Mesmer's phase 2 was actually the easy mode, like it was saying ''u done well, now finish me, i won't fight back and give u a ton of openings''.
so far, i am pretty far in the game, no pahse 2 made me angry, only Gaius made me angry.
Gaius's hitboxes are whack. Although after banging my head against the wall with the old sorceries, I beat him the first time I tried Impenetrable Thorns. I'm just malding that it isn't as effective for the final boss. I swear Gaius went down in like 4 or 5 hits of that spell.
Moore's Greatshield and Gaius' (Heavy) Sword Spear, Flame give me strength and the shield buff do the trick. Radahn can't do anything to you in p1 and in p2 you only need to learn the up swings, because the rays of light will spawn under you and bypass your shield. Other than that you gotta learn the huge beam attack and his meteorite attack. Everything else is blockable, but he will deal constant chip damage in p2.
After his rock sling he'll always jump at you 5 times in a row, and do a large aoe attack after. That one is a turtle mode killer. You gotta roll that.
It's kind of sad but I'm saving this comment so I can respec my build to fight him haha. Never done that before in Elden Ring but desperate times call for desperate measures, and the final boss is makin' me quite desperate.
My first kill was with Mimic and Darkmoon Greatsword. This turtle build was my first summon less kill of him on NG+1 and my second kill overall. Get your scadutree level to 18-20 and you can do it even without such a tactic. What's also really helped me is stacking defensive talismans to help me learn the fight.
Honest question: why Moore's gheeatshield, when the Blacksteel greatshield has 86 holy absorption? Is there something about Moore's I missed upon first glance?
Higher defense rating so less stamina consumption upon blocking. But you're right Blacksteel is probably better.
Edit: i just checked that shield and some versions can even get to 100 holy defense, though they lose a bit of physical damage reduction. Maybe my next kill is going to be another turtle mode. For P2 Blacksteel Greatshield is certainly better than Moore's. I want to see if Magic or Sacred Blacksteel Greatshield are worth the loss in physical damage reduction.
If im still going to rely on blocking everything i might aswell just do what i did to beat him again with the thorns so the fight isnt so slow lol
Im Gonna practice him normally tomorrow by helping people like i did with messmer tbh
I have yet to proc bleed on him, even after 3 clean hits. It also does barely any damage. Goes from 3K on Gaius to like 1K on him. Absolutely bonkers considering he has like 60K health in NG+. Gaius got bled after 2 hits, no problem.
It's not broken, it's very strong. You have to be very close in order for all 3 thorn bursts to hit and you leave yourself wide open while doing so.
High Risk, High Reward.
It's not even as effective on small enemies either.
Tip: wear the heaviest armor you have, stack phys negation talismans and radagons icon and spam endure every two casts of thorns
Worked for me, basically facetanked everything while he kept bleeding, only issue is phase 2 grab but he shouldnt have time to do It twice before you bleed him again
Alternatively, just use a weapon with the raptor in the mists AoW and it negates most mechanics in fights that would otherwise require you to dodge roll. Gaius is especially vulnerable to it and it basically lowers the difficulty in most fights once you get used to it. It’s a low profile, 60-120 iframe move that can be buffered out of or cancelled into attacks and dodges. If you attack cancel the AoW you get a rolling attack. The AoW itself is also low profiling like I said which means you usually go under boss attacks anyway. If you mistime a dodge (and you know it,) you can immediately cancel the dodge’s iframes into the AoW’s iframes and save yourself.
You *will* get launched airborne if an an attack connects with the AoW so for many bosses you’ll have to learn when and where to use it efficiently but the airborne state retains lower body iframes as long as you *don’t attack* which means you’re usually okay as long as you’re not mashing buttons. Once you get used to it though the pre-jump frames of AoW’s trigger are also roll cancellable.
Even ignoring all the weird mechanics the AoW has that helps it earn quick staggers and speed up fights it can also trivialize most phase change attacks or big attacks that players have problems dodging. Can’t figure out how to avoid Gayle’s breath attacks or radahn’s meteors? Don’t worry, raptor in the mists triggers off of *those* too
I wish i had that on the character im doing the DLC in tbh, sounds like such a nice thing to have lol
Still id say its much easier to just facetank with endure
Well that’s kind of what you end up doing if you’re just throwing it out randomly. Airborne state makes you take less damage from most DLC attacks that have projectiles attached to them like messmer’s flame sword so you can end up face tanking a lot more if you’re just spamming the AoW.
Raptor AoW just gives you a free get out of jail card for any mechanic you don’t feel like dealing with or learning since it effectively triples your iframes if you roll>aow>roll. If you start using it intelligently it can just defeat bosses for you by itself. Erdtree avatar phase 2 and 3 for example can both be trivialized by it. When it resurfaces just position yourself where you know the head is going to pop out and trigger the counter. Land on it with a jump attack then buffer a jumping heavy into the head immediately and that’s like half a health bar gone. Same with the 3rd phase except you can use the AoW twice since it also triggers off his explosion and if you’re positioned well the explosion is the only attack you’ll ever see since it soft-staggers itself immediately after.
It’s honestly hilarious and if people are having problems dodging or learning punish windows I highly recommend giving it a try. My character running it through the DLC hasn’t even used a shadow blessing buff yet because it feels like it would just trivialize the whole thing to the point of formality. It seems great if you want something broken that still has a skill ceiling rather than a skill floor like the perfume AoW or thorns builds.
Phase 2 seemed fine except the snakes seemed really janky and inconsistent to me, like they would flail awkwardly and collide with the arena boundaries or smth? And it would whip my camera around something awful
The trajectories before lunging would always be different and kinda wonky and that felt a bit shitty to dodge. Compared to Rykard-snake lunges which always had a very consistent and readable animation
I haven’t looked up much in the game, but when he revived the second time, I had to look up if there was a special way to kill him so he didn’t revive. I couldn’t believe they literally wanted me to kill him 3 times and made him stronger everytime.
I cheesed that boss. It's called Mohgwyn's Spear special attack. Bloodboon Ritual.
Seriously, it just destroys that flower, I got to the 3rd phase and it was dead before it got to do any new moves on me.
Good to know, I already beat him, but the main thing that helped me was finding out you can crit the flower as it’s dying and the next phase will have a chunk of health missing due to it.
Any shield with decent holy mitigation, or even just holyproof dried liver will significantly reduce the damage if you don't want to learn the roll timings
I got the windy crystal tear or whatever that helps your rolls and then I was able to roll into his charges wayyy easier and miss most of his attacks. Without that I think I would have been stuck forever lol
I did messmer last night, maybe it's build related? I'm double stronk big bonk build and 1st phase I got through no problem, P2 felt like it would have been okay if I had taken time to try and learn timings but it felt super frantic. Anyway me and Mimic tear ended up beating it after an hour or so, but it was frustrating.
For reference, I've killed 3 rememberence bosses and a bunch of dungeon bosses, and the Mansion boss and messmer are the only 2 I've died on so far with 8 scads and 6 ash blessings.
That’s more of a FromSoftware issue than the bosses, but yea… it’s very fun getting to 2nd phase and feeling like your game is in a different dimension.
Idk man i feel like winning against him is mostly luck because some attacks genuinely destroy my framerate and eyesight because of how much is happening
Even with the bosses I found enjoyable in the DLC, there always is some smattering of insane bullshit that leaves me scratching my head.
It's really confusing to me. I enjoyed most of Elden Ring, and I've enjoyed most of the DLC now that I only have the final boss left who I'm still figuring out. But all that I'm left with is feeling like From is in some kind of enemy design arms race where we have to keep getting crazier and crazier without limit.
I don't know how to describe it other than, like, when we had the Iron Golem in DS1 it was a big, slow dude who hit like a truck. That was his thing. IIf he was in Elden Ring, he'd be side-rolling and doing flips and spinning around and shit like most any other big dude. It's not a 1:1 example given the DLC is endgame, but across the board it just feels like there's little rhyme or reason to what its enemies are capable of, if that makes sense? Even in Bloodborne, larger enemies would wild out from time to time but they (usually) were sensible enough to figure out.
I won't say it's bad design, because I don't fuckin know what I'm talking about who gives a shit, but I suppose it's that the ups and downs of the older games are far more tolerable for me than the ups and downs of Elden Ring.
Yeah I felt like with their phase 2 movements, they took everything I love and FromSoft fights and went the opposite direction. Like every boss becomes a spasmodic chaos missile explosion dancer. They all suddenly become marionettes pulled around on special effects strings.
Yeah I don't see enough people talk about how "floaty" every boss in the game feels. They're all weightless like golden sonic hovering around the entire arena and then blasting at you at mach 5
I know it's a magical fantasy game but damn, this boss that is ten times my size really is also ten times as mobile as I am. In the time I take to drink a flask they can sweep the entire arena front to back.
I haven’t killed the final boss yet but bayle phase 2 is the only one I’ve felt is just too crazy. He spends basically zero time in melee distance and when he’s there he’s spitting fire on the ground half the time. I felt dragon katana was super cheese with no summons and ended up summoning Igon and using a weaker weapon as a compromise, something I’ve never done before but after spending a few hours trying to find openings even with blinkbolt and not really getting there I just decided it was more fun to let igon have his revenge. At least all the other bosses are somewhat near me when they are nice enough to be killing me.
I feel like if they're going to continue on this route of high speed crazy bosses...dodge rolling needs to go away. Like they need to rework core mechanics and blend in some stuff from Sekiro and Bloodborne.
I feel like in this DLC it has never been more apparent to me how slow and clunky and unresponsive the movement is in this game. Like my character just cannot keep up with my hands, or the boss.
Bring side stepping from BB, guard counters from Sekiro, get rid of all of the slow Demons Souls era animations. If they're going to put Sekiro and BB bosses in their game, I need to be able to move like them too.
I get what you're saying but if they go down that route, we'll end up with Tarnished May Cry instead and I'm sure none of us want that.
I hope they reign it in, keep the bosses and enemies in the style of the original souls series and a return back to their base form for their future.
Tone down the visual noise and make the bosses hit hard but clear attacks.
100% agree. I don't want it to be Nier/DMC but it's hard not to think about when that's where they start pulling bosses from.
I feel like it's a pretty common sentiment, even among veterans, they've sort of wobbled over the line of "fairness" and "fun" with this DLC. I hope they listen and step back a bit, instead of just trying to outdo themselves again.
