Dark Souls' madafakin' Capra Demon

[Edl01]

The Capra Demon gave me a ton of trouble because I couldn't block him with my shield, he just broke my guard.
I eventually went and grinded for a while so I could have reasonable amount of Stamina and after that is can fairly simple. The only problem is that first attack and trying to not get stuck in the corner.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

The first 10 seconds decide the fight. If you manage to kill the dogs then the Demon himself is pretty easy. Just make a beeline for the stairs when you enter then draw the dogs upstairs and kill them. Then the rest of the fight is very manageable.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Took me 4 tries the first time. Best strategy for non-Hidden Body users: As soon as you step in, back into the right-hand side of the doorway, the Capra should miss you, be blocking to deflect an attack from the dog, then kill the dog, all of this hopefully before the Capra is ready to swing again. Roll or block your way to the steps, back up them whilst luring the other dog, then kill it before the Capra gets within striking range. Now it's you and Capra. If you can roll dodge, have at it and watch your stamina. If you can't, ascend the stairs, block and wait for Capra to jump off, then plunge attack him, repeat until dead. Good luck!

The things that still get me even today are the Bed of Chaos (there's just no helping it), O&S with certain builds, and the infamous silver archers. Generally my strategy for them is now leg it through the lesser demons and try to roll through the arrows once I get to the ledge at the top, then try to parry the silver knight to the right off the ledge, obscured from the second by a column. Then if I'm feeling lucky go and dispose of that one as well. The critical moment is right at the top, where a slight misdirection in shield can cause you to fly off the edge if you get hit. It's ridiculous.

I used to have trouble with Havel until I learnt how to parry him. On my last run I beat him with an unupgraded fire axe, base stats and the grass crest shield, so that's the difference parrying makes.

 

[Weaver]

took me tons of tries, to this day I have more trouble with him than almost every other boss.

 

[runic knight]

Okay really? I know its entirely possible to do this, but on your first run? did you just read the entire wiki? I have a hard time believing this, but if its true than props to you.

I'm not sure what part you find hard to believe. The fact that I went for Anor Londo before killing the Capra Demon? That I had Quelaag's Furysword when I came back, or the fact that I figured out the fight is pretty easy once you know how to play the game?

All those were true. I didn't read the wiki, and had the tendency to get hopelessly lost. On my first playthrough, I went into Blighttown via the Valley of the Drakes, then went down into the swamp, and up into Blighttown itself. Worked my way through the entire thing to encounter a close door. I figured, this is the wrong place to be, and went all the way down to the swamp again. After that, I went into the Great Hollow because it seemed like an interesting place, and got to Ash Lake. There I found a hydra. That hydra pissed me off, so I had to kill it. At level 30-ish, with a drake sword.

All of that happened before I killed Quelaag. Things like that just tend to happen to me. I like exploring.

Probably that on your first play through you avoided the depths entirely (since if I recall right, you need capra to drop the key to get to them to get into blight town afterwards. This means you have the master key as a gift and snuck in through Drake valley. Quite possible, but that sort of knowledge suggests you either used a walk through or played the game some before. Furthermore, the fact you found a boss but didn't stick around to beat it and instead wandered around elsewhere to find the back door in also suggests aid of some sort there, as that starts being a lot of luck. Though as even he agreed, it is possible, as even on my first play through, a master key seemed the best gift to start with and wandering around would lead to the valley of drakes eventually. I just don't get the mindset that would have you find a boss, but after a few unsuccessful attempts, see you wander off elsewhere.

 

[Alcaste]

On almost all of my new characters he gives me trouble. Relatively speaking, I had more trouble with him than I did with Ornstein and Smough (though I've only got that far with one character. My others might have more trouble with them). It's that initial charge that gets you, for sure. And the walk, of course. At least there's that gate shortcut, but having to go through all the dogs again is a pain.

 

[Alcamonic]

On my first try I thought "oh cool, fog, I wonder what is it in her- Oh, I died before fog disappeared"

Then, lo and behold, my happiness when I stumbled upton that juicy stone armor in the forest area. Suddenly, I became a living tank, who cares if I couldn't roll against him or barely move!

 

[GameMaNiAC]

Just want to jump in; how much of a time sink is this game?
Been really looking into it because it looks brilliant to be honest, but I'm curious about how much bang I'll get for my buck?

And also is it the sort of game that's best in marathon stretches or little and often?

