Thanks for all the comments and support! Here's a video of me responding to some negative comments: th-cam.com/video/QuAyeUOzD7s/w-d-xo.html Also, I've noticed a lot of people skipped the intro - the footage in the video is not mine (it's credited in the description). I did not summon for any fight except Radahn. Also, I finally beat Malenia :D
Just my two cents, but lore wise it’s perfect that Margit was difficult while Godrick was easy. Godrick is just some nobody with a claim to fame through a very distant relative. He’s weak and feeble and cowardly. His power comes from grafting other people’s and being’s body parts to his own. He hides in Godfrey’s abandoned castle that no other Demi god has any interest in and terrorizes the people in Liurnia. He pretended to be a woman to avoid a fight with Radahn and begged for mercy when Malenia defeated him. Margit is Morgott, who is the ruler of Leyndell, direct son of Marika and Godfrey. He is a true Demi god but also a cursed omen, giving him even more strength than normal. He watches over the Erdtree and upholds the Order even while every other Demi god betrays it. He was able to defend the Capitol from Radahn before he lost his mind to scarlet rot. He’s why Rykard is too afraid to slither out of hiding and why the Volcano Manor is in ruins. He hunts down tarnished to prevent any from rising to overthrow the Order. As Margit the tarnished hunter he holds back as to not only hide his identity but to not have to call upon his cursed blood. Once you reach the base of the Erdtree though all reservations melt away. This isn’t just a fight for his beliefs but for the parents he’s always loved, even though he was cast out for being an Omen. He gives everything he is to defending the Erdtree from you, even though he knows it’ll reject you as well. He’d rather die defending an impenetrable barrier than let someone speak ill of his faith. Lore wise it’s perfect. So much so a servent of Godrick will be stomping what’s left of his body after you beat him. My favorite theory is the body we see is all that Godrick had left, for everything else had been replaced with grafting. Edit: said Godwyn instead of Godfrey. Edited some misspelled names as well. Also, Margit isn’t protecting Godrick but using him as bait. It’s well known he’s the weakest, which is why tarnished (including us) hunt him first. It’s the easiest way for Margit to find ambitious tarnished and kill them before they get stronger.
@@beng4ll967 We get a brief glimpse of Morgott fighting a red haired individual, possibly Radahn. It even depicts a greatsword lying on the ground, posibly hinting that Morgott disarmed this red-haired individual, without even unsheating his Cursed Sword. Now Radahn is considered (or was, prior to facing Malenia) the mightiest demigod of them all, but both Morgott and Mohg were hidden from the world so if Morgott could actually beat every other demigod mano-a-mano it wouldn't exactly be out of left field.
@@CompasaurusRex id say margott and radahn are probably around the same power level with morgott’s weapon conjuring and radahns perfected gravity magic, sadly we never get to see full power radahn but morgott can totally beat the crap out of zombo radahn. i can imagine radahn full power could probably fly while riding his horse since he has the cool powers n stuff and he would probably use his gravity magic to block attacks i assume so if this comment has taught you anything its that we need a full power radahn dlc
That may've been Rykard rather than Radahn considering that Morgot when speaking of Rykard holds the most disdain for. Hell; Morgot may've been the reason that Rykard choose to be devoured by the serpent and become the monstrosity that the player-character faced given that we do see a Straight-Bladed Greatsword (Rykard's Weapon of Choice) - Not a Pair of Curved-Bladed Greatswords (Radahn's Weapons of Choice) in the background.
Damn its a shame placidusax froze up for you. He has a couple moves he only did on low health for me that were just nuts. He really surprised me because you see this big hulking immobile looking dragon and then he just starts teleporting all over the place
@@Nightwalk2 Nightwalk until you get a proper Placidusax fight where the AI doesn't bug I think you should maybe revisit and do a update to the video Placidusax genuinely has so many WTF moments when he works well.
He froze for me too, it’s weird that that can happen for so many bosses in this game, it Happened to Elden beast for me and there’s a way to get radagon to freeze too
Yea hopefully they fix that glitch it kinda ruins the fight if you get it. I believe it’s a bug with summons/ashes and how multiple entities make his ai unsure what to do when teleporting sometimes, so if you want to avoid breaking his ai you’ll want to solo him. He’s not to terribly hard solo once you learn his moves regardless of your weapon, since he’s one of the few bosses with very large openings.
Maliketh in the first place? BASED. me too bro, trust me as soon as I saw him in the trailer...I was ready. love his lore, his fight, the dance. PERFECR PERFECR PERFECT
i feel bad to kill him we only see dead giant in the area, it’s the last one of them and the second phase where he literally rips off his leg shows how much he wants to survive
I don't know if ita just me, or maybe release-patch problem, but i kept dying during his phase 2 Cutscene, when ever he would start a fire attack beforr the custscene starts. It was like the cutscene would not stop the animation he started, so hed kill me in the cutscene i would just spawn in dead
Tip for people struggling with Mogh: there is a tear for your flask that negates the curse that drains your health three times when he goes to phase two
I’m so so confused how many of these “boss rankings” just missed it like I get the combat community isn’t as into exploration and stuff but it gets a bit frustrating
I actually found that tear before ever even hearing of Mohg and then I was like "What Lord of Blood?" and then I came to Nokron and saw his palace from afar and then I went "Yup. That Lord of Blood is over there, no discussion."
100% agree on Malenia, though I have her much lower in my list, only because of that damn flurry. I would still like Morgott more though, his fight was hands down my favorite. Getting to summon Melina for it was a plus. She's a badass 😂
@@Yung_Lowdown59 the move is terrible but if you use bloodhound’s step it manages to fix the problem. It doesn’t change how bad an attack it is but it makes the fight as enjoyable as if it didn’t exist
Lord of blood, hoarah loux, and Maliketh are my top 3. Very challenging fights but extremely satisfying fights. They’re just slugfests that feel amazing.
@@Maddog52103 you don’t have to, there’s a bubble tear that protects you from the blood ritual. He’ll still heal, but you don’t have to chug the estus and can get some hits in.
I really agree with the take on malenia, if they toned down or removed the waterfowl dance, the fight would feel more fair and enjoyable, especially for non shield users.
@@toooydoeur they said the fight feels unfair for non shield users, but i am saying their point doesn’t matter when shield users are also intentionally at a disadvantage, whats not to understand?
@@ArleniaSery they said if they toned down the fight, it would be more enjoyable for everyone, especially shield users since they are at a direct disadvantage
5:19 Loretta boss is actually used before in the path leading to Ranni (that spectre from the pond). I was actually surprised that it got reused. 6:34 Sir Gideon actually uses moves based on how far you got into the game, so technically you could not see them because you fought him kinda early (it's based on bosses killed). 19:15 Agreed about the difficulty. It is my first "souls" game and while every other boss felt overtuned to some degree, Godrick felt like he needs a bit of buff. He's also at the point where you can see first glimpses of "builds" so with stuff like bleed or magic, or summons the fight becomes incredibly easier.
My favorite bosses were the ones that felt like Dark Souls bosses. Mohg is a great example. Short combos you roll through then punish. It's that classic dance I enjoy so much. Margott is similar too. I overleveled for some bosses and that made them less fun honestly. Like after dying to Malenia for almost 2 hours, I went and leveled up and came back to beat her too easily. Felt cheap 😅 but at least I know the horrors she can inflict on characters under soul level 150
Melania What helped me was equipping a dagger with bloodhound step so when I saw her pop up for waterfowl dance I could switch to it and use the Iframes to avoid getting melted. That didn’t trivialize the fight, it still took me 2 dozen attempts and my first win was with 20/2100 HP left and no Crimson flasks. Absolute Radiance in Hollow Knight was way harder for me to beat.
I'm glad you it and I am sure I'll feel good when I finally beat her. I just feel like I'm at a wall right now and not learning anything anymore other than how to die quickly. I struggled with other bosses, but I always felt I was making progress and had a good idea how to correct a mistake that I made.
Sword saint is up there for me. Might beat her because of how much more balanced he felt to fight. Every time I died to sword saint I was at fault and had to learn from my mistakes. I can’t say that as confidently about melania
i feel like dragonlord would have been somewhere in the top 5 on the list if it didnt bug out. For me, i loved the dash in followed by freaking lazers and that nuke that stops the music. so good
Morgott, Radahn, Maliketh, Mohg and Placidussax are my favorites, It's a shame I got the bugged version of Placidussax. I would put Malenia into my top 5 but I hate that thing so much
I was so satisfied with Maliketh. It was so amazing when he changed his form and make me say "wait, that's the one from the trailer?!!!" The way he moves and swing his swords were so cool. He also makes me remind of Ludwig the holy blade. I think both of them are the top of From software's bosses.
Yeah, you see him in that pose and you are like "oh that doggo from the trailer", and than you see the boss name... Maliketh, the Black Blade and you realise who you are fighting.
Honestly the only bosses I liked are Maliketh, Radahn, Malenia, and Godfrey and Radagon. The Celestial Final Boss thing was really underwhelming and easier than Radagon. And most other bosses aren’t even story bosses, just enemies souped up with HP and damage. How many times did I have to fight the Crucible Knight, the Misbehotten Warrior, and two Tree Avatar variants? Like half a dozen times each. Combine that with all the beastmen, fallingstar beasts, trolls and mounted knights and you’re pretty much done with the Elden Ring bosses. The only damn minor boss I like are the crystal dudes that take no damage till they’re stunned once. And that’s because it’s fun and interesting to fight an enemy with a cool gimmick like that. Challenging even after knowing the gimmick is my kind of boss.
With sir Gideon offnir he has spells from everywhere the player travels throughout the game. The reason you may not have seen the cooler stuff is because you did not go to those areas before fighting him. This is just to help not to be a critic :)
Just recently got to Malenia. I've beaten her but it was with the mimic. Despite the nerf to the mimic, it still dominated the fight as it acted as such a valuable distraction and support. We basically spammed the Dark Moon Greatsword heavy attack to stagger her to death. So I reverted a save before I even entered the boss room and tried to fight her one on one. Unfortunately, that went as well as you'd expect. I've learned all of her attacks. I know how to avoid them. Yet when I enter the arena my brain just switches off and I turn extremely greedy, trying to dps her down as quickly as possible and trading way too much. I really really liked this boss fight. I think the music, the lore, the atmosphere, the design, and the movesets are sick. And most surprisingly and contrary to that 90% of people would say, I actually find this boss fun. I don't know why. But there are 2 issues I have. One is the fact that she heals through your shield. I know that in FS games status effects like bleed have always gone through your shield but this isn't a status effect? Why does she steal my health without damaging me? It doesn't make sense and I want to stress that I don't hate the healing gimmick. The second problem is the flurry move. I think the damage should be lowered a bit because the first set of combo can pretty much almost kill you but you'll still be dead as you would probably be unable to respond quickly enough to avoid the other 2 sets which will definitely have killed you by then. In conclusion, Malenia's an amazing boss but with 2 flaws or oversights. It depends on how you look at it. She won't be in the top 3 but she's definently within the top 10. If FS tone down or fix the issues I've mentioned (I am afraid of them nerfing her to hell like Radahn tho, hoping that won't happen). She'd easily be within the top 5 or maybe even 3.
the use of summs on malenia is pretty op as her poise is incredibly low. I felt like when playing her no summs, the waterfowl dance was specifically designed to piss you off (which is bs) I feel like her first flurry is way too long and travels too much distance along with her third flurry. Another thing is that in my experience, I took a day to beat her but even then it felt a little underwhelming because of how random her moveset is. Its basically coin flipping the amount of times she uses waterfowl which isn't pleasant at all. I did however really enjoy the difficulty of the boss. It felt super satisfying to finally beat her. Even with the bs move, I really really loved how hard she was and how much of a challenge it was. Her along with radagon/beast and malekith was the most satisfying bosses for me to beat
My first playthrough was with a mage, my second with dual twinblades. It changed my view of most bosses completely. The gargoyle duo didn't even register with me in my first playthrough but took me 1.5 hours in my second playthrough. Depending on your build bosses can play and feel very differently, which is great.
