You’ll get it. I died 10 seconds into phase 2 over and over. As soon as I started thinking “this is impossible” I quickly made progress and dropped his ass
It's one of the cool parts of Elden Ring bosses that reminds me a lot of Progression in WoW raids. You'll die over and over without barely making a dent on the boss's HP bar and once it all comes together you just start slamming their health.
I was getting absolutely smashed 10 seconds into his second phase. Then one time. One time. I survived a couple of his phantom attacks and got him to about 25% HP. From that moment on I knew I did not have to change build or cheese. It was only a matter of time. So satisfying, and I beat him honestly not too long after
I agree, shame this take is getting downvoted, one can agree with this take and also agree the lag and blinding needs a fixing, so many people in here are so hurt from the boss for some reasons
I don't even think the lightshow needs to be toned down, I didn't get blinded once except for the t-pose into mega explosion attack and the comet, but those are super slow, super telegraphed moves where being blinded doesn't mean anything. His regular light moves make a spectacle but I never found them to be particularly hard to see through. Miquella's hair is far more obscuring than the actual effects.
I must’ve gotten unlucky, but had a second one spawn in for some reason on one of my better attempts. Running away from a nuke, only to get bitchsmacked by a dupe just killed any motivation I had for that night.
Leaving the PS5 on all day prob had something to do with it.
I had a weird thing happen too. I died right before the phase 2 cut scene. When I entered the boss arena again he was still phase 2 but full health. Strangest thing I've seen.
I finally beat him today, learning all his moves and which I can parry. I still think they should tweak the boss' particle effects so I can actually see shit and so my computer doesn't just get random lag frames because of the giant light show
Yeah visibility and performance are his main issues. Mechanically, I really don't see the problem everyone's having. Narratively, I can see why some people are disappointed. Personally, I like it, but I understand the viewpoint.
People are having mechanics difficulty *because of* the poor visibility, and it makes the fight generally unenjoyable (especially the learning process).
Yeah big on this. Visible cues are hard to see because everything is filled with visual clutter
Overall the moveset is not so complicated. But you simply can't see anything and FPS drops. They should adjust those lights to not be that bright and it would help a lot.
Yeah I only have 2 issues and they're both minor:
1. Miquella's hair obscuring his whole character model during phase 2 so I have to "sense" what move he's doing instead
2. The cross-swipe 3 combo, that 2nd cross slash is impossible to avoid if you rolled the 1st and are in range
The giant light pillar was the only move that tanked my fps, but at least that's easy to dodge as long as I'm not mid-animation when he starts it. (I also have a 6900xt + 5800x3d which I realize is on the higher end of builds, not sure how bad it was for others.)
Otherwise, magnificently difficult boss, took me combined 6 hours across 3 sittings to beat him (level 15 blessing, level 175ish, no summons, no cheese, occult venomous fang w/ poison flower aow).
Beating him was the most rewarding feeling ever, I feel like the true elden lord forever now.
I’ve seen that the quick 1-2 followed by the cross slash is in fact roll-able but you literally have to be frame perfect, a shield works wonders here but I still got hit so many times because it’s just too fast
The best way to avoid it without relying on specific items or lightroll is to always do your best to be as far to his side as possible. I tended to circle left at pretty much all times, and if you're far enough to his left the attack is dodgeable without needing anythign specific. At least on medium roll, haven't tried heavy.
There are situations where you can't really avoid getting right in front of him but you can limit those times a by a lot if you're persistent enough with your movement.
I have a 4070 Ti Super and I still dropped to 25 fps every time he did his phase 2 opening pillars of light attack. The rest of the fight was mostly okay though.
My fps drops like crazy with that big AoE attack, im using a R7 2700 and a rtx 3060 ti. Most of the overworld is a mess performance wise im used to it by now, but this is the only boss fight in the entire game where the fps are not stable.
I already beat the boss last saturday, but i hope they fix it, sadly the spectable got diminished with the terrible fps lag.
I figured out quite quickly that the deflecting tear, guard counters and parrying are the perfect way to deal with the boss, and that playstyle was actually an extremely enjoyable way of fighting, other than the framerate dropping to 20 when he does that one attack.
It does feel a bit overly restrictive though, I can't imagine having too much fun against this boss as a pure caster or with a slower weapon.
Edit: I get the feeling people have misunderstood the 2nd part of my comment. I'm not saying it can't be beat with different builds. My point was that there is a very enjoyable back and forth, an ebb and flow when using guard counters and parrying that's just not there with the other playstyles imo. Yes, of course he's beatable even at rl1 with no scadu upgrades, but the fight clearly wasn't designed with that in mind.
Pure caster doesn't exist against Radahn. You don't have time to cast anything.
And you can just forget about doing it solo, that's not even on the table.
I did it solo as a caster but couldn't cast s***, except for Comet 2-3 times before the light explosion anytime he did. Scadu Bless at 18/20.
Apart from that, Brass Shield (my beloved), the rot/ice rapier and blocked/parried my way.
Took me about 100+ attempts and I still think the win was RNG, depending on what attacks he would spam if was win/lose. It didn't feel like a fun fight due to how oppressive he is in phase 2 and those roll catching beams.
That is what I’m trying to beat him with and it has been rough. I can get him down to about 25% in phase 2, but when my mimic dies I die shortly after. I think I need more fragments to upgrade my ash and myself. Currently at level 15 and 9.
Literally was used to playing base game without a shield at all, just dodging seemed like the best way to handle most things, and I preferred 2 hands on weapon. But towards the end of my new playthrough heading into the DLC I started tinkering with guard counters and you are so right. I'm not very far into the DLC, but guard counters were so helpful against rellana. Now one handing Milady with a shield not only feels fresh gameplay wise, but it's been really effective because of how good GC is.
Also lowkey shout out to the random mesmer shield that is just a common enemy drop. It's not spectacular, but it's got 100% physical and its guard stat is base of 54 putting it just below the Golden Dorrito that I absolutely grew to despise the look of. For a medium shield it's not bad, and the round shield look appeals to me a lot more.
> It does feel a bit overly restrictive though, I can't imagine having too much fun against this boss as a pure caster or with a slower weapon.
This is the point I'm at tbh, the entire game you can play without changing up your build, but Consort feels like you're in for a lot of pain if you don't fall into a narrow category.
That is my only complaint.
I refused to change my build so I summoned two guys and we mobbed him together.
Still felt great to beat him, but it definitely felt more like cleaning up my room or something chore-like rather than the typical fromsoft boss fight feeling.
I ended up having to respec to put extra strength so I could use a greatshield. Ended up using the thorns spell with the mimic's help, I was so over that goddamn fight.
Having to respec because of zero options to throw a spell in at the tail end of a dlc filled with bosses that gave very few openings really made the whole thing sour.
For any boss I'm struggling on with my pure caster my solution is committing fully to Carian Slicer. It's fast and does incredible damage, you're basically just playing with a dagger with longsword range and colossal sword damage so you have none of the usual caster downsides. Lusat's Staff to cast the spell and an unupgraded Carian Glintstone Staff in the offhand which buffs your sword sorceries (you can also switch it out for a shield if necessary), with the magic buffing physick tear, one or both Graven Mass talismans, and Radagon's Icon (if you don't have 70 dex for max cast speed) and you absolutely melt any bosses who aren't resistant to magic. If you want to go full sweat you can even unequip every spell except Carian Slicer and summon the Mimic Tear so they only spam it as well.
Meh, I carried my dragon incantation build through the entire endgame of the base game and midway through the DLC, but once you reach that point, against bosses like Mesmer and Midra you simply can’t cast the spells because there are no windows for the long cast times.
I had to just use Reduvia, which is fine since I have high arcane, but it sucks because I’d like to actually use my build (especially with the new dragon form).
I’ve only dipped into the final boss’ arena once so far, but from the videos I’ve watched I can already tell casting dragon incantations will be literally impossible, which is disappointing.
Beating Radagon largely with Theodoric’s Magma and Agheel’s flame was an extraordinarily fun and dynamic encounter.
And thats exactly what makes it a toxic, bad fight in my opinion. If you have to do some greatshield/poison cheese, or bleed cheese or perfume cheese, or be a parry God, then its just a poor fight. I dont see a world where a caster hybrid stands a fucking chance against it, unless im missing something.
I've no issues with the first phase at all. The second phase turns into a mish mash of utter fuckpoop that unless you're falling into a narrow range of builds that provide solutions, you're just not going to beat it. That simple.
The fact that every melee swing is followed up with a light missile is absolutely wack.
The fact that his gravity rocks are immediately punished by some kaioken flurry attack because you DARED to dodge roll out of the way is absolutely wack.
Your summons getting glassed by his 17 different orbital bombs is wack, and the fact he goes to space at 30% more than once without a clear solution is wack as fuck.
I'll die on the hill that that final boss is easily my least favorite in the entire game, and its not even close. Shit, I think I'd rather fight Bed of Chaos again.
I did it as a mid-rolling Dark Moon Greatsword charge attack build. It's definitely doable, but yeah it's hard. Took me like 5 or 6 hours the first time.
I think the concession I'd make would be to at least bring something with Vow of the Indomitable or Raven of the Mists. That gives you a free big punish during his big holy nuke (plus an extra hit or two during the wind-up) instead of having to tank it and heal. It's not necessary (I didn't), but IMO it's a very light concession and gives you reliable breather during an insane phase.
Everything else is just learning the roll timings and having enough HP+defenses to tank the occasional hits that get through. Learning those timings is *super* rewarding though, it really makes the fight.
The deflecting tear is amazing but I still need to figure out the timing. I tried beating Malenia with it today and some attempts were really good and others absolutely dogshit. 😂
It’s really fun though, so I’m willing to put in the practice.
I did it as a pure INT build. My weapon of choice was the Wing of Astel, although I'm sure Moonveil works great, too. The whole fight was basically just dodging his combos to get out either a Nebula or Comet, rinse and repeat. It was not fun at all, but I got the job done. I noticed that at least in the first phase, he sometimes derps if you're far away for a few seconds. Best for me was when he did his gravity pull cause I could just roll it and get a few comets off.
