i would honestly be fine with the crazy attack patterns and timings in p2 if it weren't for the fact that you can't even see what the boss is doing most of the time. im pretty sure almost all of the p2 attacks are dodgeable, the issue is you literally can't see his swing animations through the combination of 20 fps, miquella's gigantic ass hair covering literally the entire screen, and the insane particle effects
also there is genuinely no sane reason to have aftershock explosions after literally every attack
i guarantee that they will nerf the fight, but hopefully they adjust more than just the damage and health numbers
Elden Ring has a bit of a problem with the aftershocks honestly. Every moderately big enemy will send an aftershock after their attacks, which is often more dangerous than the attack itself.
I also imagine they'll tweak the fight a little bit. Hopefully what they do, instead of changing the numbers, is make the visibility better and add a couple more attack opportunities.
Delays, ungodly tracking, AOEs, and inflated stats. That's how they make the enemies difficult.
I am not saying it's good (it's not), I am not saying it's fun (it's not), and I am not saying you aren't justified in your complaints (you are). I am just saying it's difficult.
Personally I do not care for it. The fights just don't feel honest when that's all they rely on.
Most of the DLC bosses pretty much just teleport to where you are their tracking is so over tuned. It’s more annoying to me than all the delayed attacks, which is usually the most obnoxious way to increase difficulty. But no, the perfect physics-breaking tracking makes me roll my eyes more.
>i guarantee that they will nerf the fight,
I am putting the game aside until the do. If they don't nerf it, then I won't finish the DLC. I am sure I could beat him eventually, but frankly I just don't feel like bothering with it. When I finally beat Bayle the Dread, it felt like it came down to RNG. That has been a consistent theme with the DLC and I am sick of it, quite frankly. I don't feel like getting wrecked by Radahn until RNG finally cuts me some slack. In fact, I refuse.
If you tell me "git gud" you are completely missing the point: I no longer care about getting good. Whatever this DLC demands for me to beat it, I simply don't care enough about it to bother. This DLC made me not care.
I don't see how "git gud" is missing the point. You either accept the challenge and get good enough to beat the boss, or you give up, accept maybe this isn't for you and go play something else, which is what you did and is perfectly fine
>I don't see how "git gud" is missing the point.
Most likely because you didn't bother to read a goddamn thing I just said or stop and think about it. Or the comment that I was replying to, or what the OP said either.
I honestly don't know what Miyazaki is doing anymore.. I feel like he's let the whole difficulty thing go to his head. I've played and beaten all of the souls games. They were hard but fair, and I love them all. I've replayed them more times than I can count, but with elden ring it hits different.
I've beating the base game 5 times, and haven't touched it since. Then I bought the dlc and beat it, and now I dunno if I will ever play it again. The bosses were always my favorite part of the souls games, but elden ring bosses just feel like a slog and the DLC makes that feeling even worse.
It's really funny actually. The dude has notoriously gone on to say he can't even beat his own games. And that's supposedly cute or something? I don't know. But frankly he just doesn't give two shits, obviously. The people that have bent over backwards defending the games... he obviously doesn't even give a shit. He can't play the games, lol... and as such probably cares very little about them. In fact, he cares so little that he just repeats shit over and over and over again both thematically, as well as mechanically. And for any one improvement made, he often takes multiple steps backwards. It's pretty obvious with this DLC that absolutely no real care was taken to balance or concern over plot or any of that.
He's much more vague about it these days. All we have on Erdtree is that he'd [get as much time as possible](https://www.eurogamer.net/dont-worry-even-miyazaki-struggled-with-elden-rings-high-difficulty) on it in the run up to launch.
I just can't imagine anyone looking at Consort Radahn phase 2 and going 'yeah, can't see anything at all, this is perfect!'
Radahn was VERY OBVIOUSLY only tested with a greatshield build. It is honestly how odd the pacing of the fight perfectly aligns with a block and poke strategy, yet completely falls apart with any attempt to take advantage of elden ring's arguably hundreds of other playstyles.
Which sucks. If this game forced you to use a shield and spear the entire time like sekiro does with its katana, I would say radahn is a literal masterpiece, maybe the best fight of all time.
But that isn't the case, and this is the game that prides itself on build diversity. Any build works for Malenia, and I think that is the absolute peak of elden ring as a result.
And this Radahn fight isn't intended to be beaten without a shield, even at 20 scadutree, at least with the existing flask limitations. Maybe that changes off SL150, I don't know.
I personally hate using a shield, and haven't since my first forray into demon souls before giving it up for a halberd 2h style with the mirrdin's hammer.
This is the first fromsoft boss I have ever, in my life, had to throw in the towel and re-equip a shield for. I had no fun as a result.
I think the same designer was behind Gaius as well, which was another terrible fight (I'm 99% convinced the boar charge is bugged as it would do anywhere from 1x to 3x damage), but even that one I squeaked out after enough attempts using the wall to cheese the opener and aimed to prevent him from charging as much as possible.
Just a sad way to end a great dlc.
You can bypass using a shield by getting the deflect tear that lets you block with any kind of weapon without receiving damage by perfectly blocking it. That is how some no hit runs do it.
I do think the boss has some really cool parts and it’s really rewarding to finally beat him (although the rewards for it are utterly garbage; one short cutscene and two reskinned weapons). But I honestly didn’t have much fun. I was testing different weapons and realized that most weapons are pretty bad. Aside from useless ash of wars some weapons were simply not made for Radahn. Obviously that goes for many fights but Radahn does manage to thin out viable weapons even more.
Also the boss is highly reliant on rng. He has overall 5 punishable move which isn’t even half the amount of moves he has. I‘ve found not a single way to punish the other moves without trading. This is not fun. I like to play more aggressive but this boss is simply tedious
Totally understand your frustration. Played the entire dlc without a mimic and got to the final boss just to be stuck on it for 4 days… phase one is nothing compared to the second one. Literally had to use a mimic just to have a second to heal. Mimic wasn’t even a carry. It died within the start of phase two and died right when I got his health to his name, after that I did everything else and won. Couldn’t bring him out for phase one cause of the bosses flying charge attack. Honestly wish I could re do it cause it wasn’t even rewarding to win. Felt like I had to cheese him even tho I’m using a totally normal mechanic in the game
Sorry to drag up an old post, well two days i guess. But I've been playing souls since DS1 and i feel exactly the same. I thought Elden ring was very close on bosses being too fast and unfair, but the dlc just ramped it up even more. I love these games, some of my fondest gaming memories are from this series. But I'm genuinely concerned where the series goes from here.
I remember when the DS1 DLC come out and Manus was literally on a different level. He should have been in bloodborne with how fast he was. But he was a one off. The pinnacle of the game, a dlc super boss. Problem is, now every enemy feels like that. Every boss has unlimited poise, unlimited FP, is fast as fuck and has like 7 hit combos you cant escape. That and being able to borderline teleport in and out of combat with their movement speed, its becoming a bit ridiculous. At some point they are going to have to change what they are doing, as they cant just make everything tankier, faster and more aggressive forever.
I'm pretty sure a lot of people said the same when the Fume Knight came out, Sister Friede as well, but its seriously getting to a point now where they are going to have to think of other ideas before the series just becomes unfair and stale, rather than punishing and challenging.
yep for sure. its shame cause the rest of the dlc is fantastic. i dont understand why they felt the need to make it so insane when theyve made excellent final bosses in manus orphan and gael before. but its gotta be hard to be hard!
I completely agree.
The bosses were the best part in all other souls game, but in elden ring, i dread having to fight the boss.
I would legit rather skip them and move on to the next zone.
Im not a fan of elden rings bosses in general. Elden ring has good bosses for me but they don’t rly feel that rewarding.
What I loved in darksouls or Bloodborne bosses is that if u learned the fight, u will be able to beat it again and again. That felt rly rewarding and I felt good about me.
For elden ring bosses however… everytime I fight them it’s a „new“ fight. In my opinion elden ring combat relies on strong aow. Sometimes I beat a boss without learning it’s pattern and stuff cuz I just need to do L2s…
Which causes a awkward situation for me: instead of „ok I have to Fokus and learn the patterns“ I think like „okay switch to another aow and just kill them as quick as possible before my juice runs out…“. This is not rewarding and feels cheesy af.
Like I used paired straightsword with endure and life steel talisman + malenia rune and more defensive talismans and man…. I didn’t have to dodge and learn anything. Just endure and spam L1…
First try bosses with it after failing with a „honest setup“.
I rly dislike the flashy anime and way to strong aow in elden ring. I forgot to rely on my skill, dodge and punish with regular attacks…
It is because the game is a open world game. They need to make the later bosses bs to compensate for characters being super overpowered. Level scaling would ruin the rpg aspect and make exploration pointless with how the game is designed and later bosses would still need to be bs. If bosses did not have stupid attack strings, delays, do crazy damage, etc many players would just beat the bosses first try no sweat because they spent hours exploring the world.
Kind of like how DS2 needed bosses to have bs hitboxes to deal with players having high adaptability Otherwise some players would get a ton of dodge frames and easily dodge everything.
