Is the antler buff possibly a default case in the event there were no animals to teleport to? Suggesting possibly that at one time the animals could have been killed off more permanently?

Obvious parallels to Native American culture are Obvious To me at least

Are you sure the antler growth is disabled? I distinctly remember seeing that in my game

@@slyseal2091 I tried for quite a while to get it to do it, and looked around for any recorded evidence of it happening in regular gameplay. Kirnifr was also under the impression from the AI that it wasn't fully implemented. It's hard sometimes to rule out something being 100% unused, but by all accounts, it seems to be. There are some attacks that look similar, but I haven't seen any definite proof it can use the growth buff.

Zullie with the shoutouts, cool as always

Same here only with an added pinch of remorse from killing such a beautiful beast

"Bro...check out this weed they've heen growing. It's, like, totally far out, man. I can actually see your aura." _--Ancestral Spirit after you light the sacred blunts_

@@jamesbenedict7516 The Ancestor spirit grants you the ancient boof. Do you accept?

Not even moonlight butterfly?

Probably due to the music and how it isn't spazzing out every 2 seconds like all the other bosses in the game.

Same, I honestly thought it WAS random and the spirits were just for show. Didn't know about it taking on their attacks too, I figured that too was random.

I saw it I think once or twice It was freaky

I had one teleport beneath the floor before.

It’s also usually warping really far away from you too!

@@Danganraptor Same, after getting hit by a single Wave of Fire from SoNaF, he just noped and fled to the backrooms.

your just continueing the cycle it lives i suspect some dare to challange it for that others for other reasions but it is a rare natural beuty.

Considering that the enemies there wield same stuff you get from beating it, it's less of a kill and more of a trial, the beast is likely "fine" with it

@@toobig7399 thats not how stuff goes

@@mosart7068 then how does it go

Yeah I like Wolf Sif too wonder what new original ideas Fromsoft will have 10 years from now

The sight of it standing out there in the mist genuinely unsettled me the first time

ngl i dunno how long you spent in the "cave" but its fucking massive, like at least twice the size of what they kept Wolnir in for dark souls 3. i spent like 5 minutes just running around making sure there was nothing in there after the boss had died. that arena would be just as impressive without the ancestors spirit, but i'm glad he's there, it suits him.

It seems fairly significant

I get the feeling that if we’re to get a Miquella-based DLC it will include more ancestral spirit content as well, besides just being in the same location they just seem close to me thematically, Miquella is like this comforting deity appearing in dreams and ancestral spirits are also basically sleeping until you wake them up and their existence seems to be a kind of a sanctuary for the spirits of the dead animals.

@@dungeaterfancam "Miquella is like this comforting deity appearing in dreams" probably because he was also St. Trina during development. His feminine alter-ego that is revered in the Lands Between and associated with deep sleep, as we can tell from various items referencing the character. It's a shame they cut so much and so little officially made it into the title, but with the announced DLC, assuming its focus is Miquella and not Marika, there may be an opportunity to provide some expansion on that. Maybe piecing together this great secret that was buried in the Lands Between as part of some side quest like Goldmask's enlightenment. Would be nice, but there's no way to know if they'll even pick that old thread back up.

Me too! I also love all the lore about the ancient, flying dragon temples where beast-men sacrificed themselves to Dragonlord Placidusax! It feels so epic, in contrast to the creepy timelessness of Norkon/Nokstella or the soothing timelessness of the Siofra river! Limgrave itself is interesting, because Castle Stormveil was once ruled by a huge bird of prey! It's heavily implied that the lands of Limgrave and the Weeping Peninsula were once ruled by various kinds of beast-folk, the ruins of Farum Azula having crumbled and pieces fallen all over the landscape - noticeably missing from everywhere north of Liurnia! Although I'm starting to think it's not so much "predating the Erdtree" as much as it is "predating the Golden Order". Most of the creatures we see here seem tied to the Primordial Crucible - creating creatures with claws, antlers, and feathers in various forms. Fun fact, the color of IRL pure (i.e., unalloyed) gold is reddish-gold, like the armor of the Crucible Knights. We also know that the Primordial Crucible was the primordial form of the Erdtree, which has since become corrupted by the Golden Order (yellow-gold), which has forced all things to either conform, integrate, or disappear.