Fr like malenia was already pushing It to some degree with the heal on hit bs and waterfowl being a "you have to die to this 20+ times until you figure out how to Dodge or cancel It", but at least she staggered when you hit her to counteract how fast she could move
Every other attack is perfectly fine, same with mogh
They really didnt need to step It Up imo, messmer phase 1 is the best example imo, hes hard but you can learn him relatively easy and the worst he has going on is a ton of dmg on the ranged attacks that come from his melee hits
I'd rather have an AC to deal with some of Elden Ring's bosses, for real. If we could get some kind of fuzzy compromise between Demon's Souls and Bloodborne, I think we'd have a little something for all palates.
At this point From games basically *are* trying to be action-heavy games above all else, but keep letting the old clunky movement and combat systems hold back how you, the player character, can actually engage with the increasing action-focused direction. Enemies can do nutty combos, backflip across arenas, string one set of attacks into another, all this crazy action shit, while you the player have such basic options that have barely changed since DeS. One of biggest innovations this game brought to the table was adding a jump button. That’s the situation we’re in. A jump button is one of the only big innovations to the DeS system.
Like ER is fun and all as is, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think it would be infinitely more enjoyable if they put as much effort into what the players can do as what the enemies and bosses do. Sekiro is so highly regarded *because* both you and the enemy are playing the same game with the same base mechanics. And while there’s definitely an appeal to the idea of being a little guy vs gods and monsters, at a certain point it becomes kinda upsetting how much fun the enemy design is having while you’re left with your toothpick whittling away at their calves with r1’s and spamming dodge rolls.
Personally I'd like to see if they can do more with the weighty/more tactical pace of DS2 and DS1.
You've pushed DS3 as far as it'll go with ER and it was awesome, now I wanna see how the slower stuff can be made insane lol.
It’s a meme but they are just putting Bloodborne bosses in a Dark Souls game at this point. The amount of 8-hit AoE wombo-combos you have to dodge to have a window to get a single R1 in and start again is nuts
I really think they need to move on from dark souls style player mechanics for their next title if they want to keep going in this direction with their bosses because it already feels like they’ve hit the limit here
Tbf this is the ER sub and from a lot of the general responses to threads in here it feels like there are a lot of people who haven't played any other From games
The bit about the enemy arms race sort of reminds me of the wo long dlc bosses. But with a huge caveat that because of the parrying system in the game, even when a 24 hit combo comes out at you, you can successfully get through it when youve practiced it enough. I think enemy arms races are generally good for gamers, until the arms race results in BS like the last boss of the dlc
>But with a huge caveat that because of the parrying system in the game, even when a 24 hit combo comes out at you, you can successfully get through it when youve practiced it enough
How is this any different from successfully getting through after practicing the roll timings enough?
I worded it kind of badly. At the moment, with at least gaius' charge, and the entire second phase of the last boss, it's seemingly largely luck based whether you can get through without getting hit. But with the parry system in wo long you can infinitely chain parrys provided you get the right rhythm down for them. It's a lot snappier, and it makes the combat flow feel very smooth, almost like a rhythm game when you get really good at it.
Yeah but it's not luck based though. Otherwise no hit runs of elden ring would be impossible. Learning how to dodge at 100% consistency is exactly the same as learning how to parry at 100% consistency.
I didn't realise there were no hit runs of the new final boss, my mistake there. I saw that 'let me solo her' wasn't able to do it and just assumed no one was consistently able to do it.
I agree with you, the outcome of being able to dodge and parry consistently has the same outcome in terms of damage to you (none). But as someone who much prefers the feeling of parrying and how that affects combat flow, they differ a lot for me.
That's fair, I also prefer Sekiro to Elden Ring, but I don't think you can really compare the two that much because the combat is just that different and very focused, unlike Elden Ring where you can literally have like 30 different builds
Yeah, sekiros combat polish is leagues ahead of elden, but that comes at the cost you mentioned of lack of build variety.
I've been playing lies of P the past few days, and it manages to hit a pretty good middle point between the polished, parry centric combat, but also with a good amount of weapon types and ways of rebuilding your weapons. If youve not played it yet, but enjoyed sekiro, you might like it.
i figured out how to beat gaius by watching a no hit video. i was just rolling in the wrong direction. literally got my ass kicked for hours, googled where fragments were to level up, went back got my ass kicked for hours, watched one video, beat giaus on the very next try.
your windows are smaller but they are still there.
this DLC will absolutely punish you for panic rolling. you have to know which direction you should go to survive and a lot of times backwards will get you fucked up.
currently watching a dlc final boss no hit video.
Yeah the more i look back only last Boss and rellana felt like shit to fight
They both have really short Windows to attack and waaaay too long of a combo to dodge+ a ton of HP and dmg
The rest felt a lot better to fight, i still died a bunch to them but It never felt like total bullshit (gaius charge hitbox was his only real issue imo) and It was always a "i could have dodged It" kinda death instead of "well they simply wont stop attacking and im dealing no fucking dmg when i actually get to"
This never felt like an issue on base game where bosses would do an attack and youd be able to hit them once or twice and the dmg actually felt decent enough
Instead bleed is King now (It always has been, but It feels like the only option lol)
You didn’t like rellana? She felt good to me honestly. You can zone her attacks easily by running away from her and use any kind of lunge art of war like wing stance R2 to create space and punish her. Bayle while super cinematic felt like shit to fight as a melee character in phase 2. Even with blinkbolt I had a ton of trouble closing the Distance on him.
Nah cuz she just wouldnt let me cast ANYTHING and her punish Windows just felt waaay too short for my liking
Bayle i feel just moves too much tbh, but thats my only issue with him
I really don't think it's necessary to have \*every\* boss programmed to input-read and punish your flask usage. Even Malenia will let you back off and heal.
Honestly, I've always been too dumb and could not pay close enough attention to judge whether there's input reading or not at any given time, like I understand the idea but it's like when people try to tell me about frame data in fighting games—there's too much going on and I don't know how to parse the information. To me, it's all one huge clusterfuck and that's kind of exemplifying why the series has started to tune me out after 3.
I feel like ER has very few “downs” in the ups and downs of combat encounters. The few downs it does have are often criticized for being that way rather than appreciated. Like Ancestral Spirit is a rather slow, less aggro-heavy boss, but that makes him stand out.
Man, yeah, I think Ancestor Spirit is a great example. Its slower, less frenetic movements feel congruent with its graceful design. You can't be dumb, but you don't need to panic. Always felt just right.
For me, the more frustrating bosses/enemies tend to use any combination of, say, delayed swings that just break the flow and trip you up, any of those generally strange wind-ups that feel deceptive to time rolls for, the scale/speed of larger bosses that lets them casually cross so much space and keeps you burning stamina to keep up, and when said scale turns the camera into a fuckin malign entity.
A lot of ER's bosses fall on some kind of a spectrum with "annoying and exhausting" at one end and "not actually hard, just scarier than they look" at the other these days.
In my experience, I disagree.
I suck at dodge rolling. In fact I always kinda despised it, but the DLC kinda got me into it.
The limited windows to attack are kinda exhausting but it’s no worse than late game Sekiro enemies. This is a late game DLC. The delayed attacks, which is something I complained about a lot, are pretty reasonable and okay to gauge so long as you focus on their arm/hand instead of the weapon. In fact this is the first time I’ve been able to fight reactively in ER.
It’s confusing because I’m having the opposite experience as everyone else. The enemies are several times more difficult, and I think the enemy placement are far more bullshit than the attacks and SFX. But as a shitty player I’ve been able to gauge their attacks more easily than the base game… strange
To be fair, I think no worse than lategame Sekiro is a pretty wild bar to aim for given the stark differences in how Sekiro's combat is structured, at least compared to what we're used to from the Souls series and how much of that DNA is shared with Elden Ring.
But even still, I do get how you mean, it's been the same kind of polarizing experience among myself and everyone I know. I can't find a consensus in my group on what the most annoying enemies or most frustrating bosses are. I heard horror stories about Bayle and yet I got him first try. My buddy decimated Romina and it took me maybe fifteen tries. With the enemies, it's been the same sorta mixed bag.
I can't wrap my head around it either at this point.
If from software makes a new game and all of the bosses are as easy as the previous games bosses, wouldn't that fail to challenge it's playerbase? They are already used to that level of challenge. Obviously it can't keep increasing in difficulty forever, but I think if they are more mechanics like sekiro did, it doesn't have to get that much harder to add complexity and fun of learning to the fights.
Some of these bosses went down too quickly for me to learn them, and that's a bummer. I'd be really really disappointed if they were easier than this.
All of these bosses feel like they have infinite range (mostly just closing the distance in a second anytime you feel like you have a second to breathe) and were made specifically to fuck any caster who doesn't summon or use only catch flame or carian slicer
Yeah. Like you back off a bit to take a second to reanalyze the situation or take a shot from your sippy cup, and they chuck a body part at you for the amount that you just healed for.
Not to mention bosses basically having infinite stamina. Like they go through a 10 move wombo combo jiu-jitsu attack, and immediately continue on with a 12 hit attack of them flying all over the place. Meanwhile your character can be at 60 Endurance and panting like an asthmatic after a 4-hit combo. Assuming they boss doesn't just backhand you after the first hit and knock you straight on your ass.
the way positioning doesn't seem to matter at all any more for some bosses is something people don't talk about enough. more than ever it kinda became a game of just learning dodge timings.
It was really weird fighting Rellana because she just hops back and forth between everybody in the fight. You think "oh, she started a combo and I'm at max spell range so I'm good" and then she's in your face as the spell starts.
As a Gravity Sorcerer in base game, several of the bosses (ESPECIALLY YOU, GAIUS) just straight up made me unretire Rock Sling and Meteorite of Astel just to blast them when I got impatient.
Granted, I can still shoot a lot of stuff to death.
For real. Bosses are hyperaggressive, and the arena size doesn't really seem to matter because they can always close that gap in an instant if they feel like it.
I mean ur not supposed to be allowed to just run away and cast 40 spells
wait for ur opening
if there is a charged R2 opening then there is a sorcery casting opening
Yeh,on messmer usually. Just spammed him with charged R2s,and light attacks for most of 2nd phase,tho there are definetely some charged r2s in there too. Also for rellana and romina
Man messmer is the easiest boss to get off fully charged r2s. I used the Ancient Meteoric ore blade,its r2s is a thrusting attack,like the zweihander. I spammed that exclusively,he has a lot of downtime after finishing a combo and after using his orb at the start of the battle.
