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Perhaps the fastest attack in the entire game is the Godskin Noble's blackflame belly smack in phase 2. Even the wiki says you actually can't react to this. You have to predict it. Though I don't know how you do that because he does it completely randomly when you're extremely close and it is soooooo fast.

Yuuhp the old IIA.

you are pretty average as a player but keep practicing and you will get as good as your sister in time... she's a legend.

I really hate these types of moves. For me one of the best feelings in Sekiro and the older Souls games is to be on your last bits of health and clutching up to finish the boss without getting hit. Bosses like Godskin Noble have instantaneous and damaging attacks (the blackflame belly bump on 2nd phase) that feel pretty cheap to get hit by. Of course, you can play passively and keep away from them in order not to trigger that move in specific, but either way each time you approach the boss there is a chance he'll just do it and kill you. Also, prediction dodges by the player are often punished by iroll catching moves (which are most times based on input reading by the enemies), so in some cases there really is nothing you can do after a cartain point. Overall, I think it's just a frustration that makes the game a bit worse.

You put into words very well how I feel about the Twin Princes. Such a great boss fight. I felt "meh" about it when progressing, but playing as Spear of the Church has been the most fun I've had in the Souls series so far.

Ah yes. History. I’m proud to have a degree in history but it has been entirely useless to me professionally. Keep up the good work. I too am a mediocre Souls player but have managed some degree of competence with DS3 through perseverance and being ok with getting my ass handed to me. Cheers 🥂

Congratulations on 350. Your jardwork and dedication is beginning to pay off. I watch all the videos although I don't always leave a comment because I still haven't finished Sekiro myself. But the quality and presentation is really well done. Your channel will soon explode. All the best!

Well, I started dark souls because I thought of it as a medieval fantasy adventure action kind of game. I didn't know that it was a totally fictional world. I thought firelink shrine was kind of a motel that has fallen into disuse because of all the shit going on. (Yes I didnt understand anything by opening cutscene. I simply didnt know what to make of it). What really got me interested into dark souls was the approach to combat itself. A sword and shield which you can actually use like a sword and shield. Upto this point most games I played the sword and shield were just a way to increase your attributes. (Games like Dungeon Siege and a few others). PS: I have also studied history not as a PHD but as an interest. But the history I read was India Pakistan and some Islamic history.

videos have been so well constructed, specifically good use of deliberate phrasing goes a long way for driving your points home and also allowing us to better understand the topic of any given video. Keep it up homie have been thoroughly enjoying these videos and have been a source of enjoyment on my commute home 🫶

that was the least expected face reveal ever, well nice beard bro

The man the myth the legend himself, congrats!💪🗿

This is by far the best analysis yet. Good job 👍

When I fought Margit at SL1, I learned to handle phase one. You can stand in front of him and tee off, knowing when and where to dodge or parry. But then phase two brings his fast spectral sword stab and suddenly, it's a different game. You can dodge it *unless* you're doing what you did in phase one. I still haven't found all the best ways to manage it, and that means I still haven't gotten bored of the fight.

To kinda piggy back on your point. As a child I played these educational PC games called Jumpstart. And I swear to god I still remember the tune the days of the week song in spanish. At what point did we decide that learning and education was an assembly line? And that it must be boring? As an explanation im an indie game dev. In Raph Koster's book "Theory of Fun" he reduces games to abstracted learning. The truth is humans LOVE to learn but we've been taught to hate it. Gaming is learning. Learning systems, mechanics, movesets, etc. Highly recommend the book. Its short and easy to read. You could finish it in a day

100% deserved. Love your boss analysis videos, super underrated

Gotta say if it has been your goal to make unpretentious and approachable boss analyses, you have succeeded. I definitely find your insights both fun and useful for casuals like myself. And it’s nice to hear that you spend a long time learning bosses :)

🍷

youre cute

A lot of regular enemies have this too. For instance, the cathedral knights shield bash in ds3

Yea

Congratulations!

Just a few clarifications! Q: Am I saying these attacks are unfair/unreactable? A: No. Q: Am I criticizing Elden Ring? A: Definitely not--I tried to be as explicit about that as possible in the video. Q: Aren't these attacks part of combos? A: They can be. The point of this video is not that they are random, simply that they are rapid and deployed at close distance. Q: Are you forgetting that other games have fast attacks? A: Of course not. I point out that other games have fast attacks; I also point out why, in my opinion, they function differently in ER than in previous games.

