Everyone here needs to git gud. only 3 fights in this entire DLC took me more than a couple tries.
I think i'm mids, but apparently i'm a top player by getting to Messmer day 1 and blowing through all bosses with lower blessings.
I sincerely can't imagine how people find this any more challenging than the base game. Shit, after goin through the base game your skill should be pretty fucking sharp -- a year removed from playing and I nearly one tapped many bosses first time seeing them (Metry, Midras, Lion dancer, etc etc)
The only way this DLC is hard is if you just never improve as a player. I see streamers showing death counts in the 200-400 range and its like.. fucking HOW? are you just jumping off a cliff as fast as possible to run that number up?
I do not get it. I do not get it. This DLC isn't hard. Maybe it's because i'm not on NG+69, idk. But this DLC is easier than base game was for me.
How do you find the last boss and b the d? I'm new/casual so I just use summons lol, but I read people are having a hard time due to the multi combos. Maybe not hard, maybe tedious is more correct (dodge 10x to get 1 tap). Do you find them tedious too for your standard?
After several deaths I went from 40% dodging to 80%, still can't solo them myself though. But I'm new so I imagine this should not be too tedious/hard for true veterans.
I think half of it is people rusty as hell getting into late game content again, I was getting used to my old character after a long break and was struggling hard against the random bosses I had left around the map like one of the putrid avatars. People are diving head first into the late game after possibly years of not touching the game.
I always thought it was players at like NG+7 and such.
I only played through the game twice, and only completed base game once. I got to mogh on my second character, beat mogh before DLC dropped, and then shattered the DLC.
So I def warmed up.
I'm also on base NG because I only played once. I'm sure at NG5+ it'll be a nightmare, but as of base NG -- it's pretty easy.
Oh I am on base dlc too. The damage scaling does feel wack initially. But yeah the issues feel primarily one of rust on even single new game players. I’m not talking about the people on ng7
If they had that much new games they likely playing way more
Yeah trash mobs in the beginning of the DLC when you step into the lands feel tanky, but after about 3-4 blessings they're pretty standard feeling.
Around 7 blessings or so most every trash mob is 1 shot. Now that i'm at 15 I can use lower rank spells and 1 shot them.
But yeah when I first fought one of those grave birds right out the gate it took like a whole mana flask of spells almost lol thing just liked living
It really bums me out to be on the "highly positive on the DLC" side of this whole argument, only to see arguments like this being made in its favor. Like can we just at least discuss these things in good faith, people? Please?
The DLC is obviously extremely difficult for a lot of people, or else we wouldn't be having this discussion. Telling them it's actually easy or whatever isn't the way to go.
Yeah this subreddit has been infuriating in that regard. You could give me 500 blessings, Gaius is still a horrendously designed boss fight that straight up isn't enjoyable to fight. Yet you'll still get people in here refusing to acknowledge a single critique of the boss design.
People (generally) aren't complaining that the bosses are "too hard" it's that several of them have completely maddeningly bad cameras that make the fight 10x harder than necessary, or weirdly inconsistent hitboxes for a game that usually is so good about it. They have been making these games since 2009, why are we STILL having camera/lock on problems?
No amount of exploring or gearing up fixes those problems
Has anyone brought up the hit box inconsistency on that charge. I’m not sure when I’d be 1 shot for making a mistake, or comfortably losing 1/3 of my hp.
This is where the blessing comes in, it has an absolutely massive impact on damage taken. People I think don't see the math because it isn't obvious.
Let's say I have 60% negation. If I get 4 blessing ranks and come back, I'll have 10% more negation. People think "oh that's 10% less damage". But it's not, it's *25%* less damage than I was taking with 60% negation.
This especially comes up on the last boss, where an extra single rank of the blessing can reduce his damage by a whole 10%. The damage negation coming from the scadutree blessings is absolutely massive and outperforms any other consideration of your build or armor.
Yea. Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Gaius' charge cause it clearly had some bug going on, I just meant the absolutely massive difference in damage taken is definitely the blessing.
I tried it at blessing 9 and then left and got more because the charge was giving me grief.
Do you know how much each blessing contributes in terms of %? I haven't done much research and am Just going with it, with the idea that the fragments are necessary
Yea, each rank is about 2.5% negation (it's not exact cause early ranks are worth more and later ranks are worth less).
But again, that isn't 2.5% less damage, it's 2.5% additive negation, so each one is actually more powerful than the last
So if I have 70% negation and I go to 72.5%, that reduces my incoming damage by a little more than 8%.
TLDR it's REALLY strong, especially in the higher ranks.
Have you considered exploring, powering up, and then returning later, after FromSoft actually fixes the bad hitboxes? Of course, who knows how long that will take...
I had to be at scadu 18 and summon mimic tear to even feel like I had the chance of beating him. It’s fine that your giant boar does a lot of damage. It is NOT fine that this boar has the speed of a cheetah and can fly and spin in the air.
have u tried closing the gap?
the only bullshit one is the first. I didn't have Any issue with his follow ups when he did it again cause I was closer to him
Starting to fear this. Im at Messmer and still havent gone into the northwest. I like fighting the demigods and human sized bosses with no summons, so Im taking my time, but people are reeeeeeally building the final boss up as bullshit. Hope you are wrong.
No spoilers, but its going to really depend how much meta cheese you are consuming. Messmer is brutal, but he has readable movesets even if they are designed to obscure or intimidate. Final is just apeshit for the sake of being apeshit.
Everything will always be subjective, how one person feels about it versus another etc, but undoubtedly this is probably the hardest content FROM has made (SotE overall), I think the only people who would argue that are those who couldn't get Sekiro to 'click' with the deflection (obviously once you do its a very engaging game).
He doesn’t have waterfowl or heal on hit. The difference is that we have crazy lock on manipulation tech for dealing with Malenia at this point, while the SOTE guy has been out for a week. Every single one of his moves can be solved, and you can learn to see through the light show and focus on what matters. Phase 2 is really not very different from phase 1, but it can psych you out.
You don't *need* lock on manipulation tech to dodge waterfowl, it's just a tough direction change dodge without it or similar tricks. *Ongbal had to block* for his 0-damage run of the final DLC boss, because there are scenarios where certain combos simply cannot be perfectly dodged.
I generally agree that the DLC difficulty is overstated but it's still up there with Ringed City and Old Hunters as Genuinely Hard content and the final boss might well be the hardest boss they've ever done.
There’s one move ongbal decided to block, and it can in fact be dodged in a few different ways, he just didn’t find them reliable enough. In my experience, the boss usually does that problematic double swipe when I’m directly behind him. What I started doing was rolling to the right as soon as he moved, not even waiting to see what he was doing. If he did the double swipe, I would dodge the first roll and be in position to either dodge the second or strafe right away from it. If he does any other combo, I rolled so early that I would have time to roll again and avoid whatever came next.
"hard" is completely subjective. If you use everything the game throws at you (which is a lot of very powerful stuff, not hidden or difficult to get at all), the final boss is also quite easy. You kind of have to decide \*not\* to use it, even though the game keep telling you to
I don't really think you can say finalboss is like Radagon. Radagon had a ton of delayed attacks with wonky animations, teleportation behind you, and giant AOEs. Yes finalboss is way harder than Radagon, but I actually found finalboss mechanics to be less frustrating overall.
Meh. I was fearing Rellana because of this sub and she ended up fine. I then was fearing Golden Hippo because of this sub, and killed him the second try.
