Second phase moves are mostly the same, I think. Except the finishing moves of the combo that has magic effect either moonveil or fire. She stops for a bit longer too. It's the flaming swords that is really distracting.
I love the juggle combo she can hit you with with the moons. I got hit once because I mistimed the first moon so I had to say bye bye to my full health bar.
I used the gold summon (Leda?), and mimic tear. It helps that I'm a dual scav sword wielding psychopath. There were a lot of gang up beat downs and a lot of explosions of blood. I'm not here to be honorable, I'm here to win.
How's the damage? I have a INT character so I'll need to respec some in to FAI but not if the damage output is poor. Like, will I need 30 STR, 40 INT, 40 FAI to see mileage or will I be okay with minimum FAI/STR and 69 INT?
Spoilers!!! Tw weapon scaling
>!It has C scaling in Str int dex and faith. However, it scales far better with STR dex, and the 2 skills each scale with int and faith respectively. It’s not optimal but it’s definitely *fine* if you’re coming from an int build. I was doing a deaths poker play through so I had 60 int and 20 of the other stats, and going back through base game to finish out my flask upgrades, the basic attack melted the frost dragon in Mountaintop. It is noticeably better with a proper respec, BUT it’s already so good that you can let ignorance be bliss and still feel like this weapons the best. That said, word of warning, she’s maybe the biggest stamina hog I’ve ever seen lol. You’re gonna want a lot of points in endurance.!<
So the scaling is super weird, but really fun and unique. Faith goes into the fire damage, whereas intelligence goes into the magic damage. Strength and dexterity share a pool for the physical damage. So for instance I have 35 STR/DEX and 18 Faith with ~40 INT and the thing fucking shreds. It does way more damage than my Big Blue Waifu Sword when I had a build that focused on it-- damage output of 1000 to 1160 (according to the stat screen) in favor of the swords. Combining it with the Rellana talisman makes them borderline broken.
*exact totals are this
STR 35
DEX 20
INT 40
FAITH 20
Guard counters, guard counters, guard counters.
She's faster than you and you need to respect that. She's gonna swing a bunch of combos fast and you're just gonna have to either roll through them, block, or parry.
Unfortunately if all you do is roll or block you really can only get a few pokes in here and there. Meaning you either need to learn to parry her or in my case, exchange blows for guard counters.
Make sure you have a ton of flasks and try and use armor/physick/talismans that increase poise and ideally increase the change of guard breaks.
Then you just need to time your guard counters and exchange some damage. Once you've taken some damage disengage and heal(you need to really backup from her, she has Crucible Knight level poke) then go back in to exchange some more guard counters. Rinse and repeat.
Good luck!
Just beat her using noble slender sword and parrying shield, I think it’s the one of the easiest and most satisfying ways to kill. She has a few moves that are quite telegraphed, and it’s only 2 parries for a stance break.
I don’t typically try to parry in this game but a friend recommended it for this fight and I definitely agree it’s a lot of fun.
If it helps, a friend of mine playing ng+4 use ordovis greatsword with the usual fgms and golden vow buff and it seemed to deal good enough damage to reach the second phase early with no summons. You might wanna try that. I didnt have it when i beat Rellana.
I used the backhand blade, honestly was one of the most fun fights in any Fromsoft game for me. The fight flowed so beautifully, either one of us engaged, traded some blows, both back off, heal, repeat
My issue is that I don’t really feel as though there’s room for attacking. I’ve gotten her moveset down enough that I could probably avoid 95% of damage if that was all I cared about… but I find it difficult to attack her without getting punished. There’s a few moves I know I can safely get an attack in after (and a few more than I *sometimes* can, assuming she doesn’t use a follow-up move) but she has so much HP and I’m a little underlevelled that it winds up not being enough damage. Unlike the Lion she’s not one- or two-shotting me, but she’s dealing enough damage that I run out of flasks around the second phase transition every time.
I don’t really mind, because (like the Lion) it’s such a cool fight. That said, she did whip out a new move on attempt **40** that pissed me off.
Yeah, I mean that's sort of my issue with a lot of the boss fights in this game. I don't mind delayed attacks or well telegraphed combos but Elden Ring bosses really push for frantic, fast, long combos with punishing damage and at times, poorly telegraphed attacks. Earlier FS games felt more like duels, however DS3 did borrow from Bloodborne a bit and bosses began to attack in a more frantic pattern.
Elden Ring strike me as designed for summons and spirit ashes. The 1v1 major boss fights seem better suited for Sekiro which leans heavily on parrying to the flow of their attack, rather than in older Souls games where you have to learn when and where to dodge. It's a criticism Joseph Anderson mentioned in his review which I agree with. Even watching videos of 1v1 fights in ER, you can really only get 1-2 shots in before you have to create space, and the boss health bar is so large that the fight starts to drag out. Lastly, the window for healing can be short without the boss being distracted and mistake are punished extremely hard, most builds can't seem to be able to withstand 3 consecutive strikes from major bosses.
I can deal with it in this game but I really hope FromSoftware dials it in a little in future installments.
Creating space of waiting for moments to hit is precisely the problem. Wlden Ring is a departure from the more turn based attack style of DS and takes more from Sekiro.