I had practiced no hitting some of these bosses. The IIA are there to make attacking the bosses from neutral unsafe, so the only safe opening are the Boss attack recovery but some of the attack recovery is very fast that they immediately go back to neutral (unsafe) , so you need to know which attack is safe to punish and avoid the IIA. I'm a pretty sure the crucible knight fast tail is not an IIA but a combo extension (similar to Margit dagger). They have like 90% chance of doing it as combo ender. The tail is the safest attack to punish and attack you would want to bait out. Overall I have no problem with IIA. I think most of them can be avoided or reacted, the only IIA I think that is way too fast and unfair is noble presence.

I really like them when they are used as a positioning tool. For instance, a tailed boss having an IIA where its tail swipes you, to force you not to circlestrafe around it. My least favorite IIA in ER is the Godskin Noble's bellypush. God dang it feels impossible to avoid, and is used where I am most comfortable attacking them.

I don't understand your point. DS3 boss have higher speed attacks from a neutral state, and it's usually yet another swing with a higher speed. Every attack in this video is visually different from the rest of their moveset, and have a unique sound clue. In Crucible Knight case, he always does it as a follow-up, so you'll be expecting it, making it easier to dodge (or jump if you're feeling brave). That's why it's the only one of the three that does relevant damage. This also applies to Godskin Noble's "noble presence". Death bird attack is a positioning thing, he will do it if you are at mid-range, not if you are glued to him attacking the body. The only attack in the game that is equally fast as some attacks from DS3 bosses from a neutral is the double swing to the left from Godskin Apostle. It requires instant reaction and two perfect rolls, but at least it's the only attack that he does to the left, so it's no THAT bad to react.

In almost every case I think this is actually a really good addition to most bosses. Thing is that these types of attacks exist to punish you for attacking in nuetral, being overly greedy and/or just having bad positioning. I've seen some comments from others in here saying that perhaps they should be more reactable but that negates the entire point of the attack. Take Godricks whirlwind for example as it's been used by several others here, the point is to gain an understanding of his kit get in and punish during his windows and then get back out to mid range again. This prevents the player from doing things like just circle strafing to the bosses back constantly. This is the case with a lot of these types of attacks. To bolster my point I can link a clip of me absolutely dumpsering old demon king SL1 hitless in about a minute on the first try after not playing DS3 in years. This boss desperately needed an attack like Godricks whirlwind because as is you can just get under him and he can do nothing to stop you. I've made this point before but I think it highlights the issue quite well. A boss that is a punching bag is no fun imo. They need mechanics that force the player to deal with their kit. These attacks can come in other ways as well though. If we look at Morgott the first slash from his helicopter move comes out absurdly fast, in fact I do think it's unreactable, you have to roll preemptively to avoid it, however it's a consistent follow up in a dedicated combo flow chart so you know exactly when he's going to do it. These are entirely fair imo as they are consistent and learnable. Then you have bosses like Radagon. He has moves that are incredibly fast he can do from neutral like his stomp and thrust which exist to punish greed and attacking in neutral. He also has mix ups like his shotgun spray attack that are even faster but it's only ever a follow up to a different move that is extremely telegraphed. These types are the hardest for me to deal with personally but I also have to admit that it feels incredibly rewarding to learn them. And at the end of the day this is what it comes down to though... Do we want every attack to be sight readable and reactable the first time we see it? I'd argue no. Aso that this is a standard that doesn't really apply to most of Fromsofts games especially since Bloodborne. This is not something unique to ER and it's heavily present in Bloodborne and DS3 also. Bosses like Ludwig, OoK, Maria, Dancer, Champion Gundyr and Soul of Cinder all have attacks like this. These games are meant to be about learning through failure, trial and error is the entire point. Obviously, the degree to which a person finds trial and error to be enjoyable is going to be different which is why the game itself has an enormous amount of tools which can alter this dramatically. One thing that annoys me is how people make this argument that you need to either cheese the game or struggle for many hours. This simply isn't true. People act like there are no spirit ashes that exist aside from mimic and tiche, or that you must have a completely broken bleed build or be naked with a club and there's no in between. There is no nuance in this discussion and it's absurd to me. ER offers you so many tools to dial in the difficulty in a way that appeals to you but everyone just ignores them and complains. At the end of the day I love ER bosses and while they're certainly not perfect neither are any of them across the entire series. Yes, they are very difficult to learn if you want to play solo, melee only, no ashes of war ECT and never trade. However, the trade off there is that they are MUCH better to return to at least for me. These flights remain difficult to execute even when mastered which is great for replayability. It's also incredibly satisfying to learn, overcome and become consistent with something that previously felt nigh impossible which is the literal point of these games.

