Best/worst bosses list

[Rord64]

Curious to see everyones worst/favorite boss list. Mine is:

Best:

1. Radagon

This fight is just epic on every level. Fighting the character you've been hearing about since the start of the game, the first character ever seen in any ER footage, all while the ER main theme plays over the fight. This combined with the fight being a fair and balanced fight with very flashy and cool moves easily makes this my favorite boss in the game

2. Radahn

Even though pre nerf Radahn was ridiculously crazy (I did it at level 60 with summons) he still takes the second spot for favorite boss. He is just such a cool looking boss, with very interesting lore and importance to the overall story. Fighting him with the npcs was just such an epic and cinematic experience, and all of his attacks are a apectacle to watch. To top it all off, he jumps up and becomes a meteor halfway through the fight. Just so epic. He loses some points for having some questionable hitboxes pre nerf, but they seemed to have fixed that (a bit too fixed if you ask me, but I digress).

3. God Devouring Serpent / Rykard

Adding to the pattern of epic cinematic bosses making my list, we have the Rykard boss fight. This is a gimmick fight done right. With the right moves you can nearly stunlock the boss for a large portion of the fight, rewarding good play while still keeping to its gimmick. The whole look and feel of particularly the second phase of the boss is so awesome. I get World of Warcaft Firelands vibes from it, as well as the music. That whole skull move he does with the sky going red makes it feel like the world is ending. Only griped I have with the boss is that he's kinda huge for the amount he spreads out in phase two and I got stuck in a corner a couple of times.

4. Fire Giant

This fight wasn't on my list at all until I did a second playthrough and beat him with the mimic tear + Alexander at my side. And boy, was it an epic fight for the ages. The extra health he gets plus the fact you don't get a horse add a huge amount of scale to the fight. Alexander is pretty good in the fight as well, being fairly tanky and able to to decent damage to the boss occasionally. His attacks, while sometimes annoying due to him being 10 stories tall, are easily telegraphed with movements and sounds so they are fairly easy to dodge. Phase two is really cool with the whole face chest thing and him spewing fire everywhere. Unpopular opinion, but I find he's easier in phase 2 since he can't do a whole lot to people being behind him.

5. Rennala

This one is here purely for a cinematic reason. I got big Moon Presence vibes from the second phase of the boss. The boss is also fairly easy and fair, with lots of big windows to punish and easy to dodge attacks, while being equally as punishing if you mess up.

Worst:

1. Twin Gargoyles

This boss is the only boss that I can remember that has made me rage hard enough to stop playing for the day. The boss is basically a question of "Can you burst down a gargoyle before his friend shows up?" If the answer is no, you're gonna have a really, really bad time. And since I was a spear/greatshield build, I did not have the burst damage. Not only are the really hard to get a hit in on while together due to them being huge with massive hitboxes, they decided to add poison mist to the mix so that every time you go for a hit, you're filling up that poison meter. This is the only boss that I had to level up different weapons in order to handle effectively. (Starscourge Greatswords + jump attacks).

2. Elden Beast

This boss is just frustrating. To put it simply, he won't sit still, You're gonna spend half the fight or more legging it to the other side of the arena just so he can move again 3 seconds later. This annoyance combined with attacks that are difficult to interpret at close range and the seemingly unavoidable light ball attack he does in phase 2 make this a super annoying fight.

3. Godskin Duo

We all know why this boss is here. Gank fights suck and this is one of the worst offenders. They do very high damage and have a very diverse movesets with scary moves like the Michelin Man Tire Roll that annihilates your health bar. The fight wouldn't be as bad if they didn't have so much health; it's a little egregious how much they have for the kind of fight this is. Only saving grace of this fight is the pillars you can use to get some space and the epic music.

4. Radahn (Pre-nerf)

Even though I love this fight, it still sucked the before the nerf. Being a greatshield build, this guy would constantly hit me behind my shield with his titanic hitboxes and massive damage. The first phase of the fight was usually just a cluster♥♥♥♥ with his homing arrows, making it just a tedious and punishing slog to get back to the actual fight. Unfortunately they nerfed him a little too hard and now he's way too easy.