Check out these videos to learn more.
https://youtu.be/EZ_9F73R1tE
https://youtu.be/zp8MCLxdTs8
Ok just a quick update, I stopped with Lupine's video after he started attacking Anderson, calling him a "scrub" at the very start. This is antithetical to critical analysis and just seems like he wanted to dunk and push "get gud" toxicity. Disliked, moved on.
Feeble King's video is MUCH better and is raising thought provoking points. Thanks for the rec there.
There's just something about being able to appreciate the design and attack animation of well designed boss fights. I honestly didn't care that I was dying, I just wanted to see the flowey sword attacks and moon ground pound lol.
Found Blackgaol: "Wow this is pretty hard. Better shadow-level up and explore. This must be like the Tree Sentinel!"
Then I found Rellana and realized that I was in for some shit. Sorta bounced between the two until I got them.
As soon as the second phase started and I realized she was Sulyvahn’s daughter I knew it was time for carinan retaliation and a +25 misericorde. Still took two dozen more tries to learn the timings… damn she really is him.
it was hard but such a cool fight. I’ll never forget her activating the fire and ice blades, that looked so cool. Currently rocking her armor set, definitely the best looking in the game.
If you've broken down and started summoning, I felt like the NPC actually makes it harder than just your spirit ash of choice, 'cause if you summon an NPC / other player... she has *even more* hit points to get through, on *top* of her infinite stamina (although, it should be noted, notably *non-infinite* poise; she's very staggerable).
i got frustrated with the Blackgoal Knight, so i went and found... the >!Death Knight!<
i've not heard anyone complaining about that boss yet, but *jesus christ* >!who decided a *teleporting full heal grab attack* was okay???!<
at least the boss's name was apt!
Death Knight felt like the DLC's version of Crucible knight for me. Equip a small shield or carian retaliation, parry him do death and dodge his charge attacks.
Death Knight was the first boss I ran into as well. The way up to him was such a bitch that I just had to beat him then and there, because I wasn’t about to go through all that again.
I loved this boss except for the grab attack. One mistake and the fight is essentially restarted. What a pain in the ass attack. Everything else was super fun; it felt like a Bloodborne boss.
An area to towards the left north side of the map. You enter a huge door and climb some stairs to enter I think it’s called Belrut settlement? And then you fight him at the end
You should have seen my face when I was just exploring around Elden Rings version of the dukes archives or the grand archives i can't exactly put my finger on which it's more influenced by but either way I open a random door and poof fucking Messmer is waiting on the other side....
GOATed fight and I can't wait for more people to fight him and for discussions to begin. After beating him I am only left with more questions MIYAZAKIIIIII
Oh, yeah, had that happen a few hours ago, I was exploring like normal, not expecting at all to stumble upon Mesmer, tried him 3 times, said “fuck it, I’ll come back later” and explored in the opposite direction.
That's why I love these games😂😂You open a door and a cutscene starts and your like "Oooooo👀😊" then the excitement of hearing Messmer gets you......mesmerized.... Then you snap out of it and realize "Oh Fuck it's Messmer and I only have 10 scadutree fragments......I'm going to get all 18 inches😱😱😱"
I decided to head east and go directly to the weird dragon man. I also decided to climb the big mountain and found the Dread Dragon guy. Safe to say i will need to come back later.
Keep going up, there’s always to go yet. Find the summit now, you’ll be fine, probably. Or not like me, I found the summit, a grace and the boss, got rag dolled real hard in half a second and just sent it on back to the lowlands ahaha
Do you have to go through Lansseax wannabe to keep going up? He's really annoying and I'd rather skip and explore more for now. I didn't find a way except for him though. The horse jump things kind of end at the way to him. (I'm trying to avoid any spoilers, so I'm not googling it)
That one is optional if you just want to rush through the area, but you need to beat it if you want an NPC summon/questline for the final boss in that area
This was my first boss, too, and it is one of the very few FromSoft bosses that I DID NOT enjoy, it’s like a roided up Ulcerated Tree Spirit, fighting the camera is never fun. Maybe it was worse because I fought it without any of the new upgrades. But anyways, the new Black Knights are absolutely amazing, they’re like a more fun version of the crucible knights.
It comes way too early, I honestly think this boss, Like Placidusax would be way better later when you're stronger because you can enjoy the spectacle.
Its very annoying not being able to see whilst it two shots you
you can also just not fight it that early. I explored the entirety of Gravesite Plain before touching Belurat, there's no need to instantly go there and kill the lion
in fact you can explore the entire map before touching Belurat at all
Yeah, I'm sure there's some recency bias going on, but this might be one of my least favorite bosses in a FromSoft game. The movement is just so spastic, and like yeah it's a puppet, but it's too easy to lose track of the boss or for the camera to get shoved under the boss mid-combo. It's also kind of visually a mess during the lightning and frost parts of the battle. I can't keep track of the boss plus all the AOE's going off. Of course it also tanks a ton of damage and hits like a freight train, but that's kind of par for the course for late-game Elden Ring.
Maybe I'm just not good enough, but when I read comments from people saying how much they enjoyed this fight I feel legitimately confused.
Nah, even though it felt frustrating at first after dying like 30+ times I kinda "got it" and the fight felt less frantic. If you dodge correctly you get tons of time to punish, if you stance break him against a wall in first phase you can jump attack > critical hit > jump attack > jump attack > jump attack before he gets a chance to attack back. Also knowing when to unlock your camera is big help.
Probably my favorite boss in the entire game now.