I had a feeling Gideon was gonna be a boss. My biggest complaint was that he didn't have a second phase. I wish there was a tad bit more to him. Had the potential to really be a stellar fight. My personal favorite boss ended up being Rykard mainly because pf the God Emperor vibes he gave me.
Would have been cooler if he was an NPC boss that evolved into a proper boss as a second stage. His biggest issue is that he’s just an NPC and as long as you can stun him it’s a joke, and if you can’t he’s so bloody hard
I love ur take on all the boss and would pretty much have the same boss in the top 10 as you expect in a fairly different orde. Although I would probably not have hoarah loux there for the same complaints as you had. Instead I would put radagon up there. I get that it's a big guy in armour but just the delays, mix ups, music and look of it all to me it's an incredible fight. And I have to put malenia as my favourite. It did take me three evenings to beat her but I loved everything about her. The tempo of the fight was something I especially enjoyed you could slow it down if you needed it and speed it up when you were comfortable and I also love how I had to learn and predict when she would do THE attack so I could be ready to make distance for the first attack roll into her for the second one and stand still for the third. Figuring that out to not even get hit by that attack was incredible satisfying. I absolutely see how ppl can find it cheap with the healing but I didn't mind for a second just because I enjoy the fighting so much so just making it longer was almost just a good thing to me
All they need to do to fix Waterfowl Dance is make her jump away from you as she winds it up. This could also serve to make cornering her a bad idea, as she wouldn't get any distance before attacking. As it is now, Malenia is literally the worst boss in the game to me because of all the wasted mechanics. I love her lifesteal, the subtle differences in her telegraphs to let you know what attack is coming, the way she punishes you for running away to heal with her lunge attack, either making you run really far away or baiting out a combo to heal, and just the speed and ferocity. At least, that's what the fight hypothetically should be. However, Waterfowl Dance turns every fight I've had with her to the same thing: get bleed or frostbite, and run away until she does Waterfowl Dance, then take the 10 second window where she can't use Waterfowl Dance (90% of the time) to actually attack her, then start running again. I've beaten her 3 times now, but I have never had any fun doing it because she can just delete you for existing near her. And yes, I know about Bloodhound Step, but if an attack requires an optional item to avoid, I think that says more than I could. Mohg has a similar problem, but the tear is clearly labeled as the "use this to beat Mohg" item, and is only required once for the entire fight. There is no "use this to beat Malenia" item.
Man, I feel the exact same way. I was so hype to finally reach her, but as a pure STR build, if she decided not to stagger or decided to do the Waterfowl Dance, I was dead. The only way I could prevent it was to use Mimic Tear, something I had not built my character to use and just hope when she did that one move she'd target it instead of me. I think she's an awful fight, and the most disappointing in the game.
I understand what your saying but as long as u can see her go up in the air and your not stuck in an attack animation or your not healing it is fairly easy to dodge as long as u run away as soon as she goes airborne u can avoid the first two parts then dodge into her then out twice I find it very satisfying when I can successfully dodge the whole attack
@@joechelli1452 well that's the problem. I have literally had fights where I run away for about 2 minutes, dodging her entire onslaught while waiting for Waterfowl Dance. Then, the exact moment I decide to close in because she still hasn't done it, she jumps up, and I already know I'm dead. I am sympathetic to the idea of a boss having a "my turn" move, but a move that can literally annihilate you for moving towards the boss in a Soulsborne Knight-type boss is infuriating. It also cuts off literally any openings after any attack she does, because she can always just use Waterfowl Dance if you try to capitalize. The only "safe" move to punish is Waterfowl Dance itself, but even then I have had one time, just one, where she used Waterfowl Dance, I go in, she sidesteps, slashes twice, and then jumps up whilst still at point blank range to rinse me. This is the experience that makes me hate this fight, the notion that I'm only alive because the boss decided not to insta-kill me. Have her back off, or restrict it to certain health thresholds, or literally anything other than, "you were too close to me when I decided to cue up this move. Die." I'm just waiting for the next patch to say "removed bug where player could reduce Malenia, Goddess of Rot's HP to 0". (That last parts obviously a joke, but it really feels impossible to fight her in any way that is fun, and I have killed her 4 times now, and each subsequent one is raw spite pulling me through.)
@@macnamaryb7773 It's honestly just that one move. Recovering health on swing is a challenge but manageable. The fact that you literally have to cheese the boss A.I. to survive or give her a dummy to swing on and hope she goes for it is nuts design to a degree I have no clue how it passed through QA.
I beat her with a colossal sword and no summons.. Easily the worst boss in the game.. You always have to keep in mind the waterfowl combo..i usually bait it and start running away and only dodge the third part of it.. Honestly most elden ring bosses are just meh or plain bad especially compared to ds3 but my god, radahn is one of my favourite bosses ever easily my favourite in this game
I really enjoyed the Fire Giant, Godskin Apostle, Radagon/Elden Beast (hardest boss for me), Radahn (moreso in retrospect than during), Astel, Elemer of the Briar, Rennala, Mohg, Dragonkin Nokstella, Rykard, Placidusax, Fortissax, and some others. I was a bit too overleveled for many of the late game fights which ruined them for me, but I was also using spirit summons throughout.
Fun fact, the Champions, with the exception of Rogier and Lionel, all have randomized loadouts. I've seen people get casters fighting alongside Lionel, some with polearms, and on my most recent playthrough I got both of his allies with the Blasphemous Blade spamming the Weapon Art.
Note Fia's champions are determined by everyone who hug's her if you have online enabled, so essentially by hugging her you are accepting being one of her champions in someone elses world. Also Giddions move set are based on your boss fights so the more bosses you defeat the more moves he can use, for example if you only fight Godrick the grafted, rannala, Morgott, and the firegiant he will only have these moves. I would move Malenia around 10 on my list only cause she reminds me as Lady Maria from bloodborn but who cheats mechanically by breaking animation rules and stun mechanics, her waterfoul dance wouldn't be that bad if it didn't activate via input reading preventing you from having time to actually deal with it and instead having to bait her into it so you could punish. The elden beast is also a lower tier and would be higher if it didn't seem like it was built around torrent with how high off the ground its attack rings were and how it moves to the farthest part of the arena constantly, its fight also gets old when you have to fight radigon over and over just to fight it with its reistances and perfect immunities making it a damage sponge fight after you waist resources on the fight before. It would likely be higher if torrent was enabled and they allowed you to get right into its fight so radigon wasnt sacrificed to become a sword over and over like the Moon Beast fight in bloodborn.
Malekith fight is awesome as hell. I remember helping people defeat him over and over again just so I can enjoy the fight too. About 10 mil runes later I decided maybe I should help with other boss fights so I can enjoy them too.
Now that I’ve learned her moveset, Malenia is one of my favourite fights. It becomes something of a dance, with the only hits I take due to my over-aggression. That feeling of dodging a close ranged waterfowl perfectly without BHS for the first time was unlike anything I’ve experienced.
I don’t like Margit’s input reading. I was still using a shield first time I fought him and after a sequence I stood there unmoving shield up and he literally just stood opposite me and tapped my shield with his cane 5 times. Eventually I made an input which immediately triggered a sequence from him that could only be possible if he’s input reading, and boss difficulty artificially inflated by input reading is just not great design IMO.
Amazing how much Malenia's water fowl dance forces you to keep a perpetual distance or a shield when you melee her. Since the first volley of her attack either involves blocking or runnning away. Can't believe Ongbal beat her with the wretch at sl1.
You can just dodge her first volley and get hit a single time. Of course thats bad if you are SL1, but in a regular run at level 120+ losing less than half your HP is managable. I just rolled the thing each time, wasnt a big problem.
I might be one of the few other people who enjoyed Elden Beast. It’s the best giant enemy in the game, what did everyone want? Another dragon? The point of the dual final fight is for a humanoid/giant enemy fight.
So you know you don't have to take damage from Mohgs's transition attack right? There's a crystal tear for the wondrous flask that completely negates it. He still heals himself but you can just wail on him while he does it.
The funny thing is that I was using that tear thinking it helped with blood loss. I didn't actually use it though until dying many times thinking there had to be a way to avoid it and it worked.
Although Maliketh is probably my most annoying fights, he's also one of my favorites as well. I just love the feeling of defeating a REALLY REALLY REALLY hard boss and its probably a big factor on how much I end up liking a boss
Yeah Maliketh is definitely top 5 for me, I didn't actually think it though at the time, probably due to the fact that I'm pretty indifferent about the first phase of the fight. Once I beat the game though and reflected on what my favourite bosses were, that fight has really grown on me. My top 5: 5. Radahn 4. Morgott 3. Maliketh 2. Mohg - Lord of Blood 1. Melania
Malenia is such a frustrating but good fight, there is a consistent way to dodge her flurry which I had to look up. And even when you know how to dodge her flurry she's so hard. I'm on attempt 27 and only gotten her to second phase once. Now maybe I'm bad or whatever, but it's such a fun fight. I would agree about the warrior fight though, his second phase is relentless to the point of being slightly annoying. Just take a breather every couple combos to give us a chance. I pretty much had to flawless his second phase.
Nah dude, I think I'm average and it took me 2 days to solo her. Bonus was no damage taken on the first phase became so consistent over time. As long as you keep at it you 100% can do that, if you didn't already. Hope you keep enjoying it too, easily my favourite fight in the game.
@@KarasumanXiii I finally beat her on my 78th try. And you're most times would be one or two hits on the first phase or less cuz it's actually really easy
Godfrey, Radahn, and Placidusax are honestly probably my top 3 picks by the end of my second play through (prolly would put Morgott one below). Godfrey just feels great, once you’ve really learned his attacks, it feels great to weave over, under, and around him getting in little chips of damage, and like you mentioned it feels cool to just have a straight warrior v warrior battle, without a ton of special tricks or having to chase your opponent esp since my first play through was a strength build, and my second was a dragon build. Even as Hora Loux once you learn the tight spacing for his attacks, you can get heals or hits after a lot of them. Placi and Radahn just have a perfect mix of spectacle and gameplay, with them having such wide-reaching attacks that are still generally fair to avoid, epic arenas an cinematic to their attacks, and charging at Radahn with an army of warriors just feels cool as hell.
Finally i understood ehy i love rykard. I hate looking at giant big toes for the entire fight and dodging based on audio cues. I can actually see him and all of his attacks. I sometime wish fs would just zoom out a bit on massive enemies
Also maliketh can be parried with the special item. It rewards exploration and paying attention to item descriptions before hand. Similarly to the shackles.
