[Spoilers] Worst Souls Boss

[SlippingJimy]

For anyone struggling I beat Melania first go without being hit. Use the Ancient Death rancor spell which is like a upgraded rock sling. Just smashed her to bits, with high spell cast rate and stagger knockdown, mimic tear +10 did the rest of the work.

 

Use azur glintstone staff, ragadons Icon and green turtle for higher spell cast rate. And make sure you replenish your FP as soon as you run out so you don't allow Melania to recoup and target you. TBH I was disappointed with how easy it was, as everyone was saying it hardest boss. Melee only build yes I imagine it could be. Bleed and rivers of blood would help that.

 

Black knife tiche and fire Giant I had the most trouble with the amount of deaths in the game.

 

https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Ancient+Death+Rancor

Edited March 29, 2022 by SlipingJimmy

[Cyphronite_]

The worst boss definitely is the last boss. The first phase is just BS. the second phase is ok, but I’m not sure I would have beaten him without Tiches Scarlet rot. 
 

that said I loved the design of the endboss encounter 

[Komrade_Dusty]

On 3/28/2022 at 4:48 AM, PhantomFear94 said:

Mimic Tear +10 and Wing of Astel +10 helped me immensely the twice I've gone through this game, I even made a thread about how stuck I was on here, but this fight isn't too bad with this set-up. Helps I was 90+ intelligence.  

 

Wing of Astel is an insanely underrated weapon (I think, haven't seen much on it). It's weapon art at +10 is very, very powerful and it's a pretty easy weapon to find, too. If you can stay close whilst it focuses on your +10 Mimic Tear Ashes you should get through it pretty easily. Tend to either get demolished or do it in 60-90 seconds, with little in between, but it's much faster overall than other methods. If you can get a good 5-10 seconds where the Beast is distracted by your Mimic, the fight is yours.

 

Mimic Tear +10 and Wing of Astel + 10 was what I was using. Maybe I just had some bad luck. Every time I would get close it would dive under the water or go into the sky, summoning the circles and forcing me to back off. It would then pepper me as I approached. I eventually beat it, but it was a really tough fight.

 

Malenia was contained, but with enough room to maneuver which made it much easier. Whether she was chasing me or my mimic the other would just spam Loretta's Great Bow which can reach across the entire room and has very good homing. It was basically just constant DPS on her. I struggled with the fight, no two ways about it, but my build worked much better for that fight. Elden Beast was just almost always out of range of my spells. I could definitely see Malenia being much harder if you had a melee build.

[Domino_Destructo]

Malenia can't handle dual katana bleed builds. If you want to have a quick and easy fight as a melee build, here's what you need:

 

- Mimic +10 (duh)

- Rivers of Blood +10

- Uchigatana +25 with Seppuku ash of war

 

Talismans:

- Lord of Blood's Exultation - Increases attack power by 20% for 20 seconds when a nearby player or enemy is inflicted with blood loss.

- Rotten Winged Sword Insignia - Greatly raises attack power with successive attacks.

- Shard of Alexander - Greatly boosts the attack power of skills.

 

Crystal Tears:

- Thorny Cracked Tear - Makes consecutive attacks grow stronger

- Flame-Shrouding Cracked Tear - Temporarily boosts the power of fire attacks

 

Strategy:

Summon Mimic, use the Seppuku skill to inflict blood loss so you can buff yourself, then heal and use the flask of physics.

Right after that run up to Malenia and spam the Corpse Piler skill from your Rivers of Blood katana. It will stagger her, inflict blood loss and out-damage the healing effect from attacking the Mimic. Once you run out of FP, start spamming L1 attacks. With just a few successful combos you will be buffed so hard that you will deal thousands of damage with just a few hits, making this boss look like a joke.

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Domino_Destructo

[PhantomFear94]

On 29/03/2022 at 0:21 PM, SlipingJimmy said:

For anyone struggling I beat Melania first go without being hit. Use the Ancient Death rancor spell which is like a upgraded rock sling. Just smashed her to bits, with high spell cast rate and stagger knockdown, mimic tear +10 did the rest of the work.

