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completing sekiro definitely helped me out of this one

You know you can jump Smaraags shockwaves from his stomps? Jumping gives a more generous timing than dodging and lets you turn it into a jump attack too. Nice work.

I actually really like Renalla P1 for the atmosphere and music. I'm fine with keeping it as is. P2 on the other hand could have been sooo much better. Design her like an AC6 boss, give her more spell variety, more agility so we aren't constantly running back in towards a stationary object, and take away the summons. Only issue with this is Souls combat only has 2 dimensions, not 3 like in AC6, the jump makes some variety but not really. Give us 3D Souls Miyazaki. Or you could design her the other direction and build the fight around the summons, but instead of the summons being 1:1 copies of enemies, make it more like Malenia's clones attack. Maybe she summons Agheel for 3 seconds to do 1 breath attack, then summon BHK for a quick combo. All this while Renalla is still right near the player so we can still punish while interacting with the summons, but also so Renalla can still cast spells with obvious windups, akin to Darklurker. But instead the summons end up just being you dodge once then sprint directly at Renalla and hope they don't chase you. Honestly my biggest issue with this fight is how immobile she is, like give her a Carian Slicer or Blade or something to get her to engage the player. Also her being staggerable but dodging away is just so awkward, and ruins any sort of flow to the fight. Red Wolf is so underrated its not funny.

This is a good take on Rennala , and i do Agree. 👍 A well designed magic boss must have a combination of spells & melee to keep the encounter more interactive ( less monotonous) and therefore give the player a sense of accomplishment.

Not so sure I agree that Red Wolf is a good boss but balancing between ranged and melee to help mitigate the problems with Rennala is a decent take. I think I would have preferred if Moongrum (the Carian Knight) was a non-NPC boss protecting Rennala, who can no longer bring herself to fight. "Man in armour" fights sometimes get shit for lacking creativity but they are much easier to understand the attack patterns of (compared to a wolf) and, in this case, incredibly lore friendly.

"ive never once seen someone simp over the crystal sage" 😭😭i just started the video

Crystal Sage unironically one of hardest bosses for me in SL1 run

Rennala (phase 2) is exactly what I expect from a pure spell caster boss. Constant casting and has some for of minion/familiar/summon to keep you off them. Whether her fight was executed well or not is a matter of opinion. I see the points you are trying to make with red wolf, but red wolf is not a 100% consistent fight. The RNG in his attack patterns can really ruin the fight if you are unlucky. I personally think Loretta would have been a better example. Though neither her or red wolf are pure spell casters, so they aren't 100% comparable to Rennala.

I think they could have done something about the scaling. I feel like whenever I go to Academy right after Godrick fight and a bunch of dungeons here and there she is a bit too much to handle and if I level a bit too much she becomes incredbily easy. A lot of people complain about pacing issues in souls game but it becomes even worse in ER due to open world design and the freedom as well the possibility of getting lost and going to a totally random area only to come back and find that you are way over levelled now for something you missed earlier. As for Renalla I like her first phase but for the second phase she doesn't have enough get away tools if you are on the continuous offense. And her fight is also RNG heavy. Sometimes she would get a chance to get to second phase but other times she would just be reduced to zero hp. As for red wolf I had and still have a hard time reacting to his melee and charge attacks. I can still manage him because I don't do no hit or RL1 runs but for casuals like me his moves are a mixed bag for me. I would say he is an okay boss better than Renalla but except for the Lore implications he doesn't stick out for me.

I think ive seen a Renalla boss fight that utilizes the carrian swirds in her movset from one of those total conversion mods.

I have a question. Would you consider elden beast a magic boss?

While I do agree that FROMs' 'Mage" are typically pretty poor. Rennala is EASILY my favourite boss in the whole game. It's probably because she is close to what I personally want from a mage Boss (though I'll admit I'm not exactly typical in the bosses I like sometimes). I would also consider the red wolf more of a 'spell-sword' which isn't really my thing when it comes to mages.