Totally feel you. When I first ride down the lift from limgrave I was blown away. One of my first big (and most precious) memory of this game.

Just watching the world below popping into view as you ride the lift down, sitting in quiet wonder, thinking "my god... it's full of stars"

I found the Mistwood lift on launch night and was captivated with the game ever since. What an experience those first few days were discovering the game!

@@monsieurdorgat6864 regarding farum azula, I'm pretty sure it "broke" off the area in caelid where you fight Radahn. The structures of farum azula fit the remaining pillars there quite well and gurranq, a beast man just like maliketh, is right around the corner. Also the name "dragonbarrow" would fit with the farum azula and the ancient dragons theme. Unless I'm missing something I can't see how there would be pieces of it in liurnia or so

I know it’s awesome. They clearly put a lot of work into it. But in the end it’s like this pointless fight so disconnected from the rest of the game.

@@alcoyot if you enjoyed fighting it, was it worthless?

@@MrBoingus when I fought it, it died immediately due to a bug right after the first teleport. Aside from that, not so much “worthless” but disappointing that they didn’t make such an incredible fight actually tie into the main plot and story, especially considering the trouble you had to go through just to fight it. What effect does fighting it have on your progression and the lore?

@@alcoyot It makes the world seem bigger than the plot, which is how good stories are told (IMO). And while it doesn't serve a purpose in the plot in a linear way, it's not entirely disconnected either. It helps build up the idea that there are competing civilizations and Powers in the Lands Between, some of which are literally dead and buried underground, and yet not entirely gone.

Its a very majestic boss.

not only in elden ring

I think this partially comes from our own artificial depictions of nature and peace from the hippy era, because some of the tree hugging does give the vibe that the peacefulness of the natural world must be dichotomous with the violence of the civilized world (something that many people today still fall into, with the associations also many times being switched). The mechanics of this boss really hammers home the cyclical view of life and death that Elden Ring, like many Fromsoft games, reinforces. Death is a necessary process for life, which I'm sure has some roots in some of the Shintoism referenced within the game as well (stagnation vs flow). It feels kind of strange to label any of this as "sinister" to me, as Zullie does, because this seems to be apparent and upfront as the boss's major theme. Death begets new life, and death can be, for many, a brutal process. It's almost more like catharsis to me.

More like in any FromSoftware game world

​​​​@@DinggisKhaaniMagtaal the whole Soulsborne series radiates philosophy. Even our characters in the games, facing hardships and huge enemies and every fail/death makes him/her stronger, remains steadfast focused on the final goal, I see a perfect reflection in Stoicism...

Me neither! The boss fight is usually over so quickly because they gave it low HP to compensate it healing...

@@TheStraightestWhitest Well, that' what NG+++ is for!

@@TheStraightestWhitest I would rather if maliketh didn't get triple health

@@monsieurdorgat6864 Yeah exactly, just like they did with Malenia!

@@TheStraightestWhitest No he really doesn't, Maliketh still can consistently beat Malenia despite having lower health, and I would rather not have to go through 30k to 40k hp of maliketh,at that point it would mechanically be as bad as malenia

Its part of the scarlet rot lore. There is a cut version of the ancestor worshippers that were tainted with the rot and were loacted in the rotten uhl place, where now the pests whorship that temple.

@@hinkelstein1494 Weren't they patched out, not cut? I swear I remember players mentioning the infected Ancestral Spirit worshippers when the game first came out.

@@TheVeryAngryShrimp This is correct. They were patched out.

I think it connects to a civilisation that existed before the Erdtree and maybe during or before the Great Tree of the Crucible. Areas like where Mohg is now located have a lot of depictions of primordial symbols and have a bearded deity holding a tablet that’s shown a lot but never mentioned. I hope they expand upon other societies in the DLCs, like the Death Bird one, this ancient one, and maybe more on the One-Eyed God!

This, coupled with how much of the worship of the ancestral spirits, leads me to believe they may have something to do with the great tree that existed before the erdtree! Maybe they were the great tree's equivalent of the tree avatars. Though I do find interesting how animal spirits seem to converge to such spirits, and how horns or antlers or fangs are something of a theme among them. Makes me wanna believe that wild beasts are not being rebirthed by the erdtree, rather their spirits go to the ancestral spirit itself.

