Random thoughts on bosses and other things

[gungadin22000]

Like I did in my first Nioh 2 playthrough, this thread will be for me to express my highly qualified and interesting opinions regarding bosses and challenges I encounter during my time in Elden Ring with no discernable sequence in the matter.

I am running a heavy armour + greatshield + greatclub/axe/hammer build, so my experience with bosses may not mirror yours.

Night Cavalry
Probably my favourite boss in the game. Repeated a bunch of times, but having them only show up at night at random stretches of road is a very nice touch, and the character design is very cool in an Arthurian legend kind of way, so I never get bored fighting black knights.

The fight itself is an extremely stylish horseback duel, landing blows and evading huge swings before zooming in for another hit, and managing to knock a knight off his horse in order to land a crit is extremely satisfying.

It's also fairly comical fighting him on foot. With a strong shield, you can just tank all his strikes and then counter with a long weapon for huge damage. I found that this was actually the easiest way to kill them, but why would you want to miss out on a cool horseback joust?

[gungadin22000]

There, managed to beat Malenia after maybe 50 tries or so.

I feel that she is kind of the high point of ER game design: tough but fair (mostly), has a very pleasing pace to the fight and absolutely forced me to optimise my crappy playstyle in order to defeat her.

See, I am garbage at dodgerolling in Elden Ring. I am used to the far, far more smooth and responsive movement of Nioh 2, so I keep getting lolstunlocked by pretty much anything and killed. Thankfully, blocking is actually good here, so I was able to block all of Malenias damage, which just kept healing her to full health.

I absolutely refused to respec to start some BS meta tactic to beat her like the other bad players, so I started thinking hard and experimenting with both weapons, ashes of war and summons.

In the end, the setup that beat her was:

1. Serpent-Hunter greatspear.

2. Fingerprint Greatshield

3. Redmane Knight Ogha ashes

4. +rot resistance talisman (forget the name).


Strategy for crappy melee players:

1. Drink infinite FP flask upon entering to be able afford a summon

2. Summon Redmane Knight Ogha

3. Hide behind greatshield, ONLY lower greatshield to regain stamina,

4. Keep poking away at Mal with light attacks from the greatspear.

5. Don't even try to dodge. This is for people who are gud, which you are not.

That's pretty much it. I just stuck in Mal's face and kept poking her constantly while tanking her hits with the shield. This resulted in a net zero damage to her, as she would just heal from my shield.

This is where Ogha came in - by summoning him at the start of the arena, he laid down sniper support for the entire fight, doing next to no damage himself but successfully knocking Mal down repeatedly with his greatbow. This allowed me to land many charged attacks when she was down, resulting in many a critical hit and follow-up charged attack. Rinse and repeat for an easy if time-consuming first phase.

Her second phase is.....honestly not much scarier than her first phase. Except for the scarlet rot - I kept dying due to panic-healing scarlet rot damage until equipping +rot resistance gear, but once I did, I could even tank the rot buildup of both a fully blocked waterfowl dance or her huge ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ flower-nuke. I was amused to note that even the most devastating AOE attack in the game could be blocked perfectly fine by my greatshield, the rot buildup was the only danger here.

This fight still took me a gazillion tries even after I worked out this functional-if-not-optimal strategy due to the RNG elements of the fight, by which I mean her grab move, which she will sometimes spam, sometimes not use at all. This move is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and should not be in the game, along with any other 1-hit-KO move like it and it meant that I had to keep healing to full HP when I had lost even 10% of my health to avoid an instant do-over whenever RNGesus decided to punish me. It is thankfully easy to interrupt just by hitting her, so staying right next to her for the entire fight was really the safest place for me to be.

I also died a bunch of times to her waterfowl dance despite blocking, due to the fact that the really weird tracking of that ability sometimes bypasses your shield, by the hitbox somehow coming in from behind you, I think.

So big hi-fives to Ogha, MvP takedown artist, for allowing my cowardly phalanx style to prevail in the end. I did not regret taking this many tries to beat Malenia as her fight was just so cool. I tend to get super-frustrated dying repeatedly to soulslike bosses, so me actually enjoying getting creamed her must be evidence of very good boss design.

And now....

I am done with the game. Beat all bosses that I can think of except for a few reskins/repeats. Don't think I'll replay it, at least not for ages - while the overall package was very pleasing, it just has too much BS in its storytelling and its control scheme is too awkward for me to attempt to master. A solid game, but not really more than a 7/10 due to its many flaws.

Now give me an open-world Nioh!

