Thoughts on Divine Beast Dancing Lion and Rellana.

[Bizarre Lad]

The Beast boss was pretty fun ngl and took me 29 tries, got lucky because he didn't activate his random elemental attack thing and stuck to the wind stage. I love the design and it was refreshing that the boss had actual openings compared to some other bosses in the base game (looking at you Maliketh and Godfrey). Overall, I like this boss even if it had some really aggressive attacks, but atleast it didn't have 5-7 hit combo.

I was scared of Rellana because of people saying she's basically Malenia 2.0 and to that I say "partially true". She chains many hits together and are really hard to dodge just in time. One thing is that Rellana doesn't easily stagger like Malenia and requires multiple charged attacks to get her to be staggered. Rellana does have a couple of tough moves, but nothing like Malenia's waterfowl attack except for maybe the twin moons attack where she flies up in the air and pounds two moons to the ground and herself to create arena-sized shockwaves that deal insane damage and if you don't time the jumps right you will most likely die. I still haven't beat Malenia yet because of phase 2 and that's also another reason why Rellana is easier, she doesn't have a second healthbar! It took me 19 tries to beat Rellana, but my god was she aggressive! Maybe if I played a build that wasn't strength based then I assume it'd be harder.

What are your thoughts on these two bosses?

[Bizarre Lad]

Originally posted by Terrifying Turnip:

Colossal weapons trivialize Rellana. One of my gripes about the DLC bosses is that the experience varies significantly between playstyles. A caster build might have a hard time with everything while a greatshield poke build can cruise through at scadu 5 and beat the whole DLC without breaking a sweat.

I mean, I used Maliketh's black blade without any shields and she still gave me quite the trouble. I did see some streamers like Asmongold use the heavy armor with the greatshield and a pokey weapon which quite literally made the game easy as all you do is block, attack and repeat!

[Dam Stark]

I hadnt played the game for a long time so rellana took me awhile, shes a great boss to get the rust off. Very elegant dance. The divine beast was kinda frantic for a first boss, I beat it without learning most of the patterns but i enjoyed the second fight with the other divine beast a lot more, having to deal with those horrible mobs added tension to the fight imo.

[ParkayDud]

First boss was a pain that killed me and was tricky to dodge that I actually had to summon an NPC phantom. Rellana wasn't as tricky. Then I find out that using the scadutree blessings can make them more manageable as well as learning to actually dodge and "git gud." And I can't even see how "git gud" is a problem if I'm not actually bothering to learn how a fight works.

All that said, the camera with the lion can still be a pain but that's to be expected at any point with these games when there's a certain area.

[speds👃]

Divine beast was ruined by the camera. Rellana was fun aside from waiting for her to finish her 50 hit combos, no bs moves but im not trying to wait an hour for her to finish attacking.
Messmer was the only outstanding fight of the dlc, no issues, no bs moves yet still challenging.

[Twisty]

The second Dancing Lion fight I found tedious. Basilisks and his constant switching of elements. Still a fun fight though.

[Sgt. Flaw]

Rellana is DLC Goated so far...Messmers overrated...his first phase is irritating..second phase is awesome tho

Hippo was fun af too

also that little ninja misbegotten boss was amazing

[Sc0rpiTr0n]

I liked both.

I had problems with camera at Lion until I realized it is because
of my poor awareness of surroundings, arena.

I let few times to be backed into corner or near wall and
camera is utterly lethal in these situations.

After that I was mindful to stay closer to center of arena
and camera was no longer an issue.

I also tend to use ranged Ashes of War liberally in his lightning
and frost phase instead of waiting for opportunity for melee.

Rellana is very aggressive and does a lot of damage
but buffing magic resistance and dodging towards her lessens her damage potential.

I bullied her with Keen Godskin Stitcher with Piercing Fang AoW.
Easy to break her stance.

I believe any piercing weapon with Impaling Thrust would suffice.
Provided you level up some Scadutrees of course.

I like Rellana for nostalgic reasons as well because she is
very similar to Pontiff from Dark Souls III.

[Sgt. Flaw]

Originally posted by Sc0rpiTr0n:

I liked both.

I had problems with camera at Lion until I realized it is because
of my poor awareness of surroundings, arena.

I let few times to be backed into corner or near wall and
camera is utterly lethal in these situations.

After that I was mindful to stay closer to center of arena
and camera was no longer an issue.

I also tend to use ranged Ashes of War liberally in his lightning
and frost phase instead of waiting for opportunity for melee.

Rellana is very aggressive and does a lot of damage
but buffing magic resistance and dodging towards her lessens her damage potential.

I bullied her with Keen Godskin Stitcher with Piercing Fang AoW.
Easy to break her stance.

