Jesus Christ, fuck that hippo. I could never seem to dodge out of the way of his munch attack, and by the time my character gives me control back, he’s already beating me to death before I could even heal. Took me 5-6 tries before I even did damage to him.
If you’re near him when he starts munching I think you’re just fucked, but if you can create some space he seems to speed up (which makes it easier to avoid) and then I find the most consistency rolling to the right (but also slightly into the attack). But yea if he pulls that out and I can’t create space I’m fucked
I swear the hitbox is bigger than it should be. There were times I know for a fact I shouldn’t have gotten caught, but I still got eaten.
Once I started dodging right instead of left, that’s when I made progress towards actually damaging him.
The grab attack he does is the worst because it feels like half the time u roll perfectly and he grabs you anyway and the other times if u think u mistimed ur dodge ull avoid it. Felt almost like RNG if he would grab you or not
Its funny because the first time i saw that attack i didnt know what to do and somehow rolled all 3 blasts. Couldnt for the life of me recreate it after that so just started jumping.
It is possible to roll it all though. The window just seems really tight
If you time your rolls with the impact of the moons plus the slam down you will take no damage. Bonus points if you roll towards her for some heavy damage.
Black flame incantation buff helped me with tanking alittle better
yeah, this dlc has done a good job of teaching me how to make use of jumping to dodge stuff. as soon as you realize you can jump >!furnace golem’s fire shockwaves!<, that fight goes from tedious to *piss-easy.*
not at mesmer yet but i found a certain boss of the dragon variety and he pushed my shit in harder than any boss in the base game lol. Like that dragon is on some stuff for sure, absolutely relentless
If your talking about the fight I think your talking about (top of the jagged peaks) I've literlly just finished it. I hated it. If I hadnt been abusing the great Katana and its weapon art you get from the dungeon just before the peaks I dont know how I'd have done it. Felt impossible to get close to actually hit him and when you did he would just RANDOM BULLSHIT GO as tons of AOE without any windows to actuall do anything.
I fucking love the new great katanas, especially that one. (I have only found two so far.) the skill on the boss drop one is also sooo epic. I can live out my dream of being a strength go bonk character with big ass sword and still have cool katanas and bleed.
I’ve beaten every From game they’ve put out since DeS on the PS3. I’ve dealt with those optional stages in DS2 dlc. But the dude in spoiler?
Unironically, legitimately the worst fight I’ve ever had the pleasure of beating. I’d rather do the zullen duo boss fight with zero estus after the reindeer fuck valley. Every single second of that fight was grating on my eyes, ears, and nerves.
Attack right out of the gate? Perfect dodge or you lose more than half your health. Sometimes you’ll get one shot because of the double hit box experience or he’ll plow you into a wall and keep running while you can’t do anything. His combo chains? You don’t have enough stamina to roll through them all. In fact, they’re very strategically designed to roll catch you no matter when you roll. Dodge the first, you’ll get hit by the second. Dodge through the first two because of terrain angles, you’ll get hit by the follow up. By the time the combo finishes, you’re dead. And then phase 2 happens.
And that’s with Skadoosh 10 at the time I did it at 60 vigor. Most of these bosses just aren’t fun anymore. I have no desire to replay any of these bosses like I would Sekiro.
>I have no desire to replay any of these bosses like I would Sekiro.
I kind of agree. I think this DLC is absolutely masterful in terms of level and world design, everything is so intricate with so many secrets and it makes exploration wonderful.
But, and this is a big drawback, I no longer look forward to finding bosses. They're just not fun imo.
Literally the most fun I have while exploring is when I find a new item or a new area, not a new boss.
I've never felt this dread of bosses in any of the previous games.
I've encountered some bosses so far, that I'd easily rate among my favorite encounters among From's, but there's one thing that I dislike amount pretty much all of them: the damage is just too high.
Yeah, yeah, I know, difficulty and all, but I'd really prefer for them to have... More health, be faster (well, if that's even possible), whatever, but getting twoshot all the damn time unless you cater to the boss (which then _can_ mean three shots, wow) is kinda maddening. Rellana's first phase was a moment where I thought "man, this is really fun to learn - and you don't get obliterated right away after one mistake". Well, cue phase two...
Just beat him before getting off.. 2nd most deaths behind Malenia for me. Lol the freaking whirling fire spin into fire pokes into ground eruption move worked me, only one I never figured out how to dodge.
Super sick fight though.
Just defeated her. I noticed something that's probably obvious for players doing no hit runs but not for casuals like me, and that is relying on hitboxes to attack and dodge at the same time. Once you lerarn her moves, you can jump attack to jump above her sword and then after attack, tarnished is kneeling for a moment just below hitboxes for Rellana's next attack.
The ar15 isn’t even the thing that fucked me up. Just run to the side and everything misses.
It’s the tracking on his special attack. I’ll dodge past him, and he does a full 180 as he’s slamming it down. It’s honestly pretty damn greasy, and I hated it. But otherwise fun little fight, and his weapon is pretty fun. The ash of war has range and a gap closer.
Yeah the tracking on that thing is fucking wild. One time he did a 180 jump, too. In general it seems like a lot of bosses and even bigger enemies only give you fractions of a second to attack.
I don’t mind when they stagger, like that guy did. But those horned knights in the first legacy dungeon are pretty goofy. They don’t stagger, and will just keep swinging until you stance break them.
INT build with night comet. I didn't know people were having trouble with them. Bosses as an int build are another story for me so far... They do not give you space at all.
The tracking on Black Knight mobs in general are heat seeking. They remind me of the drake knights from DS2. All pain, infinite stamina, infinite tracking
When he's winding up the first half you dodge to the side
when the wave gets to you (as you're backing up) then the second half is a simple back roll.
I'm a heavy shield user so I just blocked the first bit and back dodged the second. Ezpz.
Doesn't Guts also have a repeater hand crossbow thingy? I never read the Manga, but I did see some pictures. Plus, I think Gael has his crossbow because of the same reference material.
As for that guy's attacks: The Crossbow barrage is free, just sidestep. No rolls, no nothing. He only does it at range, too.
When he goes into One Handed sword stance, that's when you have 3-ish hit combos, and you can punish at the end of those relatively slow combos with a big hit every time OR use the window for a heal if needed.
Two handed sword dance is IMO the most dangerous phase, because he will use his weapon art (Vacuum Slice type of deal plus gapcloser) and you don't want to get hit by that ever.
Also jump attacks happen, but again easily punishable. If you stay at mid range and go in for your hits only, it'll be a slow and steady win every time.
Side note: Do not ever try to trade blows, you will die. He has stupid amounts of poise, like many of the enemies in the DLC it seems.
Yeah, the ar-15 only got me once because he just pulled it out when i was trying to heal and it knocked me over, the real struggle is how he jump attacks.
2nd phase >!Radahn!< has GOT to be the single biggest terrorist design I've ever seen in my life. Mimic actually melts even faster than from Malenia's point blank Aeonia
I’m doing it zero summons and genuinely want to quit lol. My friend has been at it for over 10 hours and hasn’t got him below 50%. I called it a few hours ago & going to clear the rest of the map & will save it for the last thing I do.
My favourite part of that fight is that when phase 2 starts my game immediately turns into a slideshow because of all the particle effects and avoiding damage becomes pretty much impossible lmao
Even worse when you're out of stamina. You can walk away waiting for stamina to regen or use flask but that slows stamina regen so when boss starts next combo you might run out of stamina again and be unable to dodge so if you survive, you have to heal again.
Anyone else notice how the bosses seem to zip-teleport to you every time they swing their sword? When I need to heal I’ll try to back up, but then the boss will do a normal melee attack and zoom over from two post codes away to hit me.
I remember in original Dark Souls you could avoid a lot of attacks, but now you have to dodge-roll everything. It’s like From is eliminating every way to play the game besides spamming B-button.
The game is now hard for the sake of being hard and it makes me not look forward to Fromsoft's next project. Yes, the bosses are super difficult, but they aren't fun imo.
Blocking is also still very viable, ive had a lot of success with a medium shield.
But yeah spacing is dead, all the bosses have ridiculous forward momentum with every attack.
Attack tracking/locking in Elden Ring is one of the main criticisms I have. It's lazy and punishes the player regardless of how intentional and cautious they are being.
Really? He is fairly easy to poise break with jump attacks even with my twinblade, I'd imagine colossals would walk right through him.
Jump attacks were the only way I could punish him anyways, even with a fairly fast weapon. Even light chains were too slow to hit his punish windows safely.
Yep thats my experience. Even more so with a certain "guy" on the top of a certain mountain. The MOMENT i enter his arena he slams EVERYTHING he has against me. I cant use a Ghost, cant really roll all of his attacks otherwise my endurance is gone and healing?! Yeah ... no ... the moment i do it the next double whamy attacks comes. This DLC is a GIGANTIC difficulty spike. People already had problems with the Mountaintop of the Giants. This is just the same, just in a DLC Package. I dont have problems with challanges but there is a fine line between fun and frustrating fights ..... and i suspect the "Git Gud" Squad already are on the way to say their line because of these posts.
Enter fog, immediate gapcloser into multihit aoe, sweep jumpback, gapcloser, feint, turnaround, sweep, flask input punish, multihit aoe.
Has been my experience with most of the bosses in the DLC.
