Commander O'Neil | Elden Ring Wiki

He is definitely not immune to poison. You can actually sneak up behind him and use poison mist to cheese him to death.

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The tarnished approaches the heart of the swamp, fending off the cleanrot knights.
O’Neil, the battle hardened warrior, hears the nearby clashing of weapons.
He does not run.
He knows that this is his time to bring glory to his name once again.
The metal clanging ceases, and the tarnished comes into view.
He is ready.
With a fire in his eyes and energy coursing through his veins, he lets out his signature battle cry.
“It’s rottin’ time!”

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Edited it a bit because, he says "Glory, Brave Knights!" instead of "Glory, Fame!"

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Lightning Spear makes this fight SO trivial.

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It's so easy to trivialize this fight. Right in front of the Summoning Pool there is a stone/root wall you can climb and bow him to death. The only danger are his soldiers with their crossbows, but you can get rid of them first by circling around on horse and smacking them with some long weapon - after their death, hop on high, bow and the fight is done.

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This guy has absolutely shredded me and everyone I have summoned to help lol

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Polyanna's summon sign appeared for me for this fight before ever interacting with Gowry, Millicent or even visiting Sellia
I already beat Radahn, though I doubt that's related

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You can just sneak up to him and poison him to death. dont even have to fight

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DAE wonder how many people died in the shattering? This whole arena is carpeted with corpses and bones - you can see >100 bodies just looking down at the ground, and who knows how deep they go. Some of the corpse piles are huge in places like Castle Morne, the Ainsel River, the wastes where Radahn is, to say nothing of Rykard's chamber. What are we talking here? Millions? Billions?

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very niche info but if you feel like fighting him barehanded (with parries) you can optimize your damage by queueing right trigger attacks immediately after landing a parry (will hit him square in the head for ~5 damage), and then landing a right bumper as O'Neil recovers/before parrying him again

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Im sorry if this is old news and I found out just today (lol) and dont see in any other place, but you can cheese him real easily snucking behind him and just using poison mist until he dies, you don't even have to fight, 12000 souls for that hell of a fight is an absurd...

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12 faith, poison mist, 5 minutes of patience and cool strength halberd with the best aura buff in the game yours very early (less then 1 hour from beginning playthrough)

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Cool that Malenia has guys like O´Neill who have sworn their lives and loyalty to her.

I suppose he was her second in command during the campaign, just as Radahn had Jerren.

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Small tips: leave a crossbowman alive. They don't do **** when you're mounted and it gives you a few free hits on the boss once in a while.

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Polyanna, Adopted Daughter summon doesn't require any other progression

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yes

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immune to scarlet rot. was able to poison him. bleed works very well also.

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The true boss here is the lag

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I wish his weapon had rot build up

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If Polyanna is summoned, you can't use torrent. If not for the quest I won't even use her lmao she makes the fight more difficult. Waste of my time

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Immune to scarlet rot, yet vulnerable to its weaker counterpart poison for no reason what so ever

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oh hi gundyr

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He yells various chants and battle cries throughout the fight but it’s hard to make out what he’s saying.

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who designed this ****? who thought that it would be fun to have 6 archers spitting at you the entire time you're trying to fight a boss?

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This guy and his spear description is nightmare for Malenia simps.Even today they cant accept the fact O'Neil serves to Malenia.

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bewitching all 3 of the great axe exile soldier in phase 2 with the help of great axe banish knight ashes the boss got destroyed lmao.

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You can cheese the **** out of this guy using the Rot Geisers near the site of grace. Stay on torrent, taunt him to follow you until he gets on the geyser, literally circle around him while he takes massive damage. When he summons the big guys for second phase, summon as well and keep them distracted, focus on him.
Didn't need to hit him myself once. Good job From.

Best thing is, bc you are so close to a SoG, so it takes two seconds to this whatever number of times, should you die while attempting it.

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Could've sworn I used rotten stray to beat this dude on release.

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I've defeated him with a lvl 1 mage.

+12 demi human queen's staff
The helmet that gives +6 intelligence and lowers HP.
The talisman that gives +3 intelligence, faith, arcane
The talisman that gives +4% magic damage.
Torrent was very helpful.

I used glintstone pebble.

In these conditions, the demi human queen's staff has 155 sor scaling, dealing 133 damage per glintstone pebble.

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By Irish naming convention, this guy is likely Commander Niall's grandson. The Ó prefix means 'descendant of', firstborn sons are named for their paternal grandfather, and in such cases the original name mutates a bit (Niall -> Neil).

