Elden Ring - gamertags on first page

And it’s done! Finally. Don’t think a souls boss has given me as much grief as elden beast did. It’s an odd one as it didn’t think at anytime it was difficult, just that any mistake gets punished severely.

Got a few bosses left to do so will do them, Doubt I have the patience to do a platinum run though (got ranni by the way).

They’re extremely vulnerable to sleep, so make yourself some sleep pots and go to town on one at a time. You’ll need the recipe, think it’s in a graveyard near mistwood, some cracked pots, Trina’s lily & mushrooms. 
Trust me, you got this. 

Just arrived at Melania - five goes and got her down to her last 10% of her second phase twice. Got greedy each time and fucked it.

We all make that mistake every time on every bastard boss in these games.

omg I did it. Finally I got that fucking bell bearing that I longed for so much to fully upgrade my weapons. It was so close yet so far. It's cruel by Fromsoft to put that item right behind Godskin Duo, I really could have used it right before.

I’m getting more pissed with the putrified tree thing nearby. I need to kill it to get Millicent’s quest done but no mimic tear + puddle of rot + getting walloped of the floating island can go fuck itself.

Someone tell me there’s an Allow Summons statue nearby?

Yeah, even after learning how to deal with it I still think it's a bullshit move that should have been nerfed. If waterfowl was just a little more reasonable, Malenia would have been an S-tier boss fight. Similar with Mogh, it would've been a great fight but it's ruined by him filling half the arena with bloodflame in phase 2. That's not the kind of difficulty that makes an interesting challenge, it just sucks.

Or take the Tree Spirit fight jeepers just mentioned. What's new in Elden Ring is that bosses are reused over and over again, and to increase the difficulty they just put them in increasingly awkward places with less room to maneuver, which just makes them even less fun. They also do this with Magma Wyrm, Dragonkin Soldier, Fallingstar Beast.

Astel 2 just takes Astel 1's most bullshit move and makes it more bullshitty. Hooray game design.

And then there are those duo fights where they just take a boss that was designed for a 1-on-1 fight and make it 2 of 'em, which is classic DS2 BS that you usually wouldn't see in DS1 or 3, where duo bosses were designed specifically for the duo fight.

And the list doesn't end there, I also don't like how ER has a general tendency to increase boss difficulty by making their moveset more counter-intuitive with all those delayed attacks and such. Yeah, it's harder than DS3's more intuitive and reactive designs, but I don't think it's more fun, quite the contrary.

I hoped my appreciation of most boss fights would rise once I fought and understood them more, but actually it's the opposite, most just keep going lower every time I encounter them.

I was a little harsh in my DS3 review, I still prefer Elden Ring in almost every way, but when it comes to boss fights DS3 wins and it's not even close.

Wizzard_Ook For all of Malenia's undeniable difficulty, she has an Achilles heel: her poise is less than you'd expect. A lot of weapons, especially doubled up with a competent summon like Mimic Tear, can make her stumble reasonably often and even stunlock her if you do it properly (admittedly I went in heavily prepared because even being essentially blind to who she was and what she did I was expecting a butchering, but my Rivers of Blood and Mimic dealt mucho damage and stuns, for example, and even the weapon you use to fight Rykard is a very effective choice and has no stat requirements)

As for avoiding her attacks (blocking isn't recommended if you can do without, since she still regains health AFAIK), while her range is deceptively long, the more dangerous ones can mostly be dealt with by running away (the big flower attack she opens phase 2 with and the attack where multiple clones rush you come to mind, and for the flower breaking your lock-on might help too) and even Waterfowl Dance can be mostly dodged if you GTFO quickly enough when you see her preparing it (easier said than done in the heat of battle obviously, and it does change direction -it has three "phases" to it- but it can be done)

And for a few offensive hints beyond "be aggressive on her poise", if you have spell options she's open for business while recovering from the flower attack (be careful not to get too close too early though) and if you can time it correctly, inflicting a status ailment on her (frostbite with thrown pots is probably the easiest) should knock her out of attacks she takes to the air to prepare for unless they changed something (most notably Waterfowl Dance and I think also the flower attack, but she's pretty high up for that)

The important part is to not give up. If I could somehow manage her first try (still probably my greatest Soulslike achievement even after the Niohs, even accounting for my overpreparedness) you can definitely get her

Short, sweet, and incomprehensible. Just how I like'em!

No, fists will be a viable err weapon in it. 😂

Looks like the massive skeleton dogs from Tomb of the Giants are back

Which is nice

I cheesed the putrid tree thing in Halligtree with Swarm of Flies and then completed Millicent’s quest - finally!

Now back to knacking Melania before I head to the final boss. Which I believe is Bleed resistant, the fat space tadpole.

Are you sure? I've looked up the wiki and a datamined resource site and they both say it's immune. I never got it to bleed either even with a double twinblade arcane build.

Phenomenal game and I’ll get the dlc day one but oddly I have zero excitement for it at the moment. Maybe when I get the dlc I’ll start the game again with a new character, depending when the dlc is accessed.

Historically their dlc are nails. I still have nightmares about bloodborne’s dlc.

Yeah that's exactly where I am. Also sure that once I load it up and remember how well it plays, I'll do nothing else for a month (once back from Glastonbury anyway).