Theres clips of someone beating bosses just with the briar armor, which does like 2 damage when you roll into them. It will be done. But thats a level of agony I'm not sure i want to subject myself to. RL1 is enough for me :D

@@Jeffqed Well, I guess there are people for everything. And "never" is a very strong word. Anyway, well done, man. This fight is no joke, even on a normal run. I'm good with beating the DLC twice, at least for now. I totally get the no magic no summons part of your challenge but the other stuff is too much for me.

@Sandlund93 Thank you. And yeah, that's obviously totally understandable. And to be fair, this dlc is really stretching it in a lvl1 no scadu playthrough, because the scaling is so high compared to being at lvl1. I'd like at least to not be 1shot at full hp by basic attacks, but even that was hard to manage here, so hard that I just gave up on it and decided to rely solely on the one free hit from the opaline bubble tear. As much as I love elden ring, I'll say the lvl1 playthrough for ds3 was more enjoyable, simply because the scaling didn't get so high, giving you more options. Also the no magic rule isn't set in stone to be clear, I just tend to use what I feel will be the most fun and for most of elden ring that ended up being melee weapons only, but in ds1/ds2 I used pyro for example. Just play the way that's the most fun to you, that's how I've always treated these games.

@@Jeffqed Oh yeah. I beat the base game 6 times now and only swapped out Opaline Bubbletear against Mohg Lord of Blood. And I definitely agree with you about going for the funniest playstyle. I fell in love with shieldpoking with a normal Halberd in Dark Souls. Obviously, I had to switch to two-handed for some bosses. So when I discovered that Serpent Hunter was even more broken, on my 4th run of Elden Ring, I allowed that build to carry me all the way. I used a +0 Brass Shield though, so Radahn still took me 10 hours.

Why

Less of a take and more of just the reality of him taking me way less attempts than most other bosses in sekiro despite having 4 phases. If he took me like 30 minutes while a bunch of other bosses took me hours, i feel its fair to say hes easy from my perspective, no?

I think the fact that different fights are difficult for different people is a sign of a well designed game :)

oh no! anyways...

hello your computer has virus

Thank you. Although I do regret to inform you, but it is my obligation to tell you, that you are wrong, as these are the only correct opinions on this topic. Feel free to now realize your wrongdoings and join me on the righteous and correct path. Everyone makes mistakes (except for me), it is OK to admit them.

@@Jeffqed I’m sorry but you were too late. I already made all the correct takes and this is merely and afterthought. Please let me know when you will submit yourself to the one true cause.

Thank you :) In a Vacuum, I agree. Morgott is more fun to fight than margit. The reason that margit ranks higher despite that is their role in the game: margit is pretty much the first major boss you'll encounter and he teaches you a lot of the game, from the design centering around delayed attacks to things like "go somewhere else if it's too much". Morgott on the other hand is pretty much the first big central boss of the game, being the first real big mandatory boss (aside from goldfrey before him but I don't really count him) and considering for the first part of the game your goal is the erdtree and he is right there he's basically what you're working towards for the first at least like 30, in my case more than 100, hours of your casual play through. So he has a massive build up. The issue however is that due to that his balancing is really difficult to do and in most cases just way off. On my first playthrough I completely rolled him because I was so strong when I got to him and it was kinda disappointing considering the pivotal position he has. Most people I watched had a similar experience. Only in my lvl1 playthrough I really started to appreciate the fight design of him. So yeah, Margit is higher just based on him fulfilling his role better. It's just an unfortunate placement for morgott in the structure of the game I feel. I think it wouldve been totally fine to make him quite a bit stronger and force some casual players to explore more.

Yeah, I mostly agree with you there. I would personally be fine with Morgott having double the health and 50% more damage to encourage players to explore the rest of the world before they reach the end game difficulty spike. He would probably be more beloved by the community that way. However, I never really had the issue of being over levelled for him since on most play throughs I go straight from Rennala to Morgott, which is probably what the developers intended the progression route to be. Hence why Morgott is one of my favourite bosses.