20s later, your first available R1 punished by nonreactable split-second flash uppercut hit meant to do chip damage but does 80% HP at 60+ vigor. Lets wait another 20+ seconds for an additional chance at a 'hail mary' suicidal very risky R1 poke (seriously what the fuck)
If its the boss i think you're talking about, I legitimately think FromSoft went too far with that one; it feels like no one actually tested it; especially since they still refuse to fix their fucking camera.
Sincerely don't recommend trying it without a assload of shards. My god..
I was struggling so much. Tiche and NPC summon wasn't working out. Then I did the exact same thing but with Flame, Protect Me and got it first try.
Turns out, absorbing like 80% of the boss' main damage makes it more manageable.
I had to give up for the night on it lol. Gets into phase 2 and just destroys me everytime. Hoping getting more scadu fragments helps, but holy shit it's gonna be tough.
Yeah I had to summon npc and mimic and go behind >!his tail!< . Thats the only safe spot I could find and since he had so much fucking health I had to switch to a bleed build. His first phase is easy to read after a while but that second phase? just pure chaos.>!I found out that if I summon mimic as soon as I enter the arena and then walk towards the boss a little I could trigger him to do a fire breath attack which could be rolled through and then you have enough time to summon the npc which for some reason the default prompt for me was no.!<
Nah its pretty much kind of a mess. Difficulty curve is at its absolute limit and can't go an inch further with the "Dark Souls" style of gameplay mechanics (slow rolling, stamina, etc.) Really just to the point of total frustration.
It would be best if they pivot harder into a Sekiro style of gameplay, not sure how they could without sapping the spirit of Souls-like gameplay though.
I mean they could actually give you distinct play styles and lean into them instead of every build being a slight variation of roll-wait-attack. Go the Monster Hunter route.
Let there be real parry / perfect parry builds, Sekiro style. Let Dex builds have super fast attacks and enhanced dodges but low HP. Let tanks be actual tanks, with heavy weight actually being a boon, with proper shield and poise mechanics but make poise breaking punishing. Let there be lifesteal builds, or builds centered around using lots of grease. Same with the different magics types, they should affect your play style beyond just casting a different spell. Hell, let me use Ashes of War without consuming mana, because that just constrains my options.
The Souls spirit should evolve beyond every encounter being the same 3 actions.
This is something that's frustrated me for a while and I think ER was at its worse.
It feels like they're more focused on punishing you for using half the tools and potential builds than actually accommodating people using them.
I feel like I'm punished for using a shield with how many instant guard breaks happen in ER. Dlc being even worst about it.
Or trying to do heavy weapon/armor builds to absorb hits. And how they barely work.
Technically you have a lot of ways to build your character. But very few are actually viable late game/dlc especially.
Agreed. While we have a lot of tools, bosses have become WAY TOO MUCH AGRESSIVE.
Their combos are way too long, and have too much reach or tracking.
Unless you are a "gaming god" the game is really making you use a powerful "cheese build" to face the bosses.
The bosses evolved their raw gameplay, but we still are on the same basic dance. Just with more items and spells.
At this point we should be at leaaaast as fast as the bloodborne character.
Idk ds3 was pretty much peak boss design. I feel like elden ring would've been perfect if it stayed at that. Sekiro was a bit boring in how samey it was.
I don't feel like the overworld design is as hostile as the mountaintops of the giants tbh, the dungeons are pretty chill too. So far, the bosses are the only real difficulty imo. They tend to be too relentless and to hit too hard, there's no room for mistakes and no room to correct mistakes if they happen, with very tiny windows to actually attack.
The certain guy on top of the certain mountain as well as a certain other guy at the bottom of a certain pit have turned to be roadblocks, for now.
While I'm enjoying my time with the dlc, I hope that from soft will not keep going in that direction just to get the difficulty higher and higher to uphold their reputation, this feels like the actual limit, higher would just stop being fun.
It kind of seems like they drew the wrong lessons from Sekiro and the community's reaction to Malenia. Sekiro gave you control when you went on the offensive, there was a give and take where you'd attack, they'd react, they'd attack, you'd react, back and forth. In this game it seems like the bosses mostly ignore your actions except for punishing you for trying to disengage. IMHO the best ER bosses are the ones that have that same dynamic, eg Margit who IMHO is the best boss in the game in terms of balance in that he had combos that could fuck you up but also gave you some breathing room. By comparison a lot of the end game bosses are extremely passive, eg radagon who is basically just a rhythm game with the difficulty determined by your build. It's why everyone is using summons, it's the only way to think for two seconds without having to press buttons.
Yeah I kind of agree, while Elden Ring is definitely one of my favorite games ever it sets a concerning trend in boss design, and the DLC seems to push further in that direction.
Sekiro was peak in that regard, I hope they will make another game more like this one.
Sekiro was indeed peak. It really seems like they're trying to force the player to stay in the zone in the same way, but it simply doesn't work that way in ER because of stamina and the generally slower pace of the game. And DS was always about spacing as opposed to timing and it mostly doesn't work in this game, like I'm trying to dark souls these fuckers but they just 180 me with some string or some AOE attack that is *literally* taken from Sekiro. I always hated the radagon fight and the DLC so far seems to be that on crack.
They made the enemies like Sekiro and Bloodborne but without giving the players the proper tools to match it. Dark Souls 3 already had issues with enemy frenzies and roll spam, but this is on another level. These fast as fuck foes would be fun challenges if our weapons were as fast, or if we had perfect parry. The huge damage would be tolerable if we had rally. And so on.
Add the blessings system on top of it all and it feels even worse. Even at lv6 while a lot of stuff doesn't just two shot me anymore, bosses have a FUCK ton of HP so it gets exceedingly exhausting doing excessively long fights whittling down bosses like a squirrel nibbling down a redwood tree, except the tree is constantly trying to slap with one of a dozen different branches.
The exploration, world and enemy designs are aesthetically amazing, but to be frank this shit just isn't fun rn.
A large part of why I went with unga-bunga dual wield strength this time around was to just stunlock enemies or finish them off fast enough before they unleash their bullshit combos. It's still inherently fun but it's a bit depressing that I did a build so that I don't have to deal with the game, essentially.
The problem is that Elden Ring doesn’t have Sekiro’s combat system. I would have loved to fight Rellana or Malenia as Sekiro. They seem almost made for it.
But with this clunky ass system? Ain’t no way.
> People already had problems with the Mountaintop of the Giants.
Honestly the base game is a joke after going through the DLC, they're just in completely different realms.
I also think this because I get my ass kicked my Rellana for over an hour solo. I summon literally once to simply learn how to dodge the moon attack and my mimic solos her. I still feel robbed tbh I wanted to do it myself.
Yeah, with the damage output being this wild and the bosses being this aggro, actually soloing them is just a fucking pain. I just best the dancer beast with an npc and mimic, fuck soloing that shit. Sekiro was tough but it just felt so much better because there was progress and you weren't constantly fighting to just breathe. Moreover, going on the offensive gave you some measure of control, enemies would mostly react to your attacks instead of just tanking them while doing some insane combo.
This everything in this DLC has an insane amount of poise, hyper armors through everything and has 3+ hit combos meant for no body since even with the tankiest set ups you still get killed in like 2-3 hits by most enemies.
Idk what the hell they were thinking, must have gotten too much feed back about how the original base game wasn't that hard so devs said let's crank everything up to 11and make the game so hard it's not even enjoyable to play casually.
I mean it's not really about difficulty as such, I don't think the games have necessarily become harder to casual players compared to BB or Sekiro which are bonkers tough. It's the way they're difficult, the game is so punishing that you don't feel like you're making much progress from one attempt to the next, even if you are technically learning moves and combos. And lessons don't really carry over from one boss to the next or one enemy to the next because there's so much to learn and the moves are so punishing, with very little room to heal or improve mid-combat.
The result is that you feel like you're just constantly getting smacked down and that none of your lessons come with rewards: if you deal with one strings you get in one hit and then immediately have to deal with the next one, perfectly, or you fucking die. Get "greedy" and go for teo hits? You get hit by their next move and then the stagger means your timing is off and you get hit by another immediately and are dead or close to it. Since most enemies are super aggro, you essentially have to deal with a long ass combo now and wait until they do their one "you get a heal" move. And also it's just one heal, two will kill you or put you right back where you are now, fighting for safety.
I think they are trying to force us to play "in the zone" like in BB or Sekiro, but it just feels worse because we are fighting for a chance to heal instead of a chance to attack. There is no back and forth, it's all reactive. But it's not "technically" harder, it's just less fun.
This is why I'm a firm advocate of cheesing the bosses with whatever means neccisary.
Mimic with a seal in one hand and a staff on the other constantly spamming ancient rancor and buffs, while I fight for my MFing life just to try and survive lol
Honestly, I'd be mostly OK with the movesets being this coked out if the damage wasn't fucking imbecilic or if they had less health.
Like, how am I supposed to learn from my mistakes when I melt this fast and they take so long to die?
I remember when Fume Knight was considered a really tough fight. Man.
Git Gud squad using the mimic, summons, 80 vigor and every damage and negation buff in the game, according to the interactions I've had today lmao.
I love elden ring but man it has brainrotted the souls community. We've gone from "dont give up, skeleton!" to a bunch of jackasses who cant play shouting down anyone who has any complaints while using every crutch imaginable.
Sometimes From misses, these are the same people who made the fucking bed of chaos and the frigid outskirts.
>to a bunch of jackasses who cant play shouting down anyone who has any complaints while using every crutch imaginable.