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You can actually approach from behind on Torrent, jump over some of the white and red terrain, hop off Torrent, sneak up to him, and poison with Poison Mist without ever drawing aggro. Takes several casts and some waiting to kill him but you're absolutely safe through all of it.

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So what army was he from? And why does he have the needle? He looks basically the same as niall

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If you're a mage, you can just stand on the root at the edge of the arena and engage with Loretta's Greatbow. He will go towards you but can literally not hit you with any of his attacks. Only the summons can spam arrows on you but the damage is negligible. I just stood there and spammed Glintstone Icecrag. Hilariously easy and a major oversight in design I think. Would be better if he wasn't targetable from there.

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Fought O'Neil in hand-to-hand combat with the Raya Lucaria soldiers ashes and recieved og Mordhau experience.

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I wish Polyanna appeared more.

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You don't need to progress Gowry's or Millicent's quest to have Polyanna available as an NPC summon. I just fought O'Neil and her golden summon sign was there, despite not having talked to Gowry nor Millicent before. O'Neil does gain a significant amount of health from summoning her though, which you can see by summoning her after damaging him a fair bit.

I don't think she's very helpful, though, because the real boss isn't O'Neil himself or his minions but the nigh-unplayable framerate in his arena. Thankfully the Poison Mist cheese only needs 12 FTH, which even the most pagan builds can achieve with some attribute-boosting equipment, if you cannot get past him otherwise.

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In ParamID, O'Nial and O'Neil appear as Sol Knight. O'Nial means O'Neil's ancestor. When you examine their faces, you will see that O'Nial's face is more hollowed out.(Old). O'Neil and O'Nial wear the octopus Godwyn motif on their helmets (not to mention they wear the same outfit, they both have prosthetic feet). O'Neil is allied with the cleanrots and buffing each other, more or less everyone knows that. The other thing I tried was to turn on the cheat from the Cheat Engine and gather the O'Neil and Redmane soldiers to same place. As you guessed, the O'Neil and Redmane soldiers start attacking as soon as they see each other. I know this upsets those who love Malenia, but O'Neil serves Malenia. Based on the motif on their helmets, I think their first master might be Godwyn. Currently, Miquella/Malenia.

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cheese strategy: switch to cerulean flasks, sneak up behind him and crouch, use poison mist

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Hardest thing about this boss is the INSANE stutter in his arena

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Hemorrhage resistance values are incorrect.

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Glorius grapes! FIGHT

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Fighting him in NG+ I took a closer look and he's literally the same boss as Castle Sol, fake leg and all, but with a different name and movesets... why so lazy FromSoft?

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Harder to kill solo than Radahn, Margot, or Rennala yet he drops 14k runes? wtf?

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In NG++, his HP is 12955. Calculated using poison mist which dealt 17 dps with my build. Cast poison mist 8 times and each cast dealt a total of 1547 damage. For the 9th cast he took 579 damage and died.

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for those curious, he gives 36k runes in ng+

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Tarnished: *Goes to fight O'Neil to get an item that helps Millicent*
Millicent: *Invades you when the fight starts*

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he will resummon a group if you eliminate them all, after long enough time

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I chesed him by crouching behind his back and used poison mist incantation- It gave me his halberd and some golden needle. Then I wanted to farm Cleanrot set in swamp but I was constantly invaded by MILICENT who was at that time still rotting in the church. Can somebody explain to me how this works? How can Milicent invade me with her fancy sword (both arms) and Malenia moveset when I didn't even started Gowrys nor Milicent quest? I know I shouldn't look for logic in quests in elden ring but wtf? Same with Dunk Eater, how can that abomination chill in roundtable hold when he's tied to the chair in sewers in Leyndell? Is it force projection? are they all "force users" like in star wars? I was prepared to kill her rotting sorry a** as soon as I'd see her in the church but in the end I felt sorry for that bit** so I wanted to give her that stupid needle so I can farm in swamp again.. nope... I had to go to gowry twice so that vermin repaired that needle, then go again to Milicent, cure her and after that I was finally free to play this game how I wanted.. Seriously, game is awesome but quests are so stupidly incomprehensible... Just be aware of this if you didn't already experienced yourself.. And one more thing: If you get invaded by her in the midle of the rotten swamp It will kick you off the horse- surrounded by 5 Cleanrot knights and atacked by lighter version of Malenia.. just "awesome"

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You can lure him out to the lake and he will take damage from the eruptions. Just stay on torrent and you will be safe from the rot. If you stray too far he teleports back but can be lured again. His 1st phase summons stay in the arena, his 2nd phase summons will come after you but just avoid them and you should be fine