Have to go with the opinion of fellow Red Wolf hater here that its fight is generally awful imo, especially the lesser Red Wolf that doesn't have the magic sword attack. Constantly spamming frame trap projectile that requires you to dodge in a specific way that does not even allow a window for a punishment afterward. And most importantly, constantly disengage far away from the player at the speed that is impossible for the player to catch up to him. The only redeemable quality of Red Wolf is its 3 hit sword combos are quite satisfying to dodge, but the lesser one doesn't even have it to begin with. I don't know if you have gotten to Loretta or not but imo, she is an example of a good caster boss. She will spam projectiles if you stay afar but they have poor tracking so sprinting is often enough to evade it while also letting you close the distance. When up close, she will engage you in melee combat with quite an enjoyable moveset that can be evaded by having good positioning. She will occasionally disengage from you but she does it slow enough that you can catch up to her by sprinting. Even her most annoying attack, the homing magic swords, has slow enough velocity so you can react to them without feeling too overwhelmed. In short, you can only engage with Red Wolf when it brings the fight to you, meanwhile for Loretta, you can bring the fight to her

Good job at dodging that super quick slash from the Cleanrot Knight. That attack is very difficult to react to.

I am a crystal sage enthusiast. It brings me back to the good old forest temple days

Red Wolf is definitely pretty unappreciated.

Magic bosses always give me trouble on my first playthroughs. I died to crystal sage more times than I did Gael and Pontiff combined. Rennala killed me more times than Radahn, Morgot, Fire Giant, Godskin Duo, and Mohg, Lord of Blood. I don't have anything to say about dark souls 1 and 2. Dark souls 1 was incredibly easy for me, and dark souls 2 is dark souls 2. On my second playthroughs, every boss I've listed (except Godskin Duo. I've never struggled with Godskin Duo) gave me a lot of trouble, while the magic bosses go down without much trouble. Red Wolf of Radagon is one of the bosses that gave me trouble on my second playthrough. In conclusion, Red Wolf of Radagon is a great magic fight. Have a wonderful day.

I think the Red Wolf of Radagon is one of the most god awful cancerous fights in the game. It is just inexcusably terrible. Particularly some of his attacks than can frame trap you which is straight up inexcusable. I hate everything about this boss. Bar for bar I would take Renalla over Red Wolf any day. I've beaten both bosses melee only RL1 multiple times. Renalla can be quite RNG and it's extremely annoying if you're going for hitless. The same applies to Red Wolf though... The thing is that at least Renalla is somewhat good on a casual run. I quite enjoy the P1 due to the atmosphere. I agree that mechanically its not great but it's a puzzle boss... It doesn't need to be. Even though I'm a big fan of the highly mechanically complex fights like Morgott and Maliketh I have to acknowledge that every fight can't be that... There needs to be variety. It gave me a little taste of Demons Souls again and I appreciated that as a long time fan. P2 is probably the best caster fight Fromsoft has ever done although that isn't saying much...🙄 One major complain I have is that when she summons the game will automatically break your lock on even if she's fully in frame and will not let you lock onto her again. Why? This is extremely disorienting... Also, sometimes she will just bug out and not summon at all. This can make the fight incredibly RNG. Overall She's not great I agree. She's like high C low B tier and the aesthetics are doing a lot of heavy lifting there. At the end of the day though at least she had that. Red Wolf is just discount Sif made 10x more obnoxious and annoying. I just disagree that there's any redeeming qualities about it or that it should be the example of anything.

They technically already made plenty of great “mage” bosses-in Armored Core 6. If you think about it, bosses like Balteus, Ibis, Ayre, etc. are pretty much mages with mech skins. They’re primarily ranged, can use energy blades, shoot lasers, can levitate, and use a variety of other cool projectiles, and they’re well balanced and exhilirating.