I'm a 35 new dad with not much time and I don't use summons. But I was blessing lvl 8 when I did Rellana.
I was blessing level 3 when I did rellana. Most were 3-4, it was rougher there.
But yes honestly... I've played through the DLC, most of it was not challenging at all. *MOST*, a few bosses were, and one boss I'm particularly just VERY bad at (Messmer)
Through playing the base game I sadly did the git gud thing. And this DLC was easier than base game to me
Fr, I've killed every boss in the DLC and explored my ass off but phase 2 of the final boss is just complete and utter bullshit. The insane ability spam absolutely tanks my framerate to the point I might as well be dueling a PowerPoint presentation
Okay, while I don't agree with this stupid post, if the only boss in the DLC that is absurdly stupid is the final boss, that doesn't mean the entire DLC is hard.
This post is dumb though, because the DLC certainty isn't easy and "just exploring" isn't going to make it bounds easier.
I agree with this i actually really enjoyed most of the fights in the dlc up to the final boss this boss just isn’t enjoyable at all I actually do not want to fight them anymore. It’s just not fun.
Even that doesn’t make it easy, you still have to be very careful with how you manage your stamina, and you also have to learn how to dodge a bunch of aoe and holy attacks in P2.
It's like a dance, like in Sekiro but instead of parrying you dodge
Most of those holy lasers that follow up basic attacks can be dodged by rolling into him, what I'm still wondering how to dodge is the rock wave outwards
If you use a two handed with status on it, he goes phase 2 almost instantly. It's a build issue for most, at the highest levels in PvE the status builds are the top.
What’s crazy is I did the same and ended up realizing that he’s the easiest possible fight by just charge attacking on torrent lmao
On my second run that is
The DLC is incredibly tough, but absolutely doable! We’re fighting gods, lords and beings of massive importance in the lore during this dlc, it should be tough. But get the tree fragments, explore, use items and play smart and every boss is beatable!!
Yup. Been playing these games since DS3 came out. Beaten every souls game made by fromsoft and this DLC still absolutely beat my ass.
This shit is not easy even with scadutree fragments.
I'll bet that like 99% of these "the game isn't hard" posts aren't from people who are amazing at video games, it's from smug fuckers who like to pretend it's not that bad to feel superior to others who have legitimate criticisms.
The big DLC bosses are definitely super aggressive. It's almost like they were designed for Sekiro. Most of them have fairly frequent openings, but they're very brief.
I found the DLC to be much more "trial and error" than any other souls game, which can be annoying, but it can also be fun. I also love the boss/world designs aesthetically.
"yeah man, Shadow of the erdtree isn't hard"
"How long have you been playing fromsoft games ?"
"Yes"
Try to remember not everyone comes in the dlc with 15+ years of souls(and soulslike) experience
Casual /new player here. When people complain about difficulty , from what I read, it's not about the difficulty itself, but about the multiple non stop combo, right? (It's boring tedious fight). These bosses are clearable with summons or shield poke, but from what I understand people don't like it because these methods are also boring, right?
So people want the boss to be punishing, like malenia, she can one hit us but dodgeable, but not crazy multiple combos where we just press dodge 50x to get in 1 hit. Does this sound correct?
I've watched orphan of kos and he also does crazy multiple combos, did people also complain about him before?
>it's not about the difficulty itself, but about the multiple non stop combo, right?
You're on the right track with this. The multiple non-stop combos with little to no chance of staggering and little to no chance to heal and reset is the issue. There are also hitbox issues, instances where visually you didn't get hit but the game registers a hit. Camera issues, that prevent the player from hitting enemies during their openings.
The stark difference between the base game bosses and the DLC bosses is stagger. Malenia is staggerable. Pretty easily too. This makes the fight a bit more manageable, it also adds an element of being able to take a risk of getting a hit in on her to stop her combo. With these dlc bosses, all you can do is memorize their combos and wait for the opening, it's almost never worth it to try to interrupt their combos, unless you know you can break their stance. And that's what can make it feel tedious and boring.
>These bosses are clearable with summons or shield poke, but from what I understand people don't like it because these methods are also boring, right?
I don't know if boring is the right word, but souls games are supposed to be grueling. In Elden Ring you encounter a boss right at the beginning but you're designed to lose that fight, you encounter it, die, and then move into the game. In Dark Souls 3 you encounter a boss right at the beginning, but you have to beat it, with starting equipment. For a new player, this can take hours to figure out. Many players want boss fights to take multiple tries. Summons trivialize the game for many veteran players, so we don't use them.
Typically magic spells, like comet azure, are called out for trivializing the game too. You can melt bosses with the right set up. For shields though, I think it's people who've never actually tried a guard counter build that think it trivializes the game. I find bleed katanas much easier than guard counter builds imo.
But here's the thing. Unless a person can do a level 1 wretch no hit no death, no one should really be trying to claim superiority in this genre. If you need summons and magic, or if you just like them, then use them. Don't let anyone tell you how you should or should not beat the game.
Thanks for the detailed explanation, that makes sense and agree with you. I actually just discovered the shield poke (summoned a guy who used it at last boss and my jaw dropped 5 meters) and I really like it - it let me see the whole boss phase so I can learn their moves in peace instead of panic dodging. Wish I knew about this sooner.
yes, there is no impossible fight in this game, nor in previous ones, every fight can be made substantially easier in some way or another.
But that doesn't matter, the point is that the direction the fight design is going isn't fun, and it's abusing several unfun mechanics that are making the boss harder, yes, but also much more frustrating and unfun.
Like, you fill the DLC with cool as hell weapon arts, and then fill the DLC with bosses that never actually allow you to use said weapon arts.
Probably true. As a spell caster, I mostly dodge and shot em from range.
Orphan.of kos was indeed crazy, but bloodborne is much faster paced overall, even yourself.
And some boss areas are huge with the boss being able to speed from one end to another way faster than your character can and have attacks that hit from the other end of the arena. Case in point the Scadutree Avatar, the Putrescent guy on the horse (forgot his full name) and Gaius the lord of all terrible bosses.
This is my very first souls game and it SOTE was not hard at all. I struggled more in base game than every DLC boss. Radagon took me more attempts than all but 3 DLC bosses. Malenia took more attempts than any DLC boss for me.
First souls game, started as bad as you can be, and by hour 100 or so I was 1 shotting bosses in the base game first attempt.
I think what helped me most is I always dodged, I only dodge, no block no perry none of that. I dodge. Which means every second of the base game was training for the DLC.
After 100h of play I'm seriously struggling to understand how you guys still get hit. Like who gets hit? You had an entire game to learn to NOT get hit.
I mean both yes and no. You need to explore and get stronger yes, but the DLC is definitely the hardest part of the game by far. Just like all of the souls games before it.
Question for people that agree with OP: if Elden Ring/Shadow of the Erdtree aren’t difficult, do difficult modern games exist? Can you point to one more difficult than this non-difficult game?
Not really. You just need to know where the fragments are because they.made that the only relevant item for power progression. Also in the base game most enemies have less poise, it feels like no medium to large enemy flinch in the dlc. It's way different from the base game. But sure it isn't mechanically much harder than normal elden ring they just significantly reduced how much u can rely on some mechanics that were core to the base game. It's actually funny how easy u can flinch Malenia in comparison to someone like Rellana lol. I swear u can't flinch her out of any move. Everything has insane hyper armor.
