Elden ring!

[MFB]

I fucking can't with this boss fight, I respecd for RoB and I STILL can't beat him. I originally put full 99 into arc for max bleed, but it looks like it's sort of split between arc/dex, SO I RE-respec'd to put the ARC down to 80, then up my DEX to like, 50, and it only net me like ~200 DMG per AOW hit; which is 800 pts LESS than I was hitting for at 99 STR with Lion claw!

I've only managed to crack phase 2 a couple times with this build and I have no idea how it's doing so much less when he should be getting bleed damage build up for critical or just to take off pts on general.

 

[wankerness]

I fucking can't with this boss fight, I respecd for RoB and I STILL can't beat him. I originally put full 99 into arc for max bleed, but it looks like it's sort of split between arc/dex, SO I RE-respec'd to put the ARC down to 80, then up my DEX to like, 50, and it only net me like ~200 DMG per AOW hit; which is 800 pts LESS than I was hitting for at 99 STR with Lion claw!

I've only managed to crack phase 2 a couple times with this build and I have no idea how it's doing so much less when he should be getting bleed damage build up for critical or just to take off pts on general.

Your individual hits are irrelevant, it’s all about max bleed buildup and having both the bleed npc and the mimic out helping to stack it. The boss having more hp due to the summon is irrelevant with a bleed build, cause bleed does % of max health every time it procs - as a result if you use ansbach it actually makes him die faster if you have high enough bleed than he would without the extra 30% hp. Every time it builds up it takes off a big chunk of his health (percentagewise). What weapon are you using? Is it blood infused? The one I suggested gives something like 150 bleed buildup at 50 arc which is nuts for such a fast weapon that has no inherent bleed on it. Especially considering you can poke from behind a greatshield with it.

If by ROB you meant Rivers of blood -
Rivers of blood is pretty mid after the repeated nerfs, the AOW is good at range for sure in many fights but definitely not on Radahn cause it leaves you so open. Just go greatshield/bleed poke and turn to the Darkside!

 

[MFB]

Jesus Christ, I FINALLY beat him after trying two other weapons that amounted to shit, I respec'd for Mohg's Spear and used my spiked great shield combo to just bleed his ass to death. I had to swap my armor due to he additional weight, so it was back to ol' reliable Twin Set, and then for talismans I ran both Pearldrake/Dragon Crest + Golden Braid + whatever one reduces FP cost for skills. I SHOCKINGLY managed to dodge all the meteor attacks he threw at me, and he got me with two separate grab attacks - one which I immediately undid - the second of which was right before we got the last hit on him; at that point I knew we'd be OK, since they would attack while he dropped me and turned back on them.

That is straight up NOT a good fight: his combos are longer than any the Tarnished can string together, they have roughly 3-4x the range based on character model/weapon, the obviously hit for more damage per strike, which because even WORSE in phase 2 with the additional light strikes/clones from holy damage.

I found out he also has ~46K health, and for someone at even my level with 2K, the maximum amount of healing I can do is 28K for all my flasks, so I need to do 18K worth of damage (9 lions claw attacks with my original build) that are uncontested. The first phase doesn't feel awful by comparison to Phase 2, that's about the only good thing I can say.

 

[TedEH]

I've been throwing random combinations of weapons at it to see what works, closest I've got so far is when I swapped my weapon for a Milady + bleed, and that shield you mentioned before that has the holy defense. I've been trying to either use Rivers or one of the better katanas+sepukku, and that seems to be the most consistent way to make it to stage 2, but I get nuked on stage 2 every time. I'm realizing now as I type this that I haven't looked at my talismans since trying this again, I think I still have that one that ups all the stats at the cost of defense, and that's probably shooting me in the foot.

 

[MFB]

Overall, I'd have to give the DLC a 6/10 if I'm being entirely honest, I liked it in the beginning but as it went on, it felt like there wasn't as much as expected, and the exploration of what was here was VERY obtuse; like going down thru Moorth ruins, then Bonny Village and THEN back around to get to the Church District? It's part of Shadow Keep! How is there no more obvious route that connects the two, I don't think there's even a door between them from memory.

The bosses were also VASTLY more powerful than us as a player given similar issues to Radahns fight, with additional swings that don't allow for openings, quick stamina regen for re-attacking which most likely means poise break for players, etc etc. I know there's an interview where Miyazaki said they sort of exhausted the combat, and it feels incredibly evident here, the only thing that's truly unique is the Dryleaf Arts that NO ONE besides Dane uses. Romina might have been the best fight in the whole thing because it's the one that feels most like a DS/ER fight in being balanced.

I did another respec so I could try out the Dryleaf/hand to hand weapons, these things RULE. I'm running one in both my main and offhand weapon, but even just R1 combo for main hand is super quick compared to sword/axe/etc; I can put down a Messmer guard in 4 hits for ~2500, and thats light attacks, with heavies I'd be closer probably 3K? I might try and do this as a run for NG+, and if it doesn't work my stats are split well enough between STR/DEX and a little bit into INT that I could use 99% of weapons I want.

 

[TedEH]

It drives me kinda nuts that I got this far, and after 3 days of beating my head against the last boss of the whole thing, I'm about approaching the point of giving up on it. Gonna maybe watch a video of someone beating it or something to see if maybe I'm missing something obvious but it seems like I've been doing everything "right" and still failing miserably.

 

[MFB]

It drives me kinda nuts that I got this far, and after 3 days of beating my head against the last boss of the whole thing, I'm about approaching the point of giving up on it. Gonna maybe watch a video of someone beating it or something to see if maybe I'm missing something obvious but it seems like I've been doing everything "right" and still failing miserably.

That exactly how I felt and it would've been all the easier as I've already platinumed the base game, and the DLC has no trophies, so not like anyone but me would actually know; but I was so fucking annoyed at it being so hard, that I was sort of like, "fine, you want to force me to respec just to cheese it? Eat shit, here you go." It was one thing to clear Bayle with the Dragon Katana because the devs gave it to us, but I beat all but ONE boss in this game as a STR build, and at least Malenia had the decency to steal health back justifying why I needed to cheese. Radahn doesn't even do that, he just hits you like a fucking freight train without letting you get anything in.

If it were a drinking contest, we'd have to drink 5 for every 1 he put away, in if not more.

 

[wankerness]

It drives me kinda nuts that I got this far, and after 3 days of beating my head against the last boss of the whole thing, I'm about approaching the point of giving up on it. Gonna maybe watch a video of someone beating it or something to see if maybe I'm missing something obvious but it seems like I've been doing everything "right" and still failing miserably.

Just use exactly the setup I suggested, it really trivializes it. You could probably use a different poke weapon with bleed on it for similar results, but I think this particular one is one of the highest damage bleed ones in the game since it can be infused, unlike almost every other boss weapon.

Any slashy sword leaves you way more open after each attack and you can’t do it at all while blocking. I think it’s just thrusting swords and spears that work behind a shield.

 

[TedEH]

I watched a video of someone who beating it with no damage and no summons etc etc. - and it really seems like being able to skinny roll so quickly is a huge advantage. I'm sure I'll give it some more attempts this week at some point.

 

[narad]

I went around and did some other stuff, grabbed some other talismans I had missed out on, went back to Radahn... still no dice. I don't want to respec to use a shield and sort of completely redo things, but at the same time, it seems really, really tough to do dual wielding katanas. I got him down to maybe 30% one time, and not particularly close to being able to do anything else on top of it. He moves around too much in phase 2, so that the mimic can't get in there and do anything, he eventually dies from all the aoe damage, and aggro is on me the entire time.

 

[MFB]

I went around and did some other stuff, grabbed some other talismans I had missed out on, went back to Radahn... still no dice. I don't want to respec to use a shield and sort of completely redo things, but at the same time, it seems really, really tough to do dual wielding katanas. I got him down to maybe 30% one time, and not particularly close to being able to do anything else on top of it. He moves around too much in phase 2, so that the mimic can't get in there and do anything, he eventually dies from all the aoe damage, and aggro is on me the entire time.

Are you doing it with just you & mimic to avoid the extra health from the Ansbach summon? Or is that with all three?