Honestly my least favorite boss was the fire giant mostly because I don’t have many long ranged attacks so the entire fight was me just getting behind him and attacking his feet then accidentally running into his roll and pretty much killed instantly lol
BE WARNED: boss design essay incoming :O TLDR: some of the bosses aren't very good at teaching the player how to fight them (compare them to the Sekiro bosses), and designing the game around the Spirit Summon mechanic makes this worse. I think there's a design oversight for Malenia and Maliketh's phase 1 in that the way the bosses teach you to evade their attacks & punish their openings can be obscure and not always obvious... Take Ishin Glock-Saint for example - for me, still the hardest boss in the series, but the game had done a fantastic job of teaching you mastery of each move/counter-move in the game, so that learning how to fight him felt intuitive; it was just the execution which was difficult. Meanwhile, Malenia's early on-set baldness inducing wombo-combo feels almost impossible to learn how to dodge, even after maybe 15 attempts w different strategies. There's nothing earlier in the game or even in the move itself to signal how you're supposed to avoid getting hit, to the point that I just had to look up how it's done. Then, on top of that, it's basically impossible to dodge if she starts it right on top of you. I think the intention here is to discourage the player charging in when Malenia's in neutral (between combos, because this is when she can start the wombo), and encourage punishing her openings as you would fight any other boss. The problem is that this is another leap to make in learning to fight her, especially when it feels like you're encouraged to attack out of neutral because she's staggerable. Add on to this her phase 2 attacks, loads of which can one-shot you, and which require you to learn the dodge timings, and she's just a very frustrating boss to learn. (As a side note, it's clear From were very careful with her design - the three hit lunging combo which has a variably timed fourth hit is distinguished by a very subtle tell: a little spark on her sword + sound cue. They want the player to carefully learn her moves - so it's not like the wombo-combo is a glaring design oversight; they have an expectation of the player. I just don't think they left enough clues to help the player understand what to do.) Maliketh's phase one isn't intuitive to learn, either, for one reason: he changes his combo if you roll into him. This means that, unless you somehow realise this by yourself, you'll have no way of consistently learning his combo patterns and openings for punishes. If you roll sideways when he swings, instead of into him, his patterns are very consistent and always culminate in the classic downwards smash, which Souls players have been taught to punish since the Asylum Demon. But there's no tell or cue to indicate that he's swapping combos when you roll into him (maybe a growl or a roar could've been a good clue?), making it another misleading boss to learn. It is better than Malenia, though, because you generally get punished if you roll into him, which can lead ultimately to that spacing realisation. A little more indication would've been nice, though. (Totally agreed on the second phase, though, it's awesome.) On top of all that, making the fights more difficult to learn is the whole spirit summon mechanic. Generally, I'm not a fan - not because it makes the game easier, that's fine, but because it's lead to some really whackily designed bosses. It's incredibly difficult to design a boss which works fighting multiple enemies as well as it does fighting one, or vice versa. Godskin Duo is a great example of a fight which is pretty shit against one player, while Malenia is a crap fight with more than one. The other big problem here is that if the game teaches you to use summons, but then throws a bunch of bosses which require careful learning to beat, the whole learning curve of a boss fight is broken. There's no way a player who's ganking a boss is learning the fight the way it was designed to be, and they're just gonna have a worse time as a result, losing to rng instead of a move they haven't learned properly. Basically, Sekiro did it better :'(
agreed. I think they knew how big elden ring was gonna be and they put the summons in to help the newer players, but a lot of boss fights feel like they were designed for summons and not the 1 on 1 combat
I agree with this take,I try to solo malenia without ash summon but the moment she on top of for flurry attack you're done and learn nothing.Isshin took me 3 day to defeat him but I know I can beat him.With malenia even took me 100 tries I feel I learn nothing at all
I don’t agree with the take for Maliketh. I think he’s a damn near perfect fight and his closest comparison is easily Ludwig, The Accursed/ Holy Blade from Bloodborne (which was my number one fight in the series until Maliketh) I haven’t noticed the rolling mechanic or how he changes his combo, it seems fine to me. I was able to read every combo and adapt to it by the time I mastered the fight. Second phase as well
My god try fighting renalla underleveled, she is soooo annoying and so hard, her star showers overlap with eachother and one shot you, and most of the fight is just running, she is such a pain in the ass, even if she is a spectacle and a half
"elden beast is good, because, well... um... I can't put it into words." *proceeds to fill elden beast segment with Gwyn because Elden Beast's fight is not engaging*
I'm really not feeling the love for Maliketh - the turbo-charged pace of his attacks and the way he regularly spends 10+ seconds out of melee range felt frustrating, like I was having to waste my stamina sprinting back just to land a hit or two before he leapt up again.
I dont know man, the godskin battles are my favourites honestly they are amazingly well done still and I swear I almost broke my controller multiple times understanding every move... What's ur judgement now?
I’m still getting my ass handed to me by Maliketh, If his first phase wasn’t so damn spammy and makes you use so many Estus flasks it might be a more fun fight but god damn does he make me want to jump off a building
I completely disagree on fire giant he's easily my least favorite boss in the game you can't see his attacks in the 1st phase because of how big he is and his moveset in 2nd phase is just a big baby slamming his arms around it looks goofy he's awful yhorm is a way better giant fight in every way that overgrown baby with his goofy stomach face kinda ruin the replay value for me the fact he isn't optional is honestly a spit in my face can't stand it and Elden beast is a close 2nd worst all that boss does is run all the way across his giant arena and spam one shot magic at you its a joke of a final boss other than those I agree with most of your picks
I’ve had my fair share of seemingly endless boss runs back to a few of these bosses, but one anomaly i had in my first play through was somehow being able to one shot the Margit fight as well as the Morgott fight.. I was anticipating both fights due to the high difficulty I’ve seen mentioned by a ton of people but somehow had the RNG gods on my side with those two fights. It took me like 50 tries to kill Godrick after beating margit, and it took what felt like 100 tries to beat Godfrey before beating morgott so I am not saying skilled in any way with the one shots of margit/morgott, just surprised it happened lol
That's weird, because I often struggle with bosses that other people find to be pretty easy (like Gideon), but Godfrey was actually one of the easiest boss fights I've had so far.
TL;DR: Maliketh, Malenia, Godfrey easily my top 3. Fun cinematics, intriguing movesets to learn, great challenges to try and conquer. The way Maliketh’s moveset is so large really gets you involved into the fight and makes you want to learn how to really beat him. He has a good combination of single hit and AOE attacks that make it challenging without it feeling unfair. Seeing him jump from pillar to pillar while throwing beams at you really makes it feel like you’re part of the game and not just rolling around someone. Not to mention my favorite cutscene in the entire game it’s just badass. Malenia is so good not only because it’s so damn hard but because she’s like the most human-like boss and shes literally just kicking your ass with a sword and it really makes you think jesus christ wtf am i supposed to do. But the fact that its so hard makes me want to keep trying and the more I try the more I leanr the moveset and the closer I get to beating her. The fight being so hard is what makes it good for me as well as it feeling fair. The flurry yeah is kinda BS and like pretty much RNG I feel like but I also feel like the rest of her moveset is pretty polished and that is what you see most of the time anyway and that’s what makes it so fun for me. Godfrey is just a complete badass honestly. The first damn Elden Lord leaps up and throws his giant axe at you. The way he swings that thing and explodes the ground around you and the way you can trade blows with him in the first phase kinda makes it feel like you belong there. I’m really fighting with the first Elden Lord right now and him and I are going back and forth hitting each other it just makes it super fun for me. The second phase is honestly what does it for me though. Hoarah Loux is one bad mother fucker and the way his aggression goes through the roof reminds me of going from Margit to Morgott just on a way larger scale. Him being so aggresive really makes you play carefully and learn his moveset since he can do so much damage. Also the soundtrack is dope for this fight definitely my top 5 favorite soundtracks in the game.
I agree with a lot of this list; my changes would be moving elden beast down since I dont like the running away, Maliketh down a couple pegs since I really didn’t enjoy the first phase, as well as moving morgott down just a bit since I found him a bit less interesting when i tried using incantations (my first playthrough was faith/dex). I would move godskin apostle, horoah loux, and radagon up. I personally think radagon is my favorite in the whole game, once I had a handle on his moveset dodging his attacks was so fun. His AOEs encourage you to dodge in specific directions and I really enjoyed that, it forced me to not just spam rolls and i felt like i had properly bested him. Im not sure how to feel about Mohg, i kindof thought his second phase was a bit of a mess with all his lingering effects but I really enjoyed his first phase and his overall moveset, as well as the optional sewer encounter. Also i only arrived at the Godskin duo boss after going through literally every area including the Haligtree so i was pretty high level, and at that point i didnt even mind the respawning since i could kill them pretty fast. I had a great time in no small part due to finally hearing that second phase music (wow!) somehow I also was able to split their aggro fairly easily. Wondering if that was changed in the last patch? I definitely just have a bias for the bloodborne-style hyper-aggressive melee fights over all the crazy projectiles so thats just my opinions. Great video!
Good take on "most" of the bosses! But damn, fire giant one spot above Radagon feels so wrong to me 😅 Btw, do come back and update us on your Malenia rank after you defeat her, curious to know if she'll climb even higher
@@joaoluizkfsantos8392 fair enough, radagons moveset isn’t super huge cause he’s the first phase which is the main reason he’s a bit lower, but maybe he’ll climb with time :)
This is my first fromsoft game and even despite her difficulty, Malenia is still my favorite boss. I can understand the frustration about the Waterfowl Dance though. I spent 3 days of straight grinding and probably about ~20 hours of bashing my head against that fight to beat her once. I think i probably only made it to her second phase like 10-15 times. I disagree with removing the Waterfowl Dance altogether though, I really just wished it was telegraphed a little more or had a little bit more of a windup. As it is, she has a few attacks that have her jump up into the air and even after spending all that time fighting her i can't really tell its the waterfowl dance until she hangs there for like an extra half tick. The hardest part of the attack is the first flurry because if you are right next to her its basically instant death. I spent so much of that fight just making sure i was spaced correctly so I had enough room to run out of range of the first flurry and then the timing on the second and third flurry's felt much easier to anticipate and dodge. I think if they just gave her like an extra spin before she jumped (giving you a little extra time) or some other tell to show its coming, it would make that attack much more bearable.
Tips for mimic year: get naked. Strip off your armor and weapons, then summon an ash to distract or even to just destroy it pretty easily. Put your gear back on when it begins to form and just wail on it. So if you’re gear is powerful, the easiest way to dumb down the fight is by becoming an Elden Tease
I can see where you're coming from with Elden Beast but you didn't address the major issue that most people have with the boss which is that it is mechanically frustrating. It jumps around the arena never letting you pin it down for more than a few seconds before you have to be aware of some massive attack it's charging up or chase it to the other side of the arena. Melee builds also get constricted because they literally can't see what the boss is doing when attacking it. Atmospherically and story-wise the boss is pretty amazing but gameplay-wise it's easily on the lower half of the spectrum.
Hard disagree, playing melee only. The boss has to create distance to be dangerous, and if you learn to effectively dodge his moves it’s not too hard to close the distance and do plenty of damage. It’s designed to be an endurance fight, to test you at the end. I think it succeeds here massively.
I understand why this would be frustrating for a lot of people, but it just wasn't for me. There are a lot of bosses in this game and the series generally that do this, and I think a comparable example is Divine Dragon (another spectacle fight that I adore) every time you hit it once, it throws you half way across the arena, giving you a great view of the big beast and all of its attacks. I don't see anything wrong with getting some hits, having it move and following it. Again, I understand why that would be frustrating for some, but as the fight isn't too challenging, I enjoyed the visuals and all that. I also found it easy to get plenty of hits with a grafted greatsword build, which is exceptionally slow. The fight didn't last that long and I got everything I wanted out of it.