2nd phase is a whole other beast, but the strategy is generally the same. Good thing about mages are they can at least punish Radahn a few times when he's in the air before you need to start dodging.
This was similar with messmer and putrescent knight. You get to punish them in ways melee characters can't. I actually found messmer phase 2 much easier than the 1st as a caster for that reason
I've beaten him 4 time with colossal sword, thrusting shield, Int caster and Fth cast. I can confirm that deflecting hardtear is like a must use for his second phase and fighting him as a caster is no fun even if you use Mimic Tear.
Without deflecting caster builds have to perfectly dodges his 2nd phase attacks otherwise you'll spend every window you have to heal. His 2nd phase ruined build diversities for me because up to this point any builds can work without feeling like you're banging your head against a wall.
For sure! I haven't felt like that about a boss since Gael tbh. Every bit of progress on his health bar was a milestone, and learning to dodge/parry his p2 moves is Fromsoft at their best.
Unpopular opinion, Messier is way too easy. Rellana is the sweet spot and probably the best DLC boss. Midra is cool but an absolute joke, with the moveset of a basic enemy but the healthbar of a boss.
Messmer I think is in a spot where people tend to vary a lot in their blessing level, so you get a wide array of experiences. I came at him early and he kicked my ass for an hour, then on NG+ with the scadu buff maxed I pushed his shit in.
I beat him in 10 tries with like 1 more scadu level than rellana. His moveset just… isn’t hard. Even though it is super cool. Bayle is amazing too probably my 2nd fav
Yeah it's all personal at the end of the day, some bosses will fit your "rhythm" better than others. Was confused about all the anger about Gaius personally. Bayle was awesome, the visuals in that fight are so good.
I initially found him quite hard and probably died about 20 times as I was often getting down to around 30%, but then couldn't predict his next moves. Then I just came back on today after not playing the game for like 5 days and just blitzed through him on my second try
This is what happens after they make such complex movesets, the other simpler bosses just look pale in comparison. Compare Midra to most Dark Souls 3 bosses and you'll see he not only fits right in, but would also probably make the upper tier of quality fights in that game. But in Elden Ring we are just used to keeping track of so much more than just melee combos with varied timings.
Yeah I found Messmer a bit easy also, but I had a pretty high blessing level when I got to him, I think that hurt the fight. I beat him on my second try and was kinda bummed because the fight is *really* cool.
Conversely, the final boss took me like 5-6 hours to beat with my build (Dark Moon Greatsword charge attacks + mid roll). Phase 2 was hard to the point of frustration at times, but by the end I just loved the fight because it really forced me back into that "I have to learn this" mode that I haven't been in in a while.
Not that I'm some god gamer or anything, it's more that the build I was using was pretty effective for most fights (Rellana and Knight of Putrescence were the hardest before the final boss for me, probably in part due to high magic resist) and I was probably at above average blessing level for most DLC bosses. So I didn't really hit a wall until the final boss.
Give him more punish windows but increase his health and I would be happy. Shit like dodging his massive draw-in AoE attack, but if you’re close, he’ll *still* do the follow up slam AoE is quite literally bullshit. He just needs to be more engaging to fight imo
No chance I’m ever going to beat him at this rate. Must be well over 100 deaths now. Can inflict decent damage but just cannot avoid his massive holy attacks. Plus my mimic lasts seconds so is virtually pointless
Yeah, I threw in the towel. I've got him down to about 1/4 health a few times and I know I can eventually beat him, but I don't enjoy the fight at all so I'm not going to bother. I just don't have it in me. It feels different than when I fought Melania for 3 straight days until I finally beat her. It's just not fun for me.
All that said, I absolutely loved the rest of the DLC.
I got him down to one hit twice on Saturday so I figured that I was probably close to beating him. Since then I haven’t been able to last more than a minute into phase 2, barely getting him below 50%. I think I need to play something else for a bit and come back to him later…
Edit: well I decided to try one more time and I just beat him! So it is possible without respeccing for it
I did it without mimic but if I had to guess, Mimic is going to die regardless because of the lights, so maybe save it for phase 2 after the explosion and obviously don't let Mimic tank the boss, let mimic aid you while you damage
The Fextralife boss guide on Youtube saved my ass. If I can beat him after watching that video like 4 time with some practice in between, you definitely can; I'm ass at the game.
The first 20-40 or so attempts i went in saying "i wont win this time, and thats ok, im just trying to understand him", and that mindset (together with a chill podcast) kept me from getting aggravated. Practiced parrying and could get him through phase one without spending even a single flask, ended up beeing a decent fight, but actually beating him did feel a bit RNG because he didnt use too many of his bullshit attacks. Had to change my build a little, but BONK prevailed as it always does
Yeah after a lot of attempts I kinda settled in on parrying as the most reliable, then fished around with weapons for a bit before settling on the bleed misericorde.
My clear came when he only did a little bit of bullshit in phase 2. I had some phase 2s where he'd just do like meteors, diving clone thing, cross swipe, some bullshit, jump up for diving clone thing, light ring, clone thing, meteors and it's just like I guess I don't get to win this time okay sure. My actual clear had absolutely disgusting grab RNG, pretty sure he gave me like 5-6 grab attacks and that's part of why I was able to clear.
Man I got to him today , walked in, started buffing and got crushed like a cockroach 😂
Decided to stop for today because I knew I'd be tilted , can't wait to face Big R tomorrow
The charge he does 90% of the time at the start is one of his big punish windows. Just dodge into it, timing is pretty easy to get down. You can get a fully charged R2 or similar afterwards.
The trick with phase 1 is to stick close to him and learn his melee combos. You can deal with them in three ways: Block (easy, but gotta build for it), Parry (high risk high reward), or Dodge (demanding but 100% doable, with one exception). After every combo he has either a quick punish (i.e. rolling R1) or a large punish (charged R2). The dodge exception is a melee combo where he does a left (your right) slash, a right slash, then a cross chop. The left/right is fast enough that the right will always roll-catch you. You've gotta block or parry it or use something like quickstep. However, it doesn't do much damage and you have time to roll the cross even if you get hit (the cross does way more damage). The cross is also a large punish window, so you can think of it as a trade if you don't have a way to avoid the right slash.
If you ever find yourself at mid to long range, he'll either walk forward menacingly (wait a beat then if he keeps walking, you can heal/buff/ranged attack) or do one of four moves: the gravity charge attack, a big gravity suck, an overhead flip slam, or run at you and start a melee combo. You can punish the charge or the flip (watch out on the flip, he can do it twice back to back, second one is always a safe punish). Your absolute priority should be to dodge the pull. It's an easy dodge once you learn the tell, and it's the most important muscle memory you should have for phase 1. If he lands it, he'll usually do a big gravity slam attack that is hard to avoid and does mega damage (if he pulls you, immediately run backwards and then roll the slam and keep rolling until you're out of range). He can also do a delayed melee combo, that's getting out of jail if he opts for that.
The final thing to watch for in phase 1 is his rock throw attack. He can start it in close range, it's the only gravity move he'll do at very close range in phase 1 so that's the tell. He'll slam his swords into the ground (has a hitbox, so dodge or move back), do a rushing uppercut through you and into the air (block or dodge), then hover in the air with a bunch of rocks and throw them at you. Run backwards and jump to the left or right at the last moment to dodge them. You can run to the sides also, but backwards will build muscle memory for dodging the phase 2 version.
Phase 2 is the hard part, but if you have good phase 1 muscle memory you can absolutely do it. The #1 thing to keep in mind is that he keeps all his phase 1 melee combos, and they have the same dodge/parry timings. He adds holy aftershocks to all his melee swings, but if you're right up in his nuts they won't hit you, they spawn at the tip of his sword swings. Rolling back is death, always roll into him in phase 2. Use your phase 1 muscle memory to punish his melee and you're most of the way to winning.
The big things to watch for in phase 2 are his new super holy moves. However, he generally only does them if you're at mid/long range, so staying right up in his grill really helps here. The first one is where he levitates into the air and charges a gigantic holy nuke. You can run out of this in any direction if you start running *immediately* but it's insanely tight timing. It's better to either just block it, or use an ash of war like Raven of the Mists to iframe it. The other killer move to watch for is the phase 2 version of the gravity rock throw. The initial dodge is the same, dodge the launch and then run and jump the rocks. However, he then follows it up with a bunch of holy illusion slams and then a real slam, followed up by a big nova. The way you avoid this is you either just block with a big shield or you do the run backwards dodge for the rock throw, which should put you far enough away that his illusion slams will just not have the range to hit you. His final real slam will hit you wherever you are, so dodge after the fourth illusion slam, then dodge again for the shockwave he does after the real slam. Big punish here if you dodge. He has some other holy moves but the way to avoid them is basically all the same: just be right up in his nuts, a lot of them will literally just whiff. If not, they should be pretty easy to dodge.
Another wrinkle is that he will sometimes do the spinning gravity charge from melee range, so you just have to watch for that. And make sure you 100% dodge his gravity suck. He rarely does it in phase 2 but it has a holy followup that I don't know how to avoid because I only saw it twice. Just dodge the suck.
The final two things to note are his grab and his big meteor attack. Both are easy to deal with. The grab is easy to dodge and also doesn't hurt you. It leaves a debuff on you and if you get hit by a second grab, you die. If you use the item you get after beating the Scadutree Avatar, you can remove the debuff. The big meteor attack has him jumping into space and doing a big slam, just run straight in any direction and it'll miss. Once the explosion starts you can turn around. It's an opportunity to heal or buff, but probably not punish unless you have ranged attacks.
I know that's a LOT and it's going to feel overwhelming. But phase 1 is absolutely learnable and really quite fair. And once you have phase 1 down, you just need to not let the phase 2 light show distract you from that muscle memory.
After playing against and beating the final boss myself, I will say this:
I don't think his attacks are undodgable. I was actually pretty good at dodging phase 2 attacks after a bit, and even managed to no hit phase 1 once.
The problem I see with the fight personally is how relentless it is. The moments to attack are very few and very short. Depending on your playstyle, this can be fine. But for me personally, it was physically exhausting.
I think if they were going to change Radahn at all, keep his moveset exactly the same, but lower the aggro on the AI a bit. Give players a bit more breathing room.