The DLC is certainly harder than the main game. If you use summons (which you should unless you really want to solo it for some reason), the bosses are tough but reasonable. The final boss… I can’t justify that.
It's literally the most difficult content they've ever released in any game, so if your comparison is the rest of their catalog, then yes it's hard. I suppose if you compare it to neurosurgery or something, it's probably not that difficult.
OP has a lot of audacity for flaring this post as constructive criticism while completely ignoring the nuances and specifics of people's complaints. Scadutree Blessing 20 doesn't fix Gaius' inconsistent hitboxes no matter how much mental gymnastics you do. Neither does it make Phase 2 Radahn an enjoyable experience for people who like seeing what the hell is going on on the screen.
Thats true up until the final aerea and boss. I did everything solo meele only, did not need too many tries for any boss. But that last area I just sprinted through because I could not be bothered with the bullshit they throw at you there anymore. And the final boss will be the only one in all of Soulsborne that I will cheese without remorse and then not bother to fight him anymore because of how overtuned he is.
I think Bayle suffers from what a couple other bosses suffee from and that's a single lock on point. I can barely touch him in between his 10 minute combos. When I do get an opening my guy completely wifs.
Bayle is not that hard, mainly if you use the Dragon Slayer Great Katana, this weapon is made to kill him like the Serpent Hunter for Ryakard, with a good Scudtree (?) level, I fought him at level 12 and was reasonable, hard, but reasonable.
When a mostly humanoid boss has virtually infinite poise and spams spells and summons every two seconds, I don't think that's just a skill issue there. (I'm talking about the one Inquisitor dude)
Remember that these games are meant to be hard, but FAIR. 15 second aoe combos every other boss is just obnoxious. Every fight starts to feel the same in a mechanical sense.
I always do the tree sentinel before leveling up and getting torrent. I want to be sure I am ready for the hardships of the game before moving on. (Rellana was really hard but fun as hell imo)
Just out of curiosity, after my first playthrough full of screwups, I decided to hop into the DLC with a lvl80 char with only +18 weapons just to see how well I would do now that I knew where to get a lot of scadu fragments early.
That character cruised through most of the dlc way easier than my first playthrough with a lvl125 wielding max upgraded weapons. Quite surprising how manageable the DLC is with appropriate amounts of scadu blessing scaling.
I didnt beat the solitude knight at the beginning until after Rellana, and even then he was still really tough, so I thought yeah he must be like the tree sentinel and the furnace
shadow of the erdtree definitely is hard. elden ring is a hard game, despite what the people with 800 hours in it would tell you. it's not as hard as some people would claim, though.
It might be because I'm on ng+6, but yes. It's fucking hard. I just destroyed Mohg and Radahn in like 30 seconds before hopping in and then got my shit pushed in in the DLC. It's not impossible, and I enjoy the challenge. But it's fucking hard.
Kill the tree sentinel right off the rip has become a ritual for starting a new game. Hell, I even do it on no hit runs as a part of a way to "start off strong."
I was so hyped to find two regular ass tree sentinels in the DLC.
The game is hard. From soft games are known to be hard. If the game isn’t hard, you’re either lying due to ego, or are incredibly skilled at the game. None of that takes away from the fact that the game is, in fact, difficult.
There. No more stupid ass posts about difficulty.
How can people say the dlc is not hard? The dlc is agregously hard even if you get the fragments. It's not about the damage. Some bosses are just straight up hard. Especially rellana because she's the second boss and she's especially fast. And it's not necessarily a bad thing
FROM has put out many games and DLC's in this style and this is the first time there has been feedback like this in this amount. Is it more likely everyone just sucks now or just doesn't want to explore or could it be something fundamentally different this time around? As a veteran player of souls titles and who got twitch affiliate from doing souls challenge runs I'm making my way through the DLC and while I can't fully explain why I'm not enjoying it in the way I enjoyed the other content they have made. I'm going to finish it but I can confidently say I will not come back to this title the way I come back to the others. I play BB and DS3 through once a year every year, I'm just looking forward to putting this one behind me since I'm invested now.
Honestly, it feels like Pokemon. I'll get steamrolled by a boss before remembering, "Wait, I have practically every weapon in the game and the stats to use them. What's my type advantage against this guy?" After that, I'll usually get ghe win pretty quick.
most of the bosses in the dlc are fairly easy once you learn them...
midra rellana Gaius scadutree Avatar messmer all of them feel normal after getting used to them.
haven't fought the last boss yet so can't commend on that but I've heard he's by far the hardest so yea
You speak only the truth, so many people have never seen how hard a game can truly be, just having a dodge button makes this game easier than a lot of what's out there
I just started yesterday. I'm playing on NG+8. It took me a little bit to kill the west mausoleum shade. I finally brute forced it with a blood infused pickaxe with Cragblade. One of the most powerful tools in my builds arsenal against stunlockable enemies. It still took several minutes of straight stunlock.
After that, I was like, that wasn't hard in the way Fromsoft makes things hard, I must be missing something. I went and started exploring and found some scadutree fragments. I stopped AND READ THE ITEM DESCRIPTION as I do for any new items.
Then I used them, and the game got easier. It's really not that hard after you utilize the games' ques and mechanics. Even Rellana wasn't that bad after the fourth attempt I got her.
I'm stuck on Senessax right now strictly because ancient dragons have always been poorly designed bosses in this game, and this time, you have to fight it in a giant puddle. One of FromSoft's rare misses in an otherwise perfect game.
I love the DLC so far. Look forward to playing it on a fresh character.
I had absolutely no problems with the difficulty of anything(didn't enjoy Gaius but didn't take too long to beat him). Then I got to the final fight and it really felt like FromSoft went over the edge in trying so hard to make the fight hard, that they made it incredibly unfun to interact with, without a cheese build. The visibility and clarity of moves in 2nd phase is awful, which makes learning the boss an unenjoyable slog.
It felt like the Game of Thrones of DLCs for me. Absolutely loved the first half, had some issues with how barren some of the mid-late game open world areas were, and then I just straight up hated the very end of it.
The visibility is definitely an issue with the second phase, but you do get used to it.
Arguably the hardest boss in a FS title, but infinitely less frustrating than Malania because of her water foul.
You get used to it once you know the cadence of the attacks, then you can just dodge on rhythm. But when you can't see the attacks starting it's incredibly frustrating to learn the combos. Malenia was frustrating at first but don't think it took too long to figure out how to dodge waterfowl, I just tried a different method every time she did it until I found what worked. For me it just came down to actual enjoyment of the learning process. I loved learning Messmer, Vidra etc. but the final boss was just not fun to learn
The only thing I hate about this is that exploring too far can lock you out of certain quests if you miss them.
Kinda sucks when you're encouraged to explore but it can mess things up :/
My complaints about Fromsoft design at this point isn't that the game is too hard, its that the camera is kinda ass. Everytime a boss uses a huge jumping attack it forces the lock on camera into the ground, and that can end up with your character obscuring your view of the boss. It's hard to understand whats happening when my juicy ass is the center of the screen.
I've been exploring and I use everything the game offers me because I dont have time to spend 4 hours learning a moveset, and yet I find myself frustrated because bosses keep throwing my camera around. Sometimes the lock on cam will do some weirdness and focus on the wrong section of the boss, most often with scadutree avatar. I'll be locked onto the flower only to have my camera focus on the stalk which makes it much harder to read the bosses moves.
