The Many Failures of Elden Ring's Duo Bosses

[@BertoPlease]

hai, are we ready for Shadows of the Erdtree? 😈 Tell me what your favorite duo fight in Elden Ring, or the series is! Music: 0:00 - Ornstein and Smough (Dark Souls OST) 0:32 - What (Final Fantasy VI OST) 2:09 - Erdtree Knights (Elden Ring OST) 4:58 - Red Wolf of Radagon (Elden Ring OST) 5:52 - Demon Prince (Dark Souls III OST) 9:23 - Deacons of the Deep (Dark Souls III OST) 10:11 - Godskin Apostle (Elden Ring OST) 13:36 - Erdtree Avatar (Elden Ring OST) 16:39 - Sister Friede (Dark Souls III OST) 18:28 - Maiden in Black (Demon's Souls OG OST)

[@minespatch]

My favorite duo fight would probably be Belltower Gargoyles from ds1. I think that battle is the most fair for a beginner.

[@pedronagy1170]

Ds3 Demon Prince, in Elden ring the flower and the omenkiller duo

[@erickr199]

The best duo fight in Elden Ring is the Miranda Omen killer duo and I am not even joking. The Flower is quite tanky and is passively attacking you with poison and the holy rain attack. You can ignore the flower and fight the omen killer, but you will have to be constantly on the move to avoid the holy rain, or you can try to kill the flower which cant move, but the omen killer will be attacking you as you try to kill it

[@AceAviations2]

Also the Erdtree Burial Watchdog fights shown in the video can be trivialized with Crystal Darts, so you can turn it against either it's partner or the Fanged Imps. This is a good thing because it rewards exploration and finding stuff.

[@carlschrappen9712]

I'm glad you gave credit to the Crucible Knight duo. Even when I fought them before the AI adjustment, I found them to be a fun and fair boss fight. Valient Gargoyles is a a complete disaster of a boss fight. I'd go as far as to say its worse than Godskin duo. The Gargoyles simply have too much speed, range, and moveset complexity to work as a gank fight. The only way this could have been good is if the second Gargoyle came in after the first died.

[@NoobyGamer_]

Literally git gud and then you’ll appreciate the gargoyle fight. The poison attack is annoying but the speed is exhilarating

[@leadfaun]

@@NoobyGamer_ I'm good and the Gargoyles suck. At times you will literally never get openings because the Gargoyles instantly use poison upon switching aggro.

[@_Bunger_]

I don’t think Godskin duo is as egregious as some people make it out to be. However Valiant Gargoyles is down right hateful.

[@La0bouchere]

Worth noting that godskin duo was absolute hell on release, so lots of people are probably remembering it pre-nerf

[@ShinxBOOM247]

Its worth mentioning that a handful of the game's duo fights were shadow nerfed in patch 1.04 to make the enemy AI be less likely to attack together. This specirically impacted the Crystalian duo fights found thoughout the game, the Pumkin Head Duo fight in Caelid, the Abductor Vergin Duo fight in Mt. Gelmnir, the Erdtree Avatar in the Mountaintops, and the Crucible Knight Duo in Altus. All of these bosses were way worse about both bosses being super aggressive and attacking at the same time originally, which definitely left a sour taste in players mouths if they played at launch

[@miceatah9359]

nope theyre the same

[@ShinxBOOM247]

@@miceatah9359 illusorywall, resident souls game deep diver, would beg to differ. He did an entire video dedicated to a couple of unlisted changes throughout the game's patches, and the duo boss AI was one of them (which I have linked back to below) kzbin.info/www/bejne/Zpyyeoydq69ljrs

[@desmondbrown5508]

I appreciate that you cover even not often discussed duo bosses. Because frankly there are a lot of issues with how duo fights are handled in Elden Ring, but it often gets pushed away because technically you can trivialize the fights by coming back later with super powered gear (like in the case of the duo pumpkin helmet bosses). But that's besides the point and ignores that a lot of the issues with these games were never about the raw difficulty, but the WAY in which that difficulty is being done. How fun it is vs. how tedious and boring.

[@MoreLoreThenThereSeems]

Good duo fights are at their best when they are asymmetric in my opinion.

