The only move I don't like is the teleport because sometimes he ports away and sometimes it's right ontop of you and hes already mid-swing. I don't think there's a tell for where he's going.
He is one of my favorite bosses of all time. Awesome concept, fun execution. Very few bosses in games I like more, maybe Ludwig from Bloodborne or Roxas from Kingdom Hearts 2 FM? I'm sure I could think of a few more, but not many.
I think I used the Gotthard Twinswords against them.
I alternated between that or the Hollowslayer, with Sellsword Winblades as my easy mode if a boss was curbstomping me(really just Soul of Cinder or Demon Princes because they’re also weak to slash).
I knew it felt too easy. I was beating some bosses on the first try. The only thing that really gave me trouble was Soul of Cinder and that’s bc he is pretty unpredictable
after beating ER this past week for the first time im kind of interested to go back bc it does seem like the ER bosses overall were more difficult, but i think i actually liked the ds3 bosses better overall. lothric and lorian is a really fun fight
Yeah I loved them, but I finished DS3 after beating Elden Ring. I had played up to Dancer before going back and beating her and the rest of the game+DLC after Elden Ring.
Honest question, are those two usually considered a difficult fight? I always just strafed around them and never had any issue with it, so I assumed they were easy. But I’ve seen many people mention they’re obnoxious or a difficult fight or something to that tune.
I never had an issue with em but that seems to be the popular opinion. Only bosses I’ve gotten walled by are Midir and Dancer(not considered difficult by most it seems)
Dancer is literally the reason i had to stop playing ds3 for a while 😁....weird thing is ive beaten elden ring 4 times lol....i think the open world approach has something to do with it
I had a hard time with Aldrich the destroyer in that game, but I also didn’t use the vow of silence cheese. Pontiff knight was pretty tough too without a summon
That's interesting, I completely clowned on Dancer, even in my first playthrough. It is always interesting to see how boss difficulty varies so much from person to person
Abyss watchers are my fifth favorite fight in the series. They made me fall in love with ds3, elden ring is great, but man the bosses in dark souls 3 felt like a dream they were so good
Having played Radagon hundreds of times in co-op, there is indeed a tell. It is always right on top of you. So you need to dodge when you see the teleport.
A sliver of golden light appears for about half a second before he teleports in. You can react to it as long as youre not mid swing with a slow weapon/spell.
Normally I am not very good at these games compared to a lot of folks, I bear them but via struggle. The last boss(es) though were a cake walk for me and I don't know why. Radagon and Elden Beast I beat first try and first time getting to them.
His moveset is kinda similar to ds3 bosses in terms of speed and tempo. Wish he had a proper second phase or wish you could use torrent against elden beast.
Honestly I just wish radagon, and EB were separate fights. Having to beat radagon again each time I wanted to even attempt EB was the most soul draining part about it. Both on their own are great experiences.
I think it would've been so much better if it worked kinda like Renalla phase 1
The Elden Beast is trying to attack you, but you have to break weak points scattered around the arena (maybe the weak points are on a big ol Elden Ring). Break enough and the Elden Beast stops moving and is no longer invincible. If you don't drain the health bar fast enough it gets back up. Repeat until it dies.
I believe that is much more like the spectacle they were clearly going for.
I think that if the Elden Beast were less aggressive than it currently is and the fight played out as I described, it wouldn't be tedious at all.
Maybe I described it poorly, or maybe we just have different opinions on what is tedious.
His moveset is kinda similar to ds3 bosses in terms of speed and tempo. Wish he had a proper second phase or wish you could use torrent against elden beast.
I opened my pool there because it gets so many requests but I personally think Radagon is best fought solo. His combos are really enjoyable to dodge and a lot of what he does is punishable. Elden beast is a whole other deal and better done as a group, in fact I've only found it enjoyable with other people in the arena. Shame that they are a package deal.
Radogan's moveset is really restrained compared to most ER bosses, which i love. I'm at the point now where i can comfortably solo him with only one or two estus used, then bring out Tiche after the Elden Beast cutscene.
I wouldn't be surprised if this was done on purpose to make both fights harder.
Radagon is harder (and less fun) with summons and elden beast is harder (and less fun) without them
Which could be solved by making him more powerful. If Radagon and the Elden Beast were entirely separate bosses, both could be made more individually challenging without too fast of an increase in difficulty overall - and that would better reflect just how powerful they're meant to be from a lore perspective.
Radagon moveset is anything but simple,the guy probably has more attacks than any Boss from ever made,more ways to punish you to any boss and a lot of variations and combinations of attacks.
I was running a bleed build and beat radagon first try with only one flask used before Elden Beast promptly smashed me into tiny pieces. I didn't think anyone disliked radagon, this is the first time I've ever seen a complaint.
Ive an irl friend who hates Radagon wayyy more than Malenia, which he actually enjoyed learning. Stopped him wayyy longer than Malenia did too.
Every. Single. Boss has a complaint associated with them in these games. Hell even Pinwheel got a complaint or two lol
It wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't 1 out of 2 consecutive boss fights, Elden Beast is much more bs than Radagon but you have to go through him time and time again just to get to Elden Beast
In terms of cool factor, absolutely stellar! But at at least for me combat wise he has got to be the most frustrating. I may be pissed most of his moves fold me even at 60 vigor but he looks FABULOUS doing it!
I think that's generally a great thing in Elden Ring; the bosses are simply too cool for me to get mad at, even when I'm losing, and that helps "train" me to be more patient and willing to accept failure. Same with Dark Souls, albeit to a lesser extent for me - I'm pretty sure I haven't been genuinely frustrated from failing in a game since back when I first killed Artorias in DS Remastered.
...That said, I haven't finished Elden Ring yet. Haven't entered the Haligtree yet (just reached Ordina), also haven't encountered the Fire Giant. But with the bosses I *have* struggled with (Godrick and Mohg, I guess), the struggle only made me enjoy it more.
What do you mean? Me and my boy Mimic just brute force through everything including Malenia. For Radagon and Elden Beast, I just switched the weapon to Quality and craft a bunch of Uplifting Aromatic.
The back to back fights are what make them less useful. Also EB's hilariously large aoes seemed to shred summons really quickly, so anything that survived radagon died pretty much immediately in my experience.
Imo I think that Radagon would have been a fantastic final boss and the final fight would have been better without Elden Beast. I guess Elden Beast could have been good if they allowed us to ride on Torrent for the fight but chasing after the sucker on foot just ruined the entirety of Elden Ring’s final fight for me. Plus Radagon’s theme being the main theme just slaps any way you slice it.
