Elden Ring Bosses: Spirit Summons AREN'T the Problem
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- čas přidán 28. 09. 2022
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It’s about that time where I once again commit the cardinal sin of criticizing Hidetaka Miyazaki’s magnum opus. I know, I know. They said it couldn’t be done. This video is a lot more positive that the last because spoiler alert, I like the game half my videos have been about! Whereas the last vid focused on a particular weakness of the game, this one is more general and looks at the ups and down of all ER bosses, and the role that spirit ashes play.
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wow you are not like other girls :3
@@samankucher5117 :3
youre quite the impressive youtuber, its a shame you arent bigger
Persona five looks.. Less than mid.
I don't get why it's so popular now that I've seen it
But have you considered Getting Gud?
My biggest beef with this game is still that all the enemies have a better lock on mechanic than the player.
Seriously, no way a boss's downslash should be able to do a 45 degree pivot just because you rolled a frame before the attack fires off
Spent more time fighting Elden Ring's hidden true boss: The Camera
@@thejuryofwolves that's the one improvement this series has never gotten since og demons souls. The bloody camera. It took a remake by another studio for it to be decent.
The camera and lock on is so terrible ! It must be really difficult to program it right. The camera always wants to face me 180 away from the enemy just facing a well whenever I hit lock . Not always but enough of the time to die from it often.
@@CRAgamer
Tbh I even had trouble with the demon souls camera. Now that I think about it, it was better.
I think camera might just be an extremely difficult thing to program well. Really hoping it will be improved in the next releases.
When I first “beat” Malenia and it entered a cutscene my heart dropped
Yeah it was like a sadder, disappointment enducing version of the Guardian Ape from Sekiro. If you know, you know.
@@Wonkess_Chonkess Remove waterfowl dance, make phase 2 happen at half health (for context, her phase 1 health and defence are higher than NG+7 Maliketh's HP and DEF), make her stop walking menacingly for 40 seconds doing absolutely nothing
@@Wonkess_Chonkess It's less necessary than the rest of the changes I agree but it'll be a welcome change
@@Wonkess_Chonkess Yeah nvm I get your point, I suppose the healthbar isn't a problem now that i think about it
Fried and Guardian Ape
It's unrealistic for gank boss attacks to sync up but its even more unrealistic for them to swing through eachother's models without hurting or stunning one another in any way.
Theres a couple of strong common enemies who hit each other; should have implemented that
@@Mngalahad if they directly implemented that then you could just run away and the bosses would accidentally kill eachother, what they need to do is actually design the boss as a single encounter instead of stacking existing enemies, or at the very least make it so they have hitstun for eachothers attacks but not damage
@@swerrve youre mostly right. If bosses hit each other a little and mostly staggered each other more than hurt each other it would be fine.
You may be familiar with the agni and rudra fight from dmc3; its an early game duo fight and works perfectly fine.
What i said first definitely wouldnt work XD but some hurt each other mechanic wouldnt be too bad.
@@Mngalahad if it was just stagger it would be good thats what it should be so they can knock eachother out of animations and not just overlap 30 attacks
Yep I always thought it was a bit of a mistake for the guard counters in PVE or boss fights to not just ignore walls or obstacles. Especially now considering the fact that they've rebalance the weapons to where you effectively have two versions of the same weapon, one for PVP and one that you use for PVE
Edit: like could you imagine if they put a NPC phantom in the sewers just to hammer this point home? Making you actually have to think about how claustrophobic it is and find an area is that you fight it in until you overcome it, so then on a very real level it both feels and is a case that it's easier to get through the level afterwards?
4:04 “Putting the Orphan of Kos against a 2009 Demon Souls enjoyer, is like handing a small Victorian child a Juul.” My guy, this had my gut bustin so bad tears flowed.
hardest bar ive ever read
Its weird because a small Victorian Child would inhale more intoxicants living in the coal black land of victorian London in a single day, than 1000 juuls.
that doesn't even change the fact that young children use to smoke cigarettes back then
as someone who summons for literally everything. I have a massive amount of respect for the people who just 1v1 bosses
As a long time Soulsborne fan who loves to 1v1 the bosses (including in Elden Ring, especially the rememberance bosses which I love), I respect you the same way :)
It's not like you're cheating by using mechanics that are intentionally in the game and make it and easier experience for you, the fact that you saw a certain spirit ash and thought "oh this seems cool" is no different than finding a strong weapon, armor, talisman or a random item and incorporating that into your build.
There are so many different tools in the game because this allows people to overcome the various challenges in a way that suits their own playstyle, so have your fun and don't listen to people that say your experience is somehow less valid because you played the game in a different way
I don't mind summons, but for me - they just ruin fun, steal the fucking spotlight - where I'm just freaking bitchboy and summon is star of the show getting all boss attention. I'm planning tho to do summon only run (where I cannot deal damage to bosses myself), but I always find something else more fun to build around.
Every time I use a summon I regret it😂 I won, but at what cost
@@D4C_ It’s not less valid, only less skillful. Like playing the game on normal difficulty vs hard mode. I understand there are a lot of elitists in gaming but I am in no way trying to insult people who don’t like challenge runs.
Summon the first few times to use them to watch bosses. Use that knowledge to make it easier to solo. Especially for casual play. I don't want it to be a walk in the park. I just want to not waste a week on a boss when I'm working constantly. I'm here to blow off steam xD
My biggest beef with the game is the stored inputs and lack of a cancel on them.
So you can hit dodge, get hit before it triggers, then have the stored roll trigger after recovery, then get hit a second time.
The saddest part is that one of the reasons people get hit in the first place is the horrible roll delay in ER.
@@scotaloo77g73 I think it triggers on button release instead of press which makes it super awkward and finnicky.
@@Draffut2003 Holding B is run so ofc it the roll releases on release. That doesnt cause any remotely noticeable delay though.
I will agree that action queueing, or stored inputs as you say, is the worst thing in Miyazakis games. Its never been useful
@@are3287 its very very noticeable when bosses have instant attacks that are impossible to roll on reaction aka 50% of bosses
Very very true, this is why i didnt enjoy elden ring at all, it feels so much clunky compared to the other games and i dont know how they managed to do that, currently im using quickstep and its nice to be able to dodge on reaction any attack without having to calculate the timing of the animation and the timing of my finger releasing the dodge button
If I had to summarize my issues with Elden Ring’s combat with one sentence it would be this:
The enemies have gotten faster but my character hasn’t to compensate.
To be fair your stamina regenerates faster than in bloodborne and you can low profile or jump to avoid attacks while getting extra hits in. It is certainly a valid argument but I think it’s pretty over-exaggerated tbh
@@johnmclawson3982 HE SUGGESTED A DIFFICULTY SLIDER IN SOULSBORNE!
LAUGH AT THIS USER!!!
lmfao I remember when people use to say this about dark souls 3
@@historicflame972 Points finger @johnmclawson3982 and laughs: Ha Ha!
I think it's a way bigger issue in DS3, the enemies are so hyper-aggressive and it jusn't doesn't mesh well with your own speed or Dark Souls gameplay as a whole.
I hate how enemies will dodge your ranged attacks before the projectile even materializes on screen. Some enemies will dodge your projectiles when you aren’t even targeting them.
that's because you can use spells without targeting people. its very common to use the telescope or binoculars and casting magic that way
Some spells like Carian Glintblade and all the Night sorceries can be used on enemies and they won’t dodge it
The most hilarious scenario I've encountered was when the rune bear jumps into the air and performs an aerial slam which locks onto you no matter where you go.
Yeah I understand that players can do the same to a degree, but for players it feels like there’s some weapons or abilities that aren’t as easy to free aim and also don’t track what you’re targeting as well.
But for most enemies their tracking seems much more aggressive to the point of looking outright goofy at times. Especially when a big slow boss charging a big slow swing does a hyper speed 180 to hit me.
I think the most hilarious thing I've seen was when my sibling and I were fighting the final boss.
He leapt into the air, hammer held high, facing me, then just...rotated midair to face my sibling, then rotated back at me and came crashing to earth.
Mine was the Shield Tree Sentinel of the duo doing two 360° spins on its shield push attack to hit me. Not to be confused with the bash or the slam. He has 3 of those shield attacks at the very least.
I always avoid that you’re just trash
Fuck the rune bear. Seriously. I hate that thing. It's one of the quintessential "Bloodborne enemy in a Dark Souls game" encounters in Elden Ring.
I don’t even mind the speed or aggression of the enemies, it’s the insane tracking they have
I do notice some tracking jank at times as well, which has... interesting results during some fights if you were to use the seamless co-op mod.
Plus, the topic reminded me of MHRise's weird tracking jank a monster's attacks would have because of high framerates on PC. Until a recent-ish patch, that is.