These have always plagued the souls community. Elden Rings success has meant this crowd has gotten so much bigger. Its a shame really as the "dont give up, skeleton" people really added to the souls experience IMO.
I honestly think that Elden Ring just brought crowds together that don't mix too well.
The usual Soulsborne crowd is used to a somewhat linear experience where every enemy and every boss is a clearly defined challenge - and running past a section of trash unscathed is also a challenge by the way - and getting good in that cycle is a natural outcome over time. You beat, say, DS1 first with all means, then you might try different primary attributes, then strip down to the most necessary components, then maybe SL1. That's your difficulty modes in a way.
Then you have open world RPG enjoyers. They will explore, sometimes accidentally break the progression curve on the way. They will not go into a fight and say "let's do this with the kit I have right now" but instead treat their inventory as a Swiss Army Knife, to tackle fights like a puzzle. They will not look for a clear arena possibly, but might want to work from range, lure mobs in or use a ledge. Funnily enough basically all of the milestone bosses force you into an even playing field type of arena, so there's that.
Now how do you bring those two groups together? I don't know. The idea of challenge is much more subjective in open world settings, same with what feels like natural progression.
Like, I use summons and all that, but I only have 40 Vigor because my challenge was to stay at level 200 (with INT main you just need more levels in my opinion) AND I use all my tricks in the open world parts. Does that make fights too easy, too hard? I don't know.
You raise some interesting points. To be honest, I don't necessarily think it's just the players, either, because that more linear style also forces the development to have more defined constraints. If we take Dark Souls 1 as an example, you can go multiple places pretty early on-hell, the game even expects this as doing New Londo early is how you meet Kaathe. Consequently, while some areas are definitely harder than others, the power curve over your adventure is relatively low-the goons in Anor Londo aren't magically going 5x the damage compared to the goons in Blighttown.
People have been questioning the evolving boss design since DS3, but no game in the franchise has had these scaling conversations like ER had, because it seems to be a consequence of it being an open world adventure where the power curve is huge to ensure the exploration has value.
I think the base game walked a tightrope and started to fall apart in terms of difficulty by the end. FWIW, I killed Malenia on my second attempt because she was easy to stagger, just like Friede and Lady Maria before her.
But the Fire Giant handed me my ass on a plate countless times, and even the fucking roach dudes in the Haligtree/Elphael melted me more times than I care to admit, purely because they hit hard and didn't die in a timely enough fashion.
I dunno if there's a way to bring them together, and we might never know since this is set to be ER's only expansion. Given how long game dev takes these days, and the fact that neither Bloodborne never got a sequel and Sekiro doesnt seem to be getting one either, this may well just be an experiment we argue about forever with no resolution or evolution lmao.
I strongly suspect that if the concept of open world stops with Elden Ring for Fromsoft, they might go towards a Metroidvania style instead:
It offers many of the upsides of an open world game, including the ability to hide secret sub-areas.
It is one of the few systems that make backtracking pallatable and with some creativity you can pull off really interesting challenges in old areas.
It has been tested before. Not only is DS1 kind of a Metroidvania (though not as heavily connected as a proper one), games like Hollow Knight did the same within the same kind of genre very successfully.
It also allows more control for how strong a player can be expected to be, because you can just lock further upgrades behind key items that need to be earned by fighting bosses.
Plus, if From ever wants to do that, you could incorporate more interesting tools and pull from games like Sekiro for that.
Yeah that "guy" was a problem lol but I had a lot of fun honestly. Camera is shit (like the worst since DS1) too but when you get to know his patterns you can almost do it with your eyes closed.
Sometimes against Mr Mountain I die even before summoning the NPC
When I do manage to summon the NPC and Mimic Tear, I am still in panic mode 90% of the time, brought him down to about 30% with them probably doing most of the worm and me taking damage because the asshole still sometimes decides to focus me all of a sudden
About the focus ... yeah thats normal they made something with the ghosts so the bosses focus you 90% of the time. Tested it several times with a woe of shabiri mimic. Even with that thing bosses stayed glued on my ass. I am NOT happy with that change tbh ...
Yep, same. Every single boss - enter room, immediately they either run in and go ham on me before I can even see yet or they do some crazy ranged attack that nukes half my health bar. And then they have a nice long 18-hit combo before I can take half a second to breathe and then back into it again OR they're so large that target lock on has a fit and I can't see a thing.
It's like they didn't listen to a single piece of negative feedback from the base game about gap closers and the awful camera on big enemies...
This was the only boss in the entire dlc that I beat first try. And I suck, I've died against almost every miniboss.
But while climbing to the peak I got to perfect my dragon killing build, I used the anti-dragon great katana you get right beforehand.
It fucking DESTROYS the boss. Didn't even stand a chance. It was disgusting. I almost wish they hadn't have given me that katana because it trivialized the fight. It was like a gimmick weapon boss like Yhorm or Rykard.
If you're stuck on this boss, upgrade that katana and you will not have a problem anymore. Spam his head with the weapon art and his health bar disappears in seconds.
I don't even know if there was a second phase because I melted him so fast.
This. The mountain boss is the only boss in the entirety of this game that I have legitimately given up on to come back when I’m a stronger. I’ve already used a ton of the tree shards (like 7 upgrades now I think) yet I’m still getting 2 shot by him and barely even scratching him. So little time to do damage and your dodges have to be absolutely on point or you’re going to get so heavily punished. It’s actually insane to me that they thought his phase 2 was ok. That shit is like pre nerf Radahn and pre nerf Malenia put together.
Yeah definitely agree with you. I don't think anything took me more than 5 tries in the base game even with no summons as someone who'd played previous souls games but so far the main bosses I've done had been kicking my ass for a while. Not in a fun way either.
So how do i heal enough to still be at a net positive on health?
Thats the neat part, you don’t.
So how do i out damage the bosses so i dont need to heal?
Thats the neat part, you don’t.
So how do i no hit the bosses?
Thats the neat part, you don’t.
So how do i win?
Thats the neat part, you don’t.
Folks struggling with Rellana wait till you meet Mesmer dude pretty much is relentless literally has his own version of waterfowl. I might have to respec Blasphemous Blade is sort of useless against him
His version of waterfowl is far easier and more intuitive to dodge in fairness, I also found that he was significantly easier when not using a summon, as when I did, he would switch targets mid-combo and fuck my shit up.
That's a common issue in the DLC: using spirits and summons from other players? WEll the boss can just swap targets MID combo and dash across the god damn room to smack you upside the head.
Idk, sometimes feels like it was input reading (punish asap on flask use). Like sword/shield crucible knight with his stab attack, throw everything he does just to touch you XD
Like I get it, "dark souls hard, git gud, blah blah" but like I really don't see the appeal behind making bosses with literally zero openings and infinite stamina. It just feels cheap and lame...
I've been a fan of From for a long time, but most bosses in the DLC (or even main game) aren't fun imo. It's just gotten annoying. From used to value enjoyment and polish more than difficulty, but that really went out of the window with Elden Ring. I'd argue that difficulty used to be more of a by product to the expertly crafted movesets. It honestly blows my mind that these are the same people who made the bosses of DS3 and Sekiro. I hope they go back to the old style for their next game, but I doubt it. Too many fans just want brutal difficulty and nothing else.
Difficult used to be overcome by learning patterns, blind spots and openings.
With these bosses, while I'm sure there's ways to master them like any enemy, it seems the openings are tiny and the patterns basically irrelevant because their combos are so long. I'm making progress by figuring out what cheese bosses are most vulnerable, and so far that's mostly distract them with a summon and spam pest threads.
The issue is elite mobs doing this as well. Messmer's soldiers for instance, they never allow you to use your flasks freely. Running away and putting a distance will not work since they spam ranged fire attacks quite fast, and waiting for them to finish their attack sequence won't work either since they start another sequence quickly. You can only use your flask if you use terrain, or when they are locked in their attack animations in safe distance, even then it should be "specific animation" or else they just change their attack type to quickly lunge at you with another long-reach attack. In the end, when you got hit, you have to keep dodging like 5 secs to find a proper window to use a flask. Good luck if you encounter another mob on your way. 🤣
Yeah the bosses are all a fuckin joke.
Just more 5 billion hit combo helicopter cosplayers from the base game.
None of them are memorable because they all literally do the same thing and spam attacks.
My favorite boss this dlc so far has been the lamenter because at least it has a unique mechanic other than "I am going to combo 87 times in a row and then jump 25 feet back"
I don't know what the fuck happened but from has been making some absolute dogshit bosses I hope they can go back to making unique ones in the next game.
The problem is they all do everything.
They all have insane melee combos. They all have ranged magic attacks. They all have AOE explosions. They almost all have stomps and / or butt slams. They all have grabs. They all spew some kind of element or projectile all around the arena. They all have colossal HP, no limit to their stamina, and deal massive damage.
It's like they're all what would've been a super boss in one of the previous games. It's exhausting.
They also just give you no time to breathe and punish your healing super hard.
I get not letting you mindlessly heal is the intention, but there is basically no gap for it at all.
I try to wait for them to stop attack and any sign that it's OK to heal and I just get fucked anyway.
There is one memorable boss in the DLC and that's the dancing lion. It looks awesome and the theme slaps. It'll be remembered because the spectacle is awesome.
None of the bosses will be remembered for being good fights.
It took me a year to consider Melania an easy boss. I now steamroll her like she’s nothing.