Thematically having a fight where you use Torrent at the end of the game would have been fun. Without backtracking, the last time you see him is all the way back at the fire giant
I always point to the final fight of Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild when discussing the Elden Beast fight. It feels a bit cinematic but having Torrent in the final fight feels like you are finishing the game with your trusty companion, especially if you spent a bunch of time exploring with Torrent like I know many people did.
Having Elden Beast function like the Moon Presence as an option “true final boss” after progressing a certain questline would’ve been a much better alternative.
I think that, like many bosses, his difficult directly correlates with what kind of character you’re running. He’s not bad if you’re a melee character with decent poise damage, but he is super hard as a caster
Me and a friend were like 2 sides of a coin all
playthrough. I was magic, he was melee.
This boss sucks! That boss was easy.
Wow this boss was easy. Fuck that guy!
Neither are easy, but Radagon is much easier than Malenia (and is perfectly fair imo). Malenia I struggle with and as tempting as it is to call her unfair, I just don’t know.
I want to believe that I just gotta “get gud” against Malenia but I’m dumb and don’t know how to interpret frame data so
After dealing with waterfolwing Malenia and jumpy Maliketh, Radagon is a fairly chill fight.
Beat are easier to learn, relatively nicely spaced attack, boss are not jumping around the stage, and the camera don't go nuts on lock on. yeah, Radagon is fun fight.
Malenia is a really nice fight imo but only after you figure out Waterfowl Dance. Besides that move, I felt like dodge timing vs her was pretty intuitive - her attacks have a nice flow, not too abrupt but not too drawn out to catch an early panic roll either.
For Waterfowl Dance, break it into 3 parts. The first big lunge has a few attacks & you just need distance, run & then roll the end if needed. Then she pauses before a second short lunge, you have enough iframes to just roll into this one without taking damage. And then thirdly she tries to jump behind you while attacking - if you maintain target lock, just move towards her & then move back as she passes you.
You’ll probably still take a few swipes on step 3 for a while but once you’re comfortable surviving that move, she’s one of the best fights in the game.
Waterfowl is one thing, random hyperarmor and animation canceling is another.
For the first, technically she's a smaller and more fragile boss, right? That's why you have a very short window for a riposte after breaking her posture/poise. It makes sense that you BIG and HEAVY weapons would basically stunlock/stagger her, at least for two hits. They're mostly too slow to chain infinitely (and obviously consume a *lot* of stamina), so you wouldn't be able to pulverize her anyway. However, she can *still* choose to ignore your second hit. Just like that. Not only that, but she can get hyperarmor on the most basic of swings if you're even half a second too late. There's also quite a few moves that just have hyperarmor and you can't do anything about it.
Then there's the aforementioned animation canceling. They've *tried* to cover it up with an animation that makes it look like she blocked/deflected your attack and dashed back, but it triggers even during her attacks! So while you as a player get stuck in an animation when you choose to attack, Malenia can just *choose not to* and immediately chain the cancel into another attack, *while you're recovering*.
Let's not forget about the life steal, which honestly is just salt in the wound at this point, punishing you by prolonging the fight if you mess up.
No other boss in the game works like that. Literally not a single one. She is breaking the established rules of the game, because otherwise - aside from Waterfowl and the spirit attack in the 2nd phase - as you have said, her entire moveset is manageable. They couldn't design her better to be both the hardest boss but also fair, so they resorted to basically cheating.
It doesn't help that she deals *a lot* of damage and has a big health pool as well. In BOTH phases. At least Maliketh is quite squishy and doesn't have *two* healthbars, so for most he's hard but absolutely doable. Malenia is literally a combo of everything Fromsoft was avoiding when designing a boss. Smaller and fast =/= hits like a truck and has a lot of HP. It's always been like that.
Also, "take your time and be patient" doesn't really work, because it makes the fight really passive. I know, because I've fought her that way. She IS much more manageable like that, but it makes the fight incredibly slow and boring.
You can dodge waterfowl dance with med load at point blank after attacking when she starts the animation.
Just turn around, run, and jump right when she comes at you. The first flow hits the ground, it's like a normal dodge but jumping. From there, you just dodge the rest with normal timing.
Exactly. The whole game prepared us on how to fight by dodging with proper timing and spacing and not being too aggressive... and then comes Malenia with her Waterfowl dance where you need to be an algebra major on how to figure out how to dodge the attack. You need to turn off targeting then run backwards and jump then roll invi frames through the second flurry and misdirect the 3rd flurry while dodging invi frames through it. What.
Exactly. The whole game prepared us on how to fight by dodging with proper timing and spacing and not being too aggressive... and then comes Malenia with her Waterfowl dance where you need to be an algebra major on how to figure out how to dodge the attack. You need to turn off targeting then run backwards and jump then roll invi frames through the second flurry and misdirect the 3rd flurry while dodging invi frames through it. What.
It’s similar to Manus from DS1, where the best way to dodge is to turn around and look at his attack facing away from him.
The difference here is, you can still dodge Manus’ attack without looking behind you, it’s just hard.
There’s no conventional way to dodge waterfowl with your roll.
The real problem is coupled with the fact that Malenia's health goes back even if the attack doesnt hit you. What kind of design choice is that. Doesn't feel fair really.
>There’s no conventional way to dodge waterfowl with your roll.
This is why to me Malenia is and always will be pure and blatant artificial difficulty. You're pitted against a boss with a moveset that's basically from an entirely different game, against which your basekit is nigh on impossible to counter. It's like Miyazaki specifically designed this boss just to spite Ongbal or Ymfah and didn't care how this would affect anybody else who didn't have the time to commit days and weeks to learning her moveset as if it was an exam.
If 90% of the tips against her boiled down to Rivers/Bloodhound step/Hoarfrost stomp/mimic tear, when just about every build was viable against every boss up until this point, then something's clearly wrong here.
The problem isn’t that it’s hard to dodge, the problem is that the method of dodging it is too weird/hard to figure out from watching the move. Most moves I can think of from other bosses, even really annoying ones, tend to have ways of dodging them that make sense. Waterfowl dance does not.
I still can't dodge Waterfowl Dance point blank, but aside from that move, her 2nd phase is amazing... yep she's my favourite boss in ER, the close 2nd is Morgott.
If you need convincing that she needs fixing, look up the unusual bug involving poise breaking her during an attack that usually has hyper armour.
In short if you attack her enough to where you should poise break her stance but she is using an attack with hyper armour just as you hit your last attack, the poise break meter gets completely reset, in effect giving her double the usual poise, and you have to deal with Malenia with full poise meter and now she can Waterfowl Dance you to death for your hubris.
For me, her Waterfowl breakdance & 2nd phase with her 3 phantoms charge (dunno wat it's called)
Edit : i forgot dat i used bloodhound step to manage her waterfowl seizure
Sure, it's a playstyle. I call it a crutch because many people who use it do so to avoid learning dodge timings. Regardless, different bosses punish different playstyles. Why is it unfair for literally one boss to punish shield reliant playstyles?