[Craft$man]

Originally posted by gungadin22000:

God Devourer Serpent and Rykard double act
One of the very, very worst sins of RPGs is to allow a player to carefully build a character and playstyle over a long time playing and then suddenly yank this away from them by forcing them to resolve an encounter in a completely different manner, sometimes by taking their weapons and tools away or by handing them a single tool out of the blue that is the only true solution to the problem at hand. A good example would be the bossfights of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, where you may have built your character for stealth, silent takedowns, persuasion and hacking, yet every bossfight will involve a 1 vs 1 gunfight that you may be completely unprepared for as your build now suddenly doesn't matter anymore.

This bossfight is an excellent example of this trope.

My build is sword/shield/heavy armour with no ranged or magic. I had zero chance of getting close enough at either stage of this two-stage bossfight to actually clobber Mr. Snake with my giant mace due to the omnipresent lava he seems to cover the floor with constantly around him.

Graciously, the game gives you a super-jedi megalance at the beginning of the fight, and this is really the only way to beat the boss if you're running a melee spec. I spent 50 hours getting to this point by getting better at close range combat. Too bad, I now shoot lasers from a spear I just picked up, my +15 mace watching jealously from the sidelines.

As for the moveset itself, it is pretty meh. Both bosses are slow and fairly passive, allowing you to get in a lot of hits between having to dodge or block their attacks (and all attacks but the bite-grab are blockable and don't even consume that much stamina to block). Good thing too, since you will need that time to whittle down its gigantic healthbar twice.

The Rykard phase is actually easier since he doesn't poison you or grab you and his sword swipes are easier to read and just as easy to block as the snake bites. He does, however, have one of the worst designed boss attacks in the game in his fire-skull-storm spell or whatever. I get the feeling I am supposed to attempt to dodgeroll all this crap, but why would I bother when I can just sprint in a circle around the arena until they're all fizzled out, after which I can resume meleeing Rykard from 50 feet away.

Probably the first example of a mechanically bad boss I've encountered in this game. Some other bosses are too overly aggressive or too passive, this is just poor design. Bad Fromsoft! Bad!

I think this fight might have been salvaged somewhat if you had to find the spear somewhere else in the castle, not right ahead of the bossfight. That woulda made it almost adventure-gamey in nature, as there is already a heavy hint that there exists a spear that is really good at killing giant snakes.

For an example of a much, MUCH better giant snake boss in a soulslike game, I highly recommend Yatsu-No-Kami from Nioh 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REav7ScZtFE

am an almost pure faith build (currently trying 60 Faith 10 Vigor and some str/dex for Godslayer greatsword)
This boss is disasterous to my current build. I was playing damage incantation such as dragons incant or black flame etc.
Then there is this Rykard, with recommended Melee weapon, and crazy hard to dodge wide area lava stone attack.
Poison is ok, the animation is long I can prepare myself to dodge backward
The bite is ok, I still can prepare myself to dodge forward.
The munch munch munch is ok, sometimes 3 sometime only twice but as long Im always prepared for 3 munch I could get it through.
When the serpent head dip into the ground, me panik XD literally spam smash key since I tried evade forward, sideway, backward. All useless. Seems like best way to face the lava stone is by blocking it. which again you need a something to block it besides using Seal :(

[B I G]

Originally posted by gungadin22000:

Black Blade Kindred
Utterly idiotic name, but also one of my favourite bosses in the game so far. First off, I first encountered him when I teleported to the Bestial Sanctum and then saw this 30 foot winged bouncer standing with his back turned. I got on my horse and zoomed past him to escape, but was surprised to find that he wasn't hostile. I then went on to explore in a more relaxed manner.

Then, after returning to the Bestial Sanctum another time, he had suddenly gone hostile for no reason I could discern. I tried to outrun him again, only to find myself 1shot from halfway across the map by his enormous sword laser beam.

I came back at level 75 or so, intent on actually beating Big Black Birdie. My normal approach is to summon demi-human ashes, as the 5 humans can reliably soak up a great deal of hits, but the fact that he was trying to hit them for most of the fight really only made it a lot more difficult for me to get in my own hits and resulted in multiple deaths for me.

I then tried it summonless, using my FP to cast barrier shield instead, with much better success. He can actually be blocked pretty effectively as most of his attacks aren't chained, and the ones that combo have really poor tracking and often miss you if you stand right next to him, giving me a lot of free hits and allowing me to stun him 2-3 times with my giant mace. Only downside to this fight is his scarlet-rot inducing halberd combo, which WILL kill you if you are anywhere within 15 feet of him and it is very hard to tell when he is doing this combo and just a regular halberd attack. This adds a element of RNG to a fight which I otherwise thought was very satisfying to succeed at.