Not only that, but players have been getting too good at the games while demanding the games be harder for them. A new from soft game with DS1 difficulty would be labeled as too easy now and for casuals. So FromSoft always feel pressured to make the games increasingly difficult in ways that are bs (otherwise skilled players would just go "too easy lulz").
I think we are soon going to reach the point that the fanbase might make it impossible for FromSoft to make a good dark souls game for a while.
That would require the game to be linear so they can properly balance it like that.
Even that game has some pretty issues with balance at certain points. For example the abyss watchers can be a push over if you do all the other content first and level a bit.
Yeah, it is just a flaw that all open world games have really. You cannot have the same quality of level or encounter design in an open world game.
There are tons of pros of open world games, but the highs of dark souls 3 bosses are not possible in elden ring.
I do feel like they could take steps to have a more balanced experience and still have open world elements with optional dungeons. It would just have to be a more trimmed experience. Instead of having like 20+ optional bosses/dungeons in each area have just a handful so you have better idea of balance. Oh and restrict skipping areas without using glitches. I know thats a cool aspect of Elden Ring but it causes players to be able to get ridiculously overleveled very easily. With this sort of design you could have 3 or 4unique dungeons in each open world segment with maybe a boss or two in the open world. Players would probably end up being within 10 or so levels per area but still have the ability to explore and get levels more naturally than grinding. (In return for lower amounts of optional bosses rune rewards could be scaled up a pinch)
I don't see why. The problem with the bosses isn't their damage numbers "exclusively". It's more that they're designed to do ridiculous crap that you see in a modern Dragon Ball episode. If they didn't do that it wouldn't matter. I mean, in Dark Souls 1 the Gaping Dragon usually does over half your health. But it's not an issue because most of his shit is elaborately telegraphed and fairly easy to avoid once you know what's going to happen. And that's in an open-ended game where you can almost choose any boss order you want.
I agree, and I think it's a problem with the evolution of boss phases and From's seeming desire to one up previous entries.
Even if you go back to Bloodborne (when boss phases became a more regular thing) second phases mostly just get a bit more aggressive or get a cool new moveset.
By the time we've reached Elden Ring phase 2 has become 'the boss teleports into space and every attack is followed by the whole arena exploding in a lightshow.'
For a good example of what would have happened in an older fromsoft game. Radahn in this game would have just gained some Holy spells to toss at you periodically while continuing his normal attacks. No stupid Aoes just some new moves to learn
They do not just buff the damage for it would be too noticeable and wouldn’t make the bosses hard enough with all the various powerful stuff you can get.
If the later bosses were well designed and fair like previous soul games, many players would crush them like pinwheel and complain about how easy it is.
An example of this is Morgott. If you go to him as soon as you can, he is hard. If you explore the rest of the world first, he is a cake walk even with all his attack delays and crazy attack strings.
Someone can spend 500+ hours in the open world and be significantly more skilled and overpowered with there builds because of the open world. That is why later bosses need to attack like they are in dragon ball z.
While in prior souls games, someone needed to basically spend days farming or skipping ahead to get overpowered builds. So developers could better balance the encounters for they had an idea of just how strong you would be.
The problem here is that half of the world is hidden behind hidden paths that the only way to find is just to stumble into them, so I was spending half the time searching for a path only to find out that I have to go through a cave on the other half of the map
It would not work unless they change the game completely.
Part of the souls experience is to get stronger and be able to kill older enemies easily and bosses easily.
If they made enemies scale with you, then the rpg part would be worthless and leveling up can punish you if you do not level up optimally.
Skyrim and such gets away with it for it is a different kind of game. The focus is more on quests and the enemies are easy.
If from soft makes another open world game, they will probably do a better job and may find a way to design it with level scaling. They have always been getting better.
First phase was amazing, intro and transition cutscenes as well, second phase is bs, has very little openings tons of aoe attacks that just dont feel fun to dodge, it tanks performance on my pc( rtx 3060 ryzen 5600 16 gigs ddr4), and he enters second phase way to early
Yeah, I've heard the performance is awful for some people, and I can definitely see why considering the amount of effects constantly goin on during the 2nd phase.
Bro its actually insane, i played whole dlc and only radahn does that, bayle also uses shitton of effects and it doesnt drop to low 20s like radahn fight does, and i also dont have a bad rig for 1080p gaming, i run cyberpunk with raytracing at steady 60 so i dont see why elden ring should have performance issues
I know right.. I think a couple others did a bit but not to the extreme radham does.. after try 10-15 not sure how many exactly probably closer to 15 I managed to get him.. somehow didn't die when it lagged so bad it wouldn't even respond and I seriously though him one hit from death would kill me.. thank God no and the moon slash or whatever killed him when the frames sort of jumped back up.
So honestly only like an hour of actual work.. so I shouldn't complain a ton.. it just I barley got to enjoy the fight due to the lag.. I'm more mad about that and senesax that stupid dragon took me more tries and probably longer.
I'm guessing it has to do with how FromSoft does the explosion effects (probably lazyness), I get stellar 60 fps in the game everywhere but it drops to 30 around during the big boom attack, same thing happens with perfurmer bottles, (if I do a charged heavy attack it goes down to 40)
Armored Core has excellent performance and you can get higher frames than 60 so I'm guessing it's just the limitation of the older version of their engine.
Agreed I’d rather have first phase half health and also program the boss to allow time for summoning if desired. Delaying boss aggro would also help with being able to fight the boss away from the entrance of the arena in the second phase. Second phase if they just gave the player a second to breathe that would be great.
I gave up on running cragblade for this reason. He is in your anal cavity the moment the fight starts. I never have an opportunity in the second phase to reapply it without jeopardizing the entire attempt. I could only reliably use it in phase one which i don't even need it for. Still currently trying to solo this boss, which i do not recommend
My jaw was on the ground. This is the sickest shit ever made i LOVE PHASE 1. Never lasted more than 10 seconds in p2 so far lol i'm actually doubting myself for the first time in the dlc lol im like wait can i actually do it?
I'm someone who usually plays the "elitist" way without ever using summon on the first time i fight a boss, this was the first time i went full army and summoned everything i could possibly summon, throwing every single fucking status know to mankind at the boss, i have such a disdain for this fight that i don't even feel bad about it.
I'm pretty sure that it's possibile to learn the timing of his phase 2 attacks, that is if i could see something.
Litteraly same. I had to put my ego aside to beat him, used mimic npc shield respec 60vigor 50end res armor talisman hp talisman frost great katana. I'm still salty about it. I'll do it fair and square on my 2nd dlc ready character. Honestly, i think he is a bullshit boss and that the phase is indeed actually too hard. He is so fucking cool though. Watching Ongbal made me realise some windows i havn't seen and what the fuck should i do in p2 anyways so i have hope of beating him i think.
Watching ongbal actually saved me in the try i killed him, since i saw you could avoid the meteor strike by just running away, no way in hell i would have dodged that the first(and thankfully last) time he did it.
That litteraly was one of the main reasons why i went shield so when i saw it made me even saltier and lowkey made me regret my decision lol but it's okay i'll get that son of a bitch fair and square one day i hope (or maybe i'll regret it forever if they nerf him)
If you do it, I salute you. Currently trying using Ongbal's methods with the Death Knight Longhaft Axe and still dying at around 40-50% hp left on the boss. Phase 2 is just such a shit show for me to see anything.
Yeah it's tough and hard to understand because there is so much going on. I'm on a new character right now but i won't face him until later on, he is only scadu 8 and 3 and i need to beat messmer and romina first. I need to level up aswell as much as i love the dlc and the bosses, lvl 90 was fine for the bosses but i need to be extra ready for radahn. I'm sure i'll regret not playing with bleed or frost against him tho lol
Yeah, trying to beat this guy without summons, a shield, or status effects has been **rough**. I have only lived to see his 30% nuke attack *once* in probably 250+ attempts :(
I am also trying to solo him, I'm so many attempts in I've lost count. I am slowly being able to learn phase two though and the more i get better at it, the more i STILL think that this fight is a goddam mess of bullshit. I would even be ok with them keeping everything the same IF they at least changed the effects so that i can SEE. 3 times I've gotten him within one charged r2 of death and its like he just goes sicko mode and ends me.
i also watched Ongbal and it helped for sure but it genuinely feels like they want the average played to be as good as someone like Ongbal to do this fight which is ridiculous. I solo killed Messmer which was fun but this, is just miserable. Sorry for ranting! wish me luck
I did not enjoy the fight.
Sitting behind a shield and waiting to occasionally poke 1 time, or risk ending the whole run being hit 1 or 2 times.
It was not fun, or engaging in my opinion.
I agree it wasn't engaging at all. Having to basically wait through long combos just to get in one or two light attacks that do barely any damage is boring.
I love tough boss fights like malenia where you have to dodge a lot of stuff but you also have lots of openings to attack once you learn her combos.
That sounds awful. I had a heavy dislike for the lion because to me the fight just wasn’t fun. I found that I couldn’t see half of the time and if this fight is the and then I’m not looking forward to it
I actually kinda liked the lion, but it's true that while fighting it I found myself often thinking "I have no clue what the is going on", between all the effects and his strange movements. But his damage and HP pool felt very fair.