5. Ulcerated Tree Spirit (Haligtree)

This fight is...just not good. Despite it not having a health bar at the bottom, this is essentially a boss battle. This thing has an absolutely insane health pool while doing insane damage since it's fought in the hardest area of the game. You also fight it in a relatively small area with edges all around, and I fell off more times than I'd like to admit. To top it all off, it spews scarlet rot and half the area it fights in is a scarlet rot pool. The only thing stopping this from being the worst fight in the game is the easy cheese strategy by standing on a nearby branch and shooting it with arrows.

Honorable mention:

Sellia Fallingstar Beast

This boss is just a badly designed fight for two reasons. First, the most obvious one, is that the arena is waaaay too small for this boss. It spends half of its running animation derping into a wall, and the camera frequently goes wild. Second, is that when you re-enter the arena, the boss is in the middle of an animation for some reason, so half the time you get smacked within 2 seconds of entering. Both of this combined with it being a boss you can find (accidentally) very early make it super frustrating.

[willy bammy]

Best:

Mohg, Lord of Blood - In my opinion he is probably the best boss fight in the game. The scale, the lore behind him, the MUSIC. I haven't been to blown away by too much of the music in this game, but Mohg's theme is incredible. And the fight is just incredibly fun, and fair as well. Everything he does has an intuitive way to avoid it (as all attacks should be), and it's still difficult. There is never a dull moment since he has deceptively long range. My only criticism of him would be his phase 2 transition, which is only avoidable if you have a specific item (even still, you have time to heal in between bursts. Good design right there), and how trivial the fight can become if you have his shackle.

Godfrey - This dude was just gigachad. You know a boss is sick when he does a one hit kill move on you but it looks so cool that you don't even care. Another really fun fight with no dull moments, Godfrey is always gunning for you. And his design is sick too

Maliketh - I mostly like this fight for just how cool Maliketh is. I honestly was upset he didn't get a full health bar for his second phase. Really entertaining boss fight. First phase is kinda meh tho

Worst:

Rennala - just a boring fight I'm gonna be honest. Mage's are never very fun to fight against. They're usually just too easy and tedious

Gideon - see above

Malenia - Remove the unavoidable kill move and she is S tier. Leave it in and it is the most unbalanced thing in Fromsoft history. Nothing kills your fun faster than having a good fight with the boss, then she randomly pops that 1 hit KO that you can't dodge at close range. Funs over, try again. Clearly your fault you lost, right. Very disappointing boss because of that, only because I know she could be perfect

[Noeat]

Originally posted by gotti biesch:

Malenia - Remove the unavoidable kill move and she is S tier. Leave it in and it is the most unbalanced thing in Fromsoft history. Nothing kills your fun faster than having a good fight with the boss, then she randomly pops that 1 hit KO that you can't dodge at close range. Funs over, try again. Clearly your fault you lost, right. Very disappointing boss because of that, only because I know she could be perfect

its not unavoidable - YOU didnt avoid it..
check youtube guides and kills (and that combo isnt OHK - iits not ONE HIT, that combo have more hits, not ONE)

[pcdeltalink]

Originally posted by Noeat:

Originally posted by gotti biesch:

Malenia - Remove the unavoidable kill move and she is S tier. Leave it in and it is the most unbalanced thing in Fromsoft history. Nothing kills your fun faster than having a good fight with the boss, then she randomly pops that 1 hit KO that you can't dodge at close range. Funs over, try again. Clearly your fault you lost, right. Very disappointing boss because of that, only because I know she could be perfect

its not unavoidable - YOU didnt avoid it..
check youtube guides and kills (and that combo isnt OHK - iits not ONE HIT, that combo have more hits, not ONE)

Bigger problem I have with Malenia is she should NOT heal on my shield or at the very least not the normal amount.

[Rord64]

Originally posted by pcdeltalink:

Originally posted by Noeat:

its not unavoidable - YOU didnt avoid it..
check youtube guides and kills (and that combo isnt OHK - iits not ONE HIT, that combo have more hits, not ONE)

Bigger problem I have with Malenia is she should NOT heal on my shield or at the very least not the normal amount.

I agree, if she didn't heal on my shield, she'd be up in my favorites list.

[SOLOMON]

godskin duo is arguably the wors boss in souls history lmao. duo boss that has zero balancing factors. you have two enemies that can both swing fast in melee, can both gap-close, can both do large aoe attacks, both have decently fast ranged attacks, and the pillars you're supposed to use for LoS can break allowing both enemies to move over top of them if they use the right moves (or just use their ranged attacks over them [or hit you through them with their long reaching melee attacks])

duo bosses can be fun, but they need to have balance. O&S was the perfect example of this. godskin duo is the perfect example of screwing that up royally to just make an annoying fight where you constantly feel like you're being rushed down on top of having an absurd shared healthbar and can resummon whether you kill them both or not until the healthbar is depleted.

