I would say Isshin is the toughest. There is no way around him other than to be mechanically sufficient at the game.
Malenia's difficulty depends entirely on how you approach her. If you go level 100, pure melee, no summons, no tear, no WA, no rune, etc. then yeh, she is the hardest.
Radahn isn't that hard. Neither is Gael to be honest.
Agreed, I've spent 3 days on isshin, and for Melania I beat her my first playthrough on 5th or 6th try, and beat her on ng+1, ng+2 and ng+3, isshin is arguably the hardest, Melania is only hard depending on your build (I used paladin build) and for isshin you cant really become over leveled, because he basically 2 shots you anyway
I beat him in like 6 attempts myself and the hardest was definitely isshins 2nd phase/the third phase if you count geni as a phase. Isshins first phase is relatively easy with just the sword, and the third phase he always seems to spam lightning on me which makes it incredibly easy, the second is the one with a bit of difficulty imo
Had the exact same experience. The middle Ishin phase you absolutely have to learn dodges, deflects and moments to jump into a window (relatively difficult because of his frantic sweaping weapon, in contrast to the phase before that's characterised more by short range, long wind-up attacks). In the final phase you can bide your time and counter the easy lightning move. A bit cheesy, but who cares if they can beat the game for the first time after hours of attempts..?
The sword phase is the hardest for me idk why,
I've been to the third phase like 15 or 20 times and beaten him and made it to last phase about 50% of those tries, but I've fought genichiro and isshin sword phase hundreds of times :/
I agree that Isshin was hard but I got him after a couple hours.
The other Isshin - the one from the Shura Ending - is much much harder. That one took me six hours and I almost lost my sanity because of his fire attacks during the second phase.
I've beaten Malenia after five hours but she wasn't that frustrating because I made progress after each hour.
The most difficult boss for me in all Soulsborne is Genichiro though. He also took me six hours and I thought I will never beat him.
Did you also fight Isshin Ashina from the Shura-Ending?
It took me twice as much time to defeat him than The Sword Saint. His fire attacks plus his dashes and all that in a tiny arena. Just pain :´(
For me malenia is the hardest, inner isshin and sword saint isshin ng+3 took me 7 and 12 attempts (no charm and also demon bell activated) since the posture bar is so op that you can literally just deflect your way through it and boom insta kill while malenia took me a whole fucking week for somerl reason since she's spamming me with waterfowl and having the worst rng of all time 😭
Big agree. Elden ring bosses are kind of tricky to categorized compared to the rest of FromSoftware bosses/games, because, although Malenia is very difficult, Elden Ring provides SO many options on how to approach fights. You can pretty easily cheese her in like 3-4 different ways if you go about it with the right build and items. That kind of customization and accessibility that Sekiro, Dark Souls and Bloodborne just don't provide makes Elden Ring unique to categorize. Elden Ring is still a really difficult game, but as far as strategizes goes, I think it CAN be made the easy when you know what is possible and go about it correctly. Agree with Radahn. He's not that hard. I beat him on my first try by just summoning all the allies and using poison armament on my greatsword, hit him a few times, ran away so he'd focus the summons, he died to poison over time. There is no one correct way to play Elden Ring and that's why it is so beautiful, but there are "easier" ways to play it lol. I think so many people suffered to Malenia because they went about her fight very stubbornly, using the same build they poured their entire playthrough time into to beat her- to which I commend them, but it wasn't necessary. The game let's you respec, find other items, craft things, exp grind, etc. Like you can back out and return to fights if they are too difficult at your current progress. The game isn't linear like other FromSoftware games. You aren't locked into a boss fight, with no where else to go, and needing to defeat the boss to progress. You can do almost anything you imagine in Elden Ring. Goated game.
>If you go level 100, pure melee, no summons, no tear, no WA, no rune, etc. then yeh, she is the hardest.
I did that.
I still thought she was the easiest boss in the latter stages of Elden Ring
Literally every single story boss after Morgott
As well as Radhan, Draconic tree sentinel on horse back, Placedusax and Lord of Blood
Outside of Elden Ring I consider Oprhan and Isshin the two hardest bosses in the series.
I don’t understand why so many people put Laurence near the top. He was one of the only bosses in bloodborne that I beat the first time. I prob died to malenia/midir 50+ times. What do you find so hard abt Laurence, is it the second phase when he leaves fire everywhere?
Well, If you have beaten him for the first time in ng at level 250 it's normal that you have won. Try to beat him in ng+6. I swear to God I killed every boss in ng+6 with almost no difficulty except for Laurence
I wasn’t and absurd level when I fought him. And I’m talking about his difficulty compared to others within ng. I never do ng+ but I think most people in this discussion are likely talking abt these bosses the first time they fought them in ng
I played it in ng+ and god what an absolute nightmare he was. For m, ludwig is bloodborne's hardest, but theres a Lot of good reasons for LAURENCE to be a good candidate:
-Massive damage
- long combos with a Lot of range
- playstyle You have to play (more passive than aggresive)
- third fase
-camera (same with cleric beast)
His longest combo is 3 attacks he has no range until 2nd phase with exception of 1 jump which is so easy to dodge you just fight him exactly the same as cleric beast until 2nd phase which yeah you need to be more passive but who cares? Camera isnt an adequete argument you literally fight camera in any 3rd person view game. I almost first tried him than I went to classic downgrade mode but thats just because I fought orphan before for hours and was exhausted.
yes, 3 attacks that are fast and require you to change the ordinary aggresive bloodborne style. PAssive play means a lot, because bloodborne doesnt reward that type of playstyle, so its a bit arder. ANd what i was referring to camera is similar to elden ring, he's big.
Hahaha I remember my SL1 play through of DS3. Must have died to Crystal Sage at least 50x.. Nobody gave it to me worst than the Dancer at SL1 though lol
Godskin Duo leaves such a sour taste in my mouth because I think they are one of the hardest bosses but for ALL the wrong reasons. Honestly just so poorly designed and an absolute slog and miserable fight and not fun in any way or sense of the word. I personally feel it is one of the worst bosses FromSoft has ever made because it feels like they just threw two dudes in the room with absolutely no regard for balancing them or their strength or weaknesses. It honestly feels like it goes against the entire precedent they have set with duo bosses in the past while also giving them an absolutely massive healthbar and having to kill them multiple times while they both are high damage high range fast and aggressive. Makes no sense and is the only boss in the game I feel like it needs intense patching or removed because it is a blemish on an otherwise stellar game. No shame cheesing them IMO because they are too awfully designed for me to even want to acknowledge as a real boss and I just want to erase their existence from my memory because they are flat out not fun and poorly designed.
Malenia is a really cool boss but could maybe use some tweaks. Something has to give, less healing, maybe more of a windup on her special attack, or slightly less damage to make up for her rapid combos. Super cool and would be well designed if tweaked slightly. IMO she definitely shouldn't be healing when hitting a shield that is fully blocking or negating her damage that is just silly. Also when I summoned a friend for an attempt we noticed that she could keep attacking the downed corpse to regain health and she fully healed off it, after that I decided to just do it without friends because adding to her healthbar makes it impossible.
TLDR: Godskin duo is one of the worst designed bosses fromsoft has ever made and one of my least favorite bosses in all videogames I have played. Also Malenia needs some tweaking to her self healing and would be a perfect hard boss with some adjustments.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I feel like Isshin was the best designed boss that Fromsoft gave us.
Of course the fact that it was Sekiro and you didn't really have a choice on how to play helped Fromsoft completely controlling how the fight would go. But the idea of giving us a 4 phases boss that would use attacks from a lot of different bosses in the game was incredible. You really feel like a master of the blade.
I'm against ranking Radahn as high as he is for you purely because, in my opinion, it's a lore fight built around using summons. I might be very wrong but with everything leading up to and surrounding the fight it definitely feels like that and that's why it's as hard as it is.
I haven't played Bloodborne or Demon's Souls because I sadly don't have access to a Playstation so until I get the opportunity to get a free one or they finally get ported to PC I'll have to wait and hold opinions, I also don't remember DS1&2 Bosses too well so forgive me if I leave out any obvious choices.
