I want to talk more about the final boss of the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC because I can and beacuse I just did it for the second time.
*SPOILER WARNING*
Obviously, I’m going to spoil the hell out of everything. We’re talking last boss, which I just did on my strength playthrough. I’ll get to that in a second. I have to say that I talked about the lore/story about the last boss in yesterday’s post. I’ll do more of that, of course, but I want to focus more on the gameplay.
Here’s the thing. I got tired of the bosses about two-thirds through the playthrough, so I started summoning humans. Which, as you may imagine, makes the bosses easier. Well, with a caveat. The bosses get more health and do more damage I think with each human you summon. So, depending on who you summon, you might actualy have a harder time. Some people like to be summoned to learn a boss, for example. But, at this point, if you’re being summoned for the final boss, you’re probably pretty good at what you do.
And, duuuuuuude. My summons were fire. One was nearly naked and doing a dancer build. The other was tanky AF and doing a Moore build. The latter had the magic shield (Scholar’s Shield) on his fingerprint shield (which is the shield that I have as well) and was just taking all the hits. I will say that having that shield really mitigated a lot of the damage. Plus, nearly 60 Endurance. One of the cheeses for this boss is to use the shield I have and then using a pokey stick to poke at him as you hold up the shield. Someone in the Discord said that it worked like a charm, but he didn’t feel good about it (as a big bashing boi).
This is one of the biggest complaints about this boss–that you have to change up your playstyle to beat him. I have heard people with all different builds talk about how they just can’t get him. There were at least four people who did not have much trouble with him, but there were many more who did. Tanky builds, dex builds, and caster builds like mine. People who rolled had problems; people who dodged had problems; people who tanked had problems; so it’s not as if it was just one kind of build that had difficulty against him.
As a caster, first of all, I’m so glad I bumped my Vigor to 60. I didn’t touch it once I got there, but it made all the difference in the world–even with this boss. I could take a hit! Maybe two! But, yo. It’s nothing compared to how many hits I could take this time around because I have nearly 60 Endurance (58) and 60 Strength as well.
I did everything I could before going to the final boss. I had no joy in my heart for this boss, and I didn’t want to do it. At all. There were some people in the Discord who were thinking that they were going to leave him because they just could not get him. And these are people who have beaten the other games, so it’s not that. Some tried hard with the NPCs and still could not get it done. I tried the two NPCs with this character, and Ansbach lasted until I died (about halfway), but Thiollier was useless, unfortunately. That’s not completely fair. He was able to get a poison off, so that’s good. And maybe he did more than I thought, but others have mentioned that he was not worth much in the fight.
I did it twice–or maybe once? I think twice, and only got the boss down to half (which means the second phase because that triggers when the boss is at maybe two-thirds health. And I had no desire to spend another five hours on this fight–or even two. So I summoned two humans and we got it done. Honestly, I expected it to still take some time, but they were both so good. And the fact that I could take a few hits and not have my poise broken helped so much. Could I have done it on my own with the NPCs? Maybe. Would it have been within an hour? No.
Here’s the sad truth. I had no desire to fight him. At all. Not even a speck. There wasn’t any part of me that said, “You know what? Let’s go do this!” I could have done it hours ago, but I was putting it off as long as possible. I would periodically think, “Oh, maybe I should do that?” Then I would quickly say, “Nope. Gonna go do literally anything else instead.”
Which is such a shame.
The last boss should be the pinnacle of the whole DLC. Despite all my gripes about it, it’s a really good DLC. But I can’t in good conscience give it anywhere close to a 10, especially because the final boss is such shit. Well, at least as a caster it’s total shit. As a tank, it’s only mostly shit. I was able to defend myself better, but I still just ate so many attacks. Well, the ones that came at me, anyway. Having the two NPCS did help diffuse where the attacks went, though.
I will say that having more than one other entity in the arena really helped with all the blinding attacks in the second phase. And the fact that I just started running the fuck away as soon as I saw him do the big ones. I just prayed when it came to the meteor attack and was lucky not to get hit.
One of my summons died with about a sixth of the fight left. I tried to get it done whilst they were still lingering because they might ceonceivably get the Rune Arc if the boss died within the next five seconds or so. Alas, they disappeared before Moore (cosplayer) and I could get the job done, but they died fighting the good fight.
I was glad it was over and felt no remorse at summoning two humans. I’ve done it with my Mimic Tear once, so I have no compunctions about summoning. Now, I have to decide how I want to get to the DLC again. With one of my several characters who are nearly there? Or do a run to it with my first character because I want to get all the incantions with that character? Just the fact that I’m not ready to quit it yet should tell you that I think quite highly of it.