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Cheap-ass didn't even drop his runes (but I guess at least it was that and not his items)

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found something interesting where sneaking behind him and hitting him with gargoyle blackblade weapon art while buffed with golden vow will cause him to ignore you and his hp just gets sapped kinda useless since you need to kill the bird in front of the bestial sanctum but interesting glitch i stumbled upon

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I summoned Pollyana, fired a bow shot at him to start the party and then... Torrent wouldn't come out lol. I kited them both to the middle of the swamp and the ghosts couldn't keep up. Pollyanna was about to die after a while, and I notied Dung Eater +6 was on my belt and lit up ready to go. Sent my boy Dung Eater into the fray, used Flame Cleanse Me to stop rot I'd picked up, with Mighty Shots, Lorettas GB and Large Glinstone shards.

Tried to ride away again but couldn't... Millicent had just invaded

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just to clarify, he was one of Radahns commanders ?

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You can sneak up behind him and use poison mist to easily beat him.

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i can't believe they put Shaq in Elden Ring

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I was having a hard time with him since i'm a sword guy but i hopped onto some growths he couldn't reach and slowly took him out long range

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how new is pollyana? i've played this game for a while and saw her summon sign for the first time today.

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Delayed af attacks

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you can bait him over to the geysers next to the site of grace and kite around him on torrent until he dies. his second phase summons spawn inside the boss arena and wont come out to get you either

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Who the hell Polyanna and how can you summon her for O'Neil if you need to kill him for Millicent's quest.

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Just parry him and riposte till he dies

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This fight is a complete joke. You can stay mounted the whole time and just pelt him from range. He's got no speed or any way to punish you for this. His summons do so little damage and can be avoided so easily that they might as well not even be there.

Why am I being downvoted? The fight really is trivial if you're mounted.

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So I'm running around in this swamp right? popping the pimple slugs.. I jump on a branch...Boom..I see this guy. I'm thinking to myself "Well he looks like a Doo Doo Canoe, standing in his own little Septic Tank Arena."
I walk up to the guy in his Shoddy Porta Potty and tell him "It smells like an ass whooping in here!" He gets ticked and I guess he had a Scarlet Burrito, because the guy started breaking wind. Then his white sperm soldiers pop up and start to shoot at me. I tell him "Let's take this outside like men! Mano a Bozo!" So he follows me out of the Chipotle Enema he called home and twirls his little baton right? I pull out 2 Meteoric Ore Katanas and whack him in the head.. BONK! He drops to one knee, and I stab him in the face and kick him to the floor! He gets up pissed, and brings out some coneheads with a lotta moxy and axes. I roll past those clowns and use my katana's Gravitas to knock em around a bit. Easy peasy. I look the commander in the eye, and Ichimonji him 7 times. He's back on his knees again. He knows this is the end..I know it too. I put both my Space Katanas away and punch him to death..the manly manner manages to mangle his face into dust. He poofs.. I get another Needle peddler off the streets. All his white guys disappeared and a Red Headed Stepchild I forgot existed, comes running out of his Chili Ring of a home. That's how I saved Aeonia...

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Ah, yes. I unintentionally triggered his fight, and then the person I'm supposed to be helping invaded me almost immediately, taking me off of my mount! Lovely!

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So you use latenna the archer spirit calling. Place her above the branch near stake of marika. Also, summon the ally near the grace, inner swamp one. Kill of the first summons by the commander and then it’s you and ally. Latenna has a good range but don’t go too far off. Also, the ally can heal, so make sure she is not ganked

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Commander O'Needle

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Shrek?

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Lead
him to the scarlet eruptions near his area and make him go in them, it’s the easiest 12,000 runes I’ve ever got.

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he's not a cleanrot knight. he summons exile soldiers. he was fighting malenia it's literally in the description.

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-big storms have an eye in the center
-the eye is safe
-big storms normally cause mass destruction
-Scarlet Aeonia caused mass destruction
-Scarlet Aeonia must be equal to a big storm
-Scarlet Aeonia must have an eye to it
-standing at the center of the Scarlet Aeonia should be Perfectly Safe

O'Niel is a thinking man, folks

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what a goofy bozo. all he does is twirl his flag and summon friends. beat him 1st try L

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If you sneak up on him with poison mist he doesn’t aggro when the poison procs. Killed him without him doing anything

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I find it amusing that so many people boldly claim he is Malenia's commander because "he uses rot attacks!"

Let me be honest, I don't know who he served under, but I do know he does not deal any rot damage from his weapon. No rot buildup when he hits you at all.