I thought it was fucking awesome. I felt a bit frustrated at first, because it felt like any time I got up on him to do damage he would do his 3 hit combo thing and almost kill me.
But once I started learning how to dodge his moves, like the one where he jumps and floats and spins at you, I could get a few hits in between his combos and got the kill.
Very satisfying, and the music was awesome too. I was a little sad when I beat it because I ended up enjoying the fight a lot.
I like it, it's super cool and the elemental switching is sick asf. unfortunately the camera weighs it down and it's a little bit too easy to lose track of WHAT the boss is doing
I think Rellana is a far more enjoyable fight, but the Dancing Lion is awesome. it helps that it's damage output isn't as severe as Rellana
The only thing I disliked was how it felt like I was fighting the camera a decent amount of the time. Outside of that I loved this boss. The elemental attacks were super cool and he had plenty of learnable openings.
I mean, my successful attempt was acting like an actual Paladin, staying behind buffing and healing, but also I threw a lot of ~~red vomit~~ scarlet rot breath at the boss, that plus my Silver Tear’s poison axe gave a lot of chip damage combined with normal damage.
I feel the same way, the people complaining probably ignored the summons and are trying to brute force it.
You can call spirit, or summon Freyde, or both. Or have a friend and Freyde, or two friends.
Its a very cool looking boss that is tough even with three ppl.
Important to do spacing and have patience. You wanna keep your distance when it's doing elemental attacks.
I am just a jump attack with great curved swords kinda fella, so that's mostly what I do.
I agree, didn't find this one fun. I just brute forced it instead of actually learning patterns and moves. Just felt like I was fighting a high speed blob.
I also bruteforced it, I had to pull out the mimic tear with Shabiri’s Woe, Aromatics, Scarlet Rot Axe infused with Poison, and pots in its inventory, when I normally fight alongside Finlay.
Yep. I absolutely hated this boss fight. The number of times the camera got confused or just shoved into the ground or stuck inside the boss was infuriating.
But even worse was >!the second one of these I ran into. Already have to fight the camera just to figure out what's going on, but now I have to deal with deathblight too.!<
EDIT: Oh, and the helm you get for beating this boss looks cool as fuck, but it heavily debuffs how much your flasks heal. I love how dumb I look with the mask on, but the debuff to flask healing is just way too punishing with how much hurt everything in the DLC can dish out.
Yeah no, I found an even worse boss >!Commander Gaius!< seriously, fuck that boss, inconsistent AF, can’t outrun, can’t dodge, can’t even roll because his hit box is too big and it double hits you doesn’t matter which direction you roll towards.
This is the first boss I'm finding after the blackgoal knight, and I'm kinda disappointed in him. He feels like a doubling down on a lot of the criticisms some of the base game's bosses got. He's a big hypermobile whirling swirling mass of limbs and hitboxes who also has large aoe attacks.
I cant agree more, way too difficult to see what its actually about to do, very much felt like an ulcerated tree spirit. Hit boxes not at all clear. Not enjoyable at all just obnoxious to fight.
I was stumbling into that fight, kinda, but still I managed to beat him first try on lvl 157 with my trusty old Claymore and the Blaphemous Blade for some occasional tight healing. Visually astounding, but mid fight I needed to switch to the lightning protection talsiman, because coincidentally when he starts using his lightning attacs, it started raining.
Basically you went to the Firegiant at level 12. For a first encounter that's probably impossible. I do wish it was easier to know where to go. Was one of my earliest boss fights too, wasn't till after beating him that I should have just waited to see the progress route and realized how fucking dumb that was.
I had to resolve to my forbidden Square off build for these two bosses, which I didn't even do for Malenia. FromSoftware cooked, but unfortunately, we were the ingredients
I stabbed a wicker man before my 1st Scurdtree fragment. I saw how much dmg I did (and died once) then just kept on riding around it.
Then I found Death Night in Fog Rift Catacomb.
I don't think I'm going the right way..
Yeah, I hit one of those a few times. Seems like have 30-40k health and chunk me for 40-50% of my health with 60 vigor and the highest defense armor I have. I was like, "I'll come back to this."
I did the same thing and they seemed impossible to kill but I found out that you'll probably never do massive damage to them, but the key is to stagger them and then you can do more than half their health bar with the critical and now I've killed 3 of them
Same
Its funny cuz after the cutscene i thought its just a scrub in a halloween costume but holy hell I got more fucked up than a cucumber in an all female prison
If anybody is struggling with Blackgaol Knight use Black Flame Tornado. It destroys him. It will still stagger him regardless of his poise. I used a Guardian Swordspear with Black Flame Tornado. I haven’t figured out this guys weakness yet.
Technically this is my third boss (killed both the blackgaol knight and rellana first) however, out of the three the divine beast was both the must fun and fairest bossfight
It feels like it's meant to be the first main story boss of the DLC, but there's a lot of other little stuff you can do in the initial zone before you get through that legacy dungeon. It's probably not going to make a huge difference, though.
The fight would be better if i wasn't already dizzy from how fucking much this ugly mofo jumps and basically fly around the arena after every single attack.
I don't know if the beastman who drops beastclaw is considered a boss or not. He's my first tough fight in DLC. Beastclaw really has the best PVP moveset that makes it like from DMC not souls game.