The speed and relentless attacks of the enemies in Elden Ring doesn't work with DS3 combat mechanics. Seems the developers want you to use a shield or a heavy stagger weapon, if you don't block 6-8 relentless attacks in a row,with a split second pause until the relentless attacking starts again, then you have to stunlock on first hit, otherwise your dodge rolling and healing the entire time until you inevitably die... Elden Ring combat mechanics don't really work with the way enemies behave unless you use specific weapons and tactics, kinda hard to do alot of different builds, most weapons don't really work well.
Tell me about it. The Margot cane hold shit made me upset to say the least. Then you also have the hover and track where they just sit in the fucking air after they jump stupidly high and smash down on you because the delayed attack made you dodge early.
@@fionnmaccuill415 I played it. It's also meant for that style of combat where the souls formula is not.
@@fionnmaccuill415 I've beaten Sekiro about 6 times kid
"He raises his hand in the air, and just kinda walks towards you until his arm gets tired, and then he brings it down on your head and forges a new elden ring with your intestines." I LOVE THAT LINE BRO NICE VIDEO!
Definitely Margit.
So incredibly lame
Haven't finished the vid yet but that's 100% margit
@@AB-vp9mi radagon
"Elden Ring bosses are playing Minecraft creative mode while you're still stacking boxes in Tetris"
I've been trying to figure out why the bosses don't really click with me the same way DS bosses do and I dont think there's a better way to describe it.
The reason that's taken me long to realise is that the bosses' combos are just way too fast for the player's dodge mechanics. As such it's not fair when you die, it just feels lije you must run away and look for openings instead of being aggressive and learning how to dodge each attack.
@@valkeitoswhat attacks are you talking about (without bringing up Malenia because shes 1 OPTIONAL boss out of over a hundred). Also aggression is the key to this game so im not sure what you’re getting at with that one
@@edun4513 100% agree with you. i dont know what kind of "undodgeable attacks" they are talking about. like i know they're fast but they are 100% dodgeable. i think these people only dodge left and right cuz if so then it makes sense cuz some attack you need forward or backward to completely avoid the entire enemy combo.
@@valkeitos I really don't like people who keeo disparaging spirit summons when sometimes it feels like spirits are the only way I can get space to do things like swap weapons? Use items or reposition.
That and one thing I found about Elden Ring bosses is that using a greatshield or equivalent makes the game much more manageable and enjoyable because putting up my guard allows me to stabilize myself in combat. Especially on NG+, shields are so important in my opinion because you'll just get oneshot if you're not perfect.
@@UncleMerlin I've been running NG+ with nothing but pants and I've been tanking hits more often than usual. Even against higher level enemies
Shoutout also to the Gagoyles, who can tapdance backwards while attacking, incidentally dodging/poising through the attack you just did to hit you in your recovery frames
Large enemies with the mobility of ninjas, gotta love it!
@@Blittsplitt5 I was actually playing again after some time, and I lobbed a fireball at a gargoyle's back from like a mile away. The gargoyle, somehow, prediction dodged the fireball (which it shouldn't even be able to see), did a lil tapdance sideways, then spinned around attacked the air (where a meele character would be). Gotta love it.
I feel that elden rings bosses would be much more suited for a bloodborne type movement / combat. After fighting melania it makes me appreciate how balanced the orphan of Kos fight was. I took me so long to beat Kos but I never felt cheated but with melenia and others its a different story.
Bloodborne is still the best Souls game imo. Best theme, best combat. The only bad part is putting a trophy boss at the very bottom of the chalice dungeons.
@@VaporeonEnjoyer1 False Depth Dungeons - get your easy platinum here
@@rodryguezzz lmfao
Erm, didn’t you know that calling malenia poorly designed or poorly balanced simply means you’re a fake fan and you suck at the game?
It’s written in the Miyazaki Bible
@@radicalgear391 Yeah, I hate when people use that defense for malenia. I never used summons or any of the meta weapons, I just stuck with a full strength build using Radahn's Blades ( don't remember what they were called) and I defeated every single boss in the entire game without ever using summons except Malenia. I learned to dodge her every move perfectly, I wouldn't even get hit so the healing part of her design didn't bother me but my god, waterfowl dance broke me, I couldn't always nail the timing and that move would one shot me every single damn time even though I had like 60 vigor. After a while, I just gave up, pulled out rivers of blood and mimic tear and defeated her first try. After that, I reverted back to my old build and beat the game. Malenia belongs in Sekiro where you could probably deflect that move not elden ring
I always use summons (especially NPC summons) because they make the world feel more alive for me, and make me get attached to NPCs who help me out, to the point where I want to return the favor and help them out in their questline.
Only time I didn't use summons is the last boss fight, because I didn't want my mimic to become Elden Lord instead of me (that would be epic secret ending tho if your summon becomes elden lord xDD)
💯 agree with you. I always focus my games in summons and companions cause I like that gameplay type.
Feel the same way, spirit ashes and NPC summons were great through the journey, but once I got to Morgott, Hoarah Loux, Radagon, I felt like I needed to do it solo. And someday I'll beat Malenia solo but after 100 attempts I just summoned them mimic
This is me in all souls games except gaping dragon
I kicked lautrec, the bastard, off a cliff
@@historicflame972 he kinda deserves it.
Same I got attached to Latenna and Lhutel. I played most of the game with them and it felt like having a adventuring partner. I even would get sad when they died.
It pisses me off in this game that I can swing my sword maybe 4 times before I get tired and have to stop, but the boss who’s weapon is 50 times bigger than mine can attack 23 consecutive times without having to stop
they lift
@@historicflame972 I assure you, the Tarnished lifts as well
If you fight something that has same limitations as you then its not a boss lol, its just a regular enemy, a boss is supposed to be crazy. Where is the reward in beating a creature that doesn't even feel stronger than you? For me human sized bosses always feel lame, even if they're really hard, it just feels like beating up an npc
@@Rujewitblood Play Sekiro.
Thats how every fromsoft game is. Its meant to be more powerful than you so its challenging. Would you rather all the bosses have 2 move combos and wait around while you attack them?
As someone who played Demon Souls during its original release, the whole getting good argument didn't start out as getting better at the game, *the whole original point of the phrase was during the king's field era, that you get better by understanding items and enemies in order to overcome obstacles* The phrase only became known when multiple people who started out in Demon Souls had difficulty with understanding the game mechanics and due to people having different ways of overcoming obstacles by their own means, the phrase eventually shortened by the time of Dark Souls to the classic term of "Git Gud" = take time in gaining knowledge and experimentation to overcome the enemy or obstacle. Overtime, it ended up losing it's original meaning and became known as a simple joke when you ask for help after being stuck at some point in a Souls game.
It never really had that meaning is the thing, it's just a toxic phrasing that people try to justify.
It's reductive and useless in helping people when they need help with something, instead of telling people to read more item descriptions, you tell people to "git gud"
It offers no actual aid or assistance and is instead a way to be dismissive of the obfuscation the souls games are littered with, and the worst part is these games really struggle at having a community willing to help people. Instead of helping people discover things themselves they just give them the answer, so they never learn and they never try to learn. Watching a twitch streamer play through for the first time and while he doesn't really get the "git gud" anymore because anybody still using it is either a delusional idiot or is deliberately trying to be toxic, but what he gets instead is "oh you need to go here and fight this boss and get this item to fix your build" or giving straight up turn by turn directions and spoiling half the game's exploration for him.... and the streamer is in a constant state of being lost and missing things because he just never learned to explore the game for himself, everybody tells him where to go and what to do.
I remember playing DS1 on stream and all the veterans would come to watch and would stay silent and give me cryptic and vague hints "I wonder if that item you picked up explains the lore of this place"
DS2 was probably the most fun for this since everybody coming by loved watching somebody enjoy the game for the first time, then dark souls 3 came out and the community changed. Min Maxers would drop by and command you left and right, go here, do that, buy this item, use that, skip picking that item up, there's a guy around the corner that will try to sneak attack you, just hit the nutsacks on the rotting tree.
Elden Ring was by far the worst for this, not only did they come into the stream and backseat the streamer, they would discuss and explain upcoming enemies and boss fights, instead of letting people find patches with minimal guidance, they simply told him to go get patches. The streamer was like "of course there's a patches like character" "no it's literally patches from the other games 100%"
Like people these days have completely forgotten what a spoiler is, sure it's not a major plot point, but walking into that boss room, wandering around and opening his chest to get ganked by a guy named patches, then to turn and see that... it's literally patches. It's a magical moment.... that a lot of players playing with friends just don't get because they just spoil it for them, ignoring what is right and polite.
People who just say "git gud" at this point, should be banned from all souls discussion forever, as they do nothing to actually help the series. In fact, they only harm it. Sometimes I really wish the souls community had not gotten this big with this many annoying shitheads in it.