Shame the 2 weapons he drops require faith to use or I would have used one of them as a trophy.

What makes the name "utterly idiotic"?
He's kindred to Maliketh the Black Blade, a being or corpse wax... you do the math

[gungadin22000]

So, started a new playthrough after almost a year of not playing. First playthrough was shield + giant mace, so this time I wanted to go dual-wielding daggers for max bleed application, heading straight for Reduvia.

Only problem is, dual-wielding in ER is pretty jank and the dagger powerstance attack is slooooow and does next to no stagger or poise damage, meaning you just get slapped around by the bosses during the overlong animation. Couple this with the very short range of daggers and I've all but abandoned this build in favour of going full katana-weaboo, trying to actually DODGE an attack for once instead of having them bounce off my big ♥♥♥♥ greatshield as in my last playthrough.

Turns out I've gotten if not gud, then somewhat less bad than before. I've soooomewhat figured out the timing on the rolls, which is very different to the rolls in Nioh, and the input queing, while weird and awkward, can enable you to exploit boss dodging windows better if seen as part of the game's combat design. I am also not using any ashes at all, will be interesting to see how far I can get by sheer skill improvement.

Managed to beat Margit at level 29 in 5 tries or so as well as beat two Bloodhound Knights by managing to avoid their attacks and poisoning them with weapon arts. Also killed a few Night Cavalry and the starting Tree Sentinel, who're still perhaps my favourite bosses in the game and a lot of fun to fight on foot once you work out how easy the vast majority of their attacks are to dodge. Not running shield also means I can wear heavier armour, so when I do get it it is less of an instant game over than in my previous game.

This game has a load of flaws, but it remains extremely enjoyable. Waiting for the next game in the Nioh franchise to blow it outta the water, though.

[Fineous🔥]

Thank you with all my heart for sharing with us your highly qualified and interesting opinions OP ( I advise you to reinforce this with a public profile in which you leave it reflected).
Sorry that I have not read the entire text formed by your unique and special subjective opinion regarding Elden Ring oh my Elden Ring, but im sure you had a lot of fun playing the game and then posting this, congratulation my man.

Bless you OP and what is a Nioh? It blows water?is it a vacuum cleaner?

[gungadin22000]

Wow, something extraordinary has occurred.

I fought the Crucible Knight in the evergoal, and not only did I manage to defeat it at level 41 by 2handing the starting katana+5, I.....actually enjoyed fighting it.

This is the first time I've encountered one of the CKs and had fun - in my previous playthrough, it was a grueling task to keep blocking its ludicruous combos and trying to get in the odd retaliation in its miniscule pauses between attacks. In my current roll-heavy playthrough, I manage to get way longer attack opportunities due to having somewhat figured out when to roll and when to jump, the jump button in particular being useful for counterattacking its tail swipes and ground stomps.

I feel that I've reached the next level of Elden Ringery and look forward to seeing when I'll run into a brick wall for the first time and have to start using summons.

[MrSoul]

“Clouds so swift and rain fallin' in
Gonna see a movie called Gunga Din
Pack up your money, pull up your tent, McGuinn
You ain't goin' nowhere”

[gungadin22000]

Dragonkin Soldiers of Nutella
The Ainsel River lighting variant of this boss was perhaps the biggest roadblock of my first greathammer-and-shield playthrough - large health pool, big AoE swings and loves disengaging while attacking you at range with easily avoidable AoE lightning patches.

None of this was the reason for my frustration, however. That honour goes to the really weird carved-up belly of the critter. I wasted roughly 50000 jumping attacks trying to hit it in the gut, which would surely be effective considering they were pretty much hanging out, but the hitbox for the gut is somehow always juuust out of range of my attacks.

This results in the fight devolving into a far-too-common "hit them in the thighs and feet until death" battle, but unlike the regular giants, the Dragonkin Soldiers are enormous and walk on all fours. This results in you joyfully hitting it in the thigh while being unable to see the windups or tells from the arms at the other end of the creature, which lead to me being smacked WAY more times than I ought to.

Couple this with the fact that their hitboxes are wonky as hell and you have what is probably my least favourite "giant" enemy in the game. And that's without even MENTIONING the Dragonkin Soldier wading around in a lake of liquid AIDS late-game....who thought that was a good idea?