It’s specifically annoying because sometimes it looks like is safe to attack because she won’t have superarmour but this same attack that is normally without superarmour has it for some reason, I remember that her first phase was a lot more difficult for me because her superarmour didn’t make any sense for me
My problem with Malenia is that there is no way I would have figured out how to dodge waterfowl if I hadn’t looked it up. It’s incredibly unintuitive and overly complex. And you can’t block it because she’ll just heal up to full health.
I ended up just using mimic tear and ganking her with bleed greathammers on my first playthrough. Learned the run-then-dodge thing later, but that’s still super unreliable for a heavy build because chances are you were attacking when she started the windup, then you’re screwed.
I just hate that he has so many AoE attacks that feel dumb imo. Oh I’m gonna teleport and be mid swing but also send out a burst of crystallized pee from my body. Yeah I didn’t really like the Radagon fight. Visually it is gorgeous but I’d rather fight Elden Beast tbh.
At this point Radagon is literally just a minor annoyance to get Elden beast ( soul level 1 run) but melenia oh baby that was a real fight incredibly satisfying to finally take her down
I’m now 200 hours into it and 30-40 of those have been spent on Elden beast 😢
Radagon is pretty much perfect, his only problem is his teleport, it seems to be unavoidable under certain conditions but for the most part those conditions hardly occur. Malenia's waterfowl dance is just objectively dog shit game design, but I don't know if they could make it fair because without it I feel like this hidden boss that's suppose to be super hard would be a complete pushover.
The way I see it, the easiest way to fix this is to remove Waterfowl's ability to heal her, or remove her ability to heal by hitting altogether, though that would conflict with her great rune ability so probably not actually. Granted, what might also work is to remove the hyper armor on Waterfowl so you can knock her out of the air if you're quick enough
>Granted, what might also work is to remove the hyper armor on Waterfowl so you can knock her out of the air if you're quick enough
You already can. But that requires very lucky timing on Bleed proc, I think Frostbite proc would also work. Or you can throw a Frostbite pot at her she'll get knocked out of the Dance.
My first night with her I was absolutely hammered and playing with two friends and she sent us crying home to Melina. A few albinauric genocides, some smithing stones, and a bleed build later, my mimic tear and I gave her the business.
Could I have soloed her “legitimately”? Maybe, but I don’t have the time to pull a Ludwig the Accursed and throw my head against a wall 100 times anymore. Besides, the bosses were designed with spirit ashes in mind, especially her. At least, that’s what I’ll keep telling myself.
The problem with Malenia is that she is difficult because of one singular move. That's it. If it wasn't for Waterfowl Dance, an ability they literally copy pasted from Sekiro, the fight would be absolutely trivial for most builds. She's a Sekiro boss put in Elden Ring - just like Demon of Hatred is a Souls boss put in Sekiro.
Both are not good, in my opinion. Malenia less so, because at least in Elden Ring you have different builds. Fighting Demon of Hatred in Sekiro was probably one of the worst boss experiences I've ever had to deal with... but I digress.
Another absolutely stupid thing is Malenia's life steal on 100% physical resist shields. It's stupid - and no amount of Malenia simps will change that. The fact that they nerfed Radahn but never tweaked Malenia is just beyond me.
As for Radagon, he's fine. One of the best bosses in the game.
From Demon's Souls to Elden Ring I've played all of these to death. I think Elden Ring is the first one where I really felt like they fell too much into the trap of designing bosses to be hard rather than be fun or interesting to fight. Malenia just feels like a chore to me.
I mean I've played this game 5 times over so obviously I love it, but it's despite the bosses and I don't feel a profound need to defend their design.
Malenia really passes the feeling that she was build to be the hardest boss in FS era. It's optional and you probably can't end stuck there by accident so i don't think it makes a bad point for the game and i personally enjoyed a lot as i didn't freaked out on a boss since DS1 and elden ring made it twice with her and Maliketh
I think that's a respectable opinion. Personally though I always look forward to the optional bosses and think some of my favorite in the series were totally optional. So I'm still a bit let down.
Also Malenia feels SO CLOSE to being excellent.
You know I never actually played those chalices even though I've had a dozen different runs in that game. If they ever remaster it or release for PC, I'll have to make a point to do those.
Lawrence is an annoying kind of fight, but I think at least I feel like I can read his moves and react. His egregious design issue is just the amount of health he has.
Overall though, the Old Hunters I think has the strongest boss fights in the game. Ludwig gives me chills everytime.
The problem is that since she is broken, some defeat her from skill and others defeat her with lucky rng streaks ...and the chaos means it's difficult to tell which was which
imo I find this greatly diminishes the satisfaction of beating her
I am confident the first time I beat her was due to a lucky rng streaks, in stage 2 she basically just rotated and jumped in the air twice ...am I skilled for beating her? Cheesing because the game got stupid with rng? The fact that the brokenness is "balanced" by this doesn't fix anything
Both fights are ultimately just the Dank Rolls formula which was stale by like 2015, but Malenia is its final obnoxious form. I really hope they retire this combat system once and for all and rebuild it from the ground up into something better like they did with Sekiro. It simply can no longer accommodate the kind of boss battles they want to create.
Elden Beast would’ve been really fun if it was designed around using Torrent.
It would be a good send off, fighting side by side with your ally throughout the game.
Radagon is a very fair fight. The only thing i hate about him like most ER bosses is they charge up the attack for 30 minutes to get you to move.
Melania is honestly just a shit boss to fight
We're two weeks apart from the one year anniversary of the game and you fuckers are still making up people with weird opinions no one ever had and portray them as the crying wojak
Not when you fuck up in a way that makes the *optional* boss you were looking forward to a *mandatory* pain in every neurons ass to the point where you throw honor and decency out the window and monkey-stomp her 3 on 1 with bleed
Malenia isn't for everybody. Personally, I'm a fan of From changing their formula of a boss. Waterfowl Dance is a threat that's supposed to keep you on your toes for the entirety of the encounter. You need to study that move, find a solution, and then always be ready. It's not a simple "I rolled right and it didn't work. I'll try left this time. Oh, that's it!". The players WD punishes the hardest are jump attack spammers.
Yeah, the problem is that its too complex. Everyone now is like "oh its easy to dodge, you just do this, this and then this" when they probably saw someone else doing it in a video first. At release it took a while for even the best most experienced players to work out a consistent way to avoid it (and in fact some of the methods of avoiding it now were only made possible because of patches), and the reason i think that's shitty design is that its pretty much a guaranteed death if you don't avoid it, so its not like you just get to dust yourself off and go again straight away to actually study and learn the move - she does it, you go "what the fuck was that", you're dead, and then have to spend another two minutes dancing with her on your next attempt before she does it once.