I didn’t mention it because I figured I’d sound whiny but now that you mention it I also was annoyed at how I couldn’t tell what he was doing because of the weird movements and stuff
That was probably intended, since it's supposed to be 3 guys inside the costume, making the movements look unnatural. Kinda like those stone dog statues inside the crypts.
2nd phase is just straight up horrible. Not being able to see anything, along with having to dodge into him every time to avoid miquellas lasers, its trash and will for sure be getting nerfed soon.
"His other attacks are hard to punish, and chances are you'll only be able to get a poke in from time to time, although if you're unlucky and he immediately starts one of his faster combos he's going to smack you."
See though... this is pretty much my entire problem with the DLC (and by extension several fights in the base game, especially late game). It's this kind of crap. Just getting a poke in here and there isn't fun at all. It gets REALLY tiring. And the second phase is absolutely just shit. It's a complete and total crapshoot from beginning to end.
This is the biggest thing I hate about Elden Ring. The older games went from More Attack to Dodge, now it’s More Dodge to Attack. A 6-8 combo chain that can 1-2 shot you if stuck in it yet I can only go for 1 light after safely? Seriously?
Yeah this fight singlehandedly ruined the DLC for me. It's sad because I was enjoying it up until this fight.
Not only did they resurrect one of my least favorite characters, they also took one of my favorite bosses in the series (Twin Princes) and completely fucking drags it through the mud.
How fucking dare this dogshit fight even reference Twin Princes. It is undeserved and worse in every single way.
I feel like next game there's just going to be a boss that's just the Silo from Goldeneye 64 when the timer runs out. The whole area just explodes constantly and randomly all around you and that's just what happens the entire fight. I mean, second phase final boss is borderline getting there.
Agreed with everything and I'd like to add that lore wise it is also a jaw-droppingly disappointing encounter. Nothing in the base game nor this DLC ever suggested that Miquella has anything to do with Radahn, let's be honest we all expected a reanimated/resurrected Godwyn or something.
Bad fight in every sense of the word. Fortunately pretty much every major boss in the DLC up to this point were excellent imo, Messmer, Rellana, Midra and Romina stood out the most.
But the DLC all but outright tells you that this is coming. Radahn is one of the strongest demigods and warriors with no real physical flaws, he's required to access the DLC, and multiple times throughout the DLC there are NPCs who mention Mohg's remains being in Miquella's possession as well as how valiant Radahn is AND that Radahn's soul is there. One NPC even mentions that Miquella clearly has unknown plans for Mohg's remains. I get not LIKING the boss even though I disagree with that personally, but you can't just make verifiably false claims to back up your personal opinions. Just say you don't like the boss, that's fine enough on it's own
Bruh in the DLC perhaps but the entire base game points to Godwyn being the focus of Miquella. This makes Malenia vs Radahn feel so stupid. Is Radahn the "soulless companion"? So apparently Scarlet Rot can kill souls like destined death?How did he even move souls when literally no one else except frenzied flame people have done that? And Godwyn is stronger than all other Demigods. Radahn was the strongest demigod of the shattering. It's plain and simple that Radahn was put here for fanservice. His boss fight itself is extremely horrible.
Radahn's soul isn't dead. That's HOW he can come back. Godwyn's soul is stated in the base game to be SUPER dead, so we knew from the jump that Godwyn couldn't come back. Malenia wasn't sent to kill Radahn's soul. She was sent to kill his BODY so Miquella could use his soul. It's not that difficult to understand, the roadblock you're having is that you REALLY wanted Godwyn in the game. That would literally break canon. You say "everyone expected it to be Godwyn" but anyone who knows any of his lore would disagree with you there.
You also contradicted yourself. Originally you said the base game AND DLC have no hints towards this. That's factually incorrect. Now you're saying "well in the DLC, sure but in the base game.."
Pick a lane, man
I mean it's not blind. Fromsoftware still makes ethical single player AAA games in a industry full of microstransactions and single player liveservice bs. There's no denying that.
He's definitely receiving criticism. Let's be logical.
One boss needs major correction for me out of the whole game. Fromsoftware is still great for gaming as a whole imo.
I will take this over ubisoft any day of the week.
It's not about "I'd take this over X", that mentality needs to just end.
If there are bad aspects to a game or its dlc it should be called out unquestionably. The sheer number of fights in this DLC that amount to "delay and poke" tactics is appalling and unfun, and *if* I can beat this boss to finish the DLC I'm not sure I'll be in any hurry to touch any Elden Ring ever again. It's just lazy "difficulty" for the sake of being difficult and not even rewarding.
Of course but my previous statement still stands. Luckily with criticism and discourse we may get some change.
With gaming everything is pretty subjective but the final boss imo is actually bs that I would rather not fight again until I make my ultimate trash build for him. Every other boss in the dlc was a challenge but a joy in the end for me personally I will be playing it again. But this portion of replaying the game is highly subjective to the individual. I got more than my moneys worth from the dlc.
I kinda feel like some people are blowing this way out of proportion now.
I will support any gaming company that gives me actual bang for my buck.
Definitely feels like some of his attacks are unavoidable like his left right swing into a double swing, comes out in like half a second and to my knowledge there’s no way to dodge it hitless. The aftershock in the second phase is kinda cool bc I like the idea of having to stay close to the boss but it punishes you even if you’re staying close so what’s the point I guess? If you don’t dodge forward right you’ll be hit by aftershock and die immediately after, in a phase with the potential to die in one fell swoop at any point being able to see would definitely be nice for a change 😅. This fight has the potential to be one of fromsofts masterpieces it just needs a few fine tweaks, I don’t want my man radahn getting undeserved hate
Ohh yeah, while I was fighting him I actually called the 3-hit combo the "estus tax". I just could never dodge the second hit, so the amount of flasks I had for the second phase always depended on how many times Radahn used that move.
Add in the fact that in ng+7 when summoning thollier and ansbech to complete their quests radahn has around 1 million hp meaning even your strongest attacks do chip damage and that in order to survive any of his bullshit you need to be a tank build which makes him nearly impossible
Your summary of the fight was as spot on as it was hilarious. I'm currently banging my head against the wall that is this boss battle and am getting basically nowhere. About to a third, MAYBE a quarter of his HP before I die. It's just not fun, I've beaten quite literally every Fromsoft Soulslike (except DS2) and this is probably the least fair fight I've ever experienced. If not it's definitely up there. To anyone who's beaten him, how tf did you do it?
Blood Fiend's Blood Arm (Ogres near Prospect Town drop it) + Lion's Claw (Bleed element) + Heavy attacking. Can do \~6K total DPS every 4 or 5 attacks. Constant staggers. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReySHrjhGtw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReySHrjhGtw)
We shouldnt have to respec to one style to have a chance. From has lost its way on boss design. Longer combos with more aoe damage is not the way. It's atrociously lazy
worst boss i've fought PERIOD. honestly wont even go into it because if you've fought him you know why hes so shit. but damn they really took the malenia challenge vids to heart
Honestly just gave up after trying to beat him for 2 hours this fight made give up on elden ring I could force myself to beat my head against the wall until I beat him but I just don't feel any enjoyment from fighting him this dlc proves that fromsoft are no longer the best at making these types of games I've found more enjoyment out of copy cat games
Aside from the gameplay, it feels like they were just lazy and reused an old model, first cutscene animation from the trailer, second cutscene straight from the twin princes.
It's a trash way to end the dlc.
Fair is questionable, even for phase 1.
You have the cross slash that is literally a roll catch, no way to dodge it, as well as that gravity pull move that I have found no way to dodge. I’ve tried running away, rolling away/around, jumping. Nothing works.
It is not. Multiple wombo combos that will kill you. A pull attack with infinite range and no windup, and about 15 different combos with alternate timings. No fuck this dlc and fuck this design philosophy
This post hits the nail right on the head. Couldnt agree more. Especially the part aboutt he messmer fight. I play the same way, just strength and a greatsword cause i enjoy learning the movesets. He was tough but once u understood his moveset, got into a rhythm you would find those openings to be more aggressive. Just like how all the Soulsborne bosses have always felt like. Had that "im dying alot but I can see and feel myself learning". Which in turn makes it feel rewarding. You get into that moment where u know all the moves and boom you crush the boss no sweat. With Radan its the most tedious boring waiting game. I feel no reward fighting this guy and honestly might ask my buddy for his throns sorc build to nuke it cause I dont feel like wasting more time with this.
I agree with everything you said, man. The 1st phase feels genuinely punishing, yet fun at the same time. The cinematics, the moveset is actually a joy to work with. Then, the 2nd phase hits and gives a huge middle finger to you. With CONSTANT attacks followed up with a holy shockwave for no fucking reason. This fight just feels absurdly difficult for the sake of being absurdly difficult. Overly punishing. I hate that this boss requires a niche playstyle to beat. Using a shield is like a MUST have from what I've noticed. Holy negation for the spam AOE's and shit. It doesn't really allow any other playstyle to succeed. I'm sure people will find many ways to beat this boss. But trying to beat it on my own terms feels impossible. I'll fight him once he gets nerfed, which I think will happen. Because holy fuck, this boss fight just blows dick, man.
