring (ninja flip ring) in one of your slots and get used to dodging his far-away hand attacks (since those hit for the most damage).

Once you get the timing down for those far-away attacks, he's real easy. Just lock-on, fire your bow, back up, see if he does something. If not, fire again. If he starts doing something, wait until you avoid whatever it is, then fire. Don't be afraid to shoot an arrow in-between attacks-- you can actually roll to cancel out of the animation (just spam the roll button if you see him doing anything when you're about to fire).

Just locking on to him and shooting arrows will actually stagger him a fair amount of times, and can actually interrupt almost all of his attacks. When you dodge, lock off of him, and lock-on-shoot to punish.

Shoot arrows, lock-off dodge & lock-on punish, and hot-key the silver pendant for his sorcercies (namely, the "circle of death" one). He dies a lot faster and lot more easily than trying to melee him, and you can make virtually every shot safe since you can roll-cancel when necessary.


(If you have no dex, then use the Chaos Composite Bow +5 & fire arrows ((with 10 humanities)). If 40+ dex, then use the Composite Bow +15 & large arrows.)

Actually i found that with the DLc bosses, they don't like bows, sanctuary guardian and artorias kicked my butt repeatedly, i switched to bow for the sanctuary guardian and beat him no probs, same with artrias on my first go. Never tried it on manus though. Makes sense i suppose with all the space for manuevering in those arena's.

Yeah, and it doesn't have to be the composite bow. I finished the game using only a short bow.

Here's a video that demonstrates my method:



I get hit once, unfortunately, but otherwise was a decent run.

Jeez. That's impressive. Stats?

Was one of my original builds (prob not optimal)--

Vit: 45
Att: 19
End: 48 ( :oops:)
Str: 16
Dex: 45
Res: base
Int: base
Faith: base

So, straight old +15 composite and heavy arrows? Wow.

Dibsville wrote:Quick question, if you're going to be staying away from Manus why not use the Short Bow?

Composite shoots a little faster, I believe, and because I'm lock-on aiming (so I can't really take advantage of the extra range)

The Four Kings fight using a short bow is similar to this fight. You're constantly backing up, but you cannot see the edge when you come to it and you need to be aware of any additional kings placement.

During the Four Kings fight, you use your shield against a magic attack instead of the silver pendant.

I shudder to think how the flickering bug would affect this fight, not to mention dealing with the ghosts on the way!

Dibsville wrote:Composite Bow, Shortbow, and Darkmoon Bow shoot at the same speed. Longbow and Black Bow of Pharis are slightly slower.
Shortbow would be doing more damage from that far away.

Do you know how much more it would do? Just curious-- I was under the
impression that the composite bow would be better, despite the
difference in dex scaling. I forget exactly why that is, but I think
there was a reason somewhere for thinking that.

Green__Eagle wrote:The Four Kings fight using a short bow is similar to this fight. You're constantly backing up, but you cannot see the edge when you come to it and you need to be aware of any additional kings placement.

During the Four Kings fight, you use your shield against a magic attack instead of the silver pendant.

I shudder to think how the flickering bug would affect this fight, not to mention dealing with the ghosts on the way!

I usually solo the four kings the same way the guy in the wiki does-- use power within & the furysword, and dodge.

I would be interested, however, if someone could solo The Four Kings on NG+ WITHOUT power within, any magic whatsoever, and without healing. Would a bow be the only way to do this? Can it be done without the red tearstone ring?

I think I want to do this random challenge now after thinking about it...

seems I was somewhat beaten to the punch, although he heals at one point...so perhaps I can still do this



22:38 for the boss fight

I might re-attempt manus in a bit under the same conditions, but without using a bow. Thinking about it now, the bow kind of cheapens the fight and makes it a less skillful win.