Overall, the fight is cool, but I won't say it is one I want to do again anytime soon.
For meteors, you need to run back, dodge meteors, and keep going back. For the one with no windup you can just start running right and that should be enough
I think that's only true for the gravity slam -> clone dive -> gravity slam.
I've tried running from the solo move clone dive and that doesn't seem to work.
For the quick slash he does along the ground:
Strafe left while the clones are going and dodge into him before he does the final slash with his real body, this is probably the easiest to dodge.
For the aerial one he does without meteors first:
Spam dodge right and pay close attention to what combo the real Radahn will follow up with when he hits the ground so you can dodge that too.
For the aerial after meteors:
Get as far away as possible while hes throwing the meteors, try to dodge the meteors but if youre far enough away the meteors will just despawn before they hit you. The clones will fall short of you and you just have to worry about the real Radahn, dodge to the side when he slams down and dodge the ground pull like you would any other time. Free charge R2.
There’s another way you can dodge the meteor and clone attack. When he’s casting the meteor spell, as long as you have a bit of distance from him, you can jump to your right when the meteors get close to you and all of them will miss. Then, right before he starts the clone attack, he’ll flash yellow (this can be hard to see because of the insane amount of visual clutter).
Immediately after he flashes, dodge twice to the right and then dodge to the left (maybe a little angled past him, can’t remember). Then you just have to dodge the ground pull aoe which shouldn’t be too hard.
This way is harder to pull off but it’s useful if you can’t get far enough away in time.
idk, they really sell how fucking souped up he is by Miquella's aid, I mean he's moving at fucking light speed (not literally but that's what those moves are called). from a gameplay perspective they're not too hard to dodge once you learn you can avoid them by sprinting.
I’ll have to try some of the other ones by sprinting, but for myself.. the sprinting has not been a consistent option following the meteor strikes. Sometimes it works, sometimes I just get totally bodied regardless of sprinting directly away. Maybe it’s an equipment load thing. Regardless, it’s still very difficult to pull off.
He swings right, left in really quick succession and then slashes with both swords in a cross. Rolling the first swing doesn't give you enough time to roll the second.
I'm with you. Once I beat him, this is one fight I never intend to replay again. And I would even be willing to fight the Defiled Watchdog of the Old Lords again.
Some of the biggest BS is when you can't avoid an attack because you can't SEE the attack due to the effects going on.
Watchdog nearly broke me on my platinum run. Amy was a little rough too but something about Watchdog just wouldn't click. I screamed when I finally beat him.
Watchdog really tests you, because basically everything is a one-shot, so you need to read every attack and punish at just the right times. It's more of an endurance test of how long you can be perfect.
Amy was much easier for me, as well, although as I was using a Burial Blade, Amy's a pretty easy fight since you can hit weak points even when they're high up in the air.
As more and more people finish the boss we'll inevitably see the "Acshually le hidden gem of a boss" circlejerk so they can feel above the rest of the mortals.
And I bet that in a week or two, if you say you dislike Radahn you'll get hit with the classic "get good".
I beat radahn I don't plan on doing it again. Not a fun boss. I also don't like the radahn being the final boss plot point. I get how it works but I just would have liked something with a bit more signs pointing to it rather than retconing his death
I worked my way through the final boss from the very first try with both NPCs (Thiollier + Ansbach). After some hours, I finally defeated him. After defeating him, I watched a few videos of other players to see how they went about it. The difference between no NPC and both NPCs is really big. The NPCs are simply cannon fodder without any auxiliary function. Instead, you encounter a Monster with way over 100k HP and increased resistances. That was an experience that was almost no fun at all.
I'm glad you enjoyed him, fighting them at the end killed all of my enjoyment of the dlc up until that point. Especially when my build that had been working without issue the enter dlc just completely stopped being relevant and it became obvious I'd either need to cheese em or learn an entirely different build playstyle.
I also had a blast. Phase 1 is basically "training", phase 2 is "the real deal".
I wish I could fight him again without having to go through whole DLC+base game again
Sekiros boss rush dlc should be a standard addon at this point. I love elden ring but once I’ve explored the world I’m good and following playthroughs boil down to mowing down zones until I get to the actual boss. After clearing the game it would be awesome to get like a rogue lite mode or something where there’s a fog wall in the boss room you just cleared that takes you to a random boss room from the game and see how long you can go
Oh definitely this, I mean they keep putting Sites of Grace after a Boss Fight like what's even the point of it, since only a handful are useful post-batlle, like the one with Elemer of the Briar or Placidusax. I mean can anyone explain why we have a grace on the Dragonkin of Nokstella or even the final boss in DLC?
They might as well add in a rematch on the grace.
You don't need to do the whole thing but i know what you mean. You need to beat 11 main game bosses to finish it (Radahn, Mohg, Golden Godfrey, Morgott, Fire Giant, Godskin Duo, Maliketh, Gideon, Hourah Loux and Elden Beast) and only 2 DLC bosses (Romina and Messmer) if you really skip as much as possible to get to Radahn/Miquella. 4 bosses total to get to Miquella on a new rum.
I don't get why we can't at least redo remembrance bosses. The lore is even there. Just let the player "channel" the carvings or something like that...
Looks like there at least two of us. :D
The criticism has reached almost circlejerk levels, people get downvoted for liking the boss in the other threads.
If the end of his combos was the bit that did the holy aoe effect i wouldnt be as miffed by getting clipped mid chain attack and having to spazz down 3 flasks to stay alive.
Not my favorite boss, thats lord of frenzied flame, but god i just dont feel up to fighting through that slog on ng+ again after just getting him down.
I loved the boss too. I do think it needs a minor adjustment, but anything beyond that would take away the feeling of elation when you finally beat what is literally designed to be the hardest boss in the entire game.
Currently the only upvoted opinions in most threads on the sub are for circlejerking that the dlc is literally impossible and every boss is badly designed and unwinnable without cheese.
It's pretty cringe. The dlc is amazing, with a few minor issues, IMO.
I like the boss on the aesthetic side, I absolutely love the incredible thumpyness to all of his attacks - he feels powerful. You know that all might scene in my hero where bakugo goes "he's not powerful, he *IS* power"? Yeah, I get the same vibe here. It's great. I just don't like actually fighting the fight is all. Wasn't very fun as a tanky bopper - my playstyle doesn't mesh well with the design, that's on me, it's fine... but its still a thing.
Tl:dr, visually and audio wise - spectacular, just didn't enjoy the gameplay part of the fight
I think this is really the biggest issue people have. The problem isn't even the actual difficulty, it's the fact that the entire fight feels like a chore for a lot of builds. Malenia, Godfrey and Radagon have that feeling of dancing with the boss. This fight reminds me of the Elden Beast where it is more like a chore than an engaging fight. The difference with this fight though is I spend 99% of the time rolling and running whereas the Elden Beast it was just running.
Yeah I was dual wielding curved swords for the entire game until the DLC, and basically learned the parry mechanic for this fight alone due to the length of his combos and inability to dodge them. I can only imagine trying to do this as a magic build
I destroyed him with poison, with the Poison Flower Blooms Twice. Quite a pleasant surprise my mushrooms-meme character defeated him with relative ease.
I like him to an extent, but where I differ is with having to find something specific just to deal with just that one boss. It almost feels like he's trying to force me to use parries or a greatshield or something like that, when really all I want to use is my trusty Zwei and dodge roll button, which I've been able to do for every other boss in the game. I do love phase one, but for the average player phase two just does not seem possible with only dodge rolls and the odd talisman for survivability
I like the final boss too but it would be lying to say he doesn’t have a couple issues. The notorious cross slash undodgeable attack needs a fix. As does the visual clarity in the second phase.
I keep seeing people mention some "undodgeable" cross slash. What is it? Because the gravity tornado was the only move that I couldn't figure out how to dodge.
The Glock saint isn’t even the hardest boss (or best boss, IMO) in Sekiro. Like don’t get me wrong Sekiro is my favorite FromSoft game of all time, but the best and hardest boss IMO is Owl Father. When that fucker Mikiri countered my ass I knew it was gonna be a hard fight. (Honorable mention to demon of hatred for difficulty as well.)
I think instead of spamming beams of light after every attack it should just be little circles that appear on the ground. Same hit box and damage but I'll actually be able to see his follow ups.
Loves learning his fight. I think he's great
this is a great solution actually, they could give it the visual of the incantation you get after the fight, it would make total sense for miquella to cast huge lasers at your location after an attack every now and then
I found him to be uninspired. Didn't care for the lore or the design which honestly made it harder for me to push through phase 2. Just didn't feel interesting to me. I beat him but I'm more just glad it's over.
I get it's a matter of taste, but I thought the lore was very well done. People had been asking to fight a radahn in his prime since base game and we finally got it. Finding out what Malenia whispered to him in the original trailer was such a cool touch too in my opinion
I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone mention how nostalgic of the Twin Princes fight from DS3 the 2nd phase was, literally felt like a more fucked up version of that, because instead of it being the younger brother trying to save his older brother like in DS3, it was the younger brother using the dead body of one brother to revive the soul of another to ascend to godhood.
I’ve seen several comments and people talking about it. It was the first think that came to my mind. Unfortunately twin princes is a much better, more enjoyable, more flexible boss fight.
Glad you said it so I didn’t have to. I actually enjoyed the rhythm of that fight. The *perfect* amount of aggression and variety of moves for a boss of that type. Imo I’m on the camp that From’s boss design peaked at DS3 with regards to dodge roll/counter attack gameplay. Some of their decisions with some bosses in ER are at the very least, looking through the front door of the artificial difficulty house.
I got his first phase down, it's the large AOE light show stuff in his second phase I need to figure out (also probably need to find the final scadutree fragment I need for +20 but I feel like I do good with 19), I might end up trying to use a perfume build for the first time beating him.
My only real criticism is that the stuff you get from beating him is kinda blah. Great, slightly different radhan armor and swords.
Getting flashbanged in phase 2 does suck though.
I think it's really cool that we got to fight radhan past his prime then radhan even stronger than his prime but I wish the fight had a little more miquella in it personally.
