FromSoftware’s games are always known for their insane difficulty and unforgiving gameplay. Most of this can be attributed to the boss fights, which always put the players' skills and gear to the test. Some of Bloodborne’s toughest bosses are just as quick (if not more) than you. Facing off against these bosses can sometimes feel like a dance where one wrong step means you’ve completely lost the rhythm... and you die. On the contrary, there are some boss fights that are a complete joke and you wonder if the developers intended this.

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Keep in mind that difficulty is completely subjective. What one finds to be challenging, others may think it was the easiest thing they’ve ever encountered. It will be different for everyone. These entries stood out based on how grueling they were for the player base. Here are the five toughest bosses in Bloodborne, as well as the five weakest. 

Updated on February 4, 2021, by Reyadh Rahaman: Since there are no (useful) ways to block incoming attacks, the only options players have when faced with threats are to dodge or tank the hit and recover some health with counterattacks. Getting the evasive mechanics down is crucial to one's success in Bloodborne as is understanding type-based damage. Fire, Bolt, and Arcane are the main three that can respectively grant great damage boosts against certain kinds of foes and bosses. Though, the two hidden ones, Serration and Righteous, should not be overlooked as they can also yield great battle boons. In a game where one needs all the help that they can get, or can annihilate specific threats with simple methods, the power of a boss is highly dependant on a player's build and weapon.

9 (Weakest) Mergo’s Wet Nurse

It’s a shame that one of the last few boss fights is also extremely easy. The only thing that makes Mergo a challenging fight is the length. Going up against her may take a while, although it’s only because you get so few windows of opportunity to strike. The rest of the time is spent dodging her slow and easy to telegraph attacks.

Seriously, her attacks are so slow that you wonder if maybe this boss fight was meant for Dark Souls instead. There is one portion of the fight where she constantly teleports around, but all you really need to do is run in a circle and you can easily avoid her. 

Furthermore, she has a very easy to abuse blindspot. When she isn't popping in and out of reality, one can quite easily stand almost directly behind her and be out of range of all of her attacks. If by some chance she can catch the player with a glancing blow, it will do minimal damage from this position, which can be easily be negated by healing from counterattacks or using a Blood Vial.

8 (Toughest) Father Gascoigne

Depending on the path you take, Father Gascoigne is either your first or second boss fight, but oh my does he make quite an impression. Just like the player, Gascoigne is also a Hunter who moves fast and can even parry your attacks. His final phase will throw players off guard, as he not only becomes more aggressive, but he turns into a freaking werewolf!

While later Hunter encounters may prove more difficult, specifically Gherman, Gascoigne's placement at the beginning makes him extremely punishing. Players have just started this game, which means they have no idea what to expect. Gascoigne is there to roll out the bloody welcome mat. 

In his human form, Father Gascoigne can be cheesed relatively easily by using the tombstones in the boss area and clever positioning. There are multiple groups of these grave markers where he can get stuck, allowing the player to wreck him with near impunity as long as they keep an eye out for his pistol attacks. This does not work so well when he goes into his beast form, though this new strength also comes with a severe weakness to Fire damage. Even without a weapon that inherently does this kind of damage, a single Fire Paper consumable is often more than enough to reduce his health bar to zero in a matter of seconds, regardless of which melee weapon the player is using.

7 (Weakest) Cleric Beast

Hopefully, you encounter the Cleric Beast before Gascoigne since this creature is one of the easiest boss fights, which should instill a ton of confidence going forward. It may seem intimidating with its huge size and screeching screams. Don’t be fooled, though. All that’s really required is to keep dodging the attacks and hit it from behind (the usual Dark Souls strategy).

The Cleric Beast isn’t necessarily a cake-walk, but its attack patterns are soon easy to figure out after a minute or so. Even newcomers to Soulsborne games will be able to take it out in just a few attempts, if not on their first try. 

Like Father Gascoigne and other feral foes, the Cleric Beast has a crippling weakness to Fire damage. If one has any sort of trouble with this early-game boss, it is recommended to whip out a sheet of Fire Paper to scorch this screeching fiend to ashes.

6 (Toughest) Lady Maria Of The Astral Clocktower

Lady Maria may seem like just another Hunter encounter like Gascoigne. In the first half of the fight, that seems to be true. However, her second phase is absolutely brutal. She ends up summoning her Blood powers, allowing her weapon to have an even greater reach than earlier. Not only can they catch you from afar, but they are also difficult to time.

As if things couldn’t get any worse, she adds fire damage to her weapons in addition to the already deadly Blood attacks. One wrong misstep and she'll one-shot you. All that being said, Lady Maria is an exhilarating fight from a visual perspective. 

She also has pretty well-rounded defenses, with her only real weaknesses being Arcane and Bolt, albeit only slightly. However, as a human Hunter, she can be parried and staggered, which leaves her open to visceral attacks. A great way to do this with little effort is to use the hunter tool know as the Augur of Ebrietas, which lets loose an explosion of tendrils from the player's hand that not only does huge Arcane damage, but can parry and stagger humanoid foes fairly easily at the cost of only a single Quicksilver Bullet.

5 (Weakest) The Witch Of Hemwick

Fighting The Witch Of Hemwick is basically like playing a deadly version of hide and seek. This boss encounter is more trivial than actually being difficult, despite having multiple witches to take down. The more aggressive you are, the faster this fight will end. You simply need to run around the arena and find any one of the hooded witches.