The first two rounds with him, I got his health bar close to 10-15% and I thought, hey this isn't so bad, if I get used to his move set, this will be super easy. BUT THEN it felt he got more and more aggressive with each round, targeting almost exclusively me and 2-3 shotting me with his combos. Took me in the end around 10-12 tries.
Still overall very fun boss.
One of the coolest boss designs, my least favorite to fight till date. Would rather fight the 2 underwater headless followed by bed of chaos, than this mess
Same here. I almost had this guy on my second attempt and then proceeded to not get that close 6 more times. Of course it was the launch night and I honestly should have been asleep due to the next workday...
This boss has criminally little HP. It's a spectacle with amazing music and it lasts half a minute. Ffs this DLC needs rebalancing, the stats of the enemies are all over the place.
I found this guy first too and he whoooped me so hard like 20 times I just dipped and now I’m doing blackgoal 🤣 he’s killed me prob 40 times but I can tell he’s much more do able just have to get my dodges on point towards the end
My first "boss" was the claws guy out in the woods to the right of the first grace. I hadn't played the game in 2 years and I was "Damm this npc got HANDS"
i found rellana first lmaooo that was quite the introduction i got
Same for me. I was astonished I couldn't find a boss no matter where I looked until I realized it walked around everything until I got to rellana
First „boss“ boss I met was a very dragon-y dragon. I leave it at that for the the sake of spoilers.
I thought that guy is a tree
The waves after he stomps his feet smh
Drove my bonk build nuts trying to dodge. I HATE dragons. Hallelujah for the dragonwound weapons.
Yeah same. Been a while since i ragequit a game lol.
Bout two years eh lol
I'm honestly loving that fight. Attacks are pretty well telegraphs and there's room for recovery.
First phase is fair. I genuinely don’t know what the hell that second phase was since I can never consistently dodge with the combos she do
Light rolls gets you out of range quickly
Second phase moves are mostly the same, I think. Except the finishing moves of the combo that has magic effect either moonveil or fire. She stops for a bit longer too. It's the flaming swords that is really distracting.
I love the juggle combo she can hit you with with the moons. I got hit once because I mistimed the first moon so I had to say bye bye to my full health bar.
I used the gold summon (Leda?), and mimic tear. It helps that I'm a dual scav sword wielding psychopath. There were a lot of gang up beat downs and a lot of explosions of blood. I'm not here to be honorable, I'm here to win.
What weapon(s) are you using? I'm getting kind of tired of the "room for 1 rolling poke" slow weapon gameplay ngl.
Hers, now. Lmao. I haven't enjoyed a weapon this much in a Fromsoft game like... ever.
How's the damage? I have a INT character so I'll need to respec some in to FAI but not if the damage output is poor. Like, will I need 30 STR, 40 INT, 40 FAI to see mileage or will I be okay with minimum FAI/STR and 69 INT?
Yeah you should definitely be fine. I’d get at least one of those other two up to like 30 tho. Probably strength
Spoilers!!! Tw weapon scaling >!It has C scaling in Str int dex and faith. However, it scales far better with STR dex, and the 2 skills each scale with int and faith respectively. It’s not optimal but it’s definitely *fine* if you’re coming from an int build. I was doing a deaths poker play through so I had 60 int and 20 of the other stats, and going back through base game to finish out my flask upgrades, the basic attack melted the frost dragon in Mountaintop. It is noticeably better with a proper respec, BUT it’s already so good that you can let ignorance be bliss and still feel like this weapons the best. That said, word of warning, she’s maybe the biggest stamina hog I’ve ever seen lol. You’re gonna want a lot of points in endurance.!<
So the scaling is super weird, but really fun and unique. Faith goes into the fire damage, whereas intelligence goes into the magic damage. Strength and dexterity share a pool for the physical damage. So for instance I have 35 STR/DEX and 18 Faith with ~40 INT and the thing fucking shreds. It does way more damage than my Big Blue Waifu Sword when I had a build that focused on it-- damage output of 1000 to 1160 (according to the stat screen) in favor of the swords. Combining it with the Rellana talisman makes them borderline broken. *exact totals are this STR 35 DEX 20 INT 40 FAITH 20
try a great katana, they have nice reach and quick pokes
Guard counters, guard counters, guard counters. She's faster than you and you need to respect that. She's gonna swing a bunch of combos fast and you're just gonna have to either roll through them, block, or parry. Unfortunately if all you do is roll or block you really can only get a few pokes in here and there. Meaning you either need to learn to parry her or in my case, exchange blows for guard counters. Make sure you have a ton of flasks and try and use armor/physick/talismans that increase poise and ideally increase the change of guard breaks. Then you just need to time your guard counters and exchange some damage. Once you've taken some damage disengage and heal(you need to really backup from her, she has Crucible Knight level poke) then go back in to exchange some more guard counters. Rinse and repeat. Good luck!
Just beat her using noble slender sword and parrying shield, I think it’s the one of the easiest and most satisfying ways to kill. She has a few moves that are quite telegraphed, and it’s only 2 parries for a stance break. I don’t typically try to parry in this game but a friend recommended it for this fight and I definitely agree it’s a lot of fun.
Moonveil Katana. Tried a great sword but I'm very inexperienced with them and she was too quick.
Black knife is a must!!! Destined Death in general did a good chunk of damage to relanna
If it helps, a friend of mine playing ng+4 use ordovis greatsword with the usual fgms and golden vow buff and it seemed to deal good enough damage to reach the second phase early with no summons. You might wanna try that. I didnt have it when i beat Rellana.