Thank you :)

Agree with you 100%. She’s honestly my favorite boss out of any game. Also agree on your top 5 except Id switch Radahn and Ludwig with Gael and Lady Maria.

I didnt think I'd be the one to defend O&S here, thats a surprise. I disagree a lot with this, could you elaborate why you think like that? I'm interested. Shadows of Yharnam feel too much like some normal enemies thrown in a room and called a boss. The only time the boss gets an attack that makes it feel like something special is when they're almost dead. The only amount of strategy you need for it is go for the ranged one and you'll be fine, which is something i feel most people will just do instinctively. And in a game with so many interesting visual designs, these guys might be the worst of them all, basic nazgul looking asses. Demon Prince's first phase feels very lackluster due to their very limited moveset. Their gimmick of one being active and one passive is cool, but they basically scream in your face to tell you what theyre doing. Then you just fight one bat demon who has like 3 moves while occasionally dodging the toxic cloud which is barely an issue as long as you dont get stuck. The Second phase is great, but thats not a duo boss. When they go asynchronous, meaning both active at the same time, it sometimes feels very unfair and just becomes a stalling game. Also this boss hurts my ears. I absolutely despised the crucible knight duo in my first playthrough, but I'll admit that when i did my lvl1 playthrough and went for a parry strat that was pretty fun, so i'll give it that. not sure id call the boss good, though, much less compare it to O&S. I think the second phase of friede is miles ahead of any of these bosses youve mentioned, and so is O&S for that matter. Even Ruins Sentinels i would rate above all 3 you listed (EDIT: Speaking of Dark Souls 2, add Elena to that list (assuming she summons velstadt)). But thats just my thoughts on it, not trying to convince you here, just curious, why do you think that way?

@@Jeffqed Okay, first things first, let me appologise for how massive this is, I'm even having to split it into multiple comments. I'm bad at keeping things short and I wanted to be throughout when explaining my opinions. So let's start with why I don't really like O&S that much: There are two reasons I don't like them as much, the first one being how Smough's attacks (mainly the charge) in combination with the variety of quick charges Orstein has, heavily incentive the player to simply run away and try separating them. That usually leads to very drawn out fights that are extremely boring, and particularly frustrating on death due to the amount of time you take in each attempt. While it is true that with more experience and playthroughs on your belt you start to learn how to be more aggresive against them, it's still a long fight unless you use fire or something else particularly effective, and it pretty much garantees the first playthrough for most people to be extremely drawn out. Almost everyone I know (you included apparently) share the opinion that O&S were much less enjoyable on their first playthrough. While it isn't necessarily a problem for a boss to be more fun on replay, it is a massive issue for a boss to NOT be very fun at first. I've seen quite a few people drop Dark Souls on this boss not because of dofficulty, but simply because they weren't finding the game fun. That Includes me by the way, I dropped my first playthrough on them after 3 attemps if I remember right, because even though that isn't much, each of them was so long (the runback too, I didn't know the skip) and the fight was so boring, it felt less like a challenge to overcome and more like a waste of time. I only came back to finish the game more than a year later. I do enjoy the fight a lot more now, but it still isn't nearly as fun as bosses like Quelaag or Gargoyles and those memories haven't left me. The second and more minor reason is that they attack simultaneously. Yes, they have different speeds, but both of them are always on the offensive, which divides the player's focus and makes the fight rely a bit more on camera play to keep both always on screen, which isn't good since the camera is one of the less enjoyable parts of the game. I will admit that part of why I don't really like them could be because I played DS3 first, then DS1. This is one of the boss fights in which the game's slower speed is the most noticable, so that might have influenced my opinion. And I'm also going to make this clear again, I DO NOT THINK THEY'RE A BAD FIGHT, I do think they are a good boss. I just don't think they are that good a boss.

