Or in general liking all Fromsoftware's Soulsborne games, they each have their own personality and thing that makes them good, it's kinda annoying when people just start downplaying other games
@@thepublicpotato3887igon doesn’t really do anything except scream lmao. When I used him, he only hit bayle like twice and I think he took aggro maybe one time for a split second or two
@@brandinicole1372eh, I found Fortissax to be the best base game dragon fight. Placi is just a slog with a runup that is way too easy to fall to you death to, or get f**ked over by the game and have it send you into the void after the getting up animation.
As a fan of Monster Hunter, I always found it odd that some players struggled or refused to ever free aim any boss encounters even when it's more advantageous to do so. However, when you mentioned that normal encounters very much don't demand that I understood why. I guess when a boss demands you use a skill that isn't taught, it can be quite frustrating.
As a console player, you need to use your right thumb to move a camera around. Most players will also use their right thumb the roll. When boss is doing an attack string, it can be nearly impossible to keep your camera focused on a boss whilst they do a complex attack strong whilst also dodging through the attacks with precise timing with the same thumb, which is why it's pretty annoying (at least when playing with a controller)
Honestly most Souls vets learned to not use lock on back in DS1. But I do see what you mean, it isn't necessarily taught by the game, however on the flip side of that same coin nothing really is in Souls games. 🤷🏻♂️ Just more base strategies are taught a little more intuitively, and not everyone is a vet.
That's exactly why I re-mapped my dodge to left trigger. I can look around and dodge at the same time. Who the heck thought losing control of your camera was a good idea?
I think you should've talked about the laser attack of each boss, in my opinion they're the pinnacle and the tradition in the tough dragon fights of FromSoft. (Also the runback to bayle's arena is by far the shortest one which is a + for me)
Midirs run back is very short, has no enemy's and one of the most Epic Entrances in the Franchise right after Burnt Ivori King. They even replicated this Fall and the look of his Arena with Putrecent Knight. Midir has many Inspiring things, that people aren't acknowledging. Bayle is a top Tier Boss, maybe the best in the Dlc. Wich is very unfortunate for Midir beeing next to Gael, the picnickle of the Dark Souls Franchise. Bayle is technically better, but Midir was the first true Outstanding Dragon fight, who is on par with Amazing fights like O&S, Alone, Ludwig, Gael and Godfrey. Bayle beeing the Second on the exact caliber is insane to me. Placidusax wore of after a couple of Playthroughs. He is Great and all, but not as refined and all other Dragons are to janky for it. Sry Kalameet, Sin and Fortisaxx Fans.
@@anigodzapex9384I’ve always liked Placidusax more. And the issue with Midir is that he is incredibly simple and easy. He has very few moves, and only has 1 threatening move
@@Detriax Dont get me wrong. I love Placidusax. He is easily bettter then Rest of the Fromsoft Dragons. Dragon God, Gaping, Kalameet, Guardian Dragon, Ancient Dragon, Sin, Ancient Wyvern, Storn King, Oceiros (Nobody mentions the self created Half Dragon to resemble Seath), Divine Dragon, Lansseax, Fortisax. He is better then all of these, wich is a Lot at this Point. His Teleportions look cool and are well Telegraphed, his Thunderstrikes are a well Designed get of me Move and his Stormcloud Assaults look Amazing and are satisfying to Dodge. My problem is, that he just Sits there for 50 percent of the Fight, his Flame Breath Hitboxes are weird and he is also to easy in Repeated Runs. Midir and Bayle have way more imposing Melee Comboes, more Dynamic Movement. The Build Up for both is as good aswell and the Themes are just Magnificent. Bayle Bombastic Track and Midir Tragic Melody will be stuck in my Head Forever. Placid´s theme gives me Monster Hunter Frontier Shantien Vibes, wich is a Big Compliment. Its just really classic "Epic Dragon Music", wich is very good, but not good enough. And i feel this way for everything for him.
All three fights are great, but I do think Midir and Bayle presents powerful rampaging dragons much better than Placidusax. Placidusax felt a bit too immobile and clunky despite having his teleport move.
Placidusax does feel more… special though. It’s hard to explain but when you get in his arena and he’s just… floating there with 3 missing heads and mutilated everywhere. His nuke move is also much cooler than bayle one, even makes his ost stop in the meantime. I do agree fight wise bayle was better though.
I personally think that works in Placidusax's favor, since I see him as conveying more of a run-down regal dignity rather than something that's brutal and rampaging.
Yeah. I do think some types of players will appreciate Placidusax more than the other two, as some don't care to fully master the bosses and just want spectacle. The dragonlord will likely be their favorite of the 3.
Midir, palcidusax, and bayle may be challenging bosses in their own right, but I don't think I've ever faced a boss as hard and difficult as the dark souls camera
I feel like it’s a dance with Bayle rather than a fight, and every thing he does looks so dramatic while looking like a feral wild animal at the same time. My favorite part is his phase transition and his death animation, he tried his best to summon down thunder to charge his broken wing weapon but he didn’t realize he was already dead.
If by dance you mean wait for it to do a bloated combo, then get 1 hit in and repeat for the next 10 minutes that it takes to take his health down… then yes.
@@Kaiji...Skill issue on your part, I literally kept attacking on the end of each combo, attacking the boss at least every 3-4 seconds. Stop making shit up, git gud, stop coping and misinforming people. I have video of my 6th attempt on a boss on my channel, I learned him much better on my second playthrough of DLC just yesterday, will post that too. That's if you're genuinely interested of course, and hopefully not a blatant troll trying to be different
@@Kaiji...Beat him with falling star beast jaw and didn’t take any damage till phase two. He doesn’t have a crazy amount of combos but his lightning after effect in phase two is pretty annoying. He’s really not that bad but then again using strength builds I can stagger him like 3-4 times in the fight.
I wholeheartedly disagree with the lock on take on Midir. I was fight him lock on right in front of him only dodging backwards until he finishes his combos and I never have problems with his camera. Of course it does swing a lot up, down and side to side but it just makes the fight more cinematic and it doesn't interfere on the gameplay. As long as you keep him always in front of you its a flawless camera wich is impressive for such a big enemy and seeing how fromsoftware struggled so much with camera in this last dlc
You didn't fully touch on it, but I think the music on Bayle also is top tier and elevates it so well. The way it changes in phase to make it seem like even more impending doom is something to witness your first time.
I love Bayle too, he got complex moveset that requires good timing on dodges, positioning, even jump attack. My favourite is the tail swipe too, but also the slam attack in phase 2. After the slam theres lava erruption, so after dodging it you have to position yourself fast enough to be right infront of Bayle's head before the erruption goes off to get your punish. Its great that that move Bayle actually recover slower compare to the phase 1 slam, you can even get a full charge attack off. Even his laser move he will end up right infront of you afterwards. You can also jump over his phase 2 nuke to get a free jump attack, mastering the fight is immensely satisfying to me.
Yup. When I first got to phase 2, after like 3d attempt, I saw the nuke, just how much ground it covered and straight up thought there's the way to , or ideally jump it. Overall, Elden Ring DLC highly demands the player to know perfectly the core mechanics of the base game, with a lot of bosses requiring you to jump, having moderate poise so you target stance breaking, a lot of bosses still have roll catching attacks. For example, jumping over Rellana's moons, over Bayle's aoe. Also, Bayle has very low poise for a dragon so being aggressive with him is the key, especially considering how the boss has frequent punish windows where you hit his head
@@Vengeance_I_m true, I was using a great hammer fighting him. End up poise break him 4 times in a single fight after knowing when to hit him and go full on aggressive mode.
tell me what is unfair about second phase radahn? the only bad thing about him is the double slash attack which is nearly undodgeable, otherwise an extremely well crafted boss where everything is dodgeable, optimization is the games fault not radahns
@gerwan9132 The lights. I genuinely couldn't see shit because of light pillars end explosions everywhere, not to mention that when Radahn spins, all I can see are Miquellas long ass hair (and you HAVE to dodge him on the sides, if you roll backwards the lights are gonna hit you). His moveset per se it's fine, but the lights make everything so chaotic. Fantastic first phase, the second one is more scenic but less suitable for a gameplay
@@based-ys9um Demon Souls combat? Are you serious? Play it again and tell me with a straight face it’s Demon Souls combat, Elden Ring’s combat is literally faster than Bloodborne even.
Something i think you're dead wrong about is Midir being worse when locked on. I personally thing Midir is the best dragon because he's the one you can lock on the best. His moves have enough punish windows for you to be able to run at him, his attacks are all easly dodgable from the angles the locking allows, and his attack are perfectly spaced so that you never end up beneath Midir, where all the camera jank would happen. I've always fought him locked on and never had any trouble whatsoever, even getting to kill him hittless in less than 7 tries in a Slv1 run. Placi has camera Jank and isnt as much of a duel as Midir is, and Bayle is far more aggressive than Midir and therefore his punish windows are far too tight when locked on, so that criticism would aply more to him than Midir. I personally consider them equals qualitywise, since Midir's only downfall is his movepool, but that's moreso because of limitations, the fight doesn't even drag at all, since you get a garanteed visceral attack at 70% and he has less health than Gael and recieves more damage
Another thing i forgot to say. Free aiming Bayle makes the fight considerably easier, since most of his moves depend on you locking on to him to be aimed properly, if you haven't tried it u very much advice it, it allows you to either focus on his wounded stump or get free shots at his neck. Midir always keeps you at the perfect distance for a normal duel to take place so free aiming him never even came to mind to me, it simply never was necessary
Hey guys, thanks so much for watching this video! I have literally never had this much engagement this quickly. On the few videos that have gotten these numbers, it's taken DAYS to get here. So, I'm not sure I'll be able to respond or react quickly to all of your comments, but I'll try. I really appreciate the engagement, even if it's to tell me I'm "objectively" wrong about an opinion :D
The Midir lockon works perfectly fine?? I never considered to have problems with it in some sort of way? What is wrong about him? I could not figure out any way to stay locked on for the Bayle bossfight. With Midir, I never had problems at all 13:04 if this happens, Bayle falls apart as well The camera spins fast around Bayle, yes.. But if you are behind him after this combo 14:25 14:27 this next hit likely hits you. Thw camera is also too often inside of Bayle 14:33
Midir camera is the best because it's mostly close to it's head, the head is low so unless he's doing the overhead fire attack and then you can see it and move back the camera doesn't go funky with spin. Also the fight is designed so you attack the head, retreat a bit while he does some combo and then attack again.
