Ranking the Worst Gimmick Boss in Each Soulsborne Game!

✦ Best Gimmick Bosses - • Ranking the Best Gimmi...
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✦ Soulsborne Ranking Playlist: • Soulsborne Rankings
Last week, we took a look at the best gimmick fights in Soulsborne - The Boss Battles that revolve around, or feature a very distinct mechanic. Be it weakpoints, a moveset or the arena. And now, we're flipping the script and ranking the worst gimmick boss from each Soulsborne game!
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Intro: 0:00
Demon's Souls: 0:54
Dark Souls: 3:03
Dark Souls II: 5:03
Bloodborne: 7:07
Dark Souls III: 9:31
Sekiro: 11:23
Elden Ring: 13:02
Outro: 15:25
#soulsborne #eldenring #darksouls #bloodborne

[@tubanesoup]

Most of the bosses in bloodborne are crazy aggressive, so I found it pretty funny that micolash kept running away

[@BillySYT]

To be fair to him, he's probably the smartest boss in Bloodborne for the simple fact he tried to actively not fight us lmao

[@rmv9194]

Maybe Is just me, but I hated that Boss fight even More than bed of chaos. Like, just decide if It Is gonna be a Boss fight or a puzzle

[@Keycil]

Rom and The One Reborn sucked to me for that reason. Stationary and no fun mechanics.

[@wilbert3842]

I feel like the bed of chose had potential, the design of the tree creature is great and if it had a mechanic like Wolnir where a few hits broke the roots and took off a large chunk of the health bar

[@jenjoe4359]

Curse-rotted greatwood is closest we’ll get to that

[@Sabbathfaax]

I just think the attacks just need to be readable in any capacity (like maybe a ground queue) and that alone makes it 20x better. The jump mechanics themselves aren't the problem it's everything else on top of it

[@forcedintofemininity]

The curse rotted greatwood would have worked so much better in Elden Ring’s combat system where you can lock onto specific targets. The whole frustrating problem with the boss is that since you can’t lock on, sometimes you’ll be quite close to a sac and swing and nothing will happen. Otherwise I quite like the boss, the music is great and it has a unique moveset

[@Sam_Hyde_Apologist]

I'm probably in the minority here but I have always liked the curse rotted greatwood

[@prismriot4910]

My thought on what they should've done with Micholash: They needed to put levers in the level that you find through exploration and require looking for them becasuse theyre hard to find. Each lever you find closes off a section of his "Running" area, where if youve found all of them, he can only run to the room. It keeps his gimmick in the game, but provides experienced/exploration heavy players a method to counteract it.

[@Dr.Decker927]

Great Video! You could also rank all snow areas of the series

[@MarkHogan994]

I heartily support the snow area ranking. And in case you read this Billy, remember, all the Ashina areas in Sekiro as well as the Sunken Valley are technically snow areas ;). I mean they're not super snowy like a typical snow area, but still, it's snowing in like half the game, lol. So it could be fun to include them.

[@jonmann4980]

Gaming countdowns are pretty interesting, I subscribed

[@amphibianenthusiast1887]

While Godskin Duo is a very annoying gimmick, the fight is trivialized by sleep pots. One sleep pot will just about instantly sleep either of them, and allows you for solid damage with no risk.

[@samlewis6487]

The Godskin Duo is like if the devs went "What if we did the Four Kings but instead we made it TERRIBLE?"

[@Dark_kittens123]

Four kings is terrible you just stand still and spam attack( even with light load)

[@The_Vanni]

Like the Four Kings weren't terrible beforehand.

[@kaspertheghost06]

Bruh the Four Kings is just as awful

[@historicflame972]

Devils Advocate here The Four King are fine

[@getsueinaito]

@@The_Vanni The four kings are still worse and get even more annoying on ng+ if your dps just isn't high enough spawning more than two

[@ThIQ84]

One of my hottest takes is I love the Godskin Duo fight, it’s two individually fun bosses, and the big one is a lot more aggressive letting you kite around the pillars and separate the two. I’ve never had any problem with it on any melee build and I imagine it’d be easier with a ranged build

[@michaelbarker6732]

I definitely think greatwood is more fun to fight than wolnir and it is ONLY because that right arm is always just barely out of the reach of his deadly cloud of vape.