@@Jeffqed PART 2 OF MY REPLY: (Sorry again, I know this is way too big.) Now, let me explain the things I like about the fights I mentioned (Remember that the two fights I pointed out mainly were Shadows and Demon Prince. When it comes to my comment on Crucible Duo, I agree that it is not a good boss and that it's worse than O&S, which is why I pointed out it does SOME things better. I'll get to that later). Firstly I'd like to not that a part of it is that I just prefer the faster paced gameplay of DS3, BB and ER, but while that is a factor, it isn't the only one, there are design elements I prefer on those fights to. Now: Firstly Demon Prince, one thing to note immediately is that it (and Shadows too) lacks both of the issues I explained for O&S. For the first, instead of being an incentive to run away, the Demon's attacks are an incentive to close in on them, as their large size and foward attacks make it easier to dodge when you are as close as possible. That means that despite the fight being long and the boss having a lot of health, it's not boring as the tension is kept high since you're aways fighting them head on. For the second issue, one of the Demons is usually passive while the other attacks. That means you generally only need to focus on one at a time, additionally, there is a clear sound cue for when the passive Demon's lights up, which makes it unnecessary to always worry about keeping both in the camera's view, that helps a LOT. As for when both are aggressive, it's not because they should be fought togheter, but simply a timed break of the fight's rythym where it's instantly clear you should run. I do understand why you'd dislike it, usually a "run away" moment in a fight or any boss mechanic that forces inactivity is annoying, but personally I don't have a problem with how it's implemented in this boss, it isn't long enough to bother me and the fact I still have to worry about dodging keekps me focused instead of breaking my concentration. At least to me, it serves as a way to keep up the tension by changing the fight's rythim, though I can see it not being that way to most people. Besides that, the fact that the order the Demons die changes the signature attack of the secon phase gives the fight a bit more strategic value. O&S did this and it was something I liked in that boss, but as you said phase 2 is much easier and less interesting thatn phase 1, which lessens the relevance of it. For Demon Prince, the 2nd phase is actually the most difficult part of the battle, making that a better plus than it was in O&S. By the way, the sound doesn't bother me personally, but I totally understand you hating it. Now when it comes to Shadows of Yharnam, I can't really point out what exactly it is that makes me like the fight so much, but I can explain why. First, you said the Shadows don't look very impressive and they feel almost like normal enemies. I agree with that, and I think it's exactly what makes the boss so incredible. A triple boss fight sounds like such a bad idea exacty because each boss alone is already a big deal, in fact, one of the biggest qualities of O&S is the fact that they're so easy when alone, something you mentioned yourself. Of course, 3 normal enemies aren't fun to fight normally, but that's because of the issue I pointed out of attaking simultaneously. The Shadow's look like normal enemies, but their AI is clearly not like that, it accounts for the fact that they'll fight you at the same time, with each of them having a completely different fighting style and level of aggresion that replicates the biggest strength of the O&S fight without the need of constatly running away and hiding behind pillars, making them essentially a less boring version of it, specially with the Bloodborne style of constant aggression. If I had to explain why I like the fight so much, I'd say it's because it takes the best parts of both NPC fights and gank bosses, while removing all of the aspects that make those unlikable like NPCs rolling and healing or gank bosses overwealming you with simultaneous attacks. It's true they aren't anything flashy or speial, but they are extremely conistent and competent with what they do. In fact, do you know what is the thing I most dislike about the fight? It's the last phase where they summon snakes. Their flashiest move and signature attack is the worst part of the fight in my opinion, I think that says a lot about why I like the boss. Are you familiar with the discussion about realism vs presentation? For example, let's say you have a film where two characters are fighting with swords. Tell me, what are the two main different approaches you can take to choreograph that scene? Simple, one is to make it look cool at the expanse of making it unrealistic, the other is to make the characters fight efficiently at the cost of being less flashy. Usually the best thing to do of course is trying to balance both, but there are cases where one scene shines by doing one particularly well. This isn't the same discussion, but it's similar. Shadows of Yharnam is the boss that sacrificed presentation and splendor in exchange for gameplay experience, it isn't flashy, it doesn't have anything special, it doesn't do anything that wasn't done before. But it feels amazing to play because it does the simple things so well, it nails the foundation. And while not part of my reasoning, I do think it's very appropriate for the assassin boss to be good for reasons that aren't as clear at a glance. They are discreet and efficient, not flashy and grand, which is perfectly fitting in my opinion. Now for Crucible Duo, I'll start by making this clear again, I like O&S more. That said, I do think the Duo has some things that work well for them. Thinking about it now, most of it isn't credit of the boss, but of Elden Ring in general. I will admit that the gank fights in Elden Ring are probably the worst they've been, maybe only compeeting with DS2. Valiant Gargoyles were the first to take the Belfry Gargoyles place as my top 1 worst From Boss, and Godskins aren't all that far from the bottom either. I pointed out the Crucible Duo because I think it's one of the less horrible ones in the game. Sorry, I went on a tangent there, for my opinion on the fight: (Note: Your video is long so I'm not watching it in one sitting, I haven't reached the Elden Ring part so I haven't seen your thoughts on Crucible Knights or the Crucible Duo, so if I mention something you talked about on the video or missed something you pointed out that I might not have noticed in my own playthroughs of the game, that's why.) I'll just drop the big controversy right away, Spirit Ashes. Have you ever tried fighting those two with an Ash that can hold them off for you? Cause you'd be surprised by how fun that is. As for qualities of the fight itself, the first thing is that it also avoids the 2 big issues I had with O&S a little bit, though not nearly as well as the other two I mentioned. Crucible Knights punish you for trying to get distance and they are better to fight up close, and with the Tree Knight being more dangerous while Ordovis has a greatshield, and their AIs being different enough that they tend to alternate instead of coming at the same time, they have more defined roles than most other duo bosses. The biggest problem the Crucible Duo has is how strong they are individually, which makes them both together be a bit unfair and frustrating. I agree with that completely. BUT, because they do work well as a team and are good bosses on their own, I've found that they are surprisingly fun if you do manage to circnvent that issue, be it by using a spirit, being overleveled or having a particularly good build. Definitely doesn't make them a good boss, but saves them from being a terrible one. For example, I actually had a whole lot of fun against them with my heavy armor, charged attack str build, since I could poise through their hits and I was able to break their Stance or guardbreak Ordovis if I kept up the aggression, making the fight a frenetic raw strength race to overwealm them faster than they could kill me. I'm telling you, few things made me feel more like an unstopable force of nature than bringing two Crucible Knights to their knees with brute strength alone.