[@JoseViktor4099]

Jokes aside, I always seen these bosses as filler, Im sure that Fromsoft could still do much better and interesting Duo boss fights than the Elden Ring and Sekiro renditions. They just have to make a boss fight that is explicitily designed to make a Duo, like the Demon Prince.

[@WholesomeDungareeWearer]

I hate how the Valiant Gargoyle poison has the potential to do the most damage of all of their attacks, the lingering aoe hits so rapidly and lasts so long

[@fitziirugi]

ok Imma say it, if they weren't joke enemies, Miranda Flower and Omenkiller is peak duo fight because one is stationary crowd control and the other is an aggro brawler. All other Elden Ring gank fights were neutered into being multiple 1v1s one after the other after that big patch, which at that point, why have a multiple boss fight anyway.

[@azamat6765]

100%, this fight really works because Miranda's pillars of light attack is highly telegraphed and you easily reposition. Her poison cloud also kinda works because it blocks a part of arena and you have to play around it. This is much better than "throw 2 dudes in a room and that's it". However I think that this fight would be worse if Miranda had a quick projectile attack when you're focused on the Omen killer(like dragon slayer armor phase 2). I hope they'll explore this concept more and come up with a truly good duo boss

[@Nikitsko]

Addition to Ordovis fight. With assasin gambit you can aggro only one knight, dispatch it behind the other(moving hugging the wall on the side of the aggroed), and turn frustrating duo into 2 duels

[@ThePassablePlayer]

That duo beastman fight in dragon's burrow was one of the few that made me use spirit summons. They damage was just stupid and the ranged attacks would take almost half my health. While the one before Radahn I came super overleveled and destroyed both of them. The open world map is great, but it also makes the game have no consistency on the difficulty.

[@Markmc9.]

This was a good video, high quality, enjoyable, thanks I needed a good video like this today

[@blazex224]

Honestly Duo would be fine if it weren’t for both Apostle and Noble having very tricky and goofy attacks (Apostle quick double swipe, Noble quick belly bump p1 and roll in p2). And with Gargoyles, the fight is diminished by poison breath, but otherwise they’d be fine

[@heideknight7782]

One of the worst things in the duo boss fights in ER hasn't been discussed in the video: the fact that bosses can clip into each other, which is against any intuition of how the collision physics should be like. Example: if you fight against the Watchdog duo in Caelid (which is one of the 'worst' duo bosses in the game) it can happen that you get hit by an attack of the second Watchdog EVEN if he is behind his companion. You CAN'T see this and you DO NOT expect this to happen. It is truly one of the most unfair mechanics in the game and is a problem in basically any boss fight with multiple enemies. In case of the Godskin duo I had it a number of times that I got hit by a fire ball which the Noble or Apostle threw THROUGH his partner. To be fair, this bad design is not new in ER and has been used in previous Fromsoft games, too. In the Friede and Ariandel duo fight (which is the best duo boss by Fromsoft imo) it can happen that Friede is clipped inside Ariandel and then you will be unable to see her attack coming (or it will be very difficult to see). However, this duo boss is still fine, because Friede is mostly stationary during this phase while Ariandel is chasing you. So the bad clipping desing is balanced by the fact that the two bosses behave differently in their movement, so that it doesn't happen too often that one needs to deal with this problem. The same is true also with many other Fromsoft duo bosses prior to Elden Ring. But, as mentioned in the video, ER duo bosses are mostly different from previous Souls bosses, because their AI has not been properly adjusted and then you are forced to deal with the bad design all the time. Which means: you have to assume that you will get attacked from a boss who is behind his companion at any time.

[@ramen3643]

while the fights weren't necessarily well made, I think they pretty well balanced, they all had a long ranged enemy and a short ranged enemy, or a passive enemy and an aggressive enemy, or even have the enemies switch between ranged and close ranged states.

[@johnherb4243]

While I agree on the passivity aspect, as the duos tend to switch who is more aggressive. I think saying they all have a long ranged and shorted ranged enemy is inaccurate. As an example, there's a duo fight against a Leonine Misbegotten and a Crucible Knight and they are both melee attackers, though the crucible knight does spawn in part way into the fight so that balances out I think. In a similar vein, both Valiant Gargoyles are melee attackers with I think one ranged roar attack and poison breath, though the poison breath is really also a close range attack. I want to be clear that I'm not disagreeing with you, I just think saying every duo fight is that way is inaccurate. Though, maybe I missed something.