[Rord64]

Originally posted by SOLOMON:

godskin duo is arguably the wors boss in souls history lmao. duo boss that has zero balancing factors. you have two enemies that can both swing fast in melee, can both gap-close, can both do large aoe attacks, both have decently fast ranged attacks, and the pillars you're supposed to use for LoS can break allowing both enemies to move over top of them if they use the right moves (or just use their ranged attacks over them [or hit you through them with their long reaching melee attacks])

duo bosses can be fun, but they need to have balance. O&S was the perfect example of this. godskin duo is the perfect example of screwing that up royally to just make an annoying fight where you constantly feel like you're being rushed down on top of having an absurd shared healthbar and can resummon whether you kill them both or not until the healthbar is depleted.

Agreed, they are just terrible.

[Callum]

Best:
1. Morgott. This fight was fun with every build I've played so far. He's particularly satisfying to parry and getting subsequent parries on his counter-attacks is very satisfying, although very risky. Fight this guy at low level for maximum fun.
2. Radagon. Fantastic fight. Fun to parry, fun if not doing a parry build. I'm rating this boss separate to Elden Beast because I really despise that tracking orb that they repurposed from the Four Kings.
3. Godrick. Early fight, but was just cool lol.
4. Rennala. I actually enjoyed this fight, the arena was beautiful. Despite finding Deacons one of the most boring fights in DS3 I somehow liked phase 1 just because of how weird and creepy it was.
5. Malenia. This fight would be in spot no 2 if waterfowl dance didn't punish you so hard for being aggressive. Sadly it forces you to hold back as if you're locked in an animation when she jumps up you're not dodging it without bloodhound step or something. Regardless of all that, fantastic fight.

Worst:
5. Mohg the Omen. I just found this fight really boring.
4. Gargoyle Gank. This was meh.
3. Mohg, Lord of Blood. I found his phase transition really annoying, the rest of the fight was just avoiding lingering piles of blood. It could have been more of an engaging fight imo.
2. Fire Giant. Fighting this guy at RL1 exposed the worst parts of the fight. Really tedious and boring.
1. Godskin Duo. Lazy attempt at recreating O+S without any of the parts that made O+S great.

Honourable Mention:
Maliketh. Really cool fight. I just didn't enjoy the 1st phase that much so that drags it away from the top 5.

[Rord64]

Originally posted by Callum:

Best:
1. Morgott. This fight was fun with every build I've played so far. He's particularly satisfying to parry and getting subsequent parries on his counter-attacks is very satisfying, although very risky. Fight this guy at low level for maximum fun.
2. Radagon. Fantastic fight. Fun to parry, fun if not doing a parry build. I'm rating this boss separate to Elden Beast because I really despise that tracking orb that they repurposed from the Four Kings.
3. Godrick. Early fight, but was just cool lol.
4. Rennala. I actually enjoyed this fight, the arena was beautiful. Despite finding Deacons one of the most boring fights in DS3 I somehow liked phase 1 just because of how weird and creepy it was.
5. Malenia. This fight would be in spot no 2 if waterfowl dance didn't punish you so hard for being aggressive. Sadly it forces you to hold back as if you're locked in an animation when she jumps up you're not dodging it without bloodhound step or something. Regardless of all that, fantastic fight.

Worst:
5. Mohg the Omen. I just found this fight really boring.
4. Gargoyle Gank. This was meh.
3. Mohg, Lord of Blood. I found his phase transition really annoying, the rest of the fight was just avoiding lingering piles of blood. It could have been more of an engaging fight imo.
2. Fire Giant. Fighting this guy at RL1 exposed the worst parts of the fight. Really tedious and boring.
1. Godskin Duo. Lazy attempt at recreating O+S without any of the parts that made O+S great.

Honourable Mention:
Maliketh. Really cool fight. I just didn't enjoy the 1st phase that much so that drags it away from the top 5.

I can definitely see why Mohg is up there. I did him at RL40 the other day and I did not have a single bit of fun.