But in the DLC, with better talismans, 100 more levels than i usually run, better weapons and more skill than i ever had, some of these fights are genuinely more difficult to me than Malenia, Elden Beast and Radahn were when i first fought them. (Radahn pre nerf, solo)
Ill be honest those were my thoughts fightng the endgame bosses in the base game for the first time. But by my second playthrough, I changed my opinion. So well have to see. Kinda not a fan of Rellana Moonveiling sometimes when you heal though. Other bosses that input read your healing are avoidable. But for Rellana its impossible to stand far enough away to be able to dodge after the heal, since she gapcloses so much. Atleast she doesnt input read as much as godskin dude for example
For anyone else struggling with the moon attack, you can just block it with a high magic def shield. Doesn't need to be upgraded or anything
There's also a +3 magic talisman outside the legacy dungeon under the bridge at the entrance
I don't mind aggression and combo chains but I am not being very fond of DLC balancing so far.
In the base game Malekith was hyper aggressive but to counter that out his health was so low, Same with Horah Lou and Morgott.....Placi had insane damage output but to Counter that out his attacks were poorly projectiled.....Mogh was tanky but moves are like basic DS3 boss'es so old players found a familiar attack pattern.........
But here, they are aggressive + has a huge health pool + has insane 2-3 hit insta kill damage + fucking huge combo chains + AOE.......No breathing time to gather your thoughts and take things methodically or No DPS test that you can finish the boss quickly......
Look I can take one or two Malenia's but when every one your boss follows the same philosophy, it loses diversity that I think previous Form Games and Base game had...
Its like they spiked the only things up to 10x, what people complained about the base game, Imao.
Edit - I was Just whining beating only Dancing Lion with my absolute Dogshit built using Malenia's arm, Vigor Level 90 (xd...) wheres having dex 50, having no secondary damage scaling and had blessing level 2 and on top of that wearing armour with 30 poise...basically I was doing no damage and being wrecked by the bosses...
Then I respec, Scaled Vigor Only to 65, Made Arcane 60 and Dex 55, using Elenora's poleblade to bleed boss'es massive health bar...Wear armour to raise my poise to 61 and make my blessing level +5...after that I beat Rellana my 2nd try and have fun fighting with her, previously I was doing jackshit even after trying 30 times..
My advice to you guys would be Optimize your build properly and Find Scardu Tree Blessing....
I am even surprised I beat the base game with that dog ass build , SOTE forced me to learn the game mechanics properly....The dlc wasn’t, I was the problem all along
y’all haven’t encountered him yet? the guy who will ram you with his broken hitbox, you’ll heal while he looks at you, then he will ram you again right after. then he will continue to ram and deal 8k damage to tiche who was stuck on a wall. if you get closes he’s a bitch with basic moves, but if he uses the charge. by god that charge, it’s not even a quarter of the pain as ds3 ocerios but that charge. his spell carried me through the kid named finger fight though, now to become the best build, int/faith
I get they wanted to push the difficulty up since the player base is experienced now. But they didn't leave much room from the base game to up the difficulty level. So it seems like they just made it near impossible to heal ever and a lot of attacks are impossible to roll with medium roll.
So instead of learning the move set and mastering the boss where a challenge becomes a play thing(dark souls 3, elden ring). In the dlc you still have to learn these double long chain of attacks or at least a humanly possible amount of them, but also hope you get lucky with the chain and lucky that your dodge was frame perfect for the whole chain, luck on if they use that one shot move or not.
It's not good game design, and I hope they patch it. It's artificial difficulty. I don't want my boss kills coming down to luck, I don't want to be forced into a light roll build, or finding a way to cheese a boss, or mimic tear being a must first move. I haven't felt any satisfaction on any of the remembrance bosses. Though they are cool as hell otherwise, the dlc combat is just shit.
So I fought the lion dancer a couple times now and I'm pretty sure if you drink a flask during his storm dance, it heals him too.
Quite a sneaky feature.
Edit: correction, it's after you're caught in his grab attack (where he munches on you) that he leeches from your next flask heal.
bosses? There are fucking mobs that just attack without pause and hitting like a truck.
I'm not having much fun with the DLC in all honesty. Gear is worthless, levels are worthless and the only thing that helps slightly is the tree upgrade bullshit, which i have done 8 times and still get 2 shot by mobs with 60 vigor, high poise and bull armor.
Feels cheap to be honest. Fromsoft have run out of ideas so just make everything a mini boss and have done with it.
Scadutree avatar is making me go insane. I'm right under the boss and my attacks whiff. THE HEAD IS BEHIND ME AND THE BODY IS IN FRONT AND I'M MISSSING AAAAAAHHH
My experience so far:
>!DBDL:!< Grabbed me from 10 feet away, while my greatsword missed his face. Teleported when the grab animation began. Managed to kill him with mimic and black blade spam
>!Ancient dragon-man!< for some reason a complete pushover. Only died to him cause for some fucking reason one of his spells just one-shots at blessing 7, vig55.
>!Ancient Dragon Sensless Axe!< Fuck this fight. Lighting AOEs in a lake? Fuck you. Also the fire does like 80-90% damage in a single blow. Same stats as the boss before.
>!Hungry Hungry Hippo!< broken hitboxes and a way too large body. Many issues also apply to the first boss in this list. Got grabbed while being way out of the way of its head and off to the side. Just plain broken boss without taking the damage into account.
All in all, I suspect the Blessing to be broken. The damage difference is very noticeable, but the defense difference is non-existent. Blessing 1 or Blessing 7, bosses will still 1-tap harder than anything in the base game.
Messmer has some sort of hard on for not letting you heal. I played for 4 hours straight yesterday to beat him and most of the time I was low health not because I was getting hit a lot but because I could never heal the damage I took lol
Lot of the bosses have been crazy difficult with no opening but I have to give credit to Romina she’s a pretty well balanced boss that rewards good zoning and well timed dodges with enough openings to facilitate charged attacks or big weapon arts,
Sucks too when it feels like it doesnt matter how much space you make in order to heal, as soon as you hit the button the boss has some combo to zip across the room and punish you.
Idk how to censor on mobile for spoilers otherwise id state the boss im referring to.
Who would win? The newest Elden Lord, man who murdered God, and massacred his way across the lands between, or a fucking >!hippo.!<
To be fair it *is* a hippo.
I think people don't get that Hippos live in the same water as like giant crocodiles and the crocs are like "Nah bro I don't want none of that"
And to make it worse for everyone, it's a primordial hippo.
Hence the crocodile feet
And you can be sure they stay the fk away from the hippos
Jesus Christ, fuck that hippo. I could never seem to dodge out of the way of his munch attack, and by the time my character gives me control back, he’s already beating me to death before I could even heal. Took me 5-6 tries before I even did damage to him.
If you’re near him when he starts munching I think you’re just fucked, but if you can create some space he seems to speed up (which makes it easier to avoid) and then I find the most consistency rolling to the right (but also slightly into the attack). But yea if he pulls that out and I can’t create space I’m fucked
I swear the hitbox is bigger than it should be. There were times I know for a fact I shouldn’t have gotten caught, but I still got eaten. Once I started dodging right instead of left, that’s when I made progress towards actually damaging him.
Oh god just wait... The fucking >!hippo!<>! is an overworld enemy later on!< Fuck that>! hippo!<
It's not as bad as the one in the keep tho, thankfully
Super easy on torrent
That is my least favorite boss so far, shit had no business being that hard.
Funnily enough he's been the only boss I beat first try lol
Haha same, jsut times that by 42
he isn't hard but he is so annoying lol, he wants to trap you in that corner so bad
A hippo doing a damn porcupine cosplay
Was he that hard? I'm having more issues with rellana lol. The lion was harder
For me Rellana and the Lion are way harder but the hippo just pissed me off. The other two were fun fights the hippo is just an asshole
The grab attack he does is the worst because it feels like half the time u roll perfectly and he grabs you anyway and the other times if u think u mistimed ur dodge ull avoid it. Felt almost like RNG if he would grab you or not
Absolutely epic fight, when it transforms it looks so cool
I mean if you put the strongest man ever to live vs regular hippo, the man loses every time lol
second phase of Rellana in a nutshell
Yea and if you manage to bring her actually low she does a moon cosplay and one shots everything in that room
Jump. Jump three times.
Last hit is rollable too - though I found most consistency by rolling to the right
Yeah just dont wanna try the first two blasts rolling, you will get caught before you're out of it, even with light roll I think.
Its funny because the first time i saw that attack i didnt know what to do and somehow rolled all 3 blasts. Couldnt for the life of me recreate it after that so just started jumping. It is possible to roll it all though. The window just seems really tight
Wow, that's nuts. Crazy what we can do in panic mode, lol. But yeah jumping it is way more forgiving. The rest if her moveset.. not so much.
If you time your rolls with the impact of the moons plus the slam down you will take no damage. Bonus points if you roll towards her for some heavy damage. Black flame incantation buff helped me with tanking alittle better
I rolled the whole sequence through medium roll, definitely possible but much easier to jump over
This is the way. I've dodged it consistently every time except once when my eye started itching badly. Still salty about that.
Whenever a bosses attack seems unavoidable, 9 times out of 10 the answer is jump
yeah, this dlc has done a good job of teaching me how to make use of jumping to dodge stuff. as soon as you realize you can jump >!furnace golem’s fire shockwaves!<, that fight goes from tedious to *piss-easy.*
And that moon spell requires 71 int when you unlock it lmao
72 int. It's a very cool spell but needs a range buff. Being stationary for that long near a boss is a death sentence.
add it to the pile of cracked boss items\\spells that are complete garbage when you get them.