@@Jeffqed PART 3 OF MY REPLY: (I already apologised enough times right? Well, you were the one who asked "why do you think like that", I'm just complying.) Lastly, you mentioned phase 2 Friede so I'll talk about that a bit too. I'll be honest, I don't like it. This is already too big so I'll try to be brief: (spoiler, I failed miserably in that) Ariandel is too big and his AoE's too large, it's hard to see what he's doing to his size and it's hard to see Friede since he bloks your view, makes the fight feel a lot less controlable and leads you to put the blame more on the game than on yourself, which is not something you want in a souls game. Friede's ice attacks are too large and come out too quick to avoid if you're already busy with Ariandel's fire, they also don't have a sound cue as clear as say Demon Prince. That means that you often don't manage to react fast enough to get away from the ice before it bursts, and as far as I'm aware you can't that. It isn't much of a problem if you can keep an eye on Friede, but it's very frustrating when she does it right after Ariandel blocks your view, which happens a lot. One personal issue I have with that too is the fact that that specific ice attack is you best opening in both phase 1 and 3, so it being a serious issue only in phase 2 is a bit frustrating since I think of the attack as more of an opening than a threat, but that's just a nitpick of mine. The healing mechanic isn't necessarily that bad, but while it only happens occasionally, it's VERY annoying when Friede does it from a position you can't see or while inside Ariandel's AoE fire attacks. Since phases 1 and 3 of Friede are so completely different from the 2nd which comes in between them, it throws me off a bit and makes it hard to get into flow during the fight. I have a very strong concentration, so that kind of thing bothers me sometimes. Sorry this went for so long, I hope it wasn't too much of a hastle to read through and hopefully you found something interesting you hadn't thought about. I know I overdid it, but I wanted to try giving a good explanation. I appreciate it a lot that you took the time to reply and discuss this. And I'll say this just to be safe, but this IS still a matter of opinion. I'm not trying to convince you of "x boss is better than y boss", I'm just sharing why I personally like one more than the other. If you disagree I have no issue with that, this isn't an argument, just a discussion.