[@ramen3643]

@@johnherb4243 the crucible knight is very passive, he just turtles behind his shield most of the time, he only becomes aggressive once he gets close, so just make some distance and you're good. and the gargoyles' poison attack is what allows them to swap between melee ans ranged

[@johnherb4243]

@@ramen3643 huh, ok. Maybe I just haven't fought these bosses enough to notice.

[@blazex224]

@@johnherb4243I think he’s saying that many bosses trade off ranged attacks for the passive boss, not that the passive boss is inherently ranged

[@carlschrappen9712]

On the issue of not knowing what's in Shadow of the Erdtree, I've heard leaks and rumors that their is going to be a gameplay preview on either the 4th or the 7th. Knowing Bandai Namco, at least one of those is true.

[@danielloureiro8650]

The only thing about the dlc that i didn't see anybody talk about is the dlc gonna have a good gank boss

[@Lloyd00]

The word that I was thinking was "Balance"

[@EldenLord.]

To answer your question at 0:30, Spirit Ashes is what happened.

[@PierceArner]

I feel your last point is a painfully flawed perspective, because *the game gives you **_absurd amounts_** of crowd control.* It has a veritable cornucopia of Incantations, Sorceries, Spirit Ashes, Ashes of War, & craftable Items that ALL do _exactly that._ Whether you're putting points into Vitality, Mind, Faith, Int, or just making simple throwables - there are nearly endless crowd control options viable for ANY build. This is why the fights are less choreographed for the duos, because you HAVE the ability to control the pacing FAR more than in any other *_Souls_* game. The open world nature of the game itself is already always forcing you to take charge of doing that. It's a core part of the problem solving challenge of the game's combat encounters that supports WHY it gives you SO MANY different tools to do that, as well as why there are Trio and other numerically oppressive boss encounters like Niall & O'Neil, or Millicent's four sisters. YOU have to control that, which is also tied to the core theme of the story about becoming Elden Lord and enforcing your own new order for everyone else in the Lands Between to follow. There are status effects, elemental weaknesses, flinching, & poise breaking which all give a VAST range of approaches for a single player dealing with multiple bosses. The fact that the game's most passive summon, the Finger Maiden Therolina Puppet who only throws Holy Pots or AoE heals is a hard counter to the game's most aggressively oppressive Royal Revenants really emphasizes how an EXTREMELY simple change to your tools can make all the difference to trivialize something that attempts to forcibly remove that from you - just like Sleep Pots and the Godskin Duo make that an absolute cake walk. The fact that a tiny subset of the player base _chooses_ not to utilize ANY of these tools when playing, but instead focus only on a Str/Dex-centric approach for just using weapons & parrying like it's still an early *_Souls_* game with restricted resources & versatility doesn't make the game itself lacking by not providing even MORE alternatives in the level design - that undercuts the core utility of all the aforementioned tools. Summoning isn't done at the cost of Insight or a limited resources like in *_Bloodborne_* but is limited only PER ENCOUNTER, because it's a tool balanced to that utility, as a reflection of a different combat emphasis than other *_Souls_* games. It's even more of a magical fantasy world than any other and the combat reflects that even while the underlying framework still makes a *_Souls_* minimalist approach still viable, it has larger challenges to overcome because the things that approach is not using are a larger component of the core game design than in other *_Souls_* games. There's no reason to accommodate players who refuse to engage with the countless options the game provides, _because they're not actually playing the game on its own terms._ They're expecting the game to be conformant to theirs, *_which is… not how game design works._* Intentionally embracing a self-enforced handicap and then judging the remaining aspects of the game for not accommodating that isn't really objectively accurate or even useful as critical feedback - _even though it likely VERY STRONGLY resonates with that subset of players who embrace that approach BECAUSE …they actually just want it to be another game that it isn't._ That's what this criticism feels like. It's criticizing *_Elden Ring_* for not being a game it emphatically and very obviously isn't. Don't get me wrong, the duo/trio Boss fights are often a more obnoxious challenge but that's just the nature of having exponentially more possible outcomes and overlaps of factors to face. They're not bad, they're just a challenge for how well YOU deal with crowd control. Anecdotally, the only ones of these bosses I've really ever struggled with is the multi-Erdtree Burial Watchdogs, because they can get into some really oppressive patterns (but also because the very first time I encountered them was at a low level and an early build bug meant I was locked INSIDE the catacombs until I beat them). The duo Pumpkin Heads are utterly trivial if you just… ride Torrent. None of those duo fights LACK crowd control options, because _you can literally have as many or as few as you want, that are as strong or as weak as you want them to be._