I stayed locked on for the whole bayle fight except that flying fire breath and never had any problems except for when I made the mistake of getting under him
@@howdoyoudo5949 Agreed.. but when he spits fire, you already made a huge mistake.. This is only happening if you go under him, which is not the way you are supposed to do it. If you stay infront of him, this attack will not even happen.
You can still take an offensive approach during Placid's slam nuke. The tip of his tail is outside the shockwave. You can run back there and get in a bunch of hits
King of the storm without being locked on is peak. I didn't expect for it to feel natural but I got the hang of it unlocked and loved it. They deserve more respect on the list.
I would say, Placidusax becomes even more of a spectacle fight if you go into it with an ash of war like Raptor of the mists or Vow of the Indomitable! Being able to stand there as he readies his giant lightning nuke and just shrug it off, or land a jumping attack provided by Raptor of the mists is just so awesome. You can essentially avoid running away altogether with tools like those, as even with his divine breath attacks you can stay near him while he's doing and just counter the very end of it for even more damage.
Regarding the aerial attack at 14:43, I used Bayle's claw opening up as a visual clue for when to dodge. Seemed to work pretty well for me cause I don't think I got hit with that move after figuring out the timing.
I actually found Bayle's camera to be the clunkiest of the 3 and stayed locked off for most of the fight while with the other 2 I did it locked on. I am very partial to placidusax so I still like the fight more however I see the argument that bayle is better. All 3 are fantastic bosses and for me at least were a huge highlight of their respective games.
The only problem with the bayle fight is that once you fail to dodge his first move, he completely covers you and attacks you causing the camera to go haywire. I didn't face this problem with placidusax so his fight was much more better. So placidusax's fight was much better fight simply because i didn't need to fight with my camera even after i get hit.
Midir is still my favorite simply because whilst Placidusax and Bayle are amazing bosses (Bayle is my favorite dlc boss) Midir is actually a dragon. The others are so mangled beyond belief that they are kind of slugs more than anything. I’ve always hated blob shaped bosses and both placi and Bayle are very much similar to the latter than the former, I.e. an actual dragon. I don’t understand how Sekiro learned the art of camera zoom out yet ER does not. So many bosses would be better if the camera was just more versatile.
Depth perception gets messed up when zooming out the camera , which is why its so difficult sadly. The camera is zoomed out for bayle, but it's a lot more complicated of an issue than it seems. Also, guardian ape is around Malikith sized, making it much less of a challenge. The camera with midir i think works better because he's more elongated as you're saying.
With regard to the camera, do you think it would help if the camera zoomed out slightly? Similar to how Final Fantasy 16 handles large bosses but not to the same extent.
I will say one strike I have against Bayle is visual clutter. Especially his phase 2 wing slam into flame lightning trail aren’t hard on the camera, but they are hard on the eyes. There’s a lot of visual clutter for me. Sometimes I don’t really know what’s happening and even if I can dodge it, it doesn’t feel satisfying to dodge. I never really had that problem with Midir, so for that reason, I’d put Midir slightly above Bayle mechanically. But still a good fight.
I always thought the best solution for camera issues with big bosses would be to just zoom the camera out. Seems like a pretty straightforward solution.
Another big issue with the camera in Bayle's fight, is that for some reason, you can only lock on to his head, whereas you can lock on to the legs and body of all the other dragons. It's impossible to fight Bayle using lock on when you are very close to him, because his head will be directly above you or even behind you, making the camera to go all over the place. This should be such an easy thing for FromSoftware to fix, and I'm baffled it hasn't been done so yet.
What I find interesting is how most bosses in Elden Ring+dlc at close to their prime, with two major exceptions being both the big dragon fights. They are both rotting corpses of what they used to be and they are still insanely powerful. Goes to show how strong a dragon can be
I find fighting while locked on to Midir's head extremely easy and natural, I'm surprised you don't enjoy it. He is still (at this moment) my favorite Fromsoft dragon boss, simply because of how engaging his fight is. There's no need to smack him in the ankles, his head is always present and there for you to take advantage of. With more practice against Bayle in the future I could see him rising, but for now he takes a close second. He has just a few too many massive AOE's that leave me feeling unsafe challenging him head on, but as I learn to deal with those I may find less of an issue with them down the road. I can appreciate that at least you admit that your struggle with free-aiming is a skill issue. Camera management is one of the most important mechanics that separate good players from great players, and learning when to lock on vs when to free-aim is extremely important in both pvp and pve challenge settings. Would a perfect lock on camera that always framed the target be nice? Yes. Is it practical from a coding perspective? I highly doubt it. But we can hope that some improvements do come down the road.
My perfect dragon boss fight should be: - Atmosphere: Placidusax - Music: Midir -Moveset: Bayle - Lore: A bit bias here, I love the battle of Placidusax and Bayle, but raising by gods and fighting The Abyss for eternity is really my favorite vibe - Design: Dragon God (Although he’s a demon) - Epicness: Divine Dragon - Intro: Kalameet (We get a whole cutscene before fighting him is an absolute cinema) And the boss fight shouldn’t have any camera issues like how we fight against Bayle (it’s terrible locking on him). That is how I create my personal perfect dragon fight based on my previous dragon fights
Bayle ost is of much higher quality and more memorable imo. Overall, DS3 music often times sounds too generic and repetitive, it's like you're listening to a remix. Elden Ring covers big range of instruments and different genres in the OSTs
@@Vengeance_I_m Appreciate your opinion, but can’t say the same to me. My opinion is quite contradictory to your opinion, Bayle’s OST is actually too jarring for my ears during the fight and when I listen it from youtube, I find it quite generic and doesn’t have the rhythm like Midir OST
I'm 42 years old. I beat Bayle last night and he is the greatest boss I ever fought in a videogame to date. I slept on it and woke up to that conclusion. Been gaming since Nintendo. My hands were shaking after I finally won.
I think fights where it’s easier to unlock the camera are less fun. That’s how i started out with bayle but realizing you can actually stand in front of him and watch for cues was awesome
one thing i think helps both bayle and placidusax is their body shapes. because placidusax is flat to the ground and bayle is very hunched, youre less likely to end up under their body getting screwed by the camera anywhere near as hard as you can with almost every other dragon in souls history
I used to absolutely despise the copy-pasted wyvern dragon fights in Elden Ring, but at some point I figured out that it's much more fun to try and fight them like Midir, and almost exclusively go for attacks on their heads. They stagger and crit animation on wyverns is so satisfying. I just wish that they did a better job conveying that to the player. Midir and Bayle's fights are great because the game almost always puts their heads right in front of you during a punish window when they finish attacking. If you look at Bayle and Midir, you notice that their models are stooped over so that their heads are pretty much eye-level with the player. The main issue I have with the wyverns is that their heads are placed way too high up, and sometimes entirely out of reach for certain weapons. You can get a few hits in during the roar animation that always folllows a stomp attack, but sometimes that entire window is eaten up when the wyvern's head ended up behind you because you rolled forward and under the boss to dodge the attack. Obviously if you are under the wyvern you're going to attack it's legs instead of running up to hit the head that you probably can't even reach anyway. And it's not even worth talking about the four-legged ancient dragon fights. Fromsoft gave up, and decided to make a 360° dragon fight where every attack has lightning or shockwave aoe cause the player has no incentive to be facing the front of the boss, and locking-on makes you want to throw up. Oh wait, there's a remembrance boss version with Godwyn lore? Oh, they just took the same shitty design, but added more aoe and deathblight. Thank you Dark Souls. Placidusax is fine, idk. He's like a fat version of the ancient dragons, but less annoying to fight cause you can't go under him and mess up the lock-on camera really bad. His cool attacks are really fucking cool though, and I think it's fine to have a boss that exists just for that. Especially now that Bayle exists to make up for it.
Theirs also the fact that Bayle is missing 1 of 2 legs and both his wings are heavily damaged. This makes him stay close to the ground and not run away as much, which are the worst parts of dragon fights
Sinh also loves spending anywhere between no and too much time in the air, there is so much RNG in that fight to determine wether you can even hit him or not.
@@cardmossdn8058Midir fight still allows you to target his limbs, it just does far less damage than the head. It's about OPTIONS. Midir gives you those options, Bayle doesn't and is a worse fight because of it and other issues.
@@hewhoshallnotbenamed5168 the only lock on point for both Bayle and Midir is the head. Fromsoft is literally spelling it out for you; the fights were designed specifically for the player to target the head. Even then, you’re wrong. It’s pretty easy to get under Bayle and target his leg stump and other leg. Seems like you don’t really understand Bayle’s fight, maybe try practicing and experimenting with it a little more
@@cardmossdn8058 I first tried Bayle. It ain't about "not understanding the fight". It's about the fight just not being fun. But nice try in your gaslighting attempt.
