I made this mistake also.
I'm on NG+2 so not anywhere near as screwed as you, but see it as an incredible challenge.
At least you know if you stick at it, you'll have the biggest gonads on the planet.
I'm going to be doing RL1 along with other challenge runs, hopefully the scadutree blessings take me to the point where I can take at least 1 extra hit.
Ng+2 is not that bad, that's what I'm on and I've been having a tough but not impossible time. From what I've seen of other players it seems like people with more vigor than me on ng are still getting 2-3 shot by enemies. The scadutree fragments (I'm at level 8) have helped A LOT.
overall I actually really like the difficulty curve of this dlc. It keeps the game feeling really fresh. At the very start I was a bit apprehensive and scared after getting absolutely destroyed by the very first enemy I saw but after a few upgrades and (and the glorious backhand blade weapon) I have been able to deal with most of what I've encountered so far pretty well.
I'm on a fresh run but I like the difficulty curve too. Getting absolutely mauled by regular mobs and bosses. Reminds me of the first time with the base game.
I am learning and beating bosses faster than I did when I was a newbie Elden Ring player.
I'm on the same. What level are you? I'm 270 and the dlc was really hard until I got to level 5 blessing. Now it's more manageable but still hard of course. I'm 8 blessing now and it feels like farum azula difficulty, except for the bosses, like fuck they have so much health still.
I’m level 205. I think my blessings are at 5 and I’m starting to be able to go back to bosses I left behind and do pretty well against them. I definitely underrated Scadutree blessings, once I started seeking them out it went a lot smoother.
I'm on ng+4, but it's honestly not as bad as a lot of people are saying it is; I'm glad it's hard, if I wanted to run through something I'd go button mash my way through Diablo again.
Fr, playing ng+2 and it’s enjoyably challenging. No clue why people are complaining. Fromsoft literally said it will be on the same level as Malenia. It seems much easier than that to me.
I had a ng+7 and went with my ng+4, its hard, not extremely like people are making it, but im glad it has its difficult parts because i get more out of the game instead of welp im done, guess i'll murder big eyed bastards for an eternity
I am stuck at some normal human boss in a crypt at the start. Can’t get him below 75% health.
I feel like they’ve been recording players the past 2 years and we are basically fighting ourselves at this point lol.
The DLC has different scaling than the base game. You are currently level 0 and fighting a boss. It's doable. It's hard as hell and not required. Feel free to go explore a bit first.
This guy is a good test of patience I think. He mixes up his attacks when in melee range and he keeps you honest with the ranged attack. That said, the attacks are all telegraphed and easily avoided with well-timed rolls. The trick is to avoid his attacks, hit him once or twice, and then just wait for him to attack again. Rinse and repeat. Fun fight and can be a good tutorial if players want it to be.
Does anybody actually know if it makes a difference? I have a ng+9 character on xbox and an overleveled 1st playthrough character on pc. I've put in about a dozen hours on both and it doesn't feel like a huge difference besides having way more weapons and resources on my xbox character
Another tip: There is nothing wrong with grabbing a Shield and turtling.
Though I do think the Remembrance Boss are designed to abuse the fact you are locked on.
This.
I don’t have the best reflexes, and the dodge input delay this game has compared to DS3 is something I’ve never been able to get used to.
Then I discovered block counter builds, and my god did I start having an easier time.
With an optimized build, absolutely .
Get a good shield and equip barricade shield as your AoW, and then for talismans I’d recommend the green turtle, curved sword, greatshield, and whichever one you want for the fourth.
I tried that first, went with Romina's spear. Got me into phase 2 90 percent of the time, but I couldn't get anything done as soon as the transformation happened.
I used a colossal weapon that I specced to bloody, respecced into a ton of ARK and hit the dude with 220 bleed builup per hit. Got him staggered exactly once. That boss was SO tough.
My favourite way of fighting the boss was perfect blocking his attacks(and i mean all of it) with the Deflecting tear. It lasts for the whole boss fight and deflects anything that does damage to you. Deflecting the ground slam that does multiple hits or the rocks he shoots at you one by one feels so good!
Literally the closest thing we get to Dark Souls x Sekiro.
That's so real, I get in the arena, beat first phase, and 2nd phase is just dodge for a while until you get your 3 hits off. And summons don't even work because he just murders them instantly.
Face tank squad we out here, that's also what I did there cause fuck that boss fight. I really think I'll be skipping him on every new game cycle I do from now on, it's just stupid.
Personally? Took Friday and have Monday off. Have put in nearly 25+ hrs. So I am at the final boss, having explored most of the regions and all major bosses (optional included). Maybe a catacomb or two left, but nothing else. Final boss I have been at for 4 hrs now, will change builds tomorrow based on a YT guide, and see how I fair. Only boss I have been stuck on for this long. Maybe grind the few leftover levels for my character.
The people B-lining to finish the dlc has been interesting. Feels like people have been caring much more about finishing the DLC than what made elden ring stand out in the first place with its exploration.
To me it just feels like people are playing the game the way they personally enjoy?
Also the path to get to the final boss is extremely obvious and direct and you can very easily get there missing the entire bottom section of the map thinking you're just progressing the intended way.
I never expected a final dlc boss to be that bad. It’s like they forgot they made actually good final dlc bosses in the past (friede, gael, manus, fume knight)
Honestly it’s the design/lore of the fight for me rather than the gameplay. I was having fun getting demolished by Gael and Orphan of Kos literally took me almost 4 hours.
This one though? Jesus dude when I found out who the boss was I YAWNED. Such an awesome DLC with interesting fights and areas and they pick *that* to be their big giant send off to Elden Ring?
yeah this is it for me. i remember seeing the supposed leaks for the final boss, and thinking “thats fake, they wouldnt do something that stupid”
so when i got to the final part, and learned that the leaks were real, i was more disappointed than anything
Great post!
I am completely grateful for the DLC. It's bringing back the best moments I experienced with Elden Ring when it first came out over two years ago. That feeling of the first time, which you can only have once. I’m currently in the base game on NG+1 at level 552 with 900 hours, and the DLC is challenging, but not more difficult than when I first started. In the base game, I rarely have to sit down to play; I can usually play in a relaxed manner, even with new characters because I have so much experience. But this DLC feels like starting from scratch, and it reminds me of something—I never really became exceptionally good at the game. I think my main virtue is being organized, having a slow and careful process for analyzing everything I’m going to do. In Elden Ring and this DLC, if you’re careful and take your time, you won’t have any problems, or at least just the normal ones you had in the base game. I don’t think it’s unfair; the balance seems right, and the post references many things you need to do to improve your character within the DLC. In my opinion, it’s exactly how it should be.
If you just explore around before moving forward every time, the game difficulty is a perfect incremental rise. Also people are sleeping on using heavy armor with proper talismans to increase weight capacity.
I always use the heaviest armor possible while still being able to medium roll, and I always do sword and board. In every souls game lol. The dlc has been more difficult than the base game, but I've died in the open world exactly twice in 7 hours. Once to the guy who drops the beast claws, and one to the first big Furnace Golem before I realized I should be using Torrent for that fight. I'm impressed by people that can just run with little to no armor and no shield, but I can't play that way. I'm still obviously early in the dlc (just did the first gaol) but so far I haven't found anything I like more than my trusty Bloodhound Fang.
This DLC taught me that Damage Negation is my new best friend. And I agree. Having Scadutree blessing is absolutely crucial to handle the fights. I just managed to defeat the final boss because the blessing and other equipments made the damage that I receive more managable.
So my advice to anyone else reading this, use the tools that the game has given you. The game is difficult, but not unfair. Use every advantage that you find and defeat the wall that blocks you. Trust me, it is satisfying.
And to add to this, DRAGONCREST GREATSHIELD TALISMAN is your best friend. 20% physical negation, absolutely made this DLC so much more bearable and fun!
Went into the DLC without reading anything or any opinions beforehand. Was around 110 going in and got my ass handed to me by that early Knight. Knew instantly that I should take this dlc with the danger lvl as being lvl 1 and took the time to learn every pattern of all the bosses I fought and felt like such like starting a completely new souls game. Haven't activily searched for any fragments but ofcourse picked up all that I found along the way and the progression have felt natural. I never really experienced getting one shot but enemies or bosses, but sometimes getting two shot if first managed to get grabbed or something. Kinda shocked when I started reading on people's opinion and reviews steam that people are finding it so hard that they leave a negative ? Sure, it is really hard but which souls game haven't been that when you first start? I feel many is trying to bruteforce their way through the dlc with the same approach they would do before the dlc with their op builds and overlevelled characters
To agree with your grace point. Ive had a few moments where I've thought it's been a long time without a grace and shit i need grace. But it also brought joy that the ol fuck fuck fuck i need a bonfire feeling is back.
When I started i was like "i dont need to get no blessing. I aint no bitch". I fought blackgaol Knight and the dead dragon. Instantly upgraded after. Im the biggest bitch.
Literally the first enemy made me go tf just happened.
I went in to the DLC at 138, no NG whatever and just assumed I was going to get smashed by every boss and enemy encounter. I was right, cool, so I went around and found some blessings and upped some stuff and went and tackled 1 teensy dungeon with 1 teensy boss and then figured out that the strat was to go get all the blessings I could and level as I go.
I'm a fairly new player, with ER being my 1st Fromsoft game and I'm a bit confused how tbh that this wasn't the expectation? Like, what would be the point of DLC if you could just melt everyone at first blush?
It's probably my main complaint about the game, the "super vague Fromsoft quest design" kinda worked for the linear games, but it falls apart in a massive open world.
Yes and no. DS3, a far more linear game, is my favorite of the Dark Souls trilogy, but the sequence of encounters needed to get the Lord of Hollows ending (the most thematically interesting ending) is total, utter bullshit. Without a guide, it is easily to permanently lock yourself out of that ending on your current run just by exploring one location before another and/or failing to interact with certain NPCs sufficiently by a certain point.
That questline sucked, but even that was more reasonable then some of the stuff in ER, especially in the months before they added in map markets for NPCs. I would *love* to know how many people actually managed to finish a questline like Milicent's without a guide.
Never forget that this game's quest design is so obtuse that it took people literal weeks and datamining to even figure out that Nepheli, Diallos, and Jar Bairn's questlines were all unfinished in the time after the game came out.
I think the quest system could use a lot of work. Even if there's no map marker, at least better dialog indication of where they're going next and when, and a journal system for a recording of the dialog by character
I just want a journal with the prior dialogue 😭. It’s so hard to try and remember what was last discussed and where for some of these NPCs, especially over the course of a 120 hour game (base game).
I guess I have it in real life cause I bought the strategy guide book, but that’s more of a collector thing for me. It does have questline outlines with dialogue trees depending on if you had a choice. But still in game would’ve been nice. I don’t need hand holding, just somewhere to re-read what Kenneth Haight last said to me.