[@briggy4359]

Best take ever. Demon's Souls was once lauded for the inventive and adventurous nature of its gameplay. Elden Ring provides many creative and puzzle-based solutions to frustrating enemy or boss encounters, and that is awesome.

[@dominiccasts]

Shame you got trapped with the Watchdogs underleveled, because that probably also means you didn't have Crystal Darts to turn them against each other.

[@PierceArner]

@@dominiccasts Yeah, they were WAY more manageable later on, and in my NG+ runs, but especially when they start showing up in the shadow puzzle catacombs the Crystal Darts become immensely useful.

[@PierceArner]

@@briggy4359 This is precisely WHY I enjoy *_Elden Ring_* a lot more than the other *_Souls_* games, because it provides you as many tools as you want to play however you want, and figure out a playstyle that suits you. (I also expect that's why it's been so overwhelmingly successful). It doesn't stop anyone from approaching it with the hardcore *_Souls_* mindset if they want to, but it's definitely not as suited to making that feel like the core experience, because you're missing out on the core functionality that the previous games made far less ubiquitous… and it's a better game for it. The fact that *_Shadow of the Erdtree_* is giving us a bunch of new weapon TYPES on top of all the new Sorceries, Incantations, Ashes, and likely new weapons of existing types as well as scaling the challenges for new bosses has me beyond excited to see what sort of new crazy combinations are gonna exist tactically.

[@nayyarrashid4661]

I was looking to post the comment but glad I didn't. This has always been my point as well. From Soft design philosophy is to break the habit and to play the game as it requires you to play whether you are good at dodging or carrying a shield or wearing heavy armor or fliging magic. At the same time enough liberty is afforded to the player to come up with their own strategy. You want it harder you have it. You want to make it easy you got it. Point is , and you said it better, players are given many tools to handle a variety of different situations. It is totally easy for some players to dodge through every attack; I cannot. During my second playthrough I used the freezing pot against Malenia and got rid of her most dreaded attack instantly. I think someone likes Miyazaki has definitely put enough time and effort in the gameplay design that it would be straight unfair to call out his work like that.

[@Sire235]

The only duo boss thats objectively bad imo is the gargoyles. Even the godskins weren't that bad

[@nofall25]

I'll never fight valiant gargoyle again, rather do the leyndell sewer jumping puzzle to reach deep root depth

[@alexandrubighiu7637]

Thank you for this video!

[@daniel_najar]

I’m probably the only person who enjoyed the Godskin Duo fight. I found that if you use all the summons available the fight turns into a giant brawl & it’s not too difficult. If you’re playing without summons, I completely understand the frustration though.

[@heideknight7782]

Particularly if you add Bernahl as a summon. He is very tanky and can heal himself through the weapon art of the Devourer's Scepter. It is technically even possible that he solos the duo if you only make sure that only one of the two Godksins is aggroed on him (while you distract the second boss at the same time). Clearly, it is not a coincidence that the most powerful summon is available for this bossfight. Unfortunately, there is no corresponding Spirit Ash for Bernahl in the game.

[@KenMochii]

Summons in general makes the game piss easy, really shows how From designed these bosses from the start.

[@JellyJman]

Man-Eaters is the worst demon’s souls boss and the worst duo fight in all souls games, it has only gone up in terms of quality since. O&S is iconic, Throne Watcher and Throne Defender is the true final boss, and demon in pain and demon from below are a great multiphase duo fight, these are all the standout duo fights in their respective games. Elden Ring just kinda copy and pasted enemies you already fight solo and just made them duo fights. Perhaps the DLC will made a true duo fight with different enemies.