@@urtoryu_dy_althraidn holy fucking shit an avalanche just came down the comment section. No worries though, i asked for it, thanks for the very detailed explanation. I'll try to keep my reply a bit shorter :D As for your points about O&S, besides the second phase being lackluster and the fight being too long (which i agree with are negatives), i just dont think any of your points are negatives, quite the opposite. For example the fight sometimes forcing you to run away and look/create an opening i view positively, since i still have to use all my concentration to dodge both their attacks, since they complement each other so well, it makes the fight a lot about strategy, which i like. I haven't really seen anyone drop DS1 on O&S, on the contrary, ive seen people say O&S are the only good thing about DS1 (the streamer Stanz for example hated the game, but loved this fight). I also absolutely love that they attack simultaneously, it works perfectly here imho, maybe the best thing about this fight. Now as for camera issues, they do exist (they exist with most bosses, duo or not, imho), but here i might be helped out by playing on KB&M instead of controller, not having to rely on lock on as much as i see most people who play with controller do. The issue with the bat demon's moveset is just that its so shallow, the fight becomes repetitive extremely quickly. The moves work well, i agree, but they have 5 total moves in the first phase when theyre active, one of which they never really do unless youre very far away and one they only do when transitioning phases, making this essentially a 3 move fight. The Poison clouds the passive one churns out are so slow that i dont remember ever being poisoned by it, so theyre effectively a non-issue. The sound cue is good, yes, i just wish my ears didnt bleed every time it happens. The issue with running here compared to O&S is that you have so much space, youre so much faster in DS3 compared to DS1 AND they have the same moves when active, so its not really a challenge and instead of having to focus on dodging them its just a waiting game. Any time in a boss where you effectively just wait for something to happen without any challenge to it is extremely bad imho. I agree that Demon Prince's second phase is miles ahead of O&S's second phase (although the same applies imho the other way around for the first phase). The Shadows of Yharnam are a bit tough to talk about for me, since i barely remember them. I first tried them every playthrough without any issues. In the first playthrough I was wondering why they were called a boss after i first tried them while using only 9/24 flasks and doing abysmal damage since my build was garbage (using a kirkhammer without the hammer and not even upgrading it fully and dumping all my stats into stamina and health iirc). They are propably the least memorable boss in the game for me, since theres 0 cohesion between them, nothing visually interesting and, well, they feel like 3 enemies you could encountered in the previous area stuck in a room and called a boss. The best working strategy for me with this boss was to just rush one of them down. They do little damage, you can tank through that easily, they stagger super easily so just walk up to one of them and spam them down. Only issue in that regard is mr.pyromancy flame shadow, so take that one out first and youre gucci. I agree that they dont have the issues of normal gank bosses, but not for good reasons, as it feels like they took out anything that made multi-boss-fights a challenge without adding anything to it to make up for it. I see where youre going with flashy vs realism, but a bunch of sekiro bosses are a way better example there. I just dont think they play well in the slightest, one sneko-men in the forest before them poses a far bigger challenge than all 3 shadows combined. Crucible Knight + Duo isnt included in this video, as including all elden ring bosses wouldve been too much so i had to make some concessions (and they seem more like minibosses to me, so if i include them i feel like i should also include all sekiro mini-bosses, the bloodborne chalice bosses, etc. and then we have an 8 hour video on our hand). I will say that i think the Crucible Knights are fantastic and ive already pretty much shared what i think of the duo. And yes, i tried it with summons. In fact, in my first playthrough of ER, this was the only boss i used a spirit summon on since i absolutely despised this boss. Did it make the boss better? well, yeah, it made it basically a basic solo crucible knight fight. So the fight went from frustrating and badly designed to a disappointing repeat. Not sure that saves it. As for Friede, i have little camera issues with her second phase which, again might be due to playing with KB&M. And you mention sound cue, even when i dont have her in view i almost always hear the ice attack soon enough to have time to react and move out of the way, and here this is actually a challenge and concern compared to the demon prince where its more like 'guess ill move, dickhead', here its gtfo quickly. I love this boss(phase), since it manages to make a duo boss work splendidly while being quite different from the balance O&S has. And I've seen people fight it in a lot of different ways and make it work, which i think is super neat (although i will admit that 50% of people do just hammer down on ariandel mindlessly, so its not a perfectly designed fight by any means). These 2 also complement each other to 'fill out' the fight, but in a completely different way. And I thought Ariandel's AoE was actually quite small. And yeah this is obviously all opinion talk. The point of the video isnt to convince people that my opinion is the only correct one and everyone should adopt it, but rather to see each others perspective and understand why the other person thinks the way they do, without trying to convince them on a purely subjective matter. If someone thinks Godskin Duo is the best boss fromsoft have ever made, thats a valid opinion and im curious why you think that way. I will after you've shared that avoid anything you touch and keep at least 50 kilometers between us at all times as i think that opinion makes you a psychopath, but it is a valid opinion nonetheless. Lastly, no worries, i wouldnt have made a 4 hour video about them if i didnt enjoy discussing these bosses :)