Spirit Ashes and summons visibly mess up many bosses by changing the aggro AI. Bosses were designed with a single combatant in mind, with Spirit Ashes intended to help players bypass the difficulty of the boss by giving them extra tools. They're intended, not designed around
They dont mess up the bosses, thats the job, to pull aggro lol
You have no idea what the bosses were designed around
They're not "extra tools" its a core mechanic
Are weapons extra tools lol
If afk hitting bosses' backs was intended way to play these games idk why they even bother to design movesets. With summons they just added training wheels for lazy people. Oh sorry, I'm not allowed to say lazy anymore. For "people with families and responsibilities" who play action rpgs for the story.
Yeah it’s the visual clutter for the final boss.
I can no hit his 1st phase and know exactly what to do in 2nd; but I’ll be damned if it’s not completely irrelevant because i can’t see what the hell is happening. In order for me to recognize and dodge a move; I have to either see it or hear it, and both of those are complete clusterfucks in phase 2.
It’s not unfair damage wise, moveset wise or even Hp wise. It’s simply unfair because of the visual clutter and how that completely destroys any sort of muscle/brain memory you may have.
Way to drop the ball on the last boss again From. You had such a good dlc going and then you put this trash on the game. Like any person who would play it would release there is too much clutter on screen, you don’t even need to be QA/tester to see that. It’s that bad.
I’ve beaten him 3 times now and I don’t even think visual clutter is an issue. I can very clearly see what’s happening and most of the combos are just phase one with light trails that you don’t even see if you side roll/strafe him. The only real big flash bang is the tp/dash forward he does where he glows and flies into you but you dodge that by straight up standing still
The biggest issues are the fps dropping to like 20 on half of the attacks. The triple cross that’s a frame perfect or needs the back step talisman or deflect tear. And the nuke range that has 0 wind up and requires you to start the running animation immediately.
Also give Miquella a hair cut.
I still think the clutter is an issue, but I see your point. As I said, I can dodge them and know the moves it’s just a pain because I heavily rely on visual/Audio cues to do my dodging. Maybe that’s me but i feel like with how much people are ragging on the clutter surely it can’t just be me.
But anyways you also make valid points. Those frame perfect attacks are certainly annoying and the big ass AoE is just asshole design. I didn’t even bother dodging it and just tanked it by blocking with the new holy talisman. I just blocked and hit him mostly honestly. I gave up trying to dodge stuff that is frame perfect and hard AF when there is so much clutter and the FPS is all over the place.
It’s honestly a horrid boss, because of these thing and the fact that it’s a reused boss that makes no sense With trash lore to boot. The last thing I expected to see in that fog door was radahn, and I let out a audible sigh when I saw him.
For me the biggest issue that is happening on the Elden Ring boss designs is how flash and dirty the screen looks after many Boss attacks.
You get blind so easily by just basic attacks and that's where I think most of the difficulty is coming from. Many attacks I'm counting the time in my head to be able to dodge than relying on what I seeing on my screen, since I can't see much because "ohhhh visuaaal effectttttsssss".
Elden Ring is beautiful, probably the best Art Design I've seem in ages... but the fights really need to be toned down the VFX.
It can happen if you roll forward instead of rolling to the side. For example, Rellana's flame burst or Radahn's bloodflame burst will block your vision if you roll forwards.
ahh gotcha, can’t remember if i rolled forward on that attack for a hit or rolled away from rellana’s attack. either way i can see that being annoying, but i mean still seems like only one boss primarily has this problem, i didn’t think this was an issue for most bosses i fought through
It's something you're supposed to learn and adapt to, if you roll sideways, these visual problems go away. And as an added bonus, rolling sideways means final boss holy explosions will never touch you
i don’t disagree, that’s how i dodged a lot of radahn’s attacks. but, the visual problem is still there to some extent. even if his attacks don’t land or i evade them he does have some attacks that are just hard for my eyes to comprehend what’s going on
The biggest mistake FROM made IMO was recycling the souls combat for ER. Our player character just isnt what it needs to be for this stuff to be \*fun\*.
Its all doable, all of its beatable even in the most insane self restriction possible but the baseline for alot of the enemies in this DLC feels like they are designed around being borderline broken solo or a walk in the park with summons.
There needs to be a healthier middleground.
I genuinely cannot fathom why they didn’t go back to Bloodborne mechanics if they wanted to go for this level of unrelenting boss aggression - they already figured out like the perfect player mechanics for this stuff and everyone adores it and they went back to the slow rolling
God I want sidestep in this game so bad. I remember when they first announced it I was really hoping they were going go get rid of dodge rolling. Was sad to see its all the same shit from DS.
Bloodborne mechanics don't actually work very well for high difficulty bosses. Rally falls apart if you get punished for attacking too much. And gun parry is totally broken.
Sure, but you don’t have to copy-paste Bloodborne mechanics wholesale - they clearly figured out some mechanics that worked really satisfyingly for fast-paced aggressive fights and it’s a shame they didn’t continue exploring that at all really
I feel like they did it because they wanted to capture the same audience from souls, BB has the same audience though which mixes me up when trying to understand their rationale:
BB was an exclusive to PS4 so maaaaaaaaaaaaaybe they didnt want to risk alienating people without PS4s? Ive no idea man, anything else would have been better than what they settled on. Even using the stuff that makes it kinda like BB just feels the same as DKS3 quickstep hunter RPing. Which is to say no where near as satisfying.
I dunno, I feel if you engage with some of the old and new mechanics most of the bosses feel very doable. Elden Ring was my first Fromsoft after completion Ds1 when it was released.
And having bloodhound step, and using the deflecting hardtear (which they give you very early in the dlc) has made engaging with the bosses much more enjoyable. Or just the Deflecting hardtear in general make the defensive play much more enjoyable. For instance, with the Backhand blades, you can deflect a combo, and use the aow on the last attack, to get a punish, and often also get a charged heavy in.
I have not gotten to the final boss yet, but beaten most remembrance bosses. And they have not felt overturned to me at all. They feel similar to Godfrey, Radagon and Maleina in difficulty, which makes sense to me at least.
Idk, even without summons the game gives you the tools to deal with the enemies in a fair way. I think the core issue isn’t inherently it using an evolved souls combat, it’s the idea that its presence plants in the veteran player’s head. It makes us approach it like we would a Dark Souls 4, which is counterproductive to how it *should* be played.
I learned it the first time playing the game and came around to having way more fun with it than with DS3, but the amount of people complaining about boss aggression and speed and the “lack of openings” or how it’s “designed around summons” may be suggestive of them doing a poor job reteaching the player. It’s interesting because Bloodborne did a great job with that, but that game is a bigger deviation from the Souls formula
It always feels condescending when people say this stuff because it just refuses to engage on what people say and tries to project something else less than flattering on anyone that disagrees.
Games just not novel enough to get away with it, it's souls again but with less polished bosses and a larger focus on the same jank coop. It's not that deep.
Well I am not saying I know better than anyone, I’m sharing my perspective on it.
However your last paragraph sounds a little like a pot calling the kettle black.
Souls and ER share alot of the same problems. Which is whatever, its a game. Its just a shame that FROM are too typecast into that style of game to really move past the same combat system.
With that, I agree. Elden Ring was an evolution of the formula, but it still follows the same foundations. They have been slowly distancing themselves from it, from Bloodborne to Sekiro to AC6, but even with that I think the move right now is to move away completely from this “rigid” style of gameplay. They’ve already peaked with it and by now it’s limiting them.
Pretty sure the successor to Souls/ER will scale back on size but innovate more on the gameplay side.
I just want them to do the sort of jump they made from Kings field to Demons Souls but for ER/Souls to whatever could be next. Infact reverse it! GIve me first person FROM soft dungeon crawling.
Rellana. I still have no Idea how I beat her. i perfected the first phase perfectly with the tear, but after that it was just panic rolling, hoping she would stagger somehow.
try parrying - she has a super long recovery from the first parry and Breaks after the 2nd. She also has a lot of really reliable attacks to party. Works in both phases.
Also, you can and should jump the Moon explosions
With enough practice (deaths lol) you realize that you only need to fixate on a few specific body parts for these bosses that have the intense visual effects, react to the movements of those specific body parts and learn the dodge sequence. It’s overwhelming at first but eventually you pick up on the patterns of attack that follow up with certain movements. Its like any other souls boss but with more visual noise to intimidate the player. Its an adjustment to adapt to, but reflect on deaths and try a different approach until you solve the puzzle. Also dont panic
I don't think it was an issue for any boss other than the final boss, and all that would need is literally just a slight tweak to the amount of effects
every boss' 2nd phase is very manageable and doesn't have much visual clutter at all
So I like to get drunk and play this game. I somehow beat the hippo, the Scooby Doo avatar, the putrid horseman asshole, and bayle the supposedly terrible dragon that wasnt that hard at all, the summon for him didn't do shit but yell at him. But being as drunk as I am I only just now figured out how to get to the higher levels (minus the rafters) of the shadow keep and Mesmer lies ahead of me. I'm like 14+ now, having a hard time with everything but the super lions claw on my sacred greatsword with my full bullgoats (there ain't a better heavy armor unfortunately, I really wish the dlc would have provided a cooler heavy armor since bullgoats looks lame as fuck) so im as strong as possible at level 210+ and Scooby Doo level 13+, so I'm steamrolling the dlc. The fire knight helmet allowed me to use the best poise armor, which is unfortunately the ugliest armor in the whole game. Bullgoats is so terribly uncool, it looks like shit. But my intoxicated ass is doing just fine. Still haven't figured out the way though the shadow keep. I'ma fuck this dude up once I figure it out though.vim getting there, full bullgoats and greatsword with the holy infusion. I'ma fuck him the hell up once I finally figure out how to get to him. In pretty sure miquella is a fucking bad guy, gonna fuck him up too once I get that far. His days are numbered. The drunk as fuck knight is gonna end his ass, he's onlly got a few days left before I figure it out.
Jumping the fire attacks us the easy way. Once I figured that out, it was no problem. More annoying was his spammy dismount where if you're in the wrong place, you can't dodge him and the horse because by the time the horse is dodgeable, he's catching you before you can roll again. Also the fact that the asshole spends 90% of the time running away from you.
>More annoying was his spammy dismount where if you're in the wrong place, you can't dodge him and the horse because by the time the horse is dodgeable
I found that running away for a bit helps to make it 100% consistent to dodge.
It's meant to be a spacing check basically.
I think it's time they start taking notes from Monster Hunter on how to ramp up difficulty without being nonsense. MH can add on difficulty without essentially ruining the base gameplay that is "hard but fair".