What he does wield though, quite obviously, is the same storm-magic as the knights of Stormveil. The reason why these attacks build up rot, is because the winds are blowing up all the rot-infested dust and spores into the air and on you, infecting you in the process.

He himself doesn't look much like a cleanrot knight, but he doesn't look like anyone else's commander either. The fact that the cleanrot knights consider him an ally could indicate something, but it could also just be an oversight/compromise.

Short answer; I don't know who he served, but he definitely has ties to Stormveil.

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A way to cheese him is to activate his fight then run to the swamp(he will follow you) and let the geyser puddles in the rot swamp take him out for you.

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O'Neil and Cleanrots are buffing each other instead of attacking i tested this. So he is Malenia's man.

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I had a hard time with him until I figured out his tell: After a swing, if he brings his flag fully back to upright you have just enough time to slip in and slap him once on horseback. Just circle him and stay outside his range, bait a swing, then watch for the telltale signal and smack him. Rinse and repeat till you chip him down.

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Yeah using horse and ranged attacks really does trivializes this fight

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So what's the LORE behind him dropping the needle?

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After the Radahn nerfs, the title for Caelid's Hardest Boss is between O'Neil and Ekzykes. Dragonbarrow doesn't count.

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Easy cheese (if you are really struggling for some reason) lead him out of the tree thing, towards the site of grace nearby. tak a sharp right and you should see three of those geyser things east-ish of the grace. Get on the horse and make him stand on top of the geysers as they burst. Just be careful not to stand on them yourself, and dont lead him too far from his combat area.

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How I beat him: use horse. During first phase, kill all but one of his summons. Whenever he does his rallying cry for the last summoned warrior, gallop in and beat on him. 2nd phase, gradually wear down halberd summons' health, kill all but one, repeat above strategy. If you kill them all it's easy to bait an attach and dash in after he completes it for single hits.

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You know how there's some bosses in Souls who, for whatever reason, you just cannot beat? Who you slam your head against over and over and over, even when it seems like they're not that hard and other people aren't struggling too bad? Yea, this is one of those bosses for me. I'm maybe around 60% of the way through ER, haven't had much trouble with any enemy until now. Never died more than maybe 5 or 6 times on one boss. But O'Neil, just the combination of his insane range, his constant scarlet rot AOE's that also have a 90 mile radius around him, his summons, his deceptive attack timings and the way he always swings a different number of times, this is brutal for me. I've tried multiple strats, now I'm just trying to practice my parrying to try that route.

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You can summon as many co-operators as you want. Once one dies, you can run out to the idol and summon another. If your to low level to fight him yourself or you just suck as long as you can stay out of his and his summons reaches and quickly summon people you can beat em without actually fighting em. As long as your summons don't also, ya know, suck.

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Love it.

His halberd's signature move: map-wide multiple 360 sweep

The dropped halberd: b u f f

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The key to this guy is absolutely to ignore his first wave of summons and burn him down as fast as possible. His melee attacks are super slow and easy to dodge. When he summons the second wave go ham and he should die before you have to actually fight them.

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Just sneak up to him and use poison mist over and over again. He won´t aggro as long as you´re behind him and you can easily watch him die. Bonus: He takes 13 points damage per sec from poison.

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I get summoned for a guy to help with the fight.
-I follow him to the arena
-help him clear out the starting wave
-get O'niel to wave 2
-host dies instantly. Probably wasn't expecting the next wave.

Rinse and repeat this process about four times. Last time he summons me, it's with the Dejection gesture. He clearly wants to be out of this mess. So, when he's sticking back to grab a second summon, I get my own powers revving. Normally, I stick back on these bosses, but all my characters have twink loadouts in the case of counter-twinking invaders.

-I sneak up behind O'Niel while the host is busy
-shard of Alexander/lord of blood's exultation/rotted winged sword talisman
-Vulgar Militia Saw +12 with spinning strikes
-Bloodflame Blade
-Thorny cracked tear/strength-knot tear

I start invoking the power of beyblade, and I can visibly see the host panic sprint up to the arena when he notices the boss healthbar show up. O'Niel is dead before the host even gets in melee range, and he just freezes before using the "thank you" Pate.

Stuff like this warms my heart. Wordless communication and all that.

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I personally like to imagine the commander sitting behind a big DM screen in the middle of his swamp, telling all his spirit summons to roll initiative against the "crazy tarnished" and Polyanna. After the summons roll, he writes down the initiative with the Golden Needle and says that the "crazy tarnished" got a nat 1.

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YOU CAN FIGHT HIM MOUNTED ON TORRENT!