@@hewhoshallnotbenamed5168 if you first tried him, that means you have next to no experience in the fight. You didn’t learn his moves, or the intricacies of his spacing or timings. You either got lucky or brute-forced it. Not to mention that you absolutely can’t comment on how fun a fight is after playing it literally ONE time. Back when ringed city was released people though midir was garbage. They were fighting him wrong. Once people learned to target his head alone, he became known as one of the best souls bosses ever. Im guessing you weren’t around the souls community back in 2017, but that’s how it went, that’s how it always goes with these games. It takes time and many attempt to form accurate opinions on the quality of a boss. You absolutely do not understand Bayle after fighting him once. Try it again
Bayle was fun and I liked how Igon was an inversion of the typical Fromsoft NPC (we met him at his lowest point, broken and crippled, only to help him accomplish his goal and die presumably with a smile on his face)
You can lock on to Midir, you just have to focus on his head. Obviously you need to unlock for certain parts of the fight, but when engaging him one-on-one you lock onto his head and back up to keep it in view properly as you dodge
Great points. While I love Bayle and consider him my favorite ER boss, Midir to me is still the best dragon boss mechanically speaking. There are 2 problems with Bayle. One as you already covered is the camera. While the camera does work sufficiently, it often takes you underneath him and you end up always being blinded or literally stuck inside the model, which can make for some janky moments. Second, while he has a very dynamic moveset that makes for some cinematic moments, it does create problems thats often found with a lot of ER bosses. He can often extend his combos without a buildup or enough time for you to react. For example, for his biting attack, he can extend it by doing almost a headbutt, which comes out quite quickly. This just leaves me guessing or always assuming he's gonna do it, so I end up either rolling through it, or wasting a roll. As similarly stated, some attacks come more quickly than you have time to roll out of. For example, he can sometimes just roar right in your face and multiple lightning strikes will follow. My only solution was to just keep a fair distance away from his head.
@anonymousperson8903 Then that's the problem, it's too subtle to even tell it's gonna come out. It should be better communicated and telegraphed that it's coming.
idk what you mean about not being able to lock on midir bc imo the clips you showed without locking looked a bit disorienting. But I agree with your opinion although I am biased towards midir. But Bale is the dragon I was praying for in this dlc and I was so happy to see him in the trailer as there was no dragon like midir because placidusax was cinematic and only cinematic as his moveset wasn't satisfying for me. Bale's moveset was as vicious as Midir although the camera was a bigger issue for me than Midir while Bale also just looks really cool and has a fair moveset although some dodges are difficult but he has a lot of learning while midir was a bit more intuitive. (I'm so sorry this is so wordy) Overall I rank your opinion as based.
You can attack Bayle's leg stump too, it can't be locked on though Also, the 2nd phase transition isn't that bad, the camera shake and the controller vibration is Bayle landing on the ground. You have to dodge a bit later
I just finished dark souls 3 earlier this year and I feel like midir one of the best boss fights in the series he has the most damage multiplier on his head compared to other dragons who has less damaged multipliers on their head and incentivizes You to actually attack the head It’s a shame that the DLC performance sucks and that it stutters a lot on bayle and on the final boss. I think that this is the #1 thing fromsoft work on right now because a lot of people can’t finish the game.
Bayle in my opinion fixed the biggest issue with dragons which was their fire attacks. Of course Bayle shoots fire at you, but it’s never in a way where you are forced to run away. His arena wide breath attack is a line of fire that you can roll through, rather than one you are forced to retreat from.
Bayle took me longer than Radahn, yet I never felt frustrated to the point I had to take a break. After 2 days of 2-3 hour sessions trying to beat Radahn, I actually had to take a break from the game for a few days due to how frustratingly annoying and difficult he was However, Bayle took me 3 days of 3 hours each to master, yet kept me engaged and immersed the whole time. It was the first time a boss captivated me because of the sheer spectacle (ER is my first souls game)
Camera tracking is probably the bighest issue FromSoft needs to fix. A lot of times, I don't even see the boss, I just react to the camera moving as a potential telegraph. The prime example of this being the Dancing Lion fight. Also, I absolutely LOVE Bayle. He's my favourite boss in FromSoft's already impressive catalogue of bosses(haven't played bloodborne). But when I was trying to learn him in the initial 20 or so rums, I found the he just kept pinning me against the wall with no space to counter or dodge. Even the Dancing Lion is guilty of this. Though now, I can bait out attacks to get him back to the center, those first few runs were NOT fun
Hey so I just got done beating bayle and I wasn't a fan of the boss but i thoroughly enjoyed hearing your perspective on it. It really helped me appreciate this boss more. I would like to share where my expurence with this vwith the fight were poot and i felt could have been improved on. I hope thats alright. I really liked your write up of the 3 fights and agree with your analysis. So hopeful none of this comes across as mean soirited or rambly I found certain weapons struggled more to hit the body more than others. Weapons with overhead attacks did great but the others perticulsrly those which dont open with overhead attacks really struggled to connect half the time. It reminded me of dark souls 1 in that aspect. The shape of his body with his head slightly in the air naturally pushed the player underneath his body where you couldnt see his attacks. I found in nearly all my fights the camera clipped inside his body at some point and led to me guessing when his attacks would come out. I get the sense they knew this spot is not ideal and added the fire breath attack to get you to move but i found this interupts the flow of the fight somewhat. I think having more of his body being close to the ground might have prevented this The tail on the ground got in the way of moving around the boss. I found myself often pushed to the back right of the boss and wanting to attack the wounded leg, and it was vert difficult to run around to tail to get into a good attack position. I found especially when usung summons this was inconvenient The lead up to the boss has you fighting several poorly designed dragon enemies that fraustrated me before even getting to bayle. So by the time I got to him I found I had less patience for the flaws of the fight than I usual would with other bosses because I've just witnessed several examples of bad design. I found this highlighted the flaws with his size and made camera clipping more apparent than it otherwise might of been. Im similar to you and love mastering a bosses moveset. Rellana melania are my favourites for this reason but bayle felt a bit more tedious and in the end I used summons to get it over with and move on with the game. There were lots of attacks i liked learning but i think it fell on the wrong side of tough but fair.
Midir’s epic phase 2 move is him doing his 10 second long combo twice that leads to you chasing him around the arena for 20 seconds Bayle has a better leadup with the Jagged Peak, lore with Placidusax and the Dragon Communion, and quest narrative with Igon, and his fight’s pacing is far more consistent and exhilirating It’s not even close.
Bayle’s camera isn’t that bad. Just ignore his injured leg, attack the head, and don’t get too close. If you are under him, get out fast. Get close only to attack and then back away. If you get greedy and keep attacking you won’t see what he does next. The only camera issue I had was when he flies and does his double fire attack. The first one is hard to dodge with lock on.
Honestly Bayle's lock-on camera is my only complaint about the boss. Everything else from the visuals to the attacks to the whole fight in general is great. My only issue is why does he only have a single lock-on on his HEAD? Anytime he split agro and focused on Igon, thus making me have to attack behind Bayle, I'd have to lock off just so I wouldn't be swinging at air. Bayle's fight would've been a perfect 10/10 for me if he just had a body lock-on spot.
Midir is still at the top for me due to mostly the camera. Bayle's camera is a bit too janky because you'll be under him most of the time even if you're hitting the head which is the weakspot like Midir. The fight is meant to be similar to Midir and in a few ways it is but because Bayle is so much bulkier and moves his head around a lot more the camera is way jankier than the Midir fight even when not locked on That being said though, Bayle triumphs over Midir in nearly every other category except music and camera. His lore is so sick, his attacks especially in phase 2 are so cinematic, Igon is the best summon ever and Shira doesn't come close. If the camera on Bayle was better, he'd take first place easily imo
My man really u could not explain in ti better I 100% bayle is more epic and has more cool moves and lore and build up maybe but midir is just better mechanically and I can't choose who is better. Also the midir soundtrack is better it's one of my favourites
I agree with you on the camera front, but I prefer Bayle's music just slightly more than Midir's due to 2 factors. 1. The vibe. Midir sound like you're fighting a monster, while for Bayle, it feels as if you're fighting a demon incarnate. Bayle's 1st phase's feeling of dread + the perfect cut to phase 2 when he gets his wings is just so good. But that alone doesn't make me like Bayle's theme more, as his theme is elevated by 1 guy. 2. Igon. This is the first time in a game ever where someone's voice acting outside of lyrics just make everything 1000 times better. His passion to see Bayle fall is simply fantastic in so many regards, and I genuinely cannot hear Bayle's theme without at least imagine Igon screaming, "CURSE YOU BAYLE!!!" It's just so powerful
I personally prefer midir as he feels less janky and I don’t feel like I have to lock off except for the move where he runs across the arena and will climb over you. If locking off was how fromsoft wanted us to deal with these moves then I think they should have added a sign in the tutorial saying that some attacks are better dodged locked off.
"I think they should have added a sign in the tutorial saying that some attacks are better dodged locked off." I disagree. From was always about figuring it out yourself, and that continues here.
OG kalameet is my personal favorite even if he wasn't in the video discussion. As cool as the massive, beast like dragons are I would like Fromsoft to revisit the smaller agile dragons like kalameet again.
A good note of scale is the difference between Monster hunter World vs Rise. The monsters, while remaining similar in proportion to world, seem so smaller in scale because of the camera
I think Midir is better because He leaves you more room to hit his head, whereas Bayle moves it around a lot more, and Midir has less visual noise going on compared to Bayle. But Bayle is a great fight nontheless!
This is a cool video, I love the concept of dragons and even if some of the fights are janky I'm glad they are still making them. I like Midir's visual style more and the fact that he's super intimidating at first but becomes easy once you understand the fight is cool to me. Also seeing clips of how cool Midir looked was what convinced me to try souls games so I'm super biased. Bayle is awesome though, super close second from my very not objective point of view, great video.