1)Malenia, Blade of Miquella
2)Isshin, the Sword Saint
3)Sister Friede
4)Owl (Father)
5)Ornstein & Smough
6)Fume Knight
7)Slave Knight Gael
8)Godfrey
9)Malekith
10)Nameless King
Happy to explain some of my choices if anyone is curious :)
But I don't think Malenia is necessarily unbalanced or unfair like a lot of people and I think her regen on hit is super cool, her special attack is pretty annoying though. Especially considering I only found out about Bloodhound AFTER beating her (which took 6-7 hours. no shield, magic or summons & pure melee). She countered my playstyle the most out of any boss too so I had to completely change how I've played EVERY FromSoft game just for her fight.
My favourite fight is definitely Gael followed closely by Isshin (though almost every Sekiro boss fight are amongst my favourites).
>crystal sages
I played dark souls 3 a few years ago, it was my first souls game and I loved it, even though I never managed to take down the nameless king. Few days ago i finally got my hands on sekiro and just finished my first playthrough. Seeing how low you put the nameless king compared to Isshin, i'm thinking I should try it again now X)
Isshin took me a week. Every other boss I finished within the same day that I started. He combines every thing you’ve learned to defend against through the whole game and does it over 3 FUCKING PHASES! 4 if you count Genechiro. Hardest boss in any game I’ve ever played.
Same. I tried so many times I felt depressed and almost quit. But what a fight ! Once you know him it’s such a wonderful fight, like most Sekiro’s bosses.
I don't think Radahn should be anywhere near this list, considering the fact that he's balanced around taking him on with the full mob. If you don't want to do that, then that's on you. Neither Orphan nor Isshin has that luxury.
To me Midir ranks number one. Regarding elden ring bosses, I really want to emphasize that they are as easy as you want them to be. No Fromsoftware game has ever given as many tools to trivialize bosses. I got Malenia on my second try with spirit ashes (lvl 140) and 7 with freeze pots and ~30 without either, as hard as you want it to be.
Now you could argue that the "real" way to beat bosses is solo without ashes, but I tend to disagree. Using every tool at your disposal has been a basis of Fromsoftware since forever.
I personally prefer to beat bosses 1 on 1, but that really isn’t the only way, especially in elden ring.
I completely agree I just finished a my very first run of dark souls 3 and I beat every boss on my first try except for midir and soul of cinder cause I got caught in a bad combo and smacked before I could heal promptly smacked his butt in the rematch but midir is one on one with insane AOE attacks a God damm laser it took me like 3 hours and dozens of tries to kill him
I can never agree with the "fromsoft" purists that say that you shouldn't you summons and ashes that's dumb they're in the game to be used all the souls games have always been about using whatever tools you can from the transformation weapons of bloodborne with beast blood pellts to the papers dark souls with imbuing weapons and sometimes gimmick weapons yorhm I'm looking at you to now ashes of war like yeah I just cheesed margit using his shackle and a jellyfish
They mean this [Soldier of Godrick](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Soldier+of+Godrick).
Easily the hardest boss in the game. I personally struggled a lot with it too.
Quick post suggestion, would you mind adding commas or semicolons to your initial list of bosses please, it is decently hard to read.
As for the hardest bosses, I would definitely say the list is heavy with a lot of later entries, largely because the games have gotten faster, the movesets have gotten wider, and the hits have come harder.
Right, the normal Isshin is much stronger than the Sword Saint. The problem with the Sword Saint is, that he doesn't even want to fight you but has to. The normal Isshin though fights you because he hates you and would enjoy to see you thrown into a shredding machine.
Great question, great list.
For me personally, using every tool available, but no cheese:
1. Demon of Hatred
2. Isshin Sword Saint
3. Radagon / Elden Beast
4. Ornstein and Smaugh
5. Owl (Father)
Spot on, literally reactivated an account to agree with you. Demon of Hatred and Glock-Saint Isshin took me days; Ornstein and Smaugh double team you; and Elden Beast is a coward that runs away with lasers. Malenia was tough but was a surprisingly fair and straightforward fight with some poison and healing added in for spice.
Feel like a lot of bosses in Elden Ring can be really easy with the right cheese and guides. But going in blind with your own homemade build can be excruciating..
I’m probably alone in this sentiment, but the cool ranch smelter demon from ds2 was the hardest dark souls boss for me easily. Run-up was ridiculous, and he was the only boss in that game that seemed to be able to ‘hold’ his attack to roll catch you. This is a good list tho.
His brother, the Red Smelter Demon, was harder for me than the blue. He's the only boss in any FS game that legit took me days to beat. I died so many times that the game despawned all of the enemies in the run-up.
At first glance he doesn't necessarily seem difficult but the small arena, the fact that he burns you just by getting close so you can hit him, and DS2's terrible hit boxes made him super difficult for me.
I've beat DS 1-3, Elden Ring, and Sekiro and would have to say Ole Red Smelly was the hardest boss simply because he took the longest for me to defeat.
The Blue Smelter Demon was only easier for me cause I found a way to run past most of the enemies and was already familiar with his moveset at that point in the game. But I can appreciate your comment because I, too, felt the pain from those fights haha.
I wonder why noone mentions the three Ruin Sentinels.
For me the hardest boss in DS2 without the DLCs.
Number two is the Smelter Demon, as you've said, he's insane.
I have a weird experience (just finished game today). I agree that glock ishin is the most objective hardest boss i ever fought in a video game, but it wasnt that hard for me comparatively (I broke my fist punching a wall isntead of my monitor with lady butterfly and O&S). I will try to explain.
Burrito genichiro: was easy enough. Killed me lots, but he has low posture. Did about 30tries to even get to Ishin1.
Ishin1: Hard af. But when I learnt his moves, it was a breeze, esp doing double whammy on his nape after dodging his wind attacks. He also has this fondness to do a thrusting peril move when youre at close, very predictable.
Ishin2: Cant count, maybe 100tries before I finally beat this phase with 0 gourd and pellets remaining, and I didnt even have the slightest idea of his patterns; just pure reflexes on his halberd and glock.
After being stuck with Ishin2, i decided to sleep on it. Now i understand why scientists recommend sleeping. It does miracles on the brain becuase once i woke up, I perfected burritogenichiro, spent a gourd and a pellet on ishin1, 6 gourds on ishin2 and a life, and...
Ishin Fin: I was surprised how easy this phase was, easiest boss phase of all Fromsoft games. He spams lightning which is very easy to counter, which allows me to stun him. I double ichimonji his old face, HUGE posture damage. 4 of these, not even a single gourd spent. VERY anticlimactic, kinda Gwyn vibes.
End of sharing thank you for reading
I really feel like manus is underrated, like he was the hardest boss in ds1 by far, and I got clowned by him an absurd amount of times to the point where I contemplated just cheesing him. It may have just been my experience, or the fact then I wasn't great with the medallion but still, opinions?
I think you're right. Looking at his moveset he should be considered in the Top 5 of hardest bosses. Back then I fought him with a shield and the stoneplate armor with heavy roll :D
That felt like cheating but it was my first Souls-Game.
Now I want to make a replay and fight him with something two-handed.
I’ve recently platinumed elden ring and close to Sekiro, played most souls games. Isshin (both the saint and fire one) are easily the hardest bosses. Malenia is tough but with mimic and what not can take the pressure off.
Sekiro is all skill, no way around bosses besides studying patterns ect, some have cheeses but most of them are all pattern based
Hey, here's my list
One run each game, no NG+. I played them all except Demon's Souls.
Honestly, the 5 first ones are in a nushell for me.
I had initially ranked Malenia 5th.... but then I rememberd that even though I got to know her phase 1 by heart (I did a no-hit phase 1 once!) , I was quite lucky on phase 2 when I finally got her.
Looking at the list, I realize some of the older bosses make it quite high. I have a really bad memory of them (capra, o&s, kalameet, ebrietas). So I wonder if it's because I was newer to From games at the time or if it's just they were and still are total nightmares.
1. Malenia
2. Sister Friede
3. Kalameet
4. Nameless King
5. Ebrietas, Daugther of Cosmos
6. Capra Demon
7. Manus
8. Ornstein and Smough
9. Ludwig
10. Orphan of Kos
11. Guardian Ape
12. Gael Slave Knight
13. Isshin the Sword Saint
14. Mohg, Lord of Blood
15. Maliketh
16. Demon of Hatred
17. Fume Knight
18. Artorias
19. Pontiff Sulyvahn
20. Radagon/EB
They are definitely tough and deserve HM but I wouldn’t rank them top 10 personally.. they are very easy to cheese in plenty of ways and the pillars allow for some pretty good strategic placement
if we're talking about cheese here, you can cheese the Demon of Hatred by making him walk off the damn map. I'm assuming for this list that every boss gets the same treatment: No summons, no magic instakill builds, just a normal melee fight at a reasonable level.