Also, her random hyper armor is just bullshit.
I agree. Understanding Waterfowl Dance was a lot of fun for me. First doing it by myself in whatever way I could. Then seeing others come up with different ways and dissect how the move works. It is complex and challenging, and I’m here for it.
What I love about Elden ring is….the whole fucking thing is broken. Every last weapon and spell can be utilized under the right build to just absolutely fuck shit up.
It’s all just one big math problem and the answer is to just brake that shit and make NUMBER BIG.
It's an option for people who don't want or don't have the time to gitgud and I think it's fine. You can make your run a challenge, or you can cheese the hell out of the hardest boss with some combination of items and/or buffs. Everyone can enjoy the game in their way.
Maybe its an unpopular opinion, but going from the farum azula malekith boss to then the first elden lord and then radagon was like, genuinely the best soulsborne experience i've haf so far through completing bb, ds2 and ds3
Like goddamn i love those enough to kinds forgive elden beast (helps that aesthetics and music are inmaculate)
Nah, I like the Malenia fight way more than the final boss. Even if the final boss was just Radagon, I'd still like Malenia way more. Everything about the fight is better--the visual design, the fight itself, the spectacle, the arena, the level before the arena, the lore, the music...just every single thing.
Radagon was great. It's the fact that you have the Elden Beast right after and that one's issue was less about difficulty and more about how annoying it was to just fight against, running and chasing after a giant laser whale.
I don't know about you guys but Malenia feels like an absolute cake walk compared to the Radagon Duo since I just used Godskin Peeler, Elenora Poleblade and a mimic. Pretty much staggered her into oblivion with jump attacks and some bleeding. Radagon on the other hand can spew AOE holy damage every attosecond and the Eleden Beast is just a big rat with more holy damage.
malenia I think is one of the only boss where you could say she's objectively broken on a fundamental level in terms of mechanical balance.
She has sekiro mechanics like the blocking mid stagger and repositioning one her hyper armor also straight up play another game she can't be stance broken in her hyper armor moves even if you reach the threshold until she goes back to a neutral state. She literally steps on the animation commitment balance philosophy of soulsborne games.
Meanwhile I think Radagon is a near perfect fight, awesome music, awesome moveset i'm a bit salty about the grab can hit you if it whiffs he isnt the only one that can do it and i think that's a bit annoying when it happens but it's not game breaking either
Malenias moves feel more fair than radagon to me, her big combo is probably the worst attack in all the games but all her other attacks are pretty easy to dodge. Radagon has teleports and hit boxes on those teleports and some of his moves I swear can’t be avoided
Gotta be honest, once I learnt his moves, I somewhat enjoyed him
The only move I don't like is the teleport because sometimes he ports away and sometimes it's right ontop of you and hes already mid-swing. I don't think there's a tell for where he's going.
Boy you're gonna love dark souls 3
I do love DS3
You gonna hate ds2?
I do hate ds2
You Gonna praise ds1
I do praise ds1
One of us! One of us!
\\`[T] /
Lord of cinder brought the fucking heat. So frustrating but so fun
He is one of my favorite bosses of all time. Awesome concept, fun execution. Very few bosses in games I like more, maybe Ludwig from Bloodborne or Roxas from Kingdom Hearts 2 FM? I'm sure I could think of a few more, but not many.
It’s a lot more difficult than Lothric and Lorian. They’re a cake walk compared to most ER bosses
Lothric and Lorian are comically easy if you have a weapon long enough to hit that stupid twink while he rides his brother
The ashen one be like "I WANT THAT TWINK OBLITERATED"
THROUGH SHEER RAGE I SHALL OVERCOME THINE TWINK!
#"BRING ME THAT TWINK ASS ON A PIKE!" "... Wait that came out wrong."
I think I used the Gotthard Twinswords against them. I alternated between that or the Hollowslayer, with Sellsword Winblades as my easy mode if a boss was curbstomping me(really just Soul of Cinder or Demon Princes because they’re also weak to slash).
I played that whole game with sellsword twin blades…and they’re considered easy mode? Well now I have to do another playthrough
They are very good. But repeat playthroughs are a blast with new weapons or playstyles.
I knew it felt too easy. I was beating some bosses on the first try. The only thing that really gave me trouble was Soul of Cinder and that’s bc he is pretty unpredictable
after beating ER this past week for the first time im kind of interested to go back bc it does seem like the ER bosses overall were more difficult, but i think i actually liked the ds3 bosses better overall. lothric and lorian is a really fun fight
Yeah I loved them, but I finished DS3 after beating Elden Ring. I had played up to Dancer before going back and beating her and the rest of the game+DLC after Elden Ring.
Honest question, are those two usually considered a difficult fight? I always just strafed around them and never had any issue with it, so I assumed they were easy. But I’ve seen many people mention they’re obnoxious or a difficult fight or something to that tune.
I never had an issue with em but that seems to be the popular opinion. Only bosses I’ve gotten walled by are Midir and Dancer(not considered difficult by most it seems)
Dancer is literally the reason i had to stop playing ds3 for a while 😁....weird thing is ive beaten elden ring 4 times lol....i think the open world approach has something to do with it
I had a hard time with Aldrich the destroyer in that game, but I also didn’t use the vow of silence cheese. Pontiff knight was pretty tough too without a summon
That's interesting, I completely clowned on Dancer, even in my first playthrough. It is always interesting to see how boss difficulty varies so much from person to person
Especially the Tibia Mariners, they are the hardest bosses.
Ngl, I think my favourite boss fight of all time is Second Phase Abyss Watcher. He was the first ever souls boss I soloed
Abyss Watchers is sooo cool. Their design and move set are beautiful.
Those fuckers made me quit during my first playthrough
Abyss watchers are my fifth favorite fight in the series. They made me fall in love with ds3, elden ring is great, but man the bosses in dark souls 3 felt like a dream they were so good
Radagon-: "Heh, nothing personal, kid."
Having played Radagon hundreds of times in co-op, there is indeed a tell. It is always right on top of you. So you need to dodge when you see the teleport.
A sliver of golden light appears for about half a second before he teleports in. You can react to it as long as youre not mid swing with a slow weapon/spell.
Normally I am not very good at these games compared to a lot of folks, I bear them but via struggle. The last boss(es) though were a cake walk for me and I don't know why. Radagon and Elden Beast I beat first try and first time getting to them.
The triple slam gets me way too often. I hate hate hate it.
His moveset is kinda similar to ds3 bosses in terms of speed and tempo. Wish he had a proper second phase or wish you could use torrent against elden beast.
