You'll encounter Rom, the Vacuous Spider in Bloodborne after a relatively short trek through Byrgenwerth culminating in a jarring leap of faith. Extremely reminiscent of battles like Phalanx from Demon's Souls, the additional enemies in this battle often pose much more of a threat than the boss itself. There are two methods to emerging victorious detailed here, each of which has its own pros and cons. Pick your poison, and be sure to bring a steady supply of Bolt Paper either way. Here's hoping you don't suffer from arachnophobia.
Using the two-handed variant of Ludwig's Holy Blade is your friend here, due to the massive damage it can output with a single hit and the ability to deal one or two heavy blows with decent speed. Yes, we're going to be using a hit and run strategy. A number of spiders will spawn alongside the boss, which can deal heavy damage with their swipes and potentially kill you outright with a single strike from their dives. Luckily, as long as you're constantly running, it's pretty much impossible for any of them to land a hit whatsoever.
For the first section of the fight, Rom itself is practically useless, opting instead to feebly attempt to squirm away from incoming attacks. Simply keep moving, sprint in, hit him in the side with a quick heavy attack or two (depending on how free of spiders the immediate area is), and run back out of range. Rinse, repeat. If you need to rebuff or use Blood Vials at all during the fight, be sure to do them as far away from the battle as possible – it shouldn't be much of an issue as enemies are slow and generally defensive.
After about 1/3rd of his life bar is chipped away, Rom will gain a few offensive abilities of his own. When he rears up, icicles will begin to fall from the sky in quick order, which are easily dodged by sprinting until the attack is over. Secondly, he will begin to erratically roll around, causing icicles to shoot up from the ground in specific, blue glowing areas. His final attack is an area of effect explosion, which in all honesty you shouldn't see very often at all. All attacks are very easily avoided by simply sprinting away and choosing offensives in between his very slow ability usage.
In exactly the same fashion as the first stage of the fight, you just need to dash in, land one or two heavy blows, and retreat out of range of the additional spiders. Within a few minutes, victory should be yours.
If you have the Tonitrus here, it's an exceptional weapon for clearing these spiders quickly and efficiently. Failing that, any speedy one-handed weapon will do the trick. Chip away the small spiders one by one, ensuring that you hit them from the back or sides (never head on). Kill all the spiders, and then make sure that the defenceless Rom feels the pain.
When the second stage of the fight starts, more will spawn for you to deal with. To complicate matters further, when most are dead once again, Rom will begin to spam his area of effect explosion attack until his or your death. There's enough time to run in and out repeatedly, chipping away his health consistently, but you'll need to get into a rhythm to ensure the attack doesn't hit.
Upon claiming victory, you'll take home 24,860 Blood Echoes, a Kin Coldblood (12), two Insight for discovering, and two Insight for defeating him. You killed it, and you didn't even need fire!
Have you defeated Rom, the Vacuous Spider yet? Do you have any additional tips to share? Avoid all eight of our legs in the comments section below.
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