1. Malenia
True, and yet, why is there a reason for there to be two entrances with it being very easy to miss the other one? I went above, through that entrance to Godskin Duo. I discovered his summon after beating all the endings and doing virtually everything noteworthy in the game because I didn't even realize that entrance existed. I went above the first playthrough and just did it again every playthrough after. Even with of Bernahl, the boss is still one of the worst designed boss fights in any game I've seen.
Did you fight him pre-nerf? Apparently he was nerfed to all hell.
I just cheesed him with Ezkyse's Decay.
Yeah I fought him before he got nerfed.
I forgot Niall. That guy was such an absolute ******, man. The Commander in the Caelid swamp area isn't that tough, but the one in Castle Sol is such an asshole. Still, for me he was nowhere near the Duo in terms of enraging difficulty.
There's actually a VERY GOOD and VERY SATISFYING cheese for i for range characters (so mages and builds with a bow). You awaken it then you jump on some branch a little below the arena, you climb on the giant branch you came for and from there you blast its face until it dies since it can't hit you with any attack, including the fire breath
Same here, press F to pay respect for pre-nerf Chadahn. Yes, he wrecked my ass dozens of time but I don't care, just like Rykard I loved this fight and wished he wasn't nerfed
Yep. I did that in my latest playthrough.
I had a problem with Radahn but he's still a major gigachad and one of the most respectable characters in the game easily, even though he doesn't even say a single word.
The Duo at least has one of the most awesome boss fight musics I've heard in my life and a very cool design, attacks and lore so there's that
My fight with him essentially went like this: take a level 52 mage build with the Meteorite Staff and Rock Sling, a +4 Soldier of Godrick summon, Sorcerer Rogier and Margit's shackles and you get a complete slaughter. Seriously I OBLITERATED him
Well no wonder you stomped him, you brought ******* GOD with you.
Thought he was much easier on my second run (since I only died three times and one from his sniper arrows at the beginning instead of, well, getting my ass wrecked so much Riley Reid is a virgin in comparison) but I was much stronger than the first time at this point so there's that
True. Even the Wall himself couldn't do anything against him
Blood. Blood arrows are the answer.
Mohg: Blood is THE answer
Those things are the main problem though. It's hard, yeah, but that's not the core of my complaint. The Duo is literally just two previous bosses put together with an unneeded revive mechanic and scaled to fit in the late-game setting. I think it's fine for bosses to become normal enemies in some cases, but reusing bosses as main bosses is stupid. The only exceptions I can give reasonably are the Omen twins. The song is top tier, one of my favorite songs in all of video games tbh, the Godskin's have great designs, the Apostle attacks are sick af, and the lore is some of the best boss lore in Elden Ring imo, but it's all wasted on such an awfully designed, and extremely lazy fight. The Godskin's place in the game would have been fine and already fulfilled without the Godskin Duo boss fight. It was forced into the game, was very lazily designed despite being in a very important position in the game, and was made needlessly hard, just for the sake of being hard and nothing else. At the very least, it should definitely not have been a mandatory boss. Hell, there already was something like the Godskin Duo fight in the Spiritcaller Cave, and even that was better. I could also get into the flaws that the Godskin Noble in particular has, in my opinion, but it's not a big deal compared to that fight.
The awesome song, lore, designs and powers are what made me hate this boss less than Niall. Niall has literally nothing for him compared to the Duo. Or even O'Neil, who at least has an interesting if short lore ("Well, my general just nuked a whole continent with a deadly, uncurable divine poison that just wasted her forces just as much as it did with our enemies and I'm myself infected with no chance at recovering. My faith in her has never been so strong") and is fought in an area with HUGE significance lore-wise
I like Niall's theme tbh. Not particularly memorable and not even close to the Godskin theme, but pretty solid.
Imagine if they had been replaced by the Gloam Eyed Queen after whatever Maliketh did to her.
True
Actually, while that sounds good too, I have a different idea:
Godskin General or Godskin Commander?
No. He's still weaker. He's scales above his underground leyndell counterpart
I considered that, but tbh it wouldn't be very fitting. They use the terms "Queen", "Noble", and "Apostle", so a military form of ranking would be inconsistent. Maybe a Godskin Lord.
It feels weird for an enemy to be weaker when they're canonically fought after. Most of our scaling for this game relies on which points the enemies are fought even. And unlike Alexander there's nothing showing Mohg is more pitiful and weak for his area in lore. At the very worst he shouldn't be too far below her
The positioning of enemies is generally overwritten by any actually known lore. That's just a basis for some pages that are lacking in evidence for placement, namely for unimportant enemies and lesser significant boss enemies. Scaling the two last Shardbearers to one another based on their position in the game based purely on what Gideon's questline wants you to do is definitely questionable.
What? Why would that be our scaling? As far as I was aware, most enemies scale based on lore stuff- we even outright complained about Leyndell minibosses scaling to Tier 4 for zero reason whatsoever. It's an asinine practice, methinks, to wantonly scale whoever based on their zipcode.
Melina was busy elsewhere though
No, Malenia is repeatedly stated to be the strongest Demigod with Radahn, as much as I love Mohg, him being fought after her canonically doesn't mean he's on the same level by any stretch
The Beast would need its own tier honestly
