Commander Gaius (LVL1 NG+7 no scadutree blessing)

No scadutree blessings, item/spell buffs, ash of war skills, status ailments, blah blah

GinoMachino was getting some flak for saying this boss is good, but I kinda agree. Maybe not lowkey goated, but this boss is really fun. The first charge attack can always be outrun on torrent, and it seems to be deliberately paced that way, but I still wish it was more reasonable to dodge without using the horse.

For the most part, I think the strategy is straightforward. It only took me about 30 mins or so to learn on my leveled build, and it took a handful of attempts to get my first win after that. The major challenge is just getting through the opening sequence and not falling for bait with certain attacks that he doesn't always follow up immediately.

At close range, Gaius has a couple bread-and-butter combos that are easy to punish. The overhead slam combo (0:52) always leads into the boar flop that can be easily strafed. The lock-on targeting can lead to some silly memes, so I lock off when I go under him. For the 7-hit combo (1:11), just dodge to the sides to avoid the double hits, and don't strafe too close to him.

I wasn't confident in the timing to dodge the phase transition, but the timing I used was probably perfect if I chose to roll into him. He always runs away just fast enough that I can't hit him before he flies into the corkscrew attack, but I tried anyway. The corkscrew is surprisingly lenient to dodge, and the AOE doesn't connect in his immediate radius, so you can just roll into him after he twirls in the air a couple times (1:27).

The two-swipe attack is prime bait since he moves forward a lot which can lead to inconsistent positioning. He'll either follow up with the kick if you are close to the rear (0:29), the thrust if you are close to the front (1:37), or he won't follow up at all (0:43). You just have to use judgment to determine if you have enough stamina and have the right spacing to evade his potential follow-ups. The same applies with some of his other attacks, since he'll follow up quickly with the kick if you happen to be close to the rear, but otherwise he'll stand still for a while. Likewise, the face smash is tricky since he can do two attacks near the front of him (1:45), but the spacing to bait the second hit is seemingly small, so you should carefully observe the animation to see whether he will follow up or not.