Bayle is literally Midir with better cinematics and worse camera angles and hitboxes. All they had to do was not allow the player to get under bayle and it would be the best boss fight in the game.
Bayle had such a terrible camera that it just ruined the fight for me. Even while constantly retreating his attacks put him directly on top of you. Midir handled the camera much better. You can easily do the fight locked on and his attacks keep his head in front of rather than on top of your. I don't think you need to do any camera magic here, you just need to change the boss animations so that the basic attacks don't put the dragon's body directly on top of you.
from a cinematic perspective = placidusax from a gameplay perspective = midir from a lore perspective = bayle/midir/placidusax bayle kinda sits inbetween placidusax & midir
@@Malxer I remember Kalameet very well. The moveset is too basic for this day and age, and the player character is so incredibly slow to compensate. The stamina even regenerated at half the speed it does in Elden Ring, it felt quite turn based.
I still like midir more. After 50 tries seeing midir start shouting and exploding and seeing the dark spells, my heart was beating so hard. And when he fell down for the final riposte and still has health after the riposte. Bayle died on my 2nd try in 90 seconds since you can just stay under him
i felt this exact same way, so much that i had to go to ds3 and go fight midir. I wanted to compare both fights back to back. And honestly after all this time.. Midir isnt hitting the same as he used to for me. Bayle was such an awesome fight and i want to fight him at a lower scadutree blessing to make it a bit more of a challenge. I completely agree that Midir is still one of fromsofts best dragons ever and Im still willing to say that he still is fromsofts best traditional dragon. Bayle doesnt even feel like a dragon fight to me most of the time which is what i think is the difference.
You probably like Midir more because he suits your level of play better, at least that's the case with most of Elden Ring bosses and souls veterans not liking them. Midir is much more simple and much easier than most Elden Ring bosses, same things with bosses like Soul of Cinder, Nameless King, etc. Which is totally fine imo, Elden Ring levels up on Dark Souls formula, demanding more skill from the player, so no wonder a lot of players don't appreciate the difficulty and accepting their skill limitations
Good video, but you should work on making it more cinematic . (Example at 5:40 you don't showcase Placi's lightning strike whatsoever) Otherwise it's alright, I just want to see the bosses epic moves.
The part where you talk about Scale, I had always theorized that it should be possible to zoom out the camera and it would work much better, It Does, but you lose a bit of the Grandeur, But i recently started playing Genshin Impact (Flame me if you want, I was bored waiting for SotE so i played it bc it has some souls like elements... i've already played Nioh series, Wo Long, Remnant, Lies of P and other games like those.) And in the 4th act of the game, you fight a Boss named Shouki no Kami which everyone called Scaramouche. And in that fight, they zoom out the camera and pull it upwards... It does lose a bit of the grandeur since they zoomed out, but it got me thinking about the "Pull it upwards" part. So, I asked a friend of mine that knows how to Mod DS3 a little bit to just... change the lock on nodes for Midir. We made them higher, and me moved them backwards a bit, locked on his upper body, this inadvertently zoomed in the camera, so we zoomed it back out a bit so it was at the right scale... and it worked... Really well as well... We kept the grandeur, made it so the camera didn't throw its self on the attacks where he moved his head a lot, it also made it so there were less times the camera was pressing into the ground.
I could be wrong, but I image there is some middle ground they could zoom out so that the fight is more readable, and you can appreciate more of the visuals, while still being close enough to maintain scale
While being incredibly cinematic and cool, i think Bayle suffers from some issues like wanky hitbox,not enough punish windows on the head,awful camera. I think midir has a better moveset than bayle that allows for more counterplay and more damage to the head. His moveset feels more fair and challenging to me. I am also not a big fan of excessive aoe usage in the second phase of Bayle. Overall really cinematic boss tho.
My one issue with bayle - more of a nitpick than anything - is that you can only lock on to his head, not his body or anything else. Since his head moves around and up and down so much it is extremely difficult to hit him with spells and incantations that don't chase their target, and even if you try to free aim them they just auto lock on his head anyway.
What’s rough for me is this boss didn’t feel as rewarding a kill for me as Midir. Midir took me several days while Bayle took me 20 minutes. For Bayle, 2nd phase was flashy and cinematic yes, but too much to the point it was hard to tell what was going on. I felt more like I was getting lucky avoiding his attacks rather than I actually took effort to defeat him. Maybe a 2nd run with a different build will change my mind though.
Midir is still my favourite, I agree with a lot on what you said with Placidusaxx which is why Bayle is generally a better fight than him, because it’s similar to Midir’s aggression. But Midir’s fear factor is what does it for me, I’m genuinely scared to face him and unlike mostly every other Souls boss I’ve only ever beaten Midir once. Even though he’s probably easy by comparisson to most Elden Ring bosses, like Pontiff Sulyvahn and Ludwig I find him psychologically tough because of the fear factor.
After doing an RL1 run, my favorite is still Midir. Bayle is much cooler, had Igon, has better buildup imo, but his fight is kinda worse. The main issue is that it can be really difficult to hit his head, so for some attacks its better to attack his stump leg/body rather than his head, also the timing for I-framing some of his attacks is difficult, though that wont matter too much for a regular playthrough as bayle has no moves that should one shot you. Though Bayle still gives plenty of opportunities to attack his head. Though both are great fights, and honestly Midirs "taking a walk" move really knocks his fight down few pegs, as that attack is literally just a time waster.
![Marika's Ascension was NOT legitimate; AND IT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING [Elden Ring Lore]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Uo7Froo5xS8/mqdefault.jpg)
Let me preach to you the gospel of liking both Elden Ring and Dark Souls 3. It is possible. I'm doing it right now!
Wait! DS3 fanboys can't accept that. You need to say one is objectively better while downplaying the other.
@@enman009 I've got ER diehards talking shit on my DS3 videos as well, so it's a 2-way street lol.
@@jermergerg Ah, the Soulsborne Community experience: many Masterpieces but can't like more than one.
Or in general liking all Fromsoftware's Soulsborne games, they each have their own personality and thing that makes them good, it's kinda annoying when people just start downplaying other games
@@enman009 There are way more Elden Ring fans doing exactly that to Ds3
Bayle without Igon -> gold medal
Bayle with Igon -> platinum medal
Igon is the best character in Fromsoft with the best voice acting (including cut content)
@@weskintime4177nah patches is still the goat
CURSE YOU, BAYLE! I HEREBY VOW! YOU WILL RUE THIS DAY!
ur a summoning scrub
@weskintime4177 Igon is cool but he can't beat the GOAT Siegward.
If you’re not including Igon, it’s a tough debate, with Igon however, it’s simply undisputed (I am so very biased)
CURSE YOU BAYLE!!
Petition for FS to make a spin off Igon game.
I prefer fighting him without Igon as fighting a boss solo is more epic 😊
@@thepublicpotato3887igon doesn’t really do anything except scream lmao. When I used him, he only hit bayle like twice and I think he took aggro maybe one time for a split second or two
@@abrahamlincolnreal8166 I hereby vow! You will rue this day!
there was a lack of hating on ancient dragons
They are so bad that people refuse to acknowledge their existence
We don’t talk about the “those” dragons for good reason 😊
@@brandinicole1372eh, I found Fortissax to be the best base game dragon fight.
Placi is just a slog with a runup that is way too easy to fall to you death to, or get f**ked over by the game and have it send you into the void after the getting up animation.
@@bigsmall2842yea I thought normal dragons were bad enough lol
I liked the wyverns on horseback but there was no redeeming ancient dragons for me, their hit box always feel so out of reach
As a fan of Monster Hunter, I always found it odd that some players struggled or refused to ever free aim any boss encounters even when it's more advantageous to do so. However, when you mentioned that normal encounters very much don't demand that I understood why. I guess when a boss demands you use a skill that isn't taught, it can be quite frustrating.
As a console player, you need to use your right thumb to move a camera around. Most players will also use their right thumb the roll. When boss is doing an attack string, it can be nearly impossible to keep your camera focused on a boss whilst they do a complex attack strong whilst also dodging through the attacks with precise timing with the same thumb, which is why it's pretty annoying (at least when playing with a controller)
@@jamesbell1186 for enemies that don't move around so much like fire giant or placidussax you don't really need to move the camera much at all.
@@Ghorda9 That's true
Honestly most Souls vets learned to not use lock on back in DS1.
But I do see what you mean, it isn't necessarily taught by the game, however on the flip side of that same coin nothing really is in Souls games. 🤷🏻♂️
Just more base strategies are taught a little more intuitively, and not everyone is a vet.
That's exactly why I re-mapped my dodge to left trigger.
I can look around and dodge at the same time. Who the heck thought losing control of your camera was a good idea?
I think you should've talked about the laser attack of each boss, in my opinion they're the pinnacle and the tradition in the tough dragon fights of FromSoft. (Also the runback to bayle's arena is by far the shortest one which is a + for me)
Dude I knew some of the DLC fights were going to be tough when they put sites of grace right outside the arena instead of a stake of merika
@@StrappingYoungLadamBut thank god they did. I’m very glad they moved away from run backs, especially the really bad run backs
Midirs run back is very short, has no enemy's and one of the most Epic Entrances in the Franchise right after Burnt Ivori King. They even replicated this Fall and the look of his Arena with Putrecent Knight. Midir has many Inspiring things, that people aren't acknowledging. Bayle is a top Tier Boss, maybe the best in the Dlc. Wich is very unfortunate for Midir beeing next to Gael, the picnickle of the Dark Souls Franchise. Bayle is technically better, but Midir was the first true Outstanding Dragon fight, who is on par with Amazing fights like O&S, Alone, Ludwig, Gael and Godfrey. Bayle beeing the Second on the exact caliber is insane to me. Placidusax wore of after a couple of Playthroughs. He is Great and all, but not as refined and all other Dragons are to janky for it. Sry Kalameet, Sin and Fortisaxx Fans.