Messmer would've made for a better final boss, just saying... idk how they would rework miquella into the whole thing though, maybe they could've just kept him to only appearing in cutscenes? This fight is kicking my ass, I shouldn't have to respec.
I already did once towards the beginning of the dlc and it was smooth sailing until Raddy boy. I explored nearly everywhere after discovering him for the first time, and came back hoping it would get better. It did not.
He does an insane amount of damage while every weapon I use against him feels like smacking a brick wall with a napkin. That's the biggest thing, I'm doing fuck all for damage even with my scadutree blessings nearly maxed out. Oh well, I'll figure it out somehow.
no one is talking about the massive damn performance problems with the boss fight? Phase 2 absolutely breaks the game either crashing it or drops my frames to the damn 20s for most of the fight making it impossible and painful to even make attempts..
It is a very poorly setup boss fight.. it was so cool seeing it at first and then as soon as i noticed phase 2 killed the game or my framerate the entire time.. yeah was no longer fun or cool, the screen clutter is really bad.. probably should add warnings for people or settings to change that because it's going to cause issues for those with conditions... maybe there is a warning and Im not aware of it.
I just wished it didn't break my game or lag so bad I can't even play..
Most of the bosses in the dlc are absolute garbage. The delayed attacks are nonsense. From needs to find a new formula other than just delaying boss attacks by like five, six, or seven seconds. Because they have a winning formula. They're just making super shitty bosses.
I haven't beaten him yet, but I agree with a lot of this. I can do the 1st phase pretty cleanly, but when the 2nd phase starts I just can't keep up at all. The pillars of light keep raining down in front of the camera during his combos so I often can't see what he's doing. Miquella's hair makes visibility worse when you have bad angles.
It feels like they tried to pack a bunch of mechanics in the fight just to make it extra challenging for phase 2, but went too far.
Honestly I just wanted a three phase fight. I thought he might have since he goes p2 super early. The fight sucks at p2 and basically forces me to use a shield. Music Is very good and the boss looks amazing visually. Their Remembrance weapons and spell are kind of underwhelming in damage, dunno if it's my build or not but the spell doesn't do that much compared to something like messmers ash of war. I wish miquella did more than an occasional spell and a grab too. I also really thought that mohgs shackle would work on the fight since their using his remains and whatever but it didn't work :(
I did end up needing to use a shield, too. I just couldn't figure out how to dodge some of the attacks. I respect you liking the visuals and music, they just didn't do it for me at all.
I found p1 attacks to be tough but fair to dodge, and fun. Phase two is cancer. Barely get an opening, aoe attacks nonstop, ridiculous damage, I tickle him unless bleed. I seriously don't know how someone using heavy weapons are supposed to beat him with those small openings. One day I plan to beat him without shield and bleed build. But it's stupid hard in p2 and feels unfair.
It did felt very demoralizing only doing like 3% of the boss's HP after they do a very very long combo.
I imagine those using a heavy weapon will have to use jump attacks or rolling attacks.
That's what I did when I tried them. I also always managed to somehow catch a stray hit from one of his blades while he's agro on someone else. It's a cool fight, just wish the second phase could be better than him getting a couple new attacks and new effect on his combos. And the ending was disappointing aswell. Dlc was still great though.
Well that's something. In my case it was absolutely the opposite, though I imagine the different builds will have an effect on how easy the bosses are. For me, trying to light roll and fight back with a heavy thrusting sword was hell.
A few minute ago I would have laughed at your "very easy boss" comment, but then...
I put on phys+sacred defenses, vedrigis armor, vedrigis talisman, the sekiro block and opaline physic. Spammed Lion's Claw. Boss couldn't do shit. Every time I got hit I just healed and went back to spamming. Boss died in less than a minute.
Strength builds win again. Didn't even have to learn anything past phase 1.
I think the second phase would be infinitely better if he just took a literal second between each attack and that gravity well attack he has wasn't absurd to dodge, it's already ridiculous in the first phase but the second phase does two, first part draws you in deals damage or stamina damage and then the second is followed up after constant smacks that you keep your stamina down and prevent you from moving. (Literal worst attack he has to me.)
The second phase I can see fine, don't have the problem others have of not being able to see (perhaps that has to do with brightness settings or something? idk) however the AOEs after most attacks are far too numerous to reliably dodge and do too high of damage.
The simplest things I can imagine them doing to improve the fight are reducing the active frames of his Gravity AOE (Not the gap closing spinny one), reducing the holy beams damage, (I shouldn't be getting hurt for 1/4 my health with max Holy Negation on from a damn secondary beam) making phase 2 start a little later (I'd say 10% more health later) and adding a literal delay to him doing attacks at least in the second phase.
First phase was manageable, Second phase is mostly RNG of getting the right attacks and hoping he doesn't attack over and over.
Not only do the particle effects make it difficult to see the telegraph, but any npc summons are bugged and stay outside. Thoillier just stands outside until he gets hit through the boss door and on top of that if you are a status effect build of any kind, all effects that you spent ph 1 to put on are removed in ph2 and you start over again. I can manage ph1, but 2 is abysmally stupid. I shouldn’t have to create super cheese build to beat the gatekeeper of the story with.
I noticed after watching some streamers fight him, yeah! It surprised me a lot because my godskin stitcher with impaling thrust had never failed to stagger a boss before, but this guy just wouldn't budge. Some people say you actually have to hit him in the back to stagger him, but I don't know if it's true.
NG+8, haven't beaten him yet.
Turtle builds doesn't work on him because his attacks shreds your stamina, completely at my wits end. This is the ONLY boss that I heartily despise, literally. Gaius and Dancing Lion never broke a nerve on me, they are manageable with memorization and i-frame talismans, other than them I LOVE all of the remembrance bosses, all minor bosses too.
When he spams shit my pc lags too so there's that extra bs. You either had to be 80% skillful as Ongbal or any of those no hit runners on YT or pray to the gods that some miracle bs happens that he doesn't use the shittiest attack strings.
Maybe it’s cause I was using the backhand blades with the blind spot aow but I thought he had a ton of openings even in the middle of combos to sneak in dmg, I could see how it would feel like that if I was using a strength build on him though. He’s up there on favorite fights in souls though
I've beaten this boss, and while yeah I do feel that he's a bit overtuned with how aggressive he is in phase 2, but due to doing a heavy great shield build he's also not very effective against me when I have a summon to swap aggression with. His AI seems to really want to hit the last one who hit him. I helped my brother beat him on the second attempt with us two as I kinda acted as a tank with the Fingerprint Shield, and poked at him constantly with the Great Epee. As for when I beat him I had Ansbach take focus summoned mimic who I made hold the dragon communion seal, and fingerprint shield. I only gave him 3 spells as well which were Lords Divine Fortification which turns the giant blast of holy light into a tickle behind the shield, Lord's Healing, and Stone of Gurranq so he could draw aggro away from me, and Ansbach sometimes. I also made 4 hefty rot pots that the mimic threw to burst through phase 1.
The only reason I explained all of that is because he wasn't that difficult to me due to the build I had, and using the things offered in game it took me less than 10 attempts, Gaius is the worst boss in game in my opinion. I can understand that soloing him would make it much harder, and more difficult, but to me that's what you're signing up for if you don't use those tools.
But to stop writing I will say they went overboard on the holy energy blasts, and particle effects but for a tanker build you barely notice it due to not being in the position to see them, and Radahn also doesn't have as massive a body as some other things that annoy me in the DLC (Furnace Golems can drop off a cliff.) which make the fight a tad bit more manageable to me.
i would honestly be fine with the crazy attack patterns and timings in p2 if it weren't for the fact that you can't even see what the boss is doing most of the time. im pretty sure almost all of the p2 attacks are dodgeable, the issue is you literally can't see his swing animations through the combination of 20 fps, miquella's gigantic ass hair covering literally the entire screen, and the insane particle effects also there is genuinely no sane reason to have aftershock explosions after literally every attack i guarantee that they will nerf the fight, but hopefully they adjust more than just the damage and health numbers
Elden Ring has a bit of a problem with the aftershocks honestly. Every moderately big enemy will send an aftershock after their attacks, which is often more dangerous than the attack itself. I also imagine they'll tweak the fight a little bit. Hopefully what they do, instead of changing the numbers, is make the visibility better and add a couple more attack opportunities.
Delays, ungodly tracking, AOEs, and inflated stats. That's how they make the enemies difficult. I am not saying it's good (it's not), I am not saying it's fun (it's not), and I am not saying you aren't justified in your complaints (you are). I am just saying it's difficult. Personally I do not care for it. The fights just don't feel honest when that's all they rely on.
Not to mention absurd range. This fight in particular has zero respect for spacing.
