Champion Gundyr | Dark Souls 3 - fr Wiki

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• Five different ways to parry this boss (SL 66, Small Leather Shield, No dmg taken)
• Deprived Champion Gundyr (Vigor/Luck Build) Melee strategy consists of dodging his attacks and getting a few attacks in before repeating. 

 

How to parry (with small shield)

• Jump and slice move. Keep your eyes on his legs. When he is at the top of his jump or just about to start deciding hit the parry button.
• Two pokes and a smash. Avoid or tank the pokes and when he smashes hit the parry button as soon as the weapon starts to come down from above his head.
• Slowly starting swipes. Two versions. One starts little lower and other little higher. He moves his halberd to his left side (your right) and the tip of the blade is in his right side (your left). Keep your eyes on the blade part and as soon as the swipe starts, hit the parry button. It is easy to parry too soon.
• Phase two charge+swipe. Usually the first move he does after he buffs. Stay so far that you avoid the tip of his weapon when he charges straight at you, and when he starts to twist his body for the swipe hit the parry button.

 

Strategy 1 (Melee)

One of the most efficient ways of dealing with him is by parrying. His moveset is similar to Gwyn's, in a sense, as it seems he has an endless flurry of rapid attacks, leaving barely any time to attack. The easiest attack to parry is his forward jab-like attack, which can be baited out by standing about the length of his weapon away from him. He is stunned for a long time after a parry, you can usually hit him once, then riposte, then hit him again before rolling away. Another useful strategy for the first phase is to keep a lot of distance between him and bait his long jump attack, which is easy to roll attack into.When he buffs, any other attack besides his jab becomes extremely difficult to parry. Attacking only once per opening and dodging precisely should work well for the remainder of the fight.

In conjunction with the above, and the other melee strategies on here, the below is a playbook of ten tips on how to beat Champion Gundyr, which is formulated based off of very potent strategies used by people who successfully run every boss at SL 1, with no damage. That means these tips should work fantastically for a typical-strength character. Here goes:

1. Gundyr will open up with a jumping attack, which more likely happens if you do not try to rush him. This jumping attack has a different dodge timing than his other jumping attacks, so pay attention when he is coming at you, and don't use the same roll timing as his other leaping attack.
2. The tip of Gundyr's Halberd moves very fast. DO NOT use the blade to try to dodge, it is a complete ruse, like his eccentric body movements. Instead, use anywhere from his blade hand, to about halfway up his weapon to time your dodges. You will be more successful this way.
3. Gundyr is a little bit of a numbnuts, much like many giants, and has pretty bad motor skills to show it. He has a funny way of walking, where he kind of does these very small calf raises and top squats while he walks, and he struggles to control the heft on his gorilla-turtle (Tortilla? Gorurtle? Gurtle?) physique. He likes to make slight vertical increases in his positioning before he hits, as well. Do NOT pay attention to this behavior. This is a ruse, meant to throw off the player. Just watch his Halberd, his back-kick, and his open hand, and you will be absolutely fine.
4. When Gundyr is open for an attack, he will start to seek the player, turning around. He is also open when he does a heavy attack, but be prepared to roll quickly. 
5. Gundyr has combinations as long as about six attacks. The player should expect a strong going maximum of ten, which is the peak number for the Nameless King, to be safe. The player should not be lulled into complacency. 
6. When Gundyr does his running spin attack, roll over his left shoulder, where his empty hand is, and in the diagonal direction. This will ensure that the player 
7. Do not think that the Sword Master will carry you in this fight, at all. Champion Gundyr cuts through him like butter, and the Sword Master will only get down maybe 1/8th of Gundyr's health.
8. Champion Gundyr is a very feverish, aggressive, Bloodborne-type boss. That being said, and effective tactic is to keep the Grass Crest Shield in the secondary shield slot, and quickly switch to it to cure your stamina. Wearing the Chloranthy Ring really optimizes this. Both items are very easy to get, so if the player is too under-leveled, it makes sense to make the very fast trip to get these items.
9. If you need to heal, be about 80% of the distance of the arena away from Gundyr, and make sure you hit the Estus button when the last attack of his combo finishes. Otherwise, you will be paying one or two Estus per opening, and this is not economical for surviving the fight.
10. Don't use your Estus until Champion Gundyr loses about 35% of his health, and buffs into a red-eyed version of himself, because this is where the fight really becomes a boss fight!! 
11. Again, Gundyr's motor skills are terrible. You can briefly go in between his slower attacks for a rolling attack, and then roll a few times out. Again, don't expect to be safe for an Estus flask if you're not at least 80% of the distance of the arena away from Gundyr, because he is really a mad steroid gorilla beast, and will beat on you like a ragdoll object.
12. Using more than one Estus Flask, even back to back, will get you hit with a very high probability. Just facts.
13. Gundyr grunts for all of his attacks, except one or two. Use this to help your timing to signal you when he is going to attack.
14. Roll into the direction of his swings to optimize your i-frames. Most of his swings go clockwise, so that is a helpful tidbit.
15. When Gundyr is moving to back-kick, he will raise his trunk, as he raises his body for most of his attacks, if not all.
16. Gundyr has two or three mild AOE attacks. They have about a six foot radius, so don't worry about these too much.

With this playbook, the player is now prepared to beat Champion Gundyr!