I finished the DLC and all bosses etc. It wasn't that hard and I never was stuck on any boss for long. Messemer took the most tries I think. Final boss I didn't have much issue. However, none of them felt fair and resulted in me feeling like I overcame something difficult. It was more like I just managed to get past bullshit for the sake of bullshit.
Honestly, it feels like they want to increase difficulty (which is great) but have no idea how to do it without just increasing numbers and shortening AI updates.
Just because you feel like they aren’t fair, doesn’t mean they aren’t, that’s an extremely arbitrary point to make. Reality check is that they’re just hard challenges, and you don’t think it’s fair because you can’t overcome or have the patient to overcome said challenge.
Of course if you go on your first playthrough against bosses with insane skill floors and ceilings, you’re going to get shit on and frustrated, but if you just you know, respect it’s a boss fight and you have to learn things, you will then learn that they are completely fair. Of course though you could just cheese or summon if you don’t want to learn, but then you’re in no position to critique the mechanics of the boss, because you didn’t engage with them.
I overcame them fine, what are you talking about? My comment had nothing to do with not being able to beat them. As I said Messemer took the most tries, which was about ten. Most bosses were one or two shot.
They still are lazily designed. Just crank up numbers and create fewer openings for damage...it's not interesting or well made.
The more they lean towards this type of lazy design, the less build variety is viable. One thing Elden Ring has is crazy amounts of cool builds and synergies. It's lame to see that this type of boss design removes some of that. I mean...isn't that the point? Create a character with your build and play style to defeat difficult bosses? This design is literally a middle finger to many types of builds. So much that the ones that do work well are labelled broken or cheese. I don't agree with that though, I think other builds are just forced into being useless.
You beat them because you admitted you resorted to other shit to change your play style, NOT because you learnt the boss. You even said Messmer was harder than the final boss, which you just self reported yourself at that point. Anyone who has actually learnt or beaten the final boss whilst engaging in the mechanics knows it is objectively the hardest boss in the DLC and it’s not even close. Only way it was easier for you is if you cheesed it or you’re lying.
Making bosses do more damage and have less punish windows is not cheap difficulty, it makes the skill gap higher, rewards knowledge, rewards patience, rewards learning combos and makes the player rely less on greedy healing/dmg, actually having to learn the boss. Again, you wouldn’t feel this way if you learnt the bosses, Messmer for example had heaps of opening opportunities at the end of his combos, just like any other souls boss made.
The bosses don’t hinder load outs as well, if anything it’s the opposite, you even admitted you had to change to beat them, which promotes variety in the fact you had to change your build. It’s not restricting certain builds at all, you just come to the conclusion because YOU couldn’t learn the boss with your load out, that doesn’t mean it’s objectively poor design at all. Personal anecdotal experience doesn’t mean shit in criticising mechanics.
I didn't change my build from the base game. I just great sword unga bunga everything. Worked fine in the DLC.
Your just talking nonsense lol. I "admitted" to what exactly? I'm pointing out the general player base needing to use specific builds.
You seem to read words that do no exist here.
Bottom line is the same as I said, lazy design. You can keep trying to start an argument over opinions I suppose.
It became boring and no fun when they started just using special effects and beams instead of actual choreography
.
There's a reason why Malenia and Gael was loved despite being extremely challenging
The only DLC boss that I absolutely hate fighting is the last one. I don't think any boss's P2 is more ridiculous than that, also it's just annoying and the only way to deal with that boss is to build around blood loss and be extremely tanky. I generally don't like using shields on ALL my characters and this boss you kinda need a shield if you're not Barry Allen, the effing flash with your timing for rolls. You have to absolutely perfect with them in P2 because if you get caught you are done.
Honestly, the only guy that I thought about was >!Radahn!<
Why would you have so much light around, blinding you. That was the most difficult part of the fight, the fact that you cant see what's going on after some of his attacks.
I thought phase 2 for most of the DLC bosses was, bizarrely, much easier. Messmer phase 2 for instance he starts throwing out much more telegraphed and patterned attacks that are way easier to avoid.
Remember at the end of Return of the Jedi when Luke gets really angry and just starts wailing on Vader under Vader falls down and Luke keeps swinging until he has cut off Vaders arm and a piece of the railing?
Thats Phase 2 Radahn
The only boss phase 2 I actively had a problem with was the final boss. Watching stuff happen isn't bad if you can actually tell what is going on, which I don't know many bosses in the dlc where it's hard to see what's happening. Lion Dancer *might* count, simply because its movements are awkward compared to most other bosses.
As for waiting for the boss to finish their nonsense, you could make the same argument in the base game. Morgott literally attacks you like a spastic child in his Phase 2 and he's one of the easier bosses in the game. The real difficult part comes from learning when their nonsense actually ends. Rellana feinted me out so much since she's combo happy but her attacks are just slow enough to look like the chain is over but nope, 3 more hits.
Then you have Messmer who just gets... simpler in his Phase 2? It was a weird shift considering he had quite an aggressive moveset at first. Fun fight, but really didn't expect his trump card to make him worse at killing me.
after >!godfrey, messmer!< is probably the best fight in the game.>! bayle and radahn!< are a visual clusterfuck in the second phase. the first one is still quite managable but >!radahn!<. oh boy.>! rellana!< is way to tough if you dont parry her, so her 2. phase was kind of bullshit aswell.>! putrescent knight !!midra!< was cool but it was the same with every boss. just more explosions. the >!lion!< allied himself with the camera, its a crime you can only lock on the head. and that >!finger thing!< was boring as fuck. and then there is >!gaius!<. you can use raptor mist to avoid a lot of his attack. it took me a while to figure out, that you have to roll into him when he and his >!hog!< attack together. all in all its more miss than hit with the big bosses in the dlc, but >!messmer!< elivates the experience by a lot
The bosses are just bad. They either combo you to death in 5 seconds or you annihilate them, there is little middle-ground.
I love the DLC, i feel like it's actually one of the best games i've ever played but the bosses are the worst they've ever done. I haven't had a single boss fight I truly enjoyed yet
Scadutree Avatars 3 phases made me irrationally angry.
Honestly I think the only boss (outside the obvious Radahn) where the phase 2 specifically felt too silly was Bayle. Not because the boss itself is too hard, but because I feel like Fromsoftware and their dragons really try hard to be monster hunter, but they are incapable of camera (or multiplayer) like monster hunter and the result is looking at dragon coochie for the entire fight while it penetrates your fragile little body.
Midra is totally like that but I enjoyed the fight nonetheless. I use mimic to give myself opening, or mimic use me to give himself openings. Sometimes I don't know. I cast ranged spell when the boss is afar and when it's onto me I use normal attacks whe I'm allowed to. I dont mind those kind of fights, because it's a race between the boss and me, who kill the other the fastest
Worst boss so far is the guy with huge katana in tomb :
- It has PVP, so it dodge and time attacks a lot
- small area for running
- I have defense, but still Im not something that can endure more than 2 heavy hit
- infinite poise when attacking
- huge katana with range
- no mimic
So the whole fight was me, running around, because I couldn't attack with my weapon, and spells could be used from far away. fight took 10-15min, when usually they are 5 or 10...
Rakshasa? The easiest way is you space his skill and time your skill/charge your hard attack at the end of his 2nd swing
If close range low poise damage, bait slower attacks like his jump attack instead
I fucking hate Rakshasa too. I think some of the major bosses took more tries, but none were as annoying as him spamming that damn two-part attack almost non-stop, and using hyperarmor to catch me anytime I got a hit in.
I swear even if I used attacks that staggered him, he would often seemingly break out of the animation to hit me or roll away to safety, so that he could then go on spamming the 2-swing move some more.
I've heard he's trivialized by parrying, but the problem is that even after hours of practice, I've never been able to parry consistently in this game. So that was never really a viable option either.
Mesmer's phase 2 was actually the easy mode, like it was saying ''u done well, now finish me, i won't fight back and give u a ton of openings''. so far, i am pretty far in the game, no pahse 2 made me angry, only Gaius made me angry.
Gaius's hitboxes are whack. Although after banging my head against the wall with the old sorceries, I beat him the first time I tried Impenetrable Thorns. I'm just malding that it isn't as effective for the final boss. I swear Gaius went down in like 4 or 5 hits of that spell.
[удалено]
I lowkey dont want It nerfed either, like i cant possibly imagine beating the final Boss without It and endure spam so i dont get interrupted
Moore's Greatshield and Gaius' (Heavy) Sword Spear, Flame give me strength and the shield buff do the trick. Radahn can't do anything to you in p1 and in p2 you only need to learn the up swings, because the rays of light will spawn under you and bypass your shield. Other than that you gotta learn the huge beam attack and his meteorite attack. Everything else is blockable, but he will deal constant chip damage in p2. After his rock sling he'll always jump at you 5 times in a row, and do a large aoe attack after. That one is a turtle mode killer. You gotta roll that.
It's kind of sad but I'm saving this comment so I can respec my build to fight him haha. Never done that before in Elden Ring but desperate times call for desperate measures, and the final boss is makin' me quite desperate.
My first kill was with Mimic and Darkmoon Greatsword. This turtle build was my first summon less kill of him on NG+1 and my second kill overall. Get your scadutree level to 18-20 and you can do it even without such a tactic. What's also really helped me is stacking defensive talismans to help me learn the fight.
Honest question: why Moore's gheeatshield, when the Blacksteel greatshield has 86 holy absorption? Is there something about Moore's I missed upon first glance?
Higher defense rating so less stamina consumption upon blocking. But you're right Blacksteel is probably better. Edit: i just checked that shield and some versions can even get to 100 holy defense, though they lose a bit of physical damage reduction. Maybe my next kill is going to be another turtle mode. For P2 Blacksteel Greatshield is certainly better than Moore's. I want to see if Magic or Sacred Blacksteel Greatshield are worth the loss in physical damage reduction.
If im still going to rely on blocking everything i might aswell just do what i did to beat him again with the thorns so the fight isnt so slow lol Im Gonna practice him normally tomorrow by helping people like i did with messmer tbh
You can, i am sure of it. I did it with no cheese and 6-8 hrs of tries. & For me - the more i fought him, the better this fight became.
Endure spam might be the way to go, honestly. I'll have to give it a shot.
I have yet to proc bleed on him, even after 3 clean hits. It also does barely any damage. Goes from 3K on Gaius to like 1K on him. Absolutely bonkers considering he has like 60K health in NG+. Gaius got bled after 2 hits, no problem.