Just make sure to be on horseback before fighting, also recommend not summoning polyanna - does make it more difficult.

Good luck!

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Incorrect on :

- all of his resistances and immunities except he is immune to scarlet rot.
-He has well over 500 hemorrhage resist and poison is higher than that still.
-You can't remain mounted while you fight him
-he summons groups of adds over time and they get stronger each batch
-he is rather weak to fire (prolly cause he is not radanian)

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You cannot stay mounted for this fight.

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Amazing! Everything in this section is wrong! And what isn't wrong is useless.

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I left a comment on someone else's explaining who he most likely is, but after a bit of retracking I've come up with a better answer for those of you interested in who this character actually is. I'll list the facts clearly about him so that it's easier to understand who he is and what his goals were.
1. He wields a Halberd, Storm Incantation and summons knights who wield Storm and serve Godrick
2. He served Godrick during the War against Malenia
3. After Godrick fled, he remained in Caelid for an unknown purpose.
4. Is recognized as the only character who stood with pride in the battle between Godrick and Malenia.
5. He remains in Caelid unaffected by scarlot rot as he holds the Needle of Miquella. it is not known how he obtained this important item. He either stole it from her in his war against her with Godrick, or Malenia lost it in her battle against Radahn.

Now, here's what I believe is going on. Commanders O'Niel and Niall respectively both used to serve the Storm King, who may have been Placidusax or his fiducary. Both wield Storm, summon soldiers who wield storm (Godrick's minions and banished knights respectively, and wear Equipment reminiscent of the Storm Knights (an UNBELIEVABLE deep lore fact proven only be a SINGLE ghost npc). Before the age of the Erdtree, the Fire Giants and Storm Knights were undoubtedly at war with eachother, and it is my assumption that Commander Niall remains in The Mountaintops because his foe was defeated in the middle of his campaign. with no way to return, he remained; forming his own militia. Why then, would Commander O'Neill choose to serve Godrick, a lord certainly weaker than He or Niall?
As a side note, the majority of game evidence points us to believe Farum Azula used to exist over Caelid. There are more dragons in Caelid than any other place in the game ( Giants in the North, Raya Lucaria in the Center, and Dragons in Limgrave Caelid would explain the placement of our Pre-erdtree factions), storm hawks AND Banished knights appear in only two locations (stormveil castle and Farum Azula) except for a single banished knight, who patrols the church of dragon communion in Caelid. (both of which also exist in limgrave and Caelid respectively).

It is my belief that Commander O'Neill, after the defeat of the Storm King at Godfrey's hand, was broken. We know Storm Knights had a great sense of pride and a warrior's heart (check the colosseum outside stormveil, the lore is waiting for you.) This proud General who was previously qualified to fight Fire Giants was banished, and, with such a strong sense of duty, decided to serve under Godrick; likely to remain in stormveil like many other banished knights we find there. He was the only proud soldier in the war against Malenia because he was the only one on his side qualified to stand before her. Seeing Malenia's ruin inhis homeland, and the humiliation of his commander's retreat probably shattered his soul completely. It's quiet, but he can be heard shouting "For Glory! Glory!" at the start of the fight, while summoning the soldiers.He remains in Caelid as a way of refusing that shame; holding his banner high and defending what was once his homeland, now scarred and spilling of rot.

Hope that satisfies anyone curious about this character! He's a small detail that leads you down the storm rabbit hole. very interesting stuff, you'll see me here as the first to say the return of the storm king is EQUAL in likelyhood to Miquella as being the game's DLC.

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if you're having trouble: brush up on parrying. with Carian Retaliation and some practice your life becomes so much easier, and not just on this boss.

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You don't need to use a Furlcalling Finger Remedy to see/use the Polyanna NPC summon -- and so you can still call your spirit ashes. I used Mimic Tear, so it was three on one. Her symbol appears between the Inner Aeonia grace and O'Niell, in the northern of the two paths to him.

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This guy is using Rot attacks and he is father of Polyanna(Millicent sister)but people still suggesting he was Radahn's man.

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Fix the bleed resistance, using a blood flail and took several seconds of chain spin to proc a bleed once, he has like 724 bleed resistance

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Really weird boss in the fact that he seems to be getting stuck literally just running up to you and spamming 1 attack, extremly often. This mostly happens with his wirl AoE and his run and thrust, which is hilarious, as the latter is very easy to dodge.

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It's 'O'Neill', with two L's. There's another Colonel O'Neil with only one L, and he has no sense of humor at all.

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He does summon more soldiers, though

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