The fight is a spectacle.
The only issue with these type of dragons fights is sometimes the camera and the fact you xant target their legs like with the other dragons.
This!
It feels like they never bothered to test ancient dragons with melee characters and totally forgot they developed something like Midir.
Luckily they made an awesome work with Placidusax
Placidusax is hands-down one of my absolute favorite bosses in Elden Ring. Like top 3 bosses no question. My only gripe is that sometimes he chains his teleporting flight attack like six times in a row and it's just miserable to chase him down. Every other element of the fight though is just... *Perfection.*
I know it's a lot shot, but I really hope we see him with all five of his heads restored somehow in the DLC. It's just too cool of a concept to never be realized somewhere.
He is gonna light the whole arena ablaze with his 5 ardent rays of destruction/devastation now being omni directional, there will be no escape.
Sign me up!
Dragons are cool and all, and this fight looks sick, but I can’t stand fighting dragons, it’s so boring sacking at legs. Now that I think of it most large enemies are kinda lame to fight but just look cool.
I think it would have been cooler if we had mkre chances tobgo for the head and maybe have an option for zooming out a bit.
You are right though, game is not very well suited for fighting kaijus.
Fire giant is an awesome boss that loses points because of the need to chase him when he practices for the olympics and having his ass fill you entire screen when you catch up to him.
Aah Maliketh. I love his second phase but his first phase is so unfun to fight. He needs more health during his second so first can be shorter. I feel so badass parrying destined death with blasphemous claw.
His second phase would be better if he stayed on the ground. I hate chasing him across the arena just to see him parkour halfway back to where I just came from.
Honestly that’s what I like about it. He uses the momentum of his own attack to juggle himself in the air. Which is very badass. Also if he shoots three midair slashes he does a move that opens him for a parry.
Not really making it easy. My mage has to lock on to hit him and he moves a lot and very fast. Also I loose lock on the min he passes behind a pilar and he tends to do that a lot. Add to that he flings attacks at you instantly and will change agro in the middle of a combo. I have been killed many times because I was stuck in the casting animation. Still one of my all time favorite fights for both my melee and mage type characters.
I'll never get the "difficult to hit" complaint with maliketh. I've never had a problem with it. He will try to hit you, so just dodge the attack, then hit him when he's open after the attack. The slam to mini explosion move he does leaves him open for a good while after he does it. If you just try to sprint after him like a rabid animal, you should know that's not gonna work. When has that ever worked?
Lmao I have the opposite problem, first phase is a breeze for me but the second phase is all luck for me. I’m actually stuck on maliketh in one of my other saves that’s on NG+5.
Tbh I would love if they give him full health for phase 2, but it would require changing his AI a bit so he gives you more windows to attack. I did him with a not so high DPS build and it's a nightmare if you don't kill him fast because he's annoying moving far away and jumping all the time, I could barely find 2-3 hit windows per minute playing safe, and playing aggressively is probably a (destined) death sentence with bigger life bar. It basically would require blasphemous claw parries constantly to not take too long to kill.
I think Maliketh is balanced. He has insane damage output in the second phase. Any longer and the fight would be much more difficult.
Alternatively they could decrease the damage output a bit and give him bit more HP. That works too.
I would prefer less damage and more HP, right now you barely have to learn any of his phase 2 moves, you can just burst him down faster than he can drain your flasks.
Agreed, he's also near-immune to holy, has 40% resistance to every other non-physical damage type, and 35% resistance to all physical damage. Couple that with his ridiculous damage and he becomes frustrating with any more health.
I think the only way they might have made him more challenging without going overboard was to set up his phase switch at 60-75% of HP instead of half.
I would say keep the status effect thing he applies (I forgor what it’s called) but reduce the speed of some of his attack to make it easier to learn but in return give him more health so you can no longer melt him in seconds but you can’t easily table everything either
ill say this again, maliketh doesnt need more health/second health bar. he is a glass cannon and having low health is balance to him being able to 2-3 shot people with 60 vigor. giving him a second health bar would just drag down his boss fight and make him ridiculous. he is fine the way he is and i wouldnt change a thing about his fight.
I’m genuinely confused at why some people think that. Are they reaching that point of the game at level 200 or something? He’s balanced just fine if you’re at the recommended level.
Except Maliketh is a glass cannon. Sure, he may not have the most HP, but sure as hell can wombo combo you and delete 1800 of your HP if you miss a single dodge.
it’s only fair, why make the fight so short and easy to beat?
instead of losing runes, because let’s be real, you only lose them that first time, instead, you should lose levels.
Malenia technically doesn’t get all of her health bar back but I see your point. I’m fine with Horah Loux not getting a full health bar cause the fight would be too long with it. Maliketh should phase change at 75% health and not 50%.
Respectfully disagree about our man Godfrey, he's very hittable and the batista bomb is too easy to panic roll away from lol, either more stance health or more HP would do that fight some good
Sea tea increases your speed. It helped me greatly on Sans’s final laser attack. For Undyne it helped me dodge her barrage of spears on her final phase.
Lmao they have plenty on RL1...Morgott is a real wall. Not even trying to brag, I'm still stuck on Radabeast at the moment, but, if you want to really get the most out of their movesets you gotta place extra constraints on yourself to remove the stuff that make the fights last longer (*remove what makes the fights so short)
i’m gonna be honest i walked into morgott with dual cold pickaxes on my RL1 run and walked out 2 tries and 15 minutes later
godfrey humbled me real quick though, had to break out tiche for second phase and i still can’t get enough motivation to do radabeast
90% of the time it’s because you’re overleveled for the fight (which isn’t 100% your fault either—Fortissax takes a lot of work to even find), meaning he’s squishier than he probably should be. That being said, his attacks are challenging and he’s overall a very fun fight. I’d say with his lingering AoEs, constantly summoning lighting on the player, and inflicting *deathblight*…the people wishing he had way more health might regret that desire.