[@snefansson]

I dread the unbalanced duo fight we’re gonna get ob release. I still hate that duo gargoyle fight(elden ring) with all my heart. I’ll still love the DLC I bet but man fuck them duo fights

[@rigorm136]

Nah the title for worst duo boss belongs to Godskin Duo and it’s not even close

[@nayyarrashid4661]

​@@rigorm136Godskin Noble is pretty annoying to fight on its alone let alone as a duo and that too with Godskin Apostle.

[@JellyJman]

@@rigorm136 nahhh godskin duo is just challenging, man-eaters have horrible AI and are in a horrible arena, godskin duo at least works.

[@playmsbk]

I'll be honest, the couple of times out of two hundred that the maneaters worked without any jank, it was actually an enjoyable fight, but I can't say I ever enjoyed the valiant gargoyle duo. The maneaters were a pretty good idea executed horribly, the valiant gargoyle duo was a horrific idea that works as intended, and thus I must say that the gargoyles take the throne, if ever so slightly.

[@Kromosios]

There are some bad duo fights, but most are manageable if you prepare correctly. Even the mad pumpkin duo, as you can use torrent in that arena to begin with, and a strengh build or caster (magic or incant) build melts them like butter. Another exemple is when the crucible duo decided to go balistic on me and both became agressive at the same time, it was still manageable as I prepared my set for them when I lost the first time, and I easely won the second time I fought them despite that, never had a problem with them since, even in +7, with giant's hunt. Same with godskin duo, once you understand Sleep=win, they are pushovers (which is not the case of Maliketh that follows right after, even with the blasphemous claw :/) However, the TRIO fights (and more sometimes because why not), those are just absurd. Three rot crystalians, which you discover through Selen's quest, meaning your level is around early to mid Gelmir, and now you have three Dragonbarrow scaled rot crystalians to fight. As for my favorite duo fight in elden ring, it would probably be the omenkiller + Miranda blighted bloom duo. Although It felt like the Miranda could have been a Madness variant instead to spice things up, especilly with how rare they are, some people would never have encountered them at all before the fight and be very surprised when they burn it and it went haywire. So either this one or Perfumer Tricia + Misbegotten warrior A point I disagreed heavily with however is the watchdog duo, those guys in higher ng+ have incredible poise, hit very hard and the timing of their attacks if very odd, especially when you are trying to fight two, whith both being agressive. I usually resort to crystal darts for those two. Also, the boss + multiple tiny enemies is a no for me. Whoever thought Edgar needed two bleed dogs, and that that one cemetary shade needed skeletons on top can eat nails by the spoonfull for all I care. And then there's the spiritcaller cave, which I will dread for all eternity. Between the Okina disciple that despawn if they want, the wolf galore and the ghostskin duo, I just want to skip it every time I enter it.

[@PierceArner]

Exactly. The Pumpkin Heads on Torrent are REALLY easy and the Erdtree Burial Watchdogs are an absolute nightmare.

[@DataDrain02]

You can speed through Spirit Caller Cave and kill the snails if you know where they are. The wolves don't give much of a chase if you run passed them straight to the snail in the room. And Okina's Disciple can be despawned of you kill the other snail in that last room.

[@nayyarrashid4661]

​@@DataDrain02I had a pretty good run in the spirit calling snail cave. First of all I loved the idea and these looked to me similar to snails in those caves right before Old Hero boss in DeS. Secondly I fought everyone head on the first time and Okina disciple but then lost to the boss but during the boss fight I shook my head so that's what it was about. Second run I remembered where the snails were and went straight for them. Also running straight to the boss is incredibly easy here. I love this cave and also the one with a rune bear in Caelid. Overall all the caves and catacombs are so well designed. The only thing is that in case you miss one and decide to go back the enemies there might appear piss easy if you level up.

[@JoseViktor4099]

Well, at least the deaths never lacked.