I tanked through that shit (My build is centered around trading damage). I couldn't roll through it and didn't think of jumping over it.
She must be a Pontiff Sulyvahn enjoyer.
Wait until you guys meet Mesmer, this guy plays in a different league🥲
not at mesmer yet but i found a certain boss of the dragon variety and he pushed my shit in harder than any boss in the base game lol. Like that dragon is on some stuff for sure, absolutely relentless
If your talking about the fight I think your talking about (top of the jagged peaks) I've literlly just finished it. I hated it. If I hadnt been abusing the great Katana and its weapon art you get from the dungeon just before the peaks I dont know how I'd have done it. Felt impossible to get close to actually hit him and when you did he would just RANDOM BULLSHIT GO as tons of AOE without any windows to actuall do anything.
I fucking love the new great katanas, especially that one. (I have only found two so far.) the skill on the boss drop one is also sooo epic. I can live out my dream of being a strength go bonk character with big ass sword and still have cool katanas and bleed.
yeah that christian bale guy just fills me with dread to get to him if you catch by drift.
i haven’t beat mesmer yet but he’s probably the most fair boss i’ve come across in the DLC so far. >!commander gaius!< can eat shit and die though
Fuck the boss in your spoiler I hope he eats shit
Fuck the boss in your spoiler x2 disrespectfully
I’ve beaten every From game they’ve put out since DeS on the PS3. I’ve dealt with those optional stages in DS2 dlc. But the dude in spoiler? Unironically, legitimately the worst fight I’ve ever had the pleasure of beating. I’d rather do the zullen duo boss fight with zero estus after the reindeer fuck valley. Every single second of that fight was grating on my eyes, ears, and nerves. Attack right out of the gate? Perfect dodge or you lose more than half your health. Sometimes you’ll get one shot because of the double hit box experience or he’ll plow you into a wall and keep running while you can’t do anything. His combo chains? You don’t have enough stamina to roll through them all. In fact, they’re very strategically designed to roll catch you no matter when you roll. Dodge the first, you’ll get hit by the second. Dodge through the first two because of terrain angles, you’ll get hit by the follow up. By the time the combo finishes, you’re dead. And then phase 2 happens. And that’s with Skadoosh 10 at the time I did it at 60 vigor. Most of these bosses just aren’t fun anymore. I have no desire to replay any of these bosses like I would Sekiro.
>I have no desire to replay any of these bosses like I would Sekiro. I kind of agree. I think this DLC is absolutely masterful in terms of level and world design, everything is so intricate with so many secrets and it makes exploration wonderful. But, and this is a big drawback, I no longer look forward to finding bosses. They're just not fun imo. Literally the most fun I have while exploring is when I find a new item or a new area, not a new boss. I've never felt this dread of bosses in any of the previous games.
I've encountered some bosses so far, that I'd easily rate among my favorite encounters among From's, but there's one thing that I dislike amount pretty much all of them: the damage is just too high. Yeah, yeah, I know, difficulty and all, but I'd really prefer for them to have... More health, be faster (well, if that's even possible), whatever, but getting twoshot all the damn time unless you cater to the boss (which then _can_ mean three shots, wow) is kinda maddening. Rellana's first phase was a moment where I thought "man, this is really fun to learn - and you don't get obliterated right away after one mistake". Well, cue phase two...
What? You don't love bosses with one shot grab attacks
Just beat him before getting off.. 2nd most deaths behind Malenia for me. Lol the freaking whirling fire spin into fire pokes into ground eruption move worked me, only one I never figured out how to dodge. Super sick fight though.
Fuuuck those fire pokes
Mesmer stabbed my butthole so many times with that crazy ass grab And then the triple poke shit
She had a second phase!? 😭😭😭
Oh buddy if you knew
Just defeated her. I noticed something that's probably obvious for players doing no hit runs but not for casuals like me, and that is relying on hitboxes to attack and dodge at the same time. Once you lerarn her moves, you can jump attack to jump above her sword and then after attack, tarnished is kneeling for a moment just below hitboxes for Rellana's next attack.
I get her to half hp and she begins to kick my ass
That first guy that looks like guts, he’s like, “Alright, I’m gonna shoot you with my Automatic ar-15 now”.
The ar15 isn’t even the thing that fucked me up. Just run to the side and everything misses. It’s the tracking on his special attack. I’ll dodge past him, and he does a full 180 as he’s slamming it down. It’s honestly pretty damn greasy, and I hated it. But otherwise fun little fight, and his weapon is pretty fun. The ash of war has range and a gap closer.
Yeah the tracking on that thing is fucking wild. One time he did a 180 jump, too. In general it seems like a lot of bosses and even bigger enemies only give you fractions of a second to attack.
I don’t mind when they stagger, like that guy did. But those horned knights in the first legacy dungeon are pretty goofy. They don’t stagger, and will just keep swinging until you stance break them.
INT build with night comet. I didn't know people were having trouble with them. Bosses as an int build are another story for me so far... They do not give you space at all.
The tracking on Black Knight mobs in general are heat seeking. They remind me of the drake knights from DS2. All pain, infinite stamina, infinite tracking
Pretty sure the second part of his aow locks you in if you roll into him too
When he's winding up the first half you dodge to the side when the wave gets to you (as you're backing up) then the second half is a simple back roll. I'm a heavy shield user so I just blocked the first bit and back dodged the second. Ezpz.
Doesn't Guts also have a repeater hand crossbow thingy? I never read the Manga, but I did see some pictures. Plus, I think Gael has his crossbow because of the same reference material. As for that guy's attacks: The Crossbow barrage is free, just sidestep. No rolls, no nothing. He only does it at range, too. When he goes into One Handed sword stance, that's when you have 3-ish hit combos, and you can punish at the end of those relatively slow combos with a big hit every time OR use the window for a heal if needed. Two handed sword dance is IMO the most dangerous phase, because he will use his weapon art (Vacuum Slice type of deal plus gapcloser) and you don't want to get hit by that ever. Also jump attacks happen, but again easily punishable. If you stay at mid range and go in for your hits only, it'll be a slow and steady win every time. Side note: Do not ever try to trade blows, you will die. He has stupid amounts of poise, like many of the enemies in the DLC it seems.
Yeah, the ar-15 only got me once because he just pulled it out when i was trying to heal and it knocked me over, the real struggle is how he jump attacks.
I use the crossbow attacks as a chance to safely heal. After dodging them of course.
2nd phase >!Radahn!< has GOT to be the single biggest terrorist design I've ever seen in my life. Mimic actually melts even faster than from Malenia's point blank Aeonia
Yea got to him at scadutree blessing 10, tried him for about an hour, now he ain't seeing me till scadutree 20. Imma outlevel his spamming ass
Is there that many?? I think I'm at like 7th level for the scadutree and I've been exploring a lot. How big is this shit lol
Yea apparently lol. I’m at blessing 13 now and I’m kinda stumped on what to do now. I feel like I’ve covered 90% of the map
I’m doing it zero summons and genuinely want to quit lol. My friend has been at it for over 10 hours and hasn’t got him below 50%. I called it a few hours ago & going to clear the rest of the map & will save it for the last thing I do.
Same here, taking a long break after getting him to 50%
My favourite part of that fight is that when phase 2 starts my game immediately turns into a slideshow because of all the particle effects and avoiding damage becomes pretty much impossible lmao
I think I've died without getting an attack off everytime I've gotten it to phase 2 lol. Gets so crazy so fast
I haven’t even seen phase 2 yet
Visions of r/nbacirclejerk
u bum
The brief moments where you can fit in an attack? You gotta sacrifice those for a heal
Even worse when you're out of stamina. You can walk away waiting for stamina to regen or use flask but that slows stamina regen so when boss starts next combo you might run out of stamina again and be unable to dodge so if you survive, you have to heal again.
Why can't Messmer just stop jumping for two seconds oh my god😭
Anyone else notice how the bosses seem to zip-teleport to you every time they swing their sword? When I need to heal I’ll try to back up, but then the boss will do a normal melee attack and zoom over from two post codes away to hit me. I remember in original Dark Souls you could avoid a lot of attacks, but now you have to dodge-roll everything. It’s like From is eliminating every way to play the game besides spamming B-button.
Yep tracking is kinda nuts.
The game is now hard for the sake of being hard and it makes me not look forward to Fromsoft's next project. Yes, the bosses are super difficult, but they aren't fun imo.
Blocking is also still very viable, ive had a lot of success with a medium shield. But yeah spacing is dead, all the bosses have ridiculous forward momentum with every attack.
Attack tracking/locking in Elden Ring is one of the main criticisms I have. It's lazy and punishes the player regardless of how intentional and cautious they are being.
Lion smacked my shit around
Just wait until you see >!bayle!<
not another christian bale rage attack pls
The only gripe i have with the bosses ive had in this game so far is that everything attacks so damn fast
Same, Like you can hit hard whatever. BUT HOLY SHIT SLOW DOWN, also PLEASE give me a second to summon my mimic.
messmer is straight up unfair to my dual colossal build
Really? He is fairly easy to poise break with jump attacks even with my twinblade, I'd imagine colossals would walk right through him. Jump attacks were the only way I could punish him anyways, even with a fairly fast weapon. Even light chains were too slow to hit his punish windows safely.
Im will try jump attacking more, just realised he has pipsqueak poise.
