A fun fight itself absolutely ruined by the run back. I don't mind having to pay an Effigy every time, that's fine, but why do I have to kill the phantoms over and over ?? Hard to practice a moveset when each attempt against the boss is spaced out so far, and when you also have to worry about formidable opponents along the way who you HAVE to kill to progress ..

Finally beat this guy. Hard with melee but you can learn his movement first phase, then when he split you have to run more avoid both until you can hit, do a single hit and roll, keep both on your screen to see when they do spells. Also if you are close when he do the sword attack you can heavy attack and the he will miss the first hit, like titanite demons on ds1.
On low life both are going more melee, easy to avoid but hard to hit them, use pyromancy from afar

One of the most intense boss fight so far... 1 on 1 easy-peasy, but having to melee one while avoiding the ranged attack of the other, not that easy.

Is Darklurker resistant to dark damage? I plan on fighting him with a pure hexes spell caster build so I wanna make sure I maximize damage

I came into the fight with 12 Soul Spears and Profound Still. Just stayed at range and hit with the Soul Spears. Good *** damage. When the split happened, I hit Profound Still and got both of them. You'll know when it happens when he folds his wings over himself. After that it was just a case of staying away and hitting those spears. The reward? A boss soul you can trade for a hex spell called Climax which requires 4 attunement slots, 30/47 int/faith, and it uses all of your souls when cast. Also a dragon chime. >.>

This looks more like a villain from Kingdom Hearts.
It feels very out of place for a Dark Souls game.

What is it's gender

After beating all 3 dlcs he was just the victory lap for me. When he splits it was extremely helpful cause I got to do double the damage with Soul Spears

I killed him pretty easily with Bucher's Knife +5, 50 STR, and gold pine resin.

Buff weapon when he does the laser attack once you go under him.

I would not recommend buffing while there's two of them. Pull out your trusty Dragonslayer's crescent axe if you run out of buff mid-fight. And don't lock on.