@@DaShikuXI well it depends on the person and the meaning. If an elitist asshat says it, it‘s just toxic. And when someone just casually says „you just have to git gud at this boss“ then I think of it like I need to learn the moveset in order to best the boss.
This makes sense. Unfortunately its like everything, as soon as it gets out to the mass market/mainstream/casuals and they start flocking everything gets more toxic and watered down dosent matter what it is
@@DaShikuXI perhaps you should just git gud?
Funnily enough I have no issue with Hoarah's delayed time-slow grab and find it pretty easy to dodge whereas some of Mohg's delays feel kinda unnatural to me, especially the one where he attacks in a downwards arc with his weapon extended. Also Radagon's utterly bullshit teleporting brings him down from an 8 or 9 out of 10 boss to a 5 or 6 for me.
Woah I was just watching your DS3 normally video a couple hours ago! And yeah Hoarah had me audibly laughing out loud at his effortless manipulation over spacetime itself, but I really have no complaints when it comes to Mohg’s delays. Just goes to show how subjective that kinda stuff is
radagon gives you a second to dodge when he teleports and he teleports to you, i don't see the problem.
You really think an easy to dodge move takes multiple points off the the radagon fight?
I ran an RL1 playthrough that was pleasantly challenging until Radagon/Elden Beast. I've fought them hundreds of times, to no avail. I've finally given up. The difficulty spike was just too great.
@@slash_em what weapon are you using? Radagon gets very consistent with enough practice but Elden Beast kinda remains a wild card without scripting the fight
My main gripe with Elden Ring is actually how many instant kill grab attacks there are!! Hoarah Loux is the worst offender. Any one of this WWE wrestling champion's grab attacks can easily send you to hades. When you are a shield build, he is way worse than Malenia if you have to talk about the invalidation of builds. And then there's Elden beast that invalidates like 90% of builds, which is absolutely assinite.
I'd say it's not just the instant kill grabs, but the overal insane damage output from bosses. I had 45-50 vigor pretty early in the game and pretty much every boss had multiple combos that could kill me 4-5 times over if the full combo hit. You pretty much die in 1-2 hits and they often attack non-stop with huge range. And even when you dodge an attack and are out of range and want to heal, they will still f*** you up since almost all the bosses get attacks that get them to you halfway across the arena in a fraction of the time it takes to use a heal. Dying from a single mistake just isn't fun. It's understandable if it's a major mistake for their most powerful attack, but almost all the bosses at some point have multiple combos that just end you the moment they get a hit in.
@@thenonexistinghero Hoarah Loux never killed me with grabs. The damage of those are similar to the overall damage of strong attacks (4/5 of your life with 40 vigor lmao).
Except Malenia's grab. I never survived that shit even with 60 vigor.
You are just shit at the game and can’t avoid them
Grab attacks have been around since day one though so they arent new. I wont lie though I do think they should be phased out by the next game, similar to how ER phased out the boss runbacks
We gonna mention when Elden Beast crucifies you with light and stabs you 100 times until you're dead?
If you are one of those people who genuinely belittles people for using summons, it doesn't make you look like an elite player it just makes you look like a douche. Every play style is viable, in that it's a game and you can use whatever you want to play it your way. I used summons the whole way through Elden Ring, then went on to steam roll Dark Souls 3, BloodBorne and I am currently about halfway through Sekiro. I now understand why people say "Git gud", but it still comes across as toxic and is incredibly unhelpful.
For real, using summons is not cheating or anything like how many people make it out to be. The same people would lick fromsoft’s boots would then critize people who used an in game mechanic that fromsoft implemented.
As Joseph Anderson put it, if you beat a boss with your own way then that win is still valid.
i have no problem with people using summons but one thing i dont like are people that use summons saying "oh that boss was easy" or talking about the actual fight itself when summoning makes the boss easier and changes the fight.
Especially when you're clearly 4/5ths through the game with the question you asked or complaint you made. I already got gud im just stuck on a late game problem.
For most FromSoft games, animation reading is basically the same as input reading. Because if you can't animation cancel, then anim reading is basically delayed input reading. (The option to delay strong attacks changes this, but not by much)
it isnt even delayed in elden ring. as soon as the animation starts the boss knows
@@the4given196 yeah, you're right. But the delay I'm referring to is the one between input press and the corresponding animation activation.
Outcome is the same so both are equally bad
@@-Yuvel- yeah, pretty much
@@the4given196: Seriously, the fact bosses will instantly transition into their flask punish before the flask itself is even on screen is just too much. Obviously, bosses should be able to react and respond to the player's actions, but unless they are explicitly supposed to be a psychic mind reader those reactions should probably happen midway through your own animations, not freaking startup.
Tbh my biggest problem with this game is the sheer number of movesets that are just made to screw with your timing. That and the sheer mobility of a lot of bosses and how they're constantly jumping to the other side of the arena.
kinda the point
BHS, Raptor of the mists, and quickstep partly nullify this argument. These ashes make PVE much more bearable and also benefits competitive PVP players like invaders and duelists because BHS provides counter play to ganks and certain magic spells. BHS used to be cancer for PVP but that is no longer the case for the most part. Raptor of the mists gives otherwise impossible dodge opportunities with a chance for counterattacks with certain boss moves. I will agree that the game is unreasonably difficult at times without these ashes of war.
Git gud
So, bosses are more complex and require actual mastery and effort? No wonder why many like them.
@@enman009 does it make them more complex though? Delays aren't variable: any given attack will always have the same delay to it. It's still just a part of the moveset you have to learn, same with most bosses across the series.
The only thing that makes bosses more complex are their combo extensions.
I think FromSoftware is like Schrodinger's cat when it comes to game design. They craft both the best and the worst experiences I've had in video games.
On one hand, you have the superb, unforgettable bosses of DS3. You have the unmatched atmosphere and music of Bloodborne. You have the refined, flawless combat of Sekiro. You have the world design of Elden Ring.
And then on the other, you have Bed of Chaos. The platforming sections. The poison swamps. The tedious boss run backs. Elden Beast. The shit that is so irredeemably bad that it's hard to imagine how it made it past *alpha.*
What is there in bloodborn like that though? Blood vials early game maybe i guess
@@brotbrotsen1100 The run back to Martyr Logarius was pretty atrocious. I also think Witch Hemwick is one of the worst bosses they've made. Bloodborne is my favorite but it's also got some stink in it.
Elden beast.....the worst final boss maybe in any game ever. And I mean that! It had such insane resistances it nullified most builds. I had to respec out of quality into pure strength and use two great hammers just to beat it while staying in the "meta" level for pvp. I started as a confessor so incantations were my bread and butter aside from powerstancing swords.
@@theophany4935 opps on chalice dungeons? I actually like them but I know its a controversial topic
It took me two tries to beat Elden beast and this is my first fromsoft game
Idk, the game I think does treat Spirit Ashes like it's a core mechanic. With how early you can get them and how most of the small dungeons feel like they're there for the purpose of upgrading and acquiring more ashes, and especially with how a lot of boss movesets seem like their designed to fight multiple people, it seems like Fromsoft really wanted people to use them often.
Some enemies are designed to handle spirits, others really aren't. Malenia and Mohg are prime examples of the latter.
And the problem is less about summons as a mechanic, and more about how strong some summons are. Like, are most summons invalidating bosses? Definitely not. But Mimic Tear, the black knife, banished knights, and a few others are really strong.
Idk man tiche and mimic almost soloed Malenia in my playthroughs. She was an endgame boss and I was lowkey underleveled. All the bosses aren't really built for 2v1, their ai just freaks out
It definitely does in Mini-dungeons the way I see. Small room, two bosses, yeah that's the game straight up telling you to use summons.
I ain't gonna solo two bosses in a small aass room as a faith caster type. That's asking for death.
I'd say it's a decent tradeoff for the A.Is input reading.
I used them a lot and realized they were trivializing many battles. Now I used them for multiple bosses or endgame ones
The way some of Elden Beast’s magical attacks obscure your view of the boss, it practically does turn off your screen mid fight. Nothing like running to avoid the lasers, only for him to do the slash waves from behind the cover of the lasers. And if the first wave clips you, you’re not dodging the second, and there’s still two move coming.
You saying this reminds me of a actual smokescreen tactic that Mohg uses. His bloodflame talon backstep, where the explosion briefly obscures his next move that is usually a lunging stab.
Not saying it's bad, i actually love it, there's still a oppertunity to recognise it as he prepares to stab, but this move definitely can catch people that are unaware or have slower reaction times.
Worked on me until i eventually recognised the combo, and even then i didn't realise it was a smokescreen tactic.