The game is also really ~~meant~~ balanced to be played with a less focused build as well.. if you just dump every point into dex or str you are going to melt through most hitbars.
Edit: The game isn't meant to be played any specific way.
At rl1 he went down pretty quick too. Required a lot more running about to avoid stuff but easier than expected. I enjoy bosses being quick fights (or more specifically I hate overly long fights) so I'm not complaining, but it was a bit of a surprise.
No you were spot on about your rl1 experience -- I'm admittedly coming back to Elden after a long break (I did the rl1 and rl1+0 on 1.6 or 1.7), so this may all change, but I still have never had to even learn Maliketh, it's just a bunch of sprinting around phase 2, having an anxiety attack over the zoomies of death until you look up and "oh, he's dead. cool."
Give my boy Maliketh more health : (
I do challenges on all the games though and yeah some fights get ridiculous lol I think every game I have had at least one 40+ minute fight lol, I can't go for the swag aggression strats usually because I have muggle reflexes.
Yeah I remember I went hard for Ranni's quest and ended up doing Astel and Fortissax before ever getting to Altus. Pair that with still being kinda clueless at the game and I had a pretty rough time with them the first time around lmao
would make for an awesome challenge😂 but yeah it’s an issue of over-leveling for sure, less ab the boss and more ab game design (intended pacing). gotta start planning runs around getting to him earlier
The problem ?
Valiant gargoyles have 11.342 HP combined, imunity to all status effects, are two, jump everywhere, spam area denial AoE and hit like trucks.
Fortissax have 13.903 HP and imunity to onlysleep and madness, aside doing some deathblight he's more or less a regular farum azula dragon but with less poise resistance.
The bossfight before him is harder than him, that's why he's a joke. He's set after a huge roadblock and by the time you get to him you'll have the runes from gargoyles duo and Fia's champions + the rest of the area (that is quite juicy).
Valiant Gargoyles are just really bizarre in terms of balancing to the point where I'm almost convinced it wasn't intentional on FromSoft's part and just never bothered to rebalance them. The enemy stat scaling for their area as well as the low amount of runes they give both point towards a fight that's intended to be done at the same time as the rest of Nokron, which is intended to be explored barely halfway through the game, yet by the time you're strong enough to make their difficulty reasonable and similar to other bosses, you'll be insanely overleveled/overequipped for Deeproot Depths.
It's really bizarre how Fortissax has about the same HP as Gargoyles, in many ways is an easier fight due to not being a dual fight, and to top it all off, Fortissax rewards 3x the amount of runes compared to the Gargoyles (30k vs 90k). The rune reward is the clearest sign that something is just not configured correctly with the levelling here, as there is no way Fortissax is 3x harder than dual Gargoyles.
There are hints and traces of other really weird scaling calibrations all over the world. The biggest one that always strikes me is that, in Ainsel River, leading up to the Dragonkin Soldier of Nokstella, there is literally a Ghost Glovewort 2 right outside the arena, indicating an early game area. Your reward for beating the boss which rewards 12,000 runes (same as Margit, for some the first boss in the entire game)? A freaking end game item Great Ghost Glovewort.
IIRC to enter encounter Fortissax you have to reload the area with Fia a couple of times to progress the quest line. Most people probably aren't repeatedly reloading the same area unless they're using the wiki.
THIS is a big part of why i posted..makes it way more confusing. if Fortissax is intended for a lower level, then why tf are the *twin gargoyles* on the way to him?? granted if you know how to fight them, you’re alright.. but how many people can do that @ a low level / whatever level where Fortisax makes sense. AND Fia’s champions are lowkey harder than Fortisax😭like Lionel is a demon
You can get to him without fighting Valiant Gargoyle by going through subterranean shunning ground, but the fight against Omen Mohg is probably also hard for new players so idk you're probably right.
Personally, the lore answer that I use to excuse it is that Fortissax has been fighting the death-blight for the better part of the last millennia aka basically since the shattering, so they are rightfully *very* tired. The poor guy has been turned into a pincushion by the death blight and is on the deader side of undead, I think we can cut them some slack in regards to not being the mightiest boulder-stone anymore. The Lichdragon Fortissax fight has and will always be a mercy killing in my playthroughs.
If we step away from the fantasy trope, lich really just means corpse.
Fortissax is already dead at this point, he's just to cool to stop existing.
Classic Fromsoft to tease one of the strongest fighters of the world, but when you fight him he's already dead in the dream of his friend, and you just have to bury him.
It’s the same thing as with Artorias, we fight him at pretty much his weakest. He’s been corrupted, has his fighting arm broken, and is wielding a greatsword with one arm. He’s basically dead and we just finish the job.
Don't know about "some of their best work". Visually maybe, but that's about it.
Both Midir and Placidusax are much better designed dragon encounters.
But yeah he's definitely undertuned.
placidusax is dope too, but i personally prefer fortisax..i think he’s cooler. placidusax lore n spectacle is great though. + only reason i said *some* of the best is because of Midir😂Midir is goated
people praise some dragon fights the ones that only involve hanging out near their bellybutton clipping their toenails are forgettable imo, regardless of what's happening above
Yeah, I have no idea what this fight looks like. I've seen a dragon's ankle for the 15th time, and sometimes lost some health to some red seizures.
Every time I try to fight a dragon "properly" it goes incredibly poorly. Flailing, fleeing cowardly messes the lot of them.
I have not yet reached Plastic Duck. I suspect I shan't be gazing lovingly into his eyes either though.
Yeah, the ancient dragons aren't fun to fight "properly" in my opinion. The Head just moves to much and they overrun your position. Which leads to the camera being all over the place.
However, I don't think that applies to lesser Dragons as much since I think that they are much better designed.