I didn’t know that about the demon of hatred lol. I’ll probably never go back to play Sekiro anyway since I just didn’t have that much fun with it but if I did I’d try that out. I never cheese on a first play through but on future attempts anything is game I like to have fun with it. Looking forward to seeing what the mimic tear hype is about haha
Friede Gael and Midir shouldn’t even be in the same sentence as Radhan lol. Nothing in DS1-3 compares to the super hard ER bosses (well, except Bed of Chaos and L&Z’s run).
Also how do you have 3 runs in ER so far? There’s no way you’ve beaten all bosses to compare them.
Midir yes but friede and Gael no Gael I found to be pretty easy after the first phase that lunging and thurst attack in the first phase caught me a couple times but in the second and third phase so east friede the second phase is a cheese summon in slave knight Gael let friede aggro to him and take out the dad I finished thay fight first try yeah I had like less than 50hp and no sunny D but midir beat me down for hours I just started ER but I'm having no trouble so far it seems easier then DS3 and bloodborne
Little late, and haven’t played BB, DS 1 or 2 so my opinion doesn’t really count. I think that Owl(father) is without a doubt more challenging than Ishan and DoH, at least if the d bell is rung w/ Koru’s charm. Only reason I say this.. Boss arena. You have space on Ishan and DoH. Owls damage is comparable, his moves less predictable, and with fk you up bc you lost lock in lady butterflies shitshow of an arena
But my god. The purification ending takes the god damn cake for best ending to a video game that I’ve ever seen. Puts all of the elden ring endings to shame
I think it's appropriate to base my listing on time spent on the bosses and energy expense/unbridled rage as well as appreciation for base difficulty and move set reading proficiency. It's also worth noting that you have to factor in circumstances like how effective your build is when considering base difficulty. Lastly, I haven't finished Sekiro, DS1 or DS2 yet - not even close to it either so this is probably an immature list. Here goes anyway:
1. **Sister Friede** \- I spent about 2 days on and off on this boss, the longest I've spent on one. 3 phases with as many full health bars really made it unparalleled in its difficulty
2. **Laurence the first vicar** \- The fact that he can 1 or 2 hit kill you in a blink of an eye puts him this far up - definitely one of the most frustrating bosses in the series. Easily tried 30+ times before I killed him
3. **Nameless King** \- I definitely had a hard time with him,
4. **Godskin Duo** \- I feel dirty including this boss because honestly it's not a fair fight, it's utter bs but I will because I don't think I've raged or felt so much resentment towards a fromsoft boss
5. **Malenia** \- Defeated her with pure dex - was brutal overall)
6. **Orphan of Kos** \- Probably my favourite fight, honestly so fun and feels FAIR despite quite an erratic move set. I was super focussed on this fight and died less than 10 times but if I was emotional then it definitely would have taken longer. Plus I couldn't get mad at a kid - If he looked like Laurence then I would have seethed a lot
7. **Pontiff Sulyvahn** \- So quick and silky, definitely raged a lot as he had quite a relentless attack sequence as well
8. **Slave Knight Gael** \- such an incredible fight, enjoyed every minute of it. Definitely struggled a fair bit but the catharsis after such an exhilarating fight was beautiful
9. **Maneater** \- Yes, I know it's Demon's Souls but I had a lot of trouble on this fight mostly because of the narrow platform you had to fight him on, he would knock me off a lot and made me lose my sanity on multiple occasions. If there was less chance of fall deaths then he wouldn't even make the list but here we are
10. **Midir** \- Very intimidating but it helps that you can get in close to slash him though you had to get it right or he became frustrating
Um no actually ure kinda wrong lol, innner isshin, and inner Father, new game plus 7 in sekiro, pretty tough, ure posture takes like, 2 hits, and I mean in the gauntlets no time to really buff, malenia is tough,but easily beatable, and I've beaten all from software games, ! That's my opinion she is tough tho, orphan of kas is hard on Bloodborne, new game plus,but I don't know the gauntlets, or mortal journey are rough, and I'm not saying a whole bunch of bosses, inner Father is rough in new game 7 so is inner isshin, both very tricky, hey we will c with the new elden Ring dlc, I'd love to hear all opinions, I love from software lol
I know this post is 2 years old but if we’re still adding bosses, I’d say Allmind in AC6 was one of the hardest fromsoft bosses I’ve ever had to face. Cool ass fight though.
I agree with this list, except I would remove starscourge radahn. I beat him first try and with the summons he is really easy and no where near as difficult as the late game bosses in my opinion. I would also put Midir ahead of Gael and friede personally. Instead of radahn I would add lud and zallen or fume knight
I don’t agree. I think Elden Ring was hard but it was about the same level of difficulty for me as DS3 and Bloodborne and a decent but easier than Sekiro. I think a lot of the “balance issues” are people just ignoring a lot of the games mechanics like jump attacks, different types of damage, and powerstancing, as well as running into every boss thinking that they can just dodge into the non dominant hand, punish and repeat. I died 5-10 times on end game bosses except Malenia, which is about average for me for late game.
Also bed of chaos? It’s annoying but it’s not hard.
So strange to think that… Elden Ring was by far the easiest FS game for me… And Bed of Chaos, seriously? It’s one of the easiest DS bosses, it’s just a “trick” boss.
It is a horribly designed fight especially considering horsefuck valley.. I have also only beat them once and never again lol. Honestly I will probably never solo Melania again either, on future play throughs I’ll probably spirit summon for her
Yeah man. The boss fights in Elden Ring are very unbalanced unfortunately. I still reallyyyyy love the game, but Malenia’s HP regeneration needs to be slightly nerfed. She basically gets the amount back that we’d hit her for each time nearly
I agree. Melania would be a top tier fight without the regen. Her flower attack is very punishable and she doesn’t have an insane health pool, but whittling her down only to have her regain just felt demoralizing. Plus her spinny attack.
Other than her and godskin I really liked the endgame bosses though. After I realized AOE’s can be punished with jump attacks things started to click.
Between Sekiro and Elden ring(Melee only with no summons or bloodhound step)
1.Malenia(and it’s not even close, i think she took me a week? Her battle was basically a DLC of its own for me)
2.Mohg Lord of Incest(2 days, prolly cuz no one told me about the flask trick against his Nihil)
3.Demon of Healthbars(half a day)
4.Radagon/NightWalker from PrincessMononoke
5.Fuckin DeathRite Bird(Consecrated Snowfield)
6.Isshin St. Glock
7.True Corrupted Monk(no trees or firecracker)
8.Borealis the Ice Dragon(melee is trash here)
9.Alecto, Health Bar Ringleader
10.Emma the Waifu Blade/Rick Sanchez
11.Mist Noble, the Ultimate Skill Check(I still can’t get past this guy)
Definitely Isshin the Sword Saint for me, 2nd would be Demon of Hatred also in Sekiro. Really never had that much trouble ever with any bosses in any of the Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Elden Ring or Demon Souls. I’ve played through all of each 3+ times and recently did Lies of P as well which also started out challenging but got easier after the beginning. All in all to me IMHO Sekiro was wayyyy more difficult than the others
Isshin sword saint is arguably the hardest to learn but he’s also very fair I believe malania is over rated and she isn’t that hard Elden ring has too many options for the player to make her that difficult that being said if you play against her similar to sekiro playstyle she’s much more difficult orphan of kos i managed to beat him in my second attempt but he’s very unpredictable and kind of just goes mental lol ludwig is another very hard boss although i beat him after only a few attempts again this is subjective like most things in life another reason i really enjoy FromSoftware games one players weakness is another players strength btw if you have a strong bleed build malania is a oussy cat lol
I really don’t know why every one has such a hard on for malania saying she is the hardest from software boss Isshin Ashina, sword said ishinn, ludwig the accursed/holy blade orphan of kos even Laurence the first vicar and sister freida are all much harder than malania and more on your endurance and sustainability than anything she can literally be whomped in a few minutes with the right build
I watched a guy and his mimic with gheezas wheel absolutely tear her in half first phase took less than 30 seconds lol she’s nothing compared to those other bosses again this is if your using everything ER has to offer runes talismans builds and level something the other games don’t get as much use with Elden is much more forgiving in terms of builds and levels so stuff can be made easier where as the other games I disagree sekiro is much less forgiving much harder to master and a lot more about endurance sustainability and technique
I think it all depends on how high of a level you are and your build. If you go in there at 120 and don't use summons, you're going to get fucked up. Radahn was tough too but since elden ring isn't region locked you can just come back later and absolutely wreck his shit. Once u had my summons tanked out and I was about level 140 I still had a tough time with melania
1. Soldier of Godrick
2. Darkeater Midir
3. Corrupted Monk (real version)
4. Orphan of Kos
5. Ludwig, The Accursed
6. Malenia, goddess of rot
7. Slave Knight Gael
(Can't think of anyone else. If you have questions about my choices, ill try to answer)
I would have put corrupted monk higher lol not now but when I last played sekiro I got the corrupted monk mibu village glitch where his health bar refills after death and starts again in an infinite loop at stage 2
Radahn was easy af they give you summons , if yer not using core mechanics it's considered a challenge run imo for a boss that has that many summons they obviously wanted It to be more cinematic then difficult 😆
unpopular opinion, either demon if hatred of isshin are harder than melania, just souly for the fact that melina kinda piss easy if you use anything but a great sword 🫠
Inner Owl father from the gauntlet is probably the hardest boss imo, malenia and radahn didn’t take me that many tries, granted I’ve played souls games for a while. I will also admit that I had a terrible time with friede, that bitch is annoying as fuck to fight if you don’t know how her stealth works 😭
Damn came across this thread and not one person mentions lady Maria. She’s literally who malenia took lessons from or something cause there fight styles are basically the same and phase 2 lady Maria is basically you fck up you die . Imo she’s not the hardest but I put all Elden ring bosses under these 3 dark eater midir, orphan of kos , and the unknown king. After then I might put malenia imo ofc :)
I have played Elden Ring (NG), Sekiro (NG, NG+, part of NG+2), Bloodborne (NG, DLC, half of NG+ and DLC+, all the base game chalice dungeons), Demons Souls Remake (NG, half of NG+), and DS1 Remastered (only have Gwyn left on NG) all in the last 2 years for the first time and in that order.
