the red dragon + Why I think the Hellkite is the unfairest boss

I can go under the bridge, shoot his tail, but he eventually flies off,and i don,t know where he is, or goes to, if he does land above the bridge, i go up the stone staircase, no dragon to kill



This is my second carry through game

Ya... just bring solaire and lautrec with you to the dragon. Don't go to it VIA sunlight alter way, but under the bridge and up the staircase to the middle of the bridge. They should help kill it, if you want to. Although they won't last long, they last longer than you.

how on earth do i get them to come with me, or am i being dumb

Easy, my friend. just summon them both at the undead church, and bring em by. Of course, you must get the sunlight badge from lautrec at the shrine first, but they will both be summon able at the undead church, by the gargoyle fog gate. just summon em, and bring em with ya.

Acidic_Cook wrote:Easy, my friend. just summon them both at the undead church, and bring em by. Of course, you must get the sunlight badge from lautrec at the shrine first, but they will both be summon able at the undead church, by the gargoyle fog gate. just summon em, and bring em with ya.

Wow... never thought of doing that... this is a good strat.

Second game eh? Mwah ha ha haaa! If you're comfortable sending in pawns you can also try the invincible antagonist method.

Red tearstone ring, two hand buffed weapon with R2 attack through the wall above and to the right of the gate below the Black Knight in the tower.

I gave up on my NG+ playthrough and just ran past him.

i use a composite bow+10 and slaughter him. (from the ledge to the left of the rat chamber)

On my last playthrough I killed him with 1 greater lightning miracle. I was very surprised when he died instantly to it. My faith at the time was just enough to use that miracle I think. Is this a glitch or something? I know the sunbro miracles are meant to be powerful against dragons, but that seemed a little over the top lol. And it was during the most current patch.

from what spot did you bolt him/ from the black knight tower? if so theres a glitch that causes him to intsa die when hit from there, it used to happen every time pre patch now its only every now and again.

sparkly-twinkly-lizard wrote:from what spot did you bolt him/ from the black knight tower? if so theres a glitch that causes him to intsa die when hit from there, it used to happen every time pre patch now its only every now and again.

I ran across to the alcove that's safe from his flame, opposite to the stairwell shortcut from the burg. He flew down to me and I bolted him in the lock on point, mid chest I guess. So not where you're suggesting at all. Weird huh?

Well, he is definitely weak to lightning, I believe it's the pine resin that will add a lighting buff to your weapon. You can slaughter him easily with just one R2 strike with even a starting weapon, as demonstrated by the 90 minute speed run on you tube. The guy used pyromancer and the starting hand axe to chop off his tail, yielding drake sword and also instantly killing him. He ran to the alcove opposite the stairs at middle of bridge and hugged the left wall. I suppose he had the tearstone ring equipped as the dragons flame only did like 50% dmg as he ran up close for the killing blow.

Judging by the wiki saying he has 2200 hp in NG so like 6600 in NG+, unless he takes extreme damage from lightning or is scripted to die from lightning I'm not sure what caused it.

For those having a hard time NG+ and onward, I present to you the Dragonslayer bow. Just equip the stamina regen ring and shield and have roughly 60 bolts, stand opposite of the rat chamber against the very back wall so you can see his face, and pick a large spot on his body that is easy to reposition to. Also practicing before hand if you can't afford many arrows helps, timing is very important to this. I've tried the rushing method but fire breath in NG++ tends to oneshot me for whatever reason it deems.

The trick is to land at least 3 bolts between each flight, sometimes you can manage a 4th, anyhow launch the first one into the spot you picked, let him land and you are going to put another one into the spread wing. After this he'll sweep his tail above you, shoot one into that, now when it breaks the window gets smaller but I aim where the bone would be and always hits, this shot also does the most damage to him it seems. Finally if you are quick enough move back to the first spot and as long as he is still in the flying animation any shot to him will not make him fly off, giving you a bonus shot if you will.

It's been awhile so I can't remember how the regen worked, the first time he actually used it but the second time he didn't, but I can say that if he does do it just stop cause even with a good stream of arrows I wasn't able to balance it and he just does it until he's back to whatever it's suppose to put him at.

Sorry for the wall of text, it also occured to me this may not possibly work as I rock my +5 with 65STR/DEX so I imagine the damage differences will be quite off, in light of that, this should work though and I did use this method the first time I killed him.

Skarekrow13 I'm not sure exactly where you mean when you say you can off this beast by hitting it through a wall. I've tried the place where I think you mean but it doesn't work. The only way I could get at it would be by opening the gate at the very bottom of that area and to do that would mean I'd have to get past it on the bridge without being fried.

Also, have tried arrows from the end of the bridge but the darn thing keeps folding it's wings and healing which makes the whole enterprise a waste of time and arrows. I've also tried using the Dragon bow too but it still heals itself. I hate this beast.

