The Rotten is one disgusting, huge and powerful boss. This monstrosity is hard to beat, and depending on your luck, you might be stuck with him for some time. These tips might help you to beat the Rotten and increase the chances of staying alive just a little bit more.
First, notice the area where you’ll be fighting the Rotten. Some of the tiles are covered in fire, so lure him out of those and stay close to him. Keeping him in the middle of the room will provide you with more ground to get close to him to deliver your blows.
The thing with the Rotten, is that he uses attacks that cover a large area. His Horizontal and Forward Slash and Pummel attacks are avoidable, but require constant rolling. If you want to beat him, you might consider removing your armor completely. Or at least, downgrading to something light. Stamina is ridiculously important in this fight, so if everything fails, try this thing out.
As mentioned before, “luck” has some actual meaning in this fight. Many players encounter different combat behavior from him. Sometimes he Acid Spits some players more, sometimes he doesn’t Pummel attack the others. If you keep your distance in mid range and if you prepare for any of his attacks thoroughly, you might reduce the chance of something random happening to you regarding his massive one-hit-half-health-bar attacks.
Consider equipping something with Dark Resistance. The Rotten uses AoE attack that blasts you with high-dealing Dark damage. Whenever you see him charge it, just run from him. Try to block, if anything else fails.
The Rotten boss sometimes imbues his massive cleaver with same Dark Energy, that he uses in his AoE attack, and tries to strike you. Avoiding that attack might be not enough, as the Rotten will use his AoE Blast, right after it, too. What’s worse, that this massive and dangerous combo is used more frequently when your character is low on health. Be cautious. If you get hit, heal up. It can’t be stressed enough how important it is to dodge this attack. Just sprint away. Even after you get hit, the screen will turn purple-blackish, blurring out the view, making the battle even more difficult.
The Rotten uses combination of his colossal attacks, so keeping at least 50% of Stamina is more than useful. Preventing yourself from getting hit is the key. Well, like with all bosses, but with him especially, cause the Rotten might get right in the mood to crush you with his two-three strike Cleaver hits, when you least expect it. No matter the attack sequence, that the Rotten uses.
The spot to focus and attack would be his right (your left) side. He uses his cleaver attacks, sometimes in succession. Successfully rolling away from them (to the Cleaver side) will give you a moment to strike at least two times.
Coincidentally, the Rotten is immune to Dark Energy and all of its attacks, but we’ll talk about resistances later.
Using shorter weapons, like swords, will increase the mobility of your attacks. Something massive, like halberd might hinder you and make you susceptible to his cleaves more.
Unless, of course, you know what you’re doing. If you wish to take up a halberd or a pike in your fight, you can, but it might require more skill and timing. If you wish to succeed, you’ll need to sprint away from his attacks, not roll away from them. After avoid his blow, run back to him, and strike him. A warning: don’t lock on to the Rotten. Besides, objectively having the worst lockbox of all Dark Souls II bosses, the Rotten, when fought with a large, two hand weapons is better utilized in attacks of one than two or more.
Sometimes he gets winded from his Cleaver attacks. If by rolling away from him you find yourself standing right behind him, don’t miss the opportunity to strike him at least two times. Be careful with your attacks, as he will turn around and he’ll be back again it in no time.
Getting back to resistances, the Rotten, as mentioned, is immune to Dark attacks. He himself utilizes it well, and using weapon imbued in something dark will be more than useless. He has medium magic and fire resistance, so if you’re trying to take him with something magic or fire based, you’ll be dealing, essentially, half the damage that you could be doing with something that he is not immune to. And in this case, that is lightning. Weapon upgraded with Lightning will deliver the harshest blows. Try to keep that in mind, as every advantage against this boss is a plus not an extra. The Rotten can bleed and can be Poisoned, so if you know how you can utilize those weapon upgrades into the fight too, do it and don’t hesitate. Though, considering the requirements and the relative ease of acquiring and upgrading a weapon with those upgrades, you’re the safest going with Lightning.
We hope that these tips helped you and you got a chance to decimate the monstrosity that is called The Rotten. Have fun taking him on in NG+ games!
