Erlang fight is very unfun.

[Kligan]

Let the "skill issue" spam in the comments commence.

Yes, the fight is difficult. But for all the wrong reasons.
He delays all of his attacks and just hangs mid-animation, then completes the attack in 4-6 frames. This is annoying as hell.
He interrupts heavy attack discharge animations. Forget about 4-points smash finisher. Or just randomly decides to "matrix" instant thrust 4-combo discharge after backstep, nullifying thosands of damage completely. Even when I'm delibetately trying to catch him in the middle of his attacks. This is annoying.
His "dogs" and after-image swords that stagger the player even after dodging his delayed attacks. Or the sockwave from random AOE attacks that will still do damage even if dodged. This is annoying.
Unlike any other boss in the game he can just pull the player from the light attack finisher animation and do his "grab", magnetizing the monkey to his spear. This is annoying.
He can pull the player from transfomations. The tiger strike is easily dodgeable, but he sometimes somehow does this even without the tiger. This is annoying!
And spells don't work on him past phase 1. Which is a bit annoying, but whatever. At least he still falls for a decoy from cloudstep and can be unveiled onto if he's in the middle of animation.

Overall, the Erlang fight is extremely annoying.
Every single other boss fight in the game was fun to various degrees. Some are very cool indeed - I especially liked the Yin Tiger and Yellow Loong fights. But man... this one... it's the only boss in the game I didn't like. And fighting him was irritating all the way through.

[Shard of Manus]

The fight is very fun, you just don't seem to care about learning how to fight him.

If you want to just stand there and spam spells and combos and expect him to just eat all of them, create a new playthrough and only play the first few chapters every time then quit and restart.

The entire game the bosses gradually start to counter your moves and make you adjust to their style - that's one of the main reasons you can respec your skills at any time.

Erlang is an excellent fight and extremely well designed.

He doesn't delay every attack, and all of his moves are really well telegraphed. For his sword throws you can use the staff spin to block his barrage, or otherwise just simply dodge when he fires just one or three.

Use your charged attacks when he is staggered. He dodges these purposefully, you are supposed to actually create an opening and then use them.

NONE of his attacks damage you if you actually time your dodge properly.

[Mikebeez]

Originally posted by Kligan:

Originally posted by Mikebeez:

Steps to downing Erlang-

ground phase 1- Use rock transformation, use the charged ram attack it has. he does not take you out of this transformation and it get's his shield/hp down quite a bit.

Well this one is really a skill issue. Because I started playing the game on a controller, and realized too late that casting spells in MnK would've been way easier and faster.
I actuallly don't like playing on a controller. And the fact that I need to hold RT and then press a face button to activate a spell makes it so that I simply cannot use reactive spells, like rock solid, properly. It requires precise timing to counter specific attacks.
So instead I'm just sticking with cloud step as a way to avoid some massive attacks and have a second to drink from gourd.

Just making sure, I'm not talking about Rock Solid. I'm talking about the transformation spell yaoguai rock you turn in to (I forgot the name) to spam it's charge heavy attack.

[thorin.hannahs]

You could just use stuff that breaks rules.

The Fan can stun lock him and drain his deflect meter to zero. You can use Azure Dust to do the same thing and he doesn't seem to try to negate that transformation like the others.

You can catch him with the frog god spirit to do a ton of damage and then he will retaliate by imbuing his weapon with a bane if you happened to frog into a bane, this can be interrupted with the Ch2 vessel so he gets no retaliation.

Whenever he uses 1000 swords of death just cloud step and he will whiff everything and you can get a free hit in.

You could go ungabunga spellbinder to get a ton of damage in as he will eat your immobilize even if it is the parry version and as stated above most transformations a single hit will take you out of it.

His most annoying sequence for me was when he wanted to use the axe those slow ballerina swings always messed me up. He doesn't seem to retaliate against successful Resolute Strikes but the second heavy doesn't seem to do any thing so I'd save the focus point unless you need the heal.

I didn't mind banging my head against the wall so I didn't use the fan or dust strat and no spellbinder meant I could cloud step as much as was needed.

[Kligan]

Originally posted by thorin.hannahs:

I didn't mind banging my head against the wall so I didn't use the fan or dust strat and no spellbinder meant I could cloud step as much as was needed.

Nah, I don't mind too, it's just I find this particular fight to be full of irritating mechanics, as I said already.
I have nothing against trying over and over again - that's totally fine by me. Again, as I said, Yin Tiger and Yellow Loong are pretty challenging. But those are my favorite fight in the entire game, they were super cool.
Erlang I didn't enjoy at all.

[thorin.hannahs]

Originally posted by Kligan:

Originally posted by thorin.hannahs:

I didn't mind banging my head against the wall so I didn't use the fan or dust strat and no spellbinder meant I could cloud step as much as was needed.

Nah, I don't mind too, it's just I find this particular fight to be full of irritating mechanics, as I said already.
I have nothing against trying over and over again - that's totally fine by me. Again, as I said, Yin Tiger and Yellow Loong are pretty challengig. But those are my favorite fight in the entire game, they were super cool.
Erlang I didn't enjoy at all.

That is a take. I just see Secret Dudeman as an amped up Yellow Loong.