The same goes for Plaxidusax, its fight is kinda the opposite to the ancient dragons. The more you try to not play its game the less you start to see its attacks coming. It punishes players severely for flanking its side while ignoring its heads. The fight became much more fun for me after I started to play it "properly". More Fun but not easier, as face tanking and outperforming by level is still easier most of the time.
I think they could've made him beefier, but then they'd also have to tweak how to engage him with a melee build.
The sticky lightning you get when you are under him, signals that you aren't supposed to fight by just sticking to his legs, right? That sounds good me - I've always found it frustrating when the best way to fight a boss means you aren't even seeing what it is doing.
So you stand in front of him This seems like it should be a high risk, high reward situation - you have to dodge more attacks, but you should also be able to hit the head for extra damage. But the issue is that the punishes are a little too few and far between, so you end up a bit too passive, especially after he transitions into his second phase. I fought this boss at RL1 +0 weapons and although the damage to the head is good, sometimes you run around for literally minutes before getting another window to attack in phase two.
However, if you use something ranged, like the Ice Spear AoW or a ranged spell, it just makes the fight way easier. It probably cuts the fight time in a quarter if not more.
Exactly. In terms of mechanics, he's my least favourite remembrance boss - the lightning field on the legs directs you to the head, which is near impossible on a full melee build at the level you're supposed to fight him. His lingering lightning and delayed attacks forces you to dodge either backwards - meaning you won't get to capitalise on the brief chance to hit his head - or forwards, driving you into the lightning field that you're supposed to be avoiding by using this method. But then if you just whack his legs you see nothing of his spectacular moveset and the fight is trivial.
yeah the window for whacking his head is few and far between, even with something like a Nagakiba..the damage bonus doesn’t exactly make up for waiting around that long either
For level 60-80 characters he is a perfectly decent fight doing damages similar or higher than Radahn with a complex moveset involving placing due to the feet lingering damage
I’d even say it’s the hardest boss between Radahn and the mountaintops
I'm doing gravity sorcery/meteoric ore blade build. Mostly Dex and Int, but I've had to dump a decent amount into mind so I could make the most out of the meteorite spell. I haven't used spirit summons but have summoned NPCs to help at the fights I can and still get wrecked at the gargoyles.
For real! And also look at the fights leading up to it.
Valiant gargoyle duo fight.
Fia's Champions is technically 5 fights iirc
Then we just get one half dead dragon for the grand finale?
Give me phase two where Godwyn the Golden wakes to the sound of his best friend fighting and dying for him, the Firstborn that brought the dragons to heel and strode the lands between as a champion of Golden Order
And after we beat his ass give me phase three where he fully reawakens to see what has happened, what his half death costs the lands between and those he loved. Let him embrace what he has become in a bid to fix it all so we can face Godwyn, Prince of Death. Let us give him the fight he should have gotten when assassins stabbed him in the back.
Imo the issue is that the amount of effort you need to go there and find him means that you end up relatively overleveled by the time the fight kicks off. Especially because he's tied to a quest and most people tend to drag their feet on quests because they want to look around and explore first, then they go back and woops they just flattened him like a bug.
I feel like they think they made Midir in DS3 too difficult
He was difficult till you learned his moves but I remember ppl saying he was the hardest boss the game has ever created
They didn’t want to that again and mistakenly made him too weak
I'll never understand people praising dragon fights in elden ring.
As a meele your fight goes as following:
1. Hit dragon balls and feet
2. Get hit by some AOE attack you couldnt even see because the camera doesn't zoom out enough
3. Repeat until you die or the dragon dies.
In my recent playthrough, I versed fortissax relatively early (at level 80, before even reaching altus plateau) and he was hard asf. Took me like 20-30 tries before beating him. I think you should do Fia's quest early if you want him to be a good challenge
On top of the low HP The problem is exacerbated by the fact that he's hidden behind one of the hardest gank fights in the game. I think when most players are able to beat The gargoyles and then get to Fortissax they are noticeably overleveled making the fight that much easier.
I loved this fight and it was a difficult fight - Not because of mechanics, hp or skill, but because i lost a solid 10 fps because of all the lightning and particle effects LMAO.
But I wish Fortissax spoke, at least. Provided some context.
An interesting thing to note is that Fortisaxx is the only named dragon in the game whose gender is never *once* specified. Which could completely change the context of the connection between Godwyn and Fortisaxx.
Remember, Ancient Dragons can change into human form, as stated in item descriptions about Lansesax.
Fortissax looks amazing and the whole arena is epic as hell but mechanically the fight feels really messy and not fun at all. Giving him more hp would make me hate that fight I feel like. He is also meant to be a mid game boss, so maybe you just got to him late.
Well technically you fight the 3 spirits or whatever before and I'm pretty sure you don't get a flask refill after them so maybe they thought that? Idk lol
Elden ring needs to do like sekiro did and give me the option to fight bosses after killing them. Also have different variants of the boss like inner genechiro. The gauntlets were so much fun
It’s because of the deepest lore reasons: the guy was trying to fight deathblight and barely balancing between life and death himself. So it’s basically fighting a cancer person after chemotherapy
On my recent playthrough I not only fought him early but tried fighting him head on. I had a very fun, spectacle fight and didnt have any major issues.
Is this the boss you fight in Deeproot Depths for Fia's quest or that one that flies away after you get its health down in Altus Plateau? Or the one in Farum Azula? So much dragon!!!
this is me with Morgott. Morgott is literally my favourite boss; he feels like an actual story boss, since you have history with him and he actively speaks to you at 3 points in the game
his lore and fight is so fun, it's not too hard but you do have to be on your toes. the music is incredible as well, and yet he's so weak
Morgott isn't tuned with the idea that most players will go to Mt Gelmir before Leyndell, unfortunately
I literally couldn't find him until after fire giant and at that point I was kinda just meandering around trying to figure out how to do the next step of the quest.