 

Strategy 2 (Rapier)

This strategy is good for most melee builds, though strength builds may have more trouble pulling this off as it's easier with high Dexterity.  You will need a rapier enchanted with frost (Irythill Rapier is good for this) to lower his stamina,  and a 100% shield is highly recommended.  The rapier has rather fast attacks and wearing him down with frost will lower his ability to counterattack.  When he is in the first phase, roll into him and attack his back, watching his feet as he finishes his attacks.  If he lifts any of his legs, there's a good chance he will kick (which has extremely unforgiving tracking), so roll again or tank with shield.  You could sneak in two hits if he has one of the longer windup attacks (such as his large smash or his two-slash).  If you're lucky, he'll fall to his knees in the first phase and you'll be able to attack freely.  Once he enters his second phase, you have to roll in a more calculated fashion; he's going to string more attacks as you dodge, but there should be good windows to sneak in one hit.  

Note:  be careful of the shoulder smash; This attack is easily the worst thing to be hit by, has very little warning (Gundyr bends his arm and braces his shoulders just a bit), and can lead to a combination of knockups and stuns.  In the second phase, it's strongly recommended not to try for two attacks, because he can shoulder smash or punch MUCH faster than before.  When needing to heal, back away and wait out his stamina, for he doesn't have very strict movesets in this phase.  Continue stringing attacks as consecutively as possible, in order to stack up the frost, and he should fall to his knees again, allowing for free attacks.  Played patiently, this strategy should net a fast, low Estus run.

 

Strategy 3 (Magic)

Lightning/Sunlight spears can do considerable damage to Gundyr, however due to his aggressive nature it can be very difficult to get a cast in without taking damage, especially after he buffs himself in the second phase and becomes much more aggressive. However, using a talisman with unfaltering prayer can be a big help if you can tank some damage to get a cast off.
Trying to get distance to be able to cast is generally pointless, as Gundyr will not only easily close the distance with a single leap or charge, but may also avoid your projectiles while doing so. It is therefore recommended to stay in close or medium range and work only with fast spells such as Great Soul Arrow or even Great Farron Dart.

 

Strategy 4 (Pyromancy)

First phase treat the boss as you would any other melee boss staying away and lobbing spells whenever he does a heavy recovery move such as his overhead or his side swipe. What makes this boss difficult in his 2nd phase is the inherent mage mentality to stay away from the boss which results in you trying to endure his onslaught of attacks (which most mages cant) or the desire to roll back to avoid his attacks, instead focus on staying somewhat close and rolling behind him forcing him to turn around and interrupt his attack string. By doing this you will constantly slow his momentum and often result in him doing single string attacks or his turn around stomp which is easily telegraphed. Use chaos bed vestiges as his large hitbox is an easy target and it does large amounts of damage at 30/30 faith/int.

 

Strategy 5 (Sword Master Exploit)

There's a glitch for this fight (May 6th, app1.04 reg1.05) that you can do like Dancer very easily.

Summon the Sword Master (You need to kill him at Firelink before). As soon as the NPC dies, save & quit via the Start Menu. Reload your game and summon the NPC again and go in the boss room.

Sword Master will now take very minor damage and will dodge due to a hitbox bug. Just let him take the aggro and wait for the boss being bled to death. See Dancer for original Glitch.

Attacks

 

Note:  Typically, the attacks in his first phase are pairs, whereas the combos in the second are trios. 

Lore Theories

• Iudex Gundyr, who was corrupted by the Abyss, spends an eternity testing new unkindled heroes if they are worthy of fulfilling the prophecy of rekindling the First Flame. He was once an unkindled himself, but had risen too late to fulfill his duty. The Flame had already been extinguished and the bells failed to ring, starting a new Dark Age. As the Ashen One travels through the illusory door, they go straight to that very same Dark Age to face Champion Gundyr at his prime. This is where they defeat him as an unknown warrior which seals his fate. A prisoner with an unbreakable halberd hoping that one day an unkindled will rise and relink the flame once more.
• The reason Iudex Gundyr does not drop his Soul might be the result of the Untended Grave being the past, thus when you kill Iudex Gundyr you already obtained his soul in the Champion Gundyr fight. From a gameplay perspective this is probably to not allow players to obtain both items transposable from his soul in a single playthrough.
• "Once, a Champion came late to the festivities and was greeted by a shrine without a fire, and a bell that would not toll." - Soul of Champion Gundyr
  
   

Notes & Trivia

• If you die to this boss you can acquire your lost souls in the area where you fought Iudex Gundyr. Possible explanation: Untended Graves and Cemetery of Ash occupy the same space in the game's map.
• His set bears extreme resemblance to armor used by Old King Doran from Demon's Souls. Gundyr's helm also states this it was modeled after a former king.
• Because of Gundyr's devastating kick that he most commonly performs in his second phase (red eyes), it is advised for the player to never test his or her luck behind him.
• His shoulder tackle and drop kick attacks are similar to the ones used by Father Gascoigne from Bloodborne in the third phase of that boss fight.
• Bug (very rare): If a phantom gets stuck in the remains of the coffin, there is a chance that Gundyr will try to hit him. During this attempt he may "climb" on the top of the coffin, which will result in his death, as the coffin's upper part is a non-collision object.