Your observation about that second swing being undodgeable at mid-range reminds me of I think it was the fireball attack by Demon of Hatred. As I tried and retried, I remember observing that at a certain range, the attack was undodgeable - the blast radius was simply too large to get out of in any direction, and the solution was to not allow that situation to occur at all; don't be in that range at any time when he is liable to start up that attack. This imo is not something new, it is a return to form to the ethos of Demon's and Dark Souls 1. Boss fights in those games hinged heavily on situational awareness and disciplined patterns of execution. If you got yourself backed into a corner, it may well be there's nothing you can do but hope the boss chooses not to finish you. This message was especially clear in the O&S fight where the position of the player in the room in combination with that of both enemies could sometimes mean after a hit, you can put your controller down, as the stun chain death spiral is inescapable. I think in BB and DS3 they moved drastically away from this ethos, removing limitations with an mentality more like, "You can do anything and always turn around a battle at any time if your reflexes are good enough!" I personally find that to be an inferior ethos, and was elated that Sekiro and Elden Ring started a process of phasing back in elements of the older combat design, even if intermixed with the new. Bosses in Elden Ring have more of that trollish, obnoxious, rule-breaking quality to them that bosses from the traditional souls games had, which forces players to engage in some level of problem-solving to overcome them, rather than just reflex training. It's for this reason that I think Elden Ring bosses at large are superior to DS3 bosses at large, full stop.

In another vid you talked a lot about gael [peak] and said how elden ring clearly took from him but didnt go into detail much there. I feel like you could elaborate about how combat design wise, elden ring picks up where ds3 DLC leaves off. Margit is already more dynamic and requires the player to engage in more ways than previously. Previous bosses, like twin princes, seem simpler and more one note, but forces you to engage with that single note more [cuz its endgame ofc]

The combat summed up: Dodge roll simulator

CosPlaying as Sekiro makes me want the deflect like mechanics in game. I am glad they are bringing it in the DLC as a tear.

Doing no hit or doing little damage really helps you appreciate some bosses move sets. Also having the clean rot block thingy would be super cool.

Finally, good boss opinions

Beautifully played, gg👏

By far my favourite Soulsborne Boss. Always glad to see some appreciation towards Elfriede.🩵

It helps to make their movesets more unique and each attack instantly recognizable. In past games, humanoid bosses tended to have overlapping attacks between each other, since the animations were more basic and that resulted in attacks looking very similar (and Fromsoft obsession with making most bosses have greatswords didn't help either).

I don't mind more bosses being big bombastic and acrobatic, but I think none of them will feel as special as when Artorias started whipping out the frontflips and spinning slashes after an entire game where none of the bosses had anything even close to that.

If you like this kind of video, consider checking out my other analysis videos and subscribing to my channel. Thanks!

Found this super interesting thanks for making it!

I totally agree i would also say bloodborne did a pretty good job at it also with many bosses like the first hunter you encounter as a beast (i forgot his name)

Very pleasant watch! Nice to see some well constructed Elden Ring analysis on youtube.

These literally ruin Elden Ring for me. Two more examples are Godricks wind attack and the charge attack of the grafted scions. I will never forget playing Dark Souls for the first time and discovering that every single attack was reactable and dodgeable if you are skilled enough. But in this game, if you have the gall to be mid swing of a melee attack at the wrong time, you are punished for it. Other comments call this "overcommitment". Maybe, but waiting 30 seconds at a time for the AI to stop using certain moves so that you can counteract is not what I call "fun". Every other game in the series didn't have moves like this, and they were better for it. One day I will make a mod for this game to fix issues like this.

Jesus ur choice is words is soo good. Ur a really good writer.