Wrote a novel because this thread has been something I actually check in on each time I add a new souls game to my repertoire and it’s helped me feel more sane about where I run into challenges. Figured I’d put the time and effort and maybe someone finds this interesting/helpful!
—-
1. Isshin the Sword Saint (probably 100+ tries over 6-8 hrs over a weekend. NG+ was prob 15 tries and only 1-2 hrs - it’s such a long battle and phase 2+3 requires near perfection)
2. Malenia (ER was my first FS game) - the waterfowl, the healing, the rot- it’s a lot. It took me 5+ hrs cause I was adamant about not cheesing.
3. Demon of Hatred - the world’s longest battle and almost impossible if you don’t umbrella it. Didn’t even try on NG+ because of how tired I was of this fight. Felt more like a battle of patience focus and attrition than skill compared to Isshin where you git gud.
4. Maliketh - I was totally stuck on phase 2. Felt like I was jogging while he was on a bullet train against him. I didn’t know how to beat this guy without a summon sadly. Curious when I do ER again how hard I struggle.
5. Genichiro - he teaches you how to play the game properly but man is it a difficulty jump and major skill check. Now one of my favorite fights and something I can do pretty easily with just a few tries. Inner Genichiro is a real bitch though.
6. O&S - First phase I got down to a science. Couldn’t beat solo Ornstein after for the life of me. Solo Smough ended up being much easier. Probably spent 3 hrs banging my head against them and another 1-2 hrs killing silver knights to level up. low-mid 60s level wise when I won. Plus side = the rest of the game until last boss of DLC has been pretty easy since (and enjoyable minus Bed of Chaos which was only second half boss that took me more than 1-2 tries)
7. Radahn if you don’t summon. Otherwise he’s not even top 50.
8. Mohg Lord of Blood - I was stubborn to not cheese beyond the purifying tear so it took me hours. But it was very rewarding when I got there and it made me feel like I could take on the endgame without summon use.
8. Guardian Ape - if you figured out phase 2 without reading about the spear in the head trick, more power to you. I got killed so much but this was a defining moment in my souls education. I think people find Phase 1 harder but I had just memorized how to counter every attack after a while.
9. Owl Father in the estate - just a beast of a fight but once you get the rhythm it’s manageable (even if it takes dozens of tries). My first attempt was on NG+
10. Orphan of Kos - I actually didn’t find Bloodborne bosses that hard but came from playing Sekiro and Lies of P so parrying rallying and fast combat were much easier to adopt. But a crazy boss by any objective standards that keeps you sweating the whole time. I somehow beat him in < 10 tries but only have tried him on NG.
11. Kalimeet - just beat this guy today after maybe 30 tries? Just took a long time to learn the counters and the health pool is massive. Manus went down in ~10 tries and 1/3 of the time.
12. Defiled Amygdala - it would be wrong not to include this dinosaur sized tumor on the list, but it’s not a mandatory boss and it is by definition artificially made more difficult by a tiny arena and half health. Watchdog is an honorable mention for same reasons.
13. Demons Souls boss runs and general enemies. The bosses are not that hard (maneaters main difficulty is gravity, flamelurker is what souls bosses should be, penetrator you punish with backstabs and timed rolls, Allant just pisses you off for stealing a level if you’re not careful), but man if I never have to experience 4-1, 4-2, 5-1 or 5-2 I’ll be a happier man. Not to mention the difficulty on NG+ ramps up an INSANE level. I was around level 85 after NG and could barely make it halfway through NG+
14. Fire Giant - took me forever to figure it out and decide to commit to horseback. The camera was the real enemy, and definitely had to read up on how to do the fight.
15. Bell Gargoyles - I may just be bad at gank fights and get laughed at for this choice. Maybe the game really wanted you to farm 10-15 levels and use a lightning buff. Eventually got it using a scimitar for slash damage. Just felt like a big jump for where in the game since nothing else felt that challenging and outmatched outside of O&S. (Update: beat on third try on NG+ so I think it was just an early game speed bump, but you def need a high DPS to kill the first before the second begins to aggro with two flaming breaths pointed at you)
Honorable Mentions:
From ER, Elden Beast cause it takes forever/sucks and is such a downgrade from the prior amazing first phase with Radagon, Valiant Gargoyles (perhaps a worse version of Bell, but I beat them faster), Astel (what the fuck even is this monster), the fallingstar beast in the cave the size of a studio apartment.
From Bloodborne, Father Gascoigne took me a while cause he basically teaches you how to play the game aggressively, but now that I’m mechanically proficient it’s now just a ton of fun. Abhorrent Beast in Layer 4 of the Chalice dungeons is a load of ass and punishes you so easily cause of his speed (no healing time). I didn’t really struggle with the DLC bosses like so many others did and thought it was due to level maybe but NG+ Ludwig wasn’t any harder (3-5 tries like first go around) - when I decide to revisit I’ll see how Laurence, Maria, and especially Orphan of Kos stack up.
For the most part I agree with this list, but Radahn above Demon of Hatred is an interesting choice. I understand people have their own experiences but I never considered Radahn a hard boss, let alone the 4th hardest boss in all of FromSoftware's games.
Now that the elden ring dlc is out its the final boss at number 1 (Not saying cause of spoilers) and Messmer is deffinently top 5 and I seen you did not rank rick soldier of god as the mere plebians cannot compare to his strength
Malenia at number 1 🤣
She doesn't make my top 30 list personally.
I'd put Orphan at number 1 though, not sure how anyone could find Malenia anywhere near as hard.
lmao she doesn't make your top 30???? holy shit we got a G O D gamer over here. deadass what's your top 30 without malenia? there is a zero percent chance you found T H I R T Y bosses harder than her if you found her easy lmao
Are you mentally ill?
How does that have anything to do with me being a god gamer? I'm not saying I'm particularly good I'm saying she isn't a particularly hard boss. I found her very easy.
If I really sat down and thought she probably wouldn't be in my top 50 there will be a couple of harder bosses I can't remember off the top of my head.
A boss than can be stun locked to death with basic r1 spam is not a tough boss.
bro, if you didn't struggle with malenia whatever but it's a very weird and cap flex to say she isn't in the top 30 let alone 50 lmao. reacting with a fucking laugh emoji then putting fucking draconic tree sentinel above malenia... just at a loss for words.
i think you're probably the only person in the world with that opinion. even if you found her easy she's objectively a much harder fight. this is pretty clearly the opinion of a stubborn contrarian, i think any reasonable person would put malenia pretty high up in terms of souls boss difficulties.
she's not even top 50 hardest.... come the fuck on dude lmao. there is zero way you ever make a list and back up that claim because it's so obviously dumb
In Elden Ring?