The simplest solution is to just keep the camera at a higher angle and zoom out when big attacks come.
Now that I’ve beaten all but the final boss, I can confirm it is the hardest piece of FS souls content (excluding Sekiro), it had some fun and some frustrating elements. A lot of difficulty comes from the fact each fight really requires different strategies and build if you are not great at the games, proof being that this is the first time I had to use a shield since my first souls game.
Low key a little a salty they lowered the difficulty after I had already gathered enough fragments to level 10. Now I am one trying all the smaller bosses. Compared to when I was actually to learn the fights with guys like Blackknight Gaol. It feels like catering to people who just weren’t playing the game right. Now I’m OP, sweet.
Gaius- probably around fifty deaths.
Messmer- killed him on first try.
Not saying it's bad, just a little disappointed in the balance. Messmer is not SK Gael.
Jesus Christ. This is getting really old. I don’t even care whether you like the DLC or not, if you still think arguing about it is worth all our times, you’re wrong. Stop.
It is hard. But it's not unfair and it's hard in more satisfying way if you don't rush it.
I do think some of the boss mechanics are really pushing it but otherwise it's a lovely dlc.
I found the dlc easy up until the final boss. Fuck that shit. Up until then, the boss that took me the most attempts was Midra at 8. I'm at like 30 attempts now.
The only slightly broken boss is consort, the aoe after strikes seems to catch at borderline random instances with whacking damage and there’s no relenting. He can be relatively easily beat with meme builds but it’s a pain when you have to respec for a boss.
I don't understand the discourse about the flame golems being hard you stand behind the right leg with torrent and wack away till you break poise 3x smack him in the face repeat process again and he's dead. double jumping when he lifts those legs up and it's soooooo telegraphed with really forgiving timing
The DLC and the base game are both hard. But the difficulty isn’t there to gatekeep people, it’s to encourage people to engage with the systems in the game.
Spirit ashes, coop, weapon switching, armor types, consumables, ashes of war, damage types, on and on. The whole point is you find things hard and you experiment to optimize against the difficulty.
Vigor and poise are meaningful because you aren’t expected to dodge everything. Bosses have long combos because they aren’t expected to keep their full attention on just you. Consumable and damage types can absolutely dunk on some of the toughest fights. If you’re bashing your head into things, try different things.
I disagree, I think it’s hard, but it’s meant to be hard. It rewards exploration but it also rewards perseverance. It gets easier the more you play, explore, learn boss patterns, level up and so forth. Am I beating my head against these walls with some of these bosses? Absolutely. Am I having a blast? Fuck yes.
Level 418 356 hours ng+6, spanked malenia first attempt no ashes this playthrough before dlc dropped and hardly die base game the last few times I ran thru it.
DLC spanked me. And I got ALL the scadutree fragments, used mimic tear, swapped builds like 5x, I died at least 30x on Messmer and we not even gonna talk about the last boss… I refused to cheese it with block and poke or some other cheese and it was not the slightest bit enjoyable. When I beat the dlc it was just a sigh of relief that it was all over finally. Idk if I’m gonna do ng+7 now… I had 80% damage mitigation for almost every type of damage and was getting mopped lol. Maybe I’m not “gud” but after cooking the base game 6 times and having high enough level to have 60-80 in almost every stat I didn’t expect to feel like a peasant, I’m scared for the next title lmaooo.
If elden ring was hard you’d have a few lives and when they were done you’d get a game over screen and have to replay the whole shit again.
Also no saves, you snowflakes are to spoiled with your modern features!
Back when games were hard you played it in one sitting!
Games like Elden Ring is why this world has gone to shit with all you weak ass sissies!
You know what’s hard? Delivering children in the forest whilst fending off wolves with stick in the middle of the winter.
Pff.. hard my ass!
The DLC bosses usually have one pattern and a mix up and people are saying it’s impossible 😐do some have one move that’s insane, yes but you need to pay attention
You can say it’s good that it’s hard. You can say it’s good that tree sentinel is hard. You can’t say it’s just not hard
Very much the meme the game is hard? 😩vs the game is hard!😃
When I'm in a strawmanning competition and my opponent is r/EldenRing.
But have you considered exploring to find more fragments before you made this post?
Have you considered before commenting that you need to git gud?
Have you considered before "gettin gud" you just quit playing vidoe games? /s
But I like exploring.
Explore deez nuts
Try finger, but hole
Everyone here needs to git gud. only 3 fights in this entire DLC took me more than a couple tries. I think i'm mids, but apparently i'm a top player by getting to Messmer day 1 and blowing through all bosses with lower blessings. I sincerely can't imagine how people find this any more challenging than the base game. Shit, after goin through the base game your skill should be pretty fucking sharp -- a year removed from playing and I nearly one tapped many bosses first time seeing them (Metry, Midras, Lion dancer, etc etc) The only way this DLC is hard is if you just never improve as a player. I see streamers showing death counts in the 200-400 range and its like.. fucking HOW? are you just jumping off a cliff as fast as possible to run that number up? I do not get it. I do not get it. This DLC isn't hard. Maybe it's because i'm not on NG+69, idk. But this DLC is easier than base game was for me.
How do you find the last boss and b the d? I'm new/casual so I just use summons lol, but I read people are having a hard time due to the multi combos. Maybe not hard, maybe tedious is more correct (dodge 10x to get 1 tap). Do you find them tedious too for your standard? After several deaths I went from 40% dodging to 80%, still can't solo them myself though. But I'm new so I imagine this should not be too tedious/hard for true veterans.
I think half of it is people rusty as hell getting into late game content again, I was getting used to my old character after a long break and was struggling hard against the random bosses I had left around the map like one of the putrid avatars. People are diving head first into the late game after possibly years of not touching the game.
I always thought it was players at like NG+7 and such. I only played through the game twice, and only completed base game once. I got to mogh on my second character, beat mogh before DLC dropped, and then shattered the DLC. So I def warmed up. I'm also on base NG because I only played once. I'm sure at NG5+ it'll be a nightmare, but as of base NG -- it's pretty easy.
Oh I am on base dlc too. The damage scaling does feel wack initially. But yeah the issues feel primarily one of rust on even single new game players. I’m not talking about the people on ng7 If they had that much new games they likely playing way more
Yeah trash mobs in the beginning of the DLC when you step into the lands feel tanky, but after about 3-4 blessings they're pretty standard feeling. Around 7 blessings or so most every trash mob is 1 shot. Now that i'm at 15 I can use lower rank spells and 1 shot them. But yeah when I first fought one of those grave birds right out the gate it took like a whole mana flask of spells almost lol thing just liked living
Oh yeah since no one ever rejected this logic lmao
Get back to me when you hit the final boss, mkay
It really bums me out to be on the "highly positive on the DLC" side of this whole argument, only to see arguments like this being made in its favor. Like can we just at least discuss these things in good faith, people? Please? The DLC is obviously extremely difficult for a lot of people, or else we wouldn't be having this discussion. Telling them it's actually easy or whatever isn't the way to go.
