I tried parrying him, but I am awful. I figured out how awful I was on the 12th try or so. :) I might get 2 in a row, then he does the grab move which I can dodge about 1/3 of the time.

I have been waiting to summon someone, but I am running low on humanity and no one has popped up in the 3 hours I have been playing. None of my friends own the game. They would rather play COD or some such. I am the only one who like RPG's.

So close, and yet so far...

Be grateful you aren't facing Gwynbleidd.

The White Wolf? Or the band? lol

Edit: AHH, got invaded and died pretty quick. Only 1 humanity left. I really dont want to go farming. Im right here. I just want this to end!!!

I don't remember my equipment. It's more than a year since I finished this game on XBOX 360.
Anyway I think Stoneskin spell on its own make character movement too slow.

Tanking wont work for me. I died before he lost half of his health.

I think its time to call it quits for now.

Thanks for everyone's help, though.

I have to much of a headache to continue tonight.

Alright, so here's the problem you most likely have: You try to attack him when you don't actually have enough time to do so, you get hit hard for 3/4 of your health, you panic and take a sip from your flask and he kills you while you're in drinking animation. The fight is over in 20 seconds and you have learned nothing. Rinse and repeat.

The solution to this problem is to do the fight in 2 steps. In step 1, you never attack. Ever. Instead, you use the safety of not attacking him to survive as long as you like and learn his move set. In step 2 you kill him.

Equipment: What you have is fine. Black Knight Shield is perfect. Armor doesn't matter much, but physical and fire resistance + enough poise to not stagger in one hit helps. Just stay under 50% encumbrance to help your movement in step 1.

Step 1: Go in and keep you shield up at all times safe for the usual short stamina recovery. Keep a distance to Gwyn of just outside his weapon range by always moving backwards and to one side. You'll notice that him hitting your shield does pretty minor damage and by always moving away from him his swings will mostly hit air, conserving your stamina. Moving to the side will also help him missing and keep you from standing with the back against the wall. Now, have a look at his attack patterns and even more importantly, the length of the pause in between attacks. There are several options, but the easiest is probably his grab attack. He'll miss it every time if you move backwards and there is always a long opening for attack after that. This is also a perfectly safe time to heal. Also start experimenting a bit with the perfect distance to him to induce attacks you want him to use like the grab attack.

Step 2: Once you are comfortable staying in the fight indefinitely and you can predict at least one or two windows of opportunity open long enough to both hit or heal in safety, you kill him. Just remember to be patient and don't take unnecessary risk, i.e. only hit him once even if you think you might get another hit in, never attack if you're not 100% sure he's just finished one of his long recovery attacks and always heal if you have the choice between heal and attack.

It can take a while to whittle him down and you will curse him if he just refuses to use your preferred attacks for a while, but as long as you block and move away it basically doesn't matter how long it takes since you have more Estus than you'll ever need.

I will definitely try this in a day or two. I need to rest my mind a bit. I knew I needed a break when the knights before the fight started to kill me easily, when I was usually breezing right through them before.

Oddly, almost every fire based boss in the game gave me trouble. Quelaag might have given me more trouble than Gwyn has, but its getting close.

I got cocky because I started playing again after a few months hiatus, and literally blew through the game until Gwyn. Seath, Sif, Bed of Chaos, 4 kings, and Nito went down with no problem. I died once in Tomb of the Giants, which people seem to hate apparently, and I did this with no walkthroughs. This made me think I had the formula down. Boy was I wrong!

The main problem is I start to get extremely sweaty hands when the fighting is intense, and lose grip, which starts the panic, which cause me to react too soon or too late. Death follows pretty quickly after that with this guy.

Also, he constantly grabs or kicks me. I am getting better at dodging the grab, but that kick always gets me, eats all of my stamina, and he rushes in and wails on me until death. I watched some fights to get help and he always seems to do the 4 swing combo for these people, which just frustrates me more because of how easy they make it look by parrying or tanking him.

Anyway, thanks again for the tip. Ill let everyone know how it goes in a couple of days. I WILL beat this game!

Try parrying.

No, seriously, parrying Gwyn is by far the easiest way to murder him.

Kick and grab should pretty much become a joke once you manage to keep a bit of a distance from him and you move further back while he's in his animation. That should also help you getting him to use attacks you want, like the combo you mention. Distance seems to be the most important factor that decides which attacks are being used.

Oh, and regarding parrying: I do think that my low risk / low reward method is a bit easier at first, but once you are done with step 1 and you know his move set, you can just as well learn the rhythm of one of his combos and, say, decide to parry the third swing of a 4 swing combo. Just never try to parry the first swing since there is much more ambiguity about when exactly the swing will hit. Once he starts the combo, the rhythm is set.

If Solaire didn't die in your playthrough you can summon him and he makes the fight really easy.

I DID IT!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn't wait another day. I had to beat it.

I bought the game immediately after it came out on PC. I played all the way up to the painted world, and another game I wanted came out so I started playing that instead.

I tried to go back in mid December, but my already lackluster skills were gone. A few days ago I decided to continue out of boredom, beat Priscilla on the first try without breaking a sweat and realized I can beat this damn thing. (though she is pretty easy, it was enough for me)

I blow through it and proceed to face plant at the kiln.

Until I finally killed Gwyn. I even chose the dark ending out of spite for that bastard, even though I was saving that for a second play through. How's that for your age of fire, a#$hole!!! I'll probably hold off on starting that second run until my ulcers, burst blood vessels, and high blood pressure this game has given me go away.

Thanks for all the advice, guys. I did the same timing trick i learned in pokemon, where I counted in my head the right time to parry instead of trying to "see". (For reference, if you waited exactly every 3 seconds to stop the slot machines in pokemon red/blue, you would win every time. a little trick I learned)

Anyway, since I am sadistic and want to shorten my lifespan I will be buying the sequel so I can cry all over again.

Thanks again for helping a crappy gamer, especially isis12, you were very helpful, and the rest of you as well. :)

Awesome, congrats!

Although I hope you know that about 48h after beating the game, you'll start hearing this little voice at the back of your head. You'll ignore it for a day or two, but one night, probably when it's very quiet before you go to sleep, you'll listen and it will be whispering: "Don't you wanna beat the game Soul Level 1, naked? Come on, it'll be fun, I promise..."