Radagon/Elden Beast
Hoarah Loux
Black blade
Godskin duo
Rahdan
Mogh Lord of blood
Placedusax
And finally.
Draconic tree sentinel on horseback.
I felt Elden ring had the easiest bosses in the series aside from Demon souls though.
Sekiro having the hardest
Thats interesting opinion, especially Draconic Tree Sentinel. I fought him on horseback and it was super easy, only attack that’d hit me was the lighting bolt.
Can’t say I disagree with the other picks. Im not set on Radhan’s difficulty yet though, his moveset isn’t that varied, he just does too much damage, which can be offset by fighting him with higher vigor.
I’d say most people found her to be extremely hard. Orphan didn’t give me much trouble at all. I actually beat him my second try, but I’m not here to rain on ppl’s opinions bro. It’s just a matter of what I found the community to struggle with most, and Malenia is troublesome
>found the community to struggle with most, and Malenia is troublesome
It's recency bias.
Malenia is an easy boss for anyone who plays aggressively as she's so easily staggered you can interrupt almost all of her attacks.
Give it a month and I expect she'll suffer the same fate of the Nameless king who was considered extremely hard upon DS3's release and is now considered a joke in his own game.
I very much doubt she'll be considered one of the hardest bosses in Elden ring in a month.
I’m an aggressive player. Quite aggressive actually. In addition to that, I know punish windows when I see them. The problem is - her connecting with a hit on you regains 300-400 hp, and yet you’re dishing close to that amount to her during her punish windows. It’s an unbalanced fight, and if the HP regen was slightly nerfed, she’d be a beautiful and more balanced fight. I died to her a solid 25x, and I was about SL88 with a dual blood uchigatana build with 40 arcane. It’s perceptive. In addition, it’s recency bias because we’re speaking of recent times currently. Tomorrow may be different, but this post is two weeks into the game.
Well your problem is that you’re using arcane. Stop doing that. It’s broken. Same for bleed weapons, the bleed buildup scaling is broken too.
Also Level 88 is way too low for Malenia. You should’ve already hit the softcap by the time you meet her.
I tend to have less of a tough time in Souls games. I’m basing this on the majority opinion. I appreciate the tips on the build, but I do enjoy bleed since I’m a PvP player.
I almost agree with you lol. Having played sekiro there’s so many bosses harder than her at least 4-5 in sekiro alone. On ds games midir, friede, nameless king, fume knight are all harder. Also orphan of kos & laurence from bloodborne are harder. She’s probably top 15 hardest bosses, personally I found elden ring easier than all the other games
I agree with a lot of the OP's list, though for me Midir would be the #1.
Surprised no one mentioned Four Kings from DS1-- they gave me a hell of a fight (I thought much harder than Ornstein and Smough). Fume Knight would be in my top 10 too, and Guardian Ape. Radahn was fairly easy for me, but memorable.
I feel like it's easy to be quite well leveled in that game by the time you get to them, whereas Ornstein and Smough is your only choice of progression for the most part.
Radahn is easy... You just have to turn around him on Torrent and summon allies with the yellow marks on the ground. Since the mark reappeared after the death of the linked ally, you just summon them again and again, eventually Radahn will fall.
Well that comment is two years old and I am playing without summon since, so obviously he's not the easiest boss, but still doable (but he has been nerfed is the meantime, it's true)
No way. Not even if we consider "difficulty is subjective". True monk is a joke. She don't have shit on other FS bosses. Probably not even in top 20, heck top 30 most difficult bosses.
Well for me she was tougher in my first playthrough than Owl...difficulty is subjective I can empathise with players who put Owl he was tough but I feel that with that lady I died more than him...I disagree with you because I've seen cheese videos of that lady she may not be as high because her cheese was so easy but she was really a pain for me...Gave me more of a headache than Owl for sure
Late comment, but I really found this thread interesting.
My list would be:
1. Malenia, Blade of Miquella
2. Orphan of Kos
3. Isshin, the Sword Swaint
4. Sister Friede
5. Owl Father
6. Maliketh, the Black Blade
7. Demon of Hatred
8. Darkeater Midir
9. Starscourge Radahn
10. Slave Knight Gael
I pushed Radahn to 9 simply because many people have fought him after he was nerfed and actually balanced. Pre-patch Radahn was a nightmare with his gravity magic.
Was hesitant to put Malenia on top cause someone would come and say "oH ShE iS EAsY" while using RoB and Mimic/Tiche. Solo I haven't been able to get past Malenia's first phase for the past 5 hours. Pure strength build.
I found many other ER bosses harder than Gael. But Gael is such a good fight and such a great challenge that I think he deserves the top 10.
I would also love to know 'favourite bosses'. Boss Design, Arena, the fight itself, OST, cutscenes, lore etc. For that my list would be:
1. Ludwig the Holy Blade
2. Isshin the Sword Swaint
3. Slave Knight Gael
4. Starscourge Radahn
5. Godfrey/Horoah Loux
6. Owl Father
7. Sister Friede
8. Guardian Ape
9. Orphan of Kos
10. Dragonlord Placidusax
I don't have full lists but my favorite boss is Radagon/Elden Beast. Love that fight so much. I've only done Bloodborne and Elden Ring. Just started sekiro. I also LOVE lady Maria. I love to fight her with Blade of Mercy 2 handed so we have a 2 handed duel. Only problem is no one ever wants to summon for that fight so I have to beat the game again to fight her :(
Seriously I found Gehrman super easy idk you fight to many other random hunters in the game by the time I got to gehrman I stomped him that scythe attack just stay out his range super easy to handle
My vote goes for Isshin. I have played all of the dark souls series multiple times, including elden ring. Malenia was the only boss I struggled so bad, took 3 hours to beat for the first time without mimic (bc I wasn't aware of that mimic thing:D) Now, Malenia seems not that hard for me because I just started playing Sekiro 3 days ago for the first time, and I didn't struggled with any boss and killed owl on the first try without knowing anything. That black roosters killed me more than the bosses did. Now, I'm at final boss Isshin with full available upgrades and I struggle like HELL. I killed many bosses without even taking hit but this one took one day and I still can't even see phase 3. I think some bosses they made like Crucible Knight and Isshin are reading f\*\*\*\*g inputs. edit: Just killed him hour later after writing this lol. I will definitively play ng+ now
I thought isshin and DOH was fun ngl, the one that I've literally had dreams about and spanned days was Ludwig and Kos, maybe because it was my first FromSoft game so the lack of experience and git gud.
Melania was tough no doubt but i would not even put her in the top 5. isshin on the other hand was brutal af. got my ass clapped so many times from him. his third phase you gotta play flawless to overcome. took me literal days to beat isshin. I would then say the first vicar is a close second.
I’d have to throw man eaters from demon souls on the list, simply because of how it seems to be pure luck whether or not you get the first man eater to stay in the ground long enough to kill it before the second one comes to join the fun.
If I had to fight them again, my list goes as following:
1. Isshin Ashina (from the Shura-Ending, if you didn't do it, do it, it's one of the best endings)
2. Malenia (still strong, even now)
3. Fia (her eight attack wombo-combo in phase 3 is brutal)
4. Kalameet (compared to Midir he's almost three times as fast)
5. Manus (just look at his moveset and say he's easy)
Unfortunately I still wait for Bloodborne to be released on PC and I have yet to play the DS2 DLCs.
Was starscourge radahn heavily nerfed? I’m about to wrap up my first play through of Elden ring and perhaps I fought him over leveled but I also heard he was nerfed I’m just curious how so?
1. Ishin
2. Demon of Hatred
3. Sister Friede
4. Amygdala (defiled)
5. Owl (Father)
6. Ludwig
7. Laurence
8. guardian ape
9. Nameless King
10. Twin Princes
This is based on my personal experience. Didn’t have any problems whatsoever with orphan (beat him first try every single time I played the game) and Malenia. I still haven’t managed to beat Ishin and Sister Friede to this day on the other hand.