@@Nightwalk2 Divine Dragon is far easier to keep track of than Elden Beast. It's also given a gimmick that encourages the player to look around the whole arena. Elden Beast forces the player into situations where they have to not only keep track of the magic and explosions flying at them but they also have to keep track of beasts' attacks being directed at them which often leads to moments of pure chaos where you just have to tank damage and hope you survive. There's also a border around the arena which can be extremely inconvenient if it decides to do the ring attack or anything involving an explosion when you back into it. It's not the worst fight but it's got too many issues to be considered in the upper half in terms of quality imo.
Maliketh, Mohg, and Melania are by far the toughest bosses for me. 30+ attempts each. After my first playthrough all bets are off. Mimic Tear +10 for each of these three every time. I don’t know what’s tougher to deal with, a boss that shrinks your health pool or a boss that’s continually healing. It did take me over to get past The Black Blade than it did Captain Scarlet Rot.
Great video dude. However i could not disagree more about the elden beast. Easily my most hated boss in the game because it‘s soo frustrating in so many ways. On one hand, it looks gorgeous and the soundtrack is one of the best in the game. But on the other, the gameplay is so atrocious that it ruins the whole fight for me. Like 70% of this fight is just running across the arena only to get like 2 hits in and then running after the damn thing again. And what makes it even more frustrating is that it slightly ruins radagon for me, who, on his own, is one of my fav bosses in the game. But i can‘t really enjoy that fight anymore because there‘s no checkpoint. My favorite is between Radahn, malenia and maliketh. However right now i think i‘m leaning more towards radahn who just keeps growing on me with every playthrough. By the way, try the bloodhound step weapon art for malenias flurry attack if you haven‘t already, i beat her first try after starting to use it
Maliketh, Hoarah Loux, and Placidusax were my favorite. Maliketh has a really cool moveset that is fun to dodge; hoarah loux's attacks feel weighty, they're unique, and are also fun to dodge though they take focus--punishing without being unfair; and placidusax is just cool as hell with the whole aesthetic of the fight and the laser phase. shoutout to the Radahn meteor, that's one of the most memorable moments in the game.
Hot take: I actually enjoyed Godskin Duo, great music and they’re in such a late game area that by now you should be able to ‘git gud’ I will say they should have different AI and I wish they had at the least some form of character design that differs from their counterparts.
I like your perspective a lot. I feel very similarly. Some people think difficulty=quality, but I like that you consider feel, music, atmosphere, lore, etc. Thanks for the video!
Bosses in this game are pretty shit. I expected Ds3 and sekiro level quality and consistency but instead we got 2 Bed of chaos level terrible bosses (fire giant,godskin duo,elden beast). I only had fun with like 6 of the main bosses which is sad because everything else about this game is top tier.
I feel like the majority of trophy bosses are great fights(Godskin duo and fire giant being god awful for obvious reasons). A lot of people don’t like nial but I though he was fun. The mini bosses were either meh or forgettable tho.
Yup, totally agree. Great game in terms of exploring, lore, etc. but the bosses aren't very good by Fromsoft standards. I think there's just way too many, which made them spend less time on each boss.
Imo the problem with the bosses in Elden Ring is the game itself. This is FromSoft's first step into the open world territory and they can only spend so much money. I believe the majority of the budget went to the world itself, the weapons, spells, NPCs, questlines etc etc. Because of all that, they could only spend so little on the bosses and especially the minibosses. It's clear that they just couldn't fit in anymore like big unique bosses and resorted to just making existing enemies tougher and giving them a healthbar. Don't get me wrong the game is top notch but the majority of the bosses just felt like a big letdown. Only the major story/legend bosses interested me
My favorite of all was Rennala. Not taking account the difficulty but the overall feel and atmosphere of it. Man, i fell in love in her second phase, i was a knight then became a Carian Knight after that boss.
Radahn was definetly my favorite. I definetly enjoyed the fight more because I didn't use summons on my first run, so I took a long time to beat him, but when I finally did, it felt really rewarding.
Lichdragon Fortissax is such a great boss, it is like a cross between Lansseax and Placidusax. Even considering the horrible quality of Fia’s other bosses he is well worth the headache to get to him.
Hell nah, Fortissax was such a waste of time. He is pitch black in a black arena with red electricty around his body which he also uses for all of his attacks. The entire fight is just a cluster of red and black. Not to mention the BS if you are under any part of him you will be attack by a lightning bolt. As a melee player, I just got out BB and did him in one attempt. Such a waste of potential.
Malenia was the only boss I felt like I was forced to do what I consider a cheese build.... Bloody curved swords with a mimic and she was nothing. It actually annoyed me how easy she became with that build... considering how next to impossible it felt with my normal playstyle.
Something about the first elden lord really sparks my thrill for combat. When I fought his golden ghost version thing it took me about 5 hours worth of tries to beat him. 2 hours in I stopped using summons because they just got in the way. And lemme tell u. Those next 3 hours while being frustrating were honestly so fun. Just two warriors locked in close combat where inches can make the difference. I loved it. I hope his endgame version is more of the same and from what I’ve seen he has most of the same moves. Can’t wait. Morgott was very fun as well. Loved that fight.
My top 3 are morgott, Radahn, and Malenia number 1. Malenia was brutal but by the end of my attempts I was able to fully avoid the flurry 90% of the time, some of the other attacks are brutal though.
Malenia is my favorite too. I honestly don't understand why everyone hates the waterfowldance attack. I thought it was bullshit at first too but once you know the timing and where to dodge it becomes managable. In fact figuring out how to deal with her moves was the most satisfying part of the game for me. I too, never got killed by the flurry after a certain point. I still didn't manage to consistently avoid all of it but at least i survived it everytime in my last attempts.
@@axel9473 Same, I think after a certain amount of time I was able to feel out when the AoW was coming and I played safe and backed up enough to avoid the first flurry, then dodging 2 and 3 is fairly easy. The attack where she does the spirit summons was a LOT worse for me personally. Maybe it was just that I saw p2 a lot less than p1 of course but that attack really messed with me
@@rsxar Yeah, the 2nd phase is wild. I mastered the 1st phase to an extent but the 2nd is still crazy. A lot of her moveset really isn't that different but the tells look so different due to her wings and everything. And yeah, i don't think i managed to dodge all the clones even once. One of the last 2 always gets me. On my winning attempt she didn't use it... Can't wait to fight her again and get the hang of the 2nd phase.
Placidusax is definitely my favorite it was so unexpected you just end up in this enormous arena and then theres just this badass dragon. It was hard but fair and the visuals were amazing.
Totally agree about Maliketh! He was my favorite too, and I felt like I was in the minority. Using a spirit ash he was just the right amount of difficulty, maybe a dozen attempts, but man they were nail biting attempts for sure. He moves so fast and fluidly, he’s just amazing to watch. And imo he has the coolest looking armor with one the coolest weapon arts tied to his boss weapon. As soon as I saw him reveal himself I was actually stunned by how badass he looked and I immediately decided “I NEED THAT SWORD”, which was an excellent motivation to power through his fight. 10/10 for sure. Great list. 🤘
![Ranking the Elden Ring Bosses from Easiest to Hardest - Part 2 [#1-15]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/jzIPFAlItVw/mqdefault.jpg)
Thanks for all the comments and support! Here's a video of me responding to some negative comments: th-cam.com/video/QuAyeUOzD7s/w-d-xo.html
Also, I've noticed a lot of people skipped the intro - the footage in the video is not mine (it's credited in the description). I did not summon for any fight except Radahn. Also, I finally beat Malenia :D
Just my two cents, but lore wise it’s perfect that Margit was difficult while Godrick was easy. Godrick is just some nobody with a claim to fame through a very distant relative. He’s weak and feeble and cowardly. His power comes from grafting other people’s and being’s body parts to his own. He hides in Godfrey’s abandoned castle that no other Demi god has any interest in and terrorizes the people in Liurnia. He pretended to be a woman to avoid a fight with Radahn and begged for mercy when Malenia defeated him.
Margit is Morgott, who is the ruler of Leyndell, direct son of Marika and Godfrey. He is a true Demi god but also a cursed omen, giving him even more strength than normal. He watches over the Erdtree and upholds the Order even while every other Demi god betrays it. He was able to defend the Capitol from Radahn before he lost his mind to scarlet rot. He’s why Rykard is too afraid to slither out of hiding and why the Volcano Manor is in ruins. He hunts down tarnished to prevent any from rising to overthrow the Order. As Margit the tarnished hunter he holds back as to not only hide his identity but to not have to call upon his cursed blood. Once you reach the base of the Erdtree though all reservations melt away. This isn’t just a fight for his beliefs but for the parents he’s always loved, even though he was cast out for being an Omen. He gives everything he is to defending the Erdtree from you, even though he knows it’ll reject you as well. He’d rather die defending an impenetrable barrier than let someone speak ill of his faith.
Lore wise it’s perfect. So much so a servent of Godrick will be stomping what’s left of his body after you beat him. My favorite theory is the body we see is all that Godrick had left, for everything else had been replaced with grafting.
Edit: said Godwyn instead of Godfrey. Edited some misspelled names as well.
Also, Margit isn’t protecting Godrick but using him as bait. It’s well known he’s the weakest, which is why tarnished (including us) hunt him first. It’s the easiest way for Margit to find ambitious tarnished and kill them before they get stronger.
I wish we could have seen the omen king beat the shit out of the demigods. The only ones who could defeat him are Radahn and Malenia
@@beng4ll967 We get a brief glimpse of Morgott fighting a red haired individual, possibly Radahn. It even depicts a greatsword lying on the ground, posibly hinting that Morgott disarmed this red-haired individual, without even unsheating his Cursed Sword.
Now Radahn is considered (or was, prior to facing Malenia) the mightiest demigod of them all, but both Morgott and Mohg were hidden from the world so if Morgott could actually beat every other demigod mano-a-mano it wouldn't exactly be out of left field.
@@CompasaurusRex id say margott and radahn are probably around the same power level with morgott’s weapon conjuring and radahns perfected gravity magic, sadly we never get to see full power radahn but morgott can totally beat the crap out of zombo radahn. i can imagine radahn full power could probably fly while riding his horse since he has the cool powers n stuff and he would probably use his gravity magic to block attacks i assume so if this comment has taught you anything its that we need a full power radahn dlc
That may've been Rykard rather than Radahn considering that Morgot when speaking of Rykard holds the most disdain for. Hell; Morgot may've been the reason that Rykard choose to be devoured by the serpent and become the monstrosity that the player-character faced given that we do see a Straight-Bladed Greatsword (Rykard's Weapon of Choice) - Not a Pair of Curved-Bladed Greatswords (Radahn's Weapons of Choice) in the background.
Margit isn't even that hard I personally find godrick a bit harder
Radahn was definitely my favorite boss fight, difficult but not bullshit. He felt like a special event with all the summons and the battlefield.
@Sérgio Sérgio IMO Radahn was only hard when you’re getting to him, once you get close hes the second easiest Demi god (renalla is stupid easy)
Nah he was definitely bullshit pre-nerf
@@corytitel5836 pre nerf radahn was fucking unbelievable
@@corytitel5836 He got completely ruined.
@@SleeplessSpecter I think they fixed him now
Mohg was my favorite boss fight. It's crazy epic. I love how the music track has two movements, and it gets it more intense on his phase 2.
Dancer pt.2 baby
Unfortuantely I killed him too fast to hear the whole track.