 

Use azur glintstone staff, ragadons Icon and green turtle for higher spell cast rate. And make sure you replenish your FP as soon as you run out so you don't allow Melania to recoup and target you. TBH I was disappointed with how easy it was, as everyone was saying it hardest boss. Melee only build yes I imagine it could be. Bleed and rivers of blood would help that.

 

Black knife tiche and fire Giant I had the most trouble with the amount of deaths in the game.

 

https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Ancient+Death+Rancor

 

I tried this and it didn't go that well. Maybe was doing it wrong, or because I was using the meteor staff? Not sure. It did some damage but not to the extent of Swarm of Flies. 

 

Black Knife Tiche fucking sucks, forgot about that fight. I ended up drawing it to the rocks on the west side. It makes the fight quite a bit easier. Some can freeze-cheese it; I never could, but it's general attack patterns are slower there and I found it would take 3-4 rock sling hits in a row if I got it to the right position. 

[starcrunch061]

Ah, this thread has Soulstink in it now, descending too often into technical nonsense between "Soulz is 2 RNG!" and "Git gud". 

 

But there are a few good (well, bad) bosses listed here. I'll comment on them:

• Malenia isn't a great boss, which is a shame, because she should be one. Her flower attack in her second phase isn't RNG (because...obviously), but that doesn't mean it's not a stupid-ass attack. It's pretty much a 1HKO, and while yeah, it's not terribly hard to deal with, the appropriate response is counter-intuitive. I could live with that if it was, say, an intro attack in the fight (such as the initial attack of the Capra Demon back in Dark Souls), but the fact that you have to go through an entire boss fight (and a non-trivial one) to see it once is just bullshit design. Her slice-and-dice move is another annoying one. It is horribly counter-intuitive to roll towards her when she does her final bit of it, but at least you see this in the first phase. Still, the worst part of her battle is her hit point absorption. I could live with it...if she didn't absorb HP on blocks as well (not that I block that often, anyway, but it's still BS). I agree that there is a great fight somewhere in the Malenia boss battle. It's a shame it's not the one here.
• The same can be said for Elden Beast. I honestly felt like the last bosses were tacked on nonsense, story-wise and gameplay-wise. I don't know why the first Elden Lord isn't the final boss; it makes the Elden Beast seem like Necron from FFIX (not that I like the Hoarah Loux fight). I didn't have much trouble with this pair of bosses, but it had nothing to do with skill. I had no idea what was going on in the second part of the battle. I won it, but honestly, I couldn't tell you the first thing about that fight. It was the most forgettable experience of the game, and given the number of people who hate that fight, Im rather glad for that. All I know is that the first battle was over in seconds (using magic), and the second one was...wonky.
• Fire Giant is another one that was mostly forgettable for me, except for one weird thing. I only learned later that there were two phases to the battle. I fought him as normal, bringing his health down to one hit, and then a cut scene occurred. I figured I was about to be presented with a choice of sparing him or killing him, and then the cut scene ended and he attacked, so I killed him.
• Black Knife Tiche is a terrible fight. I must have dodged 10,000 times in the battle. But I'll give it one thing: it was one of the few fights where I was forced to learn the movesets of the boss. (Also, no one mentions this, but no enemy seems to dodge Night Shard. It doesn't do a lot of damage, but it is consistent, and it will stagger enemies after a while. It's great for the annoying in-game invasions; you can just sit back and hit them at range, and they just take it.)
• Hoarah Loux is my honorable mention for worst boss fight. His infinite radius stomp attack is one of the most annoying attacks I've witnessed. Again, it's not hard once you know what to do, but then again, neither is a Ph.D. dissertation on holomorphic vector fields.

But when it comes down to it, nothing is worst than those stupid tree beasts. It's not a matter of being unable to beat a boss. It's a design issue, and the design of those bosses is absolutely...putrid.