I hate the mechanics of this game. Yeah they can do this bullshit from neutral when you attack, great job from punishing players for just playing the game.

Am i the only one that thinks midair is c teir

what would you classify the burial guard dog slam attack as it is well telegraphed but attack itself is too fast to blindly react and requires seemingly a 6th sense to dodge.

from 2:25 to 3:20, i dunno why but you seem to stutter more than normal there like if you are worried about something regardless great video ngl, good analysis

I think IIA is good or bad depending on how they are implemented. From my experience, these types of attacks serve the purpose of punishing careless aggression and require the player to respect the boss's neutral after an opening. Many of these IIA are positional based, and I think these are the most intuitive to learn and deal with. In the DS3 there is Demon King with his combustion when you are in front like in the video, but there are also Dancer with her quick slap attack in phase 2 when you are sticking to her right side and Champion Gundyr's kick when you are behind him. In ER, there is Radahn double sword slam when you are right in front of him, Fallingstar Beast's hind legs stomp when you are to its side, etc. While these attacks are quite fast, they only occur under specific circumstances so after being hit several times under similar conditions, pattern recognition will identify these attacks and intuitively learn how to avoid them. The more "arbitrary", the one that can occur regardless of your position is a bit more problematic in my opinion. Many of them are not quite unreactable necessarily, especially when you are expecting them, but their being position-independent removes an element of predictability; thus, making them more random and much more of a guessing game. The thing that makes this guessing game somewhat fair is that these attacks are often very weak, visually distintive from other attacks, and the boss will rarely spam the IIA one after another so after you see 1, you don't need to guess it again for the next few openings. Still, I refer to the more position-based IIA since those attacks can just be avoided like every other attack instead of the arbitrary one where you have to specifically put aside some of your neurons for that one specific attack just in case it happens. It is generally not a deal breaker for me but can be quite annoying when I happen to forget about it for a split second and get hit because I was being over-aggressive.

I think its important to make these attacks visually distinct from other attacks. If an IIA, as you put it, is just another sword swing on a boss with 12 sword attacks, it can be really annoying. But if the attack has a very distinct visual cue that contrasts it from the rest of its move set, its way easier and also more fun to learn how to dodge it. It feels like the boss having to resort to a quicker ability (like the crucible knight tail swing and the zamor ice explosion) in order to catch you off guard rather than just a faster normal weapon attack

I really hate when a really big enemy doing this. *I talk about you Midir.* How the f*ck I react when the hint didn't appear on the screen?! Damnit Fromsoft Cameraaa!!! Please gives option to scroll away againts those gigantics.

I've always considered these attacks to be "overcommitment checks". They can be done from neutral, these are typically the fastest attacks a boss has, and are identified by determining what the smallest safe opening against that boss is. They limit how big your punishes can be, because you always have to keep your punish short enough to not get caught by an overcommitment check when you're stuck in an animation, even if you'd be safe in the did one of their many other slower attacks. The Ancient Hero of Zamor's frost ball attack is a great example of this. Even if the punish you're going for would be safe against all his sword swings, you have to keep it short enough to not get by the frost ball on the off chance the Zamor Hero decides to do that attack after recovering from the attack you're punishing. Malenia's Waterfowl Dance and Manus's 5 five hit combo are an example of a different style of the overcommitment check, where you have to be a certain distance away from the boss by the time the attack starts-up to be safe. They accomplish the same thing, limiting what punishes the player is safe to commit to, but are different mainly in how much damage they do. They demand the player respect them, even if they are uncommonly used attacks. Because if the player is caught getting greedy once, that's most of their life bar gone.