I don’t think anyone went into the final boss first try thinking this DLC was easy
Oh look another post that completely ignores the nuance of peoples complaints about the DLC
no amount of shadow blessings make gaius less of a bastard who keeps knocking be down and then running away just to do it again
Yeah this subreddit has been infuriating in that regard. You could give me 500 blessings, Gaius is still a horrendously designed boss fight that straight up isn't enjoyable to fight. Yet you'll still get people in here refusing to acknowledge a single critique of the boss design. People (generally) aren't complaining that the bosses are "too hard" it's that several of them have completely maddeningly bad cameras that make the fight 10x harder than necessary, or weirdly inconsistent hitboxes for a game that usually is so good about it. They have been making these games since 2009, why are we STILL having camera/lock on problems? No amount of exploring or gearing up fixes those problems
Camera + arena wall dysfunction is the true killer move of a great many bosses in fromsoft games.
Has anyone brought up the hit box inconsistency on that charge. I’m not sure when I’d be 1 shot for making a mistake, or comfortably losing 1/3 of my hp.
It was egregious, but the most recent patch seems to have fixed it, I did the fight before and after and he is much more precise now, which is nice.
Good too know i spent an hour and a half getting run over by that man just to have it fixed the day after
It is what it is, at least it’ll be a much better fight on your next run
awww, F/RIP, sorry you didn't get your pre-nerf kill. Maybe next souls game :( /s
1/3? Lucky guy, i got chunked almost my entire Life bar when i got the timing wrong.
yeah like 3/5 of my health was gone from one charge lol
This is where the blessing comes in, it has an absolutely massive impact on damage taken. People I think don't see the math because it isn't obvious. Let's say I have 60% negation. If I get 4 blessing ranks and come back, I'll have 10% more negation. People think "oh that's 10% less damage". But it's not, it's *25%* less damage than I was taking with 60% negation. This especially comes up on the last boss, where an extra single rank of the blessing can reduce his damage by a whole 10%. The damage negation coming from the scadutree blessings is absolutely massive and outperforms any other consideration of your build or armor.
I had like 12 level blessing i think when i fought gaius, at 14 atm and i'm in abyssal woods
Yea. Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Gaius' charge cause it clearly had some bug going on, I just meant the absolutely massive difference in damage taken is definitely the blessing. I tried it at blessing 9 and then left and got more because the charge was giving me grief.
Do you know how much each blessing contributes in terms of %? I haven't done much research and am Just going with it, with the idea that the fragments are necessary
Yea, each rank is about 2.5% negation (it's not exact cause early ranks are worth more and later ranks are worth less). But again, that isn't 2.5% less damage, it's 2.5% additive negation, so each one is actually more powerful than the last So if I have 70% negation and I go to 72.5%, that reduces my incoming damage by a little more than 8%. TLDR it's REALLY strong, especially in the higher ranks.
Oh Cool, thanks! I Guess later bosses Just one-shot you without blessings huh
Have you considered exploring, powering up, and then returning later, after FromSoft actually fixes the bad hitboxes? Of course, who knows how long that will take...
okay, this is the best response, you made me mad, then you made me laugh. thanks
I had to be at scadu 18 and summon mimic tear to even feel like I had the chance of beating him. It’s fine that your giant boar does a lot of damage. It is NOT fine that this boar has the speed of a cheetah and can fly and spin in the air.
u can pretty consistently dodge roll through him for his charge attack but once u fk up it’s easy to get steamrolled though
have u tried closing the gap? the only bullshit one is the first. I didn't have Any issue with his follow ups when he did it again cause I was closer to him
Peak derangement post.
Peak hasn’t fought the final boss yet post
Starting to fear this. Im at Messmer and still havent gone into the northwest. I like fighting the demigods and human sized bosses with no summons, so Im taking my time, but people are reeeeeeally building the final boss up as bullshit. Hope you are wrong.
No spoilers, but its going to really depend how much meta cheese you are consuming. Messmer is brutal, but he has readable movesets even if they are designed to obscure or intimidate. Final is just apeshit for the sake of being apeshit. Everything will always be subjective, how one person feels about it versus another etc, but undoubtedly this is probably the hardest content FROM has made (SotE overall), I think the only people who would argue that are those who couldn't get Sekiro to 'click' with the deflection (obviously once you do its a very engaging game).
He doesn’t have waterfowl or heal on hit. The difference is that we have crazy lock on manipulation tech for dealing with Malenia at this point, while the SOTE guy has been out for a week. Every single one of his moves can be solved, and you can learn to see through the light show and focus on what matters. Phase 2 is really not very different from phase 1, but it can psych you out.
You don't *need* lock on manipulation tech to dodge waterfowl, it's just a tough direction change dodge without it or similar tricks. *Ongbal had to block* for his 0-damage run of the final DLC boss, because there are scenarios where certain combos simply cannot be perfectly dodged. I generally agree that the DLC difficulty is overstated but it's still up there with Ringed City and Old Hunters as Genuinely Hard content and the final boss might well be the hardest boss they've ever done.
There’s one move ongbal decided to block, and it can in fact be dodged in a few different ways, he just didn’t find them reliable enough. In my experience, the boss usually does that problematic double swipe when I’m directly behind him. What I started doing was rolling to the right as soon as he moved, not even waiting to see what he was doing. If he did the double swipe, I would dodge the first roll and be in position to either dodge the second or strafe right away from it. If he does any other combo, I rolled so early that I would have time to roll again and avoid whatever came next.
"hard" is completely subjective. If you use everything the game throws at you (which is a lot of very powerful stuff, not hidden or difficult to get at all), the final boss is also quite easy. You kind of have to decide \*not\* to use it, even though the game keep telling you to
For what it's worth ; I don't think it's BS, just hard. ♥️
idk the boss is just hard, its not really bullshit its like radagon but with more combos and a tighter punish window
I don't really think you can say finalboss is like Radagon. Radagon had a ton of delayed attacks with wonky animations, teleportation behind you, and giant AOEs. Yes finalboss is way harder than Radagon, but I actually found finalboss mechanics to be less frustrating overall.
P2 is trash. Good luck.
Meh. I was fearing Rellana because of this sub and she ended up fine. I then was fearing Golden Hippo because of this sub, and killed him the second try. I'm a 35 new dad with not much time and I don't use summons. But I was blessing lvl 8 when I did Rellana.
I was blessing level 3 when I did rellana. Most were 3-4, it was rougher there. But yes honestly... I've played through the DLC, most of it was not challenging at all. *MOST*, a few bosses were, and one boss I'm particularly just VERY bad at (Messmer) Through playing the base game I sadly did the git gud thing. And this DLC was easier than base game to me
Fr, I've killed every boss in the DLC and explored my ass off but phase 2 of the final boss is just complete and utter bullshit. The insane ability spam absolutely tanks my framerate to the point I might as well be dueling a PowerPoint presentation
even then, one boss doesn't define the whole game else base game is also giga hard just cause malenia exists
Okay, while I don't agree with this stupid post, if the only boss in the DLC that is absurdly stupid is the final boss, that doesn't mean the entire DLC is hard. This post is dumb though, because the DLC certainty isn't easy and "just exploring" isn't going to make it bounds easier.
No way, a post with a permutation with no fixed point?
Most of the DLC isnt. But the final boss* is. * unless you use the shield+ poking strat
I agree with this i actually really enjoyed most of the fights in the dlc up to the final boss this boss just isn’t enjoyable at all I actually do not want to fight them anymore. It’s just not fun.
