The Rotten

 is a boss in Dark Souls II.

General Information
The Rotten is located in Black Gulch. The Rotten is a huge mass of undead that have fused together, forming a single creature with arms, two heads for eyes, and numerous bodies crawling beneath it as a form of movement. After seemingly being unable to put the head of a statue back on its body, it becomes enraged and takes it out on the player. The Rotten's attacks are quite damaging and can send the player flying. Its room has fire patches that the player should avoid.

Summoning
Lone Hunter Schmidt can be summoned for this battle outside the boss fight underneath the Giant shortcut.

Lucatiel of Mirrah can also be summoned in the Hidden Chamber bonfire room.

Fight Overview
Throughout the fight, The Rotten will alternate from using his cleaver or using his empty hand. His cleaver deals heavy damage and can send the player flying or easily stunlock the player and break their guard. The hand has two moves, a frontal smash or a grab (the grab is the more deadly). The grab does damage twice, the initial damage is from the grab itself and the second portion of the damage comes when he wrings the player out like a rag.

Strategy
The Rotten's attacks are easy to dodge. After each attack he will be vulnerable for a short time, use that to your advantage. With the Old Leo Ring equipped and a thrusting weapon, this fight can end very quickly. If evaded correctly hitting either of his arms a few times will cut it. After a certain time he will regenerate. Using a weapon with a downward swing can cut the arms off after a few hits, if the player manage to cut one of his arms there is a chance that it drops a pharros lockstone. The player should avoid the fire pits at all cost as they do large amounts of damage over a short period of time.

With magic the player should keep it's distance from the rotten and should only cast one magic depending of the attacks from the rotten, might vary from one to three, when he cast his magic attack (around when he has 50% of his life) the player should run first and then roll because if he only rolls the rotten will hit the player with this attack.

Drops

 * Soul of the Rotten
 * Old Dead One Soul (NG+)
 * Pharros' Lockstone (if left arm is chopped off)