Couldn't agree more with most of these picks.

Thank you :) I wouldnt categorize waterfowl as artificial difficulty tho. It still follows the same rules (mostly, the only thing where id say it doesnt is that theres very little punishment window after it for such a huge attack), its damage isnt absurd for that stage of the game, its just that its very hard to dodge, but its still pure mechanics. And to be honest, it feels so fucking good when you do a proper dodge of it, that makes it worth it for me. But as said in other comments, it certainly stretches the limits of what is acceptable and theres a discussion to be had about slight adjustments, but i dont think it needs to be fundamentally redesigned/scrapped at all. I cut out large parts of the malenia section, originally it was like 18 minutes but then i didnt want one section about one boss to be 18 minutes when theres more than 180+ total, so i had to remove large sections of it^^

Waterfowl is not the only thing that makes it hard. The whole fight is hard, Waterfowl is only like 5-10% of that difficulty imo.

You are actually correct, i just looked it up and the wiki says "Looking Glass Knight is a boss in Dark Souls 2. Formerly known as the Mirror Knight, this knight is clad in steel polished to a mirror finish." Apparently he was called Mirror Knight in the beta and people kept calling him that because no one past the 18th century ever said 'Looking Glass' to a mirror. Did not know that.

Thank you :) I'm currently doing my Master Thesis in math at university.

​@Jeff damn I knew you'd be smart lol. Are you German? I'm from the U.S but a friend of mine is German and his accent sounds like yours.. I hope I didn't get it wrong lol

@@ino7604 academic success does not equal intelligence, im reminded of that every day :D and yeah im german.

@@Jeffqed I never said they're equal. But to be doing a masters thesis in mathematics I'd think you'd have to be. Anyway I've subscribed thanks 😊

Moonlight Butterfly truly feels like a wasted opportunity since i pretty much like everything about it except the gameplay^^ Yeah, Sanctuary Guardian is just out of place. Feels like a mod that somehow made it into the dlc. And i dont think the dlc was so lacking in content that it was needed. On DS2, thats interesting, since most people say SOTFS makes it a lot worse. At some point, when ive recovered from my last playthrough, i wanna give the original DS2 a go to see how different it truly is.

