Enemy Variety

[Mystical Spork]

I haven't played a Souls game since original Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition on PS3 and this is going to be first time returning to a FromSoft game since I sort of missed out on the previous Souls games that I also plan on getting.

But back to the topic at hand, this game is very highly acclaimed by fans and critics alike, so I wanted to known how FromSoft's formula improved and what is the scope of the enemy variety within this game compared to previous games?

Will I be encountering the same types of mobs or are there more varied encounters within this game with more different types?

[Lorska]

There's actually quite a large variety with specific themes you could call it.
You will find a lot of "knight" or soldier type enemies throughout but even within that class there are distinct varieties based on the faction.
Other enemies go from simple designs with slight upgrades (like the basic goblin type enemies) to pretty wild abominations.

I would almost say the enemy variety got a little out of hand, there's so many attack combos, attacks, dodge and parry windows to learn that it's way easier to just overpower the enemies instead of learning their movesets.
That's especially true because you can just skip (read: run past) the vast majority of enemies.

There are some areas that are a bit lacking in enemy variety compared to others, mostly the later ones but it's still enough to not get boring.
I should note though that this variety is kind of moot in the smaller dungeons where you'll fight the same enemies with upscaled stats the whole game. The over world and legacy dungeons are vastly superior in that regard.

[Mystical Spork]

Originally posted by Lorska:

There's actually quite a large variety with specific themes you could call it.
You will find a lot of "knight" or soldier type enemies throughout but even within that class there are distinct varieties based on the faction.
Other enemies go from simple designs with slight upgrades (like the basic goblin type enemies) to pretty wild abominations.

I would almost say the enemy variety got a little out of hand, there's so many attack combos, attacks, dodge and parry windows to learn that it's way easier to just overpower the enemies instead of learning their movesets.
That's especially true because you can just skip (read: run past) the vast majority of enemies.

There are some areas that are a bit lacking in enemy variety compared to others, mostly the later ones but it's still enough to not get boring.
I should note though that this variety is kind of moot in the smaller dungeons where you'll fight the same enemies with upscaled stats the whole game. The over world and legacy dungeons are vastly superior in that regard.

I saw a pretty funny greentext meme about how Elden Ring bosses have long wind-up animations before doing attacks and they usually delay them a bit to catch the player off guard or have them make a mistake with the timing and they end up getting hit because the attacks sweep around and have huge hitbox, is this true or is it exaggerated what I'm explaining?

I know the last boss I fought which I really hated and his attacks tracked me was Manus of the Abyss. I remember struggling pretty badly against him when I fought him in DS1 and I'm just wondering how many bosses in the game are just like him?

[Lorska]

Originally posted by Mystical Spork:

I saw a pretty funny greentext meme about how Elden Ring bosses have long wind-up animations before doing attacks and they usually delay them a bit to catch the player off guard or have them make a mistake with the timing and they end up getting hit because the attacks sweep around and have huge hitbox, is this true or is it exaggerated what I'm explaining?

I know the last boss I fought which I really hated and his attacks tracked me was Manus of the Abyss. I remember struggling pretty badly against him when I fought him in DS1 and I'm just wondering how many bosses in the game are just like him?

Yes because people got way too good at reflex dodging they changed their approach. Bosses have a lot more attacks and they will actively fake you out so you will get hit if you just dodge when you see an attack wind up. So you'll have to learn a lot more attacks that sometimes only have subtle differences.

Or you just brute force fights which works until you can't really out scale the bosses anymore because their damage and health pools get too large. That only applies to a few of them though, so if you pick up some armor and have your flask upgraded you can trade for the vast majority of boss fights.

[Mystical Spork]

Originally posted by Lorska:

Originally posted by Mystical Spork:

I saw a pretty funny greentext meme about how Elden Ring bosses have long wind-up animations before doing attacks and they usually delay them a bit to catch the player off guard or have them make a mistake with the timing and they end up getting hit because the attacks sweep around and have huge hitbox, is this true or is it exaggerated what I'm explaining?

I know the last boss I fought which I really hated and his attacks tracked me was Manus of the Abyss. I remember struggling pretty badly against him when I fought him in DS1 and I'm just wondering how many bosses in the game are just like him?

Yes because people got way too good at reflex dodging they changed their approach. Bosses have a lot more attacks and they will actively fake you out so you will get hit if you just dodge when you see an attack wind up. So you'll have to learn a lot more attacks that sometimes only have subtle differences.

Or you just brute force fights which works until you can't really out scale the bosses anymore because their damage and health pools get too large. That only applies to a few of them though, so if you pick up some armor and have your flask upgraded you can trade for the vast majority of boss fights.

Any chance to stagger any of them if you're strong enough or have a strong weapon?

[Lorska]

You can stagger and riposte pretty much every enemy but you'll generally want to build around it if that's what you wanna do.
Prepare to use a lot of charged or jumping attacks in that case, or a weapon skill that deals a lot of stance damage.

Edit:
Fist weapons (big balls in particular) have crazy stance damage on charge attacks for example and because jumping attacks are fast even with giant weapons (even when dual wielding) you can quickly break enemies and sometimes completely cheese them by stunning them in a loop.