[willy bammy]

Originally posted by Noeat:

Originally posted by gotti biesch:

Malenia - Remove the unavoidable kill move and she is S tier. Leave it in and it is the most unbalanced thing in Fromsoft history. Nothing kills your fun faster than having a good fight with the boss, then she randomly pops that 1 hit KO that you can't dodge at close range. Funs over, try again. Clearly your fault you lost, right. Very disappointing boss because of that, only because I know she could be perfect

its not unavoidable - YOU didnt avoid it..
check youtube guides and kills (and that combo isnt OHK - iits not ONE HIT, that combo have more hits, not ONE)

Yeah dude let's have this argument again in another unrelated thread, you are so fun to talk to

[Thebigmob]

BEST:
Elemer, Rennala and Placidusax

Really fun and balanced fights like the other ds games

Worst:
Godskin Duo. because u know why
Firegiant. what the ♥♥♥♥ was that

I mean the rest of all the bosses are just boring mixes between massive aoe, onehit mechanics (that are fkn boring) and the same bosses again and again and again.
I honestly dont know what they smoked on some of these

[Enderspoons]

Of all the fights in the game, my favorite so far is, ironically enough, Elden Beast -- if and only if you buff up with Lord's Divine Protection and are packing a Jar Cannon +10. Everything packed? Good. This fight becomes a literal blast when fighting under these conditions.

Crucible Knight is also a fun Black Knight expy. The cheap tail shot of the tail whip variant is less than stellar (I would prefer not being exposed to cheap shots that have a 1 second window to see, react, press and release dodge/block, and wait for input delay), but his base attacks are fine enough, and the winged valkyrie move he pulls out for 2nd phase gives me a nice breather to get a free hit in when I'm nearing victory.


As much as input reading can be a cheap shot, what I will forever hold disdain for are the bosses that can't even commit to the heal punish bit consistently. Radagon's tendency to do nothing when you heal 30% of the time just adds insult to injury when he decides to hit you the other 70% of the time.

[Kyutaru]

Best:

1. Malenia
- The things that make people rage are merely what give her the edge of being threatening. There are a multitude of builds that can face her despite being the toughest fight in the game for most people. In fact, the fact that any build can handle her in some way is what gives her a preference spot over all other fights. She has no mechanics that deny particular builds or make them less viable, only requires different timings for each. She's humanoid and can be both staggered and parried, favors no particular damage type, CAN be poisoned, can be SOLOED by a mimic summon for the truly trash players out there, and can be defeated at lvl 1 because her attacks are entirely no hit avoidable without random chaotic off-screen nonsense like some bosses.

2. Godrick
- Besides the cool presentation and boss transform, he's a reasonably challenging battle for this stage of the game with tremendous amounts of AOE death and reason to capitalize on the terrain for protection -- which is a freaking gravyard, yeah totally not a sign of how deadly he can be.

3. Radagon
- Epic, Epic, Epic. Kind of over the top in some areas but really feels like felling a god.

4. Twin Gargoyles
- Now here's a duo I can respect, none of this resurrecting each other crap, just pure brutal and punishing duo wreckage. The windows of opportunity to attack or survive are slim but they don't require specific setups for punishment. Just need to end things quickly before the poison becomes too much to handle.

5. Maliketh
- Pretty nice sword ya got there buddy. It's infuriatingly deadly but not to the point of being unfair. I know I screwed up, so kudos. He's even got the big reveal and that transformation pose is Desktop Wallpaper worthy.

Worst:
1. Fire Giant
- Stared at his nutsack the entire battle.

2. Crystallian trio
- While not hard, it's kind of stupid. Who invented this enemy's shield mechanic? Three of anything that hits this hard is just artificial difficulty because of how unpredictable the timing windows become.

3. Fallingstar Beast
- Hyper aggressive giant boss that can't be staggered with crazy movement speed and stupid levels of AOE damage that can hit you even through a dodge. Some of the mounted knights have similar levels of BS movesets and stagger resistance.

4. Ulcerated Tree Spirit
- What even is this thing? It has no discernable body parts and moves in a choatic fashion because of that while attacking from off-screen for everything. You spend most of the time inside its hitbox.

5. Godskin Duo
- This feels more like a World of Warcraft fight. You have to kill both at the same time or the fight becomes that much harder.