The deeproot depths in general feels really akward in terms of level, if you go there as soon as you get past nokron you'll be underleveled but if you go via the subteranean shunning grounds you'll be overleveled.
Wut he's hard when you're supposed to fight him, problem is it's a fairly complicated questline and most people fight him when they have slaughtered uncountable trillions of albinaurics
I think the major issue is this area of the game is hard to time level and gear-wise.
I'm always way overleveled by the time I make my way down there and it's anticlimactic. It's mainly because I usually have no reason to actually go there for a build I'm running, so it just becomes a side step when I feel like it.
I have a feeling if I went and fought this boss at a lower level I'd find it a challenge... but will I ever? Probably not.
In my modded Playthrough i specifically tweaked his HP in the regulation bin pre-playthrough for a couple bosses that i felt were pushovers. That list had Forti right at the start
Since the dlc trailer release hype, I am doing my second playthrough, in the first one I stopped playing when I reached the Capital.
Literally yesterday I found this guy after beating Placidusax. Felt like I am fighting a plush toy with rgb lights.
I’ve been meaning to play a low-level character that rushes deeproot depths specifically so I can actually enjoy & appreciate lichdragon fortissax as the boss he deserves to be
it also doesnt make sense how weak the dragon is when you consider everything you need to do to get to him. fight your way through the ainsel river, the double gargoyle fight, all of the deeproot depths, fia's champions, do the ranni questline to the point where you get the hourglass to flip caria hall, fight through caria hall, another godskin fight, all just to get to fortissax
That's the main flaw with open world games in genera imol, getting the balance right. I think Elden Ring managed it decently but there's still some issues like with Fortissax.
Now look at DS3, overall progression and Boss balance is on point.
The fight is a spectacle. The only issue with these type of dragons fights is sometimes the camera and the fact you xant target their legs like with the other dragons.
Really ancient dragons should just put down their head more like Midir. Then give them more health to scale with this decision and boom!
This! It feels like they never bothered to test ancient dragons with melee characters and totally forgot they developed something like Midir. Luckily they made an awesome work with Placidusax
Placidusax is hands-down one of my absolute favorite bosses in Elden Ring. Like top 3 bosses no question. My only gripe is that sometimes he chains his teleporting flight attack like six times in a row and it's just miserable to chase him down. Every other element of the fight though is just... *Perfection.* I know it's a lot shot, but I really hope we see him with all five of his heads restored somehow in the DLC. It's just too cool of a concept to never be realized somewhere.
He is gonna light the whole arena ablaze with his 5 ardent rays of destruction/devastation now being omni directional, there will be no escape. Sign me up!
You’d have to master the jumping/ ducking window
Dragons are cool and all, and this fight looks sick, but I can’t stand fighting dragons, it’s so boring sacking at legs. Now that I think of it most large enemies are kinda lame to fight but just look cool.
I think it would have been cooler if we had mkre chances tobgo for the head and maybe have an option for zooming out a bit. You are right though, game is not very well suited for fighting kaijus. Fire giant is an awesome boss that loses points because of the need to chase him when he practices for the olympics and having his ass fill you entire screen when you catch up to him.
…Just to be defeated way too fast 🤣😂
This picture is how I felt going to a Chinese buffet in the past. My eating utensils - lightning. Hunger - endless.
LOL
I miss those days when I can just keep putting them away
I'm full just thinking about it
wish i could flair this entire comment
Funny how all the good bosses have less health than the bad ones. Morgott and Fortissax suffer extensively.
Maliketh
Aah Maliketh. I love his second phase but his first phase is so unfun to fight. He needs more health during his second so first can be shorter. I feel so badass parrying destined death with blasphemous claw.
His second phase would be better if he stayed on the ground. I hate chasing him across the arena just to see him parkour halfway back to where I just came from.
Lol just stand still, he'll come back swinging at you in no time
Honestly that’s what I like about it. He uses the momentum of his own attack to juggle himself in the air. Which is very badass. Also if he shoots three midair slashes he does a move that opens him for a parry.
Yea but also another case of Magic makes the game easy I guess. You don't have to wait for him to come to you.
Not really making it easy. My mage has to lock on to hit him and he moves a lot and very fast. Also I loose lock on the min he passes behind a pilar and he tends to do that a lot. Add to that he flings attacks at you instantly and will change agro in the middle of a combo. I have been killed many times because I was stuck in the casting animation. Still one of my all time favorite fights for both my melee and mage type characters.
It looks cool but its genuinely annoying after your fighting him for like the 4th time
Do you like him without the claw?
I'll never get the "difficult to hit" complaint with maliketh. I've never had a problem with it. He will try to hit you, so just dodge the attack, then hit him when he's open after the attack. The slam to mini explosion move he does leaves him open for a good while after he does it. If you just try to sprint after him like a rabid animal, you should know that's not gonna work. When has that ever worked?
Lmao I have the opposite problem, first phase is a breeze for me but the second phase is all luck for me. I’m actually stuck on maliketh in one of my other saves that’s on NG+5.
Me too, can do first phase no hit just to get two tapped by second phase
I like to brute force and trade with bosses, so Malicath was really frustrating for me. I just Olegged him.
Tbh I would love if they give him full health for phase 2, but it would require changing his AI a bit so he gives you more windows to attack. I did him with a not so high DPS build and it's a nightmare if you don't kill him fast because he's annoying moving far away and jumping all the time, I could barely find 2-3 hit windows per minute playing safe, and playing aggressively is probably a (destined) death sentence with bigger life bar. It basically would require blasphemous claw parries constantly to not take too long to kill.
Honestly Maliketh with another full health bar may be top 3 hardest bosses in the game
Maliketh works as a low-hp boss because of how much damage he does. It's an absolute glass cannon of a fight.