[@Sunny-di3ef]

Unpopular opinion i guess, but fromsoft was always bad at making duo bosses. The only time they actually made a good duo boss is the demon princes. They are so much above any other boss. Other good boss is darklurker, but the reason why hes a good boss is because they kinda got lucky. Even O&S which was praised as the best boss duo is honestly trash, and if you disagree try to beat them without taking a hit and youll see that they dont move at different speeds, both have gap closers, and have many overlaping attacks (also pillars dont help much) And not just O&S 90% of duo fights are just trash

[@mammamiawhygod2091]

It's a bit sad how the Abyss Watchers are never brought up and only one Dark Souls 1 boss is the main one that people point to even if it wasn't the first duo encounter not the only in the souls series. I really hope that someone one day makes a video going over every single duo boss in the series of games ngl because just one, two, or three examples from past games being used when talking about the entirety of Elden Ring's duo bosses in the same breath feels really unbalanced. Also fingers crossed for a good duo fight in the DLC as a side note.

[@IneedCoffe43]

Those dou bosses aren’t the only dous who failed in life

[@briggy4359]

Your joke would be funnier if you spelled "duo" correctly

[@zlol_ssbm]

*Yes Satan, feed me more content shitting on Elden Ring*

[@nacorcarmonablanco4414]

Is not that bad, you have summons to ease things out. Main issue, besides the dated combat system and horrible lock and camera, is that mos duo bosses are not really designed to be fight in duo fights, so they dont really have gameplay mechanics designed with that in mind

[@Corion2121]

5:47 Anyone who’s spent any time in the Underground testing builds should have no issues with these two. 🤷🏾‍♂️

[@flabbajabba9527]

Yeah, the duo fights in ER are pretty poor, though I feel like godskin duo had potential with some tweaking. Now to be fair, nearly all duo fights in every souls game are poor. People seem to like O&S but I think that fight is mediocre at BEST. The only good duo fight I can think of (at the moment) in the series is the demon princes in the ringed city DLC.

[@ferbsol2334]

you should had mention how many of these bosses specially the crucible and godskins got AI changes with game updates

[@aly3392]

Godskin duo never actually got ai updates, their ai was the same from the start

[@metsa6563]

I think in the godskin duo fight you are expected to have more or less mastered fighting the godskins on their own, because you can fight them alone in earlier bossfights. Anyway, go summons go!

[@kosm4086]

I got better at the game and these bosses are a breeze now

[@BLK_MN]

Correct answer

[@Corion2121]

12:03 All Godskins are extremely weak to sleep. No excuses anymore.

[@KenMochii]

Most, if not, all of them are terrible solo, summons make them absolutely trivial, but using them is lame.

[@massaosaito4084]

I disagree with many points you've made. I kinda understand your reasoning, but I hate when bosses are turned into normal enemies, and in Elden Ring in particular, can be hard to judge if an enemy was designed as a bosses or normal mob at first. Doubly complex considering the immense amout of repeatition this game has. Seriuously, 165 bosses with (I think) only 9 being unique is disappointing and shows how bloated the game is, would be better if the game was smaller but with more unique encounters. Also, the 2 main eamples you said are good ones, I had very different expiriences/opinions. Duo crucible were very agressive and oppressive, in my own expirience and what I saw and many others' videos. I fully agree with what Nasu said about the duo gargole, horrible arena and unclear attacks. None of the duo fights in Elden Ring felt like designed as duo fights, just 2 mini bosses with you at once.

[@debater452]

I would take any of the Elden ring gank fights over bosses like the Gapra Demon or the Gank Squad any day

[@davidkelvon7936]

I actually consider The Fell Twins and Valiant Gargoyles a DPS test that turns into a duo fight should you fail. I’ve never failed the former but have only passed the latter once without rat cheese. That success came with Moonveil and the spell blade set.

[@RnRRias]

O&S is not a good boss fight

[@nayyarrashid4661]

To prevent this argument they has provided Solaire summon sign right outside the boss room. But it is perfectly viable alone as well. Off course it is not gonna play the way you want it to be. That's not something the developers intend. Pretty sure they have more understanding of game design than people who just play the game.

[@RnRRias]

@@nayyarrashid4661 right

[@mr.tapman8685]

That’s bait

[@HK-07]

Care to elaborate?