@@anigodzapex9384I’ve always liked Placidusax more. And the issue with Midir is that he is incredibly simple and easy. He has very few moves, and only has 1 threatening move
@@Detriax Dont get me wrong. I love Placidusax. He is easily bettter then Rest of the Fromsoft Dragons. Dragon God, Gaping, Kalameet, Guardian Dragon, Ancient Dragon, Sin, Ancient Wyvern, Storn King, Oceiros (Nobody mentions the self created Half Dragon to resemble Seath), Divine Dragon, Lansseax, Fortisax. He is better then all of these, wich is a Lot at this Point.
His Teleportions look cool and are well Telegraphed, his Thunderstrikes are a well Designed get of me Move and his Stormcloud Assaults look Amazing and are satisfying to Dodge. My problem is, that he just Sits there for 50 percent of the Fight, his Flame Breath Hitboxes are weird and he is also to easy in Repeated Runs. Midir and Bayle have way more imposing Melee Comboes, more Dynamic Movement. The Build Up for both is as good aswell and the Themes are just Magnificent. Bayle Bombastic Track and Midir Tragic Melody will be stuck in my Head Forever. Placid´s theme gives me Monster Hunter Frontier Shantien Vibes, wich is a Big Compliment. Its just really classic "Epic Dragon Music", wich is very good, but not good enough. And i feel this way for everything for him.
All three fights are great, but I do think Midir and Bayle presents powerful rampaging dragons much better than Placidusax.
Placidusax felt a bit too immobile and clunky despite having his teleport move.
Placidusax does feel more… special though. It’s hard to explain but when you get in his arena and he’s just… floating there with 3 missing heads and mutilated everywhere.
His nuke move is also much cooler than bayle one, even makes his ost stop in the meantime.
I do agree fight wise bayle was better though.
I personally think that works in Placidusax's favor, since I see him as conveying more of a run-down regal dignity rather than something that's brutal and rampaging.
Placidusax feel like he is a lord fight bayle and midir are wild animals that you are putting down while placidusax is a fight between lords
Yeah. I do think some types of players will appreciate Placidusax more than the other two, as some don't care to fully master the bosses and just want spectacle. The dragonlord will likely be their favorite of the 3.
I felt like that gave him more awe, like he is an actual wise elder lord of the dragons rather than a self-serving savage beast.
Midir, palcidusax, and bayle may be challenging bosses in their own right, but I don't think I've ever faced a boss as hard and difficult as the dark souls camera
Dark Souls camera + a corner, there is no more challenging opponent
+my controller with horrid stick drift, truly the worst experience lol.
@@Enak147 The camera and gravity. Not even Ornstein and Smough are as formidable a duo!
Midir best fought unlocked? Interesting take. I always thought staying locked on to the head is what makes the fight easier.
Way easier. Only have to disengage the camera for a couple moves but the rest the lock on makes the fight way easier
I agree, he is still my favorite
It is. This guy is speaking nonsense.
I feel like it’s a dance with Bayle rather than a fight, and every thing he does looks so dramatic while looking like a feral wild animal at the same time.
My favorite part is his phase transition and his death animation, he tried his best to summon down thunder to charge his broken wing weapon but he didn’t realize he was already dead.
feels like a dance? Did we fight the same boss???
If by dance you mean wait for it to do a bloated combo, then get 1 hit in and repeat for the next 10 minutes that it takes to take his health down… then yes.
@@HEXBasmentBubbanot everyone has narrow skillset like you
@@Kaiji...Skill issue on your part, I literally kept attacking on the end of each combo, attacking the boss at least every 3-4 seconds. Stop making shit up, git gud, stop coping and misinforming people. I have video of my 6th attempt on a boss on my channel, I learned him much better on my second playthrough of DLC just yesterday, will post that too. That's if you're genuinely interested of course, and hopefully not a blatant troll trying to be different
@@Kaiji...Beat him with falling star beast jaw and didn’t take any damage till phase two. He doesn’t have a crazy amount of combos but his lightning after effect in phase two is pretty annoying. He’s really not that bad but then again using strength builds I can stagger him like 3-4 times in the fight.
I wholeheartedly disagree with the lock on take on Midir. I was fight him lock on right in front of him only dodging backwards until he finishes his combos and I never have problems with his camera. Of course it does swing a lot up, down and side to side but it just makes the fight more cinematic and it doesn't interfere on the gameplay. As long as you keep him always in front of you its a flawless camera wich is impressive for such a big enemy and seeing how fromsoftware struggled so much with camera in this last dlc
The lock on is constantly being removed with Mider which can be really annoiying
@@debater452 I've never experience that the way I played like I said
SOLID OF SCALE YOU MIGHT BE, FOWL DRAGON
BUT I WILL RIDDLE WITH HOLES ,YOUR ROTTEN HIDE
BUT I WILL RIDDLE WITH HOLES, YOUR ROTTEN HIDE!
It’s spelled foul. Fowl means bird
*BUT I WILL RIDDLE WITH HOLES YOUR ROTTEN HIDE!!!*
@@buffoonustroglodytus4688 well he is a bird.
BAAYYYLE! VILE BAYYLE!!!
You didn't fully touch on it, but I think the music on Bayle also is top tier and elevates it so well. The way it changes in phase to make it seem like even more impending doom is something to witness your first time.
I love Bayle too, he got complex moveset that requires good timing on dodges, positioning, even jump attack. My favourite is the tail swipe too, but also the slam attack in phase 2. After the slam theres lava erruption, so after dodging it you have to position yourself fast enough to be right infront of Bayle's head before the erruption goes off to get your punish. Its great that that move Bayle actually recover slower compare to the phase 1 slam, you can even get a full charge attack off. Even his laser move he will end up right infront of you afterwards. You can also jump over his phase 2 nuke to get a free jump attack, mastering the fight is immensely satisfying to me.
Yup. When I first got to phase 2, after like 3d attempt, I saw the nuke, just how much ground it covered and straight up thought there's the way to , or ideally jump it. Overall, Elden Ring DLC highly demands the player to know perfectly the core mechanics of the base game, with a lot of bosses requiring you to jump, having moderate poise so you target stance breaking, a lot of bosses still have roll catching attacks. For example, jumping over Rellana's moons, over Bayle's aoe. Also, Bayle has very low poise for a dragon so being aggressive with him is the key, especially considering how the boss has frequent punish windows where you hit his head
@@Vengeance_I_m true, I was using a great hammer fighting him. End up poise break him 4 times in a single fight after knowing when to hit him and go full on aggressive mode.
Bayles fight was definitely the most fun and epic in the entire dlc, and unlike second phase Radahn, he actually felt fair
tell me what is unfair about second phase radahn? the only bad thing about him is the double slash attack which is nearly undodgeable, otherwise an extremely well crafted boss where everything is dodgeable, optimization is the games fault not radahns
@@gerwan9132the boss itself just doesn’t feel fair. That’s the issue. Well, it’s second phase doesn’t feel fair
@gerwan9132
The lights.
I genuinely couldn't see shit because of light pillars end explosions everywhere, not to mention that when Radahn spins, all I can see are Miquellas long ass hair (and you HAVE to dodge him on the sides, if you roll backwards the lights are gonna hit you).
His moveset per se it's fine, but the lights make everything so chaotic.
Fantastic first phase, the second one is more scenic but less suitable for a gameplay
@@santiagopepaj7525we need to stop using demon souls combat if the bosses are becoming more and more anime.
@@based-ys9um Demon Souls combat? Are you serious? Play it again and tell me with a straight face it’s Demon Souls combat, Elden Ring’s combat is literally faster than Bloodborne even.
Something i think you're dead wrong about is Midir being worse when locked on. I personally thing Midir is the best dragon because he's the one you can lock on the best. His moves have enough punish windows for you to be able to run at him, his attacks are all easly dodgable from the angles the locking allows, and his attack are perfectly spaced so that you never end up beneath Midir, where all the camera jank would happen. I've always fought him locked on and never had any trouble whatsoever, even getting to kill him hittless in less than 7 tries in a Slv1 run. Placi has camera Jank and isnt as much of a duel as Midir is, and Bayle is far more aggressive than Midir and therefore his punish windows are far too tight when locked on, so that criticism would aply more to him than Midir. I personally consider them equals qualitywise, since Midir's only downfall is his movepool, but that's moreso because of limitations, the fight doesn't even drag at all, since you get a garanteed visceral attack at 70% and he has less health than Gael and recieves more damage
Another thing i forgot to say. Free aiming Bayle makes the fight considerably easier, since most of his moves depend on you locking on to him to be aimed properly, if you haven't tried it u very much advice it, it allows you to either focus on his wounded stump or get free shots at his neck. Midir always keeps you at the perfect distance for a normal duel to take place so free aiming him never even came to mind to me, it simply never was necessary
Bayle's phase two transition is so epic and also gets my #1 vote but yeah the dragons listed are 100% the top 3 without a doubt.
Good video dude
Hey guys, thanks so much for watching this video! I have literally never had this much engagement this quickly. On the few videos that have gotten these numbers, it's taken DAYS to get here. So, I'm not sure I'll be able to respond or react quickly to all of your comments, but I'll try. I really appreciate the engagement, even if it's to tell me I'm "objectively" wrong about an opinion :D
Amazing how people can be so confused and mixing up trailers with actually playing the god-damned game
The Midir lockon works perfectly fine?? I never considered to have problems with it in some sort of way? What is wrong about him?