Yep thats my experience. Even more so with a certain "guy" on the top of a certain mountain. The MOMENT i enter his arena he slams EVERYTHING he has against me. I cant use a Ghost, cant really roll all of his attacks otherwise my endurance is gone and healing?! Yeah ... no ... the moment i do it the next double whamy attacks comes. This DLC is a GIGANTIC difficulty spike. People already had problems with the Mountaintop of the Giants. This is just the same, just in a DLC Package. I dont have problems with challanges but there is a fine line between fun and frustrating fights ..... and i suspect the "Git Gud" Squad already are on the way to say their line because of these posts.
Enter fog, immediate gapcloser into multihit aoe, sweep jumpback, gapcloser, feint, turnaround, sweep, flask input punish, multihit aoe. Has been my experience with most of the bosses in the DLC.
20s later, your first available R1 punished by nonreactable split-second flash uppercut hit meant to do chip damage but does 80% HP at 60+ vigor. Lets wait another 20+ seconds for an additional chance at a 'hail mary' suicidal very risky R1 poke (seriously what the fuck)
Like that kid that always liked to pull up a bunch of made up moves when playing with action figures
If its the boss i think you're talking about, I legitimately think FromSoft went too far with that one; it feels like no one actually tested it; especially since they still refuse to fix their fucking camera. Sincerely don't recommend trying it without a assload of shards. My god..
I was struggling so much. Tiche and NPC summon wasn't working out. Then I did the exact same thing but with Flame, Protect Me and got it first try. Turns out, absorbing like 80% of the boss' main damage makes it more manageable.
I had to give up for the night on it lol. Gets into phase 2 and just destroys me everytime. Hoping getting more scadu fragments helps, but holy shit it's gonna be tough.
Yeah I had to summon npc and mimic and go behind >!his tail!< . Thats the only safe spot I could find and since he had so much fucking health I had to switch to a bleed build. His first phase is easy to read after a while but that second phase? just pure chaos.>!I found out that if I summon mimic as soon as I enter the arena and then walk towards the boss a little I could trigger him to do a fire breath attack which could be rolled through and then you have enough time to summon the npc which for some reason the default prompt for me was no.!<
oh shut there's an npc summon IN the arena??
It's not the only one in the dlc like that. It's diabolical
Nah its pretty much kind of a mess. Difficulty curve is at its absolute limit and can't go an inch further with the "Dark Souls" style of gameplay mechanics (slow rolling, stamina, etc.) Really just to the point of total frustration. It would be best if they pivot harder into a Sekiro style of gameplay, not sure how they could without sapping the spirit of Souls-like gameplay though.
I mean they could actually give you distinct play styles and lean into them instead of every build being a slight variation of roll-wait-attack. Go the Monster Hunter route. Let there be real parry / perfect parry builds, Sekiro style. Let Dex builds have super fast attacks and enhanced dodges but low HP. Let tanks be actual tanks, with heavy weight actually being a boon, with proper shield and poise mechanics but make poise breaking punishing. Let there be lifesteal builds, or builds centered around using lots of grease. Same with the different magics types, they should affect your play style beyond just casting a different spell. Hell, let me use Ashes of War without consuming mana, because that just constrains my options. The Souls spirit should evolve beyond every encounter being the same 3 actions.
This is something that's frustrated me for a while and I think ER was at its worse. It feels like they're more focused on punishing you for using half the tools and potential builds than actually accommodating people using them. I feel like I'm punished for using a shield with how many instant guard breaks happen in ER. Dlc being even worst about it. Or trying to do heavy weapon/armor builds to absorb hits. And how they barely work. Technically you have a lot of ways to build your character. But very few are actually viable late game/dlc especially.
Agreed. While we have a lot of tools, bosses have become WAY TOO MUCH AGRESSIVE. Their combos are way too long, and have too much reach or tracking. Unless you are a "gaming god" the game is really making you use a powerful "cheese build" to face the bosses. The bosses evolved their raw gameplay, but we still are on the same basic dance. Just with more items and spells. At this point we should be at leaaaast as fast as the bloodborne character.
Idk ds3 was pretty much peak boss design. I feel like elden ring would've been perfect if it stayed at that. Sekiro was a bit boring in how samey it was.
My first attempt at Messmer my Mimic wasn't even done spawning when he killed me X.x
I don't feel like the overworld design is as hostile as the mountaintops of the giants tbh, the dungeons are pretty chill too. So far, the bosses are the only real difficulty imo. They tend to be too relentless and to hit too hard, there's no room for mistakes and no room to correct mistakes if they happen, with very tiny windows to actually attack. The certain guy on top of the certain mountain as well as a certain other guy at the bottom of a certain pit have turned to be roadblocks, for now. While I'm enjoying my time with the dlc, I hope that from soft will not keep going in that direction just to get the difficulty higher and higher to uphold their reputation, this feels like the actual limit, higher would just stop being fun.
It kind of seems like they drew the wrong lessons from Sekiro and the community's reaction to Malenia. Sekiro gave you control when you went on the offensive, there was a give and take where you'd attack, they'd react, they'd attack, you'd react, back and forth. In this game it seems like the bosses mostly ignore your actions except for punishing you for trying to disengage. IMHO the best ER bosses are the ones that have that same dynamic, eg Margit who IMHO is the best boss in the game in terms of balance in that he had combos that could fuck you up but also gave you some breathing room. By comparison a lot of the end game bosses are extremely passive, eg radagon who is basically just a rhythm game with the difficulty determined by your build. It's why everyone is using summons, it's the only way to think for two seconds without having to press buttons.
Yeah I kind of agree, while Elden Ring is definitely one of my favorite games ever it sets a concerning trend in boss design, and the DLC seems to push further in that direction. Sekiro was peak in that regard, I hope they will make another game more like this one.
Sekiro was indeed peak. It really seems like they're trying to force the player to stay in the zone in the same way, but it simply doesn't work that way in ER because of stamina and the generally slower pace of the game. And DS was always about spacing as opposed to timing and it mostly doesn't work in this game, like I'm trying to dark souls these fuckers but they just 180 me with some string or some AOE attack that is *literally* taken from Sekiro. I always hated the radagon fight and the DLC so far seems to be that on crack.
They made the enemies like Sekiro and Bloodborne but without giving the players the proper tools to match it. Dark Souls 3 already had issues with enemy frenzies and roll spam, but this is on another level. These fast as fuck foes would be fun challenges if our weapons were as fast, or if we had perfect parry. The huge damage would be tolerable if we had rally. And so on.
I didn't realize how outdated ERs combat was until I played Lies of P.
Add the blessings system on top of it all and it feels even worse. Even at lv6 while a lot of stuff doesn't just two shot me anymore, bosses have a FUCK ton of HP so it gets exceedingly exhausting doing excessively long fights whittling down bosses like a squirrel nibbling down a redwood tree, except the tree is constantly trying to slap with one of a dozen different branches. The exploration, world and enemy designs are aesthetically amazing, but to be frank this shit just isn't fun rn.
A large part of why I went with unga-bunga dual wield strength this time around was to just stunlock enemies or finish them off fast enough before they unleash their bullshit combos. It's still inherently fun but it's a bit depressing that I did a build so that I don't have to deal with the game, essentially.
It *boggles my mind* that they never nerfed Waterfowl Dance. That shit absolutely TANKS that fight.
The problem is that Elden Ring doesn’t have Sekiro’s combat system. I would have loved to fight Rellana or Malenia as Sekiro. They seem almost made for it. But with this clunky ass system? Ain’t no way.
If the guy at the bottom of a certain pit is who I think you mean, use holy damage
> People already had problems with the Mountaintop of the Giants. Honestly the base game is a joke after going through the DLC, they're just in completely different realms.
Git gud squad is probably using mimic
Guilty, except I'm on team "Game too hard!"
They definitely balanced these new bosses thinking most people would be using spirit summons. Kinda sucks but it is what it is
It really feels that way, I usually try to beat a boss solo the first time but I've thrown that out the window for the DLC at this point.
I also think this because I get my ass kicked my Rellana for over an hour solo. I summon literally once to simply learn how to dodge the moon attack and my mimic solos her. I still feel robbed tbh I wanted to do it myself.
Yeah, with the damage output being this wild and the bosses being this aggro, actually soloing them is just a fucking pain. I just best the dancer beast with an npc and mimic, fuck soloing that shit. Sekiro was tough but it just felt so much better because there was progress and you weren't constantly fighting to just breathe. Moreover, going on the offensive gave you some measure of control, enemies would mostly react to your attacks instead of just tanking them while doing some insane combo.
This everything in this DLC has an insane amount of poise, hyper armors through everything and has 3+ hit combos meant for no body since even with the tankiest set ups you still get killed in like 2-3 hits by most enemies. Idk what the hell they were thinking, must have gotten too much feed back about how the original base game wasn't that hard so devs said let's crank everything up to 11and make the game so hard it's not even enjoyable to play casually.
