Or, as I put it more succinctly at the time:
SUCK MY BUM CAPRA DEMON YOU'RE DEAD AND I'M NOT HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. It's actually kind of easy if you can get up the stairs.And here's the weird thing: The Capra Demon is quite easy. "Easy" means a different thing in Dark Souls to most other games admittedly, but once you get two things clear in your head, the fight is actually fairly simple.
— Chris Spann (@cs87) March 3, 2013
Thing 1: Work out your initial actions.
Immediately upon arriving in the Capra Demon's Lair you have to make a decision - and it's fairly important, because making that decision well will pretty much determine the outcome of the fight.
Basically, you need to work out how to get up the stairs quickly. The first ten seconds or so of the fight are frantic, but if you can get onto the archway at the top of the stairs, you should be okay. My tactic was to start running immediately upon arriving, veering off to the right before jumping to the foot of the stairs between the rightmost dog and the demon, but yours may well vary. A few desperate seconds went by as I hurriedly dispatched the dogs at the top of the stairs, but before long it was just me and the Demon.
At this point I was pretty banged up, so I skipped away from the big goat looking fucker and healed up - which is where Thing 2 comes into play.
Thing 2: Patience.
This is important. If you take your time and don't rush things, the Capra demon is a piece of piss once his dogs are dead. All you need to do is lure him into following you up the stairs, then drop back onto the floor. If you've done it right he'll jump off the ledge after you - he'll be paralysed for a short while as he hits the floor, and this is a perfect opportunity to get two good hard two-handed hits in against him. If he doesn't follow you up the stairs don't be tempted to plunge attack him like I did - you could very easily find yourself cornered after dropping off the ledge, and while he might be slow, and a bit dim, he still hits hard.
What I found really interesting about the Capra Demon is the difference in responses I was getting from people on Twitter regarding him. I'd seen him described as being "pad throwingly" difficult, and a quick search revealed a huge number of frustrated tweeters, howling at their monitors as they took a break from being slaughtered by Goat Face Killer.
But then, I'd also seen him described as "a big horned baby", and "one of the easiest bosses in the game" - and those words are probably true as well. At one point the Capra Demon felt like the biggest challenge I'd come across in Dark Souls so far, but I can tell you for nothing that I'd rather fight him again than the fucking Gargoyles. Once you work him out (and kill his fucking dogs), he's a sweetheart.
And that's left me with an odd sense of malaise.
In a split second, the Capra Demon went from being an almost impossible barrier (I had one brief moment of thinking "No, fuck this game, which quickly passed") to an absolute pushover - I'm almost upset he didn't turn out to be a more formidable adversary, you know? This chap on Twitter puts it best:
@guywoodward89 Capra Demon defeated. What an annoying cunt he was. Only took about 5 hits as well. Just dodging those first 2 attacks...And I'm left feeling... not disappointed, but I was hoping that when I finally killed him, it would be as the result of some masterful parry, not because I'd led him up the stairs then waited for him to fall off six time. Just felt like a little bit of anti-climax.
— WeAreAllNeilSimpson (@WeAreAllSimmie) March 2, 2013
I soon shook off any sense of empowerment by getting killed by the same Balder Knight twice, then on the third time accidentally rolling away from him into a group of Balder Knights, which chased me round the Undead Parish until I coplied with their demands and became dead. DARK SOULS.
So, what next? Well, I'm pleased to report that the pool of water in Firelink Shrine has stopped snoring, and it would appear that a nice lady and her accompanying knights have turned up so she can get on with the very important business of staring at some vases.
Lovely.
I've also opened a door in Lower Undead Burg using the key I got from the Capra demon - off to wherever that takes me next, I assume! What excitement awaits, I wonder?
I'm guessing death. It's usually death.
4 comments:
Wow, I go away for a few days and when I return you're a thousand years into the future.
I HATE the Capra Demon. It is one of the very few fights in the game which I believe is poorly designed. A lot of it is luck in my opinion.
Did the rolling dice in your head land you on the right decision to survive the attack after entering the fog gate? Yes: Fight starts now. No: Death.
I disagree that the dogs are the main problem. The main problem is the camera. Then the level design, then the dogs. HATE HATE HATE.
On the plus-side, I thoroughly enjoyed New Games+ 1 - 7 when I had upgraded weapons and magic and made paste out of that fucker.
You will enjoy The Depths I think [cue maniacal laugh].
The camera wasn't a huge concern; I had a view over my shoulder of how far up the stairs the Capra demon was - although now I think about it, waiting to see where he dropped down from was a pain.
My main annoyance was just hitting a solid wall of enemies the moment I entered the room - but the "run slightly to the right, curl round his back then jump onto the bottom of the stairs" strategy worked quite well.
I'm just glad it's easy enough to get away from him for long enough to down an Estus flask, or that fight would have been fucking impossible.
I used to invoke a sprint slightly to the left, jump through the gap between the two dogs, sprint up the stairs technique. It's almost certainly not the best plan, but I only die 50% of the time, so it's the best one I've got.
Since then though, I discovered the existnece of a miracle called Karmic Justice that can be used to kill 'im quick. You can buy it from Oswald after killing the Gargoyles, and the basic premise is that it's a buff that lasts for 60 seconds. During that 60 seconds, if you take damage of any amount more than 6 times, or if you take over 50% of your HP in damage, there is an almighty explosion around you which kills everything.
Start Karmic Justice before you enter the fog gate, wear armour with a high poise stat, apply a weapon buff and equip a shield that blocks 95% of physical damage. Then, raise your shield and wait. Each of the dogs attacks you at least once. The Capra does his spinny attack that hits you three times. If the '6 hits' requirement isn't fulfilled, the 50% of health one normally is. Massive explosion, two dogs dead, and the Capra down to about 20% HP. Then wail on the fucker with the buffed weapon.
He dead.
Dylan, that technique is monstrously beautiful. I love it.
The Capra Demon is the only thing in Dark Souls that I cheesed. I used the firebomb cheese technique to kill him. I was just fed up of spending 5 minutes getting to him and using up my souls on some fucking moss only to die in 5 seconds.
Dylan and I have discussed the run to the boss in Dark Souls and I think I generally agree with him - that bonfires not being right next to bosses is a good thing, and the run up to them is beneficial and fun in many ways - except where the Capra Demon is concerned. As he says, it's a crapshoot as to whether or not you can get round the bugger, and a 5-minute preamble to a crapshoot is not good.
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