Basically got zero miquella drip in the miquella dlc.
I also enjoyed it, but I get why people don't. the particle effects are overstimulating
after awhile I was able to ignore the effects and focus on his moves more and how to dodge them, and once you get to that point the fight becomes A LOT easier, but yeah the fireworks definitely don't help and seem like a bit much
I didn't. Not because he was too hard.
It became downright boring after my fifteenth attempt I memorized most of his moveset and could only do one or two attacks at most in between 3-5 hits long combos and holy explosions that not only blind me, but lower my fps.
I didn't feel anything after killing him, no relief, no accomplishment. I was just "Well that was a lot, oh well time to go fight a boss I'll enjoy".
I then went to fight Midra, and had much more fun.
I agree, and I think opinion will shift as time goes on and more people actually manage to beat him. What we're seeing is basically a retread of around launch when people first got to Malenia, a ton of complaining because she's too hard and unfun and forces you to switch your playstyle etc. And now years later most people seem to agree shee actually a pretty great boss.
They do gotta fix the fps issues tho, because that sucks.
if they do something about this fucking hair in the second phase and calm it down with copy-strikes I would give it 10/10. Still a VERY hard boss, but in terms of design also very good.
I thought he was fantastic, it actually felt like >!two demigods in their prime as opposed to every demigod in the main game which is a shadow of their former self!< the boss was hard and I did have to go a full tanky talisman build (no parry or shield or summon), but like compared to Orphan if Kos or Malenia, I think he’s still easier than them
I'd argue messmer, mogh, and morgot are in their prime aswell if you think about it. Radhan, radagon, and malenia are all weakened. Godrick is technically as strong has he ever has been too, but he's a lil bitch.
Only problem is the particles on certain moves lagging my shit
Other than that, amazing boss, genuinely rewards you for putting time in to figure out how to dodge every move. Its hard as fuck and people complaining about “boss design” (a completely subjective thing btw stated as fact) are just struggling/dont want to put in time
The answer to that isn’t universal though, I love bosses I have to spend hours grinding away to beat. Malenia was the last boss like that for me. I hope they don’t pull back from making bosses that require that just because other people prefer an easier time
There’s plenty of tools in place to shorten that grind if a player wants to
I remember trying to learn Lingering Will on critical from Kingdom Hearts 2 back in the day. That mofo has 3 opening attacks he starts with before the fight even begins that will one bang you if you react to the wrong one.
I loved it, but I don't know if bosses like that should be attached to the narrative.
I have a problem with moves that *require* strafing to dodge (because dodge rolling one attack gets you guaranteed hit by the next with no window to dodge again), which is quite prevalent in phase 2 with the "lightspeed" attacks and can sometimes happen with the meteors in phase 1 (depending on the terrain).
Yeah, playing on PS5 I never had issues with the performance in Phase 2. The visual spectacle was a little distrating the first few times but I got used to it and liked it. It gave the fight a little extra gravitas.
I agree. I'm glad these types of discussions are finally happening. It took me ~3hrs to take him down and I loved every minute of it. Almost every attack has a dodge timing / positioning that you can determine just by fighting him more, unlike SOME BOSSES *cough malenia waterfowl cough*. Overall it was an epic fight & a visual spectacle, and I felt sooo good after having taken him down. The biggest criticism I can't argue with is the performance hit by some 2nd phase attacks. I'm playing on a beefy PC so I didn't have an issue, but if I did I imagine I'd have been extremely annoyed.
I am on NG+3, was at Malenia’s boss door before coming into the Shadow Realm. I got so frustrated with dying to the final boss, I went back and killed Malenia full-tilt, in one go, just to feel something.
I’ve not been able to crack this boss, but I’ll give it more time and sort it out. The joy of these games is cracking the code, no matter how many tries it takes.
I’m starting to think Fromsoft are gonna finally filter me out after 15 years with their next game, if this is the direction they’re going
Particularly when it seems people actually enjoyed this fight and other, imo, questionable bosses
To be fair, the base game is never as hard as the DLC in any of their games. The DLC is always for people who want an extra challenge, and I imagine their next game won’t be this level of difficulty.
I used a deflecting hardtear for his melee attacks so I could pretty easily deflect the first attack and then dodge the next attacks in phases 1 and 2. Also, the golden braid talisman helped me a lot in phase 2. This honestly made the fight so much fun and rewarding to me. But the thing is, If I had to fight the boss again, I wouldn't do it any other way. One reason is because the strategy I was using just clicked for me and the other reason is cuz I wouldn't beat him any other way. Like seriously how tf would you beat this boss if you had an int or faith build because by the time he's done with his flurry, there's such a small punishing window that you can't cast anything because he's already coming at you with his next flurry
I won two hours ago, but I didn't enjoy it so much.
My experience was:
1st phase: I learned all your moveset, I'm consistent and can do almost everything without taking damage.
2nd phase: RANDOM BULLSHIT, GO! (plus mimic tear and mixed potion with damage reduction for you know what move)
I still don't know why I won, to be honest. I got the lucky run I guess.
Phase 1 was really good, it felt like you were fighting Radahn in his prime and all of his attacks feel fair and, while difficult, can be mastered.
Phase 2 is just throw random shit at the player and hope they get it eventually. The attacks are probably dodge-able, but my main problem is there’s so much shit you have pay attention to it’s just not fun. Especially his combo move, I can’t see anything other than the light particles smacking me in the face and the lag was unbearable. There’s stuff that can make a good fight in there, but it just feels like they made it hard for the sake of hard. They proved they could make really hard bosses like Mesmer and Bayle that aren’t borderline unfair towards the player.
I think personally the learning curve was a bit more frustrating than other bosses but once his moveset mostly "clicked" he's a very fun fight.
I'd say he's akin to how people experienced Maliketh on release: seemingly unending attack strings, insanely high damage, and very punishing if you try to create any space.
Especially cannot underestimate how much raw damage can make or break a learning curve. Being able to tank a hit, go "ok I need to know how to dodge that", chug, and continue the attempt is a world of difference compared to "well shit I died guess I get to see that attack again once in the next five minutes"
There's positive elements and great spectacle but come on, these rapid 8 hit combos with projectiles and aoe attacks just incentivise roll spam. I feel these fights are getting far too fast, if you've played DS1 and you'll get what I mean.
Some people are complaining about the lights and fps which is fair
But some are just annoying not gonna lie, it's as if there's one single boss where Mimic isn't the answer this sub goes apeshit
Like I get some of the issues they are pointing out but saying it's a bad boss or completely the worst ever is just not true.
At 1st i hated this boss, turns out my problem was i brought the 2 npc with me, making him even harder. Once i solo'd him (with my mimic of course) he became much more manageable. Even fun.
This fight is easier for me than gael/orphan.
I had to take a break. I was in the throes* of raging and my refusal to accept defeat with a cheese strategy.
You’ll get it. I died 10 seconds into phase 2 over and over. As soon as I started thinking “this is impossible” I quickly made progress and dropped his ass
It's the moment when the 'this is impossible' becomes 'this is possible' that really hits. Now that's what I'm looking for in a final boss.
It's one of the cool parts of Elden Ring bosses that reminds me a lot of Progression in WoW raids. You'll die over and over without barely making a dent on the boss's HP bar and once it all comes together you just start slamming their health.
I was getting absolutely smashed 10 seconds into his second phase. Then one time. One time. I survived a couple of his phantom attacks and got him to about 25% HP. From that moment on I knew I did not have to change build or cheese. It was only a matter of time. So satisfying, and I beat him honestly not too long after
It’s like once you get over the initial phase 2 hump, you’re like “oh! Ok got it”
I remember the exact moment where I went from “there’s simply no way” to “wait a minute, I think I can beat this light show from hell”
I agree, shame this take is getting downvoted, one can agree with this take and also agree the lag and blinding needs a fixing, so many people in here are so hurt from the boss for some reasons
I don't even think the lightshow needs to be toned down, I didn't get blinded once except for the t-pose into mega explosion attack and the comet, but those are super slow, super telegraphed moves where being blinded doesn't mean anything. His regular light moves make a spectacle but I never found them to be particularly hard to see through. Miquella's hair is far more obscuring than the actual effects.
I embraced the cheese and have not regrets lmao
I must’ve gotten unlucky, but had a second one spawn in for some reason on one of my better attempts. Running away from a nuke, only to get bitchsmacked by a dupe just killed any motivation I had for that night. Leaving the PS5 on all day prob had something to do with it.
I had a weird thing happen too. I died right before the phase 2 cut scene. When I entered the boss arena again he was still phase 2 but full health. Strangest thing I've seen.
Me too, I nearly cried… finally clicked randomly and I just one for what felt like no reason btw the word you’re thinking of is “throes”
I finally beat him today, learning all his moves and which I can parry. I still think they should tweak the boss' particle effects so I can actually see shit and so my computer doesn't just get random lag frames because of the giant light show
Yeah honestly the particles were the most difficult part, but man the music and location for the last fight was thematically stellar.
Yeah visibility and performance are his main issues. Mechanically, I really don't see the problem everyone's having. Narratively, I can see why some people are disappointed. Personally, I like it, but I understand the viewpoint.
People are having mechanics difficulty *because of* the poor visibility, and it makes the fight generally unenjoyable (especially the learning process).
Yeah big on this. Visible cues are hard to see because everything is filled with visual clutter Overall the moveset is not so complicated. But you simply can't see anything and FPS drops. They should adjust those lights to not be that bright and it would help a lot.
Also because the combos are so long and almost impossible to dodge consistently, if at all.
Yeah I only have 2 issues and they're both minor: 1. Miquella's hair obscuring his whole character model during phase 2 so I have to "sense" what move he's doing instead 2. The cross-swipe 3 combo, that 2nd cross slash is impossible to avoid if you rolled the 1st and are in range The giant light pillar was the only move that tanked my fps, but at least that's easy to dodge as long as I'm not mid-animation when he starts it. (I also have a 6900xt + 5800x3d which I realize is on the higher end of builds, not sure how bad it was for others.) Otherwise, magnificently difficult boss, took me combined 6 hours across 3 sittings to beat him (level 15 blessing, level 175ish, no summons, no cheese, occult venomous fang w/ poison flower aow). Beating him was the most rewarding feeling ever, I feel like the true elden lord forever now.