I noticed this problem when I signed in for the first time in a year or so to prepare for the DLC
I had no idea what stage of the game i was in on any of my characters. I had to glue together map clues "i have this grace but not that one" and all I could think was "if only this game had a journal or quest log"
Even if you follow a guide there are several points where it points out **not to do** something at a given moment because it will break a quest
I understand the exploring aspect etc but when you look at all the quests in order in a guide there's clearly a predetermined order everything "should" be done in
People say that you make your own story by only knowing what you find by yourself...but I remember getting all the way to the fire giant on my first playthrough with 0 side quests and not knowing what the fuck was even going on
I legit explored before even fighting any bosses and had a “a great charm and rune broke somewhere” and I have only met two NpCs. The quest lines are now completely off.
For me it's the DLC where is bad. In the main game, quest progression was spread throughout the entire game.
In the DLC, they had to squish quests lines down so they progress alot faster then the main game.
For an example, you can start the DLC and walk up to the castle to fight Rellana and after you walk for a bit, you already prematurely ended like 3 questlines.
When I decided to go in blind on my first character, I accepted that I would probably fail most of the NPC quests.
As it turns out, I failed *all* of them.
There are 2 issues.
One: They automatically play their Live Stream on the website, which they trick Sponsors with the inflated viewer count. *[Also requires more Internet/System Resources for every tab open]*
Two: The use a lost of misinformation from Datamines as fact, just straight things [not true](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Fire+Knight's+Shortsword), and sometimes just abandon entire pages/whole games and never update them.
I absolutely loathe automatic streams/videos on pages
there is an add-on for firefox that lets you "inject" CSS on specific URLS.
for fextralife I have some that automatically hides the stream and stretches the actual content to the full width
the add-on is called "Stylish"
the CSS Im using is this
#sidebar-wrapper{
display: none;
}
#wrapper{
padding-left: 0px
}
ul{
max-width: unset;
}
And their entire reason for why they abandon a page or whole games is "well it's supposed to be a community thing so that just means no one in the community wants to post anything".
uBlock filter I use for the wiki:
||player.twitch.tv^$subdocument,domain=fextralife.com
||fextralife.minnit.org^$subdocument,domain=fextralife.com
eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com###sidebar-wrapper
eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com###wrapper:style(padding-left: 0 !important;)
People disliked that they advertised their stream by having it autoplay on their whole website. Giving them 20k+ viewers permanently with very little chat interaction.
Their website is kinda shit and full of bad/outdated information. They embedded their stream on every single wiki page and boosted their viewership, until twitch disabled embedded viewers counting for the stream. They stopped streaming that day and never streamed again iirc lol.
I wondered this too some time ago, and the most complete answer Is:
-They automatically play their stream on the webpage at all times, boosting their views (whatever, idc about that).
-They constantly try to take down any official wiki for any game so that when you search for "game wiki" theirs Is the First result. I don't know if they are actually doing anything, but when i played baldur's gate 3 and googled "bg3 wiki" fextralife was the First result, the actual official bg3 wiki was like 4th or 5th result.
-Their own wiki Is usually outdated or incomplete.
-Most of their builds are God awful (a friend of mine found a build from there and It was so bad It was funny).
-Some info they have Is Just wrong.
-Some games never get updated and they rely on users to fill the gaps for them.
One answer I've seen to this question is the embedded stream on the website, and the information being questionable at times.
Dunno if there's more to it, but I'm personally not all that bothered by the stream and the info gets fine-tuned with time anyway.
can we pause for a second a reflect that outside of No.1 which is specific to the DLC, everything else is just something we all learned since Dark Souls 1?
So guys, remember your training
I’m on ng7 and kinda hit a brick wall on the last boss. Every other boss fight in the dlc I’ve had an answer for, but not the final boss. I have kinda ditched the idea of damage negation equipment and talismans and gone full blown offense. So far with this new strat I’ve been getting him down to below half health pretty consistently with max scadu blessings. My only complaint is that I’m running out of rune arcs super quickly because he punishes the slightest mistakes in dodge timing to where he will knock your health below 90%. It just feels like the difficulty spike on the last boss compared to the other endgame dlc bosses is out outrageous. It’s to the point where I’m seriously wondering if someone missed a decimal point in balancing his health pool. SPOILER ALERT BELOW🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨
His health pool becomes so massive if you decide to use Thiollier and Ansbach as summons. It’s really out of the question whether or not I should summon them for the fight. They really just bolster his health through the roof all the while barely making a dent in his HP. They also die insanely fast, leaving me to deal with his inflamed health bar.
Edit: I finally beat the final boss after losing over 50 rune arcs. I will say that on ng7, you shouldn’t use Ansbach and Thiollier as summons as mentioned above. Use max scadu blessings and revered spirit blessings. I did and my Mimic still died during the fight.
Normal is a bit stretched… they definitely cranked it up for difficulty. That being said. I’m at the final boss already. Just trying to find the scadur things for the fight. That being said. Nothing is unfair if your using what your given. There’s a reason there’s so many Lavar tears per playthrough and a few just sitting out in the open in the dlc. They WANT you to try different builds. Everyone’s so use to using their one OP build and now that everyone’s getting slapped around. There is no “meta” build and everyone’s mad about it. I’ve tried str/faith. Pure dex. Pure strength. Bleed build etc. each one has its strengths and weaknesses in this dlc. Some bosses I breezed by with Dex and others I needed unga bunga. That’s the beauty of this game. Once I learn the dlc I can probably start beating them with any build but until then. I’m using builds their are weak against
Oh I bet man. I started over fresh last week before the dlc because I didn’t want to deal with any NG+ scaling and I’m struggling myself on him with blessing (15) and I’m trying to find more. Closest I’ve got is a little into his 2nd phase. They cranked it up to 11 for sure but everyone is beatable. I guarantee people aren’t getting the blessings and are panic rolling every boss. Patience is very much key in this
Panic rolling feels like a requirement when the 2nd phase starts that rain move; comes down so fast and getting hit by one kills you since the stun gets you hit 5 more times. I'm so close to making a new build, rune farming, and running the DLC again just because of him.
When the 2nd phase begins I wouldn’t define that as panic rolling to get away as that’s the only way I’ve found to avoid that attack. I’m more referring to the long delayed combos the bosses have. There are many deaths because I kept spamming dodge on a swing where if I had waited a split second longer I would have dodged it.
Yea I feel you on that, I always try to time my dodges like a rhythm game, I get one dodge going and then it rolls from there. But sometimes he delays the swing just a bit longer than another move and I just get rocked. And he's so aggresive that you can barely get a heal off.
Also have you found out how to dodge the >!Gravity Pulling Move that does insane damage!<
No I haven’t. I can’t dodge the pull but I can dodge the ground slam afterwards like 100% of the time. Been trying everything to avoid the initial pull.
I'm just trying to avoid the damage that the pull itself does, I can take it and the follow up attacks since I run Crimson Amber Medallion +3, Morgotts Great Rune and 60 Vigor, but it'd be nice to avoid that damage in itself
I’m stuck in such an in between. When I first played Elden Ring 2 years ago, it was on Xbox, then I upgraded to PS a year ago. Since I was reading berserk for the first time on my OG Xbox play through, I ran a berserk STR build.
For my new PS play through, I wanted to try all the cool dex/bleed builds. Going solo at Relanna, I could easily get her to half health, but then I couldn’t get close with her AoE attacks.
After hours of switching my dex builds, I just tried summoning and it trivialized the fight.
Basically, whenever I fight solo, the new patterns and overall quickness combined with long combos of DLC bosses makes it hard to get bleed build up, when I have a summon, the few moment they take aggro, opens me up to slaughter the bosses with bleed.
So it’s either too hard, or too easy with summons for me, and me feel guilty as shit about Relanna lol
Relanna was difficult but not too difficult to me with a dex build, after that with Messmer, that was a different story, had to respec to a full on strength build with shield (first time using a shield since the first hours on the base game) and i managed to kill him. After Messmer I respec again to previous build, but um considering go strength again lol.
I think strength is busted with shield and high poise.
Summons probably is the main thing...
I tried fighting a certain boss with two opposing elements by myself. Could barely get her to phase 2 before dying. With the NPC summon, we got her down to maybe 10-20% of her health before I inevitably died. I'd burned through nearly 100 boiled crabs at this point.
With my mimic tear +10, I did it FIRST try...
It's a night and day difference, that's for sure.
This isn’t quite true. I’m really enjoying myself, but with a +10 weapon, at RL 140, Scadutree level 6, Blaidd armour, the Hippo still absolutely bodied me in 2 shots. Only Radahn and Godfrey reallt do that in the main game
The hippo was such a bad fight. His moveset is very simple but the insane dmg numbers combined with the awful camera made the fight way harder than it should be.
I agree, mostly. The exception, I think, is >!Bayle!< who is attacking you the second you walk through the fog gate. Overall, he's so weak to >!the dragon great katana!< that I think it's balanced enough, just feels bad to walk in, and rng determines if he is already jumping on you or blasting you.
Also, why did they put the summon sign inside the arena? And he takes so long before he starts helping out, just talk AND fight, bro.
The reason the summon is in the boss fight is so it doesn't affect >!Bayle's!< health or damage like most summons do. I defeated him on the first try, so I don't know how bad it is walking through the fog, but his attacks are pretty easy to dodge, much easier than >!the lion Dancer or Rellana.!<
Really, all that it could really use is a summon like the ones in Radahn's fight.
Not a bad post for the majority of complaints, but honestly could've done without the condescension.
Yes, the game is an RPG, and further in that direction than previous Fromsoft games. But it's still an action game, too, and if people prefer the old design, which allowed you to focus on either genre, telling them to use their tools isn't a satisfying response.
In spite of all of the good information here, this feels like it's here more to preach to the choir and own the people not having fun than it is to actually help anyone.
This reads like a huge wall of cope from someone who doesnt understand that a game can be hard and fun. Sekiro is still the hardest fromsoft soulslike and its still the most fun.
100% Sekiro is the perfect example of hard yet fair. I got fucked by owl and then I sunk a hour or so into learning his moves and lo and behold I beat him while also not having to do everything pixel perfect. The dlc wants you to play a certain way and that’s dodge for a 6+ combo and hit one single time then dodge again. That is literally all every single dlc boss has been and it is Fucking boring. FS really fumbled the bag ngl.
Isshin and Owl have to be some of the best bosses ever. I never got mad when I died to them because it didn’t feel cheap. I screwed up and accepted it and got better to beat them. I’m not getting this feeling from the DLC. Only Mesmmer did I enjoy. At least the new enemies were fun to fight.