Ok i dunno why but am I the only idiot whos got his ass clapped by EB? He kept spamming that hundred over homing missiles at me when I was fighting him. If I went hard on him, he would keep spamming his teleport. He was the most frustrating/ draining boss that I had ever faced.
@@Saicofake Most people hate it, EB is a terrible boss. But yeah, always try to close the distance, as being far away means it’ll spam spells. It also does specific attacks at certain health breakpoints, so if you lower its health too fast, it will blast out all 3 back to back (Giant Ring, Elden Stars, then triple giant Ring).
@@arellajardin8188 Personally i don't mind EB but i see people's points. I guess i'm just accustomed to slower-paced and methodical bosses as long as it has a good atmosphere, (not saying i can't cope with faster enemies tho).
I'd say, EB is probably better on the first playthrough because of how much of a spectacle it is, and how it demands a very different approach to most if not all other encounters.
Probably falls off later because it's telegraphing is easier to master.
@@Saicofake EB and Radagon are actually my favourite fights in the game. After i beat them i just put my sign down in front of Radagon for literally weeks and just helped people with them.
EB is really more of a spectacle fight. Most of its moves can be avoided with very little effort (most just by running). And while i can see why people might find it annoying that it moves around so much, a lot of its attacks will just bring it back to you (so all you gotta do is wait) or in case of the big circle attack it'll always fly over you, so once it starts the attack you can just do a 180°, run that way and dodging the attack in the process and once the attack is over you'll be right in front of EB again.
To be quite frank, I love it when a boss has one delayed move that's very readable but that's the only one. Godfrey has that digging attack, Lorian has that light wave, and Micolash has A Call Beyond. They've got to be my favorite bosses in their respective games.
Micolash is your favorite boss in bloodborne? These boss fights really are polarizing
@@bonjour7209 Maria would have been my favorite, but I'm not sure if I love or hate how her phase 3 blood laser combos into the massive slash, so Micolash takes the cake.
Players fighting Elden Beast: "Noooooo!!! You can't just move across the whole arena without giving me an opportunity to punish!!"
Players fighting Morgott: "Wow! His flips are so cool!"
All Elden Beast needed was a couple of voice lines. Then tons of people would ignore every bad aspect of the fight and praise it while talking about getting chills every time they hear a line.
@@scotaloo77g73 "youve done it Tarnished one. You have truly become the Elden Ring..."
@@TheBlastmeister they should make him say "I am the Elden Beast" at the beginning of the cutscene
@@TheBlastmeister And then he eldenringed all over the place
@@cocojumbo539 Truly one of the games.
The bell bearing hunters, despite being one of my favorite enemies in the game as one of the coolest and designed, also feature a ridiculously charged grab that also works well out of the guy's actual arm reach, unintuitively teleporting you from three feet to his side into his hand. Red glowy sword cool though
DS2 sends his regards.
Ds2 ahh hit detection
Yeah, that's the jank that i don't like in their design but it's a great enemy
@@yourdad5799 While ds3 is ds1 2, we have Elden Ring, Ds2 2
In regards to the habit of some bosses jumping away, it is actually the opposite of frustration for any ranged build.
Its actually an ironic complaint because if you are playing aggressive and keeping on the boss then the boss jumping away lets you recoup your stamina. So people who play hit and run playstyle where they panic roll away from the boss and wait for the boss to do an easily punishable heavy attack are going to have a hard time when he leaps away before they can get an attack in and think that it makes the game harder. People who play "properly" are going to think it makes the game easier.
Jup, Gargoyles btw.... the make the fight easier for range with that behaviour while Melees get a hard time.
i just hate how i'm chasing the final boss for most of the fight. 80% of it is me just trying to catchup that salamander-looking mofo, only for him to swim away to the opposite side of the arena. at least let me summon torrent ffs
@@breakhammer87 Almost every boss is like that. The game was definitely balanced around magic builds and summoning
That's why I use beast roar.
Malenia's idling isn't a problem, the problem is that she can hyperarmor on a dime and screw you over if you try to be aggressive. Most of the time she'll be stun just fine but the few moments when she just starts an hyperarmored attacks when you went at her are frustrating and discourage engaging with her when she is idling.
The safest solution I found to still be aggressive without gambling on potentially trading-hit was to engage her with crouch attacks since they're usually fast enough that you can dodge even when she hyperarmors through your hit.
I think it was necessary tho other wise you'd be able to just hit her once, run away then do it again with 0 risk.
Malenia is pretty much 100% predictable in terms of hyper armor. She has several huge openings, you just have to find them. If not for Waterfowl, I'd almost never take damage in phase 1. I feel like people just spam jump attacks on her because it works on everything else, then get upset when she starts dashing into hyper armor to counterhit them. All you have to do is walk into her range and see what she does, then act.
Second phase she almost always recovers with a kick so you can really only get 1-2 safe hits at a time. Otherwise, some of her openings are harder to take advantage of and her combos have extensions, but it's pretty much the same shit.
The only thing that's bullshit about Malenia is Waterfowl. And the phantom attack in phase 2, but that might just be my failure to understand rather than the game. Waterfowl I understand well, it's just fucking hard to deal with if she uses it at close range.
Oh, and the way her wings obscure her movements is kind of bullshit too, at least until you've fought her 500 x and know her moveset inside out / can predict what she's going to do at any given time.
@@djx7134 it's not the hyper armor that's a problem it's the infinite hyper armor people have a issue with. No other boss in this game operates that way. Not even in previous souls games humanoid opponents had infinite hyper armor. There's reason people take such issue with her.
@@djx7134 compare her to Friede from DS3. That’s not how Friede’s fight went. The devs went out of their way to add arbitrary unnecessary layers of difficulty to her
Malenia's hyperarmor is necessary. Otherwise you'd have a Friede from DS3 situation, where you could just stagger her to eternity, and then get away easily without any consequences whatsoever.
Everyone complaining about her poise boosts, input reading, lifesteal and animation cancelling literally fail to understand that all that is NECESSARY. They have a reason to be there. Poise boosts are there so you can't infinitely stunlock her. Input reading is so that you can't get away with being careless wether that be careless aggression or careless healing. Her lifesteal is a VERY good tool to give you incentive to perfect the fight rather than just "getting through it". Animation cancelling is so that you can't keep wailing on her with lighter weapons. She's the tightest difficulty checkpoint in the series so far. And I love it.
Casual players don't seem to understand what game they're playing tho. At its core this is still a Souls game, not a hack and slash. It's slow, strategical and actually requires skill. People really spam all the broken shit to breeze through the game, and then get mad and call it unfair and bs when something actually has a counter against it. It's diabolical.
I just wanna say the comparison of handing a small Victorian era child a Juul made me laugh out loud in the middle of my shift at work. thank you 😂
maan you're calm talking style is so amazing, i want to listen to you forever. but there are also the memes and this editing, your content is just pure gold
Thank you!
as an someone who plays offline, and doesn’t have any way of contacting his friends,(outside of school) summoning feels like I’m fighting with a group who triumph over powerful people, like a war between 5 people
Idk if this is mean but that really sad
Think you might enjoy MMOs
@@NasuPrime I don't think they can. Least my interpretation is that they literally can't play online.
@@lilbop9625 I don't think it's inherently sad. If they enjoy the game then who cares. How's that sad?
@@spookzer16 lmao good point
The only thing they fixed with Malenia is that update where she could heal herself by hitting your hitbox during rolling s..or ghost hits.
You cant tell me that bosses like the godskin duo were not designed with at least summons in mind
That bullshit hyper damage from the rolling attack gets me every time
Man hates Elden Beast so much that he just wiped it from his memories after each playthrough.
I'm just pointing this out as a bit of a Bloodborne fanatic: but you missed one other really important mechanic. Parrying. Parrying almost changes everything in Bloodborne if you know how to do it but it also fits very well into the combat. Parrying is how you deal high burst damage on a skill build, how you can instantly rally back tons of health, and even how you can regain bullets if you need them. It works as a break in the combat or like resetting the tempo of the fight to zero. But it is also a great counter to delayed attacks. In Bloodborne delayed attacks are like a free parry window so their implementation makes sense as they have a direct counter. But in Elden Ring delayed attacks are just kinda there
Pretty sure demon souls has parrying and i know dark souls does so that's not a mechanic given too the player specifically for bloodborne. "rally back tons of health, and even how you can regain bullets if you need them" this however is
@@nobody5093 I'm specifically saying how the parrying works makes it special. The shooting a bullet and plunging your fist into their chest parry
@@puncherofbread It's not that different then parrying in dark souls, Wait for enemy to attack parry then riposte.
All they did was swap a fist/shield/dagger for a gun
@@nobody5093 The ability to do it at range, the rally system, and the sheer effectiveness makes it totally different. Playing dark souls without parrying is pretty much playing normally up until gwyn, while playing bloodborne without parrying is gimping yourself.