[Kligan]

Originally posted by thorin.hannahs:

That is a take. I just see Secret Dudeman as an amped up Yellow Loong.

The difference between Erlang and Yellow Loong is that Erlang changes his attack animation speed mid swing. He starts the swing, then holds it, then at some point releases it in 4 to 6 frames (I checked out of curiosity on a replay).
I know that it is done deliberately to throw you off. But my personal issue is that the only way to deal with it is to remember how much he delays each attack in different combos.
I find such artificial difficultly to be annoying. In my personal opinion any combat is much more fun if it's reactive, instead of pattern learning by basing your skull on the wall.
I am also aware that there is a huge number of "souls" fans for whom such thing is a regular occurrence.
However, up until Erlang, BM Wukong didn't step down to this level of artificially inflating difficulty of an encounter. And that, along with other things that I pointed out in this thread, is why I think that this fight is an outlier.

I have nothing else to add, so y'all can continue posting all the variations of "skill issue" 🙂

[Peek]

Erlang took me 20+ attempts but Yellow Loong took me close to 50 attempts. Could be because I was under leveled and under geared when I was attempting Yellow Loong, can't wait to smack him n NG+.

[thorin.hannahs]

Originally posted by Kligan:

Originally posted by thorin.hannahs:

That is a take. I just see Secret Dudeman as an amped up Yellow Loong.

The difference between Erlang and Yellow Loong is that Erlang changes his attack animation speed mid swing. He starts the swing, then holds it, then at some point releases it in 4 to 6 frames (I checked out of curiosity on a replay).
I know that it is done deliberately to throw you off. But my personal issue is that the only way to deal with it is to remember how much he delays each attack in different combos.
I find such artificial difficultly to be annoying. In my personal opinion any combat is much more fun if it's reactive, instead of pattern learning by basing your skull on the wall.
I am also aware that there is a huge number of "souls" fans for whom such thing is a regular occurrence.
However, up until Erlang, BM Wukong didn't step down to this level of artificially inflating difficulty of an encounter. And that, along with other things that I pointed out in this thread, is why I think that this fight is an outlier.

I have nothing else to add, so y'all can continue posting all the variations of "skill issue" 🙂

Hey, alright.

[chris]

i also find the fight very unfair and demotivating... it's a waste that you are prevented from getting ahead here

[AILAD]

He delays all of his attacks and just hangs mid-animation, then completes the attack in 4-6 frames. This is annoying as hell.

I'm really starting to get sick of these sort of attacks.

Enemy raises their arm, freezes for some time, then smacks you at the speed of light. And you gotta sit there and memorize the timing through trial and error. It's so boring.

[Kligan]

Originally posted by RevelationSpace:

I'm really starting to get sick of these sort of attacks.

Enemy raises their arm, freezes for some time, then smacks you at the speed of light. And you gotta sit there and memorize the timing through trial and error. It's so boring.

Yup

[Grimlock]

Have you considered:

Golden Embroidered Set 4/4 and Plantain Fan for you Vessel. ?

With a certain approach you can render Erlang harmless.

[Deathwing1306]

You know, it's a non souls-like game with a lot of souls-like things in it. Delayed attacks and then super fast smack is one of them, you are supposed to figure out the timings by just patiently learning the fight.

Spells work, but you have to figure out when to use them, I often use Immobilize to bait his counter Immobilize, while he is charging the Immobilize, I smack him few times, dodge and smack him few times again, I can get many free hits and maybe even stagger out of it so even if the spell doesn't work how it's supposed to work, you can make it work in some other way as well.

[Salty 13itch]

Originally posted by Kligan:

Let the "skill issue" spam in the comments commence.

Yes, the fight is difficult. But for all the wrong reasons.
He delays all of his attacks and just hangs mid-animation, then completes the attack in 4-6 frames. This is annoying as hell.
He interrupts heavy attack discharge animations. Forget about 4-points smash finisher. Or just randomly decides to "matrix" instant thrust 4-combo discharge after backstep, nullifying thosands of damage completely. Even when I'm delibetately trying to catch him in the middle of his attacks. This is annoying.
His "dogs" and after-image swords that stagger the player even after dodging his delayed attacks. Or the sockwave from random AOE attacks that will still do damage even if dodged. This is annoying.
Unlike any other boss in the game he can just pull the player from the light attack finisher animation and do his "grab", magnetizing the monkey to his spear. This is annoying.
He can pull the player from transfomations. The tiger strike is easily dodgeable, but he sometimes somehow does this even without the tiger. This is annoying!
And spells don't work on him past phase 1. Which is a bit annoying, but whatever. At least he still falls for a decoy from cloudstep and can be unveiled onto if he's in the middle of animation.

Overall, the Erlang fight is extremely annoying.
Every single other boss fight in the game was fun to various degrees. Some are very cool indeed - I especially liked the Yin Tiger and Yellow Loong fights. But man... this one... it's the only boss in the game I didn't like. And fighting him was irritating all the way through.

sorry... don't get too down the global cheevie tells you not many ppl on here have beat him. lol.

[SHINRA-CORP]

I have to agree with OP he swings fast then slows down then speeds up again all in the same long combo.

I found the sage to be a much more enjoyable fight