Dodging strategies for GPZ?

While everyone's hitting their heads against Godhome, I'm still trying to get that golden Zote statue. I'm 6 wins in, but I still feel like when I win that there's a good portion of luck. If I continue like this, I can probably go all the way to gold with the occasional attempt where I only take one hit, but it just doesn't feel very satisfying. I'd like to get to a point where I can beat him reliably in zero or one hits (not least because I'll have to do him on Radiant at some point).

I'm generally going with nail-only strategies, because I can never get the timing of nail arts right, or position myself well enough to Desolate Dive or Abyss Shriek (I do fire off the occasional Shade Soul, but mostly just when he's staggered or to clear out some Volatile Zotelings). My charms are Unbreakable Strength, Quick Slash, Grubberfly's Elegy and Fury of the Fallen, so I don't really need to get up close. (I also tried some other builds, using Sharp Shadow and Dashmaster, and/or overcharming.)

My main issues are reliably dealing with the Flail and Nail Slam. With Flail, I've tried dashing towards him just when he starts, but without Sharp Shadow it's hard to get through him reliably, and if he trips immediately I'm screwed anyway. I've tried dashing away from him and then jumping, but if he actually starts the flailing, he usually gets me if I didn't already have a reasonable distance to him. I've also tried jumping immediately, which has a similar problem. How do people dodge this consistently, so that it works regardless of whether he flails or trips?

With Nail Slam, I try to dodge as late as possible, but sometimes he still turns around in the air and I end up right in front of him (essentially right inside the taller shockwave). Is there a way to move such that his slam becomes more predictable?

There's also the Shadow Slam, but I'm usually fine with that. Just very rarely, he ends up slamming down exactly where I dashed. For this one I also try to just wait until I can actually see him on screen, but the reaction window is pretty tiny at that point.

Any suggestions (or videos of people who already gut gud and also use nail-only combat) would be much appreciated. :)

Submitted August 30, 2018 at 10:07AM by mbue https://ift.tt/2LCqjYN