[@BillySYT]

To be fair with the linear level design - The bridge loops back to Quelaag's sister, but the boss runback from her bonfire to the boss is significantly longer than just going from the lower Izalith bonfire, and you don't have a giant titanite demon who will shoot you with projectiles once you pass him ;w;

[@michaelbarker6732]

@@BillySYT did u write this on the wrong comment?

[@BillySYT]

KZbin glitched out when I posted the comment on a different post, and sent it to yours. Very odd.

[@michaelbarker6732]

@@BillySYTlol oh well free algorithm boost or something not sure how it works

[@therighttrousers343]

Bed of Chaos' final jump is the reason I've only beaten DS1 once. Way too pesky. Royal Rat Vanguard's only problem is they have a boss health bar, as a room encounter I think it's fine, should've removed the bonfire before it, removed the big health bar, and just had a key to a door to the next room, with mohawk rat dropping it and a copy of whatever mist it drops. You're right about it being the worst gimmick boss in DS2, though, the only other bosses I'd consider true gimmicky would I guess be Demon of Song, Executioner's Chariot, Elana, Looking Glass Knight, Darklurker, Nashandra, Aldia, and maybe stretching cos it's outside interference, Vendrick, BIK, Aava, Raime and Mytha, but even if they are gimmicky, and that's with a bit of give on the definition, they're not worse encounters than Vanguard. Nashandra might be easier, Chariot too if you use the poison arrow method, but not less interesting, Nashandra can catch you unawares if arrogant, and Chariot poison can be a struggle to find the right position and go unharried by the mobs or its Boudicca spikes. Micolash's call beyond ruins what's otherwise a funny, enjoyable chase. Wish he didn't actually stop in any room, but it was a full chase with a running guy, maybe a bit slower, who occasionally threw out attacks to you. I fall on the Greatwood side of the balance. It has silly, awkward moves. Sometimes can be difficult to predict, and the ability to hurt its hand and back in phase 2 helps it move faster. I like the funny bubolous design of it. Wolnir is alright, but the death field behind him that his right hand can be in or positionally drag you into is kinda pesky. I basically usually kill him before he starts to suck, is his biggest saving grace, no time to summon, not time to use big cumbering hand moves or sword moves. Malenia, her health drain. It shouldn't work against 100% blocked attacks, what are you siphoning health from, the fingerprint shield?! Do you know where that's been?! Or what it is?! Really should scale based on the actual damage to health received from the attack if it's going to be there at all. The only normal case Johnny JoJo averageboy mcnormalman Doe way to fight her is burst DPS, a marathon loses you. A big shield user with a deluxe condominium full of stamina shouldn't lose a marathon. And against a human scale boss with a katana, it ought to be the exact place for guard counters to shine their hardest, a final test of your embrace of the new system, but her hits also smack too hard for guard counters to come online. Least it did last I tried, quite a while back, don't think they've changed her much since, I think time I fought her fingerprint and initially Lance but gave up and went bhf, was 1.06.

[@kaspertheghost06]

Ds1: Bed of Chaos Ds2: Gank Squad Ds3: Ancient Wyvern Bloodborne: Micolash Sekiro: Headless Ape duo Elden Ring: Godskin Duo or Commander Niall

[@Kizur13]

I'll agree Micolash has the worst gimmick of the Bloodborne bosses, but I don't dislike the boss as much as most. Mainly because i found out a long time ago you can cheese him with poison knives. I would say the Ancient Wyvern is a worse gimmick boss than curse rotted greatwood because at least the greatwood is a fight and can be a threat. You're more likely to die to the snake men than the wyvern. As for Dark Souls 2, I would go with Executioner's Chariot.

[@drockhansen365]

How about a top 10 individual boss phases like friede phase 3, radagons half of the final boss and ishin second to last phase for instance.

[@connorgrant5908]

I just found you off of the algorithm I subscribed and plan on watching vids to help out

[@BillySYT]

Thanks so much, very appreciated ^^

[@RepublicOfBridger]

Alright Billy, I think it’s time to rank ALL the gimmick bosses now in one list 😈

[@BillySYT]

oh no

[@mayasuxs]

First time I ever fought Bed of Chaos, recently, and it managed to swipe me ONTO that middle branch, where I then killed that bug. I was so shocked lol.