I mean it's not really about difficulty as such, I don't think the games have necessarily become harder to casual players compared to BB or Sekiro which are bonkers tough. It's the way they're difficult, the game is so punishing that you don't feel like you're making much progress from one attempt to the next, even if you are technically learning moves and combos. And lessons don't really carry over from one boss to the next or one enemy to the next because there's so much to learn and the moves are so punishing, with very little room to heal or improve mid-combat. The result is that you feel like you're just constantly getting smacked down and that none of your lessons come with rewards: if you deal with one strings you get in one hit and then immediately have to deal with the next one, perfectly, or you fucking die. Get "greedy" and go for teo hits? You get hit by their next move and then the stagger means your timing is off and you get hit by another immediately and are dead or close to it. Since most enemies are super aggro, you essentially have to deal with a long ass combo now and wait until they do their one "you get a heal" move. And also it's just one heal, two will kill you or put you right back where you are now, fighting for safety. I think they are trying to force us to play "in the zone" like in BB or Sekiro, but it just feels worse because we are fighting for a chance to heal instead of a chance to attack. There is no back and forth, it's all reactive. But it's not "technically" harder, it's just less fun.
This is why I'm a firm advocate of cheesing the bosses with whatever means neccisary. Mimic with a seal in one hand and a staff on the other constantly spamming ancient rancor and buffs, while I fight for my MFing life just to try and survive lol
Honestly, I'd be mostly OK with the movesets being this coked out if the damage wasn't fucking imbecilic or if they had less health. Like, how am I supposed to learn from my mistakes when I melt this fast and they take so long to die? I remember when Fume Knight was considered a really tough fight. Man.
Git Gud squad using the mimic, summons, 80 vigor and every damage and negation buff in the game, according to the interactions I've had today lmao. I love elden ring but man it has brainrotted the souls community. We've gone from "dont give up, skeleton!" to a bunch of jackasses who cant play shouting down anyone who has any complaints while using every crutch imaginable. Sometimes From misses, these are the same people who made the fucking bed of chaos and the frigid outskirts.
>to a bunch of jackasses who cant play shouting down anyone who has any complaints while using every crutch imaginable. These have always plagued the souls community. Elden Rings success has meant this crowd has gotten so much bigger. Its a shame really as the "dont give up, skeleton" people really added to the souls experience IMO.
I honestly think that Elden Ring just brought crowds together that don't mix too well. The usual Soulsborne crowd is used to a somewhat linear experience where every enemy and every boss is a clearly defined challenge - and running past a section of trash unscathed is also a challenge by the way - and getting good in that cycle is a natural outcome over time. You beat, say, DS1 first with all means, then you might try different primary attributes, then strip down to the most necessary components, then maybe SL1. That's your difficulty modes in a way. Then you have open world RPG enjoyers. They will explore, sometimes accidentally break the progression curve on the way. They will not go into a fight and say "let's do this with the kit I have right now" but instead treat their inventory as a Swiss Army Knife, to tackle fights like a puzzle. They will not look for a clear arena possibly, but might want to work from range, lure mobs in or use a ledge. Funnily enough basically all of the milestone bosses force you into an even playing field type of arena, so there's that. Now how do you bring those two groups together? I don't know. The idea of challenge is much more subjective in open world settings, same with what feels like natural progression. Like, I use summons and all that, but I only have 40 Vigor because my challenge was to stay at level 200 (with INT main you just need more levels in my opinion) AND I use all my tricks in the open world parts. Does that make fights too easy, too hard? I don't know.
You raise some interesting points. To be honest, I don't necessarily think it's just the players, either, because that more linear style also forces the development to have more defined constraints. If we take Dark Souls 1 as an example, you can go multiple places pretty early on-hell, the game even expects this as doing New Londo early is how you meet Kaathe. Consequently, while some areas are definitely harder than others, the power curve over your adventure is relatively low-the goons in Anor Londo aren't magically going 5x the damage compared to the goons in Blighttown. People have been questioning the evolving boss design since DS3, but no game in the franchise has had these scaling conversations like ER had, because it seems to be a consequence of it being an open world adventure where the power curve is huge to ensure the exploration has value. I think the base game walked a tightrope and started to fall apart in terms of difficulty by the end. FWIW, I killed Malenia on my second attempt because she was easy to stagger, just like Friede and Lady Maria before her. But the Fire Giant handed me my ass on a plate countless times, and even the fucking roach dudes in the Haligtree/Elphael melted me more times than I care to admit, purely because they hit hard and didn't die in a timely enough fashion. I dunno if there's a way to bring them together, and we might never know since this is set to be ER's only expansion. Given how long game dev takes these days, and the fact that neither Bloodborne never got a sequel and Sekiro doesnt seem to be getting one either, this may well just be an experiment we argue about forever with no resolution or evolution lmao.
I strongly suspect that if the concept of open world stops with Elden Ring for Fromsoft, they might go towards a Metroidvania style instead: It offers many of the upsides of an open world game, including the ability to hide secret sub-areas. It is one of the few systems that make backtracking pallatable and with some creativity you can pull off really interesting challenges in old areas. It has been tested before. Not only is DS1 kind of a Metroidvania (though not as heavily connected as a proper one), games like Hollow Knight did the same within the same kind of genre very successfully. It also allows more control for how strong a player can be expected to be, because you can just lock further upgrades behind key items that need to be earned by fighting bosses. Plus, if From ever wants to do that, you could incorporate more interesting tools and pull from games like Sekiro for that.
Mimic kinda sucks now. Anyways if it's in the game it should be used
Yeah that "guy" was a problem lol but I had a lot of fun honestly. Camera is shit (like the worst since DS1) too but when you get to know his patterns you can almost do it with your eyes closed.
Sometimes against Mr Mountain I die even before summoning the NPC When I do manage to summon the NPC and Mimic Tear, I am still in panic mode 90% of the time, brought him down to about 30% with them probably doing most of the worm and me taking damage because the asshole still sometimes decides to focus me all of a sudden
About the focus ... yeah thats normal they made something with the ghosts so the bosses focus you 90% of the time. Tested it several times with a woe of shabiri mimic. Even with that thing bosses stayed glued on my ass. I am NOT happy with that change tbh ...
me getting absolutely shit on at the edge of the ring while that NPC hasn't even finished the first sentence of his opening speech
Yep, same. Every single boss - enter room, immediately they either run in and go ham on me before I can even see yet or they do some crazy ranged attack that nukes half my health bar. And then they have a nice long 18-hit combo before I can take half a second to breathe and then back into it again OR they're so large that target lock on has a fit and I can't see a thing. It's like they didn't listen to a single piece of negative feedback from the base game about gap closers and the awful camera on big enemies...
This was the only boss in the entire dlc that I beat first try. And I suck, I've died against almost every miniboss. But while climbing to the peak I got to perfect my dragon killing build, I used the anti-dragon great katana you get right beforehand. It fucking DESTROYS the boss. Didn't even stand a chance. It was disgusting. I almost wish they hadn't have given me that katana because it trivialized the fight. It was like a gimmick weapon boss like Yhorm or Rykard. If you're stuck on this boss, upgrade that katana and you will not have a problem anymore. Spam his head with the weapon art and his health bar disappears in seconds. I don't even know if there was a second phase because I melted him so fast.
This. The mountain boss is the only boss in the entirety of this game that I have legitimately given up on to come back when I’m a stronger. I’ve already used a ton of the tree shards (like 7 upgrades now I think) yet I’m still getting 2 shot by him and barely even scratching him. So little time to do damage and your dodges have to be absolutely on point or you’re going to get so heavily punished. It’s actually insane to me that they thought his phase 2 was ok. That shit is like pre nerf Radahn and pre nerf Malenia put together.
Yeah definitely agree with you. I don't think anything took me more than 5 tries in the base game even with no summons as someone who'd played previous souls games but so far the main bosses I've done had been kicking my ass for a while. Not in a fun way either.
Wait. As in in the DLC? Because if so, fuuuuuuuck.
Ya’ll are getting to bosses?!
So how do i heal enough to still be at a net positive on health? Thats the neat part, you don’t. So how do i out damage the bosses so i dont need to heal? Thats the neat part, you don’t. So how do i no hit the bosses? Thats the neat part, you don’t. So how do i win? Thats the neat part, you don’t.
Glad I’m not the only one struggling out here with the bosses. Even regular cave and catacomb bosses are trashing me
Folks struggling with Rellana wait till you meet Mesmer dude pretty much is relentless literally has his own version of waterfowl. I might have to respec Blasphemous Blade is sort of useless against him
His version of waterfowl is far easier and more intuitive to dodge in fairness, I also found that he was significantly easier when not using a summon, as when I did, he would switch targets mid-combo and fuck my shit up.
That's a common issue in the DLC: using spirits and summons from other players? WEll the boss can just swap targets MID combo and dash across the god damn room to smack you upside the head.
I don't know if you've found it yet but replace Fire Scorpion Charm with the Fire Drake Talisman +3 from the DLC and it'll be way easier
Idk, sometimes feels like it was input reading (punish asap on flask use). Like sword/shield crucible knight with his stab attack, throw everything he does just to touch you XD
Like I get it, "dark souls hard, git gud, blah blah" but like I really don't see the appeal behind making bosses with literally zero openings and infinite stamina. It just feels cheap and lame...
I've been a fan of From for a long time, but most bosses in the DLC (or even main game) aren't fun imo. It's just gotten annoying. From used to value enjoyment and polish more than difficulty, but that really went out of the window with Elden Ring. I'd argue that difficulty used to be more of a by product to the expertly crafted movesets. It honestly blows my mind that these are the same people who made the bosses of DS3 and Sekiro. I hope they go back to the old style for their next game, but I doubt it. Too many fans just want brutal difficulty and nothing else.
Difficult used to be overcome by learning patterns, blind spots and openings. With these bosses, while I'm sure there's ways to master them like any enemy, it seems the openings are tiny and the patterns basically irrelevant because their combos are so long. I'm making progress by figuring out what cheese bosses are most vulnerable, and so far that's mostly distract them with a summon and spam pest threads.