Hitting through the wall exploit can be done from the first stairs to undead parish, where you exit the ladder from the rats area. The wyvern can be hit with normal weapons from the ledges on either side of the stairs. You may need a big weapon that can hit above your head.
Another cheap approach is to stand in the middle of the first stars, equip a good bow and arrows, activate the red tearstone ring, and aim the bow at the wall directly above the portcullis.
It will jump down to the bridge after every hit, so wait for it to fly back up before you hit/shoot it again. It can also heal itself when getting low on hp.

ok so this is a weird story before the 2nd pach on my lv 200 vit(i did not glich...i just hv no life...jk) build i wanted to kill the dragon with mele but i was on ng+++++ so i got my dragonslayer+5 and after like 1 h i got him to 1/100 of his hp it was so low i couldent see the red on the life bar i then went on the bridge n hid behind the wall after some minutes pased he flew down n began walking i run at him and killed him but his body dident disappear it just melted like it dose if you cheat kill meron dagon in tes oblivion

Pretty obvious really. It's the only boss that can disappear seemingly at will and, if I remember rightly, it's the only one that takes time out to heal itself.

For example, if you off the knight in the tower, you should be able to target it with arrows from there but more often than not it's not there even though, if you go down the stairs,you can hear it roaring. I agree that the one shot kill from that position needed to be fixed but I don't see why you can't peg away at it till it dies like the red dragon in Demon Souls.

Similarly, after making the suicide run to get under the Blue Dragon in Demon Souls, you could kill it from just under the arch with arrows and/or spells but this doesn't work with the Hellkite because there's no sign of the darn thing when you get to the Sunlight Altar area. It's done it's disappearing act again. Also, neither dragon in Demon Souls healed itself.

Sorry for the whinge but this boss makes me mad because the only option left is to melee it and, in new game+ it's fire breath makes it almost impossible to get a decent strike.

Hi all,

In an effort to keep the number of active threads about the daft dragon down, I've merged Slake's new 'Why I think the hellkite is the unfairest boss' thread with this one and amended the title.

There's only so much attention we should give the overgrown handbag, or he'll just get uppity and start wanting bling and an entourage.

I've tried to go toe to toe with it on the bridge and loose everytime so I use an old demon souls trick, get the red tearstone ring and let the rats poison you until it activates then use a bow on the hellkite. It will go much faster that way.

p.s. I tried using power within but it simply doesn't last long enough plus mixing it with the red tearstone ring can be very risky with the health drain effect

This is also a good method for killing him:

Get on the bridge and on to the safe spot opposite of the stairs. Wait for the drake to land and instantly go and hit him with a running attack. Maybe hit him a second time too. Just don't get too greedy. Then quickly take the stairs and get under the bridge to safety. Wait until he calms down and gets back on his spot. Then get on the bridge again and repeat. If you don't like waiting, just shoot him with an arrow so he lands on the bridge faster.

I hate this dragon. I've killed him over a dozen times, and the regen part is absolutely the worst. Sometimes he only does it once or twice, sometimes he does it forever. Last night I was shooting him from opposite the rat chamber, using a black bow of pharis +5 and the hawk ring. Doing about 75 dmg an arrow.

He healed himself twelve times. TWELVE! I eventually gave up, because wtf. Even with my pretty good equip, it was not possible to shoot faster than he heals. I wasted over 500 arrows and an hour of game time trying to kill him, for nothing. F you, you poorly designed piece of garbage. Easily the worst "boss" in the game. And getting him in melee is even worse, sometimes his fire does little damage (particularly if you hug the edges of the bridge for some reason), sometimes it one hits you. One awesome time I got stuck under one of his feet and he sort of gooshed me to death. There's never any logic to it. And I think they patched the one arrow kill thing, because it was a bug. Hard to believe, right?

I tried the under the stairs bit last night and he kept healing. Ok, I thought, I'll try the safety alcove and jump attack him. He kept one shotting me. Ok, I'll just run past him when he lands so I can open up the gate and access the altar. That worked just fine, he flew away and didn't bother me.

About an hour later, I was running across the bridge to go to the depths and guess who greeted me with a flame buffet? Yeah, my old friend. I'm so happy that I beat the lower Undead burg and got the shortcut opened. Now, I never have to go past that bridge again.

Here's a method I used just last night that works quite well and doesn't require tons of arrows or rush-and-pray tactics, though it does require spells or the lightning miracles. Basically just come up from under the bridge and lure him down, then run past him into the room with the bonfire in front of the sunlight altar. Don't go too far into the room or else he will fly away, so stay right next to the entrance but behind the wall to either side. The wall will block the fire breath, and you just stand there until he loses sight of you and stops throwing fire. Sneak out from behind the wall, hit him with a spell, and then hide behind the wall again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Good move Zechk. I kind of thought when I posted my comment that maybe I should have added it to the existing thread but I wanted to highlight what I thought was the 'unfairness' of this particular 'overgrown handbag', ha ha, nice one.

I must say it's comforting to know that other people have had problems too and I would like to thank all my fellow players for their suggestions. I am going to try a few out next session. I know I don't have to kill this thing but it's become a point of honour with me. Daft really, when you consider what is in store for me later in the game.

Zechk wrote:Hi all,

In an effort to keep the number of active threads about the daft dragon down, I've merged Slake's new 'Why I think the hellkite is the unfairest boss' thread with this one and amended the title.

There's only so much attention we should give the overgrown handbag, or he'll just get uppity and start wanting bling and an entourage.

just to say zechk you've been very trigger happy on the forums lately

also i feel sorry for slakemoth, your merger killed off his aspect of the topic (idea of fairness against the Red dragon) :|