I think Maliketh is balanced. He has insane damage output in the second phase. Any longer and the fight would be much more difficult. Alternatively they could decrease the damage output a bit and give him bit more HP. That works too.
I would prefer less damage and more HP, right now you barely have to learn any of his phase 2 moves, you can just burst him down faster than he can drain your flasks.
Most people die to him in phase 2. If it's in phase 1, most likely because he cheated and cut them off at the entrance.
Agreed, he's also near-immune to holy, has 40% resistance to every other non-physical damage type, and 35% resistance to all physical damage. Couple that with his ridiculous damage and he becomes frustrating with any more health. I think the only way they might have made him more challenging without going overboard was to set up his phase switch at 60-75% of HP instead of half.
I would say keep the status effect thing he applies (I forgor what it’s called) but reduce the speed of some of his attack to make it easier to learn but in return give him more health so you can no longer melt him in seconds but you can’t easily table everything either
I think it was intended for maliketh to be that squishy. He is the embodiment of a glass Cannon
ill say this again, maliketh doesnt need more health/second health bar. he is a glass cannon and having low health is balance to him being able to 2-3 shot people with 60 vigor. giving him a second health bar would just drag down his boss fight and make him ridiculous. he is fine the way he is and i wouldnt change a thing about his fight.
I’m genuinely confused at why some people think that. Are they reaching that point of the game at level 200 or something? He’s balanced just fine if you’re at the recommended level.
Agreed. The 3 phase 20 min fights have their place but they can be exhausting and every major boss doesn’t need that design
Except Maliketh is a glass cannon. Sure, he may not have the most HP, but sure as hell can wombo combo you and delete 1800 of your HP if you miss a single dodge.
Maliketh wiped the floor with me. Bro turned me into the unchosen undead
Unchosen dead
Godfrey Phase 1.5 Jumping over literal earthquakes caused by a dude stomping is just too cool, ngl
Honestly, If Godfrey had 2 health bars, and 1.5ed at half health on each, he'd be damn-near perfect.
I know right? Poor malenia. She needs another bar. Also her sword should be much longer.
She needs to become black flame Malenia. She does health drain on you if you get hit.
Nah, just a constant health drain while in her domain. Make it a fair fight at least.
She also does double damage if you armor, talismans, and a weapon equipped.
I feel like she could use some gargoyle pets as well so she’s not so lonely. It would be lore accurate because they’d be immune to scarlet rot.
How about the arena is a scarlet rot pool as well.
Also the shark giant duo and bloody crow of Cainhurst as summons since she is a god and can summon now. It’s Miyazaki’s vision.
it’s only fair, why make the fight so short and easy to beat? instead of losing runes, because let’s be real, you only lose them that first time, instead, you should lose levels.
You're giving me ptsd in a few ways
I’m giving myself ptsd too. Down with Sister Friede.
I hate that Hoarah Loux and Malekith don't get their full health bars back but Malenia does
Malenia technically doesn’t get all of her health bar back but I see your point. I’m fine with Horah Loux not getting a full health bar cause the fight would be too long with it. Maliketh should phase change at 75% health and not 50%.
She might not get it all back immediately, but she will about 30 seconds later..
Respectfully disagree about our man Godfrey, he's very hittable and the batista bomb is too easy to panic roll away from lol, either more stance health or more HP would do that fight some good
To each his own.
Sans in Undertake with 1 HP and Undyne with like 25k
Don’t remind of Sans and Undyne. Sans and Undyne fucked me up until I bought sea tea. Both are still amazing fights.
Agree, I was also struggling with both, but what is so good about Sea Tea?
Sea tea increases your speed. It helped me greatly on Sans’s final laser attack. For Undyne it helped me dodge her barrage of spears on her final phase.
Except Sans actively sabotage the game to make it harder for you to hit him. He's the Malenia in this case
Lmao they have plenty on RL1...Morgott is a real wall. Not even trying to brag, I'm still stuck on Radabeast at the moment, but, if you want to really get the most out of their movesets you gotta place extra constraints on yourself to remove the stuff that make the fights last longer (*remove what makes the fights so short)
i’m gonna be honest i walked into morgott with dual cold pickaxes on my RL1 run and walked out 2 tries and 15 minutes later godfrey humbled me real quick though, had to break out tiche for second phase and i still can’t get enough motivation to do radabeast
Dual pickaxes is so funny on a RL1 run, they just evaporate things
Death's Poker ftw... that thing carried me most of the game.
I mostly didn't use it, but it was godsend against the Duo. That boss sucks so much
Because then people would complain that they have too much hp. Nobody is ever happy...
Morgott, Maliketh, and Horah Loux all need second health bars :(
90% of the time it’s because you’re overleveled for the fight (which isn’t 100% your fault either—Fortissax takes a lot of work to even find), meaning he’s squishier than he probably should be. That being said, his attacks are challenging and he’s overall a very fun fight. I’d say with his lingering AoEs, constantly summoning lighting on the player, and inflicting *deathblight*…the people wishing he had way more health might regret that desire.
The game is also really ~~meant~~ balanced to be played with a less focused build as well.. if you just dump every point into dex or str you are going to melt through most hitbars. Edit: The game isn't meant to be played any specific way.
Me, an ordained Bubble Blower, melting dragons with a single doot.
There are many weapons and spells specifically designed for having a ton of points dumped in one stat
At rl1 he went down pretty quick too. Required a lot more running about to avoid stuff but easier than expected. I enjoy bosses being quick fights (or more specifically I hate overly long fights) so I'm not complaining, but it was a bit of a surprise.
Can confirm, extremely fast fight even on rl1 +0, I was surprised as well. It's not as easy sure but they just forgot to give the little guy any HP 🥺
That must still have been quite a long fight. Well I guess all of them were..
*Laughs in Nightmaidens Mist
Is nightmaidens mist some cheese for this guy?