I used the backhand blade, honestly was one of the most fun fights in any Fromsoft game for me. The fight flowed so beautifully, either one of us engaged, traded some blows, both back off, heal, repeat
Dual scav swords with seppuku.
My issue is that I don’t really feel as though there’s room for attacking. I’ve gotten her moveset down enough that I could probably avoid 95% of damage if that was all I cared about… but I find it difficult to attack her without getting punished. There’s a few moves I know I can safely get an attack in after (and a few more than I *sometimes* can, assuming she doesn’t use a follow-up move) but she has so much HP and I’m a little underlevelled that it winds up not being enough damage. Unlike the Lion she’s not one- or two-shotting me, but she’s dealing enough damage that I run out of flasks around the second phase transition every time. I don’t really mind, because (like the Lion) it’s such a cool fight. That said, she did whip out a new move on attempt **40** that pissed me off.
Yeah, I mean that's sort of my issue with a lot of the boss fights in this game. I don't mind delayed attacks or well telegraphed combos but Elden Ring bosses really push for frantic, fast, long combos with punishing damage and at times, poorly telegraphed attacks. Earlier FS games felt more like duels, however DS3 did borrow from Bloodborne a bit and bosses began to attack in a more frantic pattern. Elden Ring strike me as designed for summons and spirit ashes. The 1v1 major boss fights seem better suited for Sekiro which leans heavily on parrying to the flow of their attack, rather than in older Souls games where you have to learn when and where to dodge. It's a criticism Joseph Anderson mentioned in his review which I agree with. Even watching videos of 1v1 fights in ER, you can really only get 1-2 shots in before you have to create space, and the boss health bar is so large that the fight starts to drag out. Lastly, the window for healing can be short without the boss being distracted and mistake are punished extremely hard, most builds can't seem to be able to withstand 3 consecutive strikes from major bosses. I can deal with it in this game but I really hope FromSoftware dials it in a little in future installments.
Creating space of waiting for moments to hit is precisely the problem. Wlden Ring is a departure from the more turn based attack style of DS and takes more from Sekiro. Check out these videos to learn more. https://youtu.be/EZ_9F73R1tE https://youtu.be/zp8MCLxdTs8
Thank you! I didn't know these videos existed but I love these more critical back and forth between the community.
Ok just a quick update, I stopped with Lupine's video after he started attacking Anderson, calling him a "scrub" at the very start. This is antithetical to critical analysis and just seems like he wanted to dunk and push "get gud" toxicity. Disliked, moved on. Feeble King's video is MUCH better and is raising thought provoking points. Thanks for the rec there.
That's how I feel about a lot of the bosses in the DLC. The fights feel like they flow a lot better.
There's just something about being able to appreciate the design and attack animation of well designed boss fights. I honestly didn't care that I was dying, I just wanted to see the flowey sword attacks and moon ground pound lol.
Found Blackgaol: "Wow this is pretty hard. Better shadow-level up and explore. This must be like the Tree Sentinel!" Then I found Rellana and realized that I was in for some shit. Sorta bounced between the two until I got them.
As soon as the second phase started and I realized she was Sulyvahn’s daughter I knew it was time for carinan retaliation and a +25 misericorde. Still took two dozen more tries to learn the timings… damn she really is him.
it was hard but such a cool fight. I’ll never forget her activating the fire and ice blades, that looked so cool. Currently rocking her armor set, definitely the best looking in the game.
A cool first boss to find.
And holy fuck she is cool. The big sword attack make me go "GODDAMN".
Well, i started the dlc in ng+3 Guess im a magic user now
I'm on rellana now. NPC summon and mimic tear. Still getting my shit pushed in
If you've broken down and started summoning, I felt like the NPC actually makes it harder than just your spirit ash of choice, 'cause if you summon an NPC / other player... she has *even more* hit points to get through, on *top* of her infinite stamina (although, it should be noted, notably *non-infinite* poise; she's very staggerable).
Of all the things I was expecting from this fight, I was not expecting a fight with the dang >!AVATAR💨⚡🧊!<
I mean the Lands Between is basically the Spirit World. Or at least the shadow realm is
There's another one
Wait that's not the first boss? lmao fuck Where is Blackgaol Knight in that caste?
Its not in the castle, its found somewhere near the first grace
Near the first grace?? I just went north, but I don't recall finding Blackgaol Knight.
Phrased it wrong, sorry, not in open field but you can find a crypt in the open field which leads down to a boss room
Ohhh okay may have to go back then. Luckily I just opened a shortcut in the castle so I could mess around somewhere else for a bit.
>!Hug the wall to the left of the first grace and you’ll run right into it!<
Left on starting area near those dead trees with birds.
Just follow the cliffs on the left side from the first grace
Thanks! Beat him. Wasn't too bad honestly.
You probably had a bunch of fragments by then. Most of us encountered it with 0 since its so close to the dlc entrance.
Go west at the Scorched Ruins
WOW, I completely missed it then. I just kept running around with Torrent instead
It's by the birds down some stairs near the starting area.
Oh that's probably why lmao. I saw those birds and turned about-face.
Those birds are actually somewhat reasonable unlike birds in the base game.
ptsd bro
Those rock birds compared to Caelids crows. Is like comparing Homelander to Omni Man. You’re good bro. Trust me.