 

Edited April 1, 2022 by starcrunch061

[Seasonreaper]

Having beaten every boss in this game now, I'd definitely say Alecto, Black Knife Ringleader is the most bullshit. Obnoxiously tanky, constantly dodging, no summons because it's an Evergaol, and the attack where they hop up in the air and slam down in a massive AoE that for some reason hurts more than practically any other thing in the game AND inflicts a DoT seemed to be purely random as to whether it hit me or went somewhere completely different. Also you can fall off a cliff in one part of the arena and that actually deactivates the Stake of Marika for some reason which is dumb. At least it gives you Tiche, who is probably the biggest candidate for the next summon to be nerfed in a patch because fuck me is she strong.

 

Hourah Loux also sucks, SPECIFICALLY for his arenawide unblockable stomp that he can spam repeatedly whenever he feels like or in between other attacks. It's not even that dangerous but god damn is it annoying and honestly ruins the whole fight, and it wasn't even that great a fight to begin with.

 

Melania would honestly be fine if they just tweaked her Waterfowl slightly. Make her first AoE slightly faster, but have her not move during it, and it'd be balanced. Right now she can just teleport right to you across half the arena and keep going so if you're in melee range when she starts floating you're fucked. If she just did her first hit there and THEN dashed for her followup swipes I feel it'd be a lot more enjoyable whilst keeping it a threat. Other than that, she's fine.

 

Radahn is also fine. Radagon is fine. Fire Giant is fine. Elden Beast is OK if a little disappointing mechanically but my god is it a spectacle. Placidusax is cool as hell and is fine.

 

But fuck Alecto specifically.

[steel6burgh]

On 3/31/2022 at 9:26 AM, Domino_Destructo said:

Malenia can't handle dual katana bleed builds. If you want to have a quick and easy fight as a melee build, here's what you need:

 

- Mimic +10 (duh)

- Rivers of Blood +10

- Uchigatana +25 with Seppuku ash of war

 

Talismans:

- Lord of Blood's Exultation - Increases attack power by 20% for 20 seconds when a nearby player or enemy is inflicted with blood loss.

- Rotten Winged Sword Insignia - Greatly raises attack power with successive attacks.

- Shard of Alexander - Greatly boosts the attack power of skills.

 

Crystal Tears:

- Thorny Cracked Tear - Makes consecutive attacks grow stronger

- Flame-Shrouding Cracked Tear - Temporarily boosts the power of fire attacks

 

Strategy:

Summon Mimic, use the Seppuku skill to inflict blood loss so you can buff yourself, then heal and use the flask of physics.

Right after that run up to Malenia and spam the Corpse Piler skill from your Rivers of Blood katana. It will stagger her, inflict blood loss and out-damage the healing effect from attacking the Mimic. Once you run out of FP, start spamming L1 attacks. With just a few successful combos you will be buffed so hard that you will deal thousands of damage with just a few hits, making this boss look like a joke.

 

To add to this you can just use the swarm of flies spell and stand way back and spam it at her as it staggers her and your mimic tear will destroy her up close.  Swarm of flies and a level 10 mimic tear make this difficult boss fight one of the easiest. mimic will rip her apart when she is being staggered.  I didn't even have to get close to her and didn't have level 10 katanas i had the dagger at 10 and swarm of flies and a level 7 or 8 katana.  mimic tear was at 10.

[dragonending]

As long as you can get through the first phase, you can use Comet Azur on the second phase for most of her health, and rock sling for the rest. For the first phase, it’s a bit RNG. Let your mimic use the moonveil+10 (or any melee weapon) so that she will have less time attacking you.

 

Similarly, Fire Giant and Elden Beast’s second phase can be cheesed with Comet Azur as well.

 

For any field fights in which you cannot use mimic, you can step out on the opposite side where the boss will be shown, and use Comet Azur to one shot the boss.

 

Comet Azur is really OP in this game. I played the PS5 version after patch 1.03 was released, and had to fight most of the bosses legitimately, and it helped tremendously. When I played the PS4 version again, I tried to get it as early as possible and get the platinum within 24 hours (according to the game’s statistics).