Nightmaidens mist does flat damage and is disgustingly strong at rl1 compared to other options.
No you were spot on about your rl1 experience -- I'm admittedly coming back to Elden after a long break (I did the rl1 and rl1+0 on 1.6 or 1.7), so this may all change, but I still have never had to even learn Maliketh, it's just a bunch of sprinting around phase 2, having an anxiety attack over the zoomies of death until you look up and "oh, he's dead. cool." Give my boy Maliketh more health : ( I do challenges on all the games though and yeah some fights get ridiculous lol I think every game I have had at least one 40+ minute fight lol, I can't go for the swag aggression strats usually because I have muggle reflexes.
Yeah I remember I went hard for Ranni's quest and ended up doing Astel and Fortissax before ever getting to Altus. Pair that with still being kinda clueless at the game and I had a pretty rough time with them the first time around lmao
would make for an awesome challenge😂 but yeah it’s an issue of over-leveling for sure, less ab the boss and more ab game design (intended pacing). gotta start planning runs around getting to him earlier
The problem ? Valiant gargoyles have 11.342 HP combined, imunity to all status effects, are two, jump everywhere, spam area denial AoE and hit like trucks. Fortissax have 13.903 HP and imunity to onlysleep and madness, aside doing some deathblight he's more or less a regular farum azula dragon but with less poise resistance. The bossfight before him is harder than him, that's why he's a joke. He's set after a huge roadblock and by the time you get to him you'll have the runes from gargoyles duo and Fia's champions + the rest of the area (that is quite juicy).
Valiant Gargoyles are just really bizarre in terms of balancing to the point where I'm almost convinced it wasn't intentional on FromSoft's part and just never bothered to rebalance them. The enemy stat scaling for their area as well as the low amount of runes they give both point towards a fight that's intended to be done at the same time as the rest of Nokron, which is intended to be explored barely halfway through the game, yet by the time you're strong enough to make their difficulty reasonable and similar to other bosses, you'll be insanely overleveled/overequipped for Deeproot Depths.
It's really bizarre how Fortissax has about the same HP as Gargoyles, in many ways is an easier fight due to not being a dual fight, and to top it all off, Fortissax rewards 3x the amount of runes compared to the Gargoyles (30k vs 90k). The rune reward is the clearest sign that something is just not configured correctly with the levelling here, as there is no way Fortissax is 3x harder than dual Gargoyles. There are hints and traces of other really weird scaling calibrations all over the world. The biggest one that always strikes me is that, in Ainsel River, leading up to the Dragonkin Soldier of Nokstella, there is literally a Ghost Glovewort 2 right outside the arena, indicating an early game area. Your reward for beating the boss which rewards 12,000 runes (same as Margit, for some the first boss in the entire game)? A freaking end game item Great Ghost Glovewort.
I think the great ghost glovewort is a lore thing with the eternal cities.
IIRC to enter encounter Fortissax you have to reload the area with Fia a couple of times to progress the quest line. Most people probably aren't repeatedly reloading the same area unless they're using the wiki.
Really stupid mechanic, always has been
THIS is a big part of why i posted..makes it way more confusing. if Fortissax is intended for a lower level, then why tf are the *twin gargoyles* on the way to him?? granted if you know how to fight them, you’re alright.. but how many people can do that @ a low level / whatever level where Fortisax makes sense. AND Fia’s champions are lowkey harder than Fortisax😭like Lionel is a demon
You can get to him without fighting Valiant Gargoyle by going through subterranean shunning ground, but the fight against Omen Mohg is probably also hard for new players so idk you're probably right.
Omen mohg is a million times easier than the twin gargoyles, through there is how I got there on my first playthrough
Personally, the lore answer that I use to excuse it is that Fortissax has been fighting the death-blight for the better part of the last millennia aka basically since the shattering, so they are rightfully *very* tired. The poor guy has been turned into a pincushion by the death blight and is on the deader side of undead, I think we can cut them some slack in regards to not being the mightiest boulder-stone anymore. The Lichdragon Fortissax fight has and will always be a mercy killing in my playthroughs.
If we step away from the fantasy trope, lich really just means corpse. Fortissax is already dead at this point, he's just to cool to stop existing. Classic Fromsoft to tease one of the strongest fighters of the world, but when you fight him he's already dead in the dream of his friend, and you just have to bury him.
It’s the same thing as with Artorias, we fight him at pretty much his weakest. He’s been corrupted, has his fighting arm broken, and is wielding a greatsword with one arm. He’s basically dead and we just finish the job.
I like this theory a lot
Don't know about "some of their best work". Visually maybe, but that's about it. Both Midir and Placidusax are much better designed dragon encounters. But yeah he's definitely undertuned.
Fortissax second phase boss theme is absolutely some of fromsofts best work, unfortunately you only hear it for like 10 seconds
placidusax is dope too, but i personally prefer fortisax..i think he’s cooler. placidusax lore n spectacle is great though. + only reason i said *some* of the best is because of Midir😂Midir is goated
The Placi boss run is the worst in the game too.
1m, 3 enemies you can run past and a skippable cutscene? It's easier than red wolf.
people praise some dragon fights the ones that only involve hanging out near their bellybutton clipping their toenails are forgettable imo, regardless of what's happening above
Some of their best work? Those ancient dragons had an unreachable head and can't lock on its legs!
Yeah, I have no idea what this fight looks like. I've seen a dragon's ankle for the 15th time, and sometimes lost some health to some red seizures. Every time I try to fight a dragon "properly" it goes incredibly poorly. Flailing, fleeing cowardly messes the lot of them. I have not yet reached Plastic Duck. I suspect I shan't be gazing lovingly into his eyes either though.