@@spiceforspice3461 The ability to do it at range expands on the mechanic but it doesn't make it new
The ralley system is a new mechanic but parrying is not.
How effective something is doesn't change the fact that Dark Souls/Demon Souls did it first.
The spirit bell isn’t really missable. If you don’t get it from rani then it is in the twin maiden husks in the round table hold.
Yeah pretty hard to miss that considering she’s sitting on the wall at the church of elleh, the first place basically everyone goes too lol.
@@JTdaGoat2871 To be honest I only found it when teleporting back to help a friend fight the tree sentinel, and if it were up to me I would have chosen the other bonfire so I would have entirely missed it.
She's VERY missable since it requires you to teleport to there and arrive at night, which most players rarely need to do.
@@JTdaGoat2871 She's there *after* you get Torrent, which you usually get after going to the church. Honestly, it was pure chance I saw her my first playthrough and I could have just as easily missed her.
@@JTdaGoat2871 I actually completely missed it, I also never traded with the husks. I wouldn't use it anyway, but it's definitely possible to miss it.
@@Starcrafter23 yeah u guys are right. It probably was pure coincidence that I happend to go there at night my first play through. I can definitely see how she can be missed.
I was watching a video where someone was fighting Radagon and I swear that man fired off six attacks without taking a break. It was something like: a slam, then shooting off those little beams he has, a stomp and then a full three swing combo. Thankfully for the person playing's sake their mimic tear was the one getting slammed instead of them, but man seeing that kind of attack string is a little nuts. Sure you can just dodge that whole string but I can't help but feel like there's a lot of times in ER where you're just waiting for the boss to stop swinging so you can do something, unless you're a casting build of course
i’ll never understand the “realistic” argument on soulsborne games literally fighting demigods 😭
the summons aren't the problem. The REAL problem is that the elden ring boss ai manages multiple enemies almost exactly as Demon's souls did in 2009. "But why fix what's not broken?" BECAUSE IT WAS ALWAYS BROKEN! In EVERY single souls game summoning made the boss 10 times easier regardless of how good the summon was, so maybe it's time they upgrade their ai instead of giving every boss 20 aoe attacks to hit all enemies at once
to continue the title of the video: Spirit summons aren't the problem, they are the result. The result of Fromsoft wanting to make their bosses harder, with more complex moves, while still keeping the game beatable for even the worst players.
Agree
I wondered when a need for mass appeal and accessibility would come for them.
I wonder still if this marks the start or if we get something with more focus like dark souls or sekiro again
I like the irony at 8:52 to the last video, about the multi-boss fights. It comes down to: "Bosses aren't equipped to handle fighting more than one person." and neither is the player.
I think the biggest issue for me is the sheer drop in difficulty between summoning and not summoning. The enemy damage output is far too high after a certain point and even some early bosses have some OHKOs that don't feel earned. Any useful summon turns the bosses into instant easy mode. I wish they had balanced the boss damage output and height to offer a single player experience that was closer to Sekiro and Bloodborne.
As someone who got the platinum trophy in every soulsborne game, so I feel as if I have some reason to be listened to; I think it's ok to summon. I personally used them at least once in every run I've done (except a run where I was challenging myself to not do so) as a way to ease some of the unfairness of some of the bosses.
There is of course an element of the unfairness where it's "you just gotta learn the patterns and get good" but sometimes even that doesn't cut it. For example, Malenia deciding to waterfowl when you just did a jump attack, meaning it's essentially impossible to dodge even if you know how and can consistently do so otherwise. I believe if you see an attack, you should be able to dodge/avoid it wherever you are when it starts.
Basically, sometimes you just have to say "fuck this, I have a limited lifespan, I'm going to make this easier for myself". Absolutely no shame in it, I see the summoning in these games as a form of difficulty options. Wanna make it easier? Summon. Want more of a challenge? Don't.
Above all, let people play the game how they want, even if it's cheesing every boss, or giving themselves a harder time by not utilising every available advantage. Do what's fun for you.
Plus, the variety of spirits means you can tailor the amount of help you feel you need. For most of the game, I don’t want something that can 1v1 half the boss fight for me. I just want something that can draw aggro and tank some hits so I can breathe.
So in my first playthrough, I set a goal of trying a boss solo 5 times, and if I failed, I’d summon the jellyfish. The jellyfish is tanky, but not invincible. It only spits poison, which a lot of bosses are immune to, but it’ll draw their attention long enough for a heal or just to reorient myself. I switched to something else in the lategame, as the jellyfish stopped surviving more than a hit or two, but I don’t remember the exact spirit.
And then there's me, doing a stake-only graceless, base hero run. What has Miyazaki done to me?
Play how you want is the most important part in a game
I like to challenge myself and did most of the game without summoning, even Malenia, but yeah her Waterfowl is just plain BS to me and it ruins her whole Boss fight in my eyes
just like Mohg and his Nihil forcing you to have the right Flask to counter
most of the times when i summoned it was against more BS fights like "2/3 Enemies/bosses you already fought but in a small room"
Try blocking with the jellyfish shield (or any great Shield) through waterfowl and rolling from the final flurry, makes it totally free
@@alrightalright4585 I don’t really like to use shields myself but this is good advice for someone who does! The way to dodge waterfowl that works for me is I typically try running away from the first part (running towards the camera), dodging forwards through the second (away from the camera), and finally dodging forwards through (away from camera) then backwards away (towards camera) for the third part, all locked on. Works pretty consistently as long as you’re not fatrolling and you 100% keep locked on.
20:11 I think Morgott balances this out really well by having a very small amount of health, at least for me.
Maliketh too
@@NasuPrime I just have to ask: what were your on opinions Malekith's mechanics as a boss? You didn't really say anything about Malekith apart from the fact that you don't care if he is a spectacle. Which makes me think that you're probably not a big fan of him.
@@NasuPrime fuck Maliketh
@@heiseberg4056 the same criticism for morgot applies with malekith. He jumps across the whole arena or end his combo with an AOE to ensure that you dont get a counter hit.
Yeah, Morgott honestly, I only just realized he does have these annoying flaws cos in all my playthroughs I've just kinda rolled over him and felt like the capital was kind of embarrassingly easy. Like, both him and Godfrey felt like jokes compared to the difficulty of the area, which frankly wasn't that incredibly hard.
I don't like how aggressive the Bosses feel in comparison to how slow the player is able to Roll, Dodge, Or Block recover after attacking. This is why I only play Elden ring with the AttackRecovery overhaul mod.
Wuts that?
Git gud?
@@legobatmanthevideogame3194 I don't like how the game is designed so I like playing with mods.
I absolutely love that slow walk-up to each other though. It's the most JoJo thing ever
I get yelled at for playing magic. I enjoyed playing mage in darksouls 1 after being a tank build. And hearing the mages have cooler looking attacks I wanted to play it
You'll get yelled at if your build isn't level 1 with a straight sword and no buffs.
@@hatefulgaming1800 And even then you will still get yelled at because of the straight sword. Bare fists only.
Most souls fan don’t have problem with having easiest option ( Magic isn’t always an easier option and can be harder than melee ).
The problem is when the option is so broken and easy to get that tons of new player who want to experience the difficulty think ashes spirit +10 is the difficulty.
In the long term it means less money for from software and less good souls game.
@@ni9274 How does elden ring having stronger tools for the player to use equal less sales when the stigma that FromSoft games are very hard is still alive and well?
"iF UR nOt a LvL 1 nekKiD WrETcH WiELDiNg oNLy A cLuB THaN UR a FiLTHy CaSuaL"
9:06 this was the case from the start. Solaire from DS1 can carry every fight he is in. He can almost solo kill the centipede demon
Me watching solaire almost die brutally to the first bell gargoyle if it wasn't for lautrec saving his ass:
I remember hearing it said that bosses actually were designed with the intention of facing multiple foes, primarily because of aspects like wide sweeping attacks and fast movements which can cover a large area. That said, that only applies to some of the bosses, like Margit/Morgott, and even then, it's still easy to take advantage of the dead zones where there is no hitbox.
Another banger bro! Respecting the double down. Im sure an update is coming, this is still from software first open world game, balance is literally the hardest part.
And they did a damn good job for thier first open world game
@@fishgiovaana8441 I agree 😁
My only gripe with Malenia, blade of Miquella, is she heals on block. When I found out you could counter-parry, I made a whole build around it. Only to find out I cannot block when it comes to Malenia. Why are you punishing a core mechanic of combat? Doesn’t this mean she can regain health by tapping her sword on the ground? Same concept. I just didn’t understand. I literally went and respec for a dual katana bleed build. I was really disappointed.
