In terms of how events play out I def agree with option 1, Haligtree to Mohgywn Palace to DLC to Fire Giant / Endgame makes the most sense. Can't see the Tarnished beating the Fire Giant and then just, going back to Mohgs crib for no real reason and then being greeted by Leda telling them to dimension hop to the land of shadow, given Alexanders dialogue on top of that it just seems to make more sense we go fight the Fire Giant after the DLC. Plus given how strong the final boss of the DLC is it makes sense why the Tarnished jumps up so suddenly to beat the god tiers after going through the events of Shadow of the Erdtree.
With that in mind the scaling would basically go:
- Tier 8 to High 7-C: Fallingstar Beast < Basic Tarnished < Adult Fallinstar Beast < Godrick < Rennala ~ Basic Spirit Ashes < Advanced Tarnished
- Base Game 7-A, possibly High 4-C: Rot Radahn < Certain High End Tarnished like Okina/Vyke ~ Morgott ~ Mohg ~ Rykard < Malenia ~ Prime Radahn
- At least 7-A, possibly High 4-C, potentially far higher: Gideon (Believes himself incomparably lower than a God) < Goddess Malenia < Messmer < Romina
- At least 7-A, possibly 4-A: The Last Fire Giant < Dragonlord Placidusax ~ Bayle ~ Godfrey ~ Maliketh ≤ Marika/Radagon ~ DLC Boss < Elden Beast
Yeah this makes sense, although what are we gonna say when people just asking why
Prime Radahn and Malenia don't scale to the 4-A high end given what is essentially prime Radahn makes up phase 1 of the final boss in the DLC. We just putting a note that lore wise he likely gets stomped by the Tarnished phase 1 before tricky miq amps him for phase 2?
Some open items would be:
- Where would we put the Dancing Lion, Rellana, Gaius, Metyr, the Scadutree Avatar, Midra and the Putrescent Knight on the chain?
- What do we do with Bernahl if a profile is ever made?
Yeah those are tricky, Rellana I can see ranking in the same general range as Morgott and Mohg given her status as Messmers sword and the main obstacle blocking the Tarnished from reaching the altus where Messmers shadow keep is but even then that's still more of a
"should be on their level" than a
"is on their level" so ehhhh. Midra tbh I can see ranking pretty high, sure he's not a full on lord of frenized flame but he seems way closer to it than the Tarnished can be should they be touched by the 3 fingers. Not full on 4-A but I can see him being in the same general tier as Goddess Malenia and Messmer.
Not entirely sure about the others, Dancing Lion is a mandatory boss and gets decently hyped up (Plus it's likely fought near the start of the DLC instead of the very end
just before entering Enir-Ilim so I can see it being roughly comparable to Mohg and others on that level, but still wayyyy below Messmer given how easily the trailers showed him dealing with many of them.
Honestly no idea with Bernahl, he shows up outta nowhere in Farum Azula, you kill him and then get the Blasphemous Claw without much fanfare. I get that the implication is that he's there to challange Maliketh given he has the claw on him, but it's implied he's weaker than Rykard given that Tannith nevers seems to consider sending him to Rykard to be devoured like she does us (And unless I'm forgetting something she sends us because she believes the Tarnisheds strength will be a great addition to Rykards after eating us), and the claw counters Destined Death sure but that's the claw itself, not like he'd need to be comparable to Maliketh himself for it to work and block his death attacks. For all we know he'd get rolled by Gurranq.