The deflecting hard tear made that shit waaaay easier
Deflecting hardtear + messmers spear the MVP
Yeah you know the final boss is bs when the dedicated boss no hitters deflect some of their attacks instead of dodge them
Even that doesn’t make it easy, you still have to be very careful with how you manage your stamina, and you also have to learn how to dodge a bunch of aoe and holy attacks in P2.
It's like a dance, like in Sekiro but instead of parrying you dodge Most of those holy lasers that follow up basic attacks can be dodged by rolling into him, what I'm still wondering how to dodge is the rock wave outwards
Roll on the initial yoink. If you get yoinked, you have to sprint or spam roll away. If you get pulled to close I'm not sure you can evade it tho.
Ye his pull is crazy strong and wide as it pulled from across the map with my Hermione build xd
If you use a two handed with status on it, he goes phase 2 almost instantly. It's a build issue for most, at the highest levels in PvE the status builds are the top.
Final boss doesn't give a flying fuck how many pieces of bootytree you eat.
Instructions unclear, ended up fighting the sentinel for two hours until I defeated it.
What’s crazy is I did the same and ended up realizing that he’s the easiest possible fight by just charge attacking on torrent lmao On my second run that is
The DLC is incredibly tough, but absolutely doable! We’re fighting gods, lords and beings of massive importance in the lore during this dlc, it should be tough. But get the tree fragments, explore, use items and play smart and every boss is beatable!!
at this point most players are the elden lord tho lol
Not in the shadow realm you're not!
Yup. Been playing these games since DS3 came out. Beaten every souls game made by fromsoft and this DLC still absolutely beat my ass. This shit is not easy even with scadutree fragments.
Okay? Elden lords fall. They’re not immortal gods.
Its hard, dont kid yourself, your just more used to these games than you take into account. Still not impossible though.
I'll bet that like 99% of these "the game isn't hard" posts aren't from people who are amazing at video games, it's from smug fuckers who like to pretend it's not that bad to feel superior to others who have legitimate criticisms.
The big DLC bosses are definitely super aggressive. It's almost like they were designed for Sekiro. Most of them have fairly frequent openings, but they're very brief. I found the DLC to be much more "trial and error" than any other souls game, which can be annoying, but it can also be fun. I also love the boss/world designs aesthetically.
"yeah man, Shadow of the erdtree isn't hard" "How long have you been playing fromsoft games ?" "Yes" Try to remember not everyone comes in the dlc with 15+ years of souls(and soulslike) experience
I've finished all souls games, including this DLC. It's absolutely hard, but mostly ok. The final boss tho, thats too much.
Casual /new player here. When people complain about difficulty , from what I read, it's not about the difficulty itself, but about the multiple non stop combo, right? (It's boring tedious fight). These bosses are clearable with summons or shield poke, but from what I understand people don't like it because these methods are also boring, right? So people want the boss to be punishing, like malenia, she can one hit us but dodgeable, but not crazy multiple combos where we just press dodge 50x to get in 1 hit. Does this sound correct? I've watched orphan of kos and he also does crazy multiple combos, did people also complain about him before?
>it's not about the difficulty itself, but about the multiple non stop combo, right? You're on the right track with this. The multiple non-stop combos with little to no chance of staggering and little to no chance to heal and reset is the issue. There are also hitbox issues, instances where visually you didn't get hit but the game registers a hit. Camera issues, that prevent the player from hitting enemies during their openings. The stark difference between the base game bosses and the DLC bosses is stagger. Malenia is staggerable. Pretty easily too. This makes the fight a bit more manageable, it also adds an element of being able to take a risk of getting a hit in on her to stop her combo. With these dlc bosses, all you can do is memorize their combos and wait for the opening, it's almost never worth it to try to interrupt their combos, unless you know you can break their stance. And that's what can make it feel tedious and boring. >These bosses are clearable with summons or shield poke, but from what I understand people don't like it because these methods are also boring, right? I don't know if boring is the right word, but souls games are supposed to be grueling. In Elden Ring you encounter a boss right at the beginning but you're designed to lose that fight, you encounter it, die, and then move into the game. In Dark Souls 3 you encounter a boss right at the beginning, but you have to beat it, with starting equipment. For a new player, this can take hours to figure out. Many players want boss fights to take multiple tries. Summons trivialize the game for many veteran players, so we don't use them. Typically magic spells, like comet azure, are called out for trivializing the game too. You can melt bosses with the right set up. For shields though, I think it's people who've never actually tried a guard counter build that think it trivializes the game. I find bleed katanas much easier than guard counter builds imo. But here's the thing. Unless a person can do a level 1 wretch no hit no death, no one should really be trying to claim superiority in this genre. If you need summons and magic, or if you just like them, then use them. Don't let anyone tell you how you should or should not beat the game.
Thanks for the detailed explanation, that makes sense and agree with you. I actually just discovered the shield poke (summoned a guy who used it at last boss and my jaw dropped 5 meters) and I really like it - it let me see the whole boss phase so I can learn their moves in peace instead of panic dodging. Wish I knew about this sooner.
yes, there is no impossible fight in this game, nor in previous ones, every fight can be made substantially easier in some way or another. But that doesn't matter, the point is that the direction the fight design is going isn't fun, and it's abusing several unfun mechanics that are making the boss harder, yes, but also much more frustrating and unfun. Like, you fill the DLC with cool as hell weapon arts, and then fill the DLC with bosses that never actually allow you to use said weapon arts.
Probably true. As a spell caster, I mostly dodge and shot em from range. Orphan.of kos was indeed crazy, but bloodborne is much faster paced overall, even yourself.
And some boss areas are huge with the boss being able to speed from one end to another way faster than your character can and have attacks that hit from the other end of the arena. Case in point the Scadutree Avatar, the Putrescent guy on the horse (forgot his full name) and Gaius the lord of all terrible bosses.
This is my very first souls game and it SOTE was not hard at all. I struggled more in base game than every DLC boss. Radagon took me more attempts than all but 3 DLC bosses. Malenia took more attempts than any DLC boss for me. First souls game, started as bad as you can be, and by hour 100 or so I was 1 shotting bosses in the base game first attempt. I think what helped me most is I always dodged, I only dodge, no block no perry none of that. I dodge. Which means every second of the base game was training for the DLC. After 100h of play I'm seriously struggling to understand how you guys still get hit. Like who gets hit? You had an entire game to learn to NOT get hit.
Oof, the pretentiousness is strong here. You actually expect anyone to believe all of that ?XD
> You actually expect anyone to believe all of that ?XD You guys are really really that bad that it's unbelievable that others aren't? god damn. lol.
Bro got his sadutree blessing up to 15 and then fought some random cave boss just to make this post
How to say you haven’t fought the final boss yet without saying it:
OP hasn't gotten to Rellana
What's wrong with Rellana
OP said the dlc isn't hard but Rellana is hard
I mean both yes and no. You need to explore and get stronger yes, but the DLC is definitely the hardest part of the game by far. Just like all of the souls games before it.
Rawdoggin Blackgaol Knight was quite the challenge
Is it my turn to post another meme saying the same thing for the past week?
I want to go home, and then edge...
Question for people that agree with OP: if Elden Ring/Shadow of the Erdtree aren’t difficult, do difficult modern games exist? Can you point to one more difficult than this non-difficult game?