I believe any piercing weapon with Impaling Thrust would suffice.
Provided you level up some Scadutrees of course.

I like Rellana for nostalgic reasons as well because she is
very similar to Pontiff from Dark Souls III.

Def. got Pontiff vibes from her and half expected a split from her during her second phase..

But yea...once I started rolling into her swings and, more importantly, toward her I went from failing to going uphill quick...also learning not to try and roll through her first moonviel arc as that moveset at 2 blessings is game over...her moon attack everyone calls cheap...easy and punishable

[Zoid13]

divine beast is a cool boss. camera sucks a big one in that fight tho.

rellana is awesome fun imo. with some defensive buffs the game provides she turns from a scary boss to a very very easy and fun boss.
it GREATLY reduces the damage of getting hit by her even without scadu levels or a shield and you can take 4-5 hits before death instead of the 1-2 shot. it allows for a lot more mistakes

[Sgt. Flaw]

Originally posted by Zoid13:

divine beast is a cool boss. camera sucks a big one in that fight tho.

rellana is awesome fun imo. with some defensive buffs the game provides she turns from a scary boss to a very very easy and fun boss.
it GREATLY reduces the damage of getting hit by her even without scadu levels or a shield and you can take 4-5 hits before death instead of the 1-2 shot. it allows for a lot more mistakes

Oh her second phase will ♥♥♥♥ on you hard..she's no joke no blessings...hippos easier

I really do t think she was easy until you start talking about Messmer

[Anatolius]

Dancing Lion looks cool, but fighting him is frustrating.
Rellana looks okay, but her leeeeeenghty combos gets old quick because everything else about her save for her damage basically screams "MINI BOSS" to me. Twin moon looks cool, but plays - you either know how to dodge or die...

[Todd Howard]

Originally posted by Zoid13:

divine beast is a cool boss. camera sucks a big one in that fight tho.

rellana is awesome fun imo. with some defensive buffs the game provides she turns from a scary boss to a very very easy and fun boss.
it GREATLY reduces the damage of getting hit by her even without scadu levels or a shield and you can take 4-5 hits before death instead of the 1-2 shot. it allows for a lot more mistakes

Stop hard locking onto the boss

[Zoid13]

Originally posted by Talisman:

Originally posted by Zoid13:

divine beast is a cool boss. camera sucks a big one in that fight tho.

rellana is awesome fun imo. with some defensive buffs the game provides she turns from a scary boss to a very very easy and fun boss.
it GREATLY reduces the damage of getting hit by her even without scadu levels or a shield and you can take 4-5 hits before death instead of the 1-2 shot. it allows for a lot more mistakes

Stop hard locking onto the boss

oh i do. precisley because the lock on camera is garbage most of the time.
i play most of the game without lock on. makes it easy to just run up to enemies quickly duck behind them and backstab lol
i play with raptor talons and the miserecorde dagger.

Bayle is another great example. the game only gives you 1 lock in point... his face. trying to fight him infront of his face is madness. so easy to just run around him and hit him in his sides while avoiding everything lol

all that said it doesn't make my statement of the camera sucking any different. because it does lol

i just wish you could zoom out further so when your fighting massive enemies you aren't staring at a foot / knee / wall of skin for the whole fight.

[Todd Howard]

Originally posted by Zoid13:

Originally posted by Talisman:

Stop hard locking onto the boss

oh i do. precisley because the lock on camera is garbage most of the time.
i play most of the game without lock on. makes it easy to just run up to enemies quickly duck behind them and backstab lol
i play with raptor talons and the miserecorde dagger.

Bayle is another great example. the game only gives you 1 lock in point... his face. trying to fight him infront of his face is madness. so easy to just run around him and hit him in his sides while avoiding everything lol

Players are never meant to hard lock to any boss with a few exceptions. The camera wasn't designed for the player to hard lock the entirety of boss battles. You can still do it and it works fine, but that's the reason why your camera is acting up.

[Todd Howard]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoQuiVphljs
Points of interest:
29:50 (hard lock for a heavy parry boss/humanoid)
48:19
1:03:17
1:17:39 (hardlock for parry/humanoid)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0WlFd7vHtk
Hard locking restricts your ability to roll and hinders your ability to sidestep, which impedes your movement. DS1's directional rolling lacked the DS3's smoothness, therefore it was crucial not to use camera lock for much better mobility. This also applied to Bloodborne and DS2. Sadly, DS3 caused a lot of players to develop the poor habit of never disengaging the camera since they completely changed the camera. That explains why so many players attribute the problem to a defective camera is mainly due to terrible camera management
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO3wRm_iAn4