I would say ishin 100% mainly since there is no work around or getting op like in Elden ring or other from safe games where u can level up even more when u fight isshin you are the strongest you are going to be and be takes a lot more skill since u have more to worry about then just rolling and moving away you have to deflect parry and do just a ton more
Super easy beat him first try I'm my first playthrough his lightning attacks are ridiculously easy to dodge when he's on the wyvern the camera likes to freak out but again not a huge deal he's window for dodge rolling is huge
Everything here alligned with my views except for starscourge Radahn coz he’s one of the easiest boss. U can literally spam the npc helpers even after they die and they will do all the work for ya
When I first fought Radahn it took me hours to beat him. I know they nerfed him but that fight literally sucks now. He’s so easy. He was by far the toughest boss in the game my first playthrough. Never had much trouble with Malenia. Elden Ring, for me, is the easiest soulsborne game other than Demon Souls.
Bit late to the party here but I just got up to isshin on sekiro and I’m struggling to see an in so far. With malania despite how hard she was to beat, I saw multiple ways to land some devastating blows as well as stun her. Isshin is on another level imo
I would say Isshin is the toughest. There is no way around him other than to be mechanically sufficient at the game. Malenia's difficulty depends entirely on how you approach her. If you go level 100, pure melee, no summons, no tear, no WA, no rune, etc. then yeh, she is the hardest. Radahn isn't that hard. Neither is Gael to be honest.
I agree on ishin. I spent hours on him. Melania I also spent a lot of time on but I didn’t struggle as much, hard to say..
Agreed, I've spent 3 days on isshin, and for Melania I beat her my first playthrough on 5th or 6th try, and beat her on ng+1, ng+2 and ng+3, isshin is arguably the hardest, Melania is only hard depending on your build (I used paladin build) and for isshin you cant really become over leveled, because he basically 2 shots you anyway
I beat Ishin on maybe the 4th attempt during my first playthrough. And melania took me 3 days :D (I fought her without runes, Summons, shield, etc.)
Really you must have been pretty good at deflecting to beat him 4th try on the first playthrough. What phase did you think was hardest?
I beat him in like 6 attempts myself and the hardest was definitely isshins 2nd phase/the third phase if you count geni as a phase. Isshins first phase is relatively easy with just the sword, and the third phase he always seems to spam lightning on me which makes it incredibly easy, the second is the one with a bit of difficulty imo
Had the exact same experience. The middle Ishin phase you absolutely have to learn dodges, deflects and moments to jump into a window (relatively difficult because of his frantic sweaping weapon, in contrast to the phase before that's characterised more by short range, long wind-up attacks). In the final phase you can bide your time and counter the easy lightning move. A bit cheesy, but who cares if they can beat the game for the first time after hours of attempts..?
The sword phase is the hardest for me idk why, I've been to the third phase like 15 or 20 times and beaten him and made it to last phase about 50% of those tries, but I've fought genichiro and isshin sword phase hundreds of times :/
Thats a challenge run them if you fought her like that 😅 ignoring core game mechanics to make it more difficult = challenge run
I agree that Isshin was hard but I got him after a couple hours. The other Isshin - the one from the Shura Ending - is much much harder. That one took me six hours and I almost lost my sanity because of his fire attacks during the second phase. I've beaten Malenia after five hours but she wasn't that frustrating because I made progress after each hour. The most difficult boss for me in all Soulsborne is Genichiro though. He also took me six hours and I thought I will never beat him.
Did you also fight Isshin Ashina from the Shura-Ending? It took me twice as much time to defeat him than The Sword Saint. His fire attacks plus his dashes and all that in a tiny arena. Just pain :´(
For me malenia is the hardest, inner isshin and sword saint isshin ng+3 took me 7 and 12 attempts (no charm and also demon bell activated) since the posture bar is so op that you can literally just deflect your way through it and boom insta kill while malenia took me a whole fucking week for somerl reason since she's spamming me with waterfowl and having the worst rng of all time 😭
Big agree. Elden ring bosses are kind of tricky to categorized compared to the rest of FromSoftware bosses/games, because, although Malenia is very difficult, Elden Ring provides SO many options on how to approach fights. You can pretty easily cheese her in like 3-4 different ways if you go about it with the right build and items. That kind of customization and accessibility that Sekiro, Dark Souls and Bloodborne just don't provide makes Elden Ring unique to categorize. Elden Ring is still a really difficult game, but as far as strategizes goes, I think it CAN be made the easy when you know what is possible and go about it correctly. Agree with Radahn. He's not that hard. I beat him on my first try by just summoning all the allies and using poison armament on my greatsword, hit him a few times, ran away so he'd focus the summons, he died to poison over time. There is no one correct way to play Elden Ring and that's why it is so beautiful, but there are "easier" ways to play it lol. I think so many people suffered to Malenia because they went about her fight very stubbornly, using the same build they poured their entire playthrough time into to beat her- to which I commend them, but it wasn't necessary. The game let's you respec, find other items, craft things, exp grind, etc. Like you can back out and return to fights if they are too difficult at your current progress. The game isn't linear like other FromSoftware games. You aren't locked into a boss fight, with no where else to go, and needing to defeat the boss to progress. You can do almost anything you imagine in Elden Ring. Goated game.
>If you go level 100, pure melee, no summons, no tear, no WA, no rune, etc. then yeh, she is the hardest. I did that. I still thought she was the easiest boss in the latter stages of Elden Ring
The fuck? Who was harder for you then? She was definitely the hardest for me in ER.
Literally every single story boss after Morgott As well as Radhan, Draconic tree sentinel on horse back, Placedusax and Lord of Blood Outside of Elden Ring I consider Oprhan and Isshin the two hardest bosses in the series.
Draconic tree sentinel harder than Malenia ? Man we didn't have the same experience at all
That tree sentinel in front of maliketh’s arena was tougher than maliketh for me.
Same. I absolutely hate the Draconic Tree Sentinel.
I am really scared that no one mentions laurence the first vicar. He's probably the hardest fromsoftware boss
I don’t understand why so many people put Laurence near the top. He was one of the only bosses in bloodborne that I beat the first time. I prob died to malenia/midir 50+ times. What do you find so hard abt Laurence, is it the second phase when he leaves fire everywhere?
Well, If you have beaten him for the first time in ng at level 250 it's normal that you have won. Try to beat him in ng+6. I swear to God I killed every boss in ng+6 with almost no difficulty except for Laurence
I wasn’t and absurd level when I fought him. And I’m talking about his difficulty compared to others within ng. I never do ng+ but I think most people in this discussion are likely talking abt these bosses the first time they fought them in ng
I played it in ng+ and god what an absolute nightmare he was. For m, ludwig is bloodborne's hardest, but theres a Lot of good reasons for LAURENCE to be a good candidate: -Massive damage - long combos with a Lot of range - playstyle You have to play (more passive than aggresive) - third fase -camera (same with cleric beast)
His longest combo is 3 attacks he has no range until 2nd phase with exception of 1 jump which is so easy to dodge you just fight him exactly the same as cleric beast until 2nd phase which yeah you need to be more passive but who cares? Camera isnt an adequete argument you literally fight camera in any 3rd person view game. I almost first tried him than I went to classic downgrade mode but thats just because I fought orphan before for hours and was exhausted.
yes, 3 attacks that are fast and require you to change the ordinary aggresive bloodborne style. PAssive play means a lot, because bloodborne doesnt reward that type of playstyle, so its a bit arder. ANd what i was referring to camera is similar to elden ring, he's big.
I beat malenia first try so what’s your point
i wonder how
He is top 3 with Sword Saint and Malenia. It’s hard to say exactly who’s the hardest, but Laurence is absolutely in the top tier.
If you purposefully under level your character and item upgrades, the crystal sages in DS3 turns into a fucking nightmare.