[Rord64]

Originally posted by Kyutaru:

Best:

1. Malenia
- The things that make people rage are merely what give her the edge of being threatening. There are a multitude of builds that can face her despite being the toughest fight in the game for most people. In fact, the fact that any build can handle her in some way is what gives her a preference spot over all other fights. She has no mechanics that deny particular builds or make them less viable, only requires different timings for each. She's humanoid and can be both staggered and parried, favors no particular damage type, CAN be poisoned, can be SOLOED by a mimic summon for the truly trash players out there, and can be defeated at lvl 1 because her attacks are entirely no hit avoidable without random chaotic off-screen nonsense like some bosses.

2. Godrick
- Besides the cool presentation and boss transform, he's a reasonably challenging battle for this stage of the game with tremendous amounts of AOE death and reason to capitalize on the terrain for protection -- which is a freaking gravyard, yeah totally not a sign of how deadly he can be.

3. Radagon
- Epic, Epic, Epic. Kind of over the top in some areas but really feels like felling a god.

4. Twin Gargoyles
- Now here's a duo I can respect, none of this resurrecting each other crap, just pure brutal and punishing duo wreckage. The windows of opportunity to attack or survive are slim but they don't require specific setups for punishment. Just need to end things quickly before the poison becomes too much to handle.

5. Maliketh
- Pretty nice sword ya got there buddy. It's infuriatingly deadly but not to the point of being unfair. I know I screwed up, so kudos. He's even got the big reveal and that transformation pose is Desktop Wallpaper worthy.

Worst:
1. Fire Giant
- Stared at his nutsack the entire battle.

2. Crystallian trio
- While not hard, it's kind of stupid. Who invented this enemy's shield mechanic? Three of anything that hits this hard is just artificial difficulty because of how unpredictable the timing windows become.

3. Fallingstar Beast
- Hyper aggressive giant boss that can't be staggered with crazy movement speed and stupid levels of AOE damage that can hit you even through a dodge. Some of the mounted knights have similar levels of BS movesets and stagger resistance.

4. Ulcerated Tree Spirit
- What even is this thing? It has no discernable body parts and moves in a choatic fashion because of that while attacking from off-screen for everything. You spend most of the time inside its hitbox.

5. Godskin Duo
- This feels more like a World of Warcraft fight. You have to kill both at the same time or the fight becomes that much harder.

Now that you mention it, it does feel like a WoW fight

[KingKangIV]

Best:
Malenia
Godfrey
Radagon
Placidusax
Elden Beast
Margit
Fire Giant
Maliketh
Worst:
By far and wide fallingstar beast in selia crystal cave. Look, I like falling star a lot, although I wish the full grown one had another moveset to separate it from a non full grown one, but the selia boss is lazy as ♥♥♥♥. The arena is reused and not fun to fight this thing in and is my main problem. It also is supposed to be a fallingstar that fell long ago and is being mined up for some reason yet it isnt full grown compared to one on top of the mountain.
Godskin Duo only because I can't understand the lore for it. Mechanically it is ass, but lore wise the two are weird. They don't even seem to actually "exist" as they are getting summoned by something else. You can tell this because when both die at the same time the signet of the god slayers appears from nowhere and the apostel is summoned and the apostel summons nobels. Strangely there is an npc with heavily promoted armor wielding a sealed sword that holds the source of the godskins power so they might have been summons. But damn, they suck ass.
All but the dragonlord dragon fights sucked imo as well. I want a midir level dragon that uses it's size and speed as a threat. The dragons are just to slow, even the dragon lord imo.

[Bagg Boy (formerly Smoke)]

Best:
1. Morgott: Easily the best boss in this whole game, for obvious reasons.
2. Godrick: What a first major boss should be.
3. Rykard: The best gimmick fight in the series. Rykard is actually a threat to the player.
HM. Fire Giant (Phase 1): This is what should be the baseline for all giant fights going forward. It was extremely satisfying to dodge his attacks and nothing he did felt unfair.

Worst:
1. Godskin Duo: Putting two really quick bosses in a tiny arena together with no way of actually breaking up their aggro is not good design. The worst part? It's required.
2. Alecto, Black Knife Ringleader: These enemies are bad enough on their own, but giving them access to some of Maliketh's moves is downright cruel.
3. Misbegotten Warrior + Crucible Knight: Thank god this fight is optional.
DHM. Fire Giant (Phase 2): How to ruin a good boss.