Long Live the Kings (Dark Souls 14)

The Lordvessel is fully lit.  Off collecting side stuff I missed.

Last time I said I was lost, trying to find the last Lord Soul to finish the main quest I was on.  At the prompting of my Dark Souls guides, I made a list of things that I could remember to go explore.  The list at that time was as follows.

1. Explore the path in Darkroot Forest, near the forest guardians that would no longer attack me
2. Explore the Valley of Drakes
3. The gate in New Londo Ruins, by the Curse Clearing Guy
4. The boss room where I originally fought Seath
5. The large jail cell in the Archives

The first didn't lead me anywhere interesting, and the 2nd led me to a giant locked door.  The third turned out to be where I needed to go.  I talked to the curse guy, because I forgot which way I need to go to get to the locked door, and turns out, he had the key for it.  I opened the gate, and drained the water, and was able to progress.

At this time, I'm sitting around Soul Level 78 on my Sorcerer build, still making use of Aural Decoy to gain advantage on random enemy encounters (Sup, Darkwraiths?  Why can't I have your cool shields?).  Then, I reached the boss.  There was only like, 10 attempts at the boss, and around number 8, I got the final strategy cemented in my head.  I also kindled a bonfire in the Undead Parish allowed me to enter the fight with 15 Estus.  The Enchanted Falchion getting a bonus from my 45 intelligence was a huge boon, as I turned this fight into a DPS race, to kill a king before the next one showed up.  By two-handing the weapon, and staying close to the bosses' bodies, I was able to avoid the massive damage from the blades of the weapons, and got them burned down.  This is not how I had been playing the game, and it was a stark contrast to how I had dealt with previous bosses.  As someone who made their entire playstyle around more controlled zoning and engagement of the enemy.  Even with Ornstein and Smaugh, I was able to use the pillars to properly get some distance between the enemies. 

I'm going to need some help, as I don't plan on playing this game again, so I can't test it, but are there any other bosses that required such a drastic change in tactics?  I had tried to do this fight with just magic, but I had several Kings out at once, which then made it impossible to get a spell off.  Is there a boss that forces a two handed tank switch to another tactic, or was this just a fight that can punish casting?  I've heard that the Gargoyles are difficult for melee characters, but I don't know if it forces melee people to change their tactics. 

Between some of the attempts, I decided to go clear out the remaining items in the Archives on my list, and found that they were both reasonably worthwhile.  So hooray, exploration.  After the Kings, I went back to the prison island and picked up some things there.  I now have a lead on another area back in Anor Londo as well.  Basically, I'm in content mop up mode.

I'm almost done with Dark Souls, which is nice.  It'll be nice to close this book and put it on the shelf.  Not out of hate or anything like that, but for one of understanding.  I will have gotten out of it exactly what I was looking for, and I'm glad for that. 

Next time, it'll either be a sidequest mop up post, a DLC thing, or I'll just wait until I finish.