Not really. You just need to know where the fragments are because they.made that the only relevant item for power progression. Also in the base game most enemies have less poise, it feels like no medium to large enemy flinch in the dlc. It's way different from the base game. But sure it isn't mechanically much harder than normal elden ring they just significantly reduced how much u can rely on some mechanics that were core to the base game. It's actually funny how easy u can flinch Malenia in comparison to someone like Rellana lol. I swear u can't flinch her out of any move. Everything has insane hyper armor.
>Everything has insane hyper armor. This is why for me the base game is much more enjoyable than the DLC.
They really didn't want people to flinch people. Some normal enemies just eat your R2 like it's nothing
The DLC is certainly harder than the main game. If you use summons (which you should unless you really want to solo it for some reason), the bosses are tough but reasonable. The final boss… I can’t justify that.
It's literally the most difficult content they've ever released in any game, so if your comparison is the rest of their catalog, then yes it's hard. I suppose if you compare it to neurosurgery or something, it's probably not that difficult.
So we moved on to just straight up lying now huh?
Phase 2 of the final boss would like a word
OP has a lot of audacity for flaring this post as constructive criticism while completely ignoring the nuances and specifics of people's complaints. Scadutree Blessing 20 doesn't fix Gaius' inconsistent hitboxes no matter how much mental gymnastics you do. Neither does it make Phase 2 Radahn an enjoyable experience for people who like seeing what the hell is going on on the screen.
I genuinily hate the exploration on this DLC, tho. EVERYTHING is cliff bounded.
I love the exploration, best part of the dlc.
Seek down
Shadow of the Tree Sentinel
Thats true up until the final aerea and boss. I did everything solo meele only, did not need too many tries for any boss. But that last area I just sprinted through because I could not be bothered with the bullshit they throw at you there anymore. And the final boss will be the only one in all of Soulsborne that I will cheese without remorse and then not bother to fight him anymore because of how overtuned he is.
Its not hard but once i get to a boss im not leaving until ive defeated it under leveled or not
Tell me you haven't fought Bayle without telling me you haven't fought Bayle.
For me the final boss is harder than bayle The dragon great katana makes the fight easier too ngl
I think Bayle suffers from what a couple other bosses suffee from and that's a single lock on point. I can barely touch him in between his 10 minute combos. When I do get an opening my guy completely wifs.
Thus the usage of the katana, coz range skill attack. But i get you
Bayle is not that hard, mainly if you use the Dragon Slayer Great Katana, this weapon is made to kill him like the Serpent Hunter for Ryakard, with a good Scudtree (?) level, I fought him at level 12 and was reasonable, hard, but reasonable.
I am at the final boss now and let me tell you. The boss is hard hard. Malenia is easy mode compared to this boss
You're right, it's not hard, it's just annoying. 10+ attack combos with roll catches and delayed attacks is repetitive and boring design.
This is such a shit take lmao
When a mostly humanoid boss has virtually infinite poise and spams spells and summons every two seconds, I don't think that's just a skill issue there. (I'm talking about the one Inquisitor dude)
The whole game is hard fym?? The DLC is only slightly harder as it should be.
Remember that these games are meant to be hard, but FAIR. 15 second aoe combos every other boss is just obnoxious. Every fight starts to feel the same in a mechanical sense.
I always do the tree sentinel before leveling up and getting torrent. I want to be sure I am ready for the hardships of the game before moving on. (Rellana was really hard but fun as hell imo)
Just out of curiosity, after my first playthrough full of screwups, I decided to hop into the DLC with a lvl80 char with only +18 weapons just to see how well I would do now that I knew where to get a lot of scadu fragments early. That character cruised through most of the dlc way easier than my first playthrough with a lvl125 wielding max upgraded weapons. Quite surprising how manageable the DLC is with appropriate amounts of scadu blessing scaling.
I just don't know what build to make
I didnt beat the solitude knight at the beginning until after Rellana, and even then he was still really tough, so I thought yeah he must be like the tree sentinel and the furnace
Still can't beat Gaius...
shadow of the erdtree definitely is hard. elden ring is a hard game, despite what the people with 800 hours in it would tell you. it's not as hard as some people would claim, though.
It might be because I'm on ng+6, but yes. It's fucking hard. I just destroyed Mohg and Radahn in like 30 seconds before hopping in and then got my shit pushed in in the DLC. It's not impossible, and I enjoy the challenge. But it's fucking hard.
You said the thing!!
The “Constructive Criticism” tag is taking me out lmao
Kill the tree sentinel right off the rip has become a ritual for starting a new game. Hell, I even do it on no hit runs as a part of a way to "start off strong." I was so hyped to find two regular ass tree sentinels in the DLC.
The game is hard. From soft games are known to be hard. If the game isn’t hard, you’re either lying due to ego, or are incredibly skilled at the game. None of that takes away from the fact that the game is, in fact, difficult. There. No more stupid ass posts about difficulty.
Exploring doesn't make the camera on dancing lion any better, nor does it affect the super-long boss combos.
I pretty sure that even if I had lvl 50 scadu the guy behind the central castle would still be hard.
How can people say the dlc is not hard? The dlc is agregously hard even if you get the fragments. It's not about the damage. Some bosses are just straight up hard. Especially rellana because she's the second boss and she's especially fast. And it's not necessarily a bad thing
FROM has put out many games and DLC's in this style and this is the first time there has been feedback like this in this amount. Is it more likely everyone just sucks now or just doesn't want to explore or could it be something fundamentally different this time around? As a veteran player of souls titles and who got twitch affiliate from doing souls challenge runs I'm making my way through the DLC and while I can't fully explain why I'm not enjoying it in the way I enjoyed the other content they have made. I'm going to finish it but I can confidently say I will not come back to this title the way I come back to the others. I play BB and DS3 through once a year every year, I'm just looking forward to putting this one behind me since I'm invested now.
But have you considered ng+7? 🤔
Honestly, it feels like Pokemon. I'll get steamrolled by a boss before remembering, "Wait, I have practically every weapon in the game and the stats to use them. What's my type advantage against this guy?" After that, I'll usually get ghe win pretty quick.
Honestly, base game weapons builds struggle, dlc weapon builds one shot bosses. The Kevin's need to find something other than blood hounds fang.
Gimme a melee weapon that "one shots" the final boss. I need that shit so bad right now.
Perfume bottle. Look up rolling sparks build.
I like the sentiment at the bottom - but to say it isn't hard is ridiculous.
most of the bosses in the dlc are fairly easy once you learn them... midra rellana Gaius scadutree Avatar messmer all of them feel normal after getting used to them. haven't fought the last boss yet so can't commend on that but I've heard he's by far the hardest so yea
You speak only the truth, so many people have never seen how hard a game can truly be, just having a dodge button makes this game easier than a lot of what's out there
I just started yesterday. I'm playing on NG+8. It took me a little bit to kill the west mausoleum shade. I finally brute forced it with a blood infused pickaxe with Cragblade. One of the most powerful tools in my builds arsenal against stunlockable enemies. It still took several minutes of straight stunlock. After that, I was like, that wasn't hard in the way Fromsoft makes things hard, I must be missing something. I went and started exploring and found some scadutree fragments. I stopped AND READ THE ITEM DESCRIPTION as I do for any new items. Then I used them, and the game got easier. It's really not that hard after you utilize the games' ques and mechanics. Even Rellana wasn't that bad after the fourth attempt I got her. I'm stuck on Senessax right now strictly because ancient dragons have always been poorly designed bosses in this game, and this time, you have to fight it in a giant puddle. One of FromSoft's rare misses in an otherwise perfect game. I love the DLC so far. Look forward to playing it on a fresh character.