Looking at all these vids makes me see this game differently. There's so many hidden details that are pretty much impossible to spot unless you look at the code or frozen models.

yah, it's sorta frustrating especially given that elden ring gets a weird amount of flack from sweaty gamers for being "lazy"

@@corruptedmilk2481 It is frustrating because the end game received so little of this amazing attention to detail which makes the early to midgame one of the greatest gaming experiences of all time. I don't want to call it lazy, but it seems quite clear to me that Fromsoft ran into serious time management issues and couldn't flesh out the end game to be even close in quality to what the game is at it's best. Fighting the Ancestral Spirit for the first time was amazing and felt satisfying after taking the time to light the pillars. Then you have to do it again for the second time later in the underground area because.... why? Why ruin the experience by just copy-pasting the exact same boss again? And this happens far too often when you get closer to the end game. Astel appears in a random snow cave, The fallingstar beast (which feels like a fantastic boss fight on the top of the mountain) is locked in a random mine for no clear reason. Previous common enemies re-appear in practically all end game zones, this time they just have a metric ton of health and can kill you in two-three hits. The level design keeps astounding you wherever you go, but the gameplay slowly turns into a boring grind where you just can't wait to be done with a place

@@gfyliowner This 100%. The endgame feels like such a slog-fest compared to the earlier sections of the game because by the time we make it to endgame, we've basically seen every enemy the game has to offer (Mountaintop of the Giants had 0 new enemies, Crumbling Farum Azula had 1 being the dragon beast humanoids and then reskinned skeletons, the Haligtree had 0 new enemies (even the footsoldiers were the same as other areas albeit with some of them exploding), Mohg's palace had the reskinned shambling corpses that blow up with bleed buildup, and 0 new enemies, and the Ashen Royal Capital had no enemies whatsoever. These endgame areas in Elden Ring are so beautiful that having new enemies to accompany them that didn't kill you in 2-3 hits would've been amazing. So why did FromSoft just reuse previous enemies, give them a metric f***ton of health and damage and think that would be the best use of the endgame?

Fromsoft games are special in that the depth of the content goes beyond what a person will notice before someone does this kind of deep dive research. The worlds make sense beyond what you can initially comprehend, which seems to greatly aid their sense of immersion and wanderlust. Most studios would only want to put big resources into things they could make sure people will find, and as such, are surface deep.

Just make sure you're on good terms with the goddamn rail sniper neighbours.

And don't forget to ensure your house against potential destruction by angry Astel, he came where you went once already after all

The area is called Siofra River too. With Siofra meaning fairy in Irish. Also in Irish mythology the fairies where driven underground. Which is where siofra river is. Elden Ring has a lot of inspiration from celtic mythology. Which is really cool to see

As far as i know Elden Ring borrows much from Celtic mythology. I've seen parallels drawn between Ranni and Rhiannon, Marika and Danu, Melina ( especially Melina at frenzied flame ending ) and Morrigan...

@@DreamskyDance It's a big mix of various northern European mythologies.

Listening to Europeans wax about the nature they used to have seems odd to me - the primeval forests of the Irish and British isles had been largely logged during the bronze age. People have been terra-forming it for so long. Can't criticize too much, I'm American and we've been continuing to head that direction even though we should know better now 🤦‍♂

Also in Irish mythology, there's Tír na nÓg, one of the "Otherworlds" or realm for deities. It's a realm that can be reached by travelling through an ocean of fog/mist, sometimes on horseback depending on the story. Just like how the Tarnished got to the Lands Between.

bruh why. how long it take to kill fire giant? not including failed attempts just depleting full health to zero id guess 45 minutes

@@ramzihamdallah funnily enough he was one of the easiest and quickest due to the fact the black flame blade exists, which gives a short buff to your weapon and makes it do black flame burn which does 1% of the enemys health per hit. This actually meant i was doing a pretty significant amount on this boss. Ancestor spirit definitely took longer which is pretty uronic considering in most of my playthroughs he dies it maybe 3 hits lmao

Yea I noticed that too in a similar run it depletes by a lot after a while which makes sense cause he would have been unkillable in challenge runs like these and fromsoft knows how much we love doing them

@@dragonviper7925 How do you equip Black Flame Blade on a RL1 character? Doesn't it take 17 faith?