Edited April 4, 2022 by dragonending

[Copanele]

I might be the only person who liked Hoarah Loux--sorry, Hoarah Loux, WARRIOR!!!!

I couldn't help but laugh when I saw this imposing yet noble first Elden Lord go "I've shown thee courtesy enough" or something, kills his pet lion like a mad lad, starts gorilla yelling and the first thing he does in phase 2 is going Randy Orton slamdunk boom shakalaka on your ass. I don't know, that felt peak Fromsoft moment for me  

His ground slams were annoying but my god they were reactable at last! No more "ah you dodged that? YOU FOOL YOU FELL INTO MY WINDUP AGAIN"

 

After re-analyzing the game's bosses, I can't say Malenia is the worst of them all. Her healing mechanic through shields feels bullshit not gonna lie but eh, there's ways to beat that for any build.

However I think I'll give 2 awards for other least favorite bosses:

• least favorite (broken) - Putrid Tree. The greatest challenge is managing to rein in the goddamn camera that goes yeehaw nonstop while this fucker slithers around. And every arena you fight this boss turned regular boss turned 3 bosses in one arena is a goddamn pain. Whether it's a confined space or a stupid rot swamp, it's NEVER fun to fight this sucker. Starcrunch061 was right on this one.
• least favorite (disappointing) - Mohg Lord of Blood. Normally he would be an amazing boss EXCEPT his Nihil attack. Unless you find a very specific item (that I didn't find because honestly I was sick of his stupid one shotting map with one shotting birds and one shotting albino sonics), you will have a DPS race against him. I really really REALLY disliked this particular aspect so I just went Mimic Tear on his ass. He didn't even make me want to learn his fight, just wanted to be done with him.

Honorable mention - Elden Beast. Radagon was amazing. Elden Beast was...uhuh, so why are you a thing? Whatever time to apply blade to ...face....belly...jelly. Not making me want to care about the final boss of a fromsoft game is quite a ball dropping moment.

 

[ThirdAwakening]

Mimic Tear can tank two Waterfowl Dances after the nerf, at least with my 51 Vigor.

 

Malenia is critically weak to Blasphemer’s Blade, she can’t do a damn thing once she gets hit by the first blast, and if she even does manage to touch you, you life steal it back. 
 

Champion Gundyr is way worse than Nameless King. I’ll never forget the circular area right in front of his fog gate being completely covered in bloodstains. Shame I lost the picture of it. 

[Durandart]

The worst fight, in my opinion are the ones i beat first try.
I like a challenge but most of the dungeon bosses are just like bigger mobs.

My MVP was the beast in the crystal cave of sellia, his Gravity attack fills almost the whole area and killed me in one hit.
Radhan was also pretty hard but i was there with Level 60 or less.

After the City i discovered the mimic tear. (someone told me this is good) and yeah after that all bosses (when i used it) were just Easy Peasy.

Melania needed some tries but only the first phase.
I really liked the One hit K.O in the second phase, its Miyazakis Style to say „Yeah you still playing my game“.
The 3rd time i was able to dodge the attack, my Azurs Comet was doing the rest, when the flower was over she needed 1 or 2 hits so no second phase for me.

 

Mogh was to easy with the Mimic, i shouldn’t have used it, didnt even use the drink with the Pearl to avoid the Blood thing. He killed me 2 times and then i tried the Tear for the first time in a Boss fight, this dude(The tear) was crazy.

 

Elden beast was not really cool, but just because of his Magic attack who follows you a long time and the fact he was just running away.

 

I was using Dual Kats, Moon Veil +10 and Frost Katana +25, also Magic, Rennalas Staff +10 with Ranis Moon and Azurs Comet most of the time.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Durandart

[Durandart]

2 hours ago, Copanele said:

I might be the only person who liked Hoarah Loux--sorry, Hoarah Loux, WARRIOR!!!!