[@RnRRias]

@@HK-07 its a 2v1 fight its that simple not fun in anyway shape or form. Is it iconic yes that doesn’t make it good though imo

[@Sargatas]

Imo the only good duo fight of every souls game + elden ring + sekiro is Lorian/Lothric. Their usual duo boss design sucks donkey ass. There's nothing more lazy and stupid then throwing two independant autonomic bosses in one arena. No joint skills, no combined mechanics, nothing. Just two bodies that unleash endless attack spam on you. What's the point of making a duo fight if no one will want to fight both of them? They could've make two separate consecutive 1v1 fights and nothing would change. Elden Ring became faster then previous games and bosses became more aggressive. This problem wasn't so noticable earlier just because bosses were passive and slow in general. But overall this duo boss design is lazy and bad and it must be stopped.

[@nayyarrashid4661]

On this logic those boss fights would be impossible to beat. Also Lothric/Lorian doesn't even feel like a duo boss fight. It behaves more like one enemy who has both a range and melee option but both are used in tandem rather than spamming. If you think a duo boss fight is hard then either you don't understand the mechanics of the fight or you are not using in game tools. A boss would be obnoxious if From Soft expects you to beat a boss with so little resources that it would be impossible to beat him and there are plenty of exampled in retro games where this has happened. This is one reason why there are so many crafting options the dedicate jump button the weapons arts the spirit ashes etc etc.

[@Sargatas]

@@nayyarrashid4661 "both are used in tandem". Exactly. They work like one bossfight. It is common sence, so why must it be a question in the first place? This is the very point of duo fights existance - make them feel harmonic...like one complete fight. Not two autonomic bodies that do whatever they want and act by the god's will. Imagine if there would be two dudes: one constantly teleports towards you and second one spams endless projectiles at you. It would instantly turn from one of the best fights in game to one of the worst. And this is how every fromsoft duo fight feels. I don't think that these fights are hard. They are just not fun at all. If I use ashes or NPC summoning, I just run down these bosses without any resistance at all. If I don't do it, I face endless shit spam because these bosses don't even have normal scripts that forbid them to jump at me simultaneously. Such high difference speaks only about poor balance of these fights. This is bad from any point of view.

[@BBQcheese]

Demon Princes, Friede P2 and Shadows of Yharnam, Bell Gargoyles are all excellent...

[@Sargatas]

@@BBQcheese they are bearable at best. I didn't play bloodborne, but demon princes sometimes can turn both melee, and your best thing to do is just run away because you won't come anywhere near them, they will spam you to death. Friede P2 is not even a fight, it's a dummy beating, so I don't even count it. Bell gargoyles are typical spam machines. Since the game is very slow you can't just hit and run, you have to get close and stay for some time. Which you can't do because of endless halberd swipes and fire breathing. No joke, I waited for 2 minutes straight to get close to them before I finally could do it. It's literally the "valiant gargoyles early edidion" bossfight: if you didn't kill first one fast, get ready to be spammed. There's no sence in making duo bossfight and forcing people to fight 1v1 anyways.

[@BBQcheese]

​@@Sargatas I disagree with all of that, and I appreciate having to manage multiple targets when it's done well. I agree that 1v1 bosses tend to be better and I prefer them but you have to do other things to break up the gameplay or it gets stale. Also, 1v1 encounters can be just as cancerous as ganks imo... Sir Gideon for example.

[@Eldenpro469]

Am i the only one that was a bit unimpressed by ornstien and smough, like all my friends said how it was the greatest duo fight/ best fight in the game but it was kinda just alright😅 And obviously it’s unfair to compare them but ds3 just did duo fights the best. Abyss watchers; friede; and demon prince!! Like it’s not a terrible fight but I think it another thing i don’t like about some ds1 meat riders i guess. 😅😂

[@BLK_MN]