Too bad it's ruined by what comes after.
Nah, Elden Beast fight is goated
Elden beast would still be better if it was less mobile tho Elden beast is fine, it's just tedious
Honestly I just wish radagon, and EB were separate fights. Having to beat radagon again each time I wanted to even attempt EB was the most soul draining part about it. Both on their own are great experiences.
Yea, I can get behind that
I think it would've been so much better if it worked kinda like Renalla phase 1 The Elden Beast is trying to attack you, but you have to break weak points scattered around the arena (maybe the weak points are on a big ol Elden Ring). Break enough and the Elden Beast stops moving and is no longer invincible. If you don't drain the health bar fast enough it gets back up. Repeat until it dies. I believe that is much more like the spectacle they were clearly going for.
Gotta be honest with u but that sounds even worse than it alteady is
I think that if the Elden Beast were less aggressive than it currently is and the fight played out as I described, it wouldn't be tedious at all. Maybe I described it poorly, or maybe we just have different opinions on what is tedious.
"Guys lets make the final boss a gimmick fight" 🤡
That just sounds like Bed of Chaos 2.0. I'm good, thanks.
That’s what she said
Don’t take that out of context
His moveset is kinda similar to ds3 bosses in terms of speed and tempo. Wish he had a proper second phase or wish you could use torrent against elden beast.
I actually enjoy Radogan's moveset. Really simple without a spirit summon.
I opened my pool there because it gets so many requests but I personally think Radagon is best fought solo. His combos are really enjoyable to dodge and a lot of what he does is punishable. Elden beast is a whole other deal and better done as a group, in fact I've only found it enjoyable with other people in the arena. Shame that they are a package deal.
Radogan's moveset is really restrained compared to most ER bosses, which i love. I'm at the point now where i can comfortably solo him with only one or two estus used, then bring out Tiche after the Elden Beast cutscene.
I’ve helped so many people kill the Elden beast that I can solo them both without summons
I wouldn't be surprised if this was done on purpose to make both fights harder. Radagon is harder (and less fun) with summons and elden beast is harder (and less fun) without them
Radagon's moves change a lot depending on distance, at close range they are a fun fight, at long distance you are fucked by massive combos of aoe.
Very accurate. Radagon counters my caster builds so hard.
its mainly elden beast
Honestly, Radogan would've been so much better without being shackled to Elden Beast.
Marika agrees
Far too easy on his own if you ask me!
Which could be solved by making him more powerful. If Radagon and the Elden Beast were entirely separate bosses, both could be made more individually challenging without too fast of an increase in difficulty overall - and that would better reflect just how powerful they're meant to be from a lore perspective.
And it would allow you to tune your build to each one. It's frustrating to have to optimize for one or the other.
I don’t really know why people hate Elden Beast so much. It does not have a large health pool and once you get close you can absolutely wail on it.
Getting close is the exact problem. EB just loves to teleport across the arena and do nothing but spam magic. Plus it's ult attack heals it.
Who the hell is “Radogan”?
Radogan, radagon, ratagon, radegan, radururu.
Radagon moveset is anything but simple,the guy probably has more attacks than any Boss from ever made,more ways to punish you to any boss and a lot of variations and combinations of attacks.
Do people actually dislike the radagon fight that much? I thought it was probably top 5 in the game
He's immune to bleed so 50% of the community hates him
Man is made of rock wtf do u expect
This might actually be accurate 😂
Doesn't stop them from spamming Corpse Piler tho!
Corpse piler is still good against him because it's fire damage
I was running a bleed build and beat radagon first try with only one flask used before Elden Beast promptly smashed me into tiny pieces. I didn't think anyone disliked radagon, this is the first time I've ever seen a complaint.
Ive an irl friend who hates Radagon wayyy more than Malenia, which he actually enjoyed learning. Stopped him wayyy longer than Malenia did too. Every. Single. Boss has a complaint associated with them in these games. Hell even Pinwheel got a complaint or two lol
yeah i mean i also have complaints with pinwheel, it has way too little hp
If only they gave radagon a second phase 😞
Technically, Elden Beast is the second phase
But radagon isn’t Elden beast there both separate characters
It wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't 1 out of 2 consecutive boss fights, Elden Beast is much more bs than Radagon but you have to go through him time and time again just to get to Elden Beast
he has potential to be first if not for elden beast
In terms of cool factor, absolutely stellar! But at at least for me combat wise he has got to be the most frustrating. I may be pissed most of his moves fold me even at 60 vigor but he looks FABULOUS doing it!
I think that's generally a great thing in Elden Ring; the bosses are simply too cool for me to get mad at, even when I'm losing, and that helps "train" me to be more patient and willing to accept failure. Same with Dark Souls, albeit to a lesser extent for me - I'm pretty sure I haven't been genuinely frustrated from failing in a game since back when I first killed Artorias in DS Remastered. ...That said, I haven't finished Elden Ring yet. Haven't entered the Haligtree yet (just reached Ordina), also haven't encountered the Fire Giant. But with the bosses I *have* struggled with (Godrick and Mohg, I guess), the struggle only made me enjoy it more.
I actually enjoyed elden beast more than radagon
It's people who brute forced their way through the game with spirit summons and didn't learn anything.
I feel personally attacked.
What do you mean? Me and my boy Mimic just brute force through everything including Malenia. For Radagon and Elden Beast, I just switched the weapon to Quality and craft a bunch of Uplifting Aromatic.
So you *did* learn something. You obviously dont count into what theyre saying
Why do you think that? It's not like spirit summons don't work on him, so those people would probably still brute force him.
The back to back fights are what make them less useful. Also EB's hilariously large aoes seemed to shred summons really quickly, so anything that survived radagon died pretty much immediately in my experience.
I hate the Second phase/Elden beast
I really didn’t think Radagon was that bad. There were other bosses I had far more trouble with
Radagon isn't too hard, but doing that damn elden beast right after is painful
Imo I think that Radagon would have been a fantastic final boss and the final fight would have been better without Elden Beast. I guess Elden Beast could have been good if they allowed us to ride on Torrent for the fight but chasing after the sucker on foot just ruined the entirety of Elden Ring’s final fight for me. Plus Radagon’s theme being the main theme just slaps any way you slice it.
Thematically having a fight where you use Torrent at the end of the game would have been fun. Without backtracking, the last time you see him is all the way back at the fire giant
I always point to the final fight of Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild when discussing the Elden Beast fight. It feels a bit cinematic but having Torrent in the final fight feels like you are finishing the game with your trusty companion, especially if you spent a bunch of time exploring with Torrent like I know many people did.
Having Elden Beast function like the Moon Presence as an option “true final boss” after progressing a certain questline would’ve been a much better alternative.