Damn its a shame placidusax froze up for you. He has a couple moves he only did on low health for me that were just nuts. He really surprised me because you see this big hulking immobile looking dragon and then he just starts teleporting all over the place
Next playthrough I'll be sure to keep an eye out. He might rise the rankings if he doesn't freeze again
@@Nightwalk2 Nightwalk until you get a proper Placidusax fight where the AI doesn't bug I think you should maybe revisit and do a update to the video
Placidusax genuinely has so many WTF moments when he works well.
His moveset is incredible
He froze for me too, it’s weird that that can happen for so many bosses in this game, it Happened to Elden beast for me and there’s a way to get radagon to freeze too
Yea hopefully they fix that glitch it kinda ruins the fight if you get it. I believe it’s a bug with summons/ashes and how multiple entities make his ai unsure what to do when teleporting sometimes, so if you want to avoid breaking his ai you’ll want to solo him. He’s not to terribly hard solo once you learn his moves regardless of your weapon, since he’s one of the few bosses with very large openings.
Maliketh in the first place? BASED. me too bro, trust me as soon as I saw him in the trailer...I was ready. love his lore, his fight, the dance. PERFECR PERFECR PERFECT
I'm glad someone else enjoyed fire giant, not very difficult but the spectacle is enough for me
@@bigsmall2842 thats a fair complaint, the mechanics did feel a bit clunky at times. Might lower over time
i feel bad to kill him we only see dead giant in the area, it’s the last one of them and the second phase where he literally rips off his leg shows how much he wants to survive
I don't know if ita just me, or maybe release-patch problem, but i kept dying during his phase 2 Cutscene, when ever he would start a fire attack beforr the custscene starts.
It was like the cutscene would not stop the animation he started, so hed kill me in the cutscene i would just spawn in dead
Im glad someone finally admits how cool Mogh is.All I've been hearing is hate on Mogh.
Me too! I was surprised how many people hated it, considering its the first real GIANT giant in a FromSoft game, his second phase made me go 😨
Tip for people struggling with Mogh: there is a tear for your flask that negates the curse that drains your health three times when he goes to phase two
I’m so so confused how many of these “boss rankings” just missed it like I get the combat community isn’t as into exploration and stuff but it gets a bit frustrating
which one?
@@TheGamerThing the purifying crystal tear. Dont wanna spoil where to find it but you can look it up of course :)
I actually found that tear before ever even hearing of Mohg and then I was like
"What Lord of Blood?" and then I came to Nokron and saw his palace from afar and then I went "Yup. That Lord of Blood is over there, no discussion."
Also you can get his Shackle.
100% agree on Malenia, though I have her much lower in my list, only because of that damn flurry. I would still like Morgott more though, his fight was hands down my favorite. Getting to summon Melina for it was a plus. She's a badass 😂
If we didn't see Margit earlier then Morgott might be my top 3 as well... I think over time that one will climb more
She's not even top 10 because of her wombo combo it's insanely cheap it makes her fight boring to me
@@Yung_Lowdown59 the move is terrible but if you use bloodhound’s step it manages to fix the problem. It doesn’t change how bad an attack it is but it makes the fight as enjoyable as if it didn’t exist
@@Yung_Lowdown59 I love the attacks personally, I feel like the boss when I avoid it
I don't care about Malenia's anime combo, but goddamn the lifesteal is annoying
Lord of blood, hoarah loux, and Maliketh are my top 3. Very challenging fights but extremely satisfying fights. They’re just slugfests that feel amazing.
Mohg is the only boss that you basically had to heal through which i thought was awesome because most bosses i still had tons of heals left over
@@Maddog52103 you don’t have to, there’s a bubble tear that protects you from the blood ritual. He’ll still heal, but you don’t have to chug the estus and can get some hits in.
@@Kuab228 Or you can combine insane amounts of damage and staggers at certain times and he will just die before reaching that phase
Maliketh just pissed me off😅 i had more trouble on him than any other boss.
Same here but radahn instead of mohg.
The black blade's fight is aboslutely the best , So flashy and cool and the music + the amazing arena , love it
So fucking good
I hate that fight, It sucks.
@@GodWarsX +1
@@handzar6402 fr fuck maliketh
Dragonlord Placidusax oozes ancient power and is definitely my favorite fight in this game. So cinematic and engaging!
I really agree with the take on malenia, if they toned down or removed the waterfowl dance, the fight would feel more fair and enjoyable, especially for non shield users.
I mean she still heals whenever she hits a shield
@@ArleniaSery that's why they mentioned the shield
@@toooydoeur they said the fight feels unfair for non shield users, but i am saying their point doesn’t matter when shield users are also intentionally at a disadvantage, whats not to understand?
@@ArleniaSery they said if they toned down the fight, it would be more enjoyable for everyone, especially shield users since they are at a direct disadvantage
@@toooydoeur non shield users my guy
5:19 Loretta boss is actually used before in the path leading to Ranni (that spectre from the pond). I was actually surprised that it got reused.
6:34 Sir Gideon actually uses moves based on how far you got into the game, so technically you could not see them because you fought him kinda early (it's based on bosses killed).
19:15 Agreed about the difficulty. It is my first "souls" game and while every other boss felt overtuned to some degree, Godrick felt like he needs a bit of buff. He's also at the point where you can see first glimpses of "builds" so with stuff like bleed or magic, or summons the fight becomes incredibly easier.
My favorite bosses were the ones that felt like Dark Souls bosses. Mohg is a great example. Short combos you roll through then punish. It's that classic dance I enjoy so much. Margott is similar too. I overleveled for some bosses and that made them less fun honestly. Like after dying to Malenia for almost 2 hours, I went and leveled up and came back to beat her too easily. Felt cheap 😅 but at least I know the horrors she can inflict on characters under soul level 150
You're right about the heroic feeling, especially the main theme, it's such a different vibe from Souls music but it fits perfectly
Melania What helped me was equipping a dagger with bloodhound step so when I saw her pop up for waterfowl dance I could switch to it and use the Iframes to avoid getting melted. That didn’t trivialize the fight, it still took me 2 dozen attempts and my first win was with 20/2100 HP left and no Crimson flasks. Absolute Radiance in Hollow Knight was way harder for me to beat.
malenia is my favorite boss in the game beating her was the most satisfying thing I did in the series
I'm glad you it and I am sure I'll feel good when I finally beat her. I just feel like I'm at a wall right now and not learning anything anymore other than how to die quickly. I struggled with other bosses, but I always felt I was making progress and had a good idea how to correct a mistake that I made.
@@lanceareadbhar yeah she takes a while to learn it felt so satisfying when I started to get to Lhasa 2 consistently
@@lanceareadbhar did you beat her?
Sword saint is up there for me. Might beat her because of how much more balanced he felt to fight. Every time I died to sword saint I was at fault and had to learn from my mistakes. I can’t say that as confidently about melania
I used max level blasphemous blade with a maxed out black knife tilche and she still kicked my ass smh
i feel like dragonlord would have been somewhere in the top 5 on the list if it didnt bug out. For me, i loved the dash in followed by freaking lazers and that nuke that stops the music. so good
Morgott, Radahn, Maliketh, Mohg and Placidussax are my favorites, It's a shame I got the bugged version of Placidussax. I would put Malenia into my top 5 but I hate that thing so much
I was so satisfied with Maliketh. It was so amazing when he changed his form and make me say "wait, that's the one from the trailer?!!!" The way he moves and swing his swords were so cool. He also makes me remind of Ludwig the holy blade. I think both of them are the top of From software's bosses.
Yeah, you see him in that pose and you are like "oh that doggo from the trailer", and than you see the boss name... Maliketh, the Black Blade and you realise who you are fighting.
Honestly the only bosses I liked are Maliketh, Radahn, Malenia, and Godfrey and Radagon. The Celestial Final Boss thing was really underwhelming and easier than Radagon. And most other bosses aren’t even story bosses, just enemies souped up with HP and damage.
How many times did I have to fight the Crucible Knight, the Misbehotten Warrior, and two Tree Avatar variants? Like half a dozen times each. Combine that with all the beastmen, fallingstar beasts, trolls and mounted knights and you’re pretty much done with the Elden Ring bosses.
The only damn minor boss I like are the crystal dudes that take no damage till they’re stunned once. And that’s because it’s fun and interesting to fight an enemy with a cool gimmick like that. Challenging even after knowing the gimmick is my kind of boss.
With sir Gideon offnir he has spells from everywhere the player travels throughout the game. The reason you may not have seen the cooler stuff is because you did not go to those areas before fighting him. This is just to help not to be a critic :)
Just recently got to Malenia. I've beaten her but it was with the mimic. Despite the nerf to the mimic, it still dominated the fight as it acted as such a valuable distraction and support. We basically spammed the Dark Moon Greatsword heavy attack to stagger her to death. So I reverted a save before I even entered the boss room and tried to fight her one on one. Unfortunately, that went as well as you'd expect. I've learned all of her attacks. I know how to avoid them. Yet when I enter the arena my brain just switches off and I turn extremely greedy, trying to dps her down as quickly as possible and trading way too much.
I really really liked this boss fight. I think the music, the lore, the atmosphere, the design, and the movesets are sick. And most surprisingly and contrary to that 90% of people would say, I actually find this boss fun. I don't know why. But there are 2 issues I have. One is the fact that she heals through your shield. I know that in FS games status effects like bleed have always gone through your shield but this isn't a status effect? Why does she steal my health without damaging me? It doesn't make sense and I want to stress that I don't hate the healing gimmick. The second problem is the flurry move. I think the damage should be lowered a bit because the first set of combo can pretty much almost kill you but you'll still be dead as you would probably be unable to respond quickly enough to avoid the other 2 sets which will definitely have killed you by then.
In conclusion, Malenia's an amazing boss but with 2 flaws or oversights. It depends on how you look at it. She won't be in the top 3 but she's definently within the top 10. If FS tone down or fix the issues I've mentioned (I am afraid of them nerfing her to hell like Radahn tho, hoping that won't happen). She'd easily be within the top 5 or maybe even 3.
the use of summs on malenia is pretty op as her poise is incredibly low. I felt like when playing her no summs, the waterfowl dance was specifically designed to piss you off (which is bs) I feel like her first flurry is way too long and travels too much distance along with her third flurry. Another thing is that in my experience, I took a day to beat her but even then it felt a little underwhelming because of how random her moveset is. Its basically coin flipping the amount of times she uses waterfowl which isn't pleasant at all. I did however really enjoy the difficulty of the boss. It felt super satisfying to finally beat her. Even with the bs move, I really really loved how hard she was and how much of a challenge it was. Her along with radagon/beast and malekith was the most satisfying bosses for me to beat
I also did it with Mimic, I'm terrified for my second run cause I want to try and solo the bosses 😅
My first playthrough was with a mage, my second with dual twinblades.
It changed my view of most bosses completely.
The gargoyle duo didn't even register with me in my first playthrough but took me 1.5 hours in my second playthrough.
Depending on your build bosses can play and feel very differently, which is great.
I had a feeling Gideon was gonna be a boss. My biggest complaint was that he didn't have a second phase. I wish there was a tad bit more to him. Had the potential to really be a stellar fight. My personal favorite boss ended up being Rykard mainly because pf the God Emperor vibes he gave me.
Would have been cooler if he was an NPC boss that evolved into a proper boss as a second stage. His biggest issue is that he’s just an NPC and as long as you can stun him it’s a joke, and if you can’t he’s so bloody hard
I knew this game was special when pressing the acquire materials button was more fun then half of the games I played that year!