I LOVE oceiros' dialogue!! Absolutely mystifying, it really inspired me when I first had it. Makes a C tier fight an A tier for me :))

I feel like elden ring needed another way of negating attacks like in sekiro. In sekiro defense is an offense so when a sekiro boss goes aggressive and does a combo it’s a perfect time to deflect but in elden ring you can either perfectly dodge a 8 move combo or trade damage. Elden ring asks for too much it feels like we need atleast a sidestep that enables you to do something while a boss is going crazy

The only part i dislike about jumping attacks is the weird delay some have, im not a big fan of a boss pulling back an attack for a full second

I think that there is definitely a thin line between "tedious" and engaging, and it's hard for less dedicated players so there needs to be a middle ground. That's why we have spirts, physic, consumables etc. However I played elden ring first and dumped about 200 hrs into it with multiple characters, all endings, no summons, and the like. Meanwhile I know people who dropped the game at renala or rahdan with summons because of how agile the bosses are. Some people just struggle with that I suppose. I recently beat ds3 for the first time, and im not lying when I say I steamrolled that game, because elden rings boss design is so much more dynamic. Gael was definitely the highlight, but Melania is chefs kiss. I think the line is Melania for me though, idk if I want a boss that takes more dedication to learn than that. I hope messmer is on the same level of difficulty as she is but different mechanically. Imagine Melanias moveset but with a pierce weapon and fire. All that to say is I love the movement, it can definitely be refined more, but the difficulty has to cap out at some point or else you're left with Unalloyed Melania. I don't want that smoke.

I think that the genesis of this type of movement is Artorias from DS1's DLC. His very first attack is this kind of gap closer. Following from there, Bloodborne is filled with these kinds of attacks. To me it seems like an attempt to capture the frenetic kineticism of certain Berserk panels, as many of these moves seem to draw inspiration directly from the manga. Elden Ring seems to employ it so heavily because ashes of war give players similar attacks to keep up.

I find this particular essay a bit... disjointed? Like you've identified a few valid characteristics of From's boss design but somewhat conflated them. You lost me a little towards the end. I think your initial premise about boss acrobatics bleeds into other principles like the NPCs "personality". Personality, meaning how their moveset is justified and communicated to the player. I.e. in Lies of P I expect robots to move like robots and anticipate attacks being janky and rigid. You allude to this with Margit's "big guy with hammer" slam attack. The sort of archetpye of big brutish weapons and enemies being slow. I think you've realized something that few do: how the acrobatics and fluid movements of the bosses justify and communicate the different sort of attacks they can do. In other words zombies "shamble", brutes "smash", ninjas "flip", fencers "dance", etc. You're premise seems to be that the fluid movements of the bosses sufficiently communicates and justifies the carried momentum of their attacks in a way that is intuitive. Expressed as acrobatics. I think the best example you cite is the corrupted Monk. Describing her as flowing as if through water is a very succinct way to describe her. Her movements are logically consistent. She has delayed attacks while creating a flow state unique to her. Would you ever consider doing a video about the shortcomings of their design philosophy? Or about how they might evolve from here? Or about how they might hone the existing design philosophy in Elden Ring? I know its dangerous territory given the fanbase

Something I realy like is how some mini bosses in Elden ring have 2 phases It make the bosses very Replayble

Nice. I feel about these moves the same way I feel about combos or IIAs, where they add strategy/memorization to a fight versus just reaction time. Just as Quelaag imho has the first real combos. Abyss Watchers have the first real acrobatic glides in an early game boss form.

Great video! I hate it when people sometimes see bosses move erratically with very unique & more involved movesets in Elden Ring, they confuse them with "it's just spectacle" while ignoring the incredibly complex & how well-designed they are in general compared to DS3.

I like these moves when they make the fight more consistent. Like with O'Rin, it doesn't really matter if you stand at a different distance or angle, you're getting the same experience anyway, because she's gonna glide over to the right spot.

What is your opinion on Morgott, he is one of my favorite fights in Souls games

Hey, just a small thing, when you were discussing the timing of the attacks, perhaps some kind of graphic visually showing the timings could have been helpful. Awesome video ideas though!

Great analysis. Phase 2 is certainly a treat, and I also had the click moment for this fight with early dodging. Wasn’t as hard for me as Friede, Dancer, or Pontiff, but I’m only in my first playthrough so that might change. Will say I also like the first phase, mostly for story and themes, although the focus on the head makes it more tolerable for me. The camera is def a little annoying. Either way, great analysis!