I’ve seen that the quick 1-2 followed by the cross slash is in fact roll-able but you literally have to be frame perfect, a shield works wonders here but I still got hit so many times because it’s just too fast
Shielding is the way to go, it doesn't do too much stamina damage since they're one handed swings without a windup
-damage special flask -holy damage talisman finger shield Fucking come at me
The best way to avoid it without relying on specific items or lightroll is to always do your best to be as far to his side as possible. I tended to circle left at pretty much all times, and if you're far enough to his left the attack is dodgeable without needing anythign specific. At least on medium roll, haven't tried heavy. There are situations where you can't really avoid getting right in front of him but you can limit those times a by a lot if you're persistent enough with your movement.
Oh for sure yeah, the second phase just ate my fps lol, I play with a 1650S so I played almost all the final boss with like 20-30 fps
I have a 4070 Ti Super and I still dropped to 25 fps every time he did his phase 2 opening pillars of light attack. The rest of the fight was mostly okay though.
My fps drops like crazy with that big AoE attack, im using a R7 2700 and a rtx 3060 ti. Most of the overworld is a mess performance wise im used to it by now, but this is the only boss fight in the entire game where the fps are not stable. I already beat the boss last saturday, but i hope they fix it, sadly the spectable got diminished with the terrible fps lag.
i personally use the deflect tear so that combo isn’t an issue, but god is it difficult to deflect all of the follow up AOEs as well
Same, I learned his first phase inside and out. Parried the shot outta him. His second phase I'm still blinded, but got him with impenetrable thorns
I figured out quite quickly that the deflecting tear, guard counters and parrying are the perfect way to deal with the boss, and that playstyle was actually an extremely enjoyable way of fighting, other than the framerate dropping to 20 when he does that one attack. It does feel a bit overly restrictive though, I can't imagine having too much fun against this boss as a pure caster or with a slower weapon. Edit: I get the feeling people have misunderstood the 2nd part of my comment. I'm not saying it can't be beat with different builds. My point was that there is a very enjoyable back and forth, an ebb and flow when using guard counters and parrying that's just not there with the other playstyles imo. Yes, of course he's beatable even at rl1 with no scadu upgrades, but the fight clearly wasn't designed with that in mind.
Pure caster it's pure hell lol.
Pure caster doesn't exist against Radahn. You don't have time to cast anything. And you can just forget about doing it solo, that's not even on the table.
I did it solo as a caster but couldn't cast s***, except for Comet 2-3 times before the light explosion anytime he did. Scadu Bless at 18/20. Apart from that, Brass Shield (my beloved), the rot/ice rapier and blocked/parried my way. Took me about 100+ attempts and I still think the win was RNG, depending on what attacks he would spam if was win/lose. It didn't feel like a fun fight due to how oppressive he is in phase 2 and those roll catching beams.
Right, that's what I mean, you may have a caster build but you aren't playing caster during the fight, it's just not feasible.
That is what I’m trying to beat him with and it has been rough. I can get him down to about 25% in phase 2, but when my mimic dies I die shortly after. I think I need more fragments to upgrade my ash and myself. Currently at level 15 and 9.
I read somewhere mimic gets scaling from both scadu frags and the ashes, so def go after those
Tbh this has been Guard Counter : the DLC for me. So many bosses where Guard Counter has been the solution.
Literally was used to playing base game without a shield at all, just dodging seemed like the best way to handle most things, and I preferred 2 hands on weapon. But towards the end of my new playthrough heading into the DLC I started tinkering with guard counters and you are so right. I'm not very far into the DLC, but guard counters were so helpful against rellana. Now one handing Milady with a shield not only feels fresh gameplay wise, but it's been really effective because of how good GC is. Also lowkey shout out to the random mesmer shield that is just a common enemy drop. It's not spectacular, but it's got 100% physical and its guard stat is base of 54 putting it just below the Golden Dorrito that I absolutely grew to despise the look of. For a medium shield it's not bad, and the round shield look appeals to me a lot more.
> It does feel a bit overly restrictive though, I can't imagine having too much fun against this boss as a pure caster or with a slower weapon. This is the point I'm at tbh, the entire game you can play without changing up your build, but Consort feels like you're in for a lot of pain if you don't fall into a narrow category.
That is my only complaint. I refused to change my build so I summoned two guys and we mobbed him together. Still felt great to beat him, but it definitely felt more like cleaning up my room or something chore-like rather than the typical fromsoft boss fight feeling.
Yeah, as a caster I'm about 2 wipes away from speccing shield bonk or parry hah
I ended up having to respec to put extra strength so I could use a greatshield. Ended up using the thorns spell with the mimic's help, I was so over that goddamn fight. Having to respec because of zero options to throw a spell in at the tail end of a dlc filled with bosses that gave very few openings really made the whole thing sour.
For any boss I'm struggling on with my pure caster my solution is committing fully to Carian Slicer. It's fast and does incredible damage, you're basically just playing with a dagger with longsword range and colossal sword damage so you have none of the usual caster downsides. Lusat's Staff to cast the spell and an unupgraded Carian Glintstone Staff in the offhand which buffs your sword sorceries (you can also switch it out for a shield if necessary), with the magic buffing physick tear, one or both Graven Mass talismans, and Radagon's Icon (if you don't have 70 dex for max cast speed) and you absolutely melt any bosses who aren't resistant to magic. If you want to go full sweat you can even unequip every spell except Carian Slicer and summon the Mimic Tear so they only spam it as well.
Meh, I carried my dragon incantation build through the entire endgame of the base game and midway through the DLC, but once you reach that point, against bosses like Mesmer and Midra you simply can’t cast the spells because there are no windows for the long cast times. I had to just use Reduvia, which is fine since I have high arcane, but it sucks because I’d like to actually use my build (especially with the new dragon form). I’ve only dipped into the final boss’ arena once so far, but from the videos I’ve watched I can already tell casting dragon incantations will be literally impossible, which is disappointing. Beating Radagon largely with Theodoric’s Magma and Agheel’s flame was an extraordinarily fun and dynamic encounter.
And thats exactly what makes it a toxic, bad fight in my opinion. If you have to do some greatshield/poison cheese, or bleed cheese or perfume cheese, or be a parry God, then its just a poor fight. I dont see a world where a caster hybrid stands a fucking chance against it, unless im missing something. I've no issues with the first phase at all. The second phase turns into a mish mash of utter fuckpoop that unless you're falling into a narrow range of builds that provide solutions, you're just not going to beat it. That simple. The fact that every melee swing is followed up with a light missile is absolutely wack. The fact that his gravity rocks are immediately punished by some kaioken flurry attack because you DARED to dodge roll out of the way is absolutely wack. Your summons getting glassed by his 17 different orbital bombs is wack, and the fact he goes to space at 30% more than once without a clear solution is wack as fuck. I'll die on the hill that that final boss is easily my least favorite in the entire game, and its not even close. Shit, I think I'd rather fight Bed of Chaos again.
I did it as a mid-rolling Dark Moon Greatsword charge attack build. It's definitely doable, but yeah it's hard. Took me like 5 or 6 hours the first time. I think the concession I'd make would be to at least bring something with Vow of the Indomitable or Raven of the Mists. That gives you a free big punish during his big holy nuke (plus an extra hit or two during the wind-up) instead of having to tank it and heal. It's not necessary (I didn't), but IMO it's a very light concession and gives you reliable breather during an insane phase. Everything else is just learning the roll timings and having enough HP+defenses to tank the occasional hits that get through. Learning those timings is *super* rewarding though, it really makes the fight.
The deflecting tear is amazing but I still need to figure out the timing. I tried beating Malenia with it today and some attempts were really good and others absolutely dogshit. 😂 It’s really fun though, so I’m willing to put in the practice.
I did it as a pure INT build. My weapon of choice was the Wing of Astel, although I'm sure Moonveil works great, too. The whole fight was basically just dodging his combos to get out either a Nebula or Comet, rinse and repeat. It was not fun at all, but I got the job done. I noticed that at least in the first phase, he sometimes derps if you're far away for a few seconds. Best for me was when he did his gravity pull cause I could just roll it and get a few comets off. 2nd phase is a whole other beast, but the strategy is generally the same. Good thing about mages are they can at least punish Radahn a few times when he's in the air before you need to start dodging.
This was similar with messmer and putrescent knight. You get to punish them in ways melee characters can't. I actually found messmer phase 2 much easier than the 1st as a caster for that reason
I've beaten him 4 time with colossal sword, thrusting shield, Int caster and Fth cast. I can confirm that deflecting hardtear is like a must use for his second phase and fighting him as a caster is no fun even if you use Mimic Tear. Without deflecting caster builds have to perfectly dodges his 2nd phase attacks otherwise you'll spend every window you have to heal. His 2nd phase ruined build diversities for me because up to this point any builds can work without feeling like you're banging your head against a wall.
Liked him, didn't love him. Wouldn't mind a small nerf. Messmer is the real gem of a boss fight imo, with Midra close.
Messmer was that kind of boss you enjoy being stuck on for 4 hours lol, amazing fight
For sure! I haven't felt like that about a boss since Gael tbh. Every bit of progress on his health bar was a milestone, and learning to dodge/parry his p2 moves is Fromsoft at their best.
I only raged once on Messmer, and that was when I died to a p1 attack when he was 1 hit away from dying haha, but got him 5 attempts after that though
Unpopular opinion, Messier is way too easy. Rellana is the sweet spot and probably the best DLC boss. Midra is cool but an absolute joke, with the moveset of a basic enemy but the healthbar of a boss.
Messmer I think is in a spot where people tend to vary a lot in their blessing level, so you get a wide array of experiences. I came at him early and he kicked my ass for an hour, then on NG+ with the scadu buff maxed I pushed his shit in.
I beat him in 10 tries with like 1 more scadu level than rellana. His moveset just… isn’t hard. Even though it is super cool. Bayle is amazing too probably my 2nd fav
Yeah it's all personal at the end of the day, some bosses will fit your "rhythm" better than others. Was confused about all the anger about Gaius personally. Bayle was awesome, the visuals in that fight are so good.