I could not figure out any way to stay locked on for the Bayle bossfight. With Midir, I never had problems at all
13:04 if this happens, Bayle falls apart as well
The camera spins fast around Bayle, yes..
But if you are behind him after this combo 14:25
14:27 this next hit likely hits you.
Thw camera is also too often inside of Bayle 14:33
Midir camera is the best because it's mostly close to it's head, the head is low so unless he's doing the overhead fire attack and then you can see it and move back the camera doesn't go funky with spin. Also the fight is designed so you attack the head, retreat a bit while he does some combo and then attack again.
I stayed locked on for the whole bayle fight except that flying fire breath and never had any problems except for when I made the mistake of getting under him
@@sirmaissi yeah.. I could not figure out how to fight with his camera. After two hours of trying btw.. I think I tried enough.
Only one attack I had where the lockon was shit was when Midir got onto his hindlegs and spewed downwards fire.
@@howdoyoudo5949 Agreed.. but when he spits fire, you already made a huge mistake..
This is only happening if you go under him, which is not the way you are supposed to do it.
If you stay infront of him, this attack will not even happen.
You can still take an offensive approach during Placid's slam nuke. The tip of his tail is outside the shockwave. You can run back there and get in a bunch of hits
After the first few attempts on bayle my thoughts were: oh damn midir and placi had a child^^
As someone who isn't normally a fan of fighting dragons, Bayle was so much fun and I loved learning his moves.
Not summoning Igon just for the voice lines is a crime
I did not summon him for my solo run but the next run im gonna have to summon him
King of the storm without being locked on is peak. I didn't expect for it to feel natural but I got the hang of it unlocked and loved it. They deserve more respect on the list.
I would say, Placidusax becomes even more of a spectacle fight if you go into it with an ash of war like Raptor of the mists or Vow of the Indomitable! Being able to stand there as he readies his giant lightning nuke and just shrug it off, or land a jumping attack provided by Raptor of the mists is just so awesome. You can essentially avoid running away altogether with tools like those, as even with his divine breath attacks you can stay near him while he's doing and just counter the very end of it for even more damage.
Regarding the aerial attack at 14:43, I used Bayle's claw opening up as a visual clue for when to dodge. Seemed to work pretty well for me cause I don't think I got hit with that move after figuring out the timing.
So kinda like Romina's spike flash?
I actually found Bayle's camera to be the clunkiest of the 3 and stayed locked off for most of the fight while with the other 2 I did it locked on. I am very partial to placidusax so I still like the fight more however I see the argument that bayle is better. All 3 are fantastic bosses and for me at least were a huge highlight of their respective games.
The only problem with the bayle fight is that once you fail to dodge his first move, he completely covers you and attacks you causing the camera to go haywire.
I didn't face this problem with placidusax so his fight was much more better. So placidusax's fight was much better fight simply because i didn't need to fight with my camera even after i get hit.
Midir is still my favorite simply because whilst Placidusax and Bayle are amazing bosses (Bayle is my favorite dlc boss) Midir is actually a dragon. The others are so mangled beyond belief that they are kind of slugs more than anything. I’ve always hated blob shaped bosses and both placi and Bayle are very much similar to the latter than the former, I.e. an actual dragon.
I don’t understand how Sekiro learned the art of camera zoom out yet ER does not. So many bosses would be better if the camera was just more versatile.
The camera is honestly way more with Midir than with Bayle and Placidusax
Depth perception gets messed up when zooming out the camera , which is why its so difficult sadly. The camera is zoomed out for bayle, but it's a lot more complicated of an issue than it seems. Also, guardian ape is around Malikith sized, making it much less of a challenge. The camera with midir i think works better because he's more elongated as you're saying.
With regard to the camera, do you think it would help if the camera zoomed out slightly? Similar to how Final Fantasy 16 handles large bosses but not to the same extent.
Bayles very close but midir might be my favourite bossfight ever
Can't believe we forgot to discuss Demon Soul's Dragon God in our discussion of awesome dragon fights!!!!!
Easily the best one, both aesthetic and gameplay wise. Igon isn't even needed but its a very good addition.
The visuals are by far my favorite of any dragon fight, but mechanically I still prefer Midir.
I will say one strike I have against Bayle is visual clutter. Especially his phase 2 wing slam into flame lightning trail aren’t hard on the camera, but they are hard on the eyes. There’s a lot of visual clutter for me. Sometimes I don’t really know what’s happening and even if I can dodge it, it doesn’t feel satisfying to dodge. I never really had that problem with Midir, so for that reason, I’d put Midir slightly above Bayle mechanically. But still a good fight.
placidusax is personally my favorite dragon fight. I love dodging his teleport attacks.
I always thought the best solution for camera issues with big bosses would be to just zoom the camera out. Seems like a pretty straightforward solution.
Another big issue with the camera in Bayle's fight, is that for some reason, you can only lock on to his head, whereas you can lock on to the legs and body of all the other dragons. It's impossible to fight Bayle using lock on when you are very close to him, because his head will be directly above you or even behind you, making the camera to go all over the place. This should be such an easy thing for FromSoftware to fix, and I'm baffled it hasn't been done so yet.
What I find interesting is how most bosses in Elden Ring+dlc at close to their prime, with two major exceptions being both the big dragon fights. They are both rotting corpses of what they used to be and they are still insanely powerful. Goes to show how strong a dragon can be
I find fighting while locked on to Midir's head extremely easy and natural, I'm surprised you don't enjoy it. He is still (at this moment) my favorite Fromsoft dragon boss, simply because of how engaging his fight is. There's no need to smack him in the ankles, his head is always present and there for you to take advantage of. With more practice against Bayle in the future I could see him rising, but for now he takes a close second. He has just a few too many massive AOE's that leave me feeling unsafe challenging him head on, but as I learn to deal with those I may find less of an issue with them down the road.
I can appreciate that at least you admit that your struggle with free-aiming is a skill issue. Camera management is one of the most important mechanics that separate good players from great players, and learning when to lock on vs when to free-aim is extremely important in both pvp and pve challenge settings. Would a perfect lock on camera that always framed the target be nice? Yes. Is it practical from a coding perspective? I highly doubt it. But we can hope that some improvements do come down the road.
My perfect dragon boss fight should be:
- Atmosphere: Placidusax
- Music: Midir
-Moveset: Bayle
- Lore: A bit bias here, I love the battle of Placidusax and Bayle, but raising by gods and fighting The Abyss for eternity is really my favorite vibe
- Design: Dragon God (Although he’s a demon)
- Epicness: Divine Dragon
- Intro: Kalameet (We get a whole cutscene before fighting him is an absolute cinema)
And the boss fight shouldn’t have any camera issues like how we fight against Bayle (it’s terrible locking on him).
That is how I create my personal perfect dragon fight based on my previous dragon fights
nah music should be Foritssax
@@BlacklistedSoup That’s ur opinion. Midir ost is still the goat to me
Bayle ost is of much higher quality and more memorable imo. Overall, DS3 music often times sounds too generic and repetitive, it's like you're listening to a remix. Elden Ring covers big range of instruments and different genres in the OSTs
@@Vengeance_I_m Appreciate your opinion, but can’t say the same to me. My opinion is quite contradictory to your opinion, Bayle’s OST is actually too jarring for my ears during the fight and when I listen it from youtube, I find it quite generic and doesn’t have the rhythm like Midir OST
Tbh the camera with Bayle is really good
very nice video man, hope this blows up because its very well thought out
I'm 42 years old. I beat Bayle last night and he is the greatest boss I ever fought in a videogame to date. I slept on it and woke up to that conclusion. Been gaming since Nintendo. My hands were shaking after I finally won.
I think fights where it’s easier to unlock the camera are less fun. That’s how i started out with bayle but realizing you can actually stand in front of him and watch for cues was awesome
one thing i think helps both bayle and placidusax is their body shapes. because placidusax is flat to the ground and bayle is very hunched, youre less likely to end up under their body getting screwed by the camera anywhere near as hard as you can with almost every other dragon in souls history
I used to absolutely despise the copy-pasted wyvern dragon fights in Elden Ring, but at some point I figured out that it's much more fun to try and fight them like Midir, and almost exclusively go for attacks on their heads. They stagger and crit animation on wyverns is so satisfying. I just wish that they did a better job conveying that to the player. Midir and Bayle's fights are great because the game almost always puts their heads right in front of you during a punish window when they finish attacking. If you look at Bayle and Midir, you notice that their models are stooped over so that their heads are pretty much eye-level with the player. The main issue I have with the wyverns is that their heads are placed way too high up, and sometimes entirely out of reach for certain weapons. You can get a few hits in during the roar animation that always folllows a stomp attack, but sometimes that entire window is eaten up when the wyvern's head ended up behind you because you rolled forward and under the boss to dodge the attack. Obviously if you are under the wyvern you're going to attack it's legs instead of running up to hit the head that you probably can't even reach anyway.
And it's not even worth talking about the four-legged ancient dragon fights. Fromsoft gave up, and decided to make a 360° dragon fight where every attack has lightning or shockwave aoe cause the player has no incentive to be facing the front of the boss, and locking-on makes you want to throw up. Oh wait, there's a remembrance boss version with Godwyn lore? Oh, they just took the same shitty design, but added more aoe and deathblight. Thank you Dark Souls.
Placidusax is fine, idk. He's like a fat version of the ancient dragons, but less annoying to fight cause you can't go under him and mess up the lock-on camera really bad. His cool attacks are really fucking cool though, and I think it's fine to have a boss that exists just for that. Especially now that Bayle exists to make up for it.