 

• least favorite (broken) - Putrid Tree. The greatest challenge is managing to rein in the goddamn camera that goes yeehaw nonstop while this fucker slithers around. And every arena you fight this boss turned regular boss turned 3 bosses in one arena is a goddamn pain. Whether it's a confined space or a stupid rot swamp, it's NEVER fun to fight this sucker. Starcrunch061 was right on this one.
• least favorite (disappointing) - Mohg Lord of Blood. Normally he would be an amazing boss EXCEPT his Nihil attack. Unless you find a very specific item (that I didn't find because honestly I was sick of his stupid one shotting map with one shotting birds and one shotting albino sonics), you will have a DPS race against him. I really really REALLY disliked this particular aspect so I just went Mimic Tear on his ass. He didn't even make me want to learn his fight, just wanted to be done with him.

 

I liked Hoarah too.

 

Fun Fact:

Spoiler

You get the Item to avoid the Nihil attack from a Purtid Tree next to Haus Vulkan.  

 

 

[DrBloodmoney]

Looks like I am going to be the only one to say this one (and maybe more to do with my particular build)  but there was really only one boss who caused me a huge amount of trouble on both NG and NG+. (There were some that were one way around or the other, but very few that caused a big problem in both.)

 

It wasn't even one of the "prestige" or particularly memorable ones for any design or combat reason.... : Borealis the Freezing Fog.

 

Man, that dammed dragon's ability to jump around the lake, somehow always be behind me, and blast freezing AoE that was huge, and would both stun-lock me, and melt my health in one go was a pain in the butt from start to finish!

Edited April 4, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[SaySykesRN]

On 08/03/2022 at 1:51 AM, IncelJoe said:

  Hide contents

Malenia

is the only thing stopping me from platinum. Bed of Chaos and Royal Rat Authority for better designed than this boss. The amount of health she can heal in one combo is ridiculous, the scarlet rot is annoying and the boss would be better off without it, and attacks like the whirlwind move are hard as fuck to dodge and one shot. Even if the dual katana cheese I'm still dying to the stupidest shit in this fight. Elden Ring's late game brought the game down so much. Dark Souls 2 is more enjoyable

 

This has to be bait? Either that or you’re just bad, malenia is one of the best bosses in the game, she’s actually a challenge, there’s only 3-4 of those in this game, and she’s a very fun fight

[Iksde]

I found Ranni's Dark Moon to work wonders during this fight. For the second phase, I used Comet Azure to get a massive chunk of her hp down and finished her with Ranni's Dark Moon. If the boss was too close to me, and I knew that it'd be impossible to finish casting RDM, I used Adula's Moonblade. 

 

Summon: Mimic Tear +10

Equipment: Snow Witch Hat, Carian Regal Scepter +10 (things that really matter :p)

Flask: Cerulean Hidden Tear and Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear

Talismans: Radagon Icon, Radagon's Soreseal, Graven-Mass Talisman, and Erdtree's Favor. 

 

 

[Domino_Destructo]

8 hours ago, Seasonreaper said:

But fuck Alecto specifically.

 

Alecto used to whoop my ass until I realized that most of the damage I was taking came from her poising through my attacks and trading with me. The best approach here is to patiently dodge her attacks and punish only the ones that take her more time to recover from.

 

Quote

Hourah Loux also sucks, SPECIFICALLY for his arenawide unblockable stomp that he can spam repeatedly whenever he feels like or in between other attacks. It's not even that dangerous but god damn is it annoying and honestly ruins the whole fight, and it wasn't even that great a fight to begin with.

 

It can be annoying at first, but those attacks are pretty well telegraphed and it's 100% avoidable with rolling and jumping.

 

IMO Malenia and Elden Beast are the worst. Malenia because of her hard to avoid waterfowl combo and healing. Elden Beast because of the barrage of bullshit it is throwing at me once its HP goes below 50%.

[wackt1]

Damn, y'all have never played some of the DLCs for the other souls game yet. The bosses there are all harder than melenia.

Secondely, just summon for the fight

Edited April 4, 2022 by wackt1

[Domino_Destructo]

On 4.04.2022 at 3:06 PM, wackt1 said:

Damn, y'all have never played some of the DLCs for the other souls game yet. The bosses there are all harder than melenia.