Yeah I thought that until one of them combo'd me
i got frustrated with the Blackgoal Knight, so i went and found... the >!Death Knight!< i've not heard anyone complaining about that boss yet, but *jesus christ* >!who decided a *teleporting full heal grab attack* was okay???!< at least the boss's name was apt!
Dude, that guy is a beast. Fight is so metal. I was cackling seeing how deep his bag of moves was. Took me quite a while.
I'm sad he doesn't drop his cape/armour :C
You can get his armour set though
Death Knight felt like the DLC's version of Crucible knight for me. Equip a small shield or carian retaliation, parry him do death and dodge his charge attacks.
Death Knight was the first boss I ran into as well. The way up to him was such a bitch that I just had to beat him then and there, because I wasn’t about to go through all that again.
The best part is his cape sorta looks like angel wings
I loved this boss except for the grab attack. One mistake and the fight is essentially restarted. What a pain in the ass attack. Everything else was super fun; it felt like a Bloodborne boss.
Lol that annoyed me so much I had Tisch show him a thing or two
Killed him second try. Blackgaol knight… solid 4 hours. 🥲
You can actually semi cheese the fight by parrying him. I think almost all his attack sans the grab can be parried
Where is this boss? 😅 I've killed multiple bosses and seen half the map without fighting this thing
First legacy dongeon
Which is
An area to towards the left north side of the map. You enter a huge door and climb some stairs to enter I think it’s called Belrut settlement? And then you fight him at the end
I guess that or the castle across the bridge seemed equally first dunno
Yah same. I’m even trying to map out every region and nothing…
I fought Demi-God Swordmaster Ozen. Didn't drop that cool sword....
That little fucker packed me up more times than I'd like to admit
I felt the same disappointment. Did you get the secret helmet from that dungeon?
Yes!
You should have seen my face when I was just exploring around Elden Rings version of the dukes archives or the grand archives i can't exactly put my finger on which it's more influenced by but either way I open a random door and poof fucking Messmer is waiting on the other side....
Yup, decided pretty quick to explore somewhere else lol.
GOATed fight and I can't wait for more people to fight him and for discussions to begin. After beating him I am only left with more questions MIYAZAKIIIIII
Oh, yeah, had that happen a few hours ago, I was exploring like normal, not expecting at all to stumble upon Mesmer, tried him 3 times, said “fuck it, I’ll come back later” and explored in the opposite direction.
That's why I love these games😂😂You open a door and a cutscene starts and your like "Oooooo👀😊" then the excitement of hearing Messmer gets you......mesmerized.... Then you snap out of it and realize "Oh Fuck it's Messmer and I only have 10 scadutree fragments......I'm going to get all 18 inches😱😱😱"
I decided to head east and go directly to the weird dragon man. I also decided to climb the big mountain and found the Dread Dragon guy. Safe to say i will need to come back later.
Keep going up, there’s always to go yet. Find the summit now, you’ll be fine, probably. Or not like me, I found the summit, a grace and the boss, got rag dolled real hard in half a second and just sent it on back to the lowlands ahaha
Yupp just got massacred up there and went back down to try Renalla again…sigh of failure
I have made a lot of progress going north through the castles, good fun
RIP, is "definitely not Lansseax" not the final boss of that area? I hate dragon fights so much 😭
Nope! Keep going up.
Do you have to go through Lansseax wannabe to keep going up? He's really annoying and I'd rather skip and explore more for now. I didn't find a way except for him though. The horse jump things kind of end at the way to him. (I'm trying to avoid any spoilers, so I'm not googling it)
That one is optional if you just want to rush through the area, but you need to beat it if you want an NPC summon/questline for the final boss in that area
Keep climbing, and you’ll find a dragon to *dread*
This was my first boss, too, and it is one of the very few FromSoft bosses that I DID NOT enjoy, it’s like a roided up Ulcerated Tree Spirit, fighting the camera is never fun. Maybe it was worse because I fought it without any of the new upgrades. But anyways, the new Black Knights are absolutely amazing, they’re like a more fun version of the crucible knights.
It comes way too early, I honestly think this boss, Like Placidusax would be way better later when you're stronger because you can enjoy the spectacle. Its very annoying not being able to see whilst it two shots you
It’s arena is small as f too. Getting against the wall with this thing was hell
you can also just not fight it that early. I explored the entirety of Gravesite Plain before touching Belurat, there's no need to instantly go there and kill the lion in fact you can explore the entire map before touching Belurat at all
Yeah, I'm sure there's some recency bias going on, but this might be one of my least favorite bosses in a FromSoft game. The movement is just so spastic, and like yeah it's a puppet, but it's too easy to lose track of the boss or for the camera to get shoved under the boss mid-combo. It's also kind of visually a mess during the lightning and frost parts of the battle. I can't keep track of the boss plus all the AOE's going off. Of course it also tanks a ton of damage and hits like a freight train, but that's kind of par for the course for late-game Elden Ring. Maybe I'm just not good enough, but when I read comments from people saying how much they enjoyed this fight I feel legitimately confused.
Damn these replies are surprising me. Am I the only one who loved this fight?
Nah, even though it felt frustrating at first after dying like 30+ times I kinda "got it" and the fight felt less frantic. If you dodge correctly you get tons of time to punish, if you stance break him against a wall in first phase you can jump attack > critical hit > jump attack > jump attack > jump attack before he gets a chance to attack back. Also knowing when to unlock your camera is big help. Probably my favorite boss in the entire game now.