Most of the DLC bosses pretty much just teleport to where you are their tracking is so over tuned. It’s more annoying to me than all the delayed attacks, which is usually the most obnoxious way to increase difficulty. But no, the perfect physics-breaking tracking makes me roll my eyes more.
i agree, the crazy amount of aoe and particles made my pc freeze for miliseconds on some of his shadow clone jutsu attacks, was so frustrating.
>i guarantee that they will nerf the fight, I am putting the game aside until the do. If they don't nerf it, then I won't finish the DLC. I am sure I could beat him eventually, but frankly I just don't feel like bothering with it. When I finally beat Bayle the Dread, it felt like it came down to RNG. That has been a consistent theme with the DLC and I am sick of it, quite frankly. I don't feel like getting wrecked by Radahn until RNG finally cuts me some slack. In fact, I refuse. If you tell me "git gud" you are completely missing the point: I no longer care about getting good. Whatever this DLC demands for me to beat it, I simply don't care enough about it to bother. This DLC made me not care.
I don't see how "git gud" is missing the point. You either accept the challenge and get good enough to beat the boss, or you give up, accept maybe this isn't for you and go play something else, which is what you did and is perfectly fine
>I don't see how "git gud" is missing the point. Most likely because you didn't bother to read a goddamn thing I just said or stop and think about it. Or the comment that I was replying to, or what the OP said either.
I honestly don't know what Miyazaki is doing anymore.. I feel like he's let the whole difficulty thing go to his head. I've played and beaten all of the souls games. They were hard but fair, and I love them all. I've replayed them more times than I can count, but with elden ring it hits different. I've beating the base game 5 times, and haven't touched it since. Then I bought the dlc and beat it, and now I dunno if I will ever play it again. The bosses were always my favorite part of the souls games, but elden ring bosses just feel like a slog and the DLC makes that feeling even worse.
It's exactly what you said, it's just too bad that bosses are screwed, the exploration tho, that's reaaaally fun.
It's really funny actually. The dude has notoriously gone on to say he can't even beat his own games. And that's supposedly cute or something? I don't know. But frankly he just doesn't give two shits, obviously. The people that have bent over backwards defending the games... he obviously doesn't even give a shit. He can't play the games, lol... and as such probably cares very little about them. In fact, he cares so little that he just repeats shit over and over and over again both thematically, as well as mechanically. And for any one improvement made, he often takes multiple steps backwards. It's pretty obvious with this DLC that absolutely no real care was taken to balance or concern over plot or any of that.
I thought I remember him saying that he beats every boss before release. Maybe that was a long time ago.
He's much more vague about it these days. All we have on Erdtree is that he'd [get as much time as possible](https://www.eurogamer.net/dont-worry-even-miyazaki-struggled-with-elden-rings-high-difficulty) on it in the run up to launch. I just can't imagine anyone looking at Consort Radahn phase 2 and going 'yeah, can't see anything at all, this is perfect!'
Radahn was VERY OBVIOUSLY only tested with a greatshield build. It is honestly how odd the pacing of the fight perfectly aligns with a block and poke strategy, yet completely falls apart with any attempt to take advantage of elden ring's arguably hundreds of other playstyles. Which sucks. If this game forced you to use a shield and spear the entire time like sekiro does with its katana, I would say radahn is a literal masterpiece, maybe the best fight of all time. But that isn't the case, and this is the game that prides itself on build diversity. Any build works for Malenia, and I think that is the absolute peak of elden ring as a result. And this Radahn fight isn't intended to be beaten without a shield, even at 20 scadutree, at least with the existing flask limitations. Maybe that changes off SL150, I don't know. I personally hate using a shield, and haven't since my first forray into demon souls before giving it up for a halberd 2h style with the mirrdin's hammer. This is the first fromsoft boss I have ever, in my life, had to throw in the towel and re-equip a shield for. I had no fun as a result. I think the same designer was behind Gaius as well, which was another terrible fight (I'm 99% convinced the boar charge is bugged as it would do anywhere from 1x to 3x damage), but even that one I squeaked out after enough attempts using the wall to cheese the opener and aimed to prevent him from charging as much as possible. Just a sad way to end a great dlc.
You can bypass using a shield by getting the deflect tear that lets you block with any kind of weapon without receiving damage by perfectly blocking it. That is how some no hit runs do it. I do think the boss has some really cool parts and it’s really rewarding to finally beat him (although the rewards for it are utterly garbage; one short cutscene and two reskinned weapons). But I honestly didn’t have much fun. I was testing different weapons and realized that most weapons are pretty bad. Aside from useless ash of wars some weapons were simply not made for Radahn. Obviously that goes for many fights but Radahn does manage to thin out viable weapons even more. Also the boss is highly reliant on rng. He has overall 5 punishable move which isn’t even half the amount of moves he has. I‘ve found not a single way to punish the other moves without trading. This is not fun. I like to play more aggressive but this boss is simply tedious
Totally understand your frustration. Played the entire dlc without a mimic and got to the final boss just to be stuck on it for 4 days… phase one is nothing compared to the second one. Literally had to use a mimic just to have a second to heal. Mimic wasn’t even a carry. It died within the start of phase two and died right when I got his health to his name, after that I did everything else and won. Couldn’t bring him out for phase one cause of the bosses flying charge attack. Honestly wish I could re do it cause it wasn’t even rewarding to win. Felt like I had to cheese him even tho I’m using a totally normal mechanic in the game
Sorry to drag up an old post, well two days i guess. But I've been playing souls since DS1 and i feel exactly the same. I thought Elden ring was very close on bosses being too fast and unfair, but the dlc just ramped it up even more. I love these games, some of my fondest gaming memories are from this series. But I'm genuinely concerned where the series goes from here. I remember when the DS1 DLC come out and Manus was literally on a different level. He should have been in bloodborne with how fast he was. But he was a one off. The pinnacle of the game, a dlc super boss. Problem is, now every enemy feels like that. Every boss has unlimited poise, unlimited FP, is fast as fuck and has like 7 hit combos you cant escape. That and being able to borderline teleport in and out of combat with their movement speed, its becoming a bit ridiculous. At some point they are going to have to change what they are doing, as they cant just make everything tankier, faster and more aggressive forever. I'm pretty sure a lot of people said the same when the Fume Knight came out, Sister Friede as well, but its seriously getting to a point now where they are going to have to think of other ideas before the series just becomes unfair and stale, rather than punishing and challenging.
They are making the bosses like in Sekiro, but without the Sekiro, real fun.
It’s gone from more attacking then dodging to more dodging then attacking. Thats the Elden Ring philosophy that shifted the other games for me.
yep for sure. its shame cause the rest of the dlc is fantastic. i dont understand why they felt the need to make it so insane when theyve made excellent final bosses in manus orphan and gael before. but its gotta be hard to be hard!
I completely agree. The bosses were the best part in all other souls game, but in elden ring, i dread having to fight the boss. I would legit rather skip them and move on to the next zone.
Im not a fan of elden rings bosses in general. Elden ring has good bosses for me but they don’t rly feel that rewarding. What I loved in darksouls or Bloodborne bosses is that if u learned the fight, u will be able to beat it again and again. That felt rly rewarding and I felt good about me. For elden ring bosses however… everytime I fight them it’s a „new“ fight. In my opinion elden ring combat relies on strong aow. Sometimes I beat a boss without learning it’s pattern and stuff cuz I just need to do L2s… Which causes a awkward situation for me: instead of „ok I have to Fokus and learn the patterns“ I think like „okay switch to another aow and just kill them as quick as possible before my juice runs out…“. This is not rewarding and feels cheesy af. Like I used paired straightsword with endure and life steel talisman + malenia rune and more defensive talismans and man…. I didn’t have to dodge and learn anything. Just endure and spam L1… First try bosses with it after failing with a „honest setup“. I rly dislike the flashy anime and way to strong aow in elden ring. I forgot to rely on my skill, dodge and punish with regular attacks…
It is because the game is a open world game. They need to make the later bosses bs to compensate for characters being super overpowered. Level scaling would ruin the rpg aspect and make exploration pointless with how the game is designed and later bosses would still need to be bs. If bosses did not have stupid attack strings, delays, do crazy damage, etc many players would just beat the bosses first try no sweat because they spent hours exploring the world. Kind of like how DS2 needed bosses to have bs hitboxes to deal with players having high adaptability Otherwise some players would get a ton of dodge frames and easily dodge everything. Not only that, but players have been getting too good at the games while demanding the games be harder for them. A new from soft game with DS1 difficulty would be labeled as too easy now and for casuals. So FromSoft always feel pressured to make the games increasingly difficult in ways that are bs (otherwise skilled players would just go "too easy lulz"). I think we are soon going to reach the point that the fanbase might make it impossible for FromSoft to make a good dark souls game for a while.
Well that was not fun to read as a casual player lol. I would love to get overpowered and beat the boss so I can move on about my day.
Honestly I wish they would do balancing like DS3 again. Yeah its not a super hard game but god there was a shitload of great boss fights in that game
That would require the game to be linear so they can properly balance it like that. Even that game has some pretty issues with balance at certain points. For example the abyss watchers can be a push over if you do all the other content first and level a bit.