[@asdergold1]

Pretty sure you can dodge A Call Beyond by clapping. Also I once killed the Greatwood before it even fell, iirc. The weakspots get revealed after I think it starts to recover from the first sack stun and if you destroy one before it breaks the floor, you can do it over and over again!

[@BillySYT]

I heard that was a way of dodging A Call Beyond, but I'm awful at using gestures mid-fight. I'd likely just screw up the timing.

[@apharys8921]

If I remember right Micolash doesn't even cast A Call Beyond if you stay close to him. He might back away and use it but if you get him cornered he's done.

[@historicflame972]

There's a bug I found where Greatwood fight doesn't even 'start' preventing phantoms from intervening, the theme from playing and from the 2nd phase happening

[@Daktangle]

I just realised that Dragon God is Prototype Bed of Chaos! You need to attack two things, avoiding massive attacks in annoying terrain, then make your way to a third one to finish it off. Only Bed of Chaos is even worse with collapsing terrain and awful attacks.

[@Mikhael.R]

The last time i played DS1 my game kept crashing when fighting the bed of chaos. I killed that chaos bug 4 tomes before my game stopped crashing. Needless to say i have a personal vendetta against yhe witch of izalith and that wretched chaos bug.

[@xian1978]

With the Dragon Demon I was stuck for a while because nowhere in the rest of the game you can break columns and rubble like in that level, so I thought I was stuck there.... after going back and forth for a while I just pressed attack out of frustration and boom, I broke it.

[@ellisvan]

... not me dying to Greatwood tree so many times, I turned hollow and quit playing for years...

[@funnypickles]

I have a newfound hatred for the greatwood since he replaced iduex gundyr in my enemy randomizer

[@BillySYT]

I'm so sorry for your loss lmao

[@monkeybusiness673]

OOF, that sounds really rough. But then again, I only tried a randomizer once and it shattered my sanity forever, sooooooo.....

[@parasite7639]

I really wish the ancient dragon from ds2 was better. It looks so cool and the ost is great. Shame that the mechanics of the fight are very much not good. That boss had potential if they had put more thought into it.

[@BillySYT]

If it were a gimmick fight, I'd definitely have included it. One of the biggest let downs of a dragon fight in the series.

[@alexjastrowski5821]

Love video

[@cariad123]

Honestly I actually loved micolash. He's fun and silly and a welcome change from the aggression of evrry other enemy

[@BillySYT]

Totally fair. I sort of see why he'd potentially be liked/gain a cult following. I think he's a great character, at the very least. I just find his fight grinds my momentum to a halt in each playthrough.

[@fishpickles7316]

@@BillySYT Personally I agree that his boss isn't that fun but I like it more design wise than the witch of hemwick

[@caibongchet2lan150]

Godskin Duo is 1 of the most easy bosses if you use summon and sleep pot. But if not, they are fucking harder than Malenia imo.

[@big_red01027]

Micolash looks pretty goddamn good compared to the Bed of Bullshit and Godskin Duo.

[@Dark_kittens123]

Godskin duo is actually quite fun, just kite the noble and fight him separately and occasionally dodge the fireball from the apostle, then fight the apostle solo and repeat, pretty underrated boss

[@big_red01027]

@@Dark_kittens123 Really? Everything I've seen points to the contrary.

[@glang5154]

I like Micolash very much for the craziness, but Lawrence is the epitome of bullshit in Bloodborne. Elden Ring has so many bad bosses I can't pick one. Fire Giant, Godskin Duo, Malenia... the list goes on.

[@minerman60101]

3:42 You say "linear level design" right as you're looking at the bridge that loops back to the elevator to Quelaag's sister, tsk tsk. I'd love to see someone port the Bed of Chaos into Elden Ring, the jump could make the fight actually enjoyable and a Stake of Marika would replace the fight saving your progress. And thankfully, Micolash will be able to reach his true potential in Lilith Walther's Bloodborne Kart. Godskin Duo should've shown the two working together more, and in fact there's a mechanic where they do: if one is put to sleep then the other can roar to wake them up... except it's bugged and does not work in the duo fight. You can see the functionality working at the Windmill village Apostle if you get the celebrants close to the boss and them sleep them. I've come around on the shared healthbar, since it portrays them pooling together the Black Flame that comprises them, allowing them to revive each other. However, the death animations should've better conveyed this, with the bosses themselves slumping over and fading out instead of having the usual particle explosion, and when you do kill the shared healthbar, there should be an anguished explosion of Black Flame from the spot in the arena where they respawn.