 

Lol what? I think they were easier and completely manageable solo, without any cheesing. In Elden Ring I feel like some of the bosses are cheesing me.

Edited November 18, 2022 by Domino_Destructo

[starcrunch061]

6 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Looks like I am going to be the only one to say this one (and maybe more to do with my particular build)  but there was really only one boss who caused me a huge amount of trouble on both NG and NG+. (There were some that were one way around or the other, but very few that caused a big problem in both.)

 

It wasn't even one of the "prestige" or particularly memorable ones for any design or combat reason.... : Borealis the Freezing Fog.

 

Man, that dammed dragon's ability to jump around the lake, somehow always be behind me, and blast freezing AoE that was huge, and would both stun-lock me, and melt my health in one go was a pain in the butt from start to finish!

 

I actually like that fight. Most of the field fights were duds, but Borealis kept pace. I had to think about it a lot.

 

3 hours ago, wackt1 said:

Damn, y'all have never played some of the DLCs for the other souls game yet. The bosses there are all harder than melenia.

 

The only DLC fight I would put even near Malenia is Fume Knight. I thought Malenia was genuinely hard, even without her 1HKO ability. I really think she's a great boss in theory, but shitty in design.

 

She's the only boss I re-specced for, in any Souls game.

Edited April 4, 2022 by starcrunch061

[ThirdAwakening]

5 hours ago, wackt1 said:

Damn, y'all have never played some of the DLCs for the other souls game yet. The bosses there are all harder than melenia.

Secondely, just summon for the fight

Sir Alonne puts way more pressure on you than Malenia, especially as a Caster. Waterfowl is very telegraphed, Sir Alonne can gap close and stay in your face easily. 

[RoastedPeanut]

I actually really enjoyed the Malenia fight. I'm a mage so I tried my best to keep my distance and just keep firing away with night comet. My mimic did an amazing job of holding agro and spaming Ranni's Dark Moon whenever it had a chance.

I'm looking forward to respecing and having another run in NG+

 

Now Putrid Tree Spirit on the other hand. Nope! Just nope. Awful fight. When I saw TWO in the courtyard towards the end of the game? Hell no. I mean at least in this instance the area wasn't the size of a shoebox, but there was no way I was going to deal with two. Elden Ring sure loved its duo fights

[Seasonreaper]

3 hours ago, RoastedPeanut said:

I actually really enjoyed the Malenia fight. I'm a mage so I tried my best to keep my distance and just keep firing away with night comet. My mimic did an amazing job of holding agro and spaming Ranni's Dark Moon whenever it had a chance.

I'm looking forward to respecing and having another run in NG+

 

Now Putrid Tree Spirit on the other hand. Nope! Just nope. Awful fight. When I saw TWO in the courtyard towards the end of the game? Hell no. I mean at least in this instance the area wasn't the size of a shoebox, but there was no way I was going to deal with two. Elden Ring sure loved its duo fights

 

Fun fact, there's actually three of them down there. Luckily there's only one item down there and you can just leave since they don't drop anything useful.

 

13 hours ago, wackt1 said:

Damn, y'all have never played some of the DLCs for the other souls game yet. The bosses there are all harder than melenia.

Secondely, just summon for the fight

 

The only ones that are harder than Malenia are Friede, Orphan of Kos and maybe Gael imho. Meanwhlie Malenia is the only thing in Elden Ring that even comes close to any of those in difficulty, hoping we get something else on that level if we get DLC.

[Nieird]

For me first time I encounter the big bears in mistwood ruins were harder than any boss.

[Copanele]

16 minutes ago, Nieird said:

For me first time I encounter the big bears in mistwood ruins were harder than any boss.

Well said lmao, I can't help but agree here  even after beating Malenia, I still don't feel confident enough against those monsters. 

 

Now that I think of it...I still haven't defeated the bear in Dragonbarrow cave. That enemy is vicious!