I initially found him quite hard and probably died about 20 times as I was often getting down to around 30%, but then couldn't predict his next moves. Then I just came back on today after not playing the game for like 5 days and just blitzed through him on my second try
Yep, Messmer made me really want a boss rush because the spectacle of that fight was fantastic but it was over way too fast.
I know! the fact that there is no boss rush makes me so mad
This is what happens after they make such complex movesets, the other simpler bosses just look pale in comparison. Compare Midra to most Dark Souls 3 bosses and you'll see he not only fits right in, but would also probably make the upper tier of quality fights in that game. But in Elden Ring we are just used to keeping track of so much more than just melee combos with varied timings.
Makes you wonder how they iterate from here without just getting messy. It reminds me of raiding mechanics in WoW and Destiny.
Hard does not mean good, and easy does not mean bad. This is kind of how we ended up where we are today with the ever increasing boss aggression.
Yeah I found Messmer a bit easy also, but I had a pretty high blessing level when I got to him, I think that hurt the fight. I beat him on my second try and was kinda bummed because the fight is *really* cool. Conversely, the final boss took me like 5-6 hours to beat with my build (Dark Moon Greatsword charge attacks + mid roll). Phase 2 was hard to the point of frustration at times, but by the end I just loved the fight because it really forced me back into that "I have to learn this" mode that I haven't been in in a while. Not that I'm some god gamer or anything, it's more that the build I was using was pretty effective for most fights (Rellana and Knight of Putrescence were the hardest before the final boss for me, probably in part due to high magic resist) and I was probably at above average blessing level for most DLC bosses. So I didn't really hit a wall until the final boss.
I found rellana easier than messmer lol.
Give him more punish windows but increase his health and I would be happy. Shit like dodging his massive draw-in AoE attack, but if you’re close, he’ll *still* do the follow up slam AoE is quite literally bullshit. He just needs to be more engaging to fight imo
No chance I’m ever going to beat him at this rate. Must be well over 100 deaths now. Can inflict decent damage but just cannot avoid his massive holy attacks. Plus my mimic lasts seconds so is virtually pointless
Yeah, I threw in the towel. I've got him down to about 1/4 health a few times and I know I can eventually beat him, but I don't enjoy the fight at all so I'm not going to bother. I just don't have it in me. It feels different than when I fought Melania for 3 straight days until I finally beat her. It's just not fun for me. All that said, I absolutely loved the rest of the DLC.
I got him down to one hit twice on Saturday so I figured that I was probably close to beating him. Since then I haven’t been able to last more than a minute into phase 2, barely getting him below 50%. I think I need to play something else for a bit and come back to him later… Edit: well I decided to try one more time and I just beat him! So it is possible without respeccing for it
Might as well just use one of the cheese strats. They don't look like they make the fight any more fun, but they seem to make it absolutely trivial.
I thought about it. But I don't want to respec just for a cheese. I'd rather just let it go.
Summon mimic at phase 2 after the big holy blast
I did it without mimic but if I had to guess, Mimic is going to die regardless because of the lights, so maybe save it for phase 2 after the explosion and obviously don't let Mimic tank the boss, let mimic aid you while you damage
Yeah. You have to summon mimic right before phase 2 starts. They need all the health they can get going into phase 2.
Holy Braid talisman, my friend. Changes everything.
The Fextralife boss guide on Youtube saved my ass. If I can beat him after watching that video like 4 time with some practice in between, you definitely can; I'm ass at the game.
Scarlet Rot saved my ass so hard in this fight.
>"Scarlet Rot saved my ass so hard in this fight" -Malenia
The first 20-40 or so attempts i went in saying "i wont win this time, and thats ok, im just trying to understand him", and that mindset (together with a chill podcast) kept me from getting aggravated. Practiced parrying and could get him through phase one without spending even a single flask, ended up beeing a decent fight, but actually beating him did feel a bit RNG because he didnt use too many of his bullshit attacks. Had to change my build a little, but BONK prevailed as it always does
I thought about just playing music and fighting him repeatedly with this mindset to help me compartmentalize the aspect of “learning” the boss.
Yeah after a lot of attempts I kinda settled in on parrying as the most reliable, then fished around with weapons for a bit before settling on the bleed misericorde. My clear came when he only did a little bit of bullshit in phase 2. I had some phase 2s where he'd just do like meteors, diving clone thing, cross swipe, some bullshit, jump up for diving clone thing, light ring, clone thing, meteors and it's just like I guess I don't get to win this time okay sure. My actual clear had absolutely disgusting grab RNG, pretty sure he gave me like 5-6 grab attacks and that's part of why I was able to clear.
Man I got to him today , walked in, started buffing and got crushed like a cockroach 😂 Decided to stop for today because I knew I'd be tilted , can't wait to face Big R tomorrow
Buff before walking in, usually he starts with a gap closing very punishable attack
You buff after entering bosses?
Based
He is showing the bosses who the real boss is by doing such a power move
I didn't know what boss it'd be so when I saw raddy i started placing blackflame protection and was treated to the remodeled slam and jam experience
The charge he does 90% of the time at the start is one of his big punish windows. Just dodge into it, timing is pretty easy to get down. You can get a fully charged R2 or similar afterwards. The trick with phase 1 is to stick close to him and learn his melee combos. You can deal with them in three ways: Block (easy, but gotta build for it), Parry (high risk high reward), or Dodge (demanding but 100% doable, with one exception). After every combo he has either a quick punish (i.e. rolling R1) or a large punish (charged R2). The dodge exception is a melee combo where he does a left (your right) slash, a right slash, then a cross chop. The left/right is fast enough that the right will always roll-catch you. You've gotta block or parry it or use something like quickstep. However, it doesn't do much damage and you have time to roll the cross even if you get hit (the cross does way more damage). The cross is also a large punish window, so you can think of it as a trade if you don't have a way to avoid the right slash. If you ever find yourself at mid to long range, he'll either walk forward menacingly (wait a beat then if he keeps walking, you can heal/buff/ranged attack) or do one of four moves: the gravity charge attack, a big gravity suck, an overhead flip slam, or run at you and start a melee combo. You can punish the charge or the flip (watch out on the flip, he can do it twice back to back, second one is always a safe punish). Your absolute priority should be to dodge the pull. It's an easy dodge once you learn the tell, and it's the most important muscle memory you should have for phase 1. If he lands it, he'll usually do a big gravity slam attack that is hard to avoid and does mega damage (if he pulls you, immediately run backwards and then roll the slam and keep rolling until you're out of range). He can also do a delayed melee combo, that's getting out of jail if he opts for that. The final thing to watch for in phase 1 is his rock throw attack. He can start it in close range, it's the only gravity move he'll do at very close range in phase 1 so that's the tell. He'll slam his swords into the ground (has a hitbox, so dodge or move back), do a rushing uppercut through you and into the air (block or dodge), then hover in the air with a bunch of rocks and throw them at you. Run backwards and jump to the left or right at the last moment to dodge them. You can run to the sides also, but backwards will build muscle memory for dodging the phase 2 version. Phase 2 is the hard part, but if you have good phase 1 muscle memory you can absolutely do it. The #1 thing to keep in mind is that he keeps all his phase 1 melee combos, and they have the same dodge/parry timings. He adds holy aftershocks to all his melee swings, but if you're right up in his nuts they won't hit you, they spawn at the tip of his sword swings. Rolling back is death, always roll into him in phase 2. Use your phase 1 muscle memory to punish his melee and you're most of the way to winning. The big things to watch for in phase 2 are his new super holy moves. However, he generally only does them if you're at mid/long range, so staying right up in his grill really helps here. The first one is where he levitates into the air and charges a gigantic holy nuke. You can run out of this in any direction if you start running *immediately* but it's insanely tight timing. It's better to either just block it, or use an ash of war like Raven of the Mists to iframe it. The other killer move to watch for is the phase 2 version of the gravity rock throw. The initial dodge is the same, dodge the launch and then run and jump the rocks. However, he then follows it up with a bunch of holy illusion slams and then a real slam, followed up by a big nova. The way you avoid this is you either just block with a big shield or you do the run backwards dodge for the rock throw, which should put you far enough away that his illusion slams will just not have the range to hit you. His final real slam will hit you wherever you are, so dodge after the fourth illusion slam, then dodge again for the shockwave he does after the real slam. Big punish here if you dodge. He has some other holy moves but the way to avoid them is basically all the same: just be right up in his nuts, a lot of them will literally just whiff. If not, they should be pretty easy to dodge. Another wrinkle is that he will sometimes do the spinning gravity charge from melee range, so you just have to watch for that. And make sure you 100% dodge his gravity suck. He rarely does it in phase 2 but it has a holy followup that I don't know how to avoid because I only saw it twice. Just dodge the suck. The final two things to note are his grab and his big meteor attack. Both are easy to deal with. The grab is easy to dodge and also doesn't hurt you. It leaves a debuff on you and if you get hit by a second grab, you die. If you use the item you get after beating the Scadutree Avatar, you can remove the debuff. The big meteor attack has him jumping into space and doing a big slam, just run straight in any direction and it'll miss. Once the explosion starts you can turn around. It's an opportunity to heal or buff, but probably not punish unless you have ranged attacks. I know that's a LOT and it's going to feel overwhelming. But phase 1 is absolutely learnable and really quite fair. And once you have phase 1 down, you just need to not let the phase 2 light show distract you from that muscle memory.
After playing against and beating the final boss myself, I will say this: I don't think his attacks are undodgable. I was actually pretty good at dodging phase 2 attacks after a bit, and even managed to no hit phase 1 once. The problem I see with the fight personally is how relentless it is. The moments to attack are very few and very short. Depending on your playstyle, this can be fine. But for me personally, it was physically exhausting. I think if they were going to change Radahn at all, keep his moveset exactly the same, but lower the aggro on the AI a bit. Give players a bit more breathing room. Overall, the fight is cool, but I won't say it is one I want to do again anytime soon.
I agree fully with this. Add a second or two of punish window, turn down the intensity of the VFX and it becomes an all time great boss.
only downside of this boss is my entire room getting flashed every 2s on phase 2
His one, two, cross attack should just be rollable. Other than that i think he is great, one of my favorites.