[@panjam6123]

Rank the top 10 weapons of each game!!

[@RULERZREACHF4N6146]

I’m definitely more interested in the Zelda videos, but I will still watch all of the soulsborne stuff.

[@archiaptor]

Loved this!

[@kiranikib42]

when i do a ng on elden ring i can use no summons for the majority of the bosses but godskin duo is where i say "whelp" and summon mimic and bernhal that dude is one tanky boi and my man has a heal so he can pretty much outlast mimic but hey at least thats really the only terrible main boss imo not even elden beast is that bad and i may be biased since this was the first souls game ive beat but i love elden beast/radagon radagon so fun and elden beast is just an amazing boss atmospherically, the music and the arena are so amazing and look at me rambling about ER and completely going off topic

[@shiroamakusa8075]

The Godskin Duo isn't really a gimmick boss, that's just a straight up gank fight with no special mechanics other than the godskins respawning occasionally. If you wanted a bleh gimmick boss, the Spiritcaller Snail in the Road's End Catacombs qualifies.

[@AbyssWalker777]

I actually would take the great wood over wolnir. Hearing micolash on the wind was pretty funny tho

[@BillySYT]

Whenever I bring up Micolash in a video, I've gotta get his trademark podcast moans in there. It's a soulsborne requirement.

[@tiagodelgado1214]

I don't understand when people call BoC a "platformer challenge" and mention how it's hard to jump to the root... I never once jumped, just fall on it xD

[@drschwandi3687]

I have played through DS1 around 6 times and I never played the fight against the Bed of Chaos legit. I always turn off the bosses AI and kill it without it doing anything. I don't feel bad about that at all.

[@CrowScareify]

Waiting for the dlc to have the Godskin Trio as the final boss

[@SekhmetMorgan]

I love Micolash, or some say kosm!

[@patrickhenwood5199]

I would argue the Royal Rat Authority has the worst gimmick in DS2. It's make or break in the first 10 seconds, either you kill the toxic rats at the start and win or you don't and you die to toxic. I Can understand why you chose Royal Rat Vanguard though, petrification is a very annoying status ailment

[@Arfadoz]

That take about the Godskin Duo is just wrong. Having a shared health bar makes them EASIER. Each Godskin has 6000/7000 HP, which means you spend less time 1 vs 2. It would be WAY harder if the Noble and Apostle had their own separated health bar with 13500 HP each. The re-summon animation can be cancelled forever if you manage the poise damage you do and stagger them while the Godskin is doing the spell. That's why using heavy attacks after one of them dies is VERY important for Hitless.

[@BillySYT]

Okay, but even then I still think it's a shit boss.

[@glang5154]

You miss the point! They should each have a fraction of their normal health and when they die they stay dead. Besides, it's not even a duo, it should be the Godskin Quadruple!!

[@michaelbarker6732]

Honestly i just can’t see how Godskin Duo is a gimmick boss. To me a gimmick boss is something that either requires or at least heavily incentivizes doing one specific thing to defeat them. Ancient dragon is definitely a gimmick boss, Rykard is definitely a gimmick boss, Godskin Duo is just a boss that happens to include an unorthodox health bar. You still beat them by just attacking them with whatever weapon you want. That being said idk what exactly counts as a gimmick in Elden Ring besides Rykard. Technically you could count Renalla as a gimmick but only for the first phase. So i guess that was a safe pick since no one would disagree with it being bad haha.

[@BillySYT]

I like to keep the concept of a gimmick fairly flexible, otherwise there really wouldn't be much in terms of choice among the games. I think given there's no other boss that works like the Godskin Duo in the game, in regards to their healthbar, it counts as a gimmick for that fight. A one-off moment that goes against everything else the game has taught you as a player.

[@michaelbarker6732]

Fair enough it would be reeaally hard to choose anything else thats both a gimmick and bad for Elden Ring.

