I sucked and died a few times trying to use magic, switched to a black knight sword and after a few attempts to figure the range out I was riposting them without even trying. Pretty fun once you get the hang of it.

**** a black knight weapon, hit him with the fume and carthus Rouge like a man.

Do summons lower the amount of souls gained?
I killed the boss in NG with Lapp and Gael (loved this fight with them by my side, felt like a truly epic battle) while having the covetous silver serpent ring +3 but ended up receiving only the base 100k souls.
I know it isn't recommended to summon both NPCs for this fight because of the amount of HP the boss has, but other than that I thought there wasn't any other drawback.

This fight in ng+3 is brutal

This fight is good, but really serves to illustrate how poorly the games have gotten at balancing around ultra great weapons (it's only gotten worse). I wanted to play the entire game with Lothric Knight Greatsword and I did, I beat every single boss before this one with it, I beat NK I beat Lothric brothers I beat Soul of Cinder I beat everyone with it, then all of a sudden comes this boss and I can NEVER recover fast enough to roll after a swing from one its stupid swipes. I wasted almost 15 embers on this fight alone. I then gave up, bought the Splitleaf Halberd, buffed it to max and gave it a crappy bleed build which barely made any difference, and despite that along with the fact that I was doing literally less than half damage per hit compared to my previous weapon, I beat this immediately on my first try with not much difficulty. That speaks volumes.

This boss is fun, but it really serves to highlight how poorly the games have gotten at balancing around ultra great weapons over the years (it's only gotten worse). I played practically the entire game with Lothric Knight Greatsword because I wanted to beat it like that, beat every single boss before this one with it, but this fight was impossible with it due to how quick this piece of **** is, I never recover fast enough to roll away after a swing. After spending more than 15 embers with it, I bought the Splitleaf Halberd, buffed it to max, and beat this on my first try right after, and that was with a suboptimal bleed build which barely made any difference.

I'm going to break the norm. Most people say kill the demon in pain first because the laser prince is easier. I say the opposite. Kill the demon from below first. What makes them unique is their special move. Pain flies backwards and shoots a laser. Below drops meteors. And most people struggle dodging the meteors.

Here's the problem with Below and his lasers. Often he will fly too far to the other side of the arena so that by the time you get there, his laser attack is finished and you only get like 5 hits in.

Demon in Pain's meteors are actually a lot easier and a huge weakness. Let's start with how to survive it. The demon prince will have two orbs in his hands that turn into chaos orbs. He jumps back then he'll begin summoning a huge meteor while the chaos orbs shoot at you. Run up to him and get as close as possible. If you are right next to him when the meteors begin to fall (signaled by a flash and a boom) begin running away. That is how you make the meteors all miss. This is a huge weakness. Both when he summons his chaos orbs and when he summons his meteor, he is vulnerable. So much so I can get a riposte in before the meteors begin falling. And the damage from the chaos orbs are rather measly to the point I don't even dodge them. I spam attack and tank through them.

Summoning both NPCs made this boss battle a breeze. They heal each other and draw aggro.

Kinda overrated. Would be a lot more fun if you didn't have to fight the twins every time. Still fine tho.

does anyone else feel bad killing this guy? the last demon, theyre extinct after this fight