Massive time sink if you get into it. I think out of my eight or so characters, I have more than a weeks worth of time spent on the game. You are free to go at your own pace, and depending on how thorough you are a play through could last several days.

Beautiful, that's exactly what I wanted to hear. Ordered a copy for £20.
I'm the sort of player that explores every nook and cranny on the first couple play throughs.

Wish me luck!

G'luck, man!

You're going to need it, trust me.

 

[Mr.Squishy]

Both pre and post patch, I rarely had problems with him. The dogs cheesed me off a bit, but once they're dead, he's easy.

 

[Quazimofo]

Just want to jump in; how much of a time sink is this game?
Been really looking into it because it looks brilliant to be honest, but I'm curious about how much bang I'll get for my buck?

And also is it the sort of game that's best in marathon stretches or little and often?

I'd say little and often, though little is relative since it can sometimes take a long time to get from checkpoint to checkpoint, let alone entire areas.

Game's pretty damn long too. Speed runs of the whole thing, skipping a good few of the bosses and some whole areas, take upwards of an hour. As far as I know, there are..[small]asylum, taurus, gargoyles, quelaag, iron golem, o&s, seath, sif, 4 kings, firesage, centipede, bed of chaos, ceaseless discharge technically isn't, pinwheel, nito, gwyn[/small] like 15 mandatory bosses without glitches. And there are at like half a dozen optional ones.

So fellow Escapee, how long were you stuck on this overgrown goat?

I've been trying to kill him for 2 hours and can't seem to get him. I'm playing a SL 27 thief and he owns me everytime.

I think it's bound to be the worst and cheapest boss in gaming history due to the two chihuahuas, the small arena and the dumb camera angles.

After how many tries did you manage to down him?

took me like half a dozen tries. Early levels, the over hand hit you cannot block, and he likes to start with that, so right at the start you need to dodge quick and either go up the stairs or just to the other side of the room to kill those dogs. once they are done, he is straightforward and pretty easy to dodge, since he hits slowly.

 

[Caedus]

So I've finished Blighttown, couldn't beat the Hydra in the Ash Lake so went back up to Sen's Fortress and got my ass kicked too many times to count. I read a bit online about my backstabbing/counter class and came up with the conclusion that I was playing a hard game with a hard class. Yep, that's right. You want Hardcore mode on Dark Souls? Play a thief!

I decided to reroll a tank. After 3 hours of gameplay, I killed the Gaping Dragon (damn, who comes up with those monster design? This thing is horribly ugly!). So yeah, thief sucks.

 

[Sombra Negra]

thief is good if you want to take one of the other starting gifts along with the master key (which is the best one, imo). the class you pick at the start is essentially irrelevant, a knight can dodge as well as a thief if you strip down his armour and weapons a bit. what i suggest you do is pick a weapon you really like and build solely around that - level your strength up enough to one hand wield it then ignore all of your other stats barring endurance and vitality, since points in anything else are essentially worthless if you only use one or two weapons of a similar class. SL120 is generally the 'cutoff' point for levelling (i think, unless the meta has changed) for pvp, and frankly it shouldn't be necessary after that point anyway. as peeps have said, equipment > level, and skill > all. there are naked sl1 playthroughs on youtube, if i am not mistaken, so with enough leet skillz you can overcome anything.

and if you have a shield, dear god walk everywhere with it raised. drop it in combat between hits that you take or rolls though, as this lets your stamina regenerate far, far faster than if you kept it up all the time. once you get a feel for enemies' natural rhythms, you know roughly when it's safe to drop the shield and catch your breath. and don't try to parry anything twice as long as you are, it probably won't work.

i most recently beat him as thief with an estoc you can find very close to firelink shrine, just poking him from behind a shield. took me 2 or 3 goes i think. first playthrough i was hyper over-levelled so i killed him really quickly with a zweihander.

 

[upgrayedd]

His freaking Dogs killed me more then him. Once you eliminate dogs its just running up and off stairs and hitting him at every oppotunity, He's not that tough

 

[Ryank1908]

A tanky character will have more luck with Capra Demon than any other will.

The main thing that needs to be done straight away, is kill those dogs. If you don't they'll stunlock you, poison you, and then Capra will come and one shot you. A good idea would be to go and grab the Elite Knight armor from Darkroot Garden and Havel's Ring from underneath the tower you went up to find the Taurus Demon. With these items you can take a few hits from dogs without getting stunned and you can still move fairly quickly.