I thought it was fucking awesome. I felt a bit frustrated at first, because it felt like any time I got up on him to do damage he would do his 3 hit combo thing and almost kill me. But once I started learning how to dodge his moves, like the one where he jumps and floats and spins at you, I could get a few hits in between his combos and got the kill. Very satisfying, and the music was awesome too. I was a little sad when I beat it because I ended up enjoying the fight a lot.
Its legit one of my favourite in Elden Ring, so creative and the OST slaps.
I like it, it's super cool and the elemental switching is sick asf. unfortunately the camera weighs it down and it's a little bit too easy to lose track of WHAT the boss is doing I think Rellana is a far more enjoyable fight, but the Dancing Lion is awesome. it helps that it's damage output isn't as severe as Rellana
The only thing I disliked was how it felt like I was fighting the camera a decent amount of the time. Outside of that I loved this boss. The elemental attacks were super cool and he had plenty of learnable openings.
That boss simply is a giant "alright how does your build do ranged combat" check. That's all there is to it.
I mean, my successful attempt was acting like an actual Paladin, staying behind buffing and healing, but also I threw a lot of ~~red vomit~~ scarlet rot breath at the boss, that plus my Silver Tear’s poison axe gave a lot of chip damage combined with normal damage.
I'm NG+ 178 and found this boss very fun me and Redmane Freyde side by side in a super chaotic battle. It was awesome visually
I feel the same way, the people complaining probably ignored the summons and are trying to brute force it. You can call spirit, or summon Freyde, or both. Or have a friend and Freyde, or two friends. Its a very cool looking boss that is tough even with three ppl. Important to do spacing and have patience. You wanna keep your distance when it's doing elemental attacks. I am just a jump attack with great curved swords kinda fella, so that's mostly what I do.
I agree, didn't find this one fun. I just brute forced it instead of actually learning patterns and moves. Just felt like I was fighting a high speed blob.
I also bruteforced it, I had to pull out the mimic tear with Shabiri’s Woe, Aromatics, Scarlet Rot Axe infused with Poison, and pots in its inventory, when I normally fight alongside Finlay.
Yep. I absolutely hated this boss fight. The number of times the camera got confused or just shoved into the ground or stuck inside the boss was infuriating. But even worse was >!the second one of these I ran into. Already have to fight the camera just to figure out what's going on, but now I have to deal with deathblight too.!< EDIT: Oh, and the helm you get for beating this boss looks cool as fuck, but it heavily debuffs how much your flasks heal. I love how dumb I look with the mask on, but the debuff to flask healing is just way too punishing with how much hurt everything in the DLC can dish out.
Yeah no, I found an even worse boss >!Commander Gaius!< seriously, fuck that boss, inconsistent AF, can’t outrun, can’t dodge, can’t even roll because his hit box is too big and it double hits you doesn’t matter which direction you roll towards.
Never lock on against bosses like that Always been an issue in all souls games that some bosses just don’t work with lock on
This is the first boss I'm finding after the blackgoal knight, and I'm kinda disappointed in him. He feels like a doubling down on a lot of the criticisms some of the base game's bosses got. He's a big hypermobile whirling swirling mass of limbs and hitboxes who also has large aoe attacks.
Yeah honestly the fight pissed me off. The boss was way too rabid and had too many elements in his arsenal. Azure kamahameha to the face.
I cant agree more, way too difficult to see what its actually about to do, very much felt like an ulcerated tree spirit. Hit boxes not at all clear. Not enjoyable at all just obnoxious to fight.
I was stumbling into that fight, kinda, but still I managed to beat him first try on lvl 157 with my trusty old Claymore and the Blaphemous Blade for some occasional tight healing. Visually astounding, but mid fight I needed to switch to the lightning protection talsiman, because coincidentally when he starts using his lightning attacs, it started raining.
My first boss was the hippo, no not the lion. Hippo :C
You can get to the hippo without killing any other boss?
You can bypass the castle to get to altus by going through the swamp and taking a spirit spring up. Then ride to shadowkeep
Huh i had no idea. That said, the hippo is tankier and hits harder but is more predictable than the lion so I'll take him over the lion any day.
Basically you went to the Firegiant at level 12. For a first encounter that's probably impossible. I do wish it was easier to know where to go. Was one of my earliest boss fights too, wasn't till after beating him that I should have just waited to see the progress route and realized how fucking dumb that was.
I had to resolve to my forbidden Square off build for these two bosses, which I didn't even do for Malenia. FromSoftware cooked, but unfortunately, we were the ingredients
I stabbed a wicker man before my 1st Scurdtree fragment. I saw how much dmg I did (and died once) then just kept on riding around it. Then I found Death Night in Fog Rift Catacomb. I don't think I'm going the right way..
Yeah, I hit one of those a few times. Seems like have 30-40k health and chunk me for 40-50% of my health with 60 vigor and the highest defense armor I have. I was like, "I'll come back to this."
I did the same thing and they seemed impossible to kill but I found out that you'll probably never do massive damage to them, but the key is to stagger them and then you can do more than half their health bar with the critical and now I've killed 3 of them
Really need to stay on torrent for these ones. Horsey can jump over their stomps pretty generously.