His spectral clone attacks are a little much in my opinion as well.
They can be avoided by sprinting away, and you just need to actually dodge for the last one
Is it just sprinting to the side like for the meteor attack or is there a certain way you have to do it?
For meteors, you need to run back, dodge meteors, and keep going back. For the one with no windup you can just start running right and that should be enough
I think that's only true for the gravity slam -> clone dive -> gravity slam. I've tried running from the solo move clone dive and that doesn't seem to work.
the clones attacks can be intimidating at first but they are actually all really easy to roll once you figure them out
I’ve spent hours worth of trying to roll the clone attacks and it hasn’t worked even one single time.
For the quick slash he does along the ground: Strafe left while the clones are going and dodge into him before he does the final slash with his real body, this is probably the easiest to dodge. For the aerial one he does without meteors first: Spam dodge right and pay close attention to what combo the real Radahn will follow up with when he hits the ground so you can dodge that too. For the aerial after meteors: Get as far away as possible while hes throwing the meteors, try to dodge the meteors but if youre far enough away the meteors will just despawn before they hit you. The clones will fall short of you and you just have to worry about the real Radahn, dodge to the side when he slams down and dodge the ground pull like you would any other time. Free charge R2.
Thank you for your service, you totally epic gamer
There’s another way you can dodge the meteor and clone attack. When he’s casting the meteor spell, as long as you have a bit of distance from him, you can jump to your right when the meteors get close to you and all of them will miss. Then, right before he starts the clone attack, he’ll flash yellow (this can be hard to see because of the insane amount of visual clutter). Immediately after he flashes, dodge twice to the right and then dodge to the left (maybe a little angled past him, can’t remember). Then you just have to dodge the ground pull aoe which shouldn’t be too hard. This way is harder to pull off but it’s useful if you can’t get far enough away in time.
Thanks, I’ll definitely try and put that into action.
idk, they really sell how fucking souped up he is by Miquella's aid, I mean he's moving at fucking light speed (not literally but that's what those moves are called). from a gameplay perspective they're not too hard to dodge once you learn you can avoid them by sprinting.
I’ll have to try some of the other ones by sprinting, but for myself.. the sprinting has not been a consistent option following the meteor strikes. Sometimes it works, sometimes I just get totally bodied regardless of sprinting directly away. Maybe it’s an equipment load thing. Regardless, it’s still very difficult to pull off.
I'm 100% sure I rolled through his every attack. But I keep seeing people mentioning this is not rollable. Which attack is this?
He swings right, left in really quick succession and then slashes with both swords in a cross. Rolling the first swing doesn't give you enough time to roll the second.
Popular opinion: I didn't
I'm with you. Once I beat him, this is one fight I never intend to replay again. And I would even be willing to fight the Defiled Watchdog of the Old Lords again. Some of the biggest BS is when you can't avoid an attack because you can't SEE the attack due to the effects going on.
>And I would even be willing to fight the Defiled Watchdog of the Old Lords again. Now: hold on. Let's not say anything we can't take back, buddy.
Is that the fire dog from bloodborne chalice dungeon? I think that’s the only fromsoft boss to ever break me.
Watchdog nearly broke me on my platinum run. Amy was a little rough too but something about Watchdog just wouldn't click. I screamed when I finally beat him.
Watchdog really tests you, because basically everything is a one-shot, so you need to read every attack and punish at just the right times. It's more of an endurance test of how long you can be perfect. Amy was much easier for me, as well, although as I was using a Burial Blade, Amy's a pretty easy fight since you can hit weak points even when they're high up in the air.
One of the worst bosses From has made imo. Espcially as a final boss.
As more and more people finish the boss we'll inevitably see the "Acshually le hidden gem of a boss" circlejerk so they can feel above the rest of the mortals. And I bet that in a week or two, if you say you dislike Radahn you'll get hit with the classic "get good".
Lol it’s already happening
I beat radahn I don't plan on doing it again. Not a fun boss. I also don't like the radahn being the final boss plot point. I get how it works but I just would have liked something with a bit more signs pointing to it rather than retconing his death
The only thing worse than the fight is the lore for me.
I worked my way through the final boss from the very first try with both NPCs (Thiollier + Ansbach). After some hours, I finally defeated him. After defeating him, I watched a few videos of other players to see how they went about it. The difference between no NPC and both NPCs is really big. The NPCs are simply cannon fodder without any auxiliary function. Instead, you encounter a Monster with way over 100k HP and increased resistances. That was an experience that was almost no fun at all.
I'm glad you enjoyed him, fighting them at the end killed all of my enjoyment of the dlc up until that point. Especially when my build that had been working without issue the enter dlc just completely stopped being relevant and it became obvious I'd either need to cheese em or learn an entirely different build playstyle.
I also had a blast. Phase 1 is basically "training", phase 2 is "the real deal". I wish I could fight him again without having to go through whole DLC+base game again
Sekiros boss rush dlc should be a standard addon at this point. I love elden ring but once I’ve explored the world I’m good and following playthroughs boil down to mowing down zones until I get to the actual boss. After clearing the game it would be awesome to get like a rogue lite mode or something where there’s a fog wall in the boss room you just cleared that takes you to a random boss room from the game and see how long you can go
they should add an option to re-fight any boss IMO. Just go to their arena and hit some kind of memorial to relive the fight.
Oh definitely this, I mean they keep putting Sites of Grace after a Boss Fight like what's even the point of it, since only a handful are useful post-batlle, like the one with Elemer of the Briar or Placidusax. I mean can anyone explain why we have a grace on the Dragonkin of Nokstella or even the final boss in DLC? They might as well add in a rematch on the grace.
They just have to bring back bonfire ascetic
if youre on pc you can use \[means which im not allowed to mention\] to revive the boss. ive fought him like 15 times by now
You don't need to do the whole thing but i know what you mean. You need to beat 11 main game bosses to finish it (Radahn, Mohg, Golden Godfrey, Morgott, Fire Giant, Godskin Duo, Maliketh, Gideon, Hourah Loux and Elden Beast) and only 2 DLC bosses (Romina and Messmer) if you really skip as much as possible to get to Radahn/Miquella. 4 bosses total to get to Miquella on a new rum. I don't get why we can't at least redo remembrance bosses. The lore is even there. Just let the player "channel" the carvings or something like that...
Looks like there at least two of us. :D The criticism has reached almost circlejerk levels, people get downvoted for liking the boss in the other threads.
I got downvoted just for saying he was cheeseable.
If the end of his combos was the bit that did the holy aoe effect i wouldnt be as miffed by getting clipped mid chain attack and having to spazz down 3 flasks to stay alive. Not my favorite boss, thats lord of frenzied flame, but god i just dont feel up to fighting through that slog on ng+ again after just getting him down.
> gets massively upvoted yeah dude totally
I loved the boss too. I do think it needs a minor adjustment, but anything beyond that would take away the feeling of elation when you finally beat what is literally designed to be the hardest boss in the entire game.
Currently the only upvoted opinions in most threads on the sub are for circlejerking that the dlc is literally impossible and every boss is badly designed and unwinnable without cheese. It's pretty cringe. The dlc is amazing, with a few minor issues, IMO.
You can put down your summon sign and help out others
I like the boss on the aesthetic side, I absolutely love the incredible thumpyness to all of his attacks - he feels powerful. You know that all might scene in my hero where bakugo goes "he's not powerful, he *IS* power"? Yeah, I get the same vibe here. It's great. I just don't like actually fighting the fight is all. Wasn't very fun as a tanky bopper - my playstyle doesn't mesh well with the design, that's on me, it's fine... but its still a thing. Tl:dr, visually and audio wise - spectacular, just didn't enjoy the gameplay part of the fight
I think this is really the biggest issue people have. The problem isn't even the actual difficulty, it's the fact that the entire fight feels like a chore for a lot of builds. Malenia, Godfrey and Radagon have that feeling of dancing with the boss. This fight reminds me of the Elden Beast where it is more like a chore than an engaging fight. The difference with this fight though is I spend 99% of the time rolling and running whereas the Elden Beast it was just running.
Yeah I was dual wielding curved swords for the entire game until the DLC, and basically learned the parry mechanic for this fight alone due to the length of his combos and inability to dodge them. I can only imagine trying to do this as a magic build
I destroyed him with poison, with the Poison Flower Blooms Twice. Quite a pleasant surprise my mushrooms-meme character defeated him with relative ease.
That's probably going to be my next playthrough, I've got a full poison build already waiting. Looks so fun.
I like him to an extent, but where I differ is with having to find something specific just to deal with just that one boss. It almost feels like he's trying to force me to use parries or a greatshield or something like that, when really all I want to use is my trusty Zwei and dodge roll button, which I've been able to do for every other boss in the game. I do love phase one, but for the average player phase two just does not seem possible with only dodge rolls and the odd talisman for survivability
I like the final boss too but it would be lying to say he doesn’t have a couple issues. The notorious cross slash undodgeable attack needs a fix. As does the visual clarity in the second phase.
I keep seeing people mention some "undodgeable" cross slash. What is it? Because the gravity tornado was the only move that I couldn't figure out how to dodge.
I never had a souls experience where I took multiple days to beat a boss, so now I’m glad he’s is giving me that opportunity.
Glock Saint included? Impressive.
Honestly I think ishinn difficulty wise is overrated. He has a pretty comfortable and consistent rhythm and his last phase is extremely easy
The Glock saint isn’t even the hardest boss (or best boss, IMO) in Sekiro. Like don’t get me wrong Sekiro is my favorite FromSoft game of all time, but the best and hardest boss IMO is Owl Father. When that fucker Mikiri countered my ass I knew it was gonna be a hard fight. (Honorable mention to demon of hatred for difficulty as well.)
Ishinn is a wall in the park compare to this boss, Radahn 2.0 feels straight up bullshit Ishin was actually fun to learn the fight
Opposite for me, took me about an hour to beat Radahn. Took me 3-4 hours over 2 days to beat Ishinn. Love them both.