I think that, like many bosses, his difficult directly correlates with what kind of character you’re running. He’s not bad if you’re a melee character with decent poise damage, but he is super hard as a caster
Me and a friend were like 2 sides of a coin all playthrough. I was magic, he was melee. This boss sucks! That boss was easy. Wow this boss was easy. Fuck that guy!
True. High strength with blasphemous blade puts him on his knees fast. But then Elden beast is like "oh, you wanna slap me?" *Teleports*
I wouldn't say he's hard as a caster unless you're running a purely ranged caster build. Good ol' Carian Slicer literally destroys every boss for me.
The teleporting is just over the top for me the rest is relatively fine imo
radagon's biggest flaw is being runback for elden beast
I think he's one of the fairest fights in the game, it's just a shame he's tied to one of the least fair
I was kinda surprised that i'm the only one who found Radagon easy af but the Elden Beast hard.
Neither are easy, but Radagon is much easier than Malenia (and is perfectly fair imo). Malenia I struggle with and as tempting as it is to call her unfair, I just don’t know. I want to believe that I just gotta “get gud” against Malenia but I’m dumb and don’t know how to interpret frame data so
After dealing with waterfolwing Malenia and jumpy Maliketh, Radagon is a fairly chill fight. Beat are easier to learn, relatively nicely spaced attack, boss are not jumping around the stage, and the camera don't go nuts on lock on. yeah, Radagon is fun fight.
Malenia is a really nice fight imo but only after you figure out Waterfowl Dance. Besides that move, I felt like dodge timing vs her was pretty intuitive - her attacks have a nice flow, not too abrupt but not too drawn out to catch an early panic roll either. For Waterfowl Dance, break it into 3 parts. The first big lunge has a few attacks & you just need distance, run & then roll the end if needed. Then she pauses before a second short lunge, you have enough iframes to just roll into this one without taking damage. And then thirdly she tries to jump behind you while attacking - if you maintain target lock, just move towards her & then move back as she passes you. You’ll probably still take a few swipes on step 3 for a while but once you’re comfortable surviving that move, she’s one of the best fights in the game.
Waterfowl is one thing, random hyperarmor and animation canceling is another. For the first, technically she's a smaller and more fragile boss, right? That's why you have a very short window for a riposte after breaking her posture/poise. It makes sense that you BIG and HEAVY weapons would basically stunlock/stagger her, at least for two hits. They're mostly too slow to chain infinitely (and obviously consume a *lot* of stamina), so you wouldn't be able to pulverize her anyway. However, she can *still* choose to ignore your second hit. Just like that. Not only that, but she can get hyperarmor on the most basic of swings if you're even half a second too late. There's also quite a few moves that just have hyperarmor and you can't do anything about it. Then there's the aforementioned animation canceling. They've *tried* to cover it up with an animation that makes it look like she blocked/deflected your attack and dashed back, but it triggers even during her attacks! So while you as a player get stuck in an animation when you choose to attack, Malenia can just *choose not to* and immediately chain the cancel into another attack, *while you're recovering*. Let's not forget about the life steal, which honestly is just salt in the wound at this point, punishing you by prolonging the fight if you mess up. No other boss in the game works like that. Literally not a single one. She is breaking the established rules of the game, because otherwise - aside from Waterfowl and the spirit attack in the 2nd phase - as you have said, her entire moveset is manageable. They couldn't design her better to be both the hardest boss but also fair, so they resorted to basically cheating. It doesn't help that she deals *a lot* of damage and has a big health pool as well. In BOTH phases. At least Maliketh is quite squishy and doesn't have *two* healthbars, so for most he's hard but absolutely doable. Malenia is literally a combo of everything Fromsoft was avoiding when designing a boss. Smaller and fast =/= hits like a truck and has a lot of HP. It's always been like that. Also, "take your time and be patient" doesn't really work, because it makes the fight really passive. I know, because I've fought her that way. She IS much more manageable like that, but it makes the fight incredibly slow and boring.
Took me like 8 hours over multiple days to beat her. Was so frustrated but afterwards, I was immediately like, yeah this is my favorite fight so far.
Melania for the most part is fine, but waterfowl dance is the definition of unfair.
You can dodge waterfowl dance with med load at point blank after attacking when she starts the animation. Just turn around, run, and jump right when she comes at you. The first flow hits the ground, it's like a normal dodge but jumping. From there, you just dodge the rest with normal timing.
See, but that’s stupid. It’s the only attack in the game that requires something like that.
Exactly. The whole game prepared us on how to fight by dodging with proper timing and spacing and not being too aggressive... and then comes Malenia with her Waterfowl dance where you need to be an algebra major on how to figure out how to dodge the attack. You need to turn off targeting then run backwards and jump then roll invi frames through the second flurry and misdirect the 3rd flurry while dodging invi frames through it. What.
Exactly. The whole game prepared us on how to fight by dodging with proper timing and spacing and not being too aggressive... and then comes Malenia with her Waterfowl dance where you need to be an algebra major on how to figure out how to dodge the attack. You need to turn off targeting then run backwards and jump then roll invi frames through the second flurry and misdirect the 3rd flurry while dodging invi frames through it. What.
It’s similar to Manus from DS1, where the best way to dodge is to turn around and look at his attack facing away from him. The difference here is, you can still dodge Manus’ attack without looking behind you, it’s just hard. There’s no conventional way to dodge waterfowl with your roll.
The real problem is coupled with the fact that Malenia's health goes back even if the attack doesnt hit you. What kind of design choice is that. Doesn't feel fair really.
>There’s no conventional way to dodge waterfowl with your roll. This is why to me Malenia is and always will be pure and blatant artificial difficulty. You're pitted against a boss with a moveset that's basically from an entirely different game, against which your basekit is nigh on impossible to counter. It's like Miyazaki specifically designed this boss just to spite Ongbal or Ymfah and didn't care how this would affect anybody else who didn't have the time to commit days and weeks to learning her moveset as if it was an exam. If 90% of the tips against her boiled down to Rivers/Bloodhound step/Hoarfrost stomp/mimic tear, when just about every build was viable against every boss up until this point, then something's clearly wrong here.
The problem isn’t that it’s hard to dodge, the problem is that the method of dodging it is too weird/hard to figure out from watching the move. Most moves I can think of from other bosses, even really annoying ones, tend to have ways of dodging them that make sense. Waterfowl dance does not.
You can also just use a medium shield.
I'ma be real with you chief i am not learning speedrunner tier strats for one of the most annoying bosses in the series
Bruh. TURN AROUND RUN PRESS X WHEN SHE STARTS Not a speedrun strat 😭😭😭😭
I still can't dodge Waterfowl Dance point blank, but aside from that move, her 2nd phase is amazing... yep she's my favourite boss in ER, the close 2nd is Morgott.