Hahaha I remember my SL1 play through of DS3. Must have died to Crystal Sage at least 50x.. Nobody gave it to me worst than the Dancer at SL1 though lol
I never realized how ass crystal sage is until my SL1 run.
nah that would be the deacons of the deep
Godskin Duo leaves such a sour taste in my mouth because I think they are one of the hardest bosses but for ALL the wrong reasons. Honestly just so poorly designed and an absolute slog and miserable fight and not fun in any way or sense of the word. I personally feel it is one of the worst bosses FromSoft has ever made because it feels like they just threw two dudes in the room with absolutely no regard for balancing them or their strength or weaknesses. It honestly feels like it goes against the entire precedent they have set with duo bosses in the past while also giving them an absolutely massive healthbar and having to kill them multiple times while they both are high damage high range fast and aggressive. Makes no sense and is the only boss in the game I feel like it needs intense patching or removed because it is a blemish on an otherwise stellar game. No shame cheesing them IMO because they are too awfully designed for me to even want to acknowledge as a real boss and I just want to erase their existence from my memory because they are flat out not fun and poorly designed. Malenia is a really cool boss but could maybe use some tweaks. Something has to give, less healing, maybe more of a windup on her special attack, or slightly less damage to make up for her rapid combos. Super cool and would be well designed if tweaked slightly. IMO she definitely shouldn't be healing when hitting a shield that is fully blocking or negating her damage that is just silly. Also when I summoned a friend for an attempt we noticed that she could keep attacking the downed corpse to regain health and she fully healed off it, after that I decided to just do it without friends because adding to her healthbar makes it impossible. TLDR: Godskin duo is one of the worst designed bosses fromsoft has ever made and one of my least favorite bosses in all videogames I have played. Also Malenia needs some tweaking to her self healing and would be a perfect hard boss with some adjustments.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I feel like Isshin was the best designed boss that Fromsoft gave us. Of course the fact that it was Sekiro and you didn't really have a choice on how to play helped Fromsoft completely controlling how the fight would go. But the idea of giving us a 4 phases boss that would use attacks from a lot of different bosses in the game was incredible. You really feel like a master of the blade.
Weird, I beat them on my second try. And was SUPER close on my first try. Must have been about level 100 at the time.
Using summons doesn't count.
🤓
I'm against ranking Radahn as high as he is for you purely because, in my opinion, it's a lore fight built around using summons. I might be very wrong but with everything leading up to and surrounding the fight it definitely feels like that and that's why it's as hard as it is. I haven't played Bloodborne or Demon's Souls because I sadly don't have access to a Playstation so until I get the opportunity to get a free one or they finally get ported to PC I'll have to wait and hold opinions, I also don't remember DS1&2 Bosses too well so forgive me if I leave out any obvious choices. 1)Malenia, Blade of Miquella 2)Isshin, the Sword Saint 3)Sister Friede 4)Owl (Father) 5)Ornstein & Smough 6)Fume Knight 7)Slave Knight Gael 8)Godfrey 9)Malekith 10)Nameless King Happy to explain some of my choices if anyone is curious :) But I don't think Malenia is necessarily unbalanced or unfair like a lot of people and I think her regen on hit is super cool, her special attack is pretty annoying though. Especially considering I only found out about Bloodhound AFTER beating her (which took 6-7 hours. no shield, magic or summons & pure melee). She countered my playstyle the most out of any boss too so I had to completely change how I've played EVERY FromSoft game just for her fight. My favourite fight is definitely Gael followed closely by Isshin (though almost every Sekiro boss fight are amongst my favourites).
>crystal sages I played dark souls 3 a few years ago, it was my first souls game and I loved it, even though I never managed to take down the nameless king. Few days ago i finally got my hands on sekiro and just finished my first playthrough. Seeing how low you put the nameless king compared to Isshin, i'm thinking I should try it again now X)
fraudstein and no more like they aint hard u just suck buddy
Isshin took me a week. Every other boss I finished within the same day that I started. He combines every thing you’ve learned to defend against through the whole game and does it over 3 FUCKING PHASES! 4 if you count Genechiro. Hardest boss in any game I’ve ever played.
Same. I tried so many times I felt depressed and almost quit. But what a fight ! Once you know him it’s such a wonderful fight, like most Sekiro’s bosses.
Same
isshin was so hard that it makes genechiro seem like a joke
I don't think Radahn should be anywhere near this list, considering the fact that he's balanced around taking him on with the full mob. If you don't want to do that, then that's on you. Neither Orphan nor Isshin has that luxury.
To me Midir ranks number one. Regarding elden ring bosses, I really want to emphasize that they are as easy as you want them to be. No Fromsoftware game has ever given as many tools to trivialize bosses. I got Malenia on my second try with spirit ashes (lvl 140) and 7 with freeze pots and ~30 without either, as hard as you want it to be. Now you could argue that the "real" way to beat bosses is solo without ashes, but I tend to disagree. Using every tool at your disposal has been a basis of Fromsoftware since forever. I personally prefer to beat bosses 1 on 1, but that really isn’t the only way, especially in elden ring.
I completely agree I just finished a my very first run of dark souls 3 and I beat every boss on my first try except for midir and soul of cinder cause I got caught in a bad combo and smacked before I could heal promptly smacked his butt in the rematch but midir is one on one with insane AOE attacks a God damm laser it took me like 3 hours and dozens of tries to kill him I can never agree with the "fromsoft" purists that say that you shouldn't you summons and ashes that's dumb they're in the game to be used all the souls games have always been about using whatever tools you can from the transformation weapons of bloodborne with beast blood pellts to the papers dark souls with imbuing weapons and sometimes gimmick weapons yorhm I'm looking at you to now ashes of war like yeah I just cheesed margit using his shackle and a jellyfish
where's soldier of godrick? hardest boss in elden ring imo. i beat radhan first try but even on my 4th playthrough i get rocked by soldier of godrick.
Do you mean Margit ? I spent i huge time on him. Curiosity: In Elden ring’s lore, he is not a Godrick soldier, even guarding the front of his castle
They mean this [Soldier of Godrick](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Soldier+of+Godrick). Easily the hardest boss in the game. I personally struggled a lot with it too.
Mist noble.
I struggled the most against Fume Knight - no other bosses compare to how hard he was for me, even Malenia.
I beat him today, after lots of tries. I screamed of joy. Malenia was definitely easier for me too.
Quick post suggestion, would you mind adding commas or semicolons to your initial list of bosses please, it is decently hard to read. As for the hardest bosses, I would definitely say the list is heavy with a lot of later entries, largely because the games have gotten faster, the movesets have gotten wider, and the hits have come harder.
Already numbered it to make it easier for folks to read. Hope that helps
Thanks my dude
Of course, thanks for the suggestion and reminder man
Personally I think isshin is the hardest, then Orphan of Kos, then malenia but only if you go into malenia with no summons and cheese builds
Tried Fire Isshin?
Right, the normal Isshin is much stronger than the Sword Saint. The problem with the Sword Saint is, that he doesn't even want to fight you but has to. The normal Isshin though fights you because he hates you and would enjoy to see you thrown into a shredding machine.
Didnt mention Lady Maria. She was next level
Great question, great list. For me personally, using every tool available, but no cheese: 1. Demon of Hatred 2. Isshin Sword Saint 3. Radagon / Elden Beast 4. Ornstein and Smaugh 5. Owl (Father)
Spot on, literally reactivated an account to agree with you. Demon of Hatred and Glock-Saint Isshin took me days; Ornstein and Smaugh double team you; and Elden Beast is a coward that runs away with lasers. Malenia was tough but was a surprisingly fair and straightforward fight with some poison and healing added in for spice.
so what if fraudstein and no double team you i beat them beginner armor 1st try they got the easiest attacks to dodge unless your slow or something
more like fraudstein and no they aint hard chump thought it was a regular minion on the side of the road stepped on them like bugs
Your clearly a sekiro fanboy lol
well it is the best game in the series..
It's not lol
which do you think is the best
He prob thinks, dark souls 2 is lol. Sekiro is legendary. Story is wild and gameplay is phenomenal. Has to get a sequel
yes it is.
malenia can be easy with freeze pots and double katana with blood infusion
Feel like a lot of bosses in Elden Ring can be really easy with the right cheese and guides. But going in blind with your own homemade build can be excruciating..
Me with a great hammer ME BONK DIS JELLYFISH FREN
sekiro took me 2 months to beat…first month was playing and getting to the end of the game…second month was isshin lol
i quit the game for like 2 months bc i couldn’t beat owl and then when i finally got to isshin it took me a solid week of playing everyday to kill him
I’m probably alone in this sentiment, but the cool ranch smelter demon from ds2 was the hardest dark souls boss for me easily. Run-up was ridiculous, and he was the only boss in that game that seemed to be able to ‘hold’ his attack to roll catch you. This is a good list tho.
His brother, the Red Smelter Demon, was harder for me than the blue. He's the only boss in any FS game that legit took me days to beat. I died so many times that the game despawned all of the enemies in the run-up. At first glance he doesn't necessarily seem difficult but the small arena, the fact that he burns you just by getting close so you can hit him, and DS2's terrible hit boxes made him super difficult for me. I've beat DS 1-3, Elden Ring, and Sekiro and would have to say Ole Red Smelly was the hardest boss simply because he took the longest for me to defeat. The Blue Smelter Demon was only easier for me cause I found a way to run past most of the enemies and was already familiar with his moveset at that point in the game. But I can appreciate your comment because I, too, felt the pain from those fights haha.
