Dark Souls

To acquire the Lordvessel, you first need to defeat the twin bosses Dragon Slayer Ornstein and and Executioner Smough. I found that the best strategy for this battle is to take Ornstein out first by keeping him as far separated from Smough as possible. Chances are he will pursue you more since he is faster. Ensure your weapon is two handed during this battle to maximize your efficiency with it.

Once Ornsetin is down, a small cutscene will play, and Smough will appear with more health, and powered by the lightning ability. To defeat him, stay locked on, and dodge his attacks vice block, since the lightning ability will null and void your chances of blocking without taking damage. When you see him irradiate with lightning, it's time to move out of the way, or he will butt slam you, and yes it does hurt a lot O.O

Once both bosses are defeated, make your way up one of the rising platforms and into the next room where you will find Gwynevere. Talk to her, and she will grant you the Lordvessel. Bing, achievement unlocked. Be wary, this boss fight is one of the more difficult ones in the game.

For those like me who want to get Ornstein's soul and the leo ring by killing Smough first, I thought I'd share how I eventually beat them.

Both are weak to fire. I believe that at least Smough is also weak to lightning, but I don't believe Ornstein is. After failing a few times with my +5 Lightning Iaito, I decided to upgrade to a +4 Quelaag's Furysword, which does fire damage, and scales with Dexterity and Humanity (the latter capping at 10 humanity), which worked the first time.

I got the Dark Wood Grain Ring by killing Shiva of the East's bodyguard, who will only appear upon joining the Forest Hunter covenant. Generally, I found it to be a better idea to stay nimble in this fight rather than block too much, so the ring allows for very quick movement up to 50% equip burden. I stacked up on some Havel and Black Iron gear for the poise and phys/lightning defence, and did the best I could manage.

Block as you're entering in case of Ornstein's attacks from across the room, then move around a lot, behind pillars where possible for a respite. As Quelaag's sword stacks with humanity, which I had farmed already from the rats in the depths, I tried to use it rather than Estus flasks to heal, so as to get a damage boost at the same time. I went in with 2 humanity and ended with 5.

Smough is most easily dealt with using pyromancy if it's available, and it really helps with the upgraded Ornstein as well. Chaos Fireballs did a lot of damage, whilst regular fireballs were nice to fall back on when it was 1v1. Rolling toward's Orstein when he was attacking seemed to work well for me, taking 2 - 3 strikes then rolling away again.

Good luck, and know that the feeling of relief when you beat these two is definately worth the frustration of getting there.

If you are going to summon Solaire then make sure you kill the white knight dragonbow archer and the 2 giant halberd knights before you do. This can be done with zero damage using a reinforced bow (as high as you can, just to speed things up) and poison arrows. If you don't kill them then they damage solaire on the way in and sometimes keep him deadlocked and he won't make it to the O&S fight alltogether.

You get poison arrows from the female undead merchant in the sewer on the way to the undead burg/the depths

Kill the archer from across the other side of the room with repeated headshots and standard arrows. If you keep hitting in head he won't get a shot off with his bow and he won't move position so just keep hitting the fire button until he's dead. You can also poison him first but it's a waste of poison arrows as they don't have that much health and making the switch back to normal arrows might give him a chance to shoot you.

The two big knights can be poisoned with 2 or 3 arrows. Then switch to regulars to speed things up. You need to be far enough away no to agro them with the bow shots. This way they will not heal themselves.

Takes a bit longer than a straight toe to toe fight but you'll have all 20 estus flasks for facing O&S.

To add to the above strategy regarding summoning Solaire, make sure you disconnect your Xbox 360 from your internet connection to remove the risk of being invaded by random players, who may or may not have very OP weaponry.


Also, once Ornstein is killed, have Solaire pull aggro on Smough so you can attack him from behind and quickly jump back when he is about to unleash his lightning butt smash.

**This solution contains some spoilers

The Lordvessel is acquired from the Princess of Sun, Gywnevere, at the end of Anor Londo. Before you can reach the princess, you must defeat the dual bosses Ornstein & Smough.

To make this battle a little bit more even, I strongly recommend reviving to human and summoning the knight Solaire to help you in the battle. His summon sign is on one of the landings of the staircases in the main hall before the White Fog Door.

With the help of Solaire, seperate the two and work on killing one of them. After the first has been defeated, the other will absorb their fallen mate's skills. Just as the previous solution states, I also chose to kill Ornstein first since he's already chasing you around. After his death, Smough will gain lightning damage on all of his attacks.

To make this part must easier, lock onto to Smough and then manuever yourself until one of the partial pillars are in between you and Smough. Now, just kep the pillar in between you and Smough until he attempts the jumping hammer strike. Once he lands, quickly run around and get a single hit in on him and then retreat back around the pillar. There should be enough time after the jump attack to do this and get back in position before he does another attack.

The only real danger to you will be whenever he chooses to use the jumping, lightning butt-strike. It's pretty easy to see this coming, so make sure you get away as fast as possible when this happens. If you are able to keep the pillar exactly between you, you can avoid taking damage, but I found it easier to just get away as fast as possible.

This took me a while, and i had a couple of close calls with the big lightning strike, but it just takes a little bit of patience and he should eventually fall.

Hopefully this will help you!