[Rampage]

Originally posted by gungadin22000:

this thread will be for me to express my highly qualified and interesting opinions

High on your own farts much? Instablocked

[Martini]

While I definitely think Malenia is not a balanced boss, that 'rng grab' (?) of her is her easiest move to dodge.

Speaking as someone who killed her with dual great hammers, it basically can always be rolled

[gungadin22000]

If you are gud. I is not. Hence the constant pressure on her by poking unceasingly from behind the greatshield. Still managed to beat her in a fair melee fight without using OP summons, spells or arts.

[justfaded]

Make a video or something

[gungadin22000]

Join my Onlyfans for that.

[gungadin22000]

Alright, started a new playthrough using the Reforged mod as a faith user. Never played either before, so should be interesting at least.

The reforged mod is pretty great - the QOL features are amazing. I particularly enjoy the way Melina now pops out of nowhere to keep you company whenever you rest at a grace, and the ability to respawn many bosses at will by using the table at Roundtable Hold is very welcome. You can now practice fighting the Crucible Knight in his Evergaol forever, if you so desire.

Balance-wise, as far as I can tell there are three major changes:

1. You have far less HP and stamina per point invested in vigor and endurance, but the scaling doesn't drop off as early as in vanilla, making "get to 40 or 60 vigor and then stop" less of a hard rule here. It does make you squishier, as far as I can tell, but I've not run a heavy armour dude here yet.

2. To balance 1 out, enemies are now way easier to poise break. You can often do this to mooks with 1 jumping or charged attack. This seems to encourage more aggressive gameplay rather than constant dodgy-rollery, which blends well with point 3:

3. Sekiro took an extended vacation in the Lands Between and taught the Tarnished how to samurai-deflect attacks. This is boss as all hells. The timing involved is a lot more generous than parrying, which I suck at, and while a successful deflect doesn't open the opponent up for a crit, it will often stagger him for long enough for you to guard counter, which again will often cause poise breaks. Until I realised how to use this mechanic, I had an absolutely gruesome time beating super-aggressive melee enemies like the Leonine Misbegotten and CKs. Now you can stand in front of them and deflect everything they throw at you for easy counters and far more fun and dynamic gameplay.

Not sure how Reforged alters faith or intelligence caster-style gameplay, but I'll post some thoughts on how I fare as an incantation user later.

[gungadin22000]

So, played a faith caster for about 20 hours in the Reforged mod, ended up at level 77.

Came to the conclusion that I didn't like it.

I dabbled very briefly in magic in my previous DS2 playthrough and was irritated that magic use required the use of a staff or holy icon at all times. Sure, this fits with the games systems and gives you something to upgrade, but it locks you out of parrying or blocking and is a generally awkard system which I never liked.

I do not feel this has been improved upon in ER at all. Same basic structure, still feels awkward to me, particularly in the sense that cycling spells is supremely clunky and you cannot bind a spell to a particular key due to ER being made for the smelly console peasant demographic. Contrast with Witcher 3, which had far fewer spells but also had the option to instacast them using the numeric keys. This lead to far more dynamic gameplay and made spellblading a lot more fun.

Clunkiness of interface aside, how much fun playing an incantation caster is in ER depends heavily on the enemy you are facing. Annihilating an onrushing horde of armoured soldiers using Frenzied Flame never gets old, but if you try to cast any spell without long-range capabilities in most bossfights, you will just get knocked out of the casting animation and thugstomped.

My time as a dedicated caster in many bossfights thus amounted to me running away, casting once and then running away some more. Sure, stunlocking and melting Godrick with crazyflames was pretty satisfying, but try the same thing against the Leonine Misbegotten or, Marika forbid, a Crucible Knight and you're gonna be in a world of pain, particularly with the amount of BS input reading the CKs are famous for.

Reforged adds an interesting mechanic that has you be able to regain FP by casting your weakest "generator" spells at enemies. This makes full magic playthrough more viable, as some of the generator spells work just fine for taking out weaker enemies safely and without any trouble, leaving you with full FP for harder enemies, but pew-pewing each minor enemy 3-4 times with a puny lightning from a safe distance isn't very engaging gameplay either. I enjoy Reforged's 2nd mana regen ability more, where you regain FP every time you hit an enemy, making AoW playthroughs in particular feel smoother.

As for now, I think I am abandoning the caster playthrough. It's just not particularly fun. Thankfully, Reforged has now made my dex/arcane warrior a deflection machine relying on poise breaks, which I've come to feel is the most enjoyable way to play Elden Ring.