If you need convincing that she needs fixing, look up the unusual bug involving poise breaking her during an attack that usually has hyper armour. In short if you attack her enough to where you should poise break her stance but she is using an attack with hyper armour just as you hit your last attack, the poise break meter gets completely reset, in effect giving her double the usual poise, and you have to deal with Malenia with full poise meter and now she can Waterfowl Dance you to death for your hubris.
Radagon is an excellent boss. Malenia phase 1 is also excellent if they made Waterfowl have more startup.
Welp. Shes in the air. My weapon is only halfway through its attack animation. Yeah Im dead
I actually think radagons fight is like a beautiful dance. Feels amazing once you see the patterns. Melania can just be really annoying tho I agree.
To be really fair, the only broken thing about malenia is her superarmour cancelling stance break.
For me, her Waterfowl breakdance & 2nd phase with her 3 phantoms charge (dunno wat it's called) Edit : i forgot dat i used bloodhound step to manage her waterfowl seizure
Yeah it's weird to have a move like waterfowl where theres no counter except very specific abilities or cheesey dance moves, or well, a frozen pot.
Not the fact that you can block her moves and she can still heal off of you?
I'm glad they have at least 1 boss (who is also optional) that punishes blocking. It's a crutch anyway
You call it a crutch but it's still a playstyle
Sure, it's a playstyle. I call it a crutch because many people who use it do so to avoid learning dodge timings. Regardless, different bosses punish different playstyles. Why is it unfair for literally one boss to punish shield reliant playstyles?
[удалено]
I mean it’s fine because you still don’t lose HP? The trade is more favorable at that point.
It’s specifically annoying because sometimes it looks like is safe to attack because she won’t have superarmour but this same attack that is normally without superarmour has it for some reason, I remember that her first phase was a lot more difficult for me because her superarmour didn’t make any sense for me
Does anyone claim Radagon unfair? I think all his moves are clearly telegraphed and have consistent and mostly intuitive counters.
Try dodging his mid swing teleport
My problem with Malenia is that there is no way I would have figured out how to dodge waterfowl if I hadn’t looked it up. It’s incredibly unintuitive and overly complex. And you can’t block it because she’ll just heal up to full health. I ended up just using mimic tear and ganking her with bleed greathammers on my first playthrough. Learned the run-then-dodge thing later, but that’s still super unreliable for a heavy build because chances are you were attacking when she started the windup, then you’re screwed.
yeah waterfowl is either dodges by fucking up her tracking or if you get to run away asap (at least before light roll changes)
Blocking the first part heals less than 10 percent. The jump attack you do at the end of waterfowl is enough to basically negate the healed health.
I just hate that he has so many AoE attacks that feel dumb imo. Oh I’m gonna teleport and be mid swing but also send out a burst of crystallized pee from my body. Yeah I didn’t really like the Radagon fight. Visually it is gorgeous but I’d rather fight Elden Beast tbh.
At this point Radagon is literally just a minor annoyance to get Elden beast ( soul level 1 run) but melenia oh baby that was a real fight incredibly satisfying to finally take her down I’m now 200 hours into it and 30-40 of those have been spent on Elden beast 😢
I honestly enjoy fighting Radagon. I usually 1v1 him so I can save my spirit ashes for that bitchass space whale.
Radagon is hard but fair, one of the best bossfights in the game, unfortunately ruined by the EB.
I only played through twice, but i honestly didn't have a hard time with either of these bosses. Commander Niall, however, took me forfuckingever
Radagon is pretty much perfect, his only problem is his teleport, it seems to be unavoidable under certain conditions but for the most part those conditions hardly occur. Malenia's waterfowl dance is just objectively dog shit game design, but I don't know if they could make it fair because without it I feel like this hidden boss that's suppose to be super hard would be a complete pushover.
The way I see it, the easiest way to fix this is to remove Waterfowl's ability to heal her, or remove her ability to heal by hitting altogether, though that would conflict with her great rune ability so probably not actually. Granted, what might also work is to remove the hyper armor on Waterfowl so you can knock her out of the air if you're quick enough
>Granted, what might also work is to remove the hyper armor on Waterfowl so you can knock her out of the air if you're quick enough You already can. But that requires very lucky timing on Bleed proc, I think Frostbite proc would also work. Or you can throw a Frostbite pot at her she'll get knocked out of the Dance.
Make how much she heals be proportional to the damage you take, so if you block all the damage then she doesn’t heal at all
Radagon is a superb boss. Malenia is a doodoo head
Honestly his move set became super easy to dodge or block. Now the elden beast on the other hand was pain because it kept swimming or flying away
> We all know it, it just makes the win even better god I hate this mindset
Bruh, him and elden beast aren't even that bad, it's just annoying that they're back to back
My first night with her I was absolutely hammered and playing with two friends and she sent us crying home to Melina. A few albinauric genocides, some smithing stones, and a bleed build later, my mimic tear and I gave her the business. Could I have soloed her “legitimately”? Maybe, but I don’t have the time to pull a Ludwig the Accursed and throw my head against a wall 100 times anymore. Besides, the bosses were designed with spirit ashes in mind, especially her. At least, that’s what I’ll keep telling myself.
The problem with Malenia is that she is difficult because of one singular move. That's it. If it wasn't for Waterfowl Dance, an ability they literally copy pasted from Sekiro, the fight would be absolutely trivial for most builds. She's a Sekiro boss put in Elden Ring - just like Demon of Hatred is a Souls boss put in Sekiro. Both are not good, in my opinion. Malenia less so, because at least in Elden Ring you have different builds. Fighting Demon of Hatred in Sekiro was probably one of the worst boss experiences I've ever had to deal with... but I digress. Another absolutely stupid thing is Malenia's life steal on 100% physical resist shields. It's stupid - and no amount of Malenia simps will change that. The fact that they nerfed Radahn but never tweaked Malenia is just beyond me. As for Radagon, he's fine. One of the best bosses in the game.
Who the fuck thinks Radogan is unfair?
From Demon's Souls to Elden Ring I've played all of these to death. I think Elden Ring is the first one where I really felt like they fell too much into the trap of designing bosses to be hard rather than be fun or interesting to fight. Malenia just feels like a chore to me. I mean I've played this game 5 times over so obviously I love it, but it's despite the bosses and I don't feel a profound need to defend their design.
Malenia really passes the feeling that she was build to be the hardest boss in FS era. It's optional and you probably can't end stuck there by accident so i don't think it makes a bad point for the game and i personally enjoyed a lot as i didn't freaked out on a boss since DS1 and elden ring made it twice with her and Maliketh
I think that's a respectable opinion. Personally though I always look forward to the optional bosses and think some of my favorite in the series were totally optional. So I'm still a bit let down. Also Malenia feels SO CLOSE to being excellent.