Luckily, they do not have a huge health pool. To make things even easier, they typically teleport away if they take too much damage, meaning they’ll rarely be able to hit you. It’s a cool concept for a fight, but it’s sadly just annoying.

This disgusting monstrosity of a former human has low defenses across the board, meaning that any method of attack can take her down with little issue. Despite her grotesque appearance, she even has relatively low resistance to both Rapid Poison and Slow Poison, meaning that players can use consumables like Poison Knives or insert the appropriate Blood Gems into their weapon for an even quicker way to dispose of this filthy witch. Their Chalice Dungeon form is a bit tougher but not by much.

4 (Toughest) Ludwig, The Accursed

Ludwig is a giant creature with a massive sword, which may sound easy to dodge, however, he moves just as quick as some of the Hunter bosses. Ludwig was once a Hunter himself, which explains his fast reflexes and agility. Since Ludwig is so huge, this prevents the player from being able to get away when they need a break to heal.

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His sword has a ridiculous reach that can cover a quarter of the arena. Ludwig was the first boss in the Old Hunters DLC. Right from the start, players know that FromSoftware wasn’t messing around.

Ludwig's many limbs can make him tough to approach from any angle, leading to some frustrating scenarios where one closes in to deal some damage only to get donkey-kicked by one of his extra legs or similar. In addition, his leap attack can be tricky to counter, though if one sprints towards the most distant wall when he jumps to the ceiling, he will usually land just behind the player if they don't slow down, opening him up for a few strikes. His greatest weakness is Fire damage, so be sure to bring some sheets of Fire Paper.

3 (Weakest) Micolash, Host Of The Nightmares

Fighting Micolash doesn’t really require much skill. Instead, it’s a true test of patience as this boss essentially just runs away and trolls you the entire fight. The first time you fight Micolash, you’ll soon become lost in the maze-like arena.

Once you do get to him, though, he’s very weak and takes a ton of damage from your attacks. He only has two powerful Arcane attacks, but they are easy to predict and avoid. Nevertheless, he’s a unique boss fight for the entire series. 

A great way to alleviate a lot of the tedium of chasing him down is to use ranged attacks like guns or consumables. Having low resistance to both Rapid Poison and Slow Poison means that players can cheese him much like they can with the Witch of Hemwick by tossing a bunch of Poison Knives at him as he flees like a coward. The poison effects make it easy to deal damage to him when he isn't even within sight, making for a satisfying way to counter-troll Micolash.

2 (Toughest) Laurence, the First Vicar

You might walk into this boss fight and immediately show no concern. After all, Laurence is basically just a reskinned version of the Cleric Beast. The problem is...that skin is on fire. The first half of this fight is manageable, albeit a little dangerous considering his skin can damage you.

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The true challenge comes in the second phase, where you can no longer just hit from behind since he completely rips off his bottom half and his top half is crawling full-speed towards you, leaving a trail of fire in his path. You can only get so many hits in before his fire damage will eventually kill you. It’s an extremely exhausting fight, but a magnificent one at that. 

Boasting immunity to both types of poison as well as extremely high resistance to Fire damage, Laurence cannot be taken down by cheesing methods or with the usual beast-counter of using Fire Paper. However, he is weak to Serration-type damage, a hidden damage type that can be found on many weapons including the Beast Cutter and the whip mode of the Threaded Cane. Although positioning will be very difficult to maintain, most players find the second phase of this boss fight more manageable from this burning beast's left side, where his most dangerous attacks don't reach very well.

Almost every Dark Souls game usually has a fight where you’re facing off against numerous enemies, but only one of them is the actual boss. Celestial Emissary is Bloodborne’s version of this encounter. This Lovecraftian alien-like creature will do its best to hide among the many minions, but you’ll generally be able to find it in the crowd.

If you don’t feel like playing Where’s Waldo, though, taking out the numerous minions is no big deal either since they have little health and aren’t much of a threat. Once you finally do find the correct one, you can kill him in seconds. 

With low defense against Fire, Bolt, Arcane, and both poisons, there isn't really even a need for an attack strategy in this boss fight. The Celestial Minions are kind of annoying, though only about as much as common enemies. Hunters can just hack and slash through the lot of them until they find the true Celestial Emissary. Though, if one does not feel like messing around, simply look for the one that does not have a health bar over their head by locking on and swapping targets. This one is the Emissary.

1 (Toughest) Orphan Of Kos

Orphan Of Kos might just be the most difficult boss fight in the entire Soulsborne games, definitely the ugliest. This entire fight gives you no time to breathe as you are constantly dodging his relentless attacks, while also getting barely any room to attack. Kos is aggressive enough in his first phase, but the second is even worse.

What makes him so difficult is how he doesn’t play the rules of past games. Usually, players have been able to telegraph all boss attacks, but he tends to delay his swings, resulting in you always missing the correct timing of your dodge. Still, it’s an amazing boss fight and sense of accomplishment has been unmatched in the series thus far. 

There isn't really an easy method of taking down this monstrosity. Although he is relatively weak to Fire and Bolt damage, it is not nearly as noticeable a difference as with most other bosses. Furthermore, Orphan of Kos is unlikely to let up long enough for players to even buff their weapon with Fire Paper or Bolt Paper. One method that will make this fight a bit less difficult is to use the hunter tool Augur of Ebrietas to stagger him after he does his plunge attack, which opens him up for a backstab. Just be careful of the lightning that erupts from the beached corpse of his dead mother, for the only place safe from this attack is (counterintuitively) the water.

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