As someone who's completed a handful of challenge runs, including a brutal Briar Armor only run, I've started to have more mixed feelings about Elden Ring's bosses. After my first playthrough and my first challenge run or two, I was 100% on-board with the more negative-leaning analysis you present here. But as I played more and more, and started to adopt more niche and difficult gameplay styles through my challenge runs, I'm beginning to appreciate the design of the bosses (excluding the side-dungeon bosses) way more.
It's almost like these bosses weren't designed simply to be great on a first playthrough, but to be so complex that even after all of my runs, I'm STILL learning new approaches and openings and quirks of each boss. It's fascinating. I don't think its fair to judge the bosses from the level of a player like me, though, because that means that understanding the complexity of the bosses in a casual playthrough (re: 99% or more of overall player experiences) is completely out of reach. Those aspects that make it fun for me with my challenge runs are the same aspects that make the bosses feel unreadable from first-run standpoint, and it makes the game feel worse as a result.
Great video, man. Wonderfully put arguments and reasoning. Godskin Duo is still bad tho, every time.
I’ve seen a few of your challenge runs and man… you must really be a glutton for punishment. I am too but sure as hell not to that extent. I’ve done a few challenge and speedruns but my stance didn’t change much. I’m not of the mind that anything in the game is impossible or believe the notion some people push that all the bosses have undodgable attacks (aside from obvious examples like Mohg). Ultimately with enough time everything can be played around and mastered. I’ve learned how to play around a lot of the toughest things the game throws at you by just pouring in the hours. I can no hit malenia with much more ease than agheel due to just how much time I've spent practicing the boss. Every challenge can be overcome but not every challenge is particularly fun. And "fun" is as subjective as it gets. No random internet opinion is going to reconfigure what someone already found to be enjoyable, can only really speak on personal experiences. Too many people get wrapped up in everyone having similar to identical experiences with a game. Who knows, maybe I should get into more brutal challenge runs too and my perspective will shift.
Thanks for watching!
@@NasuPrime "Too many people get wrapped up in everyone having similar to identical experiences with a game." Amen, man. I don't know what it is about the internet but so many folks are so vitriolic and insistent that their way/opinion is the only right one. Have one dissenting opinion and suddenly you're stupid or lacking in credibility or terrible at the game. Of course #notallgamers but at times it really can feel like it.
But yeah, my opinion of the bosses is higher as a result of being a content creator, and their insane design keeps things interesting for me AND my videos. It's not so much that my perspective on the boss design has shifted, more like my enjoyment of what they are has. Like I said, a vast majority of player experience will be the first one, maybe two kills of a boss with relatively normal builds, and I definitely think games should focus on making those experiences the best they can be. "That boss gets fun after you kill it six times" is the Elden Ring equivalent of "Oh it gets good 40 hours in", and that's never a good thing.
All that said, I don't think Malenia's Duck Dance (and all her other quirks, but mostly Waterfowl) or the entirety of the Godskin Duo will ever sit right with me, no matter how many runs I do, which just backs up your "not every challenge is fun" argument.
@@ingeniousclown Easy there bro. If you get too negative someone might tell the guy who beat the game entirely with the briar armor that his opinion is invalid and he simply needs to git gud.
@@NasuPrime 🤣
This. For a very long time I was learning something new every time I fought a boss. Like a new attack I can jump or strafe and new opening I create. The depth in your ability to master the bosses in this game is staggering.
Aside from shitty duos, I think elden ring biggest sin with its bosses is that it doesn't do that good of a job of showing people how different it is from ds3 and how bossed should be approached. Thats why even 8 months later there are still people who think the bosses have too little openings and all you can do is roll endlessly and wait for an opening.
Great points all around, but where did you find that devil trigger remix at 20:48?
This game made me realize I never really cared for the bosses in souls games and instead only cared about the exploration, combat and so on. The bosses were an annoying obstacle and elden ring hit that point home.I honestly can't give a sh*t about any of elden rings bosses and have no issue summoning for them ar this point.
Have u played any other souls games tho
@@gummy3584 yeah. I played DS1 up to Anor Londo, I've beaten DS2, Completed DS3 and beat every boss, Beaten bloodborne(Still need to beat the orphan of Kos), Nioh 2 and its dlcs, Code vein(if it counts) and Elden ring so that's about it. I quite like the souls genre and thinking about it now there were some bosses that I did like such as Dark eater Midir, Gael, Bloodbornes first boss(forgot the name), and probably a one or two more. Still my favorite part is exploring the areas and getting cool gear and sometimes the bosses can be a big pain since they keep me from enjoying the game further and bosses that I genuinely do enjoy are few and far between.
Yeah bro, same. I am loving how much freedom I have in elden ring and honestly, I just take my time exploring and fighting when I just do not want to engage a boss. Actually, I noticed that I care more to exploration, lore and combat than to the bosses
I loved elden rings main bosses still
U get half a mil views but only 60k subs, we have to fix that
What I hate about delayed attacks is how, when you take away the obvious visual queue to roll and don't add another one after, I just have to guess when to. I sometimes just find find one and I come to youtube to search for somebody else fighting it so that I can watch that particular animation a couple of times until I can find something to go on. There are also a lot of attacks that I don't yet know how to deal with despite winning the game 5 times already, they purposely obfuscate shit till the point actually playing the boss isn't actually the best way of learning it
Many years ago, I played a game where you made your own characters for a fighting game. Of course, I did ridiculously silly things like attacks where my body folds into a pretzel, or I sweepkick and it hits as though I jumped into the air and gives me s vs low attacks, or I do a jab that magically hits 7 feet away with no visual cues. This is what these delayed attacks and conditional branching combos feel like to me; just badly designed jank you need to memorize because they're so unintuitive. How am I supposed to figure out that the 4th hit of some dude's combo only happens if I'm more than 30 degrees to his left and jumped instead of rolled?
i learned all the bosses attack animations by watching bjornthebear's silly dogfight videos lol
The input reading on godskin apostle drives me up the wall, even more so than malenia and her waterfowl dance. You back up to the other side of the room and he will just stare at you, but if you hit heal he will instantly throw a fireball. You can both stare at each other forever, but as soon as the flask appears fireball to the face.
So what am I supposed to do? Just never heal? Say goodbye to one of the games core mechanics?
Go back and try the boss again; they actually fixed it. He has much more of a delay to when he throws the fireball at you, and he no longer does it when you intuitively feel like you're healing at the end of a combo and he wouldn't attack you. It's such an amazing change; you can even heal to open up a window for you to punish him. And he can still get you if you're dumb and go to heal as he's doing a combo which ends in throwing a fireball at you, so there's still skill involved as to when you should heal.
Incredibly, Malenia's idle is something that I always thought was benefical for us, guess it is not universal.
This idle in her first phase always, ALWAYS, saved me by giving me time to refill my stamina (yes, stamina... and health too of course).
RIGHT! I don't get this argument. Usually when she's idle it's the game telling you to take this moment to get settled, heal, and calm down.
It's also really cool. She's asserting her dominance through her extreme confidence: "your move, Elden Lord."
It's so cool, and it makes sense that she would be so confident.
It's a life saver if you need your life to be saved. But let's imagine you just ended a series of evasions and counter-attacks and didn't take a single hit. Your stamina will regenerate over maybe 2 seconds, but Malenia can idle for much longer than that. Then what?
Are you supposed to idle as well until her AI decides this isn't going anywhere? Or take the initiative and risk getting hyper-armored? Now yes there are ways to get around that risk, be it through spells, consumables, abusing your maximum range on longer weapons, or hoping your recovery is fast enough. But it can still get really frustrating for a lot of players because those actions are not what they'd expect they need to do in order to progress the game, plus you can just fail at it and get bitch slapped for tremendous damage since Malenia mostly 3-shots a 40 vigor build with basic attacks.
@@markopusic8258 I was using a greatsword, and I never got hit by an unavoidable attack after Malenia’s hyperarmour out of idle. If that happened to you it’s because you made a mistake, not because it’s unavoidable damage.
If you let her rest her poise will reset, so you should be as aggressive as possible.
@@markopusic8258 I actually sort of like this, what I hate is when the AI 'break' and does this accidentally, I remember Margit doing this to me at close range, just standing there. I know that he reads the animation of my heal or swing and will win so it's just a frustrating moment, but again that's more of an issue with the animation reading not the standing there menacingly. Players complaining about her waiting for her to make a move are just kinda entitled honestly, the player character is built on this exchange with bosses where you wait for the boss to move then punish them at the end of the attack. Forcing you to create an opening for the phrase to happen makes the fight more of a duel.
Wait, so you did beat the game at RL1, and you still think Maliketh has no openings? Did you stun lock him to death with FoTRM or what?
Bruv. Where are you getting these words that were never said from
@@NasuPrime From 22:39, where you imply Maliketh's patterns have no openings.