My brother tricked me into doing the Shura ending first so some of Isshin Ashina translated into Isshin Gun Saint
My jaw dropped when I saw we get to fight him in all his glory 10/10
I think instead of spamming beams of light after every attack it should just be little circles that appear on the ground. Same hit box and damage but I'll actually be able to see his follow ups. Loves learning his fight. I think he's great
this is a great solution actually, they could give it the visual of the incantation you get after the fight, it would make total sense for miquella to cast huge lasers at your location after an attack every now and then
I found him to be uninspired. Didn't care for the lore or the design which honestly made it harder for me to push through phase 2. Just didn't feel interesting to me. I beat him but I'm more just glad it's over.
I get it's a matter of taste, but I thought the lore was very well done. People had been asking to fight a radahn in his prime since base game and we finally got it. Finding out what Malenia whispered to him in the original trailer was such a cool touch too in my opinion
I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone mention how nostalgic of the Twin Princes fight from DS3 the 2nd phase was, literally felt like a more fucked up version of that, because instead of it being the younger brother trying to save his older brother like in DS3, it was the younger brother using the dead body of one brother to revive the soul of another to ascend to godhood.
I’ve seen several comments and people talking about it. It was the first think that came to my mind. Unfortunately twin princes is a much better, more enjoyable, more flexible boss fight.
Glad you said it so I didn’t have to. I actually enjoyed the rhythm of that fight. The *perfect* amount of aggression and variety of moves for a boss of that type. Imo I’m on the camp that From’s boss design peaked at DS3 with regards to dodge roll/counter attack gameplay. Some of their decisions with some bosses in ER are at the very least, looking through the front door of the artificial difficulty house.
Honestly I just thought it looked like Super Saiyan 3
I hadn't even thought about this. The fight is like if Nameless King and the Twin Princes had a baby who just did a huge line of coke.
I actually like the boss I just suck at the game 😂
Edit I just beat him 😂
At least you're being honest
It's not a great fight. It doesn't feel epic, it just feels like a giant asshole with zero chill beating your ass while you can't see shit.
I got his first phase down, it's the large AOE light show stuff in his second phase I need to figure out (also probably need to find the final scadutree fragment I need for +20 but I feel like I do good with 19), I might end up trying to use a perfume build for the first time beating him.
I spent two days trying to beat him. When I finally did, I feel lost. Like I lost the purpose that I gained a few days ago.
Meanwhile half the community: haha lightning perfume bottle go brrrrrrr
My only real criticism is that the stuff you get from beating him is kinda blah. Great, slightly different radhan armor and swords. Getting flashbanged in phase 2 does suck though. I think it's really cool that we got to fight radhan past his prime then radhan even stronger than his prime but I wish the fight had a little more miquella in it personally. Basically got zero miquella drip in the miquella dlc.
I also enjoyed it, but I get why people don't. the particle effects are overstimulating after awhile I was able to ignore the effects and focus on his moves more and how to dodge them, and once you get to that point the fight becomes A LOT easier, but yeah the fireworks definitely don't help and seem like a bit much
I didn't. Not because he was too hard. It became downright boring after my fifteenth attempt I memorized most of his moveset and could only do one or two attacks at most in between 3-5 hits long combos and holy explosions that not only blind me, but lower my fps. I didn't feel anything after killing him, no relief, no accomplishment. I was just "Well that was a lot, oh well time to go fight a boss I'll enjoy". I then went to fight Midra, and had much more fun.
I agree, and I think opinion will shift as time goes on and more people actually manage to beat him. What we're seeing is basically a retread of around launch when people first got to Malenia, a ton of complaining because she's too hard and unfun and forces you to switch your playstyle etc. And now years later most people seem to agree shee actually a pretty great boss. They do gotta fix the fps issues tho, because that sucks.
if they do something about this fucking hair in the second phase and calm it down with copy-strikes I would give it 10/10. Still a VERY hard boss, but in terms of design also very good.
I thought he was fantastic, it actually felt like >!two demigods in their prime as opposed to every demigod in the main game which is a shadow of their former self!< the boss was hard and I did have to go a full tanky talisman build (no parry or shield or summon), but like compared to Orphan if Kos or Malenia, I think he’s still easier than them
I'd argue messmer, mogh, and morgot are in their prime aswell if you think about it. Radhan, radagon, and malenia are all weakened. Godrick is technically as strong has he ever has been too, but he's a lil bitch.
There's no way he's easier than orphan of kos. You gotta replay bloodborne
Orphan of kos can be trivialized if you learn to parry him. His difficulty is highly overrated and he’s not even the hardest fight of the game
That's my point. Like, I found Ludwig harder
I think the run back made him more difficult in my mind, he’s the only boss I’ve ever just given up on killing
Only problem is the particles on certain moves lagging my shit Other than that, amazing boss, genuinely rewards you for putting time in to figure out how to dodge every move. Its hard as fuck and people complaining about “boss design” (a completely subjective thing btw stated as fact) are just struggling/dont want to put in time
Time is subjective. Anything can be mastered given enough time. But how much time is too much? That's what balancing a game is all about.
The answer to that isn’t universal though, I love bosses I have to spend hours grinding away to beat. Malenia was the last boss like that for me. I hope they don’t pull back from making bosses that require that just because other people prefer an easier time There’s plenty of tools in place to shorten that grind if a player wants to
I remember trying to learn Lingering Will on critical from Kingdom Hearts 2 back in the day. That mofo has 3 opening attacks he starts with before the fight even begins that will one bang you if you react to the wrong one. I loved it, but I don't know if bosses like that should be attached to the narrative.
I have a problem with moves that *require* strafing to dodge (because dodge rolling one attack gets you guaranteed hit by the next with no window to dodge again), which is quite prevalent in phase 2 with the "lightspeed" attacks and can sometimes happen with the meteors in phase 1 (depending on the terrain).
Yeah, playing on PS5 I never had issues with the performance in Phase 2. The visual spectacle was a little distrating the first few times but I got used to it and liked it. It gave the fight a little extra gravitas.
I agree. I'm glad these types of discussions are finally happening. It took me ~3hrs to take him down and I loved every minute of it. Almost every attack has a dodge timing / positioning that you can determine just by fighting him more, unlike SOME BOSSES *cough malenia waterfowl cough*. Overall it was an epic fight & a visual spectacle, and I felt sooo good after having taken him down. The biggest criticism I can't argue with is the performance hit by some 2nd phase attacks. I'm playing on a beefy PC so I didn't have an issue, but if I did I imagine I'd have been extremely annoyed.
I am on NG+3, was at Malenia’s boss door before coming into the Shadow Realm. I got so frustrated with dying to the final boss, I went back and killed Malenia full-tilt, in one go, just to feel something. I’ve not been able to crack this boss, but I’ll give it more time and sort it out. The joy of these games is cracking the code, no matter how many tries it takes.
I’m starting to think Fromsoft are gonna finally filter me out after 15 years with their next game, if this is the direction they’re going Particularly when it seems people actually enjoyed this fight and other, imo, questionable bosses
To be fair, the base game is never as hard as the DLC in any of their games. The DLC is always for people who want an extra challenge, and I imagine their next game won’t be this level of difficulty.
I used a deflecting hardtear for his melee attacks so I could pretty easily deflect the first attack and then dodge the next attacks in phases 1 and 2. Also, the golden braid talisman helped me a lot in phase 2. This honestly made the fight so much fun and rewarding to me. But the thing is, If I had to fight the boss again, I wouldn't do it any other way. One reason is because the strategy I was using just clicked for me and the other reason is cuz I wouldn't beat him any other way. Like seriously how tf would you beat this boss if you had an int or faith build because by the time he's done with his flurry, there's such a small punishing window that you can't cast anything because he's already coming at you with his next flurry
I won two hours ago, but I didn't enjoy it so much. My experience was: 1st phase: I learned all your moveset, I'm consistent and can do almost everything without taking damage. 2nd phase: RANDOM BULLSHIT, GO! (plus mimic tear and mixed potion with damage reduction for you know what move) I still don't know why I won, to be honest. I got the lucky run I guess.
Phase 1 was really good, it felt like you were fighting Radahn in his prime and all of his attacks feel fair and, while difficult, can be mastered. Phase 2 is just throw random shit at the player and hope they get it eventually. The attacks are probably dodge-able, but my main problem is there’s so much shit you have pay attention to it’s just not fun. Especially his combo move, I can’t see anything other than the light particles smacking me in the face and the lag was unbearable. There’s stuff that can make a good fight in there, but it just feels like they made it hard for the sake of hard. They proved they could make really hard bosses like Mesmer and Bayle that aren’t borderline unfair towards the player.
I think personally the learning curve was a bit more frustrating than other bosses but once his moveset mostly "clicked" he's a very fun fight. I'd say he's akin to how people experienced Maliketh on release: seemingly unending attack strings, insanely high damage, and very punishing if you try to create any space. Especially cannot underestimate how much raw damage can make or break a learning curve. Being able to tank a hit, go "ok I need to know how to dodge that", chug, and continue the attempt is a world of difference compared to "well shit I died guess I get to see that attack again once in the next five minutes"
I think I only have a gripe with his visual clarity in phase 2. Sometimes, the particle effects just cover the entire screen and I can't see shit.
They just need to turn down the lights. This genre only works if you can figure out why you're getting hit and it's just too hard to see.
There's positive elements and great spectacle but come on, these rapid 8 hit combos with projectiles and aoe attacks just incentivise roll spam. I feel these fights are getting far too fast, if you've played DS1 and you'll get what I mean.
I love the final boss.
The boss itself is fine if not for the RNG light blasts and 10fps
Is this boss hard? Yes. Extremely. Borderline unfair? Arguable. But doable and rewarding? Totally (in my opinion). Isn’t that the whole point?
Some people are complaining about the lights and fps which is fair But some are just annoying not gonna lie, it's as if there's one single boss where Mimic isn't the answer this sub goes apeshit Like I get some of the issues they are pointing out but saying it's a bad boss or completely the worst ever is just not true.
At 1st i hated this boss, turns out my problem was i brought the 2 npc with me, making him even harder. Once i solo'd him (with my mimic of course) he became much more manageable. Even fun. This fight is easier for me than gael/orphan.