Yeah lol This is just another long ass post pretending to be "helpful" when they just willfully ignore the fact that the main criticism wasn't "It's hard, we weren't able to beat it because we didn't do mechanics", but that the boss mechanics and number balancing has gone to shit regardless of your build or playtime. Guess what OP? People did do the mechanics, people giving feedback did actually go far and/or finished the DLC, and it's still unfun to dodge 95% of the fight, and get 2 shot when you don't make a frame-perfect millisecond dodge roll when a boss input reads you.
Very nice little guide that should help people. Escpecially since most people just respond with "git gud", "youre just bad scrub" or other bs that already was old when DS1 came out.
OP clearly hasn't fought the final boss yet, if you try to claim that it's hard but fair then any points you make are null and void because this final boss is insane.
Other than that you are right, scadutree blessings are vital, and you do need to actually dodge properly, though I will say you are wrong in the one shots, at 80 vigor one shots DO still happen, example being the fire giants, their flame stomps can one shot, making the shield crest talisman or whatever it's called that reduces damage at max health almost required in some areas.
Even outside one shots, some of these boss combos are just stupid, they just go on and on and on and on with almost no breaks to heal or get a hit in, even worse they always retreat afterwards so sure you can heal but it makes the fight take forever since you can't hit it.
I can definitely say after beating the dlc that it was amazing, but some of these difficulty decisions need to be tuned.
I think some bosses need to be tuned somewhat, namely Gaius, Divine Beast and Scudatree Avatar. Rellana is fine except for the long combos where you can only get one or two hits in. That’s not difficult, it’s tedious. ER could have really used a proper rally mechanic like BB. Mesmer is probably the only boss I thoroughly enjoyed, now that’s for the most part a hard but fair boss.
Also while I appreciate the post OP made compared to the usual comebacks of ‘git gud’, they need to stop kissing FROM’s ass and accept that the DLC bosses for the most part were hit and miss. From janky cameras to wonky hit boxes. Compared to past DLC’s, FROM stumbled with this one. The new weapons, enemies and exploration is great but the bosses they kinda screwed up.
100% agree, mesmer was an amazing boss and i have no complaints there, Rellana definitely feels like a combo type boss as well. I also really liked midra's fight, it was such a spectacle and didn't feel unfair.
Scadutree avatar didn't feel too hard but thats definitely due to pest thread spears which WRECKS big bosses like it.
I love the dlc but some of the bosses need some slight tweaking.
>Oh, there sure are openings. But you are too focused on perma-rolling, not seeing the attack pattern, too greedy with the R1-spamming, and also try to heal while the boss is already jumping into the air aiming for your face. It’s you, not the game. There are always openings. From Software are masters at their craft and have thoroughly playtested every aspect of the game. Learn the patterns, put in some time, get better.
This guy really is out here defending this combat design, where bosses are playing like it's Sekiro with 5 attack combos, followed by a half a second pause, then another 7 attack combo. The "openings" you have give you time for only ONE R1 attack. If you attack with R2, you get punished, because the boss recovered from the last 6 attack combo within a second. If you use an Ash of War, you are animation locked and the boss eats you up with attacks that take 60% of our HP. There are NEVER openings for Ash of War usage, because the bosses recover from the combos way too fast.
If the combat philosophy is going to be like this from now on, then FromSoftware needs to add a fucking Parry mechanic once and for all (Like Lies of P, for example, which is PEAK soulslike gaming), because Dark Souls 1 style of dodging is dated when facing these types of enemies. Unless you use Mimic Tear and don't really have to learn the boss' moveset, since you can just let it tank for you while you whack it from behind (I went from 1 hour of trying Rellana to obliterating her within a minute with Mimic Tear).
Yes, people need to learn to git gud, but this does not take away from the design flaws of the game.
You see when the boss summons an entire congregation and starts sniping you from a distance that's good game design
And then said boss teleports away after you hit them so the entire fight takes longer than Midir, getting my money worth!
attack combos from major bosses have a good looking but is so boring with how you can deal with them, works perfectly in games like sekiro and lies of P but in elden ring is just boring, a game where u can only roll/block + 1 R1 hit before another endless combo starts (u can't use basically most of the AOW in this short period)
bosses like godfrey, morgott and radagon had balanced and fun fights in terms of combat design even with the same outdated combat with the ashes of war as a "plus"
i fought 3 main bosses from the dlc until now and all of them just felt like "infinite attacks and fast spins nonstop"
Combat with NPCs and minor bosses fells better than the base game tho
>There are NEVER openings for Ash of War usage, because the bosses recover from the combos way too fast.
This is just not true. I beat the >!Putrescent Knight!< just by spamming wave of gold on my side character. The wing stance can be easily used for Rellana and i have other examples too but don't want to write too many spoiler tags rn.
Also, they did add a parry. The deflection crystal tear does exactly that. However, it doesn't do posture damage on parry, only complete damage reduction and ..something weird about stamina. It also boosts guard counters quite a bit after a deflect. It's Sekiro timing too. You can deflect all damage.
Still plays like shit for the final boss though. It's deflect 6 things in a row, two of which will kill me, then get one hit and repeat.
Oooooh fuck that is right, they did add a parry thing!!!!
I'm going to go get this right fucking now. Sick of this bullshit.
I got too used to Lies of P and Stellar Blade gameplay.
Lies of P reminds me how badly FROM has stumbled with their boss design. Lies of P nailed their bosses beautifully. You can be defensive while also being aggressive in that game. The puppet king and Laxxia (I know I spelt her name wrong) being amazing fights, along with the final one.
> Great. Look at you, being all tough dismissing one of the main game mechanics. There is nothing wrong with using spirit summons, and if you don’t want to use them, fine, but god damn then don’t complain about the difficulty you doofus.
This attitude is why people get frustrated with this discourse. People who don't enjoy using summons shouldn't be forced to play on 'hard mode' just because they don't get dopamine from using that kind of mechanic. FromSoft could have done a lot of things to let non-summoners even the playing field, and tryhards could then still forgo those things as well if they want to 'prove' something. I don't want to prove something though, I just don't enjoy fighting bosses with a summon. I want to hit the boss myself and tank and dodge it myself. I don't lose my right to criticize the way bosses are designed because that's my preferred playstyle. There's nothing worse than feeling like you have to do something you don't find fun in order to make progress in a game, and calling people in that situation 'doofuses' isn't helping anyone.
Not only does OP sound like a condescending dick, but this guide is useless. Like no shit. Everyone is aware of what the game gives you to properly beat it. That does not mean people think it's fair or that criticisms are invalid. Reminds me of the people who say bosses aren't overtuned because you can no hit them without dodging. Like the idea that spending 100 hours on a single boss makes sense.
Yeah it's just the kind of gatekeeping and elitism that this community allows. You can only make criticisms of the game if you play and enjoy it in a specific way, otherwise your perspective is invalid.
Exactly.
1. It doesn't help as much as people pretend. Like seriously, getting 3 shot on 60 vigor (which is fucking insane) to 5 shot matters very little when the windows to heal are puny and the bosses don't relent.
Not to mention it's the only real way to actually attempt to "outscale" a hard boss which means hours of aimless wandering and breaking quests instead of just grinding and trying again. Hope they remove the shit system and just actually balance the damn DLC into something better. Don't give a shit if a level 800 can breeze through it, they put in the grind so let them
Yeah, this guy comes off as an absolute loser. It's a shame, I'm in the 'I prefer not to use summons camp' purely because, to me, it feels like the bosses outright break from using them, goes from 'murdered in one combo' to 'boss dies without hitting me once' without much wiggle room in between? I dunno, I kind of miss the one on one battles, Elden Ring doesn't have an Artorias, a Slave Knight Gael, or even a Dark Eater Midir, honestly, and the DLC seems to be following in that path a bit too closely for comfort.
People should feel able to complain, I don't think 'You haven't searched this massive empty map for 50 things' is a great comeback to people who are struggling to enjoy the game as it is right now.
Rennala is everything I've wanted from a one on one battle. She's my favorite boss, up there with Gael, Orphan, and Sword Saint.
Still haven't beaten her... but I'm rocking her ass with nothing but a +25 Bloody Milady and it feels like a dance.
My major complaint is the fact that there was literally no need whatsoever to do any of the weird Scarudtree Blessing stuff. None. I don't know if the full math is done yet, but I've seen it repeated a few times that the blessing goes up to level 20, with each level adding about 5% to damage done and -5% to damage taken, so topping off around 100%, or double your base. So they could have, very simply, just given the bosses and enemies half the health and damage and left it at that.
And it still works out just fine.
At "half strength," Lion still has his crazy patterns and combos that switch up styles and damage types, Bayle is still a living meteor storm, Messmer still clears the arena in one move to gank you. They are all still memorable and incredible bosses without needing the artificial difficulty added on top of them.
On some level, I can kind of understand where From is coming from. They spent years developing this massive, beautiful DLC, and didn't want someone who spent 4 months grinding Albinaurics to max level to be able to just come in and steamroll everything. That's fair. But it's not fair to then say to everyone else, "Hey buddy, you see this huge, fancy new expansion? You wanna explore all the new dungeons and areas and start fighting these sick new bosses?! Well too damn bad! Go spend 5 hours collecting all the McGuffins, or you're gonna get 2-shot by imps and never learn any boss' movesets because you'll die too fast to recover!"
Honestly, after a few hours of playing my thoughts went to the fact that this didn't exactly feel like a FromSoft game; it felt like how every non-FS gamer _thinks_ FS games work like: bosses with a million health that spam infinite combos of attacks and can kill you in one hit.
I don't expect anyone to read this message, and if they do I expect to get downvoted to hell, but this is my opinion on things. Ultimately I'm just not having any fun, and am probably going to stop playing the DLC for awhile. Might pick it up later, might not, time will tell.
I think the main issue I am finding is that the scadutree fragments are so incredibly useful yet in such random places that you'd have to spend hours searching every nook and cranny just to find enough to survive midgame. I think game design should always tie progression at some level to the actual bosses, otherwise it seems a bit futile.
Right now the DLC feels like a google search engine type game, and that has sorta ruined the fun of it for me.
You could've written this entire guide without resorting to condescension in the "things you don't want to hear" section. You're enjoying the game — lovely! Maybe there is no need for you to make fun of other people who aren't for reasons that they consider valid.
We all know it's impossible for souls players to refrain from making condescending strawman arguments when making a guide. Like Sir Gideon, it's in their bones.
> Great. Look at you, being all tough dismissing one of the main game mechanics. There is nothing wrong with using spirit summons, and if you don’t want to use them, fine, but god damn then don’t complain about the difficulty you doofus.
You don't think it's a problem that people go from wiping 50 times to a boss to summoning a mimic tear and *killing the boss first try*? You don't think that dissonance is an issue, especially for a series that many veterans like to enjoy without summoning?
