[SPOILERS] Thoughts on the Boss Design

[Haru]

I've now finished every single boss in the DLC. Solo and without spirit ash assistance, my preference for a first play through. Here are some quick, spoiler filled thoughts on every major boss in the game. I fought every boss with a high faith build, piercing sword and shield. Maxed out by Scadutree as I progressed via exploration.

Dancing Lion - Good intro to the DLC. Teaches the player to adapt. Good time to think about damage mitigation.

Rellana - Lots of attack variety, can be shield charged - likely parried. Phase one was fine. Phase two had so much extra that no matter how I dodged or blocked, getting clipped by large amounts of damage seemed unavoidable. Not a fan.

Golden Hippo - Camera sucks. Massive amount of HP.

Putrescant Knight - Boss room seems designed for Torrent. Boss is on a horse. Make it make sense. I jumped through the air doing odd pirouettes to avoid the AoE attacks, looking like a right clown. Was alright. Holy damage was super effective. Two problems with this boss that should be fixed: NPC summon should not be inside the boss room, and co-op players should be teleported in at the start of the fight.

Messmer - By far the best designed boss of this DLC, with highly punishable moves, consistent move sets, etc.

Commander Gaius - I fought this boss on Torrent. I know it's doable on the ground and I've seen people do it but it doesn't look that engaging. No problems here really.

Scadu Tree Avatar - eh. It's alright. Massive glaring weak point and all that jazz.

Lord of Frenzied Flame -Extremely disappointing area with a mediocre boss. Felt tacked on.

Metyr, Mother of Fingers - Very weird lore implications. Upjumped Rom the Vacuous Spider. I don't like this fight. Only constructive complaint is that the invisible walls in the boss room are asinine and stupid.

Romina Saint of the Bud - Feels tacked on. Many folks complain about the bosses being overtuned. I'd argue this boss is so undertuned that it was placed in at the last possible minute. Genuinely feels lazy by Fromsoft standards.

Bael - A pretty damned good and fair fight. Lots of obvious tells. Glaring weak spots. Not too many damage types to mitigate or work through. Satisfying to slay. Only usual complain is large boss room + Fromsoft camera. Summon sign for NPC SHOULD be outside of the boss room.

Promised Consort Radahn - Genuinely did not enjoy this. The only option with my build was opting for parrying, something I never do in these games, because I'm not good at it. Thankfully, he's very easy to parry. Holy damage barely touches him in phase two. I understand that this is the final fight of the DLC and likely this particular game but the following things are irksome:

- Miquella's hair adds too much clutter.

- Too many global AoEs.

- Lots of random abilities or choices the AI makes, like doing the Redmane Jump twice instead of once, extremely randomly, at random times. Most of the time initiating the fight with the same attack but often just randomly deciding to opt for something else with no rhyme or reason.

- Miquella grab is entirely fair. But the item used to mitigate it seems pointless, as it's very easy to dodge. Item utility seems mostly worthless.

- Phase 2 gravity bombardment is where I put my controller down if I got clipped by it. Can dodge the balls, block the attacks, but final part of the combo either results in three ways:

1. I get hit twice

2. I get clipped once

3. My posture is broken by that point and I die instantly

- If you crit the boss into phase 2, it will not TP you to the starting point after the cutscene. This will be a huge disadvantage for anyone wanting to stay close to the boss and feels bugged out.

- After some frustration, I decided to see how summons work in this encounter. Do NOT summon NPCs for this fight - IMO. It is not harder because of the health scaling. It's harder because those NPCs do nothing useful. The boss will largely ignore them and they will spend half the fight chasing the boss. Spirit Ashes are more useful, and definetly lower the difficulty, but they will die into Phase 2. Tested on various +10 ashes.

- Final thoughts is that the boss is more frustrating than fun and this is mostly because of the constant holy spam during and after every attack. It's visually imparing along with Miquella's hair, and feels like artifical difficulty.

Mostly enjoyed the DLC! Definetly worth the price. I feel like some technical tweaks are needed, but I think the difficulty level is fine if people play and plan accordingly. The last boss feels more designed for streamers and people who upload challenge runs than it does the general player. It left a bad taste in my mouth. I don't think it needs a nerf but I do not like design philosophy behind it.

Hope you all have a good time!

[Agoraphobic Meep]

Damn, what made you not like midra? That was one of my favorite fights in the DLC. His moveset was fun to learn, if not a bit slow, his theme ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ slapped, and the grimy atmosphere of fighting this half-dead, gutted madman felt awesome.

He was pretty tanky for me though since I was using a fire sword, did he just die too fast for you or something?

[Haru]

Originally posted by Agoraphobic Meep:

Damn, what made you not like midra? That was one of my favorite fights in the DLC. His moveset was fun to learn, if not a bit slow, his theme ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ slapped, and the grimy atmosphere of fighting this half-dead, gutted madman felt awesome.

He was pretty tanky for me though since I was using a fire sword, did he just die too fast for you or something?

Thought the entire area prior to him was quite disappointing. I get what they were trying to do but it felt tacked on, as if they just wanted Frenzied Flame stuff in there for the sake of there being Frenzied Flame stuff. The lore of that area feels a bit blatant but also tacked on too, but I'll look forward to seeing how Tarnished Archeologist or someone picks it apart.

(there's only like two items in that entire massive area)

The fight itself felt kind of like I was fighting a Dark Souls 2 mini-boss. Maybe it's the lack of a proper phase two in the fight. I mean I get it. He's a guy that failed to rise to the position of lord, but still has the potential to be an Elden Lord of Frenzied Flame, or something.

Fight generally just wasn't memorable. But I'd place him above Metyr on a tier list.