Dark Souls 2 Walkthrough Part 11: Black Gulch
Pick up treasure and items as you journey to a poisonous battle with The Rotten.
The first thing you should do here is light the bonfire in the cave. Once that's done, head to the left and you'll come across a lot of poisonous statues. Destroy as many as possible. If you do get poisoned use Common Fruit to slow the effects or Poison Moss to heal.
Up ahead you'll see three black holes that enemies are going to come out of and fight you. If you've got any fire bombs you can toss them down to pre-empt the attack.
Now head to the left of the holes. There is a statue at the entrance to a cave - destroy it and help yourself to the Shotel and Great Magic Weapon in the coffer.
As you come out of the cave the first black hole has an enemy hiding inside. Be careful of the statues on the ridge above, and take them out with a ranged weapon if you can. In the cave to the left past the raised statues there's a cave with a worm-like enemy inside it. It will lunge out at you but if you keep out of its range you can attack and kill it quite easily.
Smash the pots next to the cave for a Soul of the Nameless Soldier, Scraps of Life and a Torch. There's another hole in the wall on the left which another creature will attack from. The next hole in the ground is empty but there are three beyond that. The two on the right have enemies in them, so drop more firebombs in them if you have them. If not, get close to tempt them out, then back off out of range and counter attack. The next row of holes has an enemy in the middle hole.
Smash the pot here for a Raidant Lifegem then head into the left-hand cave. There are more statues to destroy and a chest with a Divine Blessing. Go back to the cave and there's another enemy to kill before going into the mist to fight The Rotten.
Boss Battle: The Rotten
Reward: Soul of the Rotten
The thing to remember here is to stay away from the fire pits. They will arguably cause you more damage than the enemy if you're not careful. As you'll be locked on to the enemy there's a real danger of you backing into a firepit. You don't want to do that, you will die. Try and stay strafing around the firepit in the middle of the room to remain clear of the others.
The Rotton doesn't use may attacks and if you have a shield with 100 percent damage absorbtion you're in for a much easier ride. Having said that, when you block attacks from The Rotton it drains your stamina so the best tactic is to evade attacks entirely rather than trying to soak up the blow.
When The Rotten is close it uses a single horizontal sweeping attack or a single chop followed by three quick chops. If you back away from The Rotten it uses another linear chop that has a pretty decent reach. Again, it's difficult to get away to avoid the attack entirely, so dodge or block. Expect stamina to drain if you block. If The Rotten begins to regenerate it will spit twice, so watch for that and then counter.
When the Rotten's health has been knocked down to around 50 percent it adds another couple of attacks - one is a twist on the long-range chop that squirts out dark fog. You'll have to roll to the left or the right to dodge it. A risky stategy is to get really close to The Rotten and the fog won't affect you. The Rotten will also squirt dark mist from its body. Just back off when it does this as there's not much range to it.
When The Rotten is eventually dead go through the fire and pick up the Fire Seed. You're now done in Black Gulch.