I love ur take on all the boss and would pretty much have the same boss in the top 10 as you expect in a fairly different orde. Although I would probably not have hoarah loux there for the same complaints as you had. Instead I would put radagon up there. I get that it's a big guy in armour but just the delays, mix ups, music and look of it all to me it's an incredible fight. And I have to put malenia as my favourite. It did take me three evenings to beat her but I loved everything about her. The tempo of the fight was something I especially enjoyed you could slow it down if you needed it and speed it up when you were comfortable and I also love how I had to learn and predict when she would do THE attack so I could be ready to make distance for the first attack roll into her for the second one and stand still for the third. Figuring that out to not even get hit by that attack was incredible satisfying. I absolutely see how ppl can find it cheap with the healing but I didn't mind for a second just because I enjoy the fighting so much so just making it longer was almost just a good thing to me
I had so much trouble with Maliketh that I would rank him as a harder boss than Malania tbh
All they need to do to fix Waterfowl Dance is make her jump away from you as she winds it up. This could also serve to make cornering her a bad idea, as she wouldn't get any distance before attacking. As it is now, Malenia is literally the worst boss in the game to me because of all the wasted mechanics. I love her lifesteal, the subtle differences in her telegraphs to let you know what attack is coming, the way she punishes you for running away to heal with her lunge attack, either making you run really far away or baiting out a combo to heal, and just the speed and ferocity. At least, that's what the fight hypothetically should be. However, Waterfowl Dance turns every fight I've had with her to the same thing: get bleed or frostbite, and run away until she does Waterfowl Dance, then take the 10 second window where she can't use Waterfowl Dance (90% of the time) to actually attack her, then start running again. I've beaten her 3 times now, but I have never had any fun doing it because she can just delete you for existing near her. And yes, I know about Bloodhound Step, but if an attack requires an optional item to avoid, I think that says more than I could. Mohg has a similar problem, but the tear is clearly labeled as the "use this to beat Mohg" item, and is only required once for the entire fight. There is no "use this to beat Malenia" item.
Man, I feel the exact same way. I was so hype to finally reach her, but as a pure STR build, if she decided not to stagger or decided to do the Waterfowl Dance, I was dead. The only way I could prevent it was to use Mimic Tear, something I had not built my character to use and just hope when she did that one move she'd target it instead of me. I think she's an awful fight, and the most disappointing in the game.
I understand what your saying but as long as u can see her go up in the air and your not stuck in an attack animation or your not healing it is fairly easy to dodge as long as u run away as soon as she goes airborne u can avoid the first two parts then dodge into her then out twice I find it very satisfying when I can successfully dodge the whole attack
@@joechelli1452 well that's the problem. I have literally had fights where I run away for about 2 minutes, dodging her entire onslaught while waiting for Waterfowl Dance. Then, the exact moment I decide to close in because she still hasn't done it, she jumps up, and I already know I'm dead. I am sympathetic to the idea of a boss having a "my turn" move, but a move that can literally annihilate you for moving towards the boss in a Soulsborne Knight-type boss is infuriating. It also cuts off literally any openings after any attack she does, because she can always just use Waterfowl Dance if you try to capitalize. The only "safe" move to punish is Waterfowl Dance itself, but even then I have had one time, just one, where she used Waterfowl Dance, I go in, she sidesteps, slashes twice, and then jumps up whilst still at point blank range to rinse me. This is the experience that makes me hate this fight, the notion that I'm only alive because the boss decided not to insta-kill me. Have her back off, or restrict it to certain health thresholds, or literally anything other than, "you were too close to me when I decided to cue up this move. Die."
I'm just waiting for the next patch to say "removed bug where player could reduce Malenia, Goddess of Rot's HP to 0". (That last parts obviously a joke, but it really feels impossible to fight her in any way that is fun, and I have killed her 4 times now, and each subsequent one is raw spite pulling me through.)
@@macnamaryb7773
It's honestly just that one move. Recovering health on swing is a challenge but manageable. The fact that you literally have to cheese the boss A.I. to survive or give her a dummy to swing on and hope she goes for it is nuts design to a degree I have no clue how it passed through QA.
I beat her with a colossal sword and no summons.. Easily the worst boss in the game.. You always have to keep in mind the waterfowl combo..i usually bait it and start running away and only dodge the third part of it.. Honestly most elden ring bosses are just meh or plain bad especially compared to ds3 but my god, radahn is one of my favourite bosses ever easily my favourite in this game
I really enjoyed the Fire Giant, Godskin Apostle, Radagon/Elden Beast (hardest boss for me), Radahn (moreso in retrospect than during), Astel, Elemer of the Briar, Rennala, Mohg, Dragonkin Nokstella, Rykard, Placidusax, Fortissax, and some others. I was a bit too overleveled for many of the late game fights which ruined them for me, but I was also using spirit summons throughout.
Just named every boss in the game
@@ko_specter4251 Hah. Impressively, that list is a small fraction of the boss encounters.
Would have been so cool if Fia's Champions worked like the Spears PvP boss from DS3 Ringed City DLC
I thought about that too, at first I genuinely thought I was facing actual players too lol
Fun fact, the Champions, with the exception of Rogier and Lionel, all have randomized loadouts. I've seen people get casters fighting alongside Lionel, some with polearms, and on my most recent playthrough I got both of his allies with the Blasphemous Blade spamming the Weapon Art.
Note Fia's champions are determined by everyone who hug's her if you have online enabled, so essentially by hugging her you are accepting being one of her champions in someone elses world. Also Giddions move set are based on your boss fights so the more bosses you defeat the more moves he can use, for example if you only fight Godrick the grafted, rannala, Morgott, and the firegiant he will only have these moves.
I would move Malenia around 10 on my list only cause she reminds me as Lady Maria from bloodborn but who cheats mechanically by breaking animation rules and stun mechanics, her waterfoul dance wouldn't be that bad if it didn't activate via input reading preventing you from having time to actually deal with it and instead having to bait her into it so you could punish.
The elden beast is also a lower tier and would be higher if it didn't seem like it was built around torrent with how high off the ground its attack rings were and how it moves to the farthest part of the arena constantly, its fight also gets old when you have to fight radigon over and over just to fight it with its reistances and perfect immunities making it a damage sponge fight after you waist resources on the fight before. It would likely be higher if torrent was enabled and they allowed you to get right into its fight so radigon wasnt sacrificed to become a sword over and over like the Moon Beast fight in bloodborn.
Malekith fight is awesome as hell. I remember helping people defeat him over and over again just so I can enjoy the fight too. About 10 mil runes later I decided maybe I should help with other boss fights so I can enjoy them too.
Clicked on this video randomly because I love Elden Ring and noticed you from your Muse videos who are my favorite band lol, you have good taste
:) Thanks ross (you as well)
Now that I’ve learned her moveset, Malenia is one of my favourite fights.
It becomes something of a dance, with the only hits I take due to my over-aggression. That feeling of dodging a close ranged waterfowl perfectly without BHS for the first time was unlike anything I’ve experienced.
I’m so excited to watch all of your ranking videos now
I don’t like Margit’s input reading. I was still using a shield first time I fought him and after a sequence I stood there unmoving shield up and he literally just stood opposite me and tapped my shield with his cane 5 times. Eventually I made an input which immediately triggered a sequence from him that could only be possible if he’s input reading, and boss difficulty artificially inflated by input reading is just not great design IMO.
Placidusax is by far my favorite. It’s a shame he froze up for you, the fight gets significantly more flashy and difficult in the third phase
All those dragons in Elden Ring and none come close to Midir
Amazing how much Malenia's water fowl dance forces you to keep a perpetual distance or a shield when you melee her. Since the first volley of her attack either involves blocking or runnning away. Can't believe Ongbal beat her with the wretch at sl1.
You can just dodge her first volley and get hit a single time. Of course thats bad if you are SL1, but in a regular run at level 120+ losing less than half your HP is managable. I just rolled the thing each time, wasnt a big problem.
love your enthusiasm for the game, great vid :)
Thank you for the comment! It's hard not to be enthusiastic about this game :)
You know it's a good game when only one of the bosses is actually hated.
Only one is truly hated, but there are at least a few that are generally disliked, mostly the dual boss fights.
I might be one of the few other people who enjoyed Elden Beast. It’s the best giant enemy in the game, what did everyone want? Another dragon? The point of the dual final fight is for a humanoid/giant enemy fight.
So you know you don't have to take damage from Mohgs's transition attack right? There's a crystal tear for the wondrous flask that completely negates it. He still heals himself but you can just wail on him while he does it.
Interesting, that'd make this fight 2x as easy, I liked not knowing on my first playthrough though, heightened the intensity!
The funny thing is that I was using that tear thinking it helped with blood loss. I didn't actually use it though until dying many times thinking there had to be a way to avoid it and it worked.
@@Nightwalk2 He still gains his health back, but you don't have to waste three estus.
saying elden ring has amazing bosses is the overstatement of the year
Did this dude REEEEEEEAAAALLLY put Rennala above Placidusax??????????????????????????
This seems more like a which boss piss you off more type of rank
Although Maliketh is probably my most annoying fights, he's also one of my favorites as well. I just love the feeling of defeating a REALLY REALLY REALLY hard boss and its probably a big factor on how much I end up liking a boss
Mans put a gimmick fight over Radagon cmon man
Yeah Maliketh is definitely top 5 for me, I didn't actually think it though at the time, probably due to the fact that I'm pretty indifferent about the first phase of the fight.
Once I beat the game though and reflected on what my favourite bosses were, that fight has really grown on me.
My top 5:
5. Radahn
4. Morgott
3. Maliketh
2. Mohg - Lord of Blood
1. Melania
Maliketh is my favorite boss of any fromsoft game. Truly a spectacular fight.
DMC boss
Malenia is such a frustrating but good fight, there is a consistent way to dodge her flurry which I had to look up. And even when you know how to dodge her flurry she's so hard. I'm on attempt 27 and only gotten her to second phase once. Now maybe I'm bad or whatever, but it's such a fun fight. I would agree about the warrior fight though, his second phase is relentless to the point of being slightly annoying. Just take a breather every couple combos to give us a chance. I pretty much had to flawless his second phase.
Nah dude, I think I'm average and it took me 2 days to solo her. Bonus was no damage taken on the first phase became so consistent over time. As long as you keep at it you 100% can do that, if you didn't already. Hope you keep enjoying it too, easily my favourite fight in the game.
@@KarasumanXiii I finally beat her on my 78th try. And you're most times would be one or two hits on the first phase or less cuz it's actually really easy
@@bigbunn_ ayyyy nice! GG mate!
Godfrey, Radahn, and Placidusax are honestly probably my top 3 picks by the end of my second play through (prolly would put Morgott one below).
Godfrey just feels great, once you’ve really learned his attacks, it feels great to weave over, under, and around him getting in little chips of damage, and like you mentioned it feels cool to just have a straight warrior v warrior battle, without a ton of special tricks or having to chase your opponent esp since my first play through was a strength build, and my second was a dragon build. Even as Hora Loux once you learn the tight spacing for his attacks, you can get heals or hits after a lot of them.
Placi and Radahn just have a perfect mix of spectacle and gameplay, with them having such wide-reaching attacks that are still generally fair to avoid, epic arenas an cinematic to their attacks, and charging at Radahn with an army of warriors just feels cool as hell.