[@haguemaker9183]

I’m a souls borne/souls like player and the rats against the royal rat vanguard deal toxic damage not petroficaticon damage and I know that for a fact as I’m sat playing dark souls right now and have just finished the royal rat vanguard fight and became toxic during it

[@benro6564]

I would say Executioner's Chariot is the gimmick boss of ds2

[@lWeBeatIt278]

I don’t hate the bed of chaos, I didn’t have trouble with the boss

[@Bluey2600]

im gonna be so real, i sincerely consider the godskin duo to be the worst boss in any game i’ve ever played. the boss fights in fucking sonic 06 were genuinely more functional. they got me mad in a way i hadn’t been toward a video game for YEARS, haha.

[@WolfBergMenace]

Ok but the Royal Rat Vanguard is worth it because you get to meet the true King of Drangleic.

[@BillySYT]

But you can also do that via the Royal Rat Authority

[@WolfBergMenace]

@@BillySYT Oh damn I guess thats something I missed in my playthrough

[@monkeybusiness673]

I wholeheartedly agree with Micolash, but for me the Celestial Emissary is a close second. It's essentially the Rat Vanguard with lasers, and it's absolute BS. It IS, however, optional; which is great. x'D

[@BillySYT]

Celestial Emissary, Rom & Micolash are all on the same tier for me (it's no shock that all the gimmick bosses bottomed in my Bloodborne Boss Ranking video lmao)

[@monkeybusiness673]

@@BillySYT Honestly, Rom is totally fine for me, though. It is an interesting wake-up call if you just barge in, trying to kill her and the little spiderlings absolutely wreck you ^^

[@parasite7639]

The one reborn I would put up there too. It's not THE worst but it certainly isn't good either. For me he just spams nonstop body rain and acid vomit attack. Not fun

[@thekingghidorah93]

I’m surprised you didn’t consider Halflight for this list.

[@BillySYT]

If you check my DS3 boss rankings on the channel, I actually don't hate the Halflight fight. I think his moveset as an AI is really interesting and presents a genuine challenge. I just hate that you always have a painting guardian getting respawned to back him up.

[@Blackblade-NeX]

halflight sucks and could be improved...but why isnt it some cool guardian instead of a little piece of shiet AI or invader?

[@The_Vanni]

Fia's Champions might as well not even be there with how forgettable and easy it is, actually find it worse than Godskin Duo.

[@laurencevicar5798]

DeS: Dragon God DS1: Bed of Chaos DS2: Lud and Zallen, I guess? Royal Rat Vanguard is at least a cake walk Bloodborne: Witches of Hemwick. I actually like Micolash, this is the most unique fight in the game with its own, distinct atmosphere and secrets found in boss arena. Micolash also has pretty cool lore(he is basically main antagonist). Witches of Hemwick are just boring as shit, their OST sucks, literally nothing good about them. Dark Souls 3: Ancient Wyvern. Curse Rotted Greatwood isn't masterpiece of a boss, but it works fine enough and it doesn't rely on a gimmick alone in phase 2. Ancient Wyvern is just broken due to broken hitboxes, broken enemies and broken jumping. Sekiro: Well, is Ape Duo a gimmick fight? Not really, so Folding screen Monkeys take this, but I actually like them. Elden Ring: Godskin Duo, I agree.

[@thetk7508]

Elder Dragon Greyoll is the real worst gimmick boss of Elden Ring. 10 minutes of tail wacking is no fun

[@BillySYT]

You know that you can defeat Greyoll quicker by fighting the smaller dragons around it, right? If you kill them, it damages Greyoll's health bar as well.

[@thetk7508]

@@BillySYT yes it’s just as tedious and with the threat of death

[@narcisraiciu6919]

My dude really skipped the Ancient Wyvern boss fight from Dark souls 3. That's just literally running and doing one single damage from above. Far worse than Curse-rotted Greatwood because people expected a good fight there.

[@BillySYT]

When this video was uploaded, I'd already been bashing Ancient Wyvern in a few of my other recent vids, so I wanted to share the love. Check my DS3 boss rankings for validation ^^

[@narcisraiciu6919]

@@BillySYT Fine I'll let it pass. But my animosity for the Ancient Wyvern remains. Also good video.