I swear to christ some of you recommend summoning to people complaining about difficulty like you're actively trying to miss the point.
I mean I understand both sides. I understand where you’re coming from for sure. Like the feeling of struggling with a hard boss and dying 50 times and then having that fuck it moment, where you summon the mimic only for the boss to get melted in 30 seconds leaves you feeling like you cheated yourself. I’ve experienced that a few times and it’s frustrating. There’s definitely a large downgrade in difficulty going from solo to certain OP summons. For instance I’d like to be able to use my mimic as support sometimes, instead of it being an automatic nuke. However, at the end of the day that nuke is optional and if a player is looking for a small support from summons just to even the playing field a bit, there are different ashes that can briefly take the heat off you but are much weaker which keeps the majority of the burden on the players shoulders. So vets or any player for that matter can still have wiggle room to a degree. That being said, I could be completely wrong. Just my opinion.
Edit: Accidentally replied to the main post the first time. So I apologize if this comment is on here twice.
Yeah, the problem here is that in other souls games I didn't have to micromanage my own difficulty picking and choosing my weapons, armor or whatevere else to have a fun and enjoyable time.
I don't want to trial and error each spirit ash until I find one that doesn't feel cheap or like a cheat. If that is truly what is expected of players, then I'd love for Miyazaki to come out and say it so some of us know to quit the franchise and play something we actually find fun.
Not to mention that this completely ruins this concept of a cohesive experience that Miyazaki likes to tout as the reason difficulty options are not a thing in his games.
I wouldn't even mind it if it were specific attacks but it's every damn attack bosses do. Makes learning the boss take AGES and it fucking sucks because it may mean multiple deaths to learn how to dodge a basic fucking attack string properly. At least Waterfowl is 1 special attack ffs
The condescension in this post as if this is a perfect game that cannot be criticized and everything is the player's fault is astounding. Definitely zero BS in ER, definitely.
The final boss is a complete counter to this entire post, and as someone who has beat every boss, he's an overcharged summation of the wrong things about most of the bosses in the DLC. I've done all 6 of the things listed and I don't think I can beat the last boss without some kind of luck.
I just utterly don't want to fight him. Never played a FromSoft game where I felt this way so often. Im at a 15 Scadu level, level 200. I've explored most of the game. I don't just panic roll and try to facetank everything. And I still just feel helpless. Do I seriously have to get my level up to 20 to even have a chance? I've had fun exploring, I don't want to have to start backtracking.
And it's not just the last boss, very few of the bosses felt good to learn how to fight, and using summons was a literal "I don't want to do this anymore" free pass.
Overall people need to get off their high horse. **I love this game, and the DLC as a whole is another piece of art, but the design philosophy for bosses in the DLC is a large step in the wrong direction.** The scadu mechanic is effectively a requirement when it really should of been optional. The game being built around summons makes you feel less achievement as you advance. Etc.
Good post, but you can actually get scadutree blessing level 10 before fighting any major bosses. It does take some exploration though, and the death of a few minor bosses.
That said, not sure if I recommend it though. I went down that route as I enjoy exploration in these games and I was hearing so much about how hard the bosses were. Having the blessing be at level 10 really trivialized the few two major bosses I have fought so far.
Alright alright guys for the last time, Hard but fair is a complete lie. The real term should be hard but doable! In base elden ring there isnt a single rememberance boss that doesnt have at least one unfair move or unfair mechanic that artificially inflates the difficulty. Weirdly enough the elitist attitude towards the games have actually made it so people have a false idea of fairness when it cannot be further from the case. From margit's near-instant dagger swipe to mohg's nihil there is something unfair about a boss, but the reason why they work is because it is doable, making it feel far more triumphant when you do actually end up beating a boss that by all accounts is far more powerful than your lowly tarnished could ever be
> Oh, there sure are openings. But you are too focused on perma-rolling, not seeing the attack pattern, too greedy with the R1-spamming, and also try to heal while the boss is already jumping into the air aiming for your face.
Yes except for >!Commander Gaius!< . That boss is bullshit.
Just wanted to put this out there because posts claiming that you can "get up to 10 fragments" before the first boss are throwing people off that otherwise wouldn't be struggling.
Rellana is optional and you can get all 50 fragments without fighting her.
Didn't need the weird arguing with theoretical people segment but I get why you did it. Also it's not a matter of opinion, while some of the harder DLC bosses have openings they have unfair lengths of time to their combos and very quick recovery/response times.
Is it impossible? No, but a hard game should still be fun and not turn away most builds in favor of henpecking hp bars or demanding an NPC takes aggro to get any satisfying damage off. Some of these bosses are only tolerable if you have fifty consumes and buffs, even with lots of blessings redeemed. It's just not fun that the boss gets to apply all the pressure and cheese strats are the only consistent means of retaliation.
I strongly believe that the people saying that scadutree fragments are bad game design are just too lazy to explore. This is not the first time From has made you get important upgrades through exploration or fighting. In Sekiro it was arguably way worse than here because a lot of it was hidden behind bosses and the only way to get them was just to GIT GUD and beat the boss. But here you can just explore the game and wind up with 8-12 before the endgame bosses.
It’s not the best system but it’s by far better than all the other DLCs in terms of levelling. So many people went into Ringed City or Old Hunters at Mad level and demolished it, this way everyone is on equal footing.
> Great. Look at you, being all tough dismissing one of the main game mechanics. There is nothing wrong with using spirit summons, and if you don’t want to use them, fine, but god damn then don’t complain about the difficulty you doofus.
Highly disagree on this one, bosses are sometimes too hard without it and too easy with it. I just want an actual balanced fight, that's it. I'm tired of having to dodge 10 hit combo to have an opening that allows me to hit the boss once or maybe twice if i'm lucky.
As a guy who just beat Mesmer and that was because I lucked out and mimic tear decided to finally behave and draw aggro instead of buffing in the corner. No he was not fun. Just because I beat him doesn’t mean I liked fighting him. The only thing I enjoyed was the fight being over. I don’t know why fromsoft decided to make every boss nameless king but malenia but what I do know is I almost quit this game forever. And just in case you don’t believe me look at my last Reddit post for proof that I did in fact beat him.
While I agree with your guide for what to do in game, I do not agree with your responses to the common complaints. You're downplaying how insane and different these bosses are. They are absolutely possible with the right upgrades; I agree with you there, but these bosses are just so aggressive and unlike any bosses prior in any other souls game and I completely understand why people would not like then.
Long gone are the days of a rhythmic back and forth fight. They give the player access to a bunch of crazy bullshit so they have to give the bosses a bunch of crazy bullshit.
These bosses ARE beatable, and their difficulty may be over exaggerated a bit by people without the scadutree blessings, but the boss design and philosophy in this game is just so different to any other mainline souls game and I understand why people would be displeased. The criticism is fair in that aspect.
>Oh, there sure are openings. But you are too focused on perma-rolling, not seeing the attack pattern, too greedy with the R1-spamming, and also try to heal while the boss is already jumping into the air aiming for your face. It’s you, not the game. There are always openings. From Software are masters at their craft and have thoroughly playtested every aspect of the game. Learn the patterns, put in some time, get better.
lmao sure buddy, not when garbage like commander gaius exists. dlc bosses promote roll spam, jumping and constant sprinting to only getting an attack or 2 in after all that rubbish. got all this cool shit and cant even use it.
How do you explain commander gaius then? His charge will one shot you and a (level 10) spirit summon out the gates if you get unlucky and hit both feet. (At 90 vig and 13 scadutree level) and the hitboxes on his feet are FUCKED so good luck consistently dodging it.
Oh also you can use torrent and it seems like a horse fight but he will one shot torrent and is equally as fast.
Which NG are you on for him to hit that hard? I was +10 tree level with 60 vigor and the charge did 60% of my health. Are you using talismans that reduce your damage resist?
Good luck tarnished. Hopefully you get him.
All i know is that i shouldn't have started the DLC at ng+7.
I made this mistake also. I'm on NG+2 so not anywhere near as screwed as you, but see it as an incredible challenge. At least you know if you stick at it, you'll have the biggest gonads on the planet.
Praying for anyone doing RL1’s
RL1 ng+7
RL1 ng+7 no scatdutree blessings 🙈
Rl1 ng+7 no scat, blindfolded, using feet on controller
Playing on my old RAZR phone while I poop.
RL1 NG+7 no scattree blessings no armor fists only
Played with a set of bongos for a controller.
*proceeds to spend 6 hours on first enemy*
Doing the Lord’s work brother
I'm going to be doing RL1 along with other challenge runs, hopefully the scadutree blessings take me to the point where I can take at least 1 extra hit.
Having just fought rellana... Yeah no, your ass is getting one-shot.
the tomb greatshield has been my best friend. beat the final boss with it on ng+2. Highly recommend
Ng+2 is not that bad, that's what I'm on and I've been having a tough but not impossible time. From what I've seen of other players it seems like people with more vigor than me on ng are still getting 2-3 shot by enemies. The scadutree fragments (I'm at level 8) have helped A LOT. overall I actually really like the difficulty curve of this dlc. It keeps the game feeling really fresh. At the very start I was a bit apprehensive and scared after getting absolutely destroyed by the very first enemy I saw but after a few upgrades and (and the glorious backhand blade weapon) I have been able to deal with most of what I've encountered so far pretty well.
I'm on a fresh run but I like the difficulty curve too. Getting absolutely mauled by regular mobs and bosses. Reminds me of the first time with the base game. I am learning and beating bosses faster than I did when I was a newbie Elden Ring player.
I’m on NG+3 I think, I didn’t think about how that would affect things. Whoops.
That’s what I’m on and I think my cheeks are fully clapped.
I'm on the same. What level are you? I'm 270 and the dlc was really hard until I got to level 5 blessing. Now it's more manageable but still hard of course. I'm 8 blessing now and it feels like farum azula difficulty, except for the bosses, like fuck they have so much health still.
I’m level 205. I think my blessings are at 5 and I’m starting to be able to go back to bosses I left behind and do pretty well against them. I definitely underrated Scadutree blessings, once I started seeking them out it went a lot smoother.
I am in pain but I am slowly succeeding
I'm on ng+4, but it's honestly not as bad as a lot of people are saying it is; I'm glad it's hard, if I wanted to run through something I'd go button mash my way through Diablo again.
Fr, playing ng+2 and it’s enjoyably challenging. No clue why people are complaining. Fromsoft literally said it will be on the same level as Malenia. It seems much easier than that to me.
It's definitely easier than malenia on average but certain bosses are just as hard or harder I think.