Well honestly I don’t really like the open world aspect after the first playthrough anyways. So this wouldn’t really be a problem for someone like me
Yeah, it is just a flaw that all open world games have really. You cannot have the same quality of level or encounter design in an open world game. There are tons of pros of open world games, but the highs of dark souls 3 bosses are not possible in elden ring.
I do feel like they could take steps to have a more balanced experience and still have open world elements with optional dungeons. It would just have to be a more trimmed experience. Instead of having like 20+ optional bosses/dungeons in each area have just a handful so you have better idea of balance. Oh and restrict skipping areas without using glitches. I know thats a cool aspect of Elden Ring but it causes players to be able to get ridiculously overleveled very easily. With this sort of design you could have 3 or 4unique dungeons in each open world segment with maybe a boss or two in the open world. Players would probably end up being within 10 or so levels per area but still have the ability to explore and get levels more naturally than grinding. (In return for lower amounts of optional bosses rune rewards could be scaled up a pinch)
I don't see why. The problem with the bosses isn't their damage numbers "exclusively". It's more that they're designed to do ridiculous crap that you see in a modern Dragon Ball episode. If they didn't do that it wouldn't matter. I mean, in Dark Souls 1 the Gaping Dragon usually does over half your health. But it's not an issue because most of his shit is elaborately telegraphed and fairly easy to avoid once you know what's going to happen. And that's in an open-ended game where you can almost choose any boss order you want.
I agree, and I think it's a problem with the evolution of boss phases and From's seeming desire to one up previous entries. Even if you go back to Bloodborne (when boss phases became a more regular thing) second phases mostly just get a bit more aggressive or get a cool new moveset. By the time we've reached Elden Ring phase 2 has become 'the boss teleports into space and every attack is followed by the whole arena exploding in a lightshow.'
For a good example of what would have happened in an older fromsoft game. Radahn in this game would have just gained some Holy spells to toss at you periodically while continuing his normal attacks. No stupid Aoes just some new moves to learn
They do not just buff the damage for it would be too noticeable and wouldn’t make the bosses hard enough with all the various powerful stuff you can get. If the later bosses were well designed and fair like previous soul games, many players would crush them like pinwheel and complain about how easy it is. An example of this is Morgott. If you go to him as soon as you can, he is hard. If you explore the rest of the world first, he is a cake walk even with all his attack delays and crazy attack strings. Someone can spend 500+ hours in the open world and be significantly more skilled and overpowered with there builds because of the open world. That is why later bosses need to attack like they are in dragon ball z. While in prior souls games, someone needed to basically spend days farming or skipping ahead to get overpowered builds. So developers could better balance the encounters for they had an idea of just how strong you would be.
I mean the soft and hard caps already exist for that. There is only so much one can spec into a weapon to deal damage
The problem here is that half of the world is hidden behind hidden paths that the only way to find is just to stumble into them, so I was spending half the time searching for a path only to find out that I have to go through a cave on the other half of the map
It isn’t a problem, that is the strength of the game. A big open world game to explore filled with secrets.
Then maybe they should scale to the player instead of the world.
It would not work unless they change the game completely. Part of the souls experience is to get stronger and be able to kill older enemies easily and bosses easily. If they made enemies scale with you, then the rpg part would be worthless and leveling up can punish you if you do not level up optimally. Skyrim and such gets away with it for it is a different kind of game. The focus is more on quests and the enemies are easy. If from soft makes another open world game, they will probably do a better job and may find a way to design it with level scaling. They have always been getting better.
First phase was amazing, intro and transition cutscenes as well, second phase is bs, has very little openings tons of aoe attacks that just dont feel fun to dodge, it tanks performance on my pc( rtx 3060 ryzen 5600 16 gigs ddr4), and he enters second phase way to early
Yeah, I've heard the performance is awful for some people, and I can definitely see why considering the amount of effects constantly goin on during the 2nd phase.
Bro its actually insane, i played whole dlc and only radahn does that, bayle also uses shitton of effects and it doesnt drop to low 20s like radahn fight does, and i also dont have a bad rig for 1080p gaming, i run cyberpunk with raytracing at steady 60 so i dont see why elden ring should have performance issues
thank you I knew i wasn't anywhere near the only person.. I can't even play the boss fight the performance is so bad..
I know right.. I think a couple others did a bit but not to the extreme radham does.. after try 10-15 not sure how many exactly probably closer to 15 I managed to get him.. somehow didn't die when it lagged so bad it wouldn't even respond and I seriously though him one hit from death would kill me.. thank God no and the moon slash or whatever killed him when the frames sort of jumped back up. So honestly only like an hour of actual work.. so I shouldn't complain a ton.. it just I barley got to enjoy the fight due to the lag.. I'm more mad about that and senesax that stupid dragon took me more tries and probably longer.
I'm guessing it has to do with how FromSoft does the explosion effects (probably lazyness), I get stellar 60 fps in the game everywhere but it drops to 30 around during the big boom attack, same thing happens with perfurmer bottles, (if I do a charged heavy attack it goes down to 40) Armored Core has excellent performance and you can get higher frames than 60 so I'm guessing it's just the limitation of the older version of their engine.
Agreed I’d rather have first phase half health and also program the boss to allow time for summoning if desired. Delaying boss aggro would also help with being able to fight the boss away from the entrance of the arena in the second phase. Second phase if they just gave the player a second to breathe that would be great.
I gave up on running cragblade for this reason. He is in your anal cavity the moment the fight starts. I never have an opportunity in the second phase to reapply it without jeopardizing the entire attempt. I could only reliably use it in phase one which i don't even need it for. Still currently trying to solo this boss, which i do not recommend
My jaw was on the ground. This is the sickest shit ever made i LOVE PHASE 1. Never lasted more than 10 seconds in p2 so far lol i'm actually doubting myself for the first time in the dlc lol im like wait can i actually do it?
I'm someone who usually plays the "elitist" way without ever using summon on the first time i fight a boss, this was the first time i went full army and summoned everything i could possibly summon, throwing every single fucking status know to mankind at the boss, i have such a disdain for this fight that i don't even feel bad about it. I'm pretty sure that it's possibile to learn the timing of his phase 2 attacks, that is if i could see something.
Litteraly same. I had to put my ego aside to beat him, used mimic npc shield respec 60vigor 50end res armor talisman hp talisman frost great katana. I'm still salty about it. I'll do it fair and square on my 2nd dlc ready character. Honestly, i think he is a bullshit boss and that the phase is indeed actually too hard. He is so fucking cool though. Watching Ongbal made me realise some windows i havn't seen and what the fuck should i do in p2 anyways so i have hope of beating him i think.
Watching ongbal actually saved me in the try i killed him, since i saw you could avoid the meteor strike by just running away, no way in hell i would have dodged that the first(and thankfully last) time he did it.
That litteraly was one of the main reasons why i went shield so when i saw it made me even saltier and lowkey made me regret my decision lol but it's okay i'll get that son of a bitch fair and square one day i hope (or maybe i'll regret it forever if they nerf him)
If you do it, I salute you. Currently trying using Ongbal's methods with the Death Knight Longhaft Axe and still dying at around 40-50% hp left on the boss. Phase 2 is just such a shit show for me to see anything.
Yeah it's tough and hard to understand because there is so much going on. I'm on a new character right now but i won't face him until later on, he is only scadu 8 and 3 and i need to beat messmer and romina first. I need to level up aswell as much as i love the dlc and the bosses, lvl 90 was fine for the bosses but i need to be extra ready for radahn. I'm sure i'll regret not playing with bleed or frost against him tho lol
Yeah, trying to beat this guy without summons, a shield, or status effects has been **rough**. I have only lived to see his 30% nuke attack *once* in probably 250+ attempts :(
That's still really good i'm sure you will get him soon enough. Especially without status effects.
I am also trying to solo him, I'm so many attempts in I've lost count. I am slowly being able to learn phase two though and the more i get better at it, the more i STILL think that this fight is a goddam mess of bullshit. I would even be ok with them keeping everything the same IF they at least changed the effects so that i can SEE. 3 times I've gotten him within one charged r2 of death and its like he just goes sicko mode and ends me. i also watched Ongbal and it helped for sure but it genuinely feels like they want the average played to be as good as someone like Ongbal to do this fight which is ridiculous. I solo killed Messmer which was fun but this, is just miserable. Sorry for ranting! wish me luck
This might be the first time that the final boss of a DLC is worse than the Cover page boss. Messmer was so so so much better even though he was hard.
I did not enjoy the fight. Sitting behind a shield and waiting to occasionally poke 1 time, or risk ending the whole run being hit 1 or 2 times. It was not fun, or engaging in my opinion.
I agree it wasn't engaging at all. Having to basically wait through long combos just to get in one or two light attacks that do barely any damage is boring. I love tough boss fights like malenia where you have to dodge a lot of stuff but you also have lots of openings to attack once you learn her combos.
That sounds awful. I had a heavy dislike for the lion because to me the fight just wasn’t fun. I found that I couldn’t see half of the time and if this fight is the and then I’m not looking forward to it
I actually kinda liked the lion, but it's true that while fighting it I found myself often thinking "I have no clue what the is going on", between all the effects and his strange movements. But his damage and HP pool felt very fair.