@@Jeffqed I'll never agree with 'scholar made it worse' crowds. Scholar made it harder but brought the focus away from the (frankly garbage bosses) and onto the struggle through the levels with constant invasions and even expanded the weird 'NG+ is a different game' feel. Some changes are unnecessary, (all the extra knights in Iron Keep) but many just feel like properly making the game this slower, more deliberately paced game where you've got to rely on repairs and are encouraged to have more than one tool in your arsenal. But I also like the weird and funky invaders constantly throughout the title and the enemies more properly mixed. The one change that felt completely confused however is definitely Heide knights becoming less of a lone-scattered knighthood. It felt like that change was another 'change for the sake of change.' and was entirely spurred on by how the heide knight sword was such a absurd power spike so early.

No worries man, different people have different preferences, would be boring otherwise. Gameplay will always be the top priority for me. Lore can add a bit here and there but its like if you go to a restaurant and they have cool paintings on the wall, which is nice and all and it does add something, but 95+% of the experience will still come down to if the food tastes good. I can certainly say that theres a chance that i would have enjoyed Demon's Souls more if it was my first game, but honestly theres also a chance i would have enjoyed it less considering for a new player the half-hp mechanic and a lot of the jank seems extremely frustrating. So hard to say if it would rank higher then.

Thank you :) Theres certainly a discussion to be made about waterfowl. I personally like it (mostly), but it certainly stretches the boundaries of what is acceptable and fair. I think theres a variety of small adjustments you could make to it that would barely change it but bring it way more in line with the general design philosophy, but personally as the ultimate challenge i felt it was fine. Now, if malenia was placed anywhere else in the game, we'd have an issue. Also, considering the redirect, you can actually get surprisingly consistent at it, at least in my experience. Idk if it's fundamentally intended by design, but i wouldnt be surprised if the devs figured that out by testing and were like 'wait thats kinda cool lets keep that' instead of making her tracking stronger, so my guess would be that its semi-intended. Lastly considering that it doesnt teach you how to deal with waterfowl, im gonna be completely honest, i wouldnt want it to. I enjoyed slowly figuring out ways to do it myself without any hints, and it comes down again to the fact that its an extremely hidden away boss thats required for almost nothing whatsoever, perfect place for something that defies rules and you have to figure out yourself.

@@Jeffqed In the end, all comes down to tastes and that is totally fine. Waterfowl was/is just the epitome of a new philosophy, FromSoftware included in their new game. That, in my opinion, is like treating each major boss as its own microcosmos. Timings or lessons you learn can hardly be applied to the next major boss (especially delayed attacks where the windups take ages but reaction to the actual attack window is hardly possible). I just went into ER with a mindset of the earlier games' philosophy, where very many instances of the difficult stuff could be mitigated by observing the environment or just by smart and quick reaction timings. What I wanna say: We both are right and wrong. And maybe I am a bad gamer or my reaction times are rusty as I am 41 of now :D. Thank you very much for your awesome and detailled post and of course for all the hard work that went into your video. I will leave a sub for that is the least I can do to honour your work.

Im not sure its necessarily too big at that stage of the game, maybe a little, but its kinda stupid that it still heals even if you block 100% of the damage, thats just kinda weird and nonsensical.

Best band :)

@@Jeffqed Still Life, Blackwater Park and Ghost Reveries are probably in my top ten albums of all time

Honestly, yeah, fair point. Since doing this video i have played through DS3 two more times and re-fought some bosses in sekiro including Great Shinobi Owl, and Champions Gravetender sucks more ass than i remembered and Owl, while still not a great fight imho, is not quite as bad as i remember. Thats always the problem with these videos, they are a in-the-moment-opinion thats gonna slightly change with time. If i did the video now i would likely move Owl up to E+ and Champions Gravetender down to bottom E-, maybe even F+. But you know what, its close enough as it is^^