@@Nightshine0 marikas soreseal and the two finger talisman together get you to 20 faith which is enough to use the spell

Ancestor Spirits and Dragonkin Soldier of Nokstella are too squishy to showcase their amazing movesets 😔

I think the locations really hurt this boss. The first time you encounter it, it seems like most people are over leveled, and by time you find it again you're already so experienced that it doesn't pose much of a threat versus things that came before it.

Honestly, I like how it's done. This is the one fight where I don't feel like they were aiming for difficulty, this is an old and decaying spirit that has barely survived time and is visibly damaged by the time you get to it, I never even once felt threatened by it, and although I died once or twice to it, I knew (based on it's moveset) that this was meant to be an easier fight and that I'm just kinda bad at the game. Hell, the area around that boss it's twice as hard as the boss itself, it's like the developers want you to level up to get through the river and then just relax when you finally get to the fight and put this spirit to rest.

It should have been a major boss along the main storyline.

@@Kinography I don't know. I went to Ainsel River pretty early on. Easy to get to as well. And The Soilder took quite some time to beat on every attempt.

Like a dnd campaign

Would Shadow Of The Colossus fit the bill?

For some reason it kind of makes me think of Sekiro lol? I feel like Sekiro 2 (if they ever made a game about returning the Dragon's Heritage) could be like this.

@@MrMaradok not really I feel, its just kinda too empty. I think what they mean is maybe one with tribal weapons and tribal people, and maybe animals everywhere.

@@majinprince-xanaden Conan exiles?

It is 100% inspired by the cosmic hunt, too many similar themes for it to be a coincedence. I havent noticed that, well done.

I love this community

Not really sure I understand where you’re drawing this connection. The attack isn’t even animated, and the only parallel to the story is that it’s a deer.

@@bgf3640 You enter a hole created by a meteor, go to a land named Nokstella after the roman goddess of the night and an adjective meaning "of the stars", which is connected to Ranni of the Full Moon and the Moonlight Alter after having beaten Astel. Then you go through a trail set and protected by a race of born hunters to fight something literally called the Ancestral Spirit, which is what constellations were believed to be for thousands of years, and who, per some of the item descriptions, represents the natural cycle of life and death. Yes, it's the cosmic hunt.

@@bgf3640 It's also a reference to Santa Claus, who sits in a cart pulled by a reindeer with a huge red nose which is not his own. The nose in this case represents the sun and Santa Claus the hunter.

Could be either. The code IS in the game for hiding enemies inside enemies (there's a fun one in Altus Plateau in an unmarked ruin, killing the non-hostile Noble spawns a Lion Guardian).

@@jackofblades2007 There's several of those. The giant crawfish that has a grafted scion inside. A noble that becomes a runebear. Another noble that becomes a troll. They all drop larval tears as well which is a neat touch.

You didn’t belong there. Of course it felt unwelcoming.

I also felt this way, it always made me feel mildly uneasy fighting it

@@TheActualMrLink this exactly. The overall fight is charmed with harrowing beauty. The calmness of the arena, the image of the deer-like ancestor spirit, the naturalist/Celtic/Druid style of the followers, and the gorgeous score that accompanied this fight. I truly felt unwelcome, but not because I felt like I should be scared or intimidated, but rather that I was in fact the aggressor or the evil in this case. I genuinely think that this boss fight is amongst (if not the) most beautiful (not necessarily spectacular) fights in Elden Ring.

Hello :)

The fact that the room is filled with decaying animal corpses is what got to me. Makes you wonder if the ancestor spirits are related to the sealed rot god in some way.

Am I the only one who can't kill this damn thing? Maybe I'm not a high enough level.

If the fight goes on for long enough the music gets more and more intense. It really is amazing.

That’s what happened when I was helping out my friend. He glitched out and after a bit, he died.

This happened to me once; in all my playthroughs of the game, I had this happen one time. I laughed my ass off!