There was a sign on the ground that said to use scarlet rot.
So I whipped out the flower, thank God I am a Faith build.
Bayle's snappy camera just makes me nauseous :(
Theirs also the fact that Bayle is missing 1 of 2 legs and both his wings are heavily damaged. This makes him stay close to the ground and not run away as much, which are the worst parts of dragon fights
Sinh from Dark Souls 2 is pretty slept on (ba dum tiss), hes one of my favorite dragon fights in the series.
For the time it was released, it was top notch. The dragons in the base game of DS3 couldn't compare, it took until Midir for that to change.
Sinh also loves spending anywhere between no and too much time in the air, there is so much RNG in that fight to determine wether you can even hit him or not.
Bayle is a great boss and all but Jesus Christ why is the only lock on point his head and not one at the leg or torso like the other dragons
Because he’s designed to be fought by focusing on his head. Just like Midir. You’re supposed to focus on the head
@@cardmossdn8058Midir fight still allows you to target his limbs, it just does far less damage than the head. It's about OPTIONS. Midir gives you those options, Bayle doesn't and is a worse fight because of it and other issues.
@@hewhoshallnotbenamed5168 the only lock on point for both Bayle and Midir is the head. Fromsoft is literally spelling it out for you; the fights were designed specifically for the player to target the head.
Even then, you’re wrong. It’s pretty easy to get under Bayle and target his leg stump and other leg.
Seems like you don’t really understand Bayle’s fight, maybe try practicing and experimenting with it a little more
@@cardmossdn8058 I first tried Bayle. It ain't about "not understanding the fight". It's about the fight just not being fun. But nice try in your gaslighting attempt.
@@hewhoshallnotbenamed5168 if you first tried him, that means you have next to no experience in the fight. You didn’t learn his moves, or the intricacies of his spacing or timings. You either got lucky or brute-forced it.
Not to mention that you absolutely can’t comment on how fun a fight is after playing it literally ONE time. Back when ringed city was released people though midir was garbage. They were fighting him wrong. Once people learned to target his head alone, he became known as one of the best souls bosses ever.
Im guessing you weren’t around the souls community back in 2017, but that’s how it went, that’s how it always goes with these games. It takes time and many attempt to form accurate opinions on the quality of a boss.
You absolutely do not understand Bayle after fighting him once. Try it again
Bayle was fun and I liked how Igon was an inversion of the typical Fromsoft NPC (we met him at his lowest point, broken and crippled, only to help him accomplish his goal and die presumably with a smile on his face)
Placidusax and Divine dragon are the best imo. Yeah they're easy but goddamn those are some of the most epic boss fights FromSoft has ever done
Great vid i rewatch it alot!
Personally, as much as I loved Bayle in ER, I think Midir is still Fromsoft's best dragon.
You can lock on to Midir, you just have to focus on his head. Obviously you need to unlock for certain parts of the fight, but when engaging him one-on-one you lock onto his head and back up to keep it in view properly as you dodge
Great points. While I love Bayle and consider him my favorite ER boss, Midir to me is still the best dragon boss mechanically speaking. There are 2 problems with Bayle.
One as you already covered is the camera. While the camera does work sufficiently, it often takes you underneath him and you end up always being blinded or literally stuck inside the model, which can make for some janky moments.
Second, while he has a very dynamic moveset that makes for some cinematic moments, it does create problems thats often found with a lot of ER bosses. He can often extend his combos without a buildup or enough time for you to react. For example, for his biting attack, he can extend it by doing almost a headbutt, which comes out quite quickly. This just leaves me guessing or always assuming he's gonna do it, so I end up either rolling through it, or wasting a roll. As similarly stated, some attacks come more quickly than you have time to roll out of. For example, he can sometimes just roar right in your face and multiple lightning strikes will follow. My only solution was to just keep a fair distance away from his head.
? You just i-frame the roar and run away from the lightning.
@anonymousperson8903 "As similarly stated, some attacks come more quickly than you have time to roll out of."
@@zed6740 It doesn't come out too quickly though. It's a subtle tell but it's definitely there, and once you learn it you can dodge it every time.
@anonymousperson8903 Then that's the problem, it's too subtle to even tell it's gonna come out. It should be better communicated and telegraphed that it's coming.
@@zed6740 Debatable. I see your point, unsure if I agree.
idk what you mean about not being able to lock on midir bc imo the clips you showed without locking looked a bit disorienting. But I agree with your opinion although I am biased towards midir.
But Bale is the dragon I was praying for in this dlc and I was so happy to see him in the trailer as there was no dragon like midir because placidusax was cinematic and only cinematic as his moveset wasn't satisfying for me.
Bale's moveset was as vicious as Midir although the camera was a bigger issue for me than Midir while Bale also just looks really cool and has a fair moveset although some dodges are difficult but he has a lot of learning while midir was a bit more intuitive. (I'm so sorry this is so wordy)
Overall I rank your opinion as based.
The camera really ruined Bayle for me
How because rhe camera is berly an issue with the fight
Bayle fans rise up
You can attack Bayle's leg stump too, it can't be locked on though
Also, the 2nd phase transition isn't that bad, the camera shake and the controller vibration is Bayle landing on the ground. You have to dodge a bit later
I just finished dark souls 3 earlier this year and I feel like midir one of the best boss fights in the series he has the most damage multiplier on his head compared to other dragons who has less damaged multipliers on their head and incentivizes You to actually attack the head
It’s a shame that the DLC performance sucks and that it stutters a lot on bayle and on the final boss.
I think that this is the #1 thing fromsoft work on right now because a lot of people can’t finish the game.
Bayle in my opinion fixed the biggest issue with dragons which was their fire attacks. Of course Bayle shoots fire at you, but it’s never in a way where you are forced to run away. His arena wide breath attack is a line of fire that you can roll through, rather than one you are forced to retreat from.
Why would zooming out ruin that sense of scale? You would see how tiny you are compared to the creature.
Bayle took me longer than Radahn, yet I never felt frustrated to the point I had to take a break.
After 2 days of 2-3 hour sessions trying to beat Radahn, I actually had to take a break from the game for a few days due to how frustratingly annoying and difficult he was
However, Bayle took me 3 days of 3 hours each to master, yet kept me engaged and immersed the whole time.
It was the first time a boss captivated me because of the sheer spectacle (ER is my first souls game)
Camera tracking is probably the bighest issue FromSoft needs to fix. A lot of times, I don't even see the boss, I just react to the camera moving as a potential telegraph. The prime example of this being the Dancing Lion fight.
Also, I absolutely LOVE Bayle. He's my favourite boss in FromSoft's already impressive catalogue of bosses(haven't played bloodborne). But when I was trying to learn him in the initial 20 or so rums, I found the he just kept pinning me against the wall with no space to counter or dodge. Even the Dancing Lion is guilty of this. Though now, I can bait out attacks to get him back to the center, those first few runs were NOT fun
Hey so I just got done beating bayle and I wasn't a fan of the boss but i thoroughly enjoyed hearing your perspective on it. It really helped me appreciate this boss more.
I would like to share where my expurence with this vwith the fight were poot and i felt could have been improved on. I hope thats alright.
I really liked your write up of the 3 fights and agree with your analysis. So hopeful none of this comes across as mean soirited or rambly
I found certain weapons struggled more to hit the body more than others. Weapons with overhead attacks did great but the others perticulsrly those which dont open with overhead attacks really struggled to connect half the time. It reminded me of dark souls 1 in that aspect.
The shape of his body with his head slightly in the air naturally pushed the player underneath his body where you couldnt see his attacks. I found in nearly all my fights the camera clipped inside his body at some point and led to me guessing when his attacks would come out. I get the sense they knew this spot is not ideal and added the fire breath attack to get you to move but i found this interupts the flow of the fight somewhat. I think having more of his body being close to the ground might have prevented this
The tail on the ground got in the way of moving around the boss. I found myself often pushed to the back right of the boss and wanting to attack the wounded leg, and it was vert difficult to run around to tail to get into a good attack position. I found especially when usung summons this was inconvenient
The lead up to the boss has you fighting several poorly designed dragon enemies that fraustrated me before even getting to bayle. So by the time I got to him I found I had less patience for the flaws of the fight than I usual would with other bosses because I've just witnessed several examples of bad design. I found this highlighted the flaws with his size and made camera clipping more apparent than it otherwise might of been.
Im similar to you and love mastering a bosses moveset. Rellana melania are my favourites for this reason but bayle felt a bit more tedious and in the end I used summons to get it over with and move on with the game. There were lots of attacks i liked learning but i think it fell on the wrong side of tough but fair.
Midir’s epic phase 2 move is him doing his 10 second long combo twice that leads to you chasing him around the arena for 20 seconds
Bayle has a better leadup with the Jagged Peak, lore with Placidusax and the Dragon Communion, and quest narrative with Igon, and his fight’s pacing is far more consistent and exhilirating
It’s not even close.
Bayle’s camera isn’t that bad. Just ignore his injured leg, attack the head, and don’t get too close. If you are under him, get out fast. Get close only to attack and then back away. If you get greedy and keep attacking you won’t see what he does next.
The only camera issue I had was when he flies and does his double fire attack. The first one is hard to dodge with lock on.
Honestly Bayle's lock-on camera is my only complaint about the boss. Everything else from the visuals to the attacks to the whole fight in general is great.
My only issue is why does he only have a single lock-on on his HEAD? Anytime he split agro and focused on Igon, thus making me have to attack behind Bayle, I'd have to lock off just so I wouldn't be swinging at air.
Bayle's fight would've been a perfect 10/10 for me if he just had a body lock-on spot.
