I am back with my neverending posts about the Elden Ring DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree.
*SPOILER WARNING*
At the end of the last post, I was gushing about the Mesmer fight. One, the fact that he was where he was, which took me completely by surprise. Again, it shouldn’t have because lore-wise, it makes sense. After killing Divine Beast Dancing Lion, I went up to the next place and there were Scadoooooooooooootree branches blocking it. It said something about it needing to be burned away. And we know that Mesmer is closely linked to the Scadooooootree. And, yes, I am going to call it that until the end of time. Scadooooooooo, I mean. Supposedly, it’s Gaelic for Shadow, but it’ll always be Scadooooooo (or Scaduuuuuuuu) to me.
And, yes, you can piece things together as you go along the main storyline, but I just did not. I think it’s because I saw Shadow Keep as the midpoint and because Mesmer had been so hyped up, I figured he’d make it into the end game. Again, I did not expect him to be the final boss, but he seemed to come rather early in the storyline to me. Then again, I have such a weird sense of time, space, AND continuum, that I might have not realized I’m later in the game than I am. I have all the map fragmentsn now, and only a chunk to the southeast is foggy. Plus the bit that was blocked by the Scaduuuuu treee tendrils. I’ve done a bit of that, but got annoyed by how crammed with enemies it was and noped out to do side bits. I know that’s the main storyline. I think I may be in the endgame? But I don’t want to talk about that. Well, I do, but not the fact that I am in it.
What I want to talk about is the frustration I always feel around this point in a From game (and in this case, it means the last quarter of the DLC). And maybe more about bosses. In fact, let’s start with bosses.
I think I’ve made it clear that I don’t play the game for the bosses any longer. I mean, I like the bosses from a lore point of view, but I’m not down with fighting one boss for ten hours. I just am not. Here’s the thing. Because of my limitations, I can’t do certain things. I have shitty reflexes, which means I can’t do the twitch responses. I can’t see the space around me, so I have difficulty knowing where an attack is coming from if it’s not in front of me or only slightly to the side. That’s a very limited range, I know.
Side note: In the first week of the DLC being released, so many people were saying the DLC is too hard. Others said you can adjust the difficulty by doing certain things (and mby changing up your build). I both agree and disagree. With all the arguments, I mean.
Let’s talk about the Mesmer fight as an example.
He’s probably halfway through the DLC (maybe. Again, depending on how you do things). In the main story, I’m going to say he’s halfway there. In the video I’ve included above, the streamer is fighting Mesmer solo with no summon, no shield, and Radahn’s dual-wielding weapons. Plus, he only has 11 of the 14 Flasks of Crimson Tears. I’m guessing he hasn’t gotten many Scadooooootree Fragments, either. His way of learning the fight is how many good but not great players do it. Dying over and over, learning a bit at a time. “When Mesmer does this, then I do that.” The more moves a boss has, obviously, the longer it takes to learn them.
The reason that doesn’t work for me is because my timing is shit. I can’t even react for the first second or two, which means death in a game like this. It’s one reason I’m a caster. I can keep my distance–which gives me more time to react. Plus, I use my Mimic Tear and whatever NPC is available to deflect some of the aggro.
In the Mesmer fight, there are two phases. There is only one health bar and it stays that way. In this case, his second phase starts around the time you get him to half-health. When you hit the second phase, then there are a whole new set of moves to learn. In this case, a big old snake is one such addition. Plus, he grows more arms and is even more aggressive if that’s possible.
Here’s the thing. I fought him three times and got him on the third try. In watching the video I included, I don’t remember most of these moves. Oh, interesting. I just noticed from watching this video that when the fight goes into the second phase, his name goes from Mesmer the Impaler to Base Serpent Mesmer. Ha! He just mentioned that he’s definitely going to get Scadutree Fragments after this fight (but that he did not want Mesmer to be the reason he went out to get them).
Which is a valid way to play these games. And he’s not too mad about it. At least not in his videos. I get so angry as I fight. But he is despondent about it. If he wants to beat his head against the wall a hundred times against Mesmer and do it the same way each time (but with an added bit of knowledge every try), more power to him! I will say that at the end of the video, he does start to get angry. That’s understandable, though. I get angry on my third try.
My objection is to people who think it’s cheating/cheesing/being a pussy to change things up. Using a shield, changing your build, using the spirit ashes and/or NPC summons and/or human summons are all perfectly valid ways to play as well.
I scoured the lands and have been doing all the non-main storyline stuff because that’s how I’m hardwired. Not to get the Scadutree Fragments (though those are always welcomed), but just to see what’s out there. I hve said many times that it’s the exploration in the games that does it for me. I’m at the end of the video, and there’s a note saying he’s been at it for five hours. Even when I was about beating the bosses solo, I set myself a limit of an hour for the boss fight a day because I knew that my abilities took a nose dive after that.
I will say that the bosses have gotten so much harder in the recent games, starting with Dark Souls III. I could brute force my way through the bosses of the earlier games, but I don’t think I could do that now. Solo, I mean. There are just way too many moves and the bosses are faster than ever.
I will say it’s a thing of beauty when this YouTuber finally beats the boss. It’s a dance he has learned to perfection by the end of those five to six hours. And I know that feeling when you beat a boss like that. He broke down in tears–and I remember that feeling as well. Here’s the thing. I still get that elation when I beat a boss. That trembling and near-tears. It’s probably not as intense as when I tried a hundred times against a certain boss, but it’s stil there. And that’s enough for me.