@@NasuPrime it's either heavily implied in 22:40 or you have very poor wording regarding some points (specially the no room for attacking, which can be found in most bosses).
@@highlightermarca-texto3281 He never implied that. You think he did because you got used to people saying he has no openings. All he said is that the boss jumps around a lot, which is a fact and something the developers admitted when they gave him less than a third of Malenia's health.
Great video. Kept my attention the whole time and even made me laugh too. See you in part 3
i feel elden ring could benefit from some sort of stamina system (as in for the bosses)
Like, the longer they chain, the lower their poise, so when you finally get an attack opportunity, you can really wail on the boss
Just a cooldown on their special moves would go a long way. Fromsoft should be put on trial for allowing Malenia to combo a waterfowl dance into another waterfowl dance.
26:51 its funny that the game actually has a counter to boss edgewalking in the form of invisibility spells. They can't see them so they act as though youre just standing there so they eat the hits
same there's not more of them and the ones that exist are unspectacular
ds2 added omnidirectional rolling and supplemental healing
Nahhhh let's just give DS3 all the credit for the good things DS2 did to the series.
In seriousness I liked the slower pace with more emphasis on strategy, with slower healing that punishes you heavily if you try to heal at the wrong time.
@@majickman Oh shit, You just said something positive about Dark Souls 2!
Start running or the Dark Souls 2 haters are gonna capture you, Lock you in their basement and make you watch Mauler's 8 Hour Dark Souls 2 playlist!
@@alexanderreid8251 oh god. They say a politician is someone who can talk and talk and say nothing at all. In which case if mauler ever runs for office hell soon be crowned emperor of earth
@@alexanderreid8251 Dark Souls II actually did a lot of things very well. It's just that, overall, it was a clunky, inferior game.
But I wish FromSoft didn't completely abandon so many of its strong points. That game had the best multiplayer by far (esp. if you got rid of soul memory, then it wouldn't even be close).
Ds2 is way, way better than Ds3. Sure, the bosses weren't the best but at least you didn't have to deal with R1 spam, no poise, mana, copy pasted/themes, copy pasted gear and enemies that blatantly cheat. Ds2's flaws aren't hurting the series to this date and that's something Ds3 cannot say.
Oh man that Guts theme at the beginning 🥲
I beat the game a few days ago. I remeber coming to leyndell with the eedtree burning and thinking "wait a second, when do I fight malenia?". I was preety sure the game was coming to an end, and my most wanted boss was nowhere to be seen.
From the beginning of the game I was looking forward for that challenge and still can't believe she is optional.
I guess this made me realize I play the game for the bosses.
the thing that you said about a boss turning your screen off (around 20:26) literally happened to me when fighting the full-grown fallingstar beast in NG+. It turned my screen off twice in one fight. I died while only needing to do one more hit
Daaaaaaaaamn
Damn that's unlucky. If you want to have even more bs try playing with 8gb of ram (one of my sticks wasnt connected properly) and try fighting invisible enemies XD
"I'm about to do what's called a pro-gamer move" - fallingstar beast
Malekith is my favorite boss because it's 2 glass cannons going at each other.
In the older games, you could just pick up a basic mace or a long sword and safely assume that even if it might not be the absolute best, it’s difficulty level is extremely similar to other melee weapons. Hell, there was an outrage when Ludwig holy blade was like 20% better in PVE than other options.
Now figuring out whether a weapon I picked up is properly tuned for difficulty has been outsourced to the player as an annoying full time consideration. I was having fun with my 2H Uchi on a mostly unsheathe + R2 build and picked up bloodhound fang which I thought looked cool. I attempted Godric once before with the Uchi and had an intense 3 min boss fight I lost at a razor’s edge. With just one upgrade to the fang and me at lvl 26 or so, it absolutely destroyed godric the first time in barely minute completely avoiding the fight by me not doing anything but spamming the L2 + delayed R2 ashes combo.
It’s sad that FROM has got the idea that letting people choose their difficulty means to completely avoid tuning a rough standard difficulty at all which was a key component in making their past games so cohesive.
Exactly. I feel like straight swords are one of the worst weapon classes in PvE. Especially if you play a traditional sword and board build. I rage quit the late game with my longsword because I was doing peanuts for damage with my +20 longsword. Dual wielding greatswords and spamming jumping L1s makes the game a trillion times easier; I made quick work of every boss with that build.
@@Gigaover That's just not the case, straightswords are amazing in PvE because they have acess to all the attacking options (not to mention they can use most ashes of war in the game on top of their amazing unique ash of war Stand-Off that feels more like an extra moveset than an ash of war).
They are fast enough that r1's can pick even the shorter openings in the game but are also capable of dealing notable posture damage (that can 1 hit stagger many non-boss mobs) with heavy attacks and jump attacks, and the variety of ash of wars makes them very adaptable to fights.
The only caveat is you have to use every option of the weapons moveset because they are generalist weapons.
You're not gonna beat greatswords at stagger damage, or daggers/twinblades at status effects (or quick openings), or katana's/spears at poke damage.
You'll only do well if you try and take every option other weapons can't usually take due to lacking the variety of the straight sword.
Lorian does have a rare attack where he teleports right over your head and pierces downward with his sword.
"When given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game"
"how lazy will the game let me be"
You are definitely underrated, I love your content !
Double boss fights in Elden Ring are one of the only ways I start to seethe with rage at the game. I just barely squeaked by the double gargoyles and godskin duos with 2 summons each, and it still didn’t feel fair. Most times I prefer to fight the bosses solo, but those I feel like I simply wouldn’t be able to win on my own.
Anyone know what version of Devil Trigger is playing in the background at 20:29 ?
A small defense for Radagon's charge grab:
It has a tempo set by his footsteps and matches very closely the charge time for Margit/Morg's overhead slam, as so it's actually very readable to me.
I do agree though, I love all of the boss fights in elden ring except when bosses teleport to the other side of the arena. *cough* elden beast. Banger OST though.
Footsteps a clever way to go about it
Agreed. Unlike most bosses, I did feel like Radagon and Godfrey/Horah Loux had a readable consistent tempo. Once you get a read on those guys its like you're in Ultra Instinct or something.
@@NasuPrime you can also watch his arm and dodge as soon as it moves, or move away first to give yourself more time.
Its easy to dodge on reaction but the input delay just forces you to look at that slight movement he does in his chest but the worst part of it is the hitbox, he can literally grab anyone behind him even if the grab was aiming at someone else, making any attempt of spacing useless
To solidify summons as a build instead of a massive advantage I’d like to see flask bubbles that give you the ability to resummon a dead summon, like how ds2 introduced a way to restore spell casts away from a bonfire
It’s a bit much, mimic tear can already solo all boss in the game.
@@ni9274 my idea was to have two different bubbles, and only by having both at once would you be able to summon the summons that are on the mimic’s level
@@ni9274 idk what game are you playing, but mimic tear doesnt solo bosses
@@legendarydragon2564 czcams.com/video/xZZ07iY32aI/video.html
the mimic soloed Radagon/ elden beast and was always full hp.
You can literally beat the game by only using summon and not attacking once.
@@legendarydragon2564 Pre nerf does.
And post nerf is still basically invincible and a guaranteed win if you're not braindead.
I’m on my wife’s old account but I wanted to give my 2 cents! During my first play through I figured I was being punished for treating the game like past titles which was true to an extent. That being said currently playing my 3rd play through I gotta say I agree with you…it was my 2nd ng when I noticed that unlike BB & DS3 where the frustration & difficulty of both games hardest bosses still always had a good balance with having fun since eventually you would start learning the bosses moves so even when still getting destroyed you new you was getting better & once you did win the feeling was great…plus after multiple play throughs even though you have every boss down pat the fun is going back and fighting them again just because they are that fun….Slave Knight Gael, Sister Friede, Ludwig, Lady Maria, Orphan both BB & DS3’s main games & especially expansions have bosses that offer challenges as fun as they are difficult! ER has a few I enjoyed actually fighting like The Omen King Morgott, Maliketh, Rennala, Godrick, Godfrey mainly but overall the faster bosses, the almost never ending combos, etc makes the game more frustrating & less enjoyable compared to past titles!
You nailed a lot of shit here. For me, even after 600 hours and multiple challenge runs with every kinda build imaginable, it feels too easy with summons and too hard without.
Next up we need dat all bosses RL1 fists only 💯🔥
One thing I've figured out is that most of the bosses in this game have what I call "fake combo enders." These are windows at the end of certain attack animations where the boss can decide whether or not to extend their combos, based on whether or not you are in range or trying to punish them. The name "fake combo ender" comes from the fact that they are literally designed to look like openings, to bait you into thinking an attack chain is done so you commit and take damage from their next hit, which is guaranteed to come out faster than you can recover.