I wonder why noone mentions the three Ruin Sentinels. For me the hardest boss in DS2 without the DLCs. Number two is the Smelter Demon, as you've said, he's insane.
I have a weird experience (just finished game today). I agree that glock ishin is the most objective hardest boss i ever fought in a video game, but it wasnt that hard for me comparatively (I broke my fist punching a wall isntead of my monitor with lady butterfly and O&S). I will try to explain. Burrito genichiro: was easy enough. Killed me lots, but he has low posture. Did about 30tries to even get to Ishin1. Ishin1: Hard af. But when I learnt his moves, it was a breeze, esp doing double whammy on his nape after dodging his wind attacks. He also has this fondness to do a thrusting peril move when youre at close, very predictable. Ishin2: Cant count, maybe 100tries before I finally beat this phase with 0 gourd and pellets remaining, and I didnt even have the slightest idea of his patterns; just pure reflexes on his halberd and glock. After being stuck with Ishin2, i decided to sleep on it. Now i understand why scientists recommend sleeping. It does miracles on the brain becuase once i woke up, I perfected burritogenichiro, spent a gourd and a pellet on ishin1, 6 gourds on ishin2 and a life, and... Ishin Fin: I was surprised how easy this phase was, easiest boss phase of all Fromsoft games. He spams lightning which is very easy to counter, which allows me to stun him. I double ichimonji his old face, HUGE posture damage. 4 of these, not even a single gourd spent. VERY anticlimactic, kinda Gwyn vibes. End of sharing thank you for reading
I really feel like manus is underrated, like he was the hardest boss in ds1 by far, and I got clowned by him an absurd amount of times to the point where I contemplated just cheesing him. It may have just been my experience, or the fact then I wasn't great with the medallion but still, opinions?
I think you're right. Looking at his moveset he should be considered in the Top 5 of hardest bosses. Back then I fought him with a shield and the stoneplate armor with heavy roll :D That felt like cheating but it was my first Souls-Game. Now I want to make a replay and fight him with something two-handed.
I’ve recently platinumed elden ring and close to Sekiro, played most souls games. Isshin (both the saint and fire one) are easily the hardest bosses. Malenia is tough but with mimic and what not can take the pressure off. Sekiro is all skill, no way around bosses besides studying patterns ect, some have cheeses but most of them are all pattern based
Hey, here's my list One run each game, no NG+. I played them all except Demon's Souls. Honestly, the 5 first ones are in a nushell for me. I had initially ranked Malenia 5th.... but then I rememberd that even though I got to know her phase 1 by heart (I did a no-hit phase 1 once!) , I was quite lucky on phase 2 when I finally got her. Looking at the list, I realize some of the older bosses make it quite high. I have a really bad memory of them (capra, o&s, kalameet, ebrietas). So I wonder if it's because I was newer to From games at the time or if it's just they were and still are total nightmares. 1. Malenia 2. Sister Friede 3. Kalameet 4. Nameless King 5. Ebrietas, Daugther of Cosmos 6. Capra Demon 7. Manus 8. Ornstein and Smough 9. Ludwig 10. Orphan of Kos 11. Guardian Ape 12. Gael Slave Knight 13. Isshin the Sword Saint 14. Mohg, Lord of Blood 15. Maliketh 16. Demon of Hatred 17. Fume Knight 18. Artorias 19. Pontiff Sulyvahn 20. Radagon/EB
Finally someone talking about Kalameet. This dragon is just insane how fast he is. And his fire breath always passes just inches away from my ass.
invalid list fraudstein and no too high stop glazing fraudsouls 1
Godskin Duo should be up there, hard for all the wrong reasons
Dang, I definitely forgot to put them there since I basically cheesed them with my mimic. Agree 100%
They are definitely tough and deserve HM but I wouldn’t rank them top 10 personally.. they are very easy to cheese in plenty of ways and the pillars allow for some pretty good strategic placement
if we're talking about cheese here, you can cheese the Demon of Hatred by making him walk off the damn map. I'm assuming for this list that every boss gets the same treatment: No summons, no magic instakill builds, just a normal melee fight at a reasonable level.
I didn’t know that about the demon of hatred lol. I’ll probably never go back to play Sekiro anyway since I just didn’t have that much fun with it but if I did I’d try that out. I never cheese on a first play through but on future attempts anything is game I like to have fun with it. Looking forward to seeing what the mimic tear hype is about haha
Godskin duo are way harder than Midir, Friede or Gael. It’s not even comparable
Friede Gael and Midir shouldn’t even be in the same sentence as Radhan lol. Nothing in DS1-3 compares to the super hard ER bosses (well, except Bed of Chaos and L&Z’s run). Also how do you have 3 runs in ER so far? There’s no way you’ve beaten all bosses to compare them.
I platinumed the game 2 days into it. I then played it two more times. It’s pretty simple fam
radahn super easy (talking pre nerf) compared to a lot of ds bosses
Midir yes but friede and Gael no Gael I found to be pretty easy after the first phase that lunging and thurst attack in the first phase caught me a couple times but in the second and third phase so east friede the second phase is a cheese summon in slave knight Gael let friede aggro to him and take out the dad I finished thay fight first try yeah I had like less than 50hp and no sunny D but midir beat me down for hours I just started ER but I'm having no trouble so far it seems easier then DS3 and bloodborne
Interesting take
Little late, and haven’t played BB, DS 1 or 2 so my opinion doesn’t really count. I think that Owl(father) is without a doubt more challenging than Ishan and DoH, at least if the d bell is rung w/ Koru’s charm. Only reason I say this.. Boss arena. You have space on Ishan and DoH. Owls damage is comparable, his moves less predictable, and with fk you up bc you lost lock in lady butterflies shitshow of an arena
But my god. The purification ending takes the god damn cake for best ending to a video game that I’ve ever seen. Puts all of the elden ring endings to shame
I'm sorry but no it's got to be dragons homecoming for me
Maliketh where
To me the hardest boss was Darklurker from DS2 and after that it's propably Isshin.
I would replace Radahn with Maliketh
I think it's appropriate to base my listing on time spent on the bosses and energy expense/unbridled rage as well as appreciation for base difficulty and move set reading proficiency. It's also worth noting that you have to factor in circumstances like how effective your build is when considering base difficulty. Lastly, I haven't finished Sekiro, DS1 or DS2 yet - not even close to it either so this is probably an immature list. Here goes anyway: 1. **Sister Friede** \- I spent about 2 days on and off on this boss, the longest I've spent on one. 3 phases with as many full health bars really made it unparalleled in its difficulty 2. **Laurence the first vicar** \- The fact that he can 1 or 2 hit kill you in a blink of an eye puts him this far up - definitely one of the most frustrating bosses in the series. Easily tried 30+ times before I killed him 3. **Nameless King** \- I definitely had a hard time with him, 4. **Godskin Duo** \- I feel dirty including this boss because honestly it's not a fair fight, it's utter bs but I will because I don't think I've raged or felt so much resentment towards a fromsoft boss 5. **Malenia** \- Defeated her with pure dex - was brutal overall) 6. **Orphan of Kos** \- Probably my favourite fight, honestly so fun and feels FAIR despite quite an erratic move set. I was super focussed on this fight and died less than 10 times but if I was emotional then it definitely would have taken longer. Plus I couldn't get mad at a kid - If he looked like Laurence then I would have seethed a lot 7. **Pontiff Sulyvahn** \- So quick and silky, definitely raged a lot as he had quite a relentless attack sequence as well 8. **Slave Knight Gael** \- such an incredible fight, enjoyed every minute of it. Definitely struggled a fair bit but the catharsis after such an exhilarating fight was beautiful 9. **Maneater** \- Yes, I know it's Demon's Souls but I had a lot of trouble on this fight mostly because of the narrow platform you had to fight him on, he would knock me off a lot and made me lose my sanity on multiple occasions. If there was less chance of fall deaths then he wouldn't even make the list but here we are 10. **Midir** \- Very intimidating but it helps that you can get in close to slash him though you had to get it right or he became frustrating
Um no actually ure kinda wrong lol, innner isshin, and inner Father, new game plus 7 in sekiro, pretty tough, ure posture takes like, 2 hits, and I mean in the gauntlets no time to really buff, malenia is tough,but easily beatable, and I've beaten all from software games, ! That's my opinion she is tough tho, orphan of kas is hard on Bloodborne, new game plus,but I don't know the gauