As someone who isn't a fan of most of the notable endgame bosses in the base game, I actually found Messmer to be a REALLY good fight, however there are three things that hold the fight back for me; 1. The grab hitbox is too big, this is the *ONLY* part of the fight that I feel absolutely needs to be nerfed slightly, I'm sorry but I shouldn't be getting grabbed if I never made contact with his hand. This isn't Dark Souls 2, so grab hitboxes that bad stick out. 2. The delayed spear thrust (seen from 3:24-3:26) feels like it has a lingering hitbox without the fire and has a bit too much tracking. By that I mean I roll into him and even after he stops moving I get hit. 3. Fire Serpent when followed up with the lunging thrust where he jumps slightly into the air feels like unavoidable damage. You either take damage from the fireball or get caught by a roll-catch with the attack, at least that's how it feels. It might be possible to avoid both hits, but it sure as hell doesn't feel like it. Those three things hold Messmer out of S-Tier and near the top of A-Tier, I legitimately felt myself getting better at the fight which is big for a late-game Elden Ring boss. The problem that I have with most Elden Ring bosses in the endgame feel like I'm gambling with RNG (Radagon in particular is the worst, I call him RNGagon for a reason), the only reason that I beat Malenia the second time around is because she only used Waterfoul once during the ENTIRE FIGHT. I legitimately find Radagon borderline unlearnable because he can pull some cheap bullshit out of the blue like spamming his double teleport 3 times in under 20 seconds (two of those were up-close btw, so four point-blank damaging teleports in my face in under ten seconds) just to screw you up. His teleport is by far the worst teleport given to any FromSoftware boss, Twin Princes had a great teleport mechanic, so how did they screw Radagon's up? Godfrey/Horrah Loux I don't like for different reasons that has to do with both phases being designed around mechanics that I find ruin boss fights, those being excessive AoE spam in phase 1.5 and excessive grab spam in phase 2, so to put it simply he feels like he was designed for me not to like him.

I really can't wait to see you talk about consort and non dodging / deflecting on him. My first time beating him I went ahead an co-oped with a friend which ended up taking maybe half and hour (and I am glad I did that and didn't end the DLC on a note of frustration). My next playthrough my entire goal was to beat him solo. I went with a quality build and didnt bother capping levels and tried out lots of weapons against different bosses (ironically I went back to the same weapon I used to coop him, guts gs with lionsclaw). It took me 2-3 hours with 3 or so near kills. I've killed him 4 times now solo (I've been more or less boss rushing on subsequent playthroughs - getting fragments and a few weapons or spells). My last run was a faith build and I killed him in under 10 tries, and most of those tries saw me die with boss health <20%. My last consort run felt....casual. I think they could tweak his giant holy ring so it gives a few more frames of time to get out of it, and maybe a very small change to X slash. Even so, x slash actually rarely was what killed me. More often it was his single slash to delayed double slash (which is easily dodgable and punishable), ring of light into an illusion attack, or his meteors (not the meteors themselves, but me failing to dodge his jump into the air followed by the meteors into the flash attack). The final boss REALLY is an impulse control fight. I think that is his real difficulty. Differnet combos end with different punish windows - longer combos give enough time for a charged attack with an UGS but shorter combos give only time for a jump attack, light attack, etc.. Anyways, I think I'm much better at elden ring now than I have ever been. I don’t do no hit runs, but I like to challenge myself by finding windows where I can use big spells / abilities without being punished. I learned how to use spells (mainly Ranni's darkmoon) to evade attacks (they absorb Radhan's meteorites, for example) while punishing. I also added in deflect tear. Excluding Sekiro, I've not blocked since DS1. When I added in deflecting tear I found some of the bosses (Rellana) get shredded by guard counters because you can throw them out in some places where you couldn't do charged attacks.

I thought this is like guide to each bosses and their "unique" mechanics, didn't expect it to be 17:31 mins of git gud talk. Anyways it's still a good mindset to share for people who's tryna get into the souls-like game. But for me personally I always choose to playthru/beat the game with just my knowledge and instinct alone expecially for my 1st playthru since that experience only come once in every game I play. And honestly many bosses in the DLC do really felt cheap whenever I 1st fought them as it's going back to the Malenia's Waterfowl dance all over again with the game tries to throw you to atleast dies to a certain cheap attacks multiple times to tests out which method/way to dodge enemy attack and in the DLC many bosses have frametraps/sure-hit attack and whenever i get hit by it the 1st time it doesn't feels good and it sours the experience of facing up against a hyped up boss the 1st time. I think I've written too much but honestly I do feel lke there's atleast 1-2 things to nitpick from every major bosses in the DLC as their so close from being a perfect boss design.

Very useful! Out of interest, how do you practice bosses? Do you use Cheat Engine, or do you simply resist the urge to attack until you have all of the bosses moves down? Or something else? Thanks!

Great moves man. I love watching gameplay from guys like you so I can eat it, so to speak, and get better at the game myself.

Elden Ring attracted too many people who can't take accountability and learn from their failures. The Shadowtree Avatar is "BS"? There's no real hope for those people.