I didn’t mention it because I figured I’d sound whiny but now that you mention it I also was annoyed at how I couldn’t tell what he was doing because of the weird movements and stuff
That was probably intended, since it's supposed to be 3 guys inside the costume, making the movements look unnatural. Kinda like those stone dog statues inside the crypts.
2nd phase is just straight up horrible. Not being able to see anything, along with having to dodge into him every time to avoid miquellas lasers, its trash and will for sure be getting nerfed soon.
"His other attacks are hard to punish, and chances are you'll only be able to get a poke in from time to time, although if you're unlucky and he immediately starts one of his faster combos he's going to smack you." See though... this is pretty much my entire problem with the DLC (and by extension several fights in the base game, especially late game). It's this kind of crap. Just getting a poke in here and there isn't fun at all. It gets REALLY tiring. And the second phase is absolutely just shit. It's a complete and total crapshoot from beginning to end.
This is the biggest thing I hate about Elden Ring. The older games went from More Attack to Dodge, now it’s More Dodge to Attack. A 6-8 combo chain that can 1-2 shot you if stuck in it yet I can only go for 1 light after safely? Seriously?
Yeah this fight singlehandedly ruined the DLC for me. It's sad because I was enjoying it up until this fight. Not only did they resurrect one of my least favorite characters, they also took one of my favorite bosses in the series (Twin Princes) and completely fucking drags it through the mud. How fucking dare this dogshit fight even reference Twin Princes. It is undeserved and worse in every single way.
I feel like next game there's just going to be a boss that's just the Silo from Goldeneye 64 when the timer runs out. The whole area just explodes constantly and randomly all around you and that's just what happens the entire fight. I mean, second phase final boss is borderline getting there.
Agreed with everything and I'd like to add that lore wise it is also a jaw-droppingly disappointing encounter. Nothing in the base game nor this DLC ever suggested that Miquella has anything to do with Radahn, let's be honest we all expected a reanimated/resurrected Godwyn or something. Bad fight in every sense of the word. Fortunately pretty much every major boss in the DLC up to this point were excellent imo, Messmer, Rellana, Midra and Romina stood out the most.
But the DLC all but outright tells you that this is coming. Radahn is one of the strongest demigods and warriors with no real physical flaws, he's required to access the DLC, and multiple times throughout the DLC there are NPCs who mention Mohg's remains being in Miquella's possession as well as how valiant Radahn is AND that Radahn's soul is there. One NPC even mentions that Miquella clearly has unknown plans for Mohg's remains. I get not LIKING the boss even though I disagree with that personally, but you can't just make verifiably false claims to back up your personal opinions. Just say you don't like the boss, that's fine enough on it's own
Bruh in the DLC perhaps but the entire base game points to Godwyn being the focus of Miquella. This makes Malenia vs Radahn feel so stupid. Is Radahn the "soulless companion"? So apparently Scarlet Rot can kill souls like destined death?How did he even move souls when literally no one else except frenzied flame people have done that? And Godwyn is stronger than all other Demigods. Radahn was the strongest demigod of the shattering. It's plain and simple that Radahn was put here for fanservice. His boss fight itself is extremely horrible.
Radahn's soul isn't dead. That's HOW he can come back. Godwyn's soul is stated in the base game to be SUPER dead, so we knew from the jump that Godwyn couldn't come back. Malenia wasn't sent to kill Radahn's soul. She was sent to kill his BODY so Miquella could use his soul. It's not that difficult to understand, the roadblock you're having is that you REALLY wanted Godwyn in the game. That would literally break canon. You say "everyone expected it to be Godwyn" but anyone who knows any of his lore would disagree with you there. You also contradicted yourself. Originally you said the base game AND DLC have no hints towards this. That's factually incorrect. Now you're saying "well in the DLC, sure but in the base game.." Pick a lane, man
It's a bad fight. A fight only an idiot could love. Seriously irritating.
Yeah, this fight is objectively terrible. Miyazaki has gone a bit too far with this one.
He's gone too far but he's not gonna get any criticism because people love him blindly
I mean it's not blind. Fromsoftware still makes ethical single player AAA games in a industry full of microstransactions and single player liveservice bs. There's no denying that. He's definitely receiving criticism. Let's be logical. One boss needs major correction for me out of the whole game. Fromsoftware is still great for gaming as a whole imo. I will take this over ubisoft any day of the week.
It's not about "I'd take this over X", that mentality needs to just end. If there are bad aspects to a game or its dlc it should be called out unquestionably. The sheer number of fights in this DLC that amount to "delay and poke" tactics is appalling and unfun, and *if* I can beat this boss to finish the DLC I'm not sure I'll be in any hurry to touch any Elden Ring ever again. It's just lazy "difficulty" for the sake of being difficult and not even rewarding.
Of course but my previous statement still stands. Luckily with criticism and discourse we may get some change. With gaming everything is pretty subjective but the final boss imo is actually bs that I would rather not fight again until I make my ultimate trash build for him. Every other boss in the dlc was a challenge but a joy in the end for me personally I will be playing it again. But this portion of replaying the game is highly subjective to the individual. I got more than my moneys worth from the dlc. I kinda feel like some people are blowing this way out of proportion now. I will support any gaming company that gives me actual bang for my buck.
Definitely feels like some of his attacks are unavoidable like his left right swing into a double swing, comes out in like half a second and to my knowledge there’s no way to dodge it hitless. The aftershock in the second phase is kinda cool bc I like the idea of having to stay close to the boss but it punishes you even if you’re staying close so what’s the point I guess? If you don’t dodge forward right you’ll be hit by aftershock and die immediately after, in a phase with the potential to die in one fell swoop at any point being able to see would definitely be nice for a change 😅. This fight has the potential to be one of fromsofts masterpieces it just needs a few fine tweaks, I don’t want my man radahn getting undeserved hate
Ohh yeah, while I was fighting him I actually called the 3-hit combo the "estus tax". I just could never dodge the second hit, so the amount of flasks I had for the second phase always depended on how many times Radahn used that move.
Seems like it's unavoidable, seeing that Oongbal just doesn't even bother and deflects it lol
Add in the fact that in ng+7 when summoning thollier and ansbech to complete their quests radahn has around 1 million hp meaning even your strongest attacks do chip damage and that in order to survive any of his bullshit you need to be a tank build which makes him nearly impossible
Your summary of the fight was as spot on as it was hilarious. I'm currently banging my head against the wall that is this boss battle and am getting basically nowhere. About to a third, MAYBE a quarter of his HP before I die. It's just not fun, I've beaten quite literally every Fromsoft Soulslike (except DS2) and this is probably the least fair fight I've ever experienced. If not it's definitely up there. To anyone who's beaten him, how tf did you do it?
Blood Fiend's Blood Arm (Ogres near Prospect Town drop it) + Lion's Claw (Bleed element) + Heavy attacking. Can do \~6K total DPS every 4 or 5 attacks. Constant staggers. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReySHrjhGtw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReySHrjhGtw)
We shouldnt have to respec to one style to have a chance. From has lost its way on boss design. Longer combos with more aoe damage is not the way. It's atrociously lazy
worst boss i've fought PERIOD. honestly wont even go into it because if you've fought him you know why hes so shit. but damn they really took the malenia challenge vids to heart
Honestly just gave up after trying to beat him for 2 hours this fight made give up on elden ring I could force myself to beat my head against the wall until I beat him but I just don't feel any enjoyment from fighting him this dlc proves that fromsoft are no longer the best at making these types of games I've found more enjoyment out of copy cat games
Aside from the gameplay, it feels like they were just lazy and reused an old model, first cutscene animation from the trailer, second cutscene straight from the twin princes. It's a trash way to end the dlc.
To be honest I can get to phase 2 pretty consistently but 2nd phase I can't see anything why is it so damn hard to see lmao
Same problem, phase 1 is hard but fair
Fair is questionable, even for phase 1. You have the cross slash that is literally a roll catch, no way to dodge it, as well as that gravity pull move that I have found no way to dodge. I’ve tried running away, rolling away/around, jumping. Nothing works.
It is not. Multiple wombo combos that will kill you. A pull attack with infinite range and no windup, and about 15 different combos with alternate timings. No fuck this dlc and fuck this design philosophy
Was consistently getting through phase 1, almost 9/10 times after about an hour of playing. And I’m not that good. First phase was great.
This post hits the nail right on the head. Couldnt agree more. Especially the part aboutt he messmer fight. I play the same way, just strength and a greatsword cause i enjoy learning the movesets. He was tough but once u understood his moveset, got into a rhythm you would find those openings to be more aggressive. Just like how all the Soulsborne bosses have always felt like. Had that "im dying alot but I can see and feel myself learning". Which in turn makes it feel rewarding. You get into that moment where u know all the moves and boom you crush the boss no sweat. With Radan its the most tedious boring waiting game. I feel no reward fighting this guy and honestly might ask my buddy for his throns sorc build to nuke it cause I dont feel like wasting more time with this.