It happens a lot of the time honestly

Had that happen unfortunately. A real shame, because it’s a great fight and I absolutely love the song that plays during it.

@@beees7032 one of the best songs in the game.

Really? Riding an elevator? Greatest moment in gaming? Bruh there’s like 30 better moments in Elden Ring alone. Not to mention any other game.

@@XxD0m Daddy, chill

@@bb2fiddler No son. Go to your room and wait for me as I get the belt.

Meanwhile Skyrim fanboys praise loading screens.

Its relatively tall if you ask me.

@@draw2death421 fr

And bit to easy, atleast in my experiance.

S-short? How late did you fight it anyway?

@@thorodinsson4752 I think that’s the point. It’s supposed to be mostly a spectacle fight.

I was scrolling through the comments to see if someone else thought that this is a nod to the movie :D

Yeah very much so.. at first i was very not wiling and sad to kill it. But my personal head cannon is that as everything is corrupted in this world so ancestral deer spirit was as well, and in real world mythologies ancestral deer spirits usually die in autumn to be reborn in spring with the cycle seasons. This one is kind of undead and corrupted so the seasons cant proceed normally because he does not die...so i am doing everyone a favor XD

@1betterthanyou1 The wandering mausoleums could be a loose nod to Howl's Moving Castle (and I do mean _loose_ , Howl's castle is more than a little bullshit compared to the relatively tame mausoleums)

Same. As funny as the roll was to see, it was so hard to avoid. Especially as a new player

The rabbit sfx takes me out of this fight every time. They should've known better

And only some animals can be used as ashes

I think there’s a tad bit of Celtic influence in there too. Really a beautiful and eclectic piece of music

honestly its MUCH more celtic than native american or japenese. the instruments and style of creature feels right out of celtic folklore.

@@cybercobra2 Agreed! Very Celtic, as the folklore has LOTS of deer and elk imagery.

@@cybercobra2 makes more sense; overall, this fight to me is so super atmospheric. It’s definitely quite different from other fights, but it’s not visually out-there compared to Rennala’s 2nd phase.

I don't know what kind of stereotype you are trying to convey, but nobody had to prove their self as a "tribesmen", we had journeys to become men, like any other culture, we celebrated our becoming of man, but nobody ever had to prove themselves a member of their tribe, and this music is nowhere close to Native American music, as others already said, it sounds more celtic than anything you've mentioned, I can't speak on Japanese, but I'm Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, and I can tell you, you might not intend to sound harsh, but I'm tired of hearing the stereotypes about my culture, listen to some real powwow music, I'd recommend Smokey hills, but you can find what you like

Could just be melania and miquella at different ages.

I always thought the ones at the Haligtree were Malenia and her children. Probably memorials, as we know of at least 5 daughters she lost.

There is a second one, so you can still do that. Need to follow Ranni's questline to get to that area

it has indeed been patched

No

@@pntn13 no it hasn’t this happened to me yesterday

It was probably patched a couple of days after release.

It isn't the Scarlet Rot, though, or the area would be covered in rot. The Ancestor Spirits have a thing about life sprouting from death, so they seem like a benign counterpart to the Rot. Benign counterpart to a bunch of the other forces actually, since their cycle of life and death isn't the destructive force that characterizes the others (doesn't spread uncontrollably like the Rot or deathroot, doesn't burn away identifying characteristics like ghostflame or frenzyflame, etc)

@@watchfulwanderer6443 this seems to be an ancient primordial place, I wonder if we see a primordial version of rot there too that was more in balance with life. I always thought the god of rot didn't necessarily need to be evil, afterall rot/fungus is a part of natural cycles of rebirth. Perhaps Marika breaking the natural cycles has lead the rot to become wild and uncontrolled in an attempt to bring things back to ballance

@@DisgruntledPeasant why would the blind swordsman need to seal it away then? That more that likely happened before the shattering.

@@gvd72 I have no idea when that happened in the timeline tbh. I'm guessing pre-shattering, but after the war with giants. I was thinking more that rot was in Ballance waaay before the erdtree, before even the eternal cities. Pure speculation of course, it just tracks that it's temple is in the same 'strata' as the prehistoric folk and that appears to be an era of harmony.