Just saying
Midir doesn't have someone screaming "CURSE YOU"
Midir is still at the top for me due to mostly the camera. Bayle's camera is a bit too janky because you'll be under him most of the time even if you're hitting the head which is the weakspot like Midir. The fight is meant to be similar to Midir and in a few ways it is but because Bayle is so much bulkier and moves his head around a lot more the camera is way jankier than the Midir fight even when not locked on
That being said though, Bayle triumphs over Midir in nearly every other category except music and camera. His lore is so sick, his attacks especially in phase 2 are so cinematic, Igon is the best summon ever and Shira doesn't come close. If the camera on Bayle was better, he'd take first place easily imo
My man really u could not explain in ti better I 100% bayle is more epic and has more cool moves and lore and build up maybe but midir is just better mechanically and I can't choose who is better. Also the midir soundtrack is better it's one of my favourites
I agree with you on the camera front, but I prefer Bayle's music just slightly more than Midir's due to 2 factors.
1. The vibe. Midir sound like you're fighting a monster, while for Bayle, it feels as if you're fighting a demon incarnate. Bayle's 1st phase's feeling of dread + the perfect cut to phase 2 when he gets his wings is just so good. But that alone doesn't make me like Bayle's theme more, as his theme is elevated by 1 guy.
2. Igon. This is the first time in a game ever where someone's voice acting outside of lyrics just make everything 1000 times better. His passion to see Bayle fall is simply fantastic in so many regards, and I genuinely cannot hear Bayle's theme without at least imagine Igon screaming, "CURSE YOU BAYLE!!!" It's just so powerful
I said the same things under no hit video. Jergmerg disagreed with me.
you're still my homie though!
I think 0 runback is a good trade off for the camera being worse
I personally prefer midir as he feels less janky and I don’t feel like I have to lock off except for the move where he runs across the arena and will climb over you. If locking off was how fromsoft wanted us to deal with these moves then I think they should have added a sign in the tutorial saying that some attacks are better dodged locked off.
"I think they should have added a sign in the tutorial saying that some attacks are better dodged locked off."
I disagree. From was always about figuring it out yourself, and that continues here.
OG kalameet is my personal favorite even if he wasn't in the video discussion. As cool as the massive, beast like dragons are I would like Fromsoft to revisit the smaller agile dragons like kalameet again.
Igon made this fight legendary. You can't think of Bayle without hearing "Curse you Bayleeee" in your head 🗣
I love that the peak of dragon power is a beam of pure fire it’s cool
A good note of scale is the difference between Monster hunter World vs Rise. The monsters, while remaining similar in proportion to world, seem so smaller in scale because of the camera
I think Midir is better because He leaves you more room to hit his head, whereas Bayle moves it around a lot more, and Midir has less visual noise going on compared to Bayle. But Bayle is a great fight nontheless!
The lock on in Midirs fight is so jank, it always fails.
Baylee’s lock on only fails when he’s doing his phase transition.
This is a cool video, I love the concept of dragons and even if some of the fights are janky I'm glad they are still making them. I like Midir's visual style more and the fact that he's super intimidating at first but becomes easy once you understand the fight is cool to me. Also seeing clips of how cool Midir looked was what convinced me to try souls games so I'm super biased. Bayle is awesome though, super close second from my very not objective point of view, great video.
Bayle is literally Midir with better cinematics and worse camera angles and hitboxes. All they had to do was not allow the player to get under bayle and it would be the best boss fight in the game.
Bayle had such a terrible camera that it just ruined the fight for me. Even while constantly retreating his attacks put him directly on top of you. Midir handled the camera much better. You can easily do the fight locked on and his attacks keep his head in front of rather than on top of your. I don't think you need to do any camera magic here, you just need to change the boss animations so that the basic attacks don't put the dragon's body directly on top of you.
from a cinematic perspective = placidusax
from a gameplay perspective = midir
from a lore perspective = bayle/midir/placidusax
bayle kinda sits inbetween placidusax & midir
I always thought I was supposed to attack the legs, as the head is so awkward to keep in camera D:
Bayle has become my fav boss.
Would've liked if you mentioned DS1 and DS2 dragons too. Theres some cool (and terrrible!) Dragons there
DS2 has Snith in a DLC which was relatively nice, but DS1 dragons are too outdated and feel too one note at this point.
@@Leonhart_93 maybe, Kalameet is still top tier tho
@@Malxer I remember Kalameet very well. The moveset is too basic for this day and age, and the player character is so incredibly slow to compensate. The stamina even regenerated at half the speed it does in Elden Ring, it felt quite turn based.
I still like midir more. After 50 tries seeing midir start shouting and exploding and seeing the dark spells, my heart was beating so hard. And when he fell down for the final riposte and still has health after the riposte. Bayle died on my 2nd try in 90 seconds since you can just stay under him
i felt this exact same way, so much that i had to go to ds3 and go fight midir. I wanted to compare both fights back to back. And honestly after all this time.. Midir isnt hitting the same as he used to for me. Bayle was such an awesome fight and i want to fight him at a lower scadutree blessing to make it a bit more of a challenge. I completely agree that Midir is still one of fromsofts best dragons ever and Im still willing to say that he still is fromsofts best traditional dragon. Bayle doesnt even feel like a dragon fight to me most of the time which is what i think is the difference.
@@jamiebull1685Bayle isn't a FS dragon he's more like a Monster Hunter more than anything else
My issue with Midir is that he isn’t interesting. He had a very simple moveset, with 1 threatening move.
You probably like Midir more because he suits your level of play better, at least that's the case with most of Elden Ring bosses and souls veterans not liking them. Midir is much more simple and much easier than most Elden Ring bosses, same things with bosses like Soul of Cinder, Nameless King, etc. Which is totally fine imo, Elden Ring levels up on Dark Souls formula, demanding more skill from the player, so no wonder a lot of players don't appreciate the difficulty and accepting their skill limitations
@@Vengeance_I_m bayle died on my second try 💀
Fighting Bayle genuinely fear me, big ass dragon with scary face, and buffed too, but my fear was gone when i summon Igon
CURSE YOU BAYLEEEEEEEEEE
Black Dragon Kalameet deserves a honourable mention for being the first decent dragon fight
Good video, but you should work on making it more cinematic . (Example at 5:40 you don't showcase Placi's lightning strike whatsoever) Otherwise it's alright, I just want to see the bosses epic moves.
The part where you talk about Scale, I had always theorized that it should be possible to zoom out the camera and it would work much better, It Does, but you lose a bit of the Grandeur, But i recently started playing Genshin Impact (Flame me if you want, I was bored waiting for SotE so i played it bc it has some souls like elements... i've already played Nioh series, Wo Long, Remnant, Lies of P and other games like those.) And in the 4th act of the game, you fight a Boss named Shouki no Kami which everyone called Scaramouche. And in that fight, they zoom out the camera and pull it upwards... It does lose a bit of the grandeur since they zoomed out, but it got me thinking about the "Pull it upwards" part. So, I asked a friend of mine that knows how to Mod DS3 a little bit to just... change the lock on nodes for Midir. We made them higher, and me moved them backwards a bit, locked on his upper body, this inadvertently zoomed in the camera, so we zoomed it back out a bit so it was at the right scale... and it worked... Really well as well... We kept the grandeur, made it so the camera didn't throw its self on the attacks where he moved his head a lot, it also made it so there were less times the camera was pressing into the ground.
I could be wrong, but I image there is some middle ground they could zoom out so that the fight is more readable, and you can appreciate more of the visuals, while still being close enough to maintain scale
While being incredibly cinematic and cool, i think Bayle suffers from some issues like wanky hitbox,not enough punish windows on the head,awful camera. I think midir has a better moveset than bayle that allows for more counterplay and more damage to the head. His moveset feels more fair and challenging to me. I am also not a big fan of excessive aoe usage in the second phase of Bayle. Overall really cinematic boss tho.
My one issue with bayle - more of a nitpick than anything - is that you can only lock on to his head, not his body or anything else. Since his head moves around and up and down so much it is extremely difficult to hit him with spells and incantations that don't chase their target, and even if you try to free aim them they just auto lock on his head anyway.
What’s rough for me is this boss didn’t feel as rewarding a kill for me as Midir. Midir took me several days while Bayle took me 20 minutes. For Bayle, 2nd phase was flashy and cinematic yes, but too much to the point it was hard to tell what was going on. I felt more like I was getting lucky avoiding his attacks rather than I actually took effort to defeat him.
Maybe a 2nd run with a different build will change my mind though.
Midir is still my favourite, I agree with a lot on what you said with Placidusaxx which is why Bayle is generally a better fight than him, because it’s similar to Midir’s aggression. But Midir’s fear factor is what does it for me, I’m genuinely scared to face him and unlike mostly every other Souls boss I’ve only ever beaten Midir once. Even though he’s probably easy by comparisson to most Elden Ring bosses, like Pontiff Sulyvahn and Ludwig I find him psychologically tough because of the fear factor.
After doing an RL1 run, my favorite is still Midir. Bayle is much cooler, had Igon, has better buildup imo, but his fight is kinda worse. The main issue is that it can be really difficult to hit his head, so for some attacks its better to attack his stump leg/body rather than his head, also the timing for I-framing some of his attacks is difficult, though that wont matter too much for a regular playthrough as bayle has no moves that should one shot you. Though Bayle still gives plenty of opportunities to attack his head. Though both are great fights, and honestly Midirs "taking a walk" move really knocks his fight down few pegs, as that attack is literally just a time waster.
The transition descent has a very clear sound que for when to dodge if you lose visibility
Kalameet from DS was a pretty amazing fight, considering the back story. But Bayle and Plasidusax are a whole nother beast.
Music foe Bayless fight is absolutely incredible