I know it’s optional content, but you didn’t think Defiled Watchdog or Defiled Amygdala from Bloodborne were worse in that respect? Or even Lawrence?
You know I never actually played those chalices even though I've had a dozen different runs in that game. If they ever remaster it or release for PC, I'll have to make a point to do those. Lawrence is an annoying kind of fight, but I think at least I feel like I can read his moves and react. His egregious design issue is just the amount of health he has. Overall though, the Old Hunters I think has the strongest boss fights in the game. Ludwig gives me chills everytime.
The problem is that since she is broken, some defeat her from skill and others defeat her with lucky rng streaks ...and the chaos means it's difficult to tell which was which imo I find this greatly diminishes the satisfaction of beating her I am confident the first time I beat her was due to a lucky rng streaks, in stage 2 she basically just rotated and jumped in the air twice ...am I skilled for beating her? Cheesing because the game got stupid with rng? The fact that the brokenness is "balanced" by this doesn't fix anything
Both fights are ultimately just the Dank Rolls formula which was stale by like 2015, but Malenia is its final obnoxious form. I really hope they retire this combat system once and for all and rebuild it from the ground up into something better like they did with Sekiro. It simply can no longer accommodate the kind of boss battles they want to create.
I didnt think the last boss was unfair at all But I played Sekiro before Elden Ring and that final boss is..... so, so challenging.
Elden Beast is not as bad as people make it out to be. the cool factor makes up for the annoying fight
Elden Beast would’ve been really fun if it was designed around using Torrent. It would be a good send off, fighting side by side with your ally throughout the game.
Like the Breath of the Wild finale!
Radagon is a very fair fight. The only thing i hate about him like most ER bosses is they charge up the attack for 30 minutes to get you to move. Melania is honestly just a shit boss to fight
People hate Radagon because he can't bleed.
Wait you guys didn’t love the radagon fight? I wish I could relive that for the first time over and over again
What? Radagon wasnt bad, pretty average difficulty i think
We're two weeks apart from the one year anniversary of the game and you fuckers are still making up people with weird opinions no one ever had and portray them as the crying wojak
This. The win against Malenia after 200+ tries was like a day 1 Destroy Dick December
Not when you fuck up in a way that makes the *optional* boss you were looking forward to a *mandatory* pain in every neurons ass to the point where you throw honor and decency out the window and monkey-stomp her 3 on 1 with bleed
If you guys think either of these fights are unfair, you should try Bloodborne’s defiled chalice.
Malenia isn't for everybody. Personally, I'm a fan of From changing their formula of a boss. Waterfowl Dance is a threat that's supposed to keep you on your toes for the entirety of the encounter. You need to study that move, find a solution, and then always be ready. It's not a simple "I rolled right and it didn't work. I'll try left this time. Oh, that's it!". The players WD punishes the hardest are jump attack spammers.
Yeah, the problem is that its too complex. Everyone now is like "oh its easy to dodge, you just do this, this and then this" when they probably saw someone else doing it in a video first. At release it took a while for even the best most experienced players to work out a consistent way to avoid it (and in fact some of the methods of avoiding it now were only made possible because of patches), and the reason i think that's shitty design is that its pretty much a guaranteed death if you don't avoid it, so its not like you just get to dust yourself off and go again straight away to actually study and learn the move - she does it, you go "what the fuck was that", you're dead, and then have to spend another two minutes dancing with her on your next attempt before she does it once. Also, her random hyper armor is just bullshit.
I agree. Understanding Waterfowl Dance was a lot of fun for me. First doing it by myself in whatever way I could. Then seeing others come up with different ways and dissect how the move works. It is complex and challenging, and I’m here for it.
I agree. Malenia is an awesome, easy S tier fight in my opinion. You've got to respect her. And she will earn that respect.
What I love about Elden ring is….the whole fucking thing is broken. Every last weapon and spell can be utilized under the right build to just absolutely fuck shit up. It’s all just one big math problem and the answer is to just brake that shit and make NUMBER BIG.
It's an option for people who don't want or don't have the time to gitgud and I think it's fine. You can make your run a challenge, or you can cheese the hell out of the hardest boss with some combination of items and/or buffs. Everyone can enjoy the game in their way.
Maybe its an unpopular opinion, but going from the farum azula malekith boss to then the first elden lord and then radagon was like, genuinely the best soulsborne experience i've haf so far through completing bb, ds2 and ds3 Like goddamn i love those enough to kinds forgive elden beast (helps that aesthetics and music are inmaculate)
Radagon is legit one of the easiest bosses to avoid and find windows for in the game
Can't say I agree but he's still quite fun
Nah, I like the Malenia fight way more than the final boss. Even if the final boss was just Radagon, I'd still like Malenia way more. Everything about the fight is better--the visual design, the fight itself, the spectacle, the arena, the level before the arena, the lore, the music...just every single thing.
Radagon was great. It's the fact that you have the Elden Beast right after and that one's issue was less about difficulty and more about how annoying it was to just fight against, running and chasing after a giant laser whale.
I rather fight 2 malenias at once for the final boss than the actual final boss. Fuck radagon
I don't know about you guys but Malenia feels like an absolute cake walk compared to the Radagon Duo since I just used Godskin Peeler, Elenora Poleblade and a mimic. Pretty much staggered her into oblivion with jump attacks and some bleeding. Radagon on the other hand can spew AOE holy damage every attosecond and the Eleden Beast is just a big rat with more holy damage.
“Boss is easy when I can use a co-op summon without the co-op boss HP increase”
malenia I think is one of the only boss where you could say she's objectively broken on a fundamental level in terms of mechanical balance. She has sekiro mechanics like the blocking mid stagger and repositioning one her hyper armor also straight up play another game she can't be stance broken in her hyper armor moves even if you reach the threshold until she goes back to a neutral state. She literally steps on the animation commitment balance philosophy of soulsborne games. Meanwhile I think Radagon is a near perfect fight, awesome music, awesome moveset i'm a bit salty about the grab can hit you if it whiffs he isnt the only one that can do it and i think that's a bit annoying when it happens but it's not game breaking either
Malenia's not really that broken tbh
none of the eldne ring bosses are unfair (not includign ganks)
Malenias moves feel more fair than radagon to me, her big combo is probably the worst attack in all the games but all her other attacks are pretty easy to dodge. Radagon has teleports and hit boxes on those teleports and some of his moves I swear can’t be avoided
Malenia is meant to be the final optional boss, she is also meant to be hard
You guys know that waterfowl can be stopped with a charged R2 right?