Just plough into the dogs and attack them as quickly as possible. Use a 100% physical block shield too, like the Knight's Shield or whatever, and just attack when you know you can kill the dogs in one or two hits. Once the dogs are dead you can run up the staircase if you need to heal.

Capra Demon only has a few attacks - a standard swiping 3 hit combo, a leaping attack, and a two-handed swing. You can block the swipes and the leap is easy to dodge, but if you see him building up for a two-handed swing you should back off. If you block it it'll pound you into the dirt and deal a lot of damage and if you don't, it'll probably kill you.

Just be careful, wait for him to make an attack before you counter, and use that staircase to heal when you're low.

 

[b.w.irenicus]

Yeah of course at first I tended to die there a lot (stupid dogs!), but with my later builds I rarly did, because the demon itself is rather easy if you manage to kill of his puppies and stay calm. I remember that I once forgot about him and visited him quite late in the game. It was really refreshing not to get one-shooted by him, but to one-shot him instead ^^ (I think it was with the Man-Serpent-Sword +15, one of the best weapons in the whole game imo).

 

[Alcaste]

So I've finished Blighttown, couldn't beat the Hydra in the Ash Lake so went back up to Sen's Fortress and got my ass kicked too many times to count. I read a bit online about my backstabbing/counter class and came up with the conclusion that I was playing a hard game with a hard class. Yep, that's right. You want Hardcore mode on Dark Souls? Play a thief!

I decided to reroll a tank. After 3 hours of gameplay, I killed the Gaping Dragon (damn, who comes up with those monster design? This thing is horribly ugly!). So yeah, thief sucks.

I'm playing a thief with the winged spear and astora's straight sword. Just because you start with a tiny little shield and a dagger doesn't mean you gotta use it. The thief's faith and dex are both pretty high - Join up with the Warriors of the Sun, do some jolly co-operation, and throw some magic fire sun lightning spears at people.


--
I finally ran into a boss that my endurance-focused Zweihander meatman can't handle, and that's Dark Sun Gwyndolin. GET BACK HERE YOU. Even with the best magic defense shield in the game I can't seem to beat him

 

[XMark]

The first few seconds are chaos where you can die no matter how good you are but yeah, like everyone says, dogs first then demon.

It's kind of funny how there's a section later on with a whole bunch of Capra demons that are just normal enemies.

 

[lRookiel]

So in the end I managed to kill him with the help of a fellow player I summoned. Felt great to look at this fucker disappear into thin air.

I'm still fairly new to the Dark Souls universe so I didn't know leveling wasn't as important as upgrading gear. I'll look into it asap.

Make sure to always be human and I will come and give you hugs with my Darkwraith :3

 

[IFS]

Third try on my first game, its actually one of my favorite fights in the early game once you know what to do. The only real problem is that you don't get a look into the arena before fighting him, so you have to react fast to stand a chance on your first try. Basic strategy for me (and I think for other people in this thread) is to kill the dogs and make it up the stairs, if you go up there and along the arch he has trouble reaching you giving you a place to heal, and perform plunging attacks if you want. From there its not that difficult to duel him on foot, his attacks are well telegraphed and if you have a good shield you can probably block most of them.

Edit: for the record my first game was with a claymore, a heater shield, and the wander armor set, none of which was upgraded.

 

[barbzilla]

Just want to jump in; how much of a time sink is this game?
Been really looking into it because it looks brilliant to be honest, but I'm curious about how much bang I'll get for my buck?

And also is it the sort of game that's best in marathon stretches or little and often?

As a time sink, I have 80 or so hours put in to my two playthroughs. I am working on a third now, but they get faster the more you know. As far as bang for your buck, at this point the game is so cheap you will get an amazing bang for your buck as you put it. Few games managed to entertain me as much as this one did, as far as new releases anyway.

As for your final question. I find it is best to do the puzzle areas and bosses in marathon stretches, but you can do the rest of the game in bite size chunks if you prefer. I also recommend that if you get stuck on a boss for more than 5 tries, log off the game and come back to it in a day or so. I don't know if it is mental fatigue or if it is related to the fact that you build neural pathways in your sleep, but it tends to help me win on the extra hard bosses.

The most important thing if you are looking for a game that will entertain you for hours on end is, do not read any guides on your first playthrough. I would even suggest second playthrough, as I found out that I missed quite a bit on my first playthrough. Once you have gained the knowledge on how to do something, the thrill of discovery or accomplishment is gone forever.