I know its not the topic of the video but I have to comment on the bit about delayed attacks. I was one of those people. But we arent anti-delayed attacks indeed I loved Namless King. DS3 bosses have been described as a dance where you enter a sort of flow state (Gasl being the epitome of this). For every delayed attack you inject a hop and a skip into the dance. The flow is brought to a screeching halt because know you have to work against to flow. This isnt bad! Indeed Mohg has a certain flow to him once you understand his moveset. But what this means is that the player needs to be more intimately familiar with the boss's moveset than ever before. In DS3 to a certain extent you could just "react" to each consecutive attack. To an extent you could brute force a lot of the DS3 bosses without knowing their moveset perfectly. This isnt true of ER endgame bosses. And so every boss becomes a roadblock rather than a speedbump. Which wouldnt be such a problem if the endgame bosses weren't just one after another after another. You could fight Morgott, Fire Giant, Godfrey, Radagon, Elden Beast almost sequentially. Tldr: ER boss design isnt bad but Id hate to only have these sort of bosses for the foreseeable future. I want more Gael-like bosses. The flow state is a different sort of fun. But in regards to the topic. I think like most things it depends on implementation. As you mention some of these attacks are borderline unreactable or totally unreactable for some totally unreactable. My first thought (in regards to the deathbird) is that even if they are reactable between the time the attack starts to the time it follows through is faster than certain attack animations. Meaning it could telegraph when you're already stuck in an animation. So much for reacting to it. The Crucible Knight is better because it can be ANTICIPATED. It only comes after certain attacks. The downside is twofold. 1) Now you have the boring chore of identifying and memorizing which attack it will chain from. The more complex the boss the longer the checklist of tedium. Funnily enough goes back to my previous point about Gael and DS3. The less obvious whats happening, the less apparent it is to the player what they're doing wrong and how to respond to it. Hence player frustration. 2) Also much more minor is the animation chaining. I remember being endlessly frustrated by the tail whip because it would always catch me mid animation. And I think part of the reason is because its effectively a chain combo but visually the Kight will do an attack - return to standing neutral for just a second - before going into the tail whip. So from the players eyes it looks like two distinct attacks where the tail whip just randomly decided to start at that moment like it was RNG. I think it would be conveyed better to the player as one continuous stream of animations. Honestly it makes it sound like I dislike Crucible Knights but tbh they're better than most DS3 bosses 😂. And this point is rather nitpicky. Lastly, as you point out these attacks are nearly unreactable. In regards to difficulty, is this the line we want to toe? Godfrey doesn't have any particularly fast attacks but was one of the hardest for me. Malenia is fast but I never felt unreactable. I think if players are persistently failing to evade certain attacks then maybe we need to reevaluate. I think if it can be ANTICIPATED is key for these sorts of attacks because the closer we toe that line between what is reactable and what isnt the more frustrating bosses will be.

I wouldn’t mind them if they also weren’t heavy damage dealers. I think a quick ‘back off now’ type of attack should also have low damage. Not usually a problem in NG but when you go higher, it can get bad. It’s a good thing that nearly every attack in ER is react-able, but the few that aren’t as, like the ones you highlighted, are really noticeable as a result. Though I think for Zamor warrior I have more trouble with their double slash jump away move.

Let me know how you feel about IIA's in the comments below! Do you think they're a positive evolution or a negative one, and why?

Yeah I needed a summon for James Pontiff Sullivan

Ahhhhhh parrying is cheating! Still a great feat though! Great shit!

The thing about parrying pontiff is that his blue sword attacks are not parriable. And that makes no sense and I love it. It forces u out of the just stand in his face and parry strat. That is why I feel parrying Pontiff is not as cheesy as say Gwyn. A mix of parriable and unparriaable attacks mean u need to learn both parry and dodge timings.

congrats!!

Regardless of what tier each boss is there is one thing common to all. They are all very memorible whether it is for the design, lore or attack pattern learning curve or the overall difficulty. If all of the souls community were to come together I am pretty sure everyone of us will have something to say or a story to tell about what they thought about the boss or how they mastered it or merely made it out alive. This is something I didn't feel as strongly about the Elden Ring bosses. The bosses in this game are absolutely the highlight (and half the reason for them to exist is Bloodborne.)

Halflight is annoying but PvP aspect is pure cancerous. I don't think From Soft has made a mandatory pvp centered boss which is fair. The Monk and Halflight both are bullshit but I still find the PVE fight much better than an actual player. Also Patches is available for summon and there is every reason to summon him. This is his last appearance in Dark Souls trilogy and Halflight's painting guardians are equally as stupid as Halflight himself.