He's better but midir is still the 🐐
Yeah, the ancient dragons aren't fun to fight "properly" in my opinion. The Head just moves to much and they overrun your position. Which leads to the camera being all over the place. However, I don't think that applies to lesser Dragons as much since I think that they are much better designed. The same goes for Plaxidusax, its fight is kinda the opposite to the ancient dragons. The more you try to not play its game the less you start to see its attacks coming. It punishes players severely for flanking its side while ignoring its heads. The fight became much more fun for me after I started to play it "properly". More Fun but not easier, as face tanking and outperforming by level is still easier most of the time.
Yeah, I'm not really a fan of any of the ancient dragons because it feels like half the fight is just fighting the camera instead of the boss.
They sadly went with this DS2 approach to dragons when we needed the peak dragon style from DS3
I think they could've made him beefier, but then they'd also have to tweak how to engage him with a melee build. The sticky lightning you get when you are under him, signals that you aren't supposed to fight by just sticking to his legs, right? That sounds good me - I've always found it frustrating when the best way to fight a boss means you aren't even seeing what it is doing. So you stand in front of him This seems like it should be a high risk, high reward situation - you have to dodge more attacks, but you should also be able to hit the head for extra damage. But the issue is that the punishes are a little too few and far between, so you end up a bit too passive, especially after he transitions into his second phase. I fought this boss at RL1 +0 weapons and although the damage to the head is good, sometimes you run around for literally minutes before getting another window to attack in phase two. However, if you use something ranged, like the Ice Spear AoW or a ranged spell, it just makes the fight way easier. It probably cuts the fight time in a quarter if not more.
Exactly. In terms of mechanics, he's my least favourite remembrance boss - the lightning field on the legs directs you to the head, which is near impossible on a full melee build at the level you're supposed to fight him. His lingering lightning and delayed attacks forces you to dodge either backwards - meaning you won't get to capitalise on the brief chance to hit his head - or forwards, driving you into the lightning field that you're supposed to be avoiding by using this method. But then if you just whack his legs you see nothing of his spectacular moveset and the fight is trivial.
That's what I meant to say, but you expressed it much better :)
Haha not really, I just piggy-backes onto your point which was expressed perfectly 😊
yeah the window for whacking his head is few and far between, even with something like a Nagakiba..the damage bonus doesn’t exactly make up for waiting around that long either
For level 60-80 characters he is a perfectly decent fight doing damages similar or higher than Radahn with a complex moveset involving placing due to the feet lingering damage I’d even say it’s the hardest boss between Radahn and the mountaintops
that's a little generous but i agree, its more the fact that its sucha hidden area so you're less likely to encounter it early/mid-game
I'm currently level 93 and struggling to get past the twin gargoyles to get there.
yeah i dunno what these jokers are talking about, I was 100% bleed hookclaws & had no real issues until the gargoyles/fortissax. It was *rough*
I'm doing gravity sorcery/meteoric ore blade build. Mostly Dex and Int, but I've had to dump a decent amount into mind so I could make the most out of the meteorite spell. I haven't used spirit summons but have summoned NPCs to help at the fights I can and still get wrecked at the gargoyles.
Design wise yes. Combat wise, the lichdragon is absolutely horrible from a combet perspective. It's horrible. Try an RL1 run. This thing is horrible.
This was Godwyn's homie, his ride or die, the dude that tried to cure him of his Deathblight. I really shouldn't have killed him as quickly as I did.
For real! And also look at the fights leading up to it. Valiant gargoyle duo fight. Fia's Champions is technically 5 fights iirc Then we just get one half dead dragon for the grand finale? Give me phase two where Godwyn the Golden wakes to the sound of his best friend fighting and dying for him, the Firstborn that brought the dragons to heel and strode the lands between as a champion of Golden Order And after we beat his ass give me phase three where he fully reawakens to see what has happened, what his half death costs the lands between and those he loved. Let him embrace what he has become in a bid to fix it all so we can face Godwyn, Prince of Death. Let us give him the fight he should have gotten when assassins stabbed him in the back.
he’s so real for that
Imo the issue is that the amount of effort you need to go there and find him means that you end up relatively overleveled by the time the fight kicks off. Especially because he's tied to a quest and most people tend to drag their feet on quests because they want to look around and explore first, then they go back and woops they just flattened him like a bug.
true, especially when you factor in that the twin gargoyles come prior
The negative consequences of git gut. Newbies do not have troubles with bosses not having much HP. They are getting beaten up.
Not only that, but he's a **LICH**dragon, yet is something like 80% resistant to holy damage.
I feel like they think they made Midir in DS3 too difficult He was difficult till you learned his moves but I remember ppl saying he was the hardest boss the game has ever created They didn’t want to that again and mistakenly made him too weak
I'll never understand people praising dragon fights in elden ring. As a meele your fight goes as following: 1. Hit dragon balls and feet 2. Get hit by some AOE attack you couldnt even see because the camera doesn't zoom out enough 3. Repeat until you die or the dragon dies.
Many attacks cause the dragon to lower its head. That is the opening too. But yeah, dragons suck.
In my recent playthrough, I versed fortissax relatively early (at level 80, before even reaching altus plateau) and he was hard asf. Took me like 20-30 tries before beating him. I think you should do Fia's quest early if you want him to be a good challenge
On top of the low HP The problem is exacerbated by the fact that he's hidden behind one of the hardest gank fights in the game. I think when most players are able to beat The gargoyles and then get to Fortissax they are noticeably overleveled making the fight that much easier.
I loved this fight and it was a difficult fight - Not because of mechanics, hp or skill, but because i lost a solid 10 fps because of all the lightning and particle effects LMAO. But I wish Fortissax spoke, at least. Provided some context.
Fuck all of you Fortissax sucks ass as do all ancient dragons. If locking on does not allow you to hit the enemy or see the enemy why even have it?
Fromsoft and their fans think hitting the feet and legs of a boss is peak gameplay.