Finally i understood ehy i love rykard. I hate looking at giant big toes for the entire fight and dodging based on audio cues. I can actually see him and all of his attacks. I sometime wish fs would just zoom out a bit on massive enemies
Rykard is my number 1 for sure, nothing can top the fun and excitement I had when facing him
He's definitely up there. Some people hate him and I can't understand it. As far as pure fun factor goes, I think he's 1 for me
I face tanked him and spammed the cliche spear wep, most uninteresting fight in the game
@@Saberdud maybe you were overleveld cause I got invited into volcano manor at level 40 with a +8 sword and I really struggled fighting him
I legit loved every single late game boss lmao (ok Godskin Duo excluded maybe but even that one was pretty fun in coop)
godskin duo solo no summs has to be a crime. It was incredibly infuriating for me
I've beaten it with mimic and actually liked it, but I may be biased since I'm playing Black Flame/Godskin build myself
Endgame bosses are literally the worst. Garbage.
@@handzar6402 Nope
@@handzar6402 But that's your opinion
Also maliketh can be parried with the special item. It rewards exploration and paying attention to item descriptions before hand. Similarly to the shackles.
Honestly my least favorite boss was the fire giant mostly because I don’t have many long ranged attacks so the entire fight was me just getting behind him and attacking his feet then accidentally running into his roll and pretty much killed instantly lol
If you could ride Torrent in the Elden Beast fight, it would be cool and good.
But you cannot
BE WARNED: boss design essay incoming :O
TLDR: some of the bosses aren't very good at teaching the player how to fight them (compare them to the Sekiro bosses), and designing the game around the Spirit Summon mechanic makes this worse.
I think there's a design oversight for Malenia and Maliketh's phase 1 in that the way the bosses teach you to evade their attacks & punish their openings can be obscure and not always obvious...
Take Ishin Glock-Saint for example - for me, still the hardest boss in the series, but the game had done a fantastic job of teaching you mastery of each move/counter-move in the game, so that learning how to fight him felt intuitive; it was just the execution which was difficult.
Meanwhile, Malenia's early on-set baldness inducing wombo-combo feels almost impossible to learn how to dodge, even after maybe 15 attempts w different strategies. There's nothing earlier in the game or even in the move itself to signal how you're supposed to avoid getting hit, to the point that I just had to look up how it's done. Then, on top of that, it's basically impossible to dodge if she starts it right on top of you. I think the intention here is to discourage the player charging in when Malenia's in neutral (between combos, because this is when she can start the wombo), and encourage punishing her openings as you would fight any other boss. The problem is that this is another leap to make in learning to fight her, especially when it feels like you're encouraged to attack out of neutral because she's staggerable. Add on to this her phase 2 attacks, loads of which can one-shot you, and which require you to learn the dodge timings, and she's just a very frustrating boss to learn.
(As a side note, it's clear From were very careful with her design - the three hit lunging combo which has a variably timed fourth hit is distinguished by a very subtle tell: a little spark on her sword + sound cue. They want the player to carefully learn her moves - so it's not like the wombo-combo is a glaring design oversight; they have an expectation of the player. I just don't think they left enough clues to help the player understand what to do.)
Maliketh's phase one isn't intuitive to learn, either, for one reason: he changes his combo if you roll into him. This means that, unless you somehow realise this by yourself, you'll have no way of consistently learning his combo patterns and openings for punishes. If you roll sideways when he swings, instead of into him, his patterns are very consistent and always culminate in the classic downwards smash, which Souls players have been taught to punish since the Asylum Demon. But there's no tell or cue to indicate that he's swapping combos when you roll into him (maybe a growl or a roar could've been a good clue?), making it another misleading boss to learn.
It is better than Malenia, though, because you generally get punished if you roll into him, which can lead ultimately to that spacing realisation. A little more indication would've been nice, though.
(Totally agreed on the second phase, though, it's awesome.)
On top of all that, making the fights more difficult to learn is the whole spirit summon mechanic. Generally, I'm not a fan - not because it makes the game easier, that's fine, but because it's lead to some really whackily designed bosses. It's incredibly difficult to design a boss which works fighting multiple enemies as well as it does fighting one, or vice versa. Godskin Duo is a great example of a fight which is pretty shit against one player, while Malenia is a crap fight with more than one. The other big problem here is that if the game teaches you to use summons, but then throws a bunch of bosses which require careful learning to beat, the whole learning curve of a boss fight is broken. There's no way a player who's ganking a boss is learning the fight the way it was designed to be, and they're just gonna have a worse time as a result, losing to rng instead of a move they haven't learned properly.
Basically, Sekiro did it better :'(
agreed. I think they knew how big elden ring was gonna be and they put the summons in to help the newer players, but a lot of boss fights feel like they were designed for summons and not the 1 on 1 combat
I agree with this take,I try to solo malenia without ash summon but the moment she on top of for flurry attack you're done and learn nothing.Isshin took me 3 day to defeat him but I know I can beat him.With malenia even took me 100 tries I feel I learn nothing at all
I don’t agree with the take for Maliketh. I think he’s a damn near perfect fight and his closest comparison is easily Ludwig, The Accursed/ Holy Blade from Bloodborne (which was my number one fight in the series until Maliketh)
I haven’t noticed the rolling mechanic or how he changes his combo, it seems fine to me. I was able to read every combo and adapt to it by the time I mastered the fight. Second phase as well
Nigga, make a video. Comment essays have never been effective
@@feno8104 ok but then i gotta learn how to edit :'(
so glad mohg was so high his fight felt so fun when i feel like i’d usually hate a fight like this
I loved my fight with Rennala. Even though she was super easy for me bc I was overleveled, the arena was gorgeous so she gets the #1 spot for me!
Least favorite is hora loux bc I kept dying to him being 1 hp. Fricken would WWE my ass
My god try fighting renalla underleveled, she is soooo annoying and so hard, her star showers overlap with eachother and one shot you, and most of the fight is just running, she is such a pain in the ass, even if she is a spectacle and a half
I love how in plasidusax boss when he slams that great lighting bolt into the ground and the music just stops it's so cool
"elden beast is good, because, well... um... I can't put it into words."
*proceeds to fill elden beast segment with Gwyn because Elden Beast's fight is not engaging*
I'm really not feeling the love for Maliketh - the turbo-charged pace of his attacks and the way he regularly spends 10+ seconds out of melee range felt frustrating, like I was having to waste my stamina sprinting back just to land a hit or two before he leapt up again.
My top five is probably:
1. Maliketh
2. Mohg
3. Radagon
4. Godrick
5. Godfrey
Strangely enough, I really didn't enjoy Radahn and Malenia.
I don't find that shocking to be honest. Great list!
I dont know man, the godskin battles are my favourites honestly they are amazingly well done still and I swear I almost broke my controller multiple times understanding every move...
What's ur judgement now?
My top 3 are
1: sir Geidon ofnir the all knowing
2: general radahn
3: patches
I’m still getting my ass handed to me by Maliketh, If his first phase wasn’t so damn spammy and makes you use so many Estus flasks it might be a more fun fight but god damn does he make me want to jump off a building
I completely disagree on fire giant he's easily my least favorite boss in the game you can't see his attacks in the 1st phase because of how big he is and his moveset in 2nd phase is just a big baby slamming his arms around it looks goofy he's awful yhorm is a way better giant fight in every way that overgrown baby with his goofy stomach face kinda ruin the replay value for me the fact he isn't optional is honestly a spit in my face can't stand it and Elden beast is a close 2nd worst all that boss does is run all the way across his giant arena and spam one shot magic at you its a joke of a final boss other than those I agree with most of your picks
1. Yhorm was a gimmick fight. Fire giant is completely different.
2. Level vigor idiot. Get 40 at least before Fire Giant.
Yorm is even worse
I’ve had my fair share of seemingly endless boss runs back to a few of these bosses, but one anomaly i had in my first play through was somehow being able to one shot the Margit fight as well as the Morgott fight.. I was anticipating both fights due to the high difficulty I’ve seen mentioned by a ton of people but somehow had the RNG gods on my side with those two fights. It took me like 50 tries to kill Godrick after beating margit, and it took what felt like 100 tries to beat Godfrey before beating morgott so I am not saying skilled in any way with the one shots of margit/morgott, just surprised it happened lol
That's weird, because I often struggle with bosses that other people find to be pretty easy (like Gideon), but Godfrey was actually one of the easiest boss fights I've had so far.
TL;DR: Maliketh, Malenia, Godfrey easily my top 3. Fun cinematics, intriguing movesets to learn, great challenges to try and conquer.
The way Maliketh’s moveset is so large really gets you involved into the fight and makes you want to learn how to really beat him. He has a good combination of single hit and AOE attacks that make it challenging without it feeling unfair. Seeing him jump from pillar to pillar while throwing beams at you really makes it feel like you’re part of the game and not just rolling around someone. Not to mention my favorite cutscene in the entire game it’s just badass.
Malenia is so good not only because it’s so damn hard but because she’s like the most human-like boss and shes literally just kicking your ass with a sword and it really makes you think jesus christ wtf am i supposed to do. But the fact that its so hard makes me want to keep trying and the more I try the more I leanr the moveset and the closer I get to beating her. The fight being so hard is what makes it good for me as well as it feeling fair. The flurry yeah is kinda BS and like pretty much RNG I feel like but I also feel like the rest of her moveset is pretty polished and that is what you see most of the time anyway and that’s what makes it so fun for me.
Godfrey is just a complete badass honestly. The first damn Elden Lord leaps up and throws his giant axe at you. The way he swings that thing and explodes the ground around you and the way you can trade blows with him in the first phase kinda makes it feel like you belong there. I’m really fighting with the first Elden Lord right now and him and I are going back and forth hitting each other it just makes it super fun for me. The second phase is honestly what does it for me though. Hoarah Loux is one bad mother fucker and the way his aggression goes through the roof reminds me of going from Margit to Morgott just on a way larger scale. Him being so aggresive really makes you play carefully and learn his moveset since he can do so much damage. Also the soundtrack is dope for this fight definitely my top 5 favorite soundtracks in the game.
Literally the three worst bosses lol. Do you like because you think you're supposed to or something?
@@handzar6402 bro probaly died to soilder of godrick
@@handzar6402you just can’t see the beauty in difficult stuff like malekith and probably malenia
Placidusax was the best fight,the theme and the spectacle blew my mind,i have seen many amazing boss fights but that one i will remember forever
what i gotta admit, Rykard is the most satanic and disgusting boss in all FromSoft games
i love it
I agree with a lot of this list; my changes would be moving elden beast down since I dont like the running away, Maliketh down a couple pegs since I really didn’t enjoy the first phase, as well as moving morgott down just a bit since I found him a bit less interesting when i tried using incantations (my first playthrough was faith/dex). I would move godskin apostle, horoah loux, and radagon up. I personally think radagon is my favorite in the whole game, once I had a handle on his moveset dodging his attacks was so fun. His AOEs encourage you to dodge in specific directions and I really enjoyed that, it forced me to not just spam rolls and i felt like i had properly bested him. Im not sure how to feel about Mohg, i kindof thought his second phase was a bit of a mess with all his lingering effects but I really enjoyed his first phase and his overall moveset, as well as the optional sewer encounter.
Also i only arrived at the Godskin duo boss after going through literally every area including the Haligtree so i was pretty high level, and at that point i didnt even mind the respawning since i could kill them pretty fast. I had a great time in no small part due to finally hearing that second phase music (wow!) somehow I also was able to split their aggro fairly easily. Wondering if that was changed in the last patch?
I definitely just have a bias for the bloodborne-style hyper-aggressive melee fights over all the crazy projectiles so thats just my opinions. Great video!
Good take on "most" of the bosses!
But damn, fire giant one spot above Radagon feels so wrong to me 😅
Btw, do come back and update us on your Malenia rank after you defeat her, curious to know if she'll climb even higher
I’ll try to let you know! Where do you think those two belonged?