What really helped me is realizing that these windows are not as large as you might think. When an enemy uses one of their fake combo enders, there is a point in the animation where they are locked into a reset to their default stance. Identifying when this point is was _HUGELY_ helpful in fighting these bosses, because attacking at that point will usually give you time to escape any attempted follow ups.
There is also the concept of a "sweet spot." Many bosses have a special attack animation specifically to punish attacks from behind. These moves can be almost unreactable with slower weapons, essentially turning each back attack into a trade. However, if you attack an enemy from behind _and to the side,_ these backstab punishes will often fail to trigger. Instead, the enemy will waste animation frames turning to face you, leaving you plenty of time to recover and prepare for their next attack. This is the Sweet Spot. Not every boss has one, but for those that do, finding it feels like unlocking your chakras. The secrets of the universe are laid bare to you, and suddenly all things are possible.
Combining these two principles has allowed me to consistently no-hit bosses I previously struggled with, and I hope they can help others, too.
Just sharing some of my experiences. This seems like as good a place as any. 😂
Damn morgott I spent 50 hours with him trying to kill him without his touching me and I always got that, I even uploaded it to youtube, if you want you can check it out, you'll see how what you explain here is perfectly reflected in that fight
Yeah this is something I discovered early-on as well. For Malenia for example, after she finishes a "chain", if her sword points to her left, she is done. If it's pointing to her right, she can and most likely will follow up.
I think a good middle ground is that summoning actually decreases your max hp by a certain amount while you are summoning along with making boss not focus the summon for 5 hours straight while ignoring the player. I think this would help the fact that some of the hardest bosses in the game that are borderline unfair without summoning while being cakewalks with summons.
But in all seriousness just summon bro
Thing is, if a boss ignores your summons, you just summon a super archer or mage while you tank with a great shield. That would honestly be even easier.
i feel like a lot of little design decisions in the timings of attacks and whatnot in ds3 were primarily about pulling a fast one on the player, and this game doubles down on that
4:10 "They're both dying in two hits" - I'm subbed now.
I can smell someone who hasn't played to Miyazaki 5 times in the last 24 hours, to the stake they go I say!!!
SHHH no one needs to know
margit charge attacks con be baited and you can control at which distance he will expand the attack
czcams.com/video/4JygUXx_nCg/video.html
this other video shows ways to dodge attacks without using mechanics specifc to certain build (except parrying )
czcams.com/video/fo4dXJmd1cQ/video.html
The fact that people still don't know how it works even after multiple playthroughs shows these things are unacceptable.
@@scotaloo77g73 hmmm maybe not
I mean it is something that may or may not know and many games work like that .
some may not even know specifc things when playing more complex action games
i think a lot of ppl believe spirit ashes are a core mechanic of the game is because theres so many of them .. theres more then 60 .. catacombs exist to get materials to upgrade and find new summons. If u happen to miss ranni , u can buy spirit caller from roundtable merchant. Theres a lot of 2v1 bosses that i def think spirit ashes were in mind. Hell , even Rennala uses spirit ashes against u lol but i can see how not using them would be more fulfilling for some ppl. Having fun is only thing that matters , do what makes you happy
Radagon reminds me a lot of Gwyn like how they are both super aggressive and fast and it can sometimes be very hard to heal
The delayed attacks were annoying but generally I don’t have too much an issue with them inherently. My issue with them is when the actual swing/slam is literally too fast to react to making you need an internal timer which can be unreliable at times.
I HATE when people talk about realism in pure fantasy games.
yeah, everything respawns even if you rest at bonfire - so realistic. But let's use realism as argument :D
I mean how many games are actually pure fantasy games? Elden Ring is not a pure fantasy game for example. It takes a ton of inspiration from real world concepts, and even has a whole slew of real world weapons and tools for you to use. It's clearly a fantasy game, but it's grounded in reality.
As someone who has completed the game on RL1 naked with a club i totally agree on your stance for spirit ashes summons, however i have to disagree on delayed attacks, openings, visual clarity and positioning especially for a few bosses that you mentioned.
Delayed attacks were imo a great addition to the game because they remove the roll spams as a solution to dodge mechanics that you are unfamiliar with, they force you to learn to read the animations and the timings for the attacks which is a fair new layer of difficulty in my book.
Openings and positioning are closely tied together. As you said the bosses will react to your positioning by doing certain attacks that may combo together, this is actually useful when learning a fight because you are searching for optimal openings and when you find them you can attack and then wait to see if the boss is chaining into a followup combo or not, if it does you should already know how to react according to your positioning, if he doesn't then you can either attack again or reposition and wait for the next move, the important part is also knowing how much you can greed on every different attack.
These concepts apply to many fights especially in the endgame and Maliketh, Mogh, Radagon and Godfrey in both phases are the embodiment of those gimmicks mixing them in movesets that are very close to being mechanically perfect. Regarding weird delayed grabs like Hoarah Loux and Radagon, you said it yourself: "the game shouldn't aim for realism", just learn the timings and dodge them like every other attack.
I agree on Rykard being finally a gimmick fight done right and Placidusax nailing the teleport system, it's also a shame that the ancient dragon models keep their heads a bit too high to be realistically the position to aim to for your attacks because the rest of the moveset greatly resemble Midir's which is imo still the best dragon fight Fromsoft ever created.
Overall you made many good points but most of the one i disagree with can imo be solved by just gitting gud.
I think the dual bosses are also at least in part designed around you summoning. That is why they act like 2 separate individual bosses.
my biggest complaint with the game is not being able to remove the goofy hair part of malikeths helmet
You same with Malenia’s ugly ass hair and Godfrey’s braids. Just lemme have a cool crown/helmet without the bosses scalp glued on as a wig 😭
I'm in a weird place with summons. Elden Ring is far from my first souls game, I've got 4 others under my belt, but I still use the spirit summons. I absolutely agree that the lack of canceling is inexcusable in Elden Ring. I'm not saying I should be allowed to cancel of of Scarlet Aeonia or Ranni's Dark Moon, but at least let me roll away so I don't get killed because I accidentally buffered 1 more r1 than I meant to.
Welcome to pvp oriented balancing.
@@tsunamie1015 Well no? Considering Elden Ring is the worst PvP game out of the whole series. Like literally apart from the resistance talismans nothing is balanced about ER pvp
@@theslavicrat3784 The numbers alone isn't just what affects balancing. Things like being able to cancel out of every single casting animation would be fine for sp games (we were able to cancel pretty much everything in Sekiro) while being able to do that in pvp would be ... easily abusable.
Larger design choices like principles to movesets also influence pvp balancing.
Input buffering gets me killed way too much. When I tap roll as I get hit, and it locks me into rolling as soon as I recover from the hit…only to get slammed by the imminent roll catch that every boss is loaded with
I have a +10 banished knight oleg every playthrough that only sees the light of day during duo boss fights
17:46 but that attack is easy to avoid, when he grabs his cane with his other arm dodge, its really telehraphed
Everything is easy to Dodge if u learn how.
But that means putring in effort and someone like him, hoping to get some sympathy by hitting on dark souls II diesnt like effort, except when its to make a rant and cry Video, then he works like someone with a real job.
@@RealEvilLordExdeath dude he literally beat all rememberance bosses hitless at level 1
@@Roxxyie yes blind, in a burning room, while bees sting him in his face.
If he can beat the game without getting Hit, why make a crybaby Video?
I Tell you:
Because he hasnt beaten any of the bosses ever, hes the guy that goes out of the elevator in limgrave and dies to the tree sentinel 20 Times in a row, then ragequits and makes a Video about how unfair the game is.
Any footage of him beating any Boss is not him playing but some friend of his or rather someone he paid to be, because lets be honest, such a crybaby has no real friends, while he is commenting and giving the Illusion he is playing.
Hes human waste
@@RealEvilLordExdeath If you care so much about someone criticising a game to the point you desperately try to invalidate everything they say, I'm surprised you have any friends.
And also, excuse me w h a t ?
If you are good at a game, you CANNOT CRITICISE IT FOR ITS FLAWS. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST FOLKS.
Like I know many FromSoft fans are, in my experience, generally, ahem, how do I say this without having you write an essay on how me criticising you makes me a failure...
Strange, but like, holy gods above and abyssal hells below.
@@Roxxyie you are a failure, u dont need to write anything u already proofen it. How u think anyone will read what u have written beside me and whoever of your so called friends u Show it.
"O M G FOLKS, U HEARED IT HERE FIRST GUYS, CRAZY NEWS OMG CRINGE LOST"
your Generation is lost. My daughter is 7 and she would destroy you, youre a bunch of crybabies.
This is one of the best videos that talks about real issues with this game. Very well done man.
What was the song played at 20:37??
if i may what song was playing during Placidusax?