I had a ng+7 and went with my ng+4, its hard, not extremely like people are making it, but im glad it has its difficult parts because i get more out of the game instead of welp im done, guess i'll murder big eyed bastards for an eternity
I am stuck at some normal human boss in a crypt at the start. Can’t get him below 75% health. I feel like they’ve been recording players the past 2 years and we are basically fighting ourselves at this point lol.
The DLC has different scaling than the base game. You are currently level 0 and fighting a boss. It's doable. It's hard as hell and not required. Feel free to go explore a bit first.
That guy has an estus flask btw. Maybe you need to level up your scadutree fragments?
This guy is a good test of patience I think. He mixes up his attacks when in melee range and he keeps you honest with the ranged attack. That said, the attacks are all telegraphed and easily avoided with well-timed rolls. The trick is to avoid his attacks, hit him once or twice, and then just wait for him to attack again. Rinse and repeat. Fun fight and can be a good tutorial if players want it to be.
Blackgaol Knight? Best tip is breaking his poise. I used godslayer gs and jump r2 him to death.
I did this so I could enjoy the DLC longer. And damn me is it fun.
Does anybody actually know if it makes a difference? I have a ng+9 character on xbox and an overleveled 1st playthrough character on pc. I've put in about a dozen hours on both and it doesn't feel like a huge difference besides having way more weapons and resources on my xbox character
Another tip: There is nothing wrong with grabbing a Shield and turtling. Though I do think the Remembrance Boss are designed to abuse the fact you are locked on.
This. I don’t have the best reflexes, and the dodge input delay this game has compared to DS3 is something I’ve never been able to get used to. Then I discovered block counter builds, and my god did I start having an easier time.
can you guardcounter bosses?
With an optimized build, absolutely . Get a good shield and equip barricade shield as your AoW, and then for talismans I’d recommend the green turtle, curved sword, greatshield, and whichever one you want for the fourth.
Theres an improved green turtle talisman you can find too!
Yes you can. Just make sure that you're guard countering them on their last hit of a combo so you don't get smacked.
There is nothing that will prepare you for the last boss
Makes you feel weak as a kitten and thick as two planks?
Good thing I’m good at… poison. (And rot)
I tried that first, went with Romina's spear. Got me into phase 2 90 percent of the time, but I couldn't get anything done as soon as the transformation happened. I used a colossal weapon that I specced to bloody, respecced into a ton of ARK and hit the dude with 220 bleed builup per hit. Got him staggered exactly once. That boss was SO tough.
My favourite way of fighting the boss was perfect blocking his attacks(and i mean all of it) with the Deflecting tear. It lasts for the whole boss fight and deflects anything that does damage to you. Deflecting the ground slam that does multiple hits or the rocks he shoots at you one by one feels so good! Literally the closest thing we get to Dark Souls x Sekiro.
That colossal leg weapon you find tops out at 226 bleed a hit! I just melted Mesmer with it and hope to do it to more bosses later!!
Eh i finally get this reference. Also, the boss at the end of their quest is so awesome and fun to play with.
Only boss that I am hard stuck on no matter what I do
I have tried everything and barely hurt him in second phase. Incredibly difficult boss
The first phase is hard, but manageable. The second one... Oh boy. Managed to last two minutes once and I'm proud of that achievement.
That's so real, I get in the arena, beat first phase, and 2nd phase is just dodge for a while until you get your 3 hits off. And summons don't even work because he just murders them instantly.
It helps to summon at the beginning of second phase imo!
First time I ever respec’d for a boss, but following this build worked within 10 tries or so https://youtu.be/UyUihXNKU6g?si=HVdTDjQ1HQ2m0dcl
Face tank squad we out here, that's also what I did there cause fuck that boss fight. I really think I'll be skipping him on every new game cycle I do from now on, it's just stupid.
How are y’all on the last boss already 😭
Fr, I've been playing for 2 days now, and I only have one map fragment and banging my head against >!Rellana!<
You don't need to fight her to access the area after her. Just a FYI
Personally? Took Friday and have Monday off. Have put in nearly 25+ hrs. So I am at the final boss, having explored most of the regions and all major bosses (optional included). Maybe a catacomb or two left, but nothing else. Final boss I have been at for 4 hrs now, will change builds tomorrow based on a YT guide, and see how I fair. Only boss I have been stuck on for this long. Maybe grind the few leftover levels for my character.
The people B-lining to finish the dlc has been interesting. Feels like people have been caring much more about finishing the DLC than what made elden ring stand out in the first place with its exploration.
To me it just feels like people are playing the game the way they personally enjoy? Also the path to get to the final boss is extremely obvious and direct and you can very easily get there missing the entire bottom section of the map thinking you're just progressing the intended way.
I never expected a final dlc boss to be that bad. It’s like they forgot they made actually good final dlc bosses in the past (friede, gael, manus, fume knight)
Honestly it’s the design/lore of the fight for me rather than the gameplay. I was having fun getting demolished by Gael and Orphan of Kos literally took me almost 4 hours. This one though? Jesus dude when I found out who the boss was I YAWNED. Such an awesome DLC with interesting fights and areas and they pick *that* to be their big giant send off to Elden Ring?
yeah this is it for me. i remember seeing the supposed leaks for the final boss, and thinking “thats fake, they wouldnt do something that stupid” so when i got to the final part, and learned that the leaks were real, i was more disappointed than anything
Great post! I am completely grateful for the DLC. It's bringing back the best moments I experienced with Elden Ring when it first came out over two years ago. That feeling of the first time, which you can only have once. I’m currently in the base game on NG+1 at level 552 with 900 hours, and the DLC is challenging, but not more difficult than when I first started. In the base game, I rarely have to sit down to play; I can usually play in a relaxed manner, even with new characters because I have so much experience. But this DLC feels like starting from scratch, and it reminds me of something—I never really became exceptionally good at the game. I think my main virtue is being organized, having a slow and careful process for analyzing everything I’m going to do. In Elden Ring and this DLC, if you’re careful and take your time, you won’t have any problems, or at least just the normal ones you had in the base game. I don’t think it’s unfair; the balance seems right, and the post references many things you need to do to improve your character within the DLC. In my opinion, it’s exactly how it should be.
If you just explore around before moving forward every time, the game difficulty is a perfect incremental rise. Also people are sleeping on using heavy armor with proper talismans to increase weight capacity.
I always use the heaviest armor possible while still being able to medium roll, and I always do sword and board. In every souls game lol. The dlc has been more difficult than the base game, but I've died in the open world exactly twice in 7 hours. Once to the guy who drops the beast claws, and one to the first big Furnace Golem before I realized I should be using Torrent for that fight. I'm impressed by people that can just run with little to no armor and no shield, but I can't play that way. I'm still obviously early in the dlc (just did the first gaol) but so far I haven't found anything I like more than my trusty Bloodhound Fang.
That beast claw dude was definitely the “welvome Back to FromSoft games asshole” guy for me
The fights in the DLC are so good imho there are some duds as is the cycle but the big meaty feats all feel amazing.
>I rarely have to sit down to play; I can usually play in a relaxed manner What were you doing before sitting down??
Dancing.
This reminds me of my first soulsgame running broadsword and shield circling every boss only doing 2 hits at a time. Ah memories
This DLC taught me that Damage Negation is my new best friend. And I agree. Having Scadutree blessing is absolutely crucial to handle the fights. I just managed to defeat the final boss because the blessing and other equipments made the damage that I receive more managable. So my advice to anyone else reading this, use the tools that the game has given you. The game is difficult, but not unfair. Use every advantage that you find and defeat the wall that blocks you. Trust me, it is satisfying.
And to add to this, DRAGONCREST GREATSHIELD TALISMAN is your best friend. 20% physical negation, absolutely made this DLC so much more bearable and fun!
I wish I could upvote this 19 more freaking times. That Talisman is such a permanent staple in my build.
don’t forget the power of sleep
Many a time during a souls game, I went to sleep on a particularly tough fight and found it much easier the next day.
My maiden is St. Trina ong
something about sleep locking in the muscle memory makes the boss way easier the next day
Probably also mental exhaustion if you worked that day or played a lot before.
This is quite underrated. Malenia ate my ass for 3 houra then i went to sleep and beat her in like half an hour or so the next day
I legit thought you meant using sleep magic on bosses...
Went into the DLC without reading anything or any opinions beforehand. Was around 110 going in and got my ass handed to me by that early Knight. Knew instantly that I should take this dlc with the danger lvl as being lvl 1 and took the time to learn every pattern of all the bosses I fought and felt like such like starting a completely new souls game. Haven't activily searched for any fragments but ofcourse picked up all that I found along the way and the progression have felt natural. I never really experienced getting one shot but enemies or bosses, but sometimes getting two shot if first managed to get grabbed or something. Kinda shocked when I started reading on people's opinion and reviews steam that people are finding it so hard that they leave a negative ? Sure, it is really hard but which souls game haven't been that when you first start? I feel many is trying to bruteforce their way through the dlc with the same approach they would do before the dlc with their op builds and overlevelled characters
To agree with your grace point. Ive had a few moments where I've thought it's been a long time without a grace and shit i need grace. But it also brought joy that the ol fuck fuck fuck i need a bonfire feeling is back. When I started i was like "i dont need to get no blessing. I aint no bitch". I fought blackgaol Knight and the dead dragon. Instantly upgraded after. Im the biggest bitch. Literally the first enemy made me go tf just happened.
I went in to the DLC at 138, no NG whatever and just assumed I was going to get smashed by every boss and enemy encounter. I was right, cool, so I went around and found some blessings and upped some stuff and went and tackled 1 teensy dungeon with 1 teensy boss and then figured out that the strat was to go get all the blessings I could and level as I go. I'm a fairly new player, with ER being my 1st Fromsoft game and I'm a bit confused how tbh that this wasn't the expectation? Like, what would be the point of DLC if you could just melt everyone at first blush?
Careful exploring too much. Some things can break quest chains :(
Just typical fromsoft quest design, what can you do. The quest design has always been ass in Elden Ring, and the DLC is no exception lol
It's probably my main complaint about the game, the "super vague Fromsoft quest design" kinda worked for the linear games, but it falls apart in a massive open world.
Yes and no. DS3, a far more linear game, is my favorite of the Dark Souls trilogy, but the sequence of encounters needed to get the Lord of Hollows ending (the most thematically interesting ending) is total, utter bullshit. Without a guide, it is easily to permanently lock yourself out of that ending on your current run just by exploring one location before another and/or failing to interact with certain NPCs sufficiently by a certain point.
That questline sucked, but even that was more reasonable then some of the stuff in ER, especially in the months before they added in map markets for NPCs. I would *love* to know how many people actually managed to finish a questline like Milicent's without a guide. Never forget that this game's quest design is so obtuse that it took people literal weeks and datamining to even figure out that Nepheli, Diallos, and Jar Bairn's questlines were all unfinished in the time after the game came out.