From what I saw with using Rivers of Blood, and now just putzing around with Moonveil, katanas definitely have wide opening after attacks, so running two of them is leaving both of you exposed for hits vs. shield/sword combo at a minimum.

 

[narad]

Are you doing it with just you & mimic to avoid the extra health from the Ansbach summon? Or is that with all three?

From what I saw with using Rivers of Blood, and now just putzing around with Moonveil, katanas definitely have wide opening after attacks, so running two of them is leaving both of you exposed for hits vs. shield/sword combo at a minimum.

I didn't do the Ansbach quest so I don't see any summon options around.

 

[MFB]

I watched a video of someone who beating it with no damage and no summons etc etc. - and it really seems like being able to skinny roll so quickly is a huge advantage. I'm sure I'll give it some more attempts this week at some point.

Not to discredit any of us here, but usually people doing no DMG/summon plays etc, are full-time, capital G "Gamers" so I don't know if I'd use them as a basis for what does/doesn't work on Radahn, as I'm sure if one of us does it and sees the amount of health it takes of when you DO play him with a light roll vs. medium and how much less defense you have, any plan will go out the window.

 

[TedEH]

I didn't do the Ansbach quest so I don't see any summon options around.

Same here. I burned the tree thing too early and I think that ruined having him as a summon here. I do have Thiolier or whatever his name is, though. He is..... not the most helpful.

capital G "Gamers"

I know, I just found it helpful to watch someone else who knows all the timings - and making the connection that the slower rolls make it harder to fit into some of those tight timings.

 

[MFB]

I didn't do the Ansbach quest so I don't see any summon options around.

Same here. I burned the tree thing too early and I think that ruined having him as a summon here. I do have Thiolier or whatever his name is, though. He is..... not the most helpful.

Huh, well that does explain a lot then, since Ansbach can heal himself and possibly more than once (if not, that one heal lasts a while). Since you had to fight Freyja with Leda prior to Radahn, I'm not sure if he's floating around on the map anywhere, but looking online, it sounds like that one does lock him out unfortunately.

If you're playing on PC/save-scumming, I'd see if you can find a file from before the Leda fight since that one is quite easy to re-do (in my opinion) so you can have him back; you should be able to advance his quest after burning the tree, 99% sure I did it after but I could be wrong

 

[TedEH]

It didn't occur to me that I could have been save-scumming. Been on PS5 the whole way.

 

[narad]

Yea, PS5 as well. When people are like getting 5 endings out of one playthrough it just seems unfair.

 

[wankerness]

I did save scumming for the endings on the base game, but I don’t think it helps much in the dlc unless you got really far in a tedious dungeon and don’t want to keep re-doing the whole thing every time you die to some late mob. I did it somewhere in shadow keep cause of that, I don’t remember where.

Ansbach is great to summon cause he stacks bleed which speeds up your own procs, it balances out the health increase. The other guy is garbage, the only way he’d be helpful would be to draw fire so you could summon mimic, but then you’d still have a boss with way more health and an npc that does negligible damage. So if you didn’t do ansbach’s quest I’d probably try and figure out how to summon mimic without the extra npc.

 

[TedEH]

I’d probably try and figure out how to summon mimic without the extra npc.

Admittedly this does feel like a really cheap part of the fight. Boss attacks pretty much immediately so you almost never get the chance to use the summon before getting hit. For most attempts so far, I resigned to just tanking the first hit, running away like a coward, and then running back when the mimic finally gets his attention.

I noticed from watching someone else play that you can dodge the meteor thingie by jumping. I always forget a lot of stuff can be dodged by jumping.

 

[MFB]

Admittedly this does feel like a really cheap part of the fight. Boss attacks pretty much immediately so you almost never get the chance to use the summon before getting hit. For most attempts so far, I resigned to just tanking the first hit, running away like a coward, and then running back when the mimic finally gets his attention.

I noticed from watching someone else play that you can dodge the meteor thingie by jumping. I always forget a lot of stuff can be dodged by jumping.

You can also re-mix your physick to negate damage in the beginning and go in with that buff just to tank it, but it puts risk for "phase 3" when he does his holy nuke-dive like in the original fight