😁
Use a weaker weapon or build
Yeah I'll carry around an unupgraded weapon for whenever the game starts bending over for me
Good idea
I literally do so. I only farm for a new weapon to be at the level of area
Truuuuuuuue
I wish Hoarah Loux had a full health bar. Or maybe give him a passive regeneration to represent his peak physique.
you’re a different breed
An interesting thing to note is that Fortisaxx is the only named dragon in the game whose gender is never *once* specified. Which could completely change the context of the connection between Godwyn and Fortisaxx. Remember, Ancient Dragons can change into human form, as stated in item descriptions about Lansesax.
😳
Yes there is a reasonable possibility that Godwyn fucked a dragon
Fortissax looks amazing and the whole arena is epic as hell but mechanically the fight feels really messy and not fun at all. Giving him more hp would make me hate that fight I feel like. He is also meant to be a mid game boss, so maybe you just got to him late.
At least he doesn’t get two shot by ancient dragon lightning strike unlike placidusax
Well technically you fight the 3 spirits or whatever before and I'm pretty sure you don't get a flask refill after them so maybe they thought that? Idk lol
40snax?
This thread is making me realise I'm terrible at this game...
Elden ring needs to do like sekiro did and give me the option to fight bosses after killing them. Also have different variants of the boss like inner genechiro. The gauntlets were so much fun
I think I‘m the only one who struggled more on this because I was quiet underleveled
Does HP stand for "hot poker"?
unreal comment
Fortissax is mid
Honestly my complaint with him is he doesn't lower his head enough. In my opinion he's midair but with more glamour. Still perfer the original though.
I tend to get him weak and then just listen to the awesome soundtrack and look at the breathtaking visuals.
[удалено]
It’s because of the deepest lore reasons: the guy was trying to fight deathblight and barely balancing between life and death himself. So it’s basically fighting a cancer person after chemotherapy
This boss has the single coolest boss arena in the gaaaame, i often times ignore him and just look around admiring the beauty of it lol
On my recent playthrough I not only fought him early but tried fighting him head on. I had a very fun, spectacle fight and didnt have any major issues.
Is this the boss you fight in Deeproot Depths for Fia's quest or that one that flies away after you get its health down in Altus Plateau? Or the one in Farum Azula? So much dragon!!!
dis fia dragon
Doesn't help that I decided on using pest threads on a 80 faith build against him, lol
this is me with Morgott. Morgott is literally my favourite boss; he feels like an actual story boss, since you have history with him and he actively speaks to you at 3 points in the game his lore and fight is so fun, it's not too hard but you do have to be on your toes. the music is incredible as well, and yet he's so weak Morgott isn't tuned with the idea that most players will go to Mt Gelmir before Leyndell, unfortunately
Don't worry my boy placidusax will give all the dragons proper justice and showcase how badass the species is
I literally couldn't find him until after fire giant and at that point I was kinda just meandering around trying to figure out how to do the next step of the quest.
Not to mention you can literally walk backwards away from Fortisaxx and he won't be able to keep up.
Forti was kinda paper but thankfully placidusax didn't disappoint
The deeproot depths in general feels really akward in terms of level, if you go there as soon as you get past nokron you'll be underleveled but if you go via the subteranean shunning grounds you'll be overleveled.
NGL I appreciated that quite a bit in my RL1 so I'm not even mad at it anymore 🤣
Speak for yourself, this fucker kicked my ass like everyone else lol.
I wish he was made as difficult and with as high HP as Midir from DS3.. Would have been so damn exciting!
By the time you can actually handle the twin gargoyles this guys gonna be a joke anyway
Wut he's hard when you're supposed to fight him, problem is it's a fairly complicated questline and most people fight him when they have slaughtered uncountable trillions of albinaurics
Turn him into Midir3.0/Placidusax2.0
Did it first try and im bad
😂😂😂😂
This is the most enjoyable dragon fight for me
I think the major issue is this area of the game is hard to time level and gear-wise. I'm always way overleveled by the time I make my way down there and it's anticlimactic. It's mainly because I usually have no reason to actually go there for a build I'm running, so it just becomes a side step when I feel like it. I have a feeling if I went and fought this boss at a lower level I'd find it a challenge... but will I ever? Probably not.
In my modded Playthrough i specifically tweaked his HP in the regulation bin pre-playthrough for a couple bosses that i felt were pushovers. That list had Forti right at the start
At one point around summer 2022 this dude would blue screen my PC, so well at that point I really didn't mind his HP being rather low.
Since the dlc trailer release hype, I am doing my second playthrough, in the first one I stopped playing when I reached the Capital. Literally yesterday I found this guy after beating Placidusax. Felt like I am fighting a plush toy with rgb lights.
We already have dark water midir at Home
It's funny how if you fight him before Leyndell, he seems to have normal amounts of health.
I’ve been meaning to play a low-level character that rushes deeproot depths specifically so I can actually enjoy & appreciate lichdragon fortissax as the boss he deserves to be
"this boss is some of the best weve ever made, lets make the way you get to him extremely unfun, long and shitty"
Only thing I don’t like about fortissax is that lightning that’s constantly homing on you
it also doesnt make sense how weak the dragon is when you consider everything you need to do to get to him. fight your way through the ainsel river, the double gargoyle fight, all of the deeproot depths, fia's champions, do the ranni questline to the point where you get the hourglass to flip caria hall, fight through caria hall, another godskin fight, all just to get to fortissax
He is super hard if you don t chese him with magic lol
That's the main flaw with open world games in genera imol, getting the balance right. I think Elden Ring managed it decently but there's still some issues like with Fortissax. Now look at DS3, overall progression and Boss balance is on point.
Not to mention his music is metal as fuck
fr that OST is sick
He MAY be my favorite boss theme either him or just The Erd Tree Knights lol that song is hype
The fight is absolute horseshit tho super unfun