​@@DisgruntledPeasant The Scarlet Rot isn't natural, though, any more than the Erdtree is. It just looks that way. It is an Outer God, an alien being that came to the Lands Between for its own purposes. There's a reason I used counterpart there. The primordial forms of the Greater Will's power, like the Crucible, aren't any more natural. The Ancestor Spirits are the only real candidates for "original inhabitants of the rivers".

I seem to be the only one in the world who found this boss hard. Maybe it's because I found the harder version first before the easier one, but I still haven't successfully killed it yet. I feel very ashamed after reading all these comments lol. I love it though, the music is breathtaking.

I think it's nice to have a subdued boss fight every once in a awhile, especially in Elden Ring. If they made it any more difficult it wouldn't be as relaxing and unique as it is.

There was a glitch (which was already patched) that basically messed with his teleportation ability, causing him to spawn underneath the floor when he tried to teleport and fall to his death. Probably an error involving the positioning of the animals or something like that.

hey don't call me out like that

@Brandon Gray you aren't focusing on the video, the video with text. The video you need to read to experience

Torrent being malevolent ? Thats on par with Jar Jar Binks secretly being a sith lord, star wars theory... XD Not bashing you or anything, look up that star wars theory if it interests you..it has a lot of merit and it probably was the original idea until George Lucas changed it at the last minute. Just wanted to say how "curve ball" the theory is...but it may have merit :D

I would love to read your theory on Torrent

​@@cai_in_the_sky2222 Quick typeup due to inconvenient surroundings: Every awful character in the game is driven by a goal of improving the world around them by their point of view. This includes the people in the world. Except Torrent. Torrent is assisting the player and seems to want change in it as well, however he does not show any reaction or aversion to anything the player does. Hunt other tarnished, drop stars on the world, and most importantly BURN THE WORLD TO ASH. Torrent assists you. And you can't progress without Torrent. Torrent supposedly has some connection to Malenia, but quickly leaves her behind once he knows you exist, just because it figures correctly you can achieve the end goal better. When Malenia ditches you for taking on the flame, Torrent stays. Malenia seems to know this, or is told by him by some unheard means. This is the key thing here. Other characters no matter what they do are trying to improve the world around them, even the frenzed are driven by a vision of the world being broken and being better in a state of non existence. Torrent has no regard for anything. Torrent wants the current state to die, but doesn't care about anyone or anything within it or it's own physical, or manifested, form. It'll jump off a cliff if you direct it to. It won't die to even the flame, a bell to manifest it might get destroyed but Torrent will always exist. It only cares about wallowing in it's own existence, much like it's ancestor spirit kin. Hence the line, "is the most malevolent". Because everyone else cares about something in their own way, except Torrent. Yes I am assuming a lot about a horse that doesn't talk.

@@InternetHydra I absolutely love this, thank you

Probably just to limit the healing so low damage runs like the ones you describe are actually possible. To my knowledge there isn't another From boss that endlessly uses heals that you can't prevent in any way other than dealing more damage to the boss than they heal.

@@TheMirksta Dark Souls 2's Lud & Zellen say whaaaat? That one I'm pretty sure is uninterruptable, they just passively regenerate HP, making that fight even more miserable.

@@TheMirksta I believe In ds3 the younger lothric prince can infinitely revive the older one.

@@Crispierbug True, but I think Lorian has less and less hp with every resurrection.

@@TheMirksta i dont think they design stuff thinking about low damage runs, i mean look at Malenia

The drain attack heals less health each time it does it (though it does have a minimum it stops at), as a way to prevent the fight from dragging on forever.

@@ZullietheWitch That also tracks to what I was seeing then. Thanks!

There are two versions of this boss. Did you fight both?

@@fireketchupII Yeah, this is the one in Siofra Wells right? Granted that was like, my 4th boss fight of the game so I might be forgetting...

@@sasselfraz If I remember correctly, the version of the boss with all the extra moves is in the upper area that opens during the Ranni quest line. The one down below is a simpler fight.

@@fireketchupII Ahhh that would make sense, I was pretty over leveled for that fight so I probably didn't see all it's moves ;(