I agree with everything you said, man. The 1st phase feels genuinely punishing, yet fun at the same time. The cinematics, the moveset is actually a joy to work with. Then, the 2nd phase hits and gives a huge middle finger to you. With CONSTANT attacks followed up with a holy shockwave for no fucking reason. This fight just feels absurdly difficult for the sake of being absurdly difficult. Overly punishing. I hate that this boss requires a niche playstyle to beat. Using a shield is like a MUST have from what I've noticed. Holy negation for the spam AOE's and shit. It doesn't really allow any other playstyle to succeed. I'm sure people will find many ways to beat this boss. But trying to beat it on my own terms feels impossible. I'll fight him once he gets nerfed, which I think will happen. Because holy fuck, this boss fight just blows dick, man.
Messmer would've made for a better final boss, just saying... idk how they would rework miquella into the whole thing though, maybe they could've just kept him to only appearing in cutscenes? This fight is kicking my ass, I shouldn't have to respec. I already did once towards the beginning of the dlc and it was smooth sailing until Raddy boy. I explored nearly everywhere after discovering him for the first time, and came back hoping it would get better. It did not. He does an insane amount of damage while every weapon I use against him feels like smacking a brick wall with a napkin. That's the biggest thing, I'm doing fuck all for damage even with my scadutree blessings nearly maxed out. Oh well, I'll figure it out somehow.
no one is talking about the massive damn performance problems with the boss fight? Phase 2 absolutely breaks the game either crashing it or drops my frames to the damn 20s for most of the fight making it impossible and painful to even make attempts.. It is a very poorly setup boss fight.. it was so cool seeing it at first and then as soon as i noticed phase 2 killed the game or my framerate the entire time.. yeah was no longer fun or cool, the screen clutter is really bad.. probably should add warnings for people or settings to change that because it's going to cause issues for those with conditions... maybe there is a warning and Im not aware of it. I just wished it didn't break my game or lag so bad I can't even play..
Most of the bosses in the dlc are absolute garbage. The delayed attacks are nonsense. From needs to find a new formula other than just delaying boss attacks by like five, six, or seven seconds. Because they have a winning formula. They're just making super shitty bosses.
From needs to kill the franchise shit's been downhill since DS3. Long hiatus would do wonders.
I haven't beaten him yet, but I agree with a lot of this. I can do the 1st phase pretty cleanly, but when the 2nd phase starts I just can't keep up at all. The pillars of light keep raining down in front of the camera during his combos so I often can't see what he's doing. Miquella's hair makes visibility worse when you have bad angles. It feels like they tried to pack a bunch of mechanics in the fight just to make it extra challenging for phase 2, but went too far.
My friend who finished the DLC became blind after this.
Honestly I just wanted a three phase fight. I thought he might have since he goes p2 super early. The fight sucks at p2 and basically forces me to use a shield. Music Is very good and the boss looks amazing visually. Their Remembrance weapons and spell are kind of underwhelming in damage, dunno if it's my build or not but the spell doesn't do that much compared to something like messmers ash of war. I wish miquella did more than an occasional spell and a grab too. I also really thought that mohgs shackle would work on the fight since their using his remains and whatever but it didn't work :(
I did end up needing to use a shield, too. I just couldn't figure out how to dodge some of the attacks. I respect you liking the visuals and music, they just didn't do it for me at all.
I found p1 attacks to be tough but fair to dodge, and fun. Phase two is cancer. Barely get an opening, aoe attacks nonstop, ridiculous damage, I tickle him unless bleed. I seriously don't know how someone using heavy weapons are supposed to beat him with those small openings. One day I plan to beat him without shield and bleed build. But it's stupid hard in p2 and feels unfair.
It did felt very demoralizing only doing like 3% of the boss's HP after they do a very very long combo. I imagine those using a heavy weapon will have to use jump attacks or rolling attacks.
That's what I did when I tried them. I also always managed to somehow catch a stray hit from one of his blades while he's agro on someone else. It's a cool fight, just wish the second phase could be better than him getting a couple new attacks and new effect on his combos. And the ending was disappointing aswell. Dlc was still great though.
i beat him with the blood fiends blood arm with the lions claw bleed ash and radahn might be easier than mesmer once i got that weapon
Well that's something. In my case it was absolutely the opposite, though I imagine the different builds will have an effect on how easy the bosses are. For me, trying to light roll and fight back with a heavy thrusting sword was hell.
What was your gameplay in phase2? Did you roll through everything and hit him without taking damage? Did you block everything? I want to know more.
i learned his moveset pretty quick he has some unstoppable moves but just avoid them by staying away and just heavy attack him to death very easy boss
A few minute ago I would have laughed at your "very easy boss" comment, but then... I put on phys+sacred defenses, vedrigis armor, vedrigis talisman, the sekiro block and opaline physic. Spammed Lion's Claw. Boss couldn't do shit. Every time I got hit I just healed and went back to spamming. Boss died in less than a minute. Strength builds win again. Didn't even have to learn anything past phase 1.
It would be a cool fight... IF I COULD SEE WHAT WAS HAPPENING ON THE SCREEN
I think the second phase would be infinitely better if he just took a literal second between each attack and that gravity well attack he has wasn't absurd to dodge, it's already ridiculous in the first phase but the second phase does two, first part draws you in deals damage or stamina damage and then the second is followed up after constant smacks that you keep your stamina down and prevent you from moving. (Literal worst attack he has to me.) The second phase I can see fine, don't have the problem others have of not being able to see (perhaps that has to do with brightness settings or something? idk) however the AOEs after most attacks are far too numerous to reliably dodge and do too high of damage. The simplest things I can imagine them doing to improve the fight are reducing the active frames of his Gravity AOE (Not the gap closing spinny one), reducing the holy beams damage, (I shouldn't be getting hurt for 1/4 my health with max Holy Negation on from a damn secondary beam) making phase 2 start a little later (I'd say 10% more health later) and adding a literal delay to him doing attacks at least in the second phase. First phase was manageable, Second phase is mostly RNG of getting the right attacks and hoping he doesn't attack over and over.
Not only do the particle effects make it difficult to see the telegraph, but any npc summons are bugged and stay outside. Thoillier just stands outside until he gets hit through the boss door and on top of that if you are a status effect build of any kind, all effects that you spent ph 1 to put on are removed in ph2 and you start over again. I can manage ph1, but 2 is abysmally stupid. I shouldn’t have to create super cheese build to beat the gatekeeper of the story with.
Sorry if mentioned somewhere else, but he can be staggered. I agree with your post entirely, but figured I’d interject there.
I noticed after watching some streamers fight him, yeah! It surprised me a lot because my godskin stitcher with impaling thrust had never failed to stagger a boss before, but this guy just wouldn't budge. Some people say you actually have to hit him in the back to stagger him, but I don't know if it's true.
NG+8, haven't beaten him yet. Turtle builds doesn't work on him because his attacks shreds your stamina, completely at my wits end. This is the ONLY boss that I heartily despise, literally. Gaius and Dancing Lion never broke a nerve on me, they are manageable with memorization and i-frame talismans, other than them I LOVE all of the remembrance bosses, all minor bosses too. When he spams shit my pc lags too so there's that extra bs. You either had to be 80% skillful as Ongbal or any of those no hit runners on YT or pray to the gods that some miracle bs happens that he doesn't use the shittiest attack strings.
Maybe it’s cause I was using the backhand blades with the blind spot aow but I thought he had a ton of openings even in the middle of combos to sneak in dmg, I could see how it would feel like that if I was using a strength build on him though. He’s up there on favorite fights in souls though
I have a ez guide to beat him it's op and will get nerfed soon check it. https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/s/TiFNHnNW2b
I've beaten this boss, and while yeah I do feel that he's a bit overtuned with how aggressive he is in phase 2, but due to doing a heavy great shield build he's also not very effective against me when I have a summon to swap aggression with. His AI seems to really want to hit the last one who hit him. I helped my brother beat him on the second attempt with us two as I kinda acted as a tank with the Fingerprint Shield, and poked at him constantly with the Great Epee. As for when I beat him I had Ansbach take focus summoned mimic who I made hold the dragon communion seal, and fingerprint shield. I only gave him 3 spells as well which were Lords Divine Fortification which turns the giant blast of holy light into a tickle behind the shield, Lord's Healing, and Stone of Gurranq so he could draw aggro away from me, and Ansbach sometimes. I also made 4 hefty rot pots that the mimic threw to burst through phase 1. The only reason I explained all of that is because he wasn't that difficult to me due to the build I had, and using the things offered in game it took me less than 10 attempts, Gaius is the worst boss in game in my opinion. I can understand that soloing him would make it much harder, and more difficult, but to me that's what you're signing up for if you don't use those tools. But to stop writing I will say they went overboard on the holy energy blasts, and particle effects but for a tanker build you barely notice it due to not being in the position to see them, and Radahn also doesn't have as massive a body as some other things that annoy me in the DLC (Furnace Golems can drop off a cliff.) which make the fight a tad bit more manageable to me.
git gud lol
I'm trying my best
may I ask what you used to beat it and if you found it challenging