Radagon is my second favorite 😅 while fire giant is somewhere in the middle
Thor's fight was so epic and it's moveset felt actually dodgeable
@@joaoluizkfsantos8392 fair enough, radagons moveset isn’t super huge cause he’s the first phase which is the main reason he’s a bit lower, but maybe he’ll climb with time :)
@@joaoluizkfsantos8392 ravaging really felt unfun to me, I hated the projectile attacks of the elden beast
This is my first fromsoft game and even despite her difficulty, Malenia is still my favorite boss. I can understand the frustration about the Waterfowl Dance though. I spent 3 days of straight grinding and probably about ~20 hours of bashing my head against that fight to beat her once. I think i probably only made it to her second phase like 10-15 times.
I disagree with removing the Waterfowl Dance altogether though, I really just wished it was telegraphed a little more or had a little bit more of a windup. As it is, she has a few attacks that have her jump up into the air and even after spending all that time fighting her i can't really tell its the waterfowl dance until she hangs there for like an extra half tick.
The hardest part of the attack is the first flurry because if you are right next to her its basically instant death. I spent so much of that fight just making sure i was spaced correctly so I had enough room to run out of range of the first flurry and then the timing on the second and third flurry's felt much easier to anticipate and dodge.
I think if they just gave her like an extra spin before she jumped (giving you a little extra time) or some other tell to show its coming, it would make that attack much more bearable.
Mine would be
Malenia
Maliketh
Godfrey/hoarah
Radagon
Placidusax
Morgott
Mohg
Fortisax
Elden Beast
Rykard
good list overall
Why don't you like Rykard, if you don't mind me asking?
And thanks!
@@Nightwalk2 its not that i dont like rykard but rather i like others more.
@@ivanchaki372 Oh I see, these are your top 10. that's a strong list
Tips for mimic year: get naked. Strip off your armor and weapons, then summon an ash to distract or even to just destroy it pretty easily. Put your gear back on when it begins to form and just wail on it. So if you’re gear is powerful, the easiest way to dumb down the fight is by becoming an Elden Tease
I can see where you're coming from with Elden Beast but you didn't address the major issue that most people have with the boss which is that it is mechanically frustrating. It jumps around the arena never letting you pin it down for more than a few seconds before you have to be aware of some massive attack it's charging up or chase it to the other side of the arena. Melee builds also get constricted because they literally can't see what the boss is doing when attacking it. Atmospherically and story-wise the boss is pretty amazing but gameplay-wise it's easily on the lower half of the spectrum.
Hard disagree, playing melee only. The boss has to create distance to be dangerous, and if you learn to effectively dodge his moves it’s not too hard to close the distance and do plenty of damage. It’s designed to be an endurance fight, to test you at the end. I think it succeeds here massively.
I understand why this would be frustrating for a lot of people, but it just wasn't for me. There are a lot of bosses in this game and the series generally that do this, and I think a comparable example is Divine Dragon (another spectacle fight that I adore) every time you hit it once, it throws you half way across the arena, giving you a great view of the big beast and all of its attacks. I don't see anything wrong with getting some hits, having it move and following it. Again, I understand why that would be frustrating for some, but as the fight isn't too challenging, I enjoyed the visuals and all that. I also found it easy to get plenty of hits with a grafted greatsword build, which is exceptionally slow. The fight didn't last that long and I got everything I wanted out of it.
@@Nightwalk2 Divine Dragon is far easier to keep track of than Elden Beast. It's also given a gimmick that encourages the player to look around the whole arena. Elden Beast forces the player into situations where they have to not only keep track of the magic and explosions flying at them but they also have to keep track of beasts' attacks being directed at them which often leads to moments of pure chaos where you just have to tank damage and hope you survive. There's also a border around the arena which can be extremely inconvenient if it decides to do the ring attack or anything involving an explosion when you back into it. It's not the worst fight but it's got too many issues to be considered in the upper half in terms of quality imo.
Maliketh, Mohg, and Melania are by far the toughest bosses for me. 30+ attempts each. After my first playthrough all bets are off. Mimic Tear +10 for each of these three every time. I don’t know what’s tougher to deal with, a boss that shrinks your health pool or a boss that’s continually healing. It did take me over to get past The Black Blade than it did Captain Scarlet Rot.
Mohg’s bleed skill can be negated with a physick tear
Great video dude. However i could not disagree more about the elden beast. Easily my most hated boss in the game because it‘s soo frustrating in so many ways. On one hand, it looks gorgeous and the soundtrack is one of the best in the game. But on the other, the gameplay is so atrocious that it ruins the whole fight for me. Like 70% of this fight is just running across the arena only to get like 2 hits in and then running after the damn thing again. And what makes it even more frustrating is that it slightly ruins radagon for me, who, on his own, is one of my fav bosses in the game. But i can‘t really enjoy that fight anymore because there‘s no checkpoint.
My favorite is between Radahn, malenia and maliketh. However right now i think i‘m leaning more towards radahn who just keeps growing on me with every playthrough. By the way, try the bloodhound step weapon art for malenias flurry attack if you haven‘t already, i beat her first try after starting to use it
Fair enough, I know you're not alone with that. Thanks for the comment!
Maliketh, Hoarah Loux, and Placidusax were my favorite. Maliketh has a really cool moveset that is fun to dodge; hoarah loux's attacks feel weighty, they're unique, and are also fun to dodge though they take focus--punishing without being unfair; and placidusax is just cool as hell with the whole aesthetic of the fight and the laser phase.
shoutout to the Radahn meteor, that's one of the most memorable moments in the game.
Hot take: I actually enjoyed Godskin Duo, great music and they’re in such a late game area that by now you should be able to ‘git gud’ I will say they should have different AI and I wish they had at the least some form of character design that differs from their counterparts.
It’s not about getting good tbh any duo boss is gonna have gank it’s a souls tradition lol
I like your perspective a lot. I feel very similarly. Some people think difficulty=quality, but I like that you consider feel, music, atmosphere, lore, etc. Thanks for the video!
Likewise, you can have all the insanely cool spectacle you want, but if the fight isn't very fun then all of that just goes out the window.
Thank you for your comment as well!
Bosses in this game are pretty shit. I expected Ds3 and sekiro level quality and consistency but instead we got 2 Bed of chaos level terrible bosses (fire giant,godskin duo,elden beast). I only had fun with like 6 of the main bosses which is sad because everything else about this game is top tier.
I feel like the majority of trophy bosses are great fights(Godskin duo and fire giant being god awful for obvious reasons). A lot of people don’t like nial but I though he was fun. The mini bosses were either meh or forgettable tho.
Yup, totally agree. Great game in terms of exploring, lore, etc. but the bosses aren't very good by Fromsoft standards. I think there's just way too many, which made them spend less time on each boss.
Imo the problem with the bosses in Elden Ring is the game itself. This is FromSoft's first step into the open world territory and they can only spend so much money. I believe the majority of the budget went to the world itself, the weapons, spells, NPCs, questlines etc etc. Because of all that, they could only spend so little on the bosses and especially the minibosses. It's clear that they just couldn't fit in anymore like big unique bosses and resorted to just making existing enemies tougher and giving them a healthbar. Don't get me wrong the game is top notch but the majority of the bosses just felt like a big letdown. Only the major story/legend bosses interested me
Yeah no elden beast and fire giant are no where near as bad as bed of chaos lol godskin duo, sure
@@bigsmall2842 I didn't even think fire giant was bad
Dunno how you don’t have more subscribers the quality of this video was so good, seem like a cool guy too
Thank you for the kind words!
My favorite of all was Rennala. Not taking account the difficulty but the overall feel and atmosphere of it. Man, i fell in love in her second phase, i was a knight then became a Carian Knight after that boss.
Radahn was definetly my favorite. I definetly enjoyed the fight more because I didn't use summons on my first run, so I took a long time to beat him, but when I finally did, it felt really rewarding.
Lichdragon Fortissax is such a great boss, it is like a cross between Lansseax and Placidusax. Even considering the horrible quality of Fia’s other bosses he is well worth the headache to get to him.
Hell nah, Fortissax was such a waste of time. He is pitch black in a black arena with red electricty around his body which he also uses for all of his attacks. The entire fight is just a cluster of red and black. Not to mention the BS if you are under any part of him you will be attack by a lightning bolt. As a melee player, I just got out BB and did him in one attempt. Such a waste of potential.
Malenia was the only boss I felt like I was forced to do what I consider a cheese build.... Bloody curved swords with a mimic and she was nothing. It actually annoyed me how easy she became with that build... considering how next to impossible it felt with my normal playstyle.
Something about the first elden lord really sparks my thrill for combat. When I fought his golden ghost version thing it took me about 5 hours worth of tries to beat him. 2 hours in I stopped using summons because they just got in the way. And lemme tell u. Those next 3 hours while being frustrating were honestly so fun. Just two warriors locked in close combat where inches can make the difference. I loved it. I hope his endgame version is more of the same and from what I’ve seen he has most of the same moves. Can’t wait. Morgott was very fun as well. Loved that fight.
My top 3 are morgott, Radahn, and Malenia number 1. Malenia was brutal but by the end of my attempts I was able to fully avoid the flurry 90% of the time, some of the other attacks are brutal though.
Malenia is my favorite too. I honestly don't understand why everyone hates the waterfowldance attack. I thought it was bullshit at first too but once you know the timing and where to dodge it becomes managable. In fact figuring out how to deal with her moves was the most satisfying part of the game for me. I too, never got killed by the flurry after a certain point. I still didn't manage to consistently avoid all of it but at least i survived it everytime in my last attempts.
@@axel9473 Same, I think after a certain amount of time I was able to feel out when the AoW was coming and I played safe and backed up enough to avoid the first flurry, then dodging 2 and 3 is fairly easy. The attack where she does the spirit summons was a LOT worse for me personally. Maybe it was just that I saw p2 a lot less than p1 of course but that attack really messed with me
@@rsxar Yeah, the 2nd phase is wild. I mastered the 1st phase to an extent but the 2nd is still crazy. A lot of her moveset really isn't that different but the tells look so different due to her wings and everything. And yeah, i don't think i managed to dodge all the clones even once. One of the last 2 always gets me.
On my winning attempt she didn't use it...
Can't wait to fight her again and get the hang of the 2nd phase.
There is a wondrous physick you can get to prevent taking damage during the transition of Mohg’s phase 2, it makes it so much easier
Placidusax is definitely my favorite it was so unexpected you just end up in this enormous arena and then theres just this badass dragon. It was hard but fair and the visuals were amazing.
i have no shame using summons and the war master npc summon every time i do godskin duo idc
Last thing I expected when I searched Elden Ring was to see you after knowing you for your music reactions. Glad to see you again man, great video!!
I do have a soulsborne soundtrack video on my main channel so it’s not too much of a stretch haha. Glad to see you too!
Totally agree about Maliketh! He was my favorite too, and I felt like I was in the minority. Using a spirit ash he was just the right amount of difficulty, maybe a dozen attempts, but man they were nail biting attempts for sure. He moves so fast and fluidly, he’s just amazing to watch. And imo he has the coolest looking armor with one the coolest weapon arts tied to his boss weapon. As soon as I saw him reveal himself I was actually stunned by how badass he looked and I immediately decided “I NEED THAT SWORD”, which was an excellent motivation to power through his fight. 10/10 for sure. Great list. 🤘
Great video, man. This video kinda made me realize how insanely good so many of the boss fights are. What a game.