Dude it’s genuinely so nice to see someone else fully appreciating and understanding these bosses’ nuances. I will never hate on anyone for not enjoying them because they are very complex, but it’s just great to find someone on the same wavelength :) great video!!

This is a good mind set to have, and I assume most veteran Souls players have this mindset by now. Maybe not as refined as yours. But regardless of mindset I still think Fromsoft bosses have sacrificed fun for sheer difficulty. Been playing Lies of P and that game is an absolute blast compared to SotE.

I 100% get what you mean. Me, using all of the summons and OP weapons to beat the dlc bosses didn't satisfy me as much as beating Margit with nothing in my first playthrough but I can never explain this feeling without sounding like the stereotypical "Summons is cheating" kind of guy.

Basically people like to Facetank the bosses, not learn, clutch out victories with rng and then brag about the fact they beat the boss (although face trading with their insanely broken builds they copied from some guy in the internet on top of using mimic). No wonder people are clueless and then whine and cry that bosses are somehow unfair. Like Scadutree Avatar is one of the cleanest fights in all of Fromsoft, every move has clear telegraph, is intuitive and you can every attack. Such an enormous amount of ignorance from people really concerns me sometimes

I'm certainly not very good, but Mohg is one of the only bosses I feel genuinely pretty confident in. He was among the toughest of my first playthrough (like you, because of the timing and how much damage he dealt in phase 2). I remember when I genuinely thought his delayed bloodflame talons were undodgeable lol. He's truly a wonderful balance of aggression and passivity, and he rewards you for taking the initiative without near-immediate retaliation like some other bosses feel like. It's funny that he's relatively easy to just heal right in front of because his attacks are delayed enough to dodge.

One of the best vids on Elden Ring combat

Just found your channel with this video and I think your guides and analyses rock.

Boy, why so nervous, what's up with stutters? I'm not watching you IRL, just through my screen. My rizz can't hurt you🤗

I thought Scadu Avatar was regarded among the easiest bosses of the DLC, because of his low health. This would make it specifically easy for players just trading damage in a somewhat adequate way.

Messmer is the most fun boss to no hit imo.

This is how I enrichen my vocabulary before the last year of baccalaureate.

I’m not going to lie, on my first couple of attempts of fighting the avatar I was so frustrated I went onto Reddit and check if anyone was as mad as I was. And it turned out that a lot felt the same way which made me happy to see. But after acouple more hours and seeing how manageable the boss is after trying a new method with same build I started to feel a bit bad for going about it harsh especially considering I had to fix my “do more damage faster than them” mindset.

Bayle was cool, but he had some bs with him, lots of fake openings. Also its stupid his straight flame specifically can be done right as you enter and will bounce off the wall and hit you.

12:24 this is why Promised Consort is my favourite boss

Yeah, Bayle probably is the best Fromsoft dragon. The only issue is that the bar for fromsoft dragons is so low that the title of "best dragon" means nothing because no matter what you do, dragons are either gonna be way too easy or completely miserable with no in between.

your fairly large vocabulary makes this video really cool to watch ngl

this is golden, i hope you make more no-hit guides for specific bosses.

It's sad how much hate the Scadutree Avatar gets. If any dlc boss deserves to be hated it's the NPC bosses. Anyway, great video. your insight is much appreciated.

okay but how tf do you dodge metyr's double laser and side finger creep

Usually every new ng try (ng+7) on Malenia takes me like 10 tries just to get the timing on her with the weapon I'm using on that build. Yesterday I first tried her with the martial arts. That's how much the DLC had helped me with timings and utilising attack opportunities lol

You're the physical embodiment of a thesaurus 😂

Pluh-sid-oo-sacks

1:42. Great observation and great point.

Shadows of the OidTwee Sick video bro thank you 👌

Should we target lock ? What are the (dis)advantages ?

Tremendous display of skill. I will never have the time or patience to even attempt a no hit run except may be where a boss can be parried but still I love how no hit runners can tune perfectly to the rhythym of the boss.

personally, bayle feels like a combination of midir and placidusax it is more cinematic than both and less movement needed than both. but the smooth timeframe and pacing is not near midir level.

Bayle is bad, fight him on a real difficulty in the later ng+ cycles and you will see how mechanically garbage he is. Igor is useless.

Mohg was such a enjoyable fight my first playthrough and is still my personal gold standard fight for the game that the next boss i fought (malenia) made me soo disappointed in comparison. Last year I legit replayed the game once just to beat up mohg again then stopped playing till the dlc dropped.

Big B wasn’t that hard just annoying

Easily the second best sunflower boss fight in all of gaming.

Great video! Can you do an analysis of Rellana?

Scadutree Avatar was my favorite boss encounter on my first playthrough. I also think it's a fun fight. I just really like the funny big sunflower.

This probably goes for all no hit runs really, but this fight looks so much less chaotic when done hitless. Good job again!

This guy gave me CRAZY framerate drops. Might just be a console problem idk. Not a bad boss, not a great one either. Well done!

CUUUUUUUUURSE YOU, BAYLE!!!!

Messmer is not only a masterpiece of a boss, but he’s the first shape-shifting boss that fromsoft has made as far as I know. Which is insanely cool. In my opinion he deserves two health bars.

guys, what are we discussing about? obviously ancient wyvern is the best lol