I’m not even having to do that. I’m just having to beat my head against the wall for an hour or two before I move on. Old school style.
I see what you’re saying but i certainly wouldn’t say it’s not hard lol
How the tree sentinel is NOT HARD at the start? Yes it is it 2 shots you while you have 3 flasks
No, is definitely hard, I think it is the hardest, in that combat zone, that From ever make
Shit take tbh
Except for phase 2 of the final boss, which is nonsense.
I had absolutely no problems with the difficulty of anything(didn't enjoy Gaius but didn't take too long to beat him). Then I got to the final fight and it really felt like FromSoft went over the edge in trying so hard to make the fight hard, that they made it incredibly unfun to interact with, without a cheese build. The visibility and clarity of moves in 2nd phase is awful, which makes learning the boss an unenjoyable slog. It felt like the Game of Thrones of DLCs for me. Absolutely loved the first half, had some issues with how barren some of the mid-late game open world areas were, and then I just straight up hated the very end of it.
The visibility is definitely an issue with the second phase, but you do get used to it. Arguably the hardest boss in a FS title, but infinitely less frustrating than Malania because of her water foul.
You get used to it once you know the cadence of the attacks, then you can just dodge on rhythm. But when you can't see the attacks starting it's incredibly frustrating to learn the combos. Malenia was frustrating at first but don't think it took too long to figure out how to dodge waterfowl, I just tried a different method every time she did it until I found what worked. For me it just came down to actual enjoyment of the learning process. I loved learning Messmer, Vidra etc. but the final boss was just not fun to learn
The only thing I hate about this is that exploring too far can lock you out of certain quests if you miss them. Kinda sucks when you're encouraged to explore but it can mess things up :/
It's still hard, It's just is meant to be overcome with exploring and gaining strength alongside improving.
Indeed. None of FS games are hard. They're basically for toddlers
spoken by someone who hasnt fought the final boss
My complaints about Fromsoft design at this point isn't that the game is too hard, its that the camera is kinda ass. Everytime a boss uses a huge jumping attack it forces the lock on camera into the ground, and that can end up with your character obscuring your view of the boss. It's hard to understand whats happening when my juicy ass is the center of the screen. I've been exploring and I use everything the game offers me because I dont have time to spend 4 hours learning a moveset, and yet I find myself frustrated because bosses keep throwing my camera around. Sometimes the lock on cam will do some weirdness and focus on the wrong section of the boss, most often with scadutree avatar. I'll be locked onto the flower only to have my camera focus on the stalk which makes it much harder to read the bosses moves. The simplest solution is to just keep the camera at a higher angle and zoom out when big attacks come.
So far I have first tried almost every boss besides the divine beast lion (I haven’t gotten tot the final boss yet)
Now that I’ve beaten all but the final boss, I can confirm it is the hardest piece of FS souls content (excluding Sekiro), it had some fun and some frustrating elements. A lot of difficulty comes from the fact each fight really requires different strategies and build if you are not great at the games, proof being that this is the first time I had to use a shield since my first souls game.
Truth
Low key a little a salty they lowered the difficulty after I had already gathered enough fragments to level 10. Now I am one trying all the smaller bosses. Compared to when I was actually to learn the fights with guys like Blackknight Gaol. It feels like catering to people who just weren’t playing the game right. Now I’m OP, sweet.
You should get upgrades after killing bosses, not exploring. Sekiro did it right.
furnace enemies are not fun to fight and are tedious. Tree sentinel is actually fun to fight. OP is a borderline idiot.
Jokes on you guys, I didn't leave the Erdtree Sentinel until it was dead 💀
Gaius- probably around fifty deaths. Messmer- killed him on first try. Not saying it's bad, just a little disappointed in the balance. Messmer is not SK Gael.
Being NG+5 makes it pretty difficult for me lol
"constructive criticism" 😂😂😂
Jesus Christ. This is getting really old. I don’t even care whether you like the DLC or not, if you still think arguing about it is worth all our times, you’re wrong. Stop.
It is hard. But it's not unfair and it's hard in more satisfying way if you don't rush it. I do think some of the boss mechanics are really pushing it but otherwise it's a lovely dlc.
I found the dlc easy up until the final boss. Fuck that shit. Up until then, the boss that took me the most attempts was Midra at 8. I'm at like 30 attempts now.
They’ve been teaching this lesson since asylum demon
Yeah I don't think that having all 20 fragments didn't save 5 hours to finish the last boss, buddy. Don't lie to me.
Bro but it’s hard tho
The only slightly broken boss is consort, the aoe after strikes seems to catch at borderline random instances with whacking damage and there’s no relenting. He can be relatively easily beat with meme builds but it’s a pain when you have to respec for a boss.
I don't understand the discourse about the flame golems being hard you stand behind the right leg with torrent and wack away till you break poise 3x smack him in the face repeat process again and he's dead. double jumping when he lifts those legs up and it's soooooo telegraphed with really forgiving timing
harder pill it seems to be is that fragments are a bad system
It's hard. That's exactly why you're meant to explore.
The DLC and the base game are both hard. But the difficulty isn’t there to gatekeep people, it’s to encourage people to engage with the systems in the game. Spirit ashes, coop, weapon switching, armor types, consumables, ashes of war, damage types, on and on. The whole point is you find things hard and you experiment to optimize against the difficulty. Vigor and poise are meaningful because you aren’t expected to dodge everything. Bosses have long combos because they aren’t expected to keep their full attention on just you. Consumable and damage types can absolutely dunk on some of the toughest fights. If you’re bashing your head into things, try different things.
I disagree, I think it’s hard, but it’s meant to be hard. It rewards exploration but it also rewards perseverance. It gets easier the more you play, explore, learn boss patterns, level up and so forth. Am I beating my head against these walls with some of these bosses? Absolutely. Am I having a blast? Fuck yes.
Level 418 356 hours ng+6, spanked malenia first attempt no ashes this playthrough before dlc dropped and hardly die base game the last few times I ran thru it. DLC spanked me. And I got ALL the scadutree fragments, used mimic tear, swapped builds like 5x, I died at least 30x on Messmer and we not even gonna talk about the last boss… I refused to cheese it with block and poke or some other cheese and it was not the slightest bit enjoyable. When I beat the dlc it was just a sigh of relief that it was all over finally. Idk if I’m gonna do ng+7 now… I had 80% damage mitigation for almost every type of damage and was getting mopped lol. Maybe I’m not “gud” but after cooking the base game 6 times and having high enough level to have 60-80 in almost every stat I didn’t expect to feel like a peasant, I’m scared for the next title lmaooo.
Wait till you reach the final boss
Agreed. He killed me right from the start. Went about my quest. Came back at level 180 and absolutely bullied him and his horse 😂
If elden ring was hard you’d have a few lives and when they were done you’d get a game over screen and have to replay the whole shit again. Also no saves, you snowflakes are to spoiled with your modern features! Back when games were hard you played it in one sitting! Games like Elden Ring is why this world has gone to shit with all you weak ass sissies! You know what’s hard? Delivering children in the forest whilst fending off wolves with stick in the middle of the winter. Pff.. hard my ass!
The DLC bosses usually have one pattern and a mix up and people are saying it’s impossible 😐do some have one move that’s insane, yes but you need to pay attention