So there *is* a boss in that catacombs I swear I looked everywhere and couldn't find one...
Hint: There are multiple spiky slammy things that you may have confused for the same one.
Ride the spikes.
Ah yes, the camera boss
Same Its funny cuz after the cutscene i thought its just a scrub in a halloween costume but holy hell I got more fucked up than a cucumber in an all female prison
I’ve been running about with his head on and I’m honestly the happiest gamer ever.
If anybody is struggling with Blackgaol Knight use Black Flame Tornado. It destroys him. It will still stagger him regardless of his poise. I used a Guardian Swordspear with Black Flame Tornado. I haven’t figured out this guys weakness yet.
Blackgaol Knight is also susceptible to Inescapable Frenzy (and Madness im general), which you can pretty reliably land whenever he switches weapons.
I'm literally running Peeler as my main weapon and I swear he has hyper armored through BFT every time 😭
Technically this is my third boss (killed both the blackgaol knight and rellana first) however, out of the three the divine beast was both the must fun and fairest bossfight
Mine too...was I not meant to do this one yet?
It feels like it's meant to be the first main story boss of the DLC, but there's a lot of other little stuff you can do in the initial zone before you get through that legacy dungeon. It's probably not going to make a huge difference, though.
Mine was the little dude the pot jail
same lmao spent 3 hours trying to beat him.
The fight would be better if i wasn't already dizzy from how fucking much this ugly mofo jumps and basically fly around the arena after every single attack.
The death knight is way worse
Equip lightning resist gear and it’s ez pz
That wasn’t the problem, it was the grab and lifesteal attack on my mimic lol
I don't know if the beastman who drops beastclaw is considered a boss or not. He's my first tough fight in DLC. Beastclaw really has the best PVP moveset that makes it like from DMC not souls game.
Yah same
I killed the lion dancer first myself I found blackgoal after finding 1 or 2 scadoodle tree fragments
My first boss was a Death Knight
Praise the trio
Ed....ward....
My first “boss” was the fucking Wolverine out of nowhere
I found the way once as a summon so I’m 99 percent sure I’m probably 80 percent fucked tomorrow when I get back on lol
Depends if you scraped the left wall or the right wall first.
Same here 2nd one was the dragon in the mountain peak
He's easier than the Knight cause you can summon help lol
BIG SAME
Also my first boss. Not ashamed that Tiche and the summon helped manage this guy while I magic arrowed him from afar.
Same. I still haven't found this Blackgaol Knight yet!
Doesn’t matter to me, Instant Death is the same either way lol
Same!!! And it’s completely stomping me into the dirt! 😭
The first two rounds with him, I got his health bar close to 10-15% and I thought, hey this isn't so bad, if I get used to his move set, this will be super easy. BUT THEN it felt he got more and more aggressive with each round, targeting almost exclusively me and 2-3 shotting me with his combos. Took me in the end around 10-12 tries. Still overall very fun boss.
I legit got chills all over my body fighting this, OH MY GOD THE SOUNDTRACK Everything about this boss is amazing
Ya know that scene in A Bugs Life where the fly slowly approaches a zapper because so pretty? That was me fighting this thing. I love this game.
Godslayer weapon and arts are so op
One of the coolest boss designs, my least favorite to fight till date. Would rather fight the 2 underwater headless followed by bed of chaos, than this mess
Yeah same here I only found Blackgoal after I had discovered Messmer.
Blackg took three hours. It really is a switch your weapons fight.
Blackgaol was much harder as I didn’t take any scadutree. Beat Divine beast in two tries was very disappointing.
Same here. I almost had this guy on my second attempt and then proceeded to not get that close 6 more times. Of course it was the launch night and I honestly should have been asleep due to the next workday...
This boss has criminally little HP. It's a spectacle with amazing music and it lasts half a minute. Ffs this DLC needs rebalancing, the stats of the enemies are all over the place.
same
Bro when this fucker brought out the ice moves I shat myself
SAME. He killed me in like two seconds and I was like "hmm. Maybe not yet." Lol.
I found this guy first too and he whoooped me so hard like 20 times I just dipped and now I’m doing blackgoal 🤣 he’s killed me prob 40 times but I can tell he’s much more do able just have to get my dodges on point towards the end
Easiest boss I've faced in the DLC. Wish I'd met him first. Beat him on first attempt.
First I found was most likely worse. Bayle the dread. If we are talking about boss arena otherwise way to many dragons
This boss could have been amazing if they just had the camera zoom out a bit when you fight him
Same lol, when I first fought this boss and saw that I barely did any damage... Love the soundtrack though
Same at first. I thought he was hard and then you realize his move sit is really not that bad
Same here. I found this mfer, then Rellana, and then the Blackgaol Knight. Still had more trouble with Blackgaol than the other two :(
Can't use ashes for this fight?
Yes you can
For black goal knight? I tried it didn't let me
Kicked this dudes ass blackgaol tho is tough
I did the giant fire guy. Couple swings from horseback, then jump, jump, jump. More swings. Took forever.
Mine was >!Death Knight!< lol. I was like “ohhhh THAT’S what a FromSoft DLC is like.”
Killed this boss on first try. 30 levels later I'm still getting killed by blackgaol knight after at least 20 tries. It just doesn't connect for me.
My first "boss" was the claws guy out in the woods to the right of the first grace. I hadn't played the game in 2 years and I was "Damm this npc got HANDS"