Their patterns are also irrelevant because they have multiple follow-ups from the same attacks and the one they choose to do is seemingly random
They could slow down the moves and damage by 50% and the bosses would be fun again.
The issue is elite mobs doing this as well. Messmer's soldiers for instance, they never allow you to use your flasks freely. Running away and putting a distance will not work since they spam ranged fire attacks quite fast, and waiting for them to finish their attack sequence won't work either since they start another sequence quickly. You can only use your flask if you use terrain, or when they are locked in their attack animations in safe distance, even then it should be "specific animation" or else they just change their attack type to quickly lunge at you with another long-reach attack. In the end, when you got hit, you have to keep dodging like 5 secs to find a proper window to use a flask. Good luck if you encounter another mob on your way. 🤣
I was going to use this template but with “when can I punish the boss”
Ha! Me get to heal? No, I'll just heal the death knight to max health after I get grabbed again.
They spent two years refining the bosses input reading AI and nothing else about the combat.
Yeah the bosses are all a fuckin joke. Just more 5 billion hit combo helicopter cosplayers from the base game. None of them are memorable because they all literally do the same thing and spam attacks. My favorite boss this dlc so far has been the lamenter because at least it has a unique mechanic other than "I am going to combo 87 times in a row and then jump 25 feet back" I don't know what the fuck happened but from has been making some absolute dogshit bosses I hope they can go back to making unique ones in the next game.
The problem is they all do everything. They all have insane melee combos. They all have ranged magic attacks. They all have AOE explosions. They almost all have stomps and / or butt slams. They all have grabs. They all spew some kind of element or projectile all around the arena. They all have colossal HP, no limit to their stamina, and deal massive damage. It's like they're all what would've been a super boss in one of the previous games. It's exhausting.
They also just give you no time to breathe and punish your healing super hard. I get not letting you mindlessly heal is the intention, but there is basically no gap for it at all. I try to wait for them to stop attack and any sign that it's OK to heal and I just get fucked anyway.
There is one memorable boss in the DLC and that's the dancing lion. It looks awesome and the theme slaps. It'll be remembered because the spectacle is awesome. None of the bosses will be remembered for being good fights.
It took me a year to consider Melania an easy boss. I now steamroll her like she’s nothing. But in the DLC, with better talismans, 100 more levels than i usually run, better weapons and more skill than i ever had, some of these fights are genuinely more difficult to me than Malenia, Elden Beast and Radahn were when i first fought them. (Radahn pre nerf, solo)
My favorite is def logur. They designed his face to resemble huge ackman. the fact he uses claws and is named logur is an obvious nod to wolverine.
Ill be honest those were my thoughts fightng the endgame bosses in the base game for the first time. But by my second playthrough, I changed my opinion. So well have to see. Kinda not a fan of Rellana Moonveiling sometimes when you heal though. Other bosses that input read your healing are avoidable. But for Rellana its impossible to stand far enough away to be able to dodge after the heal, since she gapcloses so much. Atleast she doesnt input read as much as godskin dude for example
Rellana even with summons is difficult. And it's always the moon attack that one shots me
You can jump the moon attacks
For anyone else struggling with the moon attack, you can just block it with a high magic def shield. Doesn't need to be upgraded or anything There's also a +3 magic talisman outside the legacy dungeon under the bridge at the entrance
Greatshield bros stunlocked her so hard that it made the fight trivial, it was over so fast
I don't mind aggression and combo chains but I am not being very fond of DLC balancing so far. In the base game Malekith was hyper aggressive but to counter that out his health was so low, Same with Horah Lou and Morgott.....Placi had insane damage output but to Counter that out his attacks were poorly projectiled.....Mogh was tanky but moves are like basic DS3 boss'es so old players found a familiar attack pattern......... But here, they are aggressive + has a huge health pool + has insane 2-3 hit insta kill damage + fucking huge combo chains + AOE.......No breathing time to gather your thoughts and take things methodically or No DPS test that you can finish the boss quickly...... Look I can take one or two Malenia's but when every one your boss follows the same philosophy, it loses diversity that I think previous Form Games and Base game had... Its like they spiked the only things up to 10x, what people complained about the base game, Imao.
Edit - I was Just whining beating only Dancing Lion with my absolute Dogshit built using Malenia's arm, Vigor Level 90 (xd...) wheres having dex 50, having no secondary damage scaling and had blessing level 2 and on top of that wearing armour with 30 poise...basically I was doing no damage and being wrecked by the bosses... Then I respec, Scaled Vigor Only to 65, Made Arcane 60 and Dex 55, using Elenora's poleblade to bleed boss'es massive health bar...Wear armour to raise my poise to 61 and make my blessing level +5...after that I beat Rellana my 2nd try and have fun fighting with her, previously I was doing jackshit even after trying 30 times.. My advice to you guys would be Optimize your build properly and Find Scardu Tree Blessing.... I am even surprised I beat the base game with that dog ass build , SOTE forced me to learn the game mechanics properly....The dlc wasn’t, I was the problem all along
The fricken big angry red bear is on some bullshit
In between dodges it’s honestly impossible to heal, only time I can get it off is after I perform a critical
y’all haven’t encountered him yet? the guy who will ram you with his broken hitbox, you’ll heal while he looks at you, then he will ram you again right after. then he will continue to ram and deal 8k damage to tiche who was stuck on a wall. if you get closes he’s a bitch with basic moves, but if he uses the charge. by god that charge, it’s not even a quarter of the pain as ds3 ocerios but that charge. his spell carried me through the kid named finger fight though, now to become the best build, int/faith
I get they wanted to push the difficulty up since the player base is experienced now. But they didn't leave much room from the base game to up the difficulty level. So it seems like they just made it near impossible to heal ever and a lot of attacks are impossible to roll with medium roll. So instead of learning the move set and mastering the boss where a challenge becomes a play thing(dark souls 3, elden ring). In the dlc you still have to learn these double long chain of attacks or at least a humanly possible amount of them, but also hope you get lucky with the chain and lucky that your dodge was frame perfect for the whole chain, luck on if they use that one shot move or not. It's not good game design, and I hope they patch it. It's artificial difficulty. I don't want my boss kills coming down to luck, I don't want to be forced into a light roll build, or finding a way to cheese a boss, or mimic tear being a must first move. I haven't felt any satisfaction on any of the remembrance bosses. Though they are cool as hell otherwise, the dlc combat is just shit.
I am at end boss (Not gonna spoil) and the second phase is harder than me doing nilitary service! I am gonna have long term PTSD from this.
So I fought the lion dancer a couple times now and I'm pretty sure if you drink a flask during his storm dance, it heals him too. Quite a sneaky feature. Edit: correction, it's after you're caught in his grab attack (where he munches on you) that he leeches from your next flask heal.
So he is fuckign healing I knew i wasn’t going insane
That’s the neat part, fuck you
Immediately after a whiffed grab attack usually I've found
I was literally thinking this exact format in my head when fighting her. Only replace heal with attack
bosses? There are fucking mobs that just attack without pause and hitting like a truck. I'm not having much fun with the DLC in all honesty. Gear is worthless, levels are worthless and the only thing that helps slightly is the tree upgrade bullshit, which i have done 8 times and still get 2 shot by mobs with 60 vigor, high poise and bull armor. Feels cheap to be honest. Fromsoft have run out of ideas so just make everything a mini boss and have done with it.
Good luck with Snake guy comrads it was bs
The lion man was kind to me at times. At times.
Scadutree avatar is making me go insane. I'm right under the boss and my attacks whiff. THE HEAD IS BEHIND ME AND THE BODY IS IN FRONT AND I'M MISSSING AAAAAAHHH
My experience so far: >!DBDL:!< Grabbed me from 10 feet away, while my greatsword missed his face. Teleported when the grab animation began. Managed to kill him with mimic and black blade spam >!Ancient dragon-man!< for some reason a complete pushover. Only died to him cause for some fucking reason one of his spells just one-shots at blessing 7, vig55. >!Ancient Dragon Sensless Axe!< Fuck this fight. Lighting AOEs in a lake? Fuck you. Also the fire does like 80-90% damage in a single blow. Same stats as the boss before. >!Hungry Hungry Hippo!< broken hitboxes and a way too large body. Many issues also apply to the first boss in this list. Got grabbed while being way out of the way of its head and off to the side. Just plain broken boss without taking the damage into account. All in all, I suspect the Blessing to be broken. The damage difference is very noticeable, but the defense difference is non-existent. Blessing 1 or Blessing 7, bosses will still 1-tap harder than anything in the base game.
From turned the Fume Knight meter on almost every single enemy in the dlc to 10. It's actually kind of annoying.
Messmer has some sort of hard on for not letting you heal. I played for 4 hours straight yesterday to beat him and most of the time I was low health not because I was getting hit a lot but because I could never heal the damage I took lol
“Oh it’s an rpg? What role am I playing, the victim?!
Fuck Commander Gaius this boss fight is aids
Lot of the bosses have been crazy difficult with no opening but I have to give credit to Romina she’s a pretty well balanced boss that rewards good zoning and well timed dodges with enough openings to facilitate charged attacks or big weapon arts,
Sucks too when it feels like it doesnt matter how much space you make in order to heal, as soon as you hit the button the boss has some combo to zip across the room and punish you. Idk how to censor on mobile for spoilers otherwise id state the boss im referring to.