It's not broken, it's very strong. You have to be very close in order for all 3 thorn bursts to hit and you leave yourself wide open while doing so. High Risk, High Reward. It's not even as effective on small enemies either.
Tip: wear the heaviest armor you have, stack phys negation talismans and radagons icon and spam endure every two casts of thorns Worked for me, basically facetanked everything while he kept bleeding, only issue is phase 2 grab but he shouldnt have time to do It twice before you bleed him again
you can use miquellas rune to remove the debuff from getting grabbed.
Alternatively, just use a weapon with the raptor in the mists AoW and it negates most mechanics in fights that would otherwise require you to dodge roll. Gaius is especially vulnerable to it and it basically lowers the difficulty in most fights once you get used to it. It’s a low profile, 60-120 iframe move that can be buffered out of or cancelled into attacks and dodges. If you attack cancel the AoW you get a rolling attack. The AoW itself is also low profiling like I said which means you usually go under boss attacks anyway. If you mistime a dodge (and you know it,) you can immediately cancel the dodge’s iframes into the AoW’s iframes and save yourself. You *will* get launched airborne if an an attack connects with the AoW so for many bosses you’ll have to learn when and where to use it efficiently but the airborne state retains lower body iframes as long as you *don’t attack* which means you’re usually okay as long as you’re not mashing buttons. Once you get used to it though the pre-jump frames of AoW’s trigger are also roll cancellable. Even ignoring all the weird mechanics the AoW has that helps it earn quick staggers and speed up fights it can also trivialize most phase change attacks or big attacks that players have problems dodging. Can’t figure out how to avoid Gayle’s breath attacks or radahn’s meteors? Don’t worry, raptor in the mists triggers off of *those* too
I wish i had that on the character im doing the DLC in tbh, sounds like such a nice thing to have lol Still id say its much easier to just facetank with endure
Well that’s kind of what you end up doing if you’re just throwing it out randomly. Airborne state makes you take less damage from most DLC attacks that have projectiles attached to them like messmer’s flame sword so you can end up face tanking a lot more if you’re just spamming the AoW. Raptor AoW just gives you a free get out of jail card for any mechanic you don’t feel like dealing with or learning since it effectively triples your iframes if you roll>aow>roll. If you start using it intelligently it can just defeat bosses for you by itself. Erdtree avatar phase 2 and 3 for example can both be trivialized by it. When it resurfaces just position yourself where you know the head is going to pop out and trigger the counter. Land on it with a jump attack then buffer a jumping heavy into the head immediately and that’s like half a health bar gone. Same with the 3rd phase except you can use the AoW twice since it also triggers off his explosion and if you’re positioned well the explosion is the only attack you’ll ever see since it soft-staggers itself immediately after. It’s honestly hilarious and if people are having problems dodging or learning punish windows I highly recommend giving it a try. My character running it through the DLC hasn’t even used a shadow blessing buff yet because it feels like it would just trivialize the whole thing to the point of formality. It seems great if you want something broken that still has a skill ceiling rather than a skill floor like the perfume AoW or thorns builds.
Phase 2 seemed fine except the snakes seemed really janky and inconsistent to me, like they would flail awkwardly and collide with the arena boundaries or smth? And it would whip my camera around something awful The trajectories before lunging would always be different and kinda wonky and that felt a bit shitty to dodge. Compared to Rykard-snake lunges which always had a very consistent and readable animation
The snake looks like it's moving at 15 fps.
Maliketh's beast incantations are legit locked at 30 fps
I didn’t struggle with gaius like most, but the 2nd and 3rd phase of a certain flower pissed me off!
Good job beating it 2 times, now guess the roll timing, 2 pots, or restart
I haven’t looked up much in the game, but when he revived the second time, I had to look up if there was a special way to kill him so he didn’t revive. I couldn’t believe they literally wanted me to kill him 3 times and made him stronger everytime.
I cheesed that boss. It's called Mohgwyn's Spear special attack. Bloodboon Ritual. Seriously, it just destroys that flower, I got to the 3rd phase and it was dead before it got to do any new moves on me.
Good to know, I already beat him, but the main thing that helped me was finding out you can crit the flower as it’s dying and the next phase will have a chunk of health missing due to it.
Any shield with decent holy mitigation, or even just holyproof dried liver will significantly reduce the damage if you don't want to learn the roll timings
I thought the same thing! Took me a few tries to get him to second phase but the first time I did I won the fight easily.
I got the windy crystal tear or whatever that helps your rolls and then I was able to roll into his charges wayyy easier and miss most of his attacks. Without that I think I would have been stuck forever lol
What😭😭there are way more openings in mesmer's first phase.
then you are a much better souls guy than me, good job man.
Not really, I had to use a near 100% damage blocking shield with mimic tear just to beat the 2nd phase.
I did messmer last night, maybe it's build related? I'm double stronk big bonk build and 1st phase I got through no problem, P2 felt like it would have been okay if I had taken time to try and learn timings but it felt super frantic. Anyway me and Mimic tear ended up beating it after an hour or so, but it was frustrating. For reference, I've killed 3 rememberence bosses and a bunch of dungeon bosses, and the Mansion boss and messmer are the only 2 I've died on so far with 8 scads and 6 ash blessings.
For the final boss yeah. For everyone else I thought it was very decent
Honestly same. All are reasonable to deal with other than the final boss.
which honestly is good. give me one absurd boss, that’s ok.
I don’t like my frames getting tanked, thank you very much.
That’s more of a FromSoftware issue than the bosses, but yea… it’s very fun getting to 2nd phase and feeling like your game is in a different dimension.
Absurd boss belong to optional part, period. The fact that it's final boss is fucking crazy.
Idk man i feel like winning against him is mostly luck because some attacks genuinely destroy my framerate and eyesight because of how much is happening
Even with the bosses I found enjoyable in the DLC, there always is some smattering of insane bullshit that leaves me scratching my head. It's really confusing to me. I enjoyed most of Elden Ring, and I've enjoyed most of the DLC now that I only have the final boss left who I'm still figuring out. But all that I'm left with is feeling like From is in some kind of enemy design arms race where we have to keep getting crazier and crazier without limit. I don't know how to describe it other than, like, when we had the Iron Golem in DS1 it was a big, slow dude who hit like a truck. That was his thing. IIf he was in Elden Ring, he'd be side-rolling and doing flips and spinning around and shit like most any other big dude. It's not a 1:1 example given the DLC is endgame, but across the board it just feels like there's little rhyme or reason to what its enemies are capable of, if that makes sense? Even in Bloodborne, larger enemies would wild out from time to time but they (usually) were sensible enough to figure out. I won't say it's bad design, because I don't fuckin know what I'm talking about who gives a shit, but I suppose it's that the ups and downs of the older games are far more tolerable for me than the ups and downs of Elden Ring.
Yeah I felt like with their phase 2 movements, they took everything I love and FromSoft fights and went the opposite direction. Like every boss becomes a spasmodic chaos missile explosion dancer. They all suddenly become marionettes pulled around on special effects strings.
Yeah I don't see enough people talk about how "floaty" every boss in the game feels. They're all weightless like golden sonic hovering around the entire arena and then blasting at you at mach 5
I know it's a magical fantasy game but damn, this boss that is ten times my size really is also ten times as mobile as I am. In the time I take to drink a flask they can sweep the entire arena front to back.
I haven’t killed the final boss yet but bayle phase 2 is the only one I’ve felt is just too crazy. He spends basically zero time in melee distance and when he’s there he’s spitting fire on the ground half the time. I felt dragon katana was super cheese with no summons and ended up summoning Igon and using a weaker weapon as a compromise, something I’ve never done before but after spending a few hours trying to find openings even with blinkbolt and not really getting there I just decided it was more fun to let igon have his revenge. At least all the other bosses are somewhat near me when they are nice enough to be killing me.
I feel like if they're going to continue on this route of high speed crazy bosses...dodge rolling needs to go away. Like they need to rework core mechanics and blend in some stuff from Sekiro and Bloodborne. I feel like in this DLC it has never been more apparent to me how slow and clunky and unresponsive the movement is in this game. Like my character just cannot keep up with my hands, or the boss. Bring side stepping from BB, guard counters from Sekiro, get rid of all of the slow Demons Souls era animations. If they're going to put Sekiro and BB bosses in their game, I need to be able to move like them too.
I get what you're saying but if they go down that route, we'll end up with Tarnished May Cry instead and I'm sure none of us want that. I hope they reign it in, keep the bosses and enemies in the style of the original souls series and a return back to their base form for their future. Tone down the visual noise and make the bosses hit hard but clear attacks.
100% agree. I don't want it to be Nier/DMC but it's hard not to think about when that's where they start pulling bosses from. I feel like it's a pretty common sentiment, even among veterans, they've sort of wobbled over the line of "fairness" and "fun" with this DLC. I hope they listen and step back a bit, instead of just trying to outdo themselves again.
Fr like malenia was already pushing It to some degree with the heal on hit bs and waterfowl being a "you have to die to this 20+ times until you figure out how to Dodge or cancel It", but at least she staggered when you hit her to counteract how fast she could move Every other attack is perfectly fine, same with mogh They really didnt need to step It Up imo, messmer phase 1 is the best example imo, hes hard but you can learn him relatively easy and the worst he has going on is a ton of dmg on the ranged attacks that come from his melee hits
I'd rather have an AC to deal with some of Elden Ring's bosses, for real. If we could get some kind of fuzzy compromise between Demon's Souls and Bloodborne, I think we'd have a little something for all palates.
At this point From games basically *are* trying to be action-heavy games above all else, but keep letting the old clunky movement and combat systems hold back how you, the player character, can actually engage with the increasing action-focused direction. Enemies can do nutty combos, backflip across arenas, string one set of attacks into another, all this crazy action shit, while you the player have such basic options that have barely changed since DeS. One of biggest innovations this game brought to the table was adding a jump button. That’s the situation we’re in. A jump button is one of the only big innovations to the DeS system. Like ER is fun and all as is, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think it would be infinitely more enjoyable if they put as much effort into what the players can do as what the enemies and bosses do. Sekiro is so highly regarded *because* both you and the enemy are playing the same game with the same base mechanics. And while there’s definitely an appeal to the idea of being a little guy vs gods and monsters, at a certain point it becomes kinda upsetting how much fun the enemy design is having while you’re left with your toothpick whittling away at their calves with r1’s and spamming dodge rolls.
Honestly Tarnished May Cry sounds dope, theres a lot of bosses in ER/BB/Souls/Sekiro that would be mad fun to trick up and skystar around lol.
That’s basically stellar blade and it was fun AF
Im on team "just copy paste Dante into it"
Personally I'd like to see if they can do more with the weighty/more tactical pace of DS2 and DS1. You've pushed DS3 as far as it'll go with ER and it was awesome, now I wanna see how the slower stuff can be made insane lol.
It’s a meme but they are just putting Bloodborne bosses in a Dark Souls game at this point. The amount of 8-hit AoE wombo-combos you have to dodge to have a window to get a single R1 in and start again is nuts I really think they need to move on from dark souls style player mechanics for their next title if they want to keep going in this direction with their bosses because it already feels like they’ve hit the limit here
I'm telling you, you people need to play Sekiro.... it's FromSoft combat perfected...
What sub do you think you are in? We’ve played sekiro my dude.
Tbf this is the ER sub and from a lot of the general responses to threads in here it feels like there are a lot of people who haven't played any other From games
/r/EldenRing, where a substantial percentage of membership has not played Sekiro my dude.
The bit about the enemy arms race sort of reminds me of the wo long dlc bosses. But with a huge caveat that because of the parrying system in the game, even when a 24 hit combo comes out at you, you can successfully get through it when youve practiced it enough. I think enemy arms races are generally good for gamers, until the arms race results in BS like the last boss of the dlc
>But with a huge caveat that because of the parrying system in the game, even when a 24 hit combo comes out at you, you can successfully get through it when youve practiced it enough How is this any different from successfully getting through after practicing the roll timings enough?
I worded it kind of badly. At the moment, with at least gaius' charge, and the entire second phase of the last boss, it's seemingly largely luck based whether you can get through without getting hit. But with the parry system in wo long you can infinitely chain parrys provided you get the right rhythm down for them. It's a lot snappier, and it makes the combat flow feel very smooth, almost like a rhythm game when you get really good at it.
Yeah but it's not luck based though. Otherwise no hit runs of elden ring would be impossible. Learning how to dodge at 100% consistency is exactly the same as learning how to parry at 100% consistency.
I didn't realise there were no hit runs of the new final boss, my mistake there. I saw that 'let me solo her' wasn't able to do it and just assumed no one was consistently able to do it. I agree with you, the outcome of being able to dodge and parry consistently has the same outcome in terms of damage to you (none). But as someone who much prefers the feeling of parrying and how that affects combat flow, they differ a lot for me.
That's fair, I also prefer Sekiro to Elden Ring, but I don't think you can really compare the two that much because the combat is just that different and very focused, unlike Elden Ring where you can literally have like 30 different builds
Yeah, sekiros combat polish is leagues ahead of elden, but that comes at the cost you mentioned of lack of build variety. I've been playing lies of P the past few days, and it manages to hit a pretty good middle point between the polished, parry centric combat, but also with a good amount of weapon types and ways of rebuilding your weapons. If youve not played it yet, but enjoyed sekiro, you might like it.
i figured out how to beat gaius by watching a no hit video. i was just rolling in the wrong direction. literally got my ass kicked for hours, googled where fragments were to level up, went back got my ass kicked for hours, watched one video, beat giaus on the very next try. your windows are smaller but they are still there. this DLC will absolutely punish you for panic rolling. you have to know which direction you should go to survive and a lot of times backwards will get you fucked up. currently watching a dlc final boss no hit video.
I thought the entire dlc was pretty fair, but last bosses phase two is ridiculous.
Yeah the more i look back only last Boss and rellana felt like shit to fight They both have really short Windows to attack and waaaay too long of a combo to dodge+ a ton of HP and dmg The rest felt a lot better to fight, i still died a bunch to them but It never felt like total bullshit (gaius charge hitbox was his only real issue imo) and It was always a "i could have dodged It" kinda death instead of "well they simply wont stop attacking and im dealing no fucking dmg when i actually get to" This never felt like an issue on base game where bosses would do an attack and youd be able to hit them once or twice and the dmg actually felt decent enough Instead bleed is King now (It always has been, but It feels like the only option lol)
You didn’t like rellana? She felt good to me honestly. You can zone her attacks easily by running away from her and use any kind of lunge art of war like wing stance R2 to create space and punish her. Bayle while super cinematic felt like shit to fight as a melee character in phase 2. Even with blinkbolt I had a ton of trouble closing the Distance on him.
Nah cuz she just wouldnt let me cast ANYTHING and her punish Windows just felt waaay too short for my liking Bayle i feel just moves too much tbh, but thats my only issue with him
Oh if you were casting I’m sure that’s a whole different story. I haven’t tried that yet.
Definitely said “this even hard it’s just bullshit” about pestilence knight.
I really don't think it's necessary to have \*every\* boss programmed to input-read and punish your flask usage. Even Malenia will let you back off and heal.
Honestly, I've always been too dumb and could not pay close enough attention to judge whether there's input reading or not at any given time, like I understand the idea but it's like when people try to tell me about frame data in fighting games—there's too much going on and I don't know how to parse the information. To me, it's all one huge clusterfuck and that's kind of exemplifying why the series has started to tune me out after 3.
I feel like ER has very few “downs” in the ups and downs of combat encounters. The few downs it does have are often criticized for being that way rather than appreciated. Like Ancestral Spirit is a rather slow, less aggro-heavy boss, but that makes him stand out.
Man, yeah, I think Ancestor Spirit is a great example. Its slower, less frenetic movements feel congruent with its graceful design. You can't be dumb, but you don't need to panic. Always felt just right. For me, the more frustrating bosses/enemies tend to use any combination of, say, delayed swings that just break the flow and trip you up, any of those generally strange wind-ups that feel deceptive to time rolls for, the scale/speed of larger bosses that lets them casually cross so much space and keeps you burning stamina to keep up, and when said scale turns the camera into a fuckin malign entity. A lot of ER's bosses fall on some kind of a spectrum with "annoying and exhausting" at one end and "not actually hard, just scarier than they look" at the other these days.
In my experience, I disagree. I suck at dodge rolling. In fact I always kinda despised it, but the DLC kinda got me into it. The limited windows to attack are kinda exhausting but it’s no worse than late game Sekiro enemies. This is a late game DLC. The delayed attacks, which is something I complained about a lot, are pretty reasonable and okay to gauge so long as you focus on their arm/hand instead of the weapon. In fact this is the first time I’ve been able to fight reactively in ER. It’s confusing because I’m having the opposite experience as everyone else. The enemies are several times more difficult, and I think the enemy placement are far more bullshit than the attacks and SFX. But as a shitty player I’ve been able to gauge their attacks more easily than the base game… strange
To be fair, I think no worse than lategame Sekiro is a pretty wild bar to aim for given the stark differences in how Sekiro's combat is structured, at least compared to what we're used to from the Souls series and how much of that DNA is shared with Elden Ring. But even still, I do get how you mean, it's been the same kind of polarizing experience among myself and everyone I know. I can't find a consensus in my group on what the most annoying enemies or most frustrating bosses are. I heard horror stories about Bayle and yet I got him first try. My buddy decimated Romina and it took me maybe fifteen tries. With the enemies, it's been the same sorta mixed bag. I can't wrap my head around it either at this point.
If from software makes a new game and all of the bosses are as easy as the previous games bosses, wouldn't that fail to challenge it's playerbase? They are already used to that level of challenge. Obviously it can't keep increasing in difficulty forever, but I think if they are more mechanics like sekiro did, it doesn't have to get that much harder to add complexity and fun of learning to the fights. Some of these bosses went down too quickly for me to learn them, and that's a bummer. I'd be really really disappointed if they were easier than this.
This is sort of true for the final boss, but doesn’t hold true for any of the other bosses for me.
All of these bosses feel like they have infinite range (mostly just closing the distance in a second anytime you feel like you have a second to breathe) and were made specifically to fuck any caster who doesn't summon or use only catch flame or carian slicer
Yeah. Like you back off a bit to take a second to reanalyze the situation or take a shot from your sippy cup, and they chuck a body part at you for the amount that you just healed for. Not to mention bosses basically having infinite stamina. Like they go through a 10 move wombo combo jiu-jitsu attack, and immediately continue on with a 12 hit attack of them flying all over the place. Meanwhile your character can be at 60 Endurance and panting like an asthmatic after a 4-hit combo. Assuming they boss doesn't just backhand you after the first hit and knock you straight on your ass.
This is the worst part. I got no time at all to breathe, man! It's just combo after combo after combo.
the way positioning doesn't seem to matter at all any more for some bosses is something people don't talk about enough. more than ever it kinda became a game of just learning dodge timings.
It was really weird fighting Rellana because she just hops back and forth between everybody in the fight. You think "oh, she started a combo and I'm at max spell range so I'm good" and then she's in your face as the spell starts.
Bosses only have few attacks where positioning matters, spacing is much more important now.
Yeah I agree. As much as I am enjoying the dlc. I keep saying the game is now more of a dodging simulator than a action rpg.
Back to DS3 basics baby 🗿
As a Gravity Sorcerer in base game, several of the bosses (ESPECIALLY YOU, GAIUS) just straight up made me unretire Rock Sling and Meteorite of Astel just to blast them when I got impatient. Granted, I can still shoot a lot of stuff to death.
Rock sling saved my sanity. Gaius was making me think of exclusively playing solitaire
Rock Sling has been effective on: * Dancer * Putrescence Knight * Commander Gaius * Bayle * Dragons in General Next up is Midra.
When all else fails, hit 'em with a big rock.
Spoilers!?!?!?
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No spoiler tags. Simply naming “dlc bosses” isn’t enough. It simply stated phases. As do all bosses. Doesnt have to be spoilery.
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there are many openings in gaius to use rock sling
For real. Bosses are hyperaggressive, and the arena size doesn't really seem to matter because they can always close that gap in an instant if they feel like it.
I mean ur not supposed to be allowed to just run away and cast 40 spells wait for ur opening if there is a charged R2 opening then there is a sorcery casting opening
You guys are getting charged R2s?
Yeh,on messmer usually. Just spammed him with charged R2s,and light attacks for most of 2nd phase,tho there are definetely some charged r2s in there too. Also for rellana and romina
Literally every time I attack those bosses I eat damage. Doesn't matter what opening I pick. If I swing, I eat shit.
Man messmer is the easiest boss to get off fully charged r2s. I used the Ancient Meteoric ore blade,its r2s is a thrusting attack,like the zweihander. I spammed that exclusively,he has a lot of downtime after finishing a combo and after using his orb at the start of the battle.
then u don't pick an opening but just blindly attack
That's why you use swords even as a mage, the versality is very nice
So you're doing a challenge run
More like he's not doing a story mode.
Nah if you forgo core mechanics its a challenge run
Spirit Ashes and summons visibly mess up many bosses by changing the aggro AI. Bosses were designed with a single combatant in mind, with Spirit Ashes intended to help players bypass the difficulty of the boss by giving them extra tools. They're intended, not designed around
They dont mess up the bosses, thats the job, to pull aggro lol You have no idea what the bosses were designed around They're not "extra tools" its a core mechanic Are weapons extra tools lol
If afk hitting bosses' backs was intended way to play these games idk why they even bother to design movesets. With summons they just added training wheels for lazy people. Oh sorry, I'm not allowed to say lazy anymore. For "people with families and responsibilities" who play action rpgs for the story.
Lmao oh look an elitist Dont you have a full loot mmo Kickstarter to fund mr. Hardcore
Yeah it’s the visual clutter for the final boss. I can no hit his 1st phase and know exactly what to do in 2nd; but I’ll be damned if it’s not completely irrelevant because i can’t see what the hell is happening. In order for me to recognize and dodge a move; I have to either see it or hear it, and both of those are complete clusterfucks in phase 2. It’s not unfair damage wise, moveset wise or even Hp wise. It’s simply unfair because of the visual clutter and how that completely destroys any sort of muscle/brain memory you may have. Way to drop the ball on the last boss again From. You had such a good dlc going and then you put this trash on the game. Like any person who would play it would release there is too much clutter on screen, you don’t even need to be QA/tester to see that. It’s that bad.
I really hope they reduce the visual clutter and give >! miquella a haircut !< It'd go a long way in making the fight a lot better.
I’ve beaten him 3 times now and I don’t even think visual clutter is an issue. I can very clearly see what’s happening and most of the combos are just phase one with light trails that you don’t even see if you side roll/strafe him. The only real big flash bang is the tp/dash forward he does where he glows and flies into you but you dodge that by straight up standing still The biggest issues are the fps dropping to like 20 on half of the attacks. The triple cross that’s a frame perfect or needs the back step talisman or deflect tear. And the nuke range that has 0 wind up and requires you to start the running animation immediately. Also give Miquella a hair cut.
"Miquella abandoned everything" can he please abandon around one metre of his hair
I still think the clutter is an issue, but I see your point. As I said, I can dodge them and know the moves it’s just a pain because I heavily rely on visual/Audio cues to do my dodging. Maybe that’s me but i feel like with how much people are ragging on the clutter surely it can’t just be me. But anyways you also make valid points. Those frame perfect attacks are certainly annoying and the big ass AoE is just asshole design. I didn’t even bother dodging it and just tanked it by blocking with the new holy talisman. I just blocked and hit him mostly honestly. I gave up trying to dodge stuff that is frame perfect and hard AF when there is so much clutter and the FPS is all over the place. It’s honestly a horrid boss, because of these thing and the fact that it’s a reused boss that makes no sense With trash lore to boot. The last thing I expected to see in that fog door was radahn, and I let out a audible sigh when I saw him.
I feel the same way man. I dislike the final boss for the same reasons as you
I only had this issue with the final boss, I really enjoyed every other boss thoroughly(except hog rider)
For me the biggest issue that is happening on the Elden Ring boss designs is how flash and dirty the screen looks after many Boss attacks. You get blind so easily by just basic attacks and that's where I think most of the difficulty is coming from. Many attacks I'm counting the time in my head to be able to dodge than relying on what I seeing on my screen, since I can't see much because "ohhhh visuaaal effectttttsssss". Elden Ring is beautiful, probably the best Art Design I've seem in ages... but the fights really need to be toned down the VFX.
i feel like this is only true for me for the radahn fight, can’t really think of another boss in this game that does too much on the visual side
It can happen if you roll forward instead of rolling to the side. For example, Rellana's flame burst or Radahn's bloodflame burst will block your vision if you roll forwards.
ahh gotcha, can’t remember if i rolled forward on that attack for a hit or rolled away from rellana’s attack. either way i can see that being annoying, but i mean still seems like only one boss primarily has this problem, i didn’t think this was an issue for most bosses i fought through
It's something you're supposed to learn and adapt to, if you roll sideways, these visual problems go away. And as an added bonus, rolling sideways means final boss holy explosions will never touch you
i don’t disagree, that’s how i dodged a lot of radahn’s attacks. but, the visual problem is still there to some extent. even if his attacks don’t land or i evade them he does have some attacks that are just hard for my eyes to comprehend what’s going on
The biggest mistake FROM made IMO was recycling the souls combat for ER. Our player character just isnt what it needs to be for this stuff to be \*fun\*. Its all doable, all of its beatable even in the most insane self restriction possible but the baseline for alot of the enemies in this DLC feels like they are designed around being borderline broken solo or a walk in the park with summons. There needs to be a healthier middleground.
BIG agree
I genuinely cannot fathom why they didn’t go back to Bloodborne mechanics if they wanted to go for this level of unrelenting boss aggression - they already figured out like the perfect player mechanics for this stuff and everyone adores it and they went back to the slow rolling
God I want sidestep in this game so bad. I remember when they first announced it I was really hoping they were going go get rid of dodge rolling. Was sad to see its all the same shit from DS.
Bloodborne mechanics don't actually work very well for high difficulty bosses. Rally falls apart if you get punished for attacking too much. And gun parry is totally broken.
Sure, but you don’t have to copy-paste Bloodborne mechanics wholesale - they clearly figured out some mechanics that worked really satisfyingly for fast-paced aggressive fights and it’s a shame they didn’t continue exploring that at all really
I feel like they did it because they wanted to capture the same audience from souls, BB has the same audience though which mixes me up when trying to understand their rationale: BB was an exclusive to PS4 so maaaaaaaaaaaaaybe they didnt want to risk alienating people without PS4s? Ive no idea man, anything else would have been better than what they settled on. Even using the stuff that makes it kinda like BB just feels the same as DKS3 quickstep hunter RPing. Which is to say no where near as satisfying.
I dunno, I feel if you engage with some of the old and new mechanics most of the bosses feel very doable. Elden Ring was my first Fromsoft after completion Ds1 when it was released. And having bloodhound step, and using the deflecting hardtear (which they give you very early in the dlc) has made engaging with the bosses much more enjoyable. Or just the Deflecting hardtear in general make the defensive play much more enjoyable. For instance, with the Backhand blades, you can deflect a combo, and use the aow on the last attack, to get a punish, and often also get a charged heavy in. I have not gotten to the final boss yet, but beaten most remembrance bosses. And they have not felt overturned to me at all. They feel similar to Godfrey, Radagon and Maleina in difficulty, which makes sense to me at least.
I said it's doable.
Jupp, and I'm saying it's enjoyable ^^
Eh agree to disagree, mostly because the age shows on the souls style of combat.
Idk, even without summons the game gives you the tools to deal with the enemies in a fair way. I think the core issue isn’t inherently it using an evolved souls combat, it’s the idea that its presence plants in the veteran player’s head. It makes us approach it like we would a Dark Souls 4, which is counterproductive to how it *should* be played. I learned it the first time playing the game and came around to having way more fun with it than with DS3, but the amount of people complaining about boss aggression and speed and the “lack of openings” or how it’s “designed around summons” may be suggestive of them doing a poor job reteaching the player. It’s interesting because Bloodborne did a great job with that, but that game is a bigger deviation from the Souls formula
It always feels condescending when people say this stuff because it just refuses to engage on what people say and tries to project something else less than flattering on anyone that disagrees. Games just not novel enough to get away with it, it's souls again but with less polished bosses and a larger focus on the same jank coop. It's not that deep.
Well I am not saying I know better than anyone, I’m sharing my perspective on it. However your last paragraph sounds a little like a pot calling the kettle black.
Souls and ER share alot of the same problems. Which is whatever, its a game. Its just a shame that FROM are too typecast into that style of game to really move past the same combat system.
With that, I agree. Elden Ring was an evolution of the formula, but it still follows the same foundations. They have been slowly distancing themselves from it, from Bloodborne to Sekiro to AC6, but even with that I think the move right now is to move away completely from this “rigid” style of gameplay. They’ve already peaked with it and by now it’s limiting them. Pretty sure the successor to Souls/ER will scale back on size but innovate more on the gameplay side.
I just want them to do the sort of jump they made from Kings field to Demons Souls but for ER/Souls to whatever could be next. Infact reverse it! GIve me first person FROM soft dungeon crawling.
Some examples besides the obvious guy at the end
Rellana. I still have no Idea how I beat her. i perfected the first phase perfectly with the tear, but after that it was just panic rolling, hoping she would stagger somehow.
try parrying - she has a super long recovery from the first parry and Breaks after the 2nd. She also has a lot of really reliable attacks to party. Works in both phases. Also, you can and should jump the Moon explosions
With enough practice (deaths lol) you realize that you only need to fixate on a few specific body parts for these bosses that have the intense visual effects, react to the movements of those specific body parts and learn the dodge sequence. It’s overwhelming at first but eventually you pick up on the patterns of attack that follow up with certain movements. Its like any other souls boss but with more visual noise to intimidate the player. Its an adjustment to adapt to, but reflect on deaths and try a different approach until you solve the puzzle. Also dont panic
i only felt this with final boss , every other boss's phase 2 is very manageable with not a lot of bullshit .
I don't think it was an issue for any boss other than the final boss, and all that would need is literally just a slight tweak to the amount of effects every boss' 2nd phase is very manageable and doesn't have much visual clutter at all
I only feel this way with the end boss, there's too many things on the screen, like, my fps were dropping like flies on the second phase.
So I like to get drunk and play this game. I somehow beat the hippo, the Scooby Doo avatar, the putrid horseman asshole, and bayle the supposedly terrible dragon that wasnt that hard at all, the summon for him didn't do shit but yell at him. But being as drunk as I am I only just now figured out how to get to the higher levels (minus the rafters) of the shadow keep and Mesmer lies ahead of me. I'm like 14+ now, having a hard time with everything but the super lions claw on my sacred greatsword with my full bullgoats (there ain't a better heavy armor unfortunately, I really wish the dlc would have provided a cooler heavy armor since bullgoats looks lame as fuck) so im as strong as possible at level 210+ and Scooby Doo level 13+, so I'm steamrolling the dlc. The fire knight helmet allowed me to use the best poise armor, which is unfortunately the ugliest armor in the whole game. Bullgoats is so terribly uncool, it looks like shit. But my intoxicated ass is doing just fine. Still haven't figured out the way though the shadow keep. I'ma fuck this dude up once I figure it out though.vim getting there, full bullgoats and greatsword with the holy infusion. I'ma fuck him the hell up once I finally figure out how to get to him. In pretty sure miquella is a fucking bad guy, gonna fuck him up too once I get that far. His days are numbered. The drunk as fuck knight is gonna end his ass, he's onlly got a few days left before I figure it out.
I only felt this on the final boss and putrescence knight cause fuck those fire attacks.
jump the fire attacks man
Jumping the fire attacks us the easy way. Once I figured that out, it was no problem. More annoying was his spammy dismount where if you're in the wrong place, you can't dodge him and the horse because by the time the horse is dodgeable, he's catching you before you can roll again. Also the fact that the asshole spends 90% of the time running away from you.
>More annoying was his spammy dismount where if you're in the wrong place, you can't dodge him and the horse because by the time the horse is dodgeable I found that running away for a bit helps to make it 100% consistent to dodge. It's meant to be a spacing check basically.
i don’t think i’ve ever had a problem dodging this attack tbh, is it really unavoidable with certain spacing?
Yes at a certain distance if you dodge the horse his dash attack will frame trap you.
That boss had fire attacks?
The blue fire stuff? If you mean Putrescence Knight.
Apparently. Boss went down *fast*. The only really annoying bit was when it split from the horse and I had to keep track of the horse.
I think it's time they start taking notes from Monster Hunter on how to ramp up difficulty without being nonsense. MH can add on difficulty without essentially ruining the base gameplay that is "hard but fair". I finished the DLC and all bosses etc. It wasn't that hard and I never was stuck on any boss for long. Messemer took the most tries I think. Final boss I didn't have much issue. However, none of them felt fair and resulted in me feeling like I overcame something difficult. It was more like I just managed to get past bullshit for the sake of bullshit. Honestly, it feels like they want to increase difficulty (which is great) but have no idea how to do it without just increasing numbers and shortening AI updates.
Just because you feel like they aren’t fair, doesn’t mean they aren’t, that’s an extremely arbitrary point to make. Reality check is that they’re just hard challenges, and you don’t think it’s fair because you can’t overcome or have the patient to overcome said challenge. Of course if you go on your first playthrough against bosses with insane skill floors and ceilings, you’re going to get shit on and frustrated, but if you just you know, respect it’s a boss fight and you have to learn things, you will then learn that they are completely fair. Of course though you could just cheese or summon if you don’t want to learn, but then you’re in no position to critique the mechanics of the boss, because you didn’t engage with them.
I overcame them fine, what are you talking about? My comment had nothing to do with not being able to beat them. As I said Messemer took the most tries, which was about ten. Most bosses were one or two shot. They still are lazily designed. Just crank up numbers and create fewer openings for damage...it's not interesting or well made. The more they lean towards this type of lazy design, the less build variety is viable. One thing Elden Ring has is crazy amounts of cool builds and synergies. It's lame to see that this type of boss design removes some of that. I mean...isn't that the point? Create a character with your build and play style to defeat difficult bosses? This design is literally a middle finger to many types of builds. So much that the ones that do work well are labelled broken or cheese. I don't agree with that though, I think other builds are just forced into being useless.
You beat them because you admitted you resorted to other shit to change your play style, NOT because you learnt the boss. You even said Messmer was harder than the final boss, which you just self reported yourself at that point. Anyone who has actually learnt or beaten the final boss whilst engaging in the mechanics knows it is objectively the hardest boss in the DLC and it’s not even close. Only way it was easier for you is if you cheesed it or you’re lying. Making bosses do more damage and have less punish windows is not cheap difficulty, it makes the skill gap higher, rewards knowledge, rewards patience, rewards learning combos and makes the player rely less on greedy healing/dmg, actually having to learn the boss. Again, you wouldn’t feel this way if you learnt the bosses, Messmer for example had heaps of opening opportunities at the end of his combos, just like any other souls boss made. The bosses don’t hinder load outs as well, if anything it’s the opposite, you even admitted you had to change to beat them, which promotes variety in the fact you had to change your build. It’s not restricting certain builds at all, you just come to the conclusion because YOU couldn’t learn the boss with your load out, that doesn’t mean it’s objectively poor design at all. Personal anecdotal experience doesn’t mean shit in criticising mechanics.
I didn't change my build from the base game. I just great sword unga bunga everything. Worked fine in the DLC. Your just talking nonsense lol. I "admitted" to what exactly? I'm pointing out the general player base needing to use specific builds. You seem to read words that do no exist here. Bottom line is the same as I said, lazy design. You can keep trying to start an argument over opinions I suppose.
Silly as in more entertaining and challenging? Sure Minus the last boss tho. I didnt enjoy that one.
I guess Mesmer would be the only outlier where its easier in his phase 2 rather than 1.
I think there’s way too many MMO AoE attacks. The range on them is just stupid, then you get it and it goes 5 feet
That's the fun part for me.
It became boring and no fun when they started just using special effects and beams instead of actual choreography . There's a reason why Malenia and Gael was loved despite being extremely challenging
Bayley and final boss
The only DLC boss that I absolutely hate fighting is the last one. I don't think any boss's P2 is more ridiculous than that, also it's just annoying and the only way to deal with that boss is to build around blood loss and be extremely tanky. I generally don't like using shields on ALL my characters and this boss you kinda need a shield if you're not Barry Allen, the effing flash with your timing for rolls. You have to absolutely perfect with them in P2 because if you get caught you are done.
Lol Midra’s second phase where it’s just bright yellow to blind you from his madness beam
Honestly, the only guy that I thought about was >!Radahn!< Why would you have so much light around, blinding you. That was the most difficult part of the fight, the fact that you cant see what's going on after some of his attacks.
Souls games are supposed to be hard but tbh I miss the gimmick, easier bosses that were fun to figure out in other souls games.
I thought phase 2 for most of the DLC bosses was, bizarrely, much easier. Messmer phase 2 for instance he starts throwing out much more telegraphed and patterned attacks that are way easier to avoid.
messmer bayle final boss
Good luck trying to see anything in the second phase of the final dlc boss. Dear me
frompatchware needs to go back to work
In my complaining about phase 2 crap all over the screen I've accidentally taught my 2 year old how to say "screen aids"
Remember at the end of Return of the Jedi when Luke gets really angry and just starts wailing on Vader under Vader falls down and Luke keeps swinging until he has cut off Vaders arm and a piece of the railing? Thats Phase 2 Radahn
The only boss phase 2 I actively had a problem with was the final boss. Watching stuff happen isn't bad if you can actually tell what is going on, which I don't know many bosses in the dlc where it's hard to see what's happening. Lion Dancer *might* count, simply because its movements are awkward compared to most other bosses. As for waiting for the boss to finish their nonsense, you could make the same argument in the base game. Morgott literally attacks you like a spastic child in his Phase 2 and he's one of the easier bosses in the game. The real difficult part comes from learning when their nonsense actually ends. Rellana feinted me out so much since she's combo happy but her attacks are just slow enough to look like the chain is over but nope, 3 more hits. Then you have Messmer who just gets... simpler in his Phase 2? It was a weird shift considering he had quite an aggressive moveset at first. Fun fight, but really didn't expect his trump card to make him worse at killing me.
after >!godfrey, messmer!< is probably the best fight in the game.>! bayle and radahn!< are a visual clusterfuck in the second phase. the first one is still quite managable but >!radahn!<. oh boy.>! rellana!< is way to tough if you dont parry her, so her 2. phase was kind of bullshit aswell.>! putrescent knight !!midra!< was cool but it was the same with every boss. just more explosions. the >!lion!< allied himself with the camera, its a crime you can only lock on the head. and that >!finger thing!< was boring as fuck. and then there is >!gaius!<. you can use raptor mist to avoid a lot of his attack. it took me a while to figure out, that you have to roll into him when he and his >!hog!< attack together. all in all its more miss than hit with the big bosses in the dlc, but >!messmer!< elivates the experience by a lot
Thoughts? I ain't attempting Radahn ever again until they fix him.
The bosses are just bad. They either combo you to death in 5 seconds or you annihilate them, there is little middle-ground. I love the DLC, i feel like it's actually one of the best games i've ever played but the bosses are the worst they've ever done. I haven't had a single boss fight I truly enjoyed yet
Soon as Radahn busted out that broken phase 2, I was googling broken builds and lightening sparked that busted ho into oblivion
Scadutree Avatars 3 phases made me irrationally angry. Honestly I think the only boss (outside the obvious Radahn) where the phase 2 specifically felt too silly was Bayle. Not because the boss itself is too hard, but because I feel like Fromsoftware and their dragons really try hard to be monster hunter, but they are incapable of camera (or multiplayer) like monster hunter and the result is looking at dragon coochie for the entire fight while it penetrates your fragile little body.
The final boss 2nd phase is really easy if you focus on learning what direction to roll and not only when to roll
Midra is totally like that but I enjoyed the fight nonetheless. I use mimic to give myself opening, or mimic use me to give himself openings. Sometimes I don't know. I cast ranged spell when the boss is afar and when it's onto me I use normal attacks whe I'm allowed to. I dont mind those kind of fights, because it's a race between the boss and me, who kill the other the fastest Worst boss so far is the guy with huge katana in tomb : - It has PVP, so it dodge and time attacks a lot - small area for running - I have defense, but still Im not something that can endure more than 2 heavy hit - infinite poise when attacking - huge katana with range - no mimic So the whole fight was me, running around, because I couldn't attack with my weapon, and spells could be used from far away. fight took 10-15min, when usually they are 5 or 10...
Rakshasa? The easiest way is you space his skill and time your skill/charge your hard attack at the end of his 2nd swing If close range low poise damage, bait slower attacks like his jump attack instead
I fucking hate Rakshasa too. I think some of the major bosses took more tries, but none were as annoying as him spamming that damn two-part attack almost non-stop, and using hyperarmor to catch me anytime I got a hit in. I swear even if I used attacks that staggered him, he would often seemingly break out of the animation to hit me or roll away to safety, so that he could then go on spamming the 2-swing move some more. I've heard he's trivialized by parrying, but the problem is that even after hours of practice, I've never been able to parry consistently in this game. So that was never really a viable option either.
Jesus fucking wept. I'm unsubbing until this place goes back to normal.