This argument is so outplayed. In fact, I think I'm going to repeat my argument I made in that very same video you mentioned talking about multiple-boss fights in Elden Ring. Fighting multiple opponents at once is just too much? It's almost like the last several games Fromsoft has made is about overcoming adversity against the odds. I would leave it at that, but I'll just highlight the most common illegitimate complaint: Godskin Duo. You have no less than 5 opportunities to fight the God Skin Noble and Apostle 1v1, with one these encounters being one after the other, in Spirit form so they have no weaknesses (can you sleep Spirits? I never really experimented with that, anyway...), so you can understand all their moves and know what to do, before fighting them together at the same time. If you can't figure out how either of these bosses work by then, it's mostly your fault for not exploring, making you more prepared when the unavoidable fight happens. The only other example is the Gargoyles fight. The only issue with this one, is that they have this very powerful poison AOE attack that damages you in addition to building up the poison status. If you don't know after the first death that standing in the big green stinky cloud kills you, and how to avoid it, that's on you. Other than that, I'm fairly certain 80% of complaints about these bosses come from people that play the whole game without leveling up Vigor, and play the whole game with only about 1000 HP or less. That's an argument in and if itself, but it's especially pertinent here because almost all bosses have some kind of knock down attack. The AI will virtually always wait for you to get up, then calculate a few extra seconds again, giving you time to heal. So if you have *barely enough health to survive one of these harder hitting stun attacks, and then literally any second enemy is nearby that hasn't already attacked you, whether its a second boss or not, will be primed up to hit you immediately if you aren't anticipating another attack to dodge, or try to heal in the middle of it. I'm not some kind of elitist either, use Spirit Ash summons, summon another player, hell, go ahead and look up a guide even. Imagine, there are people that read online that this entire fight is trivialized by a single Sleep Pot: an item that requires no stats, and you've probably already gathered dozens of crafting materials for by accident, not even intentionally picked up because you thought you might need it later, and STILL complaining that the Godskin Duo is too hard or poorly designed. Even worse if they're already using a bleed build. Elden Ring is by far the easiest, most acessible to newcomers Fromsoft game yet. It's very difficult at times, but all these same people would cry and quit the game if they fought Ornstein and Smough in Dark Souls as their first game. That's what I did, I even quit the game for over a year, came back with a whole new character and beat them. I was wrong, not the boss fight Unlike the Godskin Duos or Gargoyles, there are no obvious weaknesses to exploit in O&S, you just have to get good. Me complaining about O&S did nothing to help me, and I would be wrong in saying it's a bad boss fight that makes the game look bad.

[@azamat6765]

Bruh, throwing two dudes(watchdog, pumpkin head, gargoyle, beastmen,iron virgins and etc) in one room isn't "overcoming adversities against all odds".They just didn't have enough time to finish development and fill the world with mostly interesting stuff(game was delayed, game released with broken questlines, they probably didn't playtest fully, hence why stuff like the FotRM was 40 stance damage for a long time). ER is their first attempt at open worlds so I hope that SOTE and their next open world games will be better

[@EmeralBookwise]

I don't see how spirit ashes shouldn't be considered in how duo bosses are balanced. Yes, co-op was always an option as well in previous games, but that's obviously dependent on things like internet connectivity and was never very reliable since there was never any way to account for the skill or build of the player being summoned. Spirit ash isn't just off-line AI co-op, it's something that is always entirely under the player's control. You always know exactly what you're going to get when calling a particular spirit and can select them based on what is the best compliment to your own build or the unique needs of a particular boss.

[@stefanostsougkranis5851]

A Demon's Souls fan trying to understand duo bosses, the irony

[@toxicthorn769]

How many failures can you fit into 20 minutes?

[@alexandrubighiu7637]

.

[@DevonReed27]

Using light armor and uninfused weapons at Godskins. I motion to have this argument dismissed.

[@dylhas1]

Idk if I missed it but it doesn’t look like you summon which was completely intended for the game. The multi fights had an update months later that actually reduced the chance of two enemies attacking at the same time because so many people complained about them being unfair yet neglected to summon. The fight is unfair if you don’t summon because they intended people to summon. I see lots of people (especially when the game launched) complaining of multi fights yet didn’t use a major mechanic that would make the fight much more fair.

[@BertoPlease]

This is the weakest argument I always see, which I'm pretty sure I addressed at some point in this video too: they have designed countless fantastic duo/multi-bosses in the prior games, that none felt like they *required* summoning, so if this game was "designed for summoning" like a lot of people like to say, why not just make it a full coop game at that point lol

[@clankymocha]

They're not failures, you're simply not supposed to fight them alone. None of them have rememberance boss level of production value, these are not even proper bosses, they're small scale fantasy skirmishes

[@Marshall97531]

No idea how you can complain about duo bosses and then say valiant gargoyles is one of the better ones

[@BertoPlease]

"better" doesn't mean good. Did you miss when I said it was one of the bad examples?