[@Dark_kittens123]

DeS: dragon god Ds1: bed of chaos Ds2: gank squad Ds3: crystal sage Bb: Micolash Elden ring: renella( easy boring gimmick phase 1 and easy boring mage spam phase 2) Sekiro: Ape gank( only boss I would consider bad in sekiro, folding monkeys are fun imo)

[@Fusible_1]

Folding monkeys is only fun for the first time imo but the ape gank can go burn in the deepest part of hell.

[@Blackblade-NeX]

fuck crystal sages

[@sinclair7318]

Micolash and godskin dou are good bosses imo

[@BillySYT]

Micolash, I can see the argument for. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Godskin Duo though ^^

[@grayestrat]

I find Ancient Wyvern way worse than greatwood

[@4eyewiseguy]

Curse fitted greatwood??? Nah man Ancient Wyvern is by far the worst gimmick fight in DS3 no the SERIES if they were gonna have that BS one shot hitbox it should NOT be a hit you can miss I've done at least 10 playthroughs I've never gotten it

[@BillySYT]

See, Ancient Wyvern is literally my least favourite fight in DS3, but I've ragged on it a ton in rankings on this channel, so I wanted to spread the love a bit more.

[@TresBS1]

For me it's easily between Draconic Tree Sentinel or the Godskin Duo. Bit of an essay here, I apologize in advance. I'll talk about the Sentinel as the Godskin have been talked to death on reddit and youtube. Draconic Tree Sentinel, I'd call a gimmick boss because it's always placed as something that you either can't get past (Leyndell) or something that is annoying to bypass (Farum Azula). The way they're positioned is like a punishment. On top of that, the moveset is annoying, especially the one in Azula because it will fire spam like a madman. I've had that blasted horse shoot 4-6 fireballs in succession. It feels like the AI's programmed to keep shooting fireballs at me until it actually hits. Worst yet, the fight takes place on an incline which it seems to mess with my rolls. If I go against the incline and I'm a little too close, I end up taking a fireball to the face, even though my timing for dodging this attack has gotten nigh-perfect. Then you pile on the fact that I'm not good at dodging the lightning, the fact every attack hits like a truck, it's major attacks are split between fire and lighting damage (so I can't just slap a talisman on to offset some of thatdamage), you've got small windows to get attacks in and because it's on horseback, staggering him gives only a brief reprieve...you've got a boss that frustrates me more than even Malenia! I've gotten to the point that I've stopped fighting them and just started sneaking around them and poisoning them so I don't give myself a headache. But it gets better, the one in Farum Azula is NOT easy to sneak behind! I had cast a spell conceal myself, strip off my armor to go silent and put on a talisman that conceal you when crouching...and the damn Sentinel still tracked my movement for some time before giving up. Thing nearly gave me a heart-attack because if it aggro'd there was no way I could fight it.

[@The_Vanni]

Draconic Tree Sentinel isn't a gimmick boss at all. If you are struggling with fireballs, when you get close enough he will fire at his feet, then will go back to melee attacks.

[@Mutor1337]

I'd say a gimmick boss is defined by having a unique fighting strategy (like Yhorm or BoC), a non-combat fight (Dragon God, Ancient Wyvern) or a substitute-fight (Rat Vanguard, Maiden Astraea). Draconic Tree Sentinel is a normally fought boss with a normal fighting strategy, the only slightly different part is that he is an open world boss, which really isn't enough for a gimmick.

[@tryintoohard4674]

Do you recognize armored core 6 as a new soulsborne game?

[@BillySYT]

Nah - At least with Sekiro, there's enough of a through line with certain mechanics that I can rank it in these and feel it fits to an extent. Armoured Core 6 feels like an entirely different beast, but I definitely want to play it at some point.

[@tryintoohard4674]

valid @@BillySYT

[@myrrous4284]

Dead ass wrong about mico

[@alexterieur8813]

Best female bosses ranked could be cool ! Soulsborne has amazing ones which cannot be said for every game !

[@ravixzczteroroga4977]

Pls use PS5 not PS3 Demon's Souls videos

[@BillySYT]

Maybe if I owned a PS5, I would. But I can use whatever I want :)