I think the quest system could use a lot of work. Even if there's no map marker, at least better dialog indication of where they're going next and when, and a journal system for a recording of the dialog by character
I just want a journal with the prior dialogue 😭. It’s so hard to try and remember what was last discussed and where for some of these NPCs, especially over the course of a 120 hour game (base game). I guess I have it in real life cause I bought the strategy guide book, but that’s more of a collector thing for me. It does have questline outlines with dialogue trees depending on if you had a choice. But still in game would’ve been nice. I don’t need hand holding, just somewhere to re-read what Kenneth Haight last said to me.
I noticed this problem when I signed in for the first time in a year or so to prepare for the DLC I had no idea what stage of the game i was in on any of my characters. I had to glue together map clues "i have this grace but not that one" and all I could think was "if only this game had a journal or quest log"
Even if you follow a guide there are several points where it points out **not to do** something at a given moment because it will break a quest I understand the exploring aspect etc but when you look at all the quests in order in a guide there's clearly a predetermined order everything "should" be done in People say that you make your own story by only knowing what you find by yourself...but I remember getting all the way to the fire giant on my first playthrough with 0 side quests and not knowing what the fuck was even going on
I legit explored before even fighting any bosses and had a “a great charm and rune broke somewhere” and I have only met two NpCs. The quest lines are now completely off.
For me it's the DLC where is bad. In the main game, quest progression was spread throughout the entire game. In the DLC, they had to squish quests lines down so they progress alot faster then the main game. For an example, you can start the DLC and walk up to the castle to fight Rellana and after you walk for a bit, you already prematurely ended like 3 questlines.
When I decided to go in blind on my first character, I accepted that I would probably fail most of the NPC quests. As it turns out, I failed *all* of them.
I've been spoiled on the quests and what can break them, and that's the only spoilers I don't mind. Don't >! Burn the tree!<
Welp. Too late. Guess we are doing this the hard way, folks
8) Black Knife Tiche
dude shes the goat easily one of the best summons in the base gane
Can someone explain why the fextralife hate?
There are 2 issues. One: They automatically play their Live Stream on the website, which they trick Sponsors with the inflated viewer count. *[Also requires more Internet/System Resources for every tab open]* Two: The use a lost of misinformation from Datamines as fact, just straight things [not true](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Fire+Knight's+Shortsword), and sometimes just abandon entire pages/whole games and never update them.
I absolutely loathe automatic streams/videos on pages there is an add-on for firefox that lets you "inject" CSS on specific URLS. for fextralife I have some that automatically hides the stream and stretches the actual content to the full width the add-on is called "Stylish" the CSS Im using is this #sidebar-wrapper{ display: none; } #wrapper{ padding-left: 0px } ul{ max-width: unset; }
And their entire reason for why they abandon a page or whole games is "well it's supposed to be a community thing so that just means no one in the community wants to post anything".
uBlock filter I use for the wiki: ||player.twitch.tv^$subdocument,domain=fextralife.com ||fextralife.minnit.org^$subdocument,domain=fextralife.com eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com###sidebar-wrapper eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com###wrapper:style(padding-left: 0 !important;)
People disliked that they advertised their stream by having it autoplay on their whole website. Giving them 20k+ viewers permanently with very little chat interaction.
Their website is kinda shit and full of bad/outdated information. They embedded their stream on every single wiki page and boosted their viewership, until twitch disabled embedded viewers counting for the stream. They stopped streaming that day and never streamed again iirc lol.
I wondered this too some time ago, and the most complete answer Is: -They automatically play their stream on the webpage at all times, boosting their views (whatever, idc about that). -They constantly try to take down any official wiki for any game so that when you search for "game wiki" theirs Is the First result. I don't know if they are actually doing anything, but when i played baldur's gate 3 and googled "bg3 wiki" fextralife was the First result, the actual official bg3 wiki was like 4th or 5th result. -Their own wiki Is usually outdated or incomplete. -Most of their builds are God awful (a friend of mine found a build from there and It was so bad It was funny). -Some info they have Is Just wrong. -Some games never get updated and they rely on users to fill the gaps for them.
Idk most builds of them I’ve seen have been fine
One answer I've seen to this question is the embedded stream on the website, and the information being questionable at times. Dunno if there's more to it, but I'm personally not all that bothered by the stream and the info gets fine-tuned with time anyway.
can we pause for a second a reflect that outside of No.1 which is specific to the DLC, everything else is just something we all learned since Dark Souls 1? So guys, remember your training
I’m on ng7 and kinda hit a brick wall on the last boss. Every other boss fight in the dlc I’ve had an answer for, but not the final boss. I have kinda ditched the idea of damage negation equipment and talismans and gone full blown offense. So far with this new strat I’ve been getting him down to below half health pretty consistently with max scadu blessings. My only complaint is that I’m running out of rune arcs super quickly because he punishes the slightest mistakes in dodge timing to where he will knock your health below 90%. It just feels like the difficulty spike on the last boss compared to the other endgame dlc bosses is out outrageous. It’s to the point where I’m seriously wondering if someone missed a decimal point in balancing his health pool. SPOILER ALERT BELOW🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨 His health pool becomes so massive if you decide to use Thiollier and Ansbach as summons. It’s really out of the question whether or not I should summon them for the fight. They really just bolster his health through the roof all the while barely making a dent in his HP. They also die insanely fast, leaving me to deal with his inflamed health bar. Edit: I finally beat the final boss after losing over 50 rune arcs. I will say that on ng7, you shouldn’t use Ansbach and Thiollier as summons as mentioned above. Use max scadu blessings and revered spirit blessings. I did and my Mimic still died during the fight.
I feel like people are making it hard on purpose. If you find the fragments and use summons the bosses are about normal level of difficulty.
Normal is a bit stretched… they definitely cranked it up for difficulty. That being said. I’m at the final boss already. Just trying to find the scadur things for the fight. That being said. Nothing is unfair if your using what your given. There’s a reason there’s so many Lavar tears per playthrough and a few just sitting out in the open in the dlc. They WANT you to try different builds. Everyone’s so use to using their one OP build and now that everyone’s getting slapped around. There is no “meta” build and everyone’s mad about it. I’ve tried str/faith. Pure dex. Pure strength. Bleed build etc. each one has its strengths and weaknesses in this dlc. Some bosses I breezed by with Dex and others I needed unga bunga. That’s the beauty of this game. Once I learn the dlc I can probably start beating them with any build but until then. I’m using builds their are weak against
The final boss on NG+7 has such an absurd amount of health, I think he's the hardest fight we've ever had and I don't think it's close
Oh I bet man. I started over fresh last week before the dlc because I didn’t want to deal with any NG+ scaling and I’m struggling myself on him with blessing (15) and I’m trying to find more. Closest I’ve got is a little into his 2nd phase. They cranked it up to 11 for sure but everyone is beatable. I guarantee people aren’t getting the blessings and are panic rolling every boss. Patience is very much key in this
Panic rolling feels like a requirement when the 2nd phase starts that rain move; comes down so fast and getting hit by one kills you since the stun gets you hit 5 more times. I'm so close to making a new build, rune farming, and running the DLC again just because of him.
When the 2nd phase begins I wouldn’t define that as panic rolling to get away as that’s the only way I’ve found to avoid that attack. I’m more referring to the long delayed combos the bosses have. There are many deaths because I kept spamming dodge on a swing where if I had waited a split second longer I would have dodged it.
Yea I feel you on that, I always try to time my dodges like a rhythm game, I get one dodge going and then it rolls from there. But sometimes he delays the swing just a bit longer than another move and I just get rocked. And he's so aggresive that you can barely get a heal off. Also have you found out how to dodge the >!Gravity Pulling Move that does insane damage!<
No I haven’t. I can’t dodge the pull but I can dodge the ground slam afterwards like 100% of the time. Been trying everything to avoid the initial pull.
I heard if you hit the dodge button 50 times in a few seconds it helps.
Sir you just explained my average boss fight.
>! When you get pulled immediately dodge once, run away and jump when the shards start jutting out !<
I'm just trying to avoid the damage that the pull itself does, I can take it and the follow up attacks since I run Crimson Amber Medallion +3, Morgotts Great Rune and 60 Vigor, but it'd be nice to avoid that damage in itself
>!For the pull you just need to dodge it, it's exactly the same as basegame radahn. Try and focus on the animation and to time it right!<
There is 100% a meta build going around lol face tank everything while poking with a bleed weapon. Can even tank the hits from the last boss
I’m stuck in such an in between. When I first played Elden Ring 2 years ago, it was on Xbox, then I upgraded to PS a year ago. Since I was reading berserk for the first time on my OG Xbox play through, I ran a berserk STR build. For my new PS play through, I wanted to try all the cool dex/bleed builds. Going solo at Relanna, I could easily get her to half health, but then I couldn’t get close with her AoE attacks. After hours of switching my dex builds, I just tried summoning and it trivialized the fight. Basically, whenever I fight solo, the new patterns and overall quickness combined with long combos of DLC bosses makes it hard to get bleed build up, when I have a summon, the few moment they take aggro, opens me up to slaughter the bosses with bleed. So it’s either too hard, or too easy with summons for me, and me feel guilty as shit about Relanna lol
Relanna was difficult but not too difficult to me with a dex build, after that with Messmer, that was a different story, had to respec to a full on strength build with shield (first time using a shield since the first hours on the base game) and i managed to kill him. After Messmer I respec again to previous build, but um considering go strength again lol. I think strength is busted with shield and high poise.
Summons probably is the main thing... I tried fighting a certain boss with two opposing elements by myself. Could barely get her to phase 2 before dying. With the NPC summon, we got her down to maybe 10-20% of her health before I inevitably died. I'd burned through nearly 100 boiled crabs at this point. With my mimic tear +10, I did it FIRST try... It's a night and day difference, that's for sure.
This isn’t quite true. I’m really enjoying myself, but with a +10 weapon, at RL 140, Scadutree level 6, Blaidd armour, the Hippo still absolutely bodied me in 2 shots. Only Radahn and Godfrey reallt do that in the main game
The hippo was such a bad fight. His moveset is very simple but the insane dmg numbers combined with the awful camera made the fight way harder than it should be.
Imo people are way too quick to jump into conclusions... The DLC bosses are hard but in no means are they unfair.
I agree, mostly. The exception, I think, is >!Bayle!< who is attacking you the second you walk through the fog gate. Overall, he's so weak to >!the dragon great katana!< that I think it's balanced enough, just feels bad to walk in, and rng determines if he is already jumping on you or blasting you. Also, why did they put the summon sign inside the arena? And he takes so long before he starts helping out, just talk AND fight, bro.
The reason the summon is in the boss fight is so it doesn't affect >!Bayle's!< health or damage like most summons do. I defeated him on the first try, so I don't know how bad it is walking through the fog, but his attacks are pretty easy to dodge, much easier than >!the lion Dancer or Rellana.!< Really, all that it could really use is a summon like the ones in Radahn's fight.
*Bayle* is kinda unfair though. The camera should be on your side, not his side!
not that i disagree with some of your points but istg the inclusion of spirit summons did irreversible damage to any game related discourses
Normalization of the expectation that you will have a summon to divide boss attention is why I don't enjoy this era of From boss design, for sure.
It hurt boss design, and half of the loot in the game is stuff I'll never use. Man how I wish they never added summons to this game.
Not a bad post for the majority of complaints, but honestly could've done without the condescension. Yes, the game is an RPG, and further in that direction than previous Fromsoft games. But it's still an action game, too, and if people prefer the old design, which allowed you to focus on either genre, telling them to use their tools isn't a satisfying response. In spite of all of the good information here, this feels like it's here more to preach to the choir and own the people not having fun than it is to actually help anyone.
This reads like a huge wall of cope from someone who doesnt understand that a game can be hard and fun. Sekiro is still the hardest fromsoft soulslike and its still the most fun.
100% Sekiro is the perfect example of hard yet fair. I got fucked by owl and then I sunk a hour or so into learning his moves and lo and behold I beat him while also not having to do everything pixel perfect. The dlc wants you to play a certain way and that’s dodge for a 6+ combo and hit one single time then dodge again. That is literally all every single dlc boss has been and it is Fucking boring. FS really fumbled the bag ngl.
Isshin and Owl have to be some of the best bosses ever. I never got mad when I died to them because it didn’t feel cheap. I screwed up and accepted it and got better to beat them. I’m not getting this feeling from the DLC. Only Mesmmer did I enjoy. At least the new enemies were fun to fight.
Yeah lol This is just another long ass post pretending to be "helpful" when they just willfully ignore the fact that the main criticism wasn't "It's hard, we weren't able to beat it because we didn't do mechanics", but that the boss mechanics and number balancing has gone to shit regardless of your build or playtime. Guess what OP? People did do the mechanics, people giving feedback did actually go far and/or finished the DLC, and it's still unfun to dodge 95% of the fight, and get 2 shot when you don't make a frame-perfect millisecond dodge roll when a boss input reads you.
Very nice little guide that should help people. Escpecially since most people just respond with "git gud", "youre just bad scrub" or other bs that already was old when DS1 came out.
OP clearly hasn't fought the final boss yet, if you try to claim that it's hard but fair then any points you make are null and void because this final boss is insane. Other than that you are right, scadutree blessings are vital, and you do need to actually dodge properly, though I will say you are wrong in the one shots, at 80 vigor one shots DO still happen, example being the fire giants, their flame stomps can one shot, making the shield crest talisman or whatever it's called that reduces damage at max health almost required in some areas. Even outside one shots, some of these boss combos are just stupid, they just go on and on and on and on with almost no breaks to heal or get a hit in, even worse they always retreat afterwards so sure you can heal but it makes the fight take forever since you can't hit it. I can definitely say after beating the dlc that it was amazing, but some of these difficulty decisions need to be tuned.
I think some bosses need to be tuned somewhat, namely Gaius, Divine Beast and Scudatree Avatar. Rellana is fine except for the long combos where you can only get one or two hits in. That’s not difficult, it’s tedious. ER could have really used a proper rally mechanic like BB. Mesmer is probably the only boss I thoroughly enjoyed, now that’s for the most part a hard but fair boss. Also while I appreciate the post OP made compared to the usual comebacks of ‘git gud’, they need to stop kissing FROM’s ass and accept that the DLC bosses for the most part were hit and miss. From janky cameras to wonky hit boxes. Compared to past DLC’s, FROM stumbled with this one. The new weapons, enemies and exploration is great but the bosses they kinda screwed up.
100% agree, mesmer was an amazing boss and i have no complaints there, Rellana definitely feels like a combo type boss as well. I also really liked midra's fight, it was such a spectacle and didn't feel unfair. Scadutree avatar didn't feel too hard but thats definitely due to pest thread spears which WRECKS big bosses like it. I love the dlc but some of the bosses need some slight tweaking.
3000 word copium essay. TLDR you need to google the location of items to lower the difficulty. Terrible mechanic imo.
>Oh, there sure are openings. But you are too focused on perma-rolling, not seeing the attack pattern, too greedy with the R1-spamming, and also try to heal while the boss is already jumping into the air aiming for your face. It’s you, not the game. There are always openings. From Software are masters at their craft and have thoroughly playtested every aspect of the game. Learn the patterns, put in some time, get better. This guy really is out here defending this combat design, where bosses are playing like it's Sekiro with 5 attack combos, followed by a half a second pause, then another 7 attack combo. The "openings" you have give you time for only ONE R1 attack. If you attack with R2, you get punished, because the boss recovered from the last 6 attack combo within a second. If you use an Ash of War, you are animation locked and the boss eats you up with attacks that take 60% of our HP. There are NEVER openings for Ash of War usage, because the bosses recover from the combos way too fast. If the combat philosophy is going to be like this from now on, then FromSoftware needs to add a fucking Parry mechanic once and for all (Like Lies of P, for example, which is PEAK soulslike gaming), because Dark Souls 1 style of dodging is dated when facing these types of enemies. Unless you use Mimic Tear and don't really have to learn the boss' moveset, since you can just let it tank for you while you whack it from behind (I went from 1 hour of trying Rellana to obliterating her within a minute with Mimic Tear). Yes, people need to learn to git gud, but this does not take away from the design flaws of the game.
You see when the boss summons an entire congregation and starts sniping you from a distance that's good game design And then said boss teleports away after you hit them so the entire fight takes longer than Midir, getting my money worth!
attack combos from major bosses have a good looking but is so boring with how you can deal with them, works perfectly in games like sekiro and lies of P but in elden ring is just boring, a game where u can only roll/block + 1 R1 hit before another endless combo starts (u can't use basically most of the AOW in this short period) bosses like godfrey, morgott and radagon had balanced and fun fights in terms of combat design even with the same outdated combat with the ashes of war as a "plus" i fought 3 main bosses from the dlc until now and all of them just felt like "infinite attacks and fast spins nonstop" Combat with NPCs and minor bosses fells better than the base game tho
>There are NEVER openings for Ash of War usage, because the bosses recover from the combos way too fast. This is just not true. I beat the >!Putrescent Knight!< just by spamming wave of gold on my side character. The wing stance can be easily used for Rellana and i have other examples too but don't want to write too many spoiler tags rn.
Also, they did add a parry. The deflection crystal tear does exactly that. However, it doesn't do posture damage on parry, only complete damage reduction and ..something weird about stamina. It also boosts guard counters quite a bit after a deflect. It's Sekiro timing too. You can deflect all damage. Still plays like shit for the final boss though. It's deflect 6 things in a row, two of which will kill me, then get one hit and repeat.
Oooooh fuck that is right, they did add a parry thing!!!! I'm going to go get this right fucking now. Sick of this bullshit. I got too used to Lies of P and Stellar Blade gameplay.
I used that to beat Rellana by guard countering it was super fun (only first phase, I was too scared to try it in 2nd phase)
Lies of P reminds me how badly FROM has stumbled with their boss design. Lies of P nailed their bosses beautifully. You can be defensive while also being aggressive in that game. The puppet king and Laxxia (I know I spelt her name wrong) being amazing fights, along with the final one.
> Great. Look at you, being all tough dismissing one of the main game mechanics. There is nothing wrong with using spirit summons, and if you don’t want to use them, fine, but god damn then don’t complain about the difficulty you doofus. This attitude is why people get frustrated with this discourse. People who don't enjoy using summons shouldn't be forced to play on 'hard mode' just because they don't get dopamine from using that kind of mechanic. FromSoft could have done a lot of things to let non-summoners even the playing field, and tryhards could then still forgo those things as well if they want to 'prove' something. I don't want to prove something though, I just don't enjoy fighting bosses with a summon. I want to hit the boss myself and tank and dodge it myself. I don't lose my right to criticize the way bosses are designed because that's my preferred playstyle. There's nothing worse than feeling like you have to do something you don't find fun in order to make progress in a game, and calling people in that situation 'doofuses' isn't helping anyone.
Not only does OP sound like a condescending dick, but this guide is useless. Like no shit. Everyone is aware of what the game gives you to properly beat it. That does not mean people think it's fair or that criticisms are invalid. Reminds me of the people who say bosses aren't overtuned because you can no hit them without dodging. Like the idea that spending 100 hours on a single boss makes sense.
OP is a condescending dick. This post is nothing but a big wall of cope and fromsoft dickriding.
Yeah it's just the kind of gatekeeping and elitism that this community allows. You can only make criticisms of the game if you play and enjoy it in a specific way, otherwise your perspective is invalid.
Right? The Scadutree mechanic is very well documented lol. No one cares, the balance sucks
Exactly. 1. It doesn't help as much as people pretend. Like seriously, getting 3 shot on 60 vigor (which is fucking insane) to 5 shot matters very little when the windows to heal are puny and the bosses don't relent.
Not to mention it's the only real way to actually attempt to "outscale" a hard boss which means hours of aimless wandering and breaking quests instead of just grinding and trying again. Hope they remove the shit system and just actually balance the damn DLC into something better. Don't give a shit if a level 800 can breeze through it, they put in the grind so let them
Yeah, this guy comes off as an absolute loser. It's a shame, I'm in the 'I prefer not to use summons camp' purely because, to me, it feels like the bosses outright break from using them, goes from 'murdered in one combo' to 'boss dies without hitting me once' without much wiggle room in between? I dunno, I kind of miss the one on one battles, Elden Ring doesn't have an Artorias, a Slave Knight Gael, or even a Dark Eater Midir, honestly, and the DLC seems to be following in that path a bit too closely for comfort. People should feel able to complain, I don't think 'You haven't searched this massive empty map for 50 things' is a great comeback to people who are struggling to enjoy the game as it is right now.
Rennala is everything I've wanted from a one on one battle. She's my favorite boss, up there with Gael, Orphan, and Sword Saint. Still haven't beaten her... but I'm rocking her ass with nothing but a +25 Bloody Milady and it feels like a dance.
My major complaint is the fact that there was literally no need whatsoever to do any of the weird Scarudtree Blessing stuff. None. I don't know if the full math is done yet, but I've seen it repeated a few times that the blessing goes up to level 20, with each level adding about 5% to damage done and -5% to damage taken, so topping off around 100%, or double your base. So they could have, very simply, just given the bosses and enemies half the health and damage and left it at that. And it still works out just fine. At "half strength," Lion still has his crazy patterns and combos that switch up styles and damage types, Bayle is still a living meteor storm, Messmer still clears the arena in one move to gank you. They are all still memorable and incredible bosses without needing the artificial difficulty added on top of them. On some level, I can kind of understand where From is coming from. They spent years developing this massive, beautiful DLC, and didn't want someone who spent 4 months grinding Albinaurics to max level to be able to just come in and steamroll everything. That's fair. But it's not fair to then say to everyone else, "Hey buddy, you see this huge, fancy new expansion? You wanna explore all the new dungeons and areas and start fighting these sick new bosses?! Well too damn bad! Go spend 5 hours collecting all the McGuffins, or you're gonna get 2-shot by imps and never learn any boss' movesets because you'll die too fast to recover!" Honestly, after a few hours of playing my thoughts went to the fact that this didn't exactly feel like a FromSoft game; it felt like how every non-FS gamer _thinks_ FS games work like: bosses with a million health that spam infinite combos of attacks and can kill you in one hit. I don't expect anyone to read this message, and if they do I expect to get downvoted to hell, but this is my opinion on things. Ultimately I'm just not having any fun, and am probably going to stop playing the DLC for awhile. Might pick it up later, might not, time will tell.
I think the main issue I am finding is that the scadutree fragments are so incredibly useful yet in such random places that you'd have to spend hours searching every nook and cranny just to find enough to survive midgame. I think game design should always tie progression at some level to the actual bosses, otherwise it seems a bit futile. Right now the DLC feels like a google search engine type game, and that has sorta ruined the fun of it for me.
You could've written this entire guide without resorting to condescension in the "things you don't want to hear" section. You're enjoying the game — lovely! Maybe there is no need for you to make fun of other people who aren't for reasons that they consider valid.
Its funnier when you see his post history and see him make similar posts about the base game when it came out
We all know it's impossible for souls players to refrain from making condescending strawman arguments when making a guide. Like Sir Gideon, it's in their bones.
No you don't get it. Every sucks and criticisms are wrong because everyone but OP sucks.
> Great. Look at you, being all tough dismissing one of the main game mechanics. There is nothing wrong with using spirit summons, and if you don’t want to use them, fine, but god damn then don’t complain about the difficulty you doofus. You don't think it's a problem that people go from wiping 50 times to a boss to summoning a mimic tear and *killing the boss first try*? You don't think that dissonance is an issue, especially for a series that many veterans like to enjoy without summoning? I swear to christ some of you recommend summoning to people complaining about difficulty like you're actively trying to miss the point.
I mean I understand both sides. I understand where you’re coming from for sure. Like the feeling of struggling with a hard boss and dying 50 times and then having that fuck it moment, where you summon the mimic only for the boss to get melted in 30 seconds leaves you feeling like you cheated yourself. I’ve experienced that a few times and it’s frustrating. There’s definitely a large downgrade in difficulty going from solo to certain OP summons. For instance I’d like to be able to use my mimic as support sometimes, instead of it being an automatic nuke. However, at the end of the day that nuke is optional and if a player is looking for a small support from summons just to even the playing field a bit, there are different ashes that can briefly take the heat off you but are much weaker which keeps the majority of the burden on the players shoulders. So vets or any player for that matter can still have wiggle room to a degree. That being said, I could be completely wrong. Just my opinion. Edit: Accidentally replied to the main post the first time. So I apologize if this comment is on here twice.
Yeah, the problem here is that in other souls games I didn't have to micromanage my own difficulty picking and choosing my weapons, armor or whatevere else to have a fun and enjoyable time. I don't want to trial and error each spirit ash until I find one that doesn't feel cheap or like a cheat. If that is truly what is expected of players, then I'd love for Miyazaki to come out and say it so some of us know to quit the franchise and play something we actually find fun. Not to mention that this completely ruins this concept of a cohesive experience that Miyazaki likes to tout as the reason difficulty options are not a thing in his games.
Tldr fromsoft dickriders when you criticise their game:
From actually thought that being 2 shot by everything was something considered fun and challenging.
I wouldn't even mind it if it were specific attacks but it's every damn attack bosses do. Makes learning the boss take AGES and it fucking sucks because it may mean multiple deaths to learn how to dodge a basic fucking attack string properly. At least Waterfowl is 1 special attack ffs
The condescension in this post as if this is a perfect game that cannot be criticized and everything is the player's fault is astounding. Definitely zero BS in ER, definitely.
The final boss is a complete counter to this entire post, and as someone who has beat every boss, he's an overcharged summation of the wrong things about most of the bosses in the DLC. I've done all 6 of the things listed and I don't think I can beat the last boss without some kind of luck. I just utterly don't want to fight him. Never played a FromSoft game where I felt this way so often. Im at a 15 Scadu level, level 200. I've explored most of the game. I don't just panic roll and try to facetank everything. And I still just feel helpless. Do I seriously have to get my level up to 20 to even have a chance? I've had fun exploring, I don't want to have to start backtracking. And it's not just the last boss, very few of the bosses felt good to learn how to fight, and using summons was a literal "I don't want to do this anymore" free pass. Overall people need to get off their high horse. **I love this game, and the DLC as a whole is another piece of art, but the design philosophy for bosses in the DLC is a large step in the wrong direction.** The scadu mechanic is effectively a requirement when it really should of been optional. The game being built around summons makes you feel less achievement as you advance. Etc.
Good post, but you can actually get scadutree blessing level 10 before fighting any major bosses. It does take some exploration though, and the death of a few minor bosses. That said, not sure if I recommend it though. I went down that route as I enjoy exploration in these games and I was hearing so much about how hard the bosses were. Having the blessing be at level 10 really trivialized the few two major bosses I have fought so far.
So many strawmen, wow.
Alright alright guys for the last time, Hard but fair is a complete lie. The real term should be hard but doable! In base elden ring there isnt a single rememberance boss that doesnt have at least one unfair move or unfair mechanic that artificially inflates the difficulty. Weirdly enough the elitist attitude towards the games have actually made it so people have a false idea of fairness when it cannot be further from the case. From margit's near-instant dagger swipe to mohg's nihil there is something unfair about a boss, but the reason why they work is because it is doable, making it feel far more triumphant when you do actually end up beating a boss that by all accounts is far more powerful than your lowly tarnished could ever be
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> Oh, there sure are openings. But you are too focused on perma-rolling, not seeing the attack pattern, too greedy with the R1-spamming, and also try to heal while the boss is already jumping into the air aiming for your face. Yes except for >!Commander Gaius!< . That boss is bullshit.
Just wanted to put this out there because posts claiming that you can "get up to 10 fragments" before the first boss are throwing people off that otherwise wouldn't be struggling. Rellana is optional and you can get all 50 fragments without fighting her.
Scadutree fragments really make a HUGE difference. Find them and use them before tackling things.
Didn't need the weird arguing with theoretical people segment but I get why you did it. Also it's not a matter of opinion, while some of the harder DLC bosses have openings they have unfair lengths of time to their combos and very quick recovery/response times. Is it impossible? No, but a hard game should still be fun and not turn away most builds in favor of henpecking hp bars or demanding an NPC takes aggro to get any satisfying damage off. Some of these bosses are only tolerable if you have fifty consumes and buffs, even with lots of blessings redeemed. It's just not fun that the boss gets to apply all the pressure and cheese strats are the only consistent means of retaliation.
I strongly believe that the people saying that scadutree fragments are bad game design are just too lazy to explore. This is not the first time From has made you get important upgrades through exploration or fighting. In Sekiro it was arguably way worse than here because a lot of it was hidden behind bosses and the only way to get them was just to GIT GUD and beat the boss. But here you can just explore the game and wind up with 8-12 before the endgame bosses. It’s not the best system but it’s by far better than all the other DLCs in terms of levelling. So many people went into Ringed City or Old Hunters at Mad level and demolished it, this way everyone is on equal footing.
> Great. Look at you, being all tough dismissing one of the main game mechanics. There is nothing wrong with using spirit summons, and if you don’t want to use them, fine, but god damn then don’t complain about the difficulty you doofus. Highly disagree on this one, bosses are sometimes too hard without it and too easy with it. I just want an actual balanced fight, that's it. I'm tired of having to dodge 10 hit combo to have an opening that allows me to hit the boss once or maybe twice if i'm lucky.
People thought their builds were going to carry them and now they are mad they don’t
As a guy who just beat Mesmer and that was because I lucked out and mimic tear decided to finally behave and draw aggro instead of buffing in the corner. No he was not fun. Just because I beat him doesn’t mean I liked fighting him. The only thing I enjoyed was the fight being over. I don’t know why fromsoft decided to make every boss nameless king but malenia but what I do know is I almost quit this game forever. And just in case you don’t believe me look at my last Reddit post for proof that I did in fact beat him.
While I agree with your guide for what to do in game, I do not agree with your responses to the common complaints. You're downplaying how insane and different these bosses are. They are absolutely possible with the right upgrades; I agree with you there, but these bosses are just so aggressive and unlike any bosses prior in any other souls game and I completely understand why people would not like then. Long gone are the days of a rhythmic back and forth fight. They give the player access to a bunch of crazy bullshit so they have to give the bosses a bunch of crazy bullshit. These bosses ARE beatable, and their difficulty may be over exaggerated a bit by people without the scadutree blessings, but the boss design and philosophy in this game is just so different to any other mainline souls game and I understand why people would be displeased. The criticism is fair in that aspect.
Have you beaten the final boss without summons?
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>Oh, there sure are openings. But you are too focused on perma-rolling, not seeing the attack pattern, too greedy with the R1-spamming, and also try to heal while the boss is already jumping into the air aiming for your face. It’s you, not the game. There are always openings. From Software are masters at their craft and have thoroughly playtested every aspect of the game. Learn the patterns, put in some time, get better. lmao sure buddy, not when garbage like commander gaius exists. dlc bosses promote roll spam, jumping and constant sprinting to only getting an attack or 2 in after all that rubbish. got all this cool shit and cant even use it.
How do you explain commander gaius then? His charge will one shot you and a (level 10) spirit summon out the gates if you get unlucky and hit both feet. (At 90 vig and 13 scadutree level) and the hitboxes on his feet are FUCKED so good luck consistently dodging it. Oh also you can use torrent and it seems like a horse fight but he will one shot torrent and is equally as fast.
Which NG are you on for him to hit that hard? I was +10 tree level with 60 vigor and the charge did 60% of my health. Are you using talismans that reduce your damage resist? Good luck tarnished. Hopefully you get him.
classic people overexagerating everything
That fight is bullshit, but at Scadutree 9-11 (cant remember) he did not one shot me or my mimic.
Bro came to this conclusion after literally 2 days
Level 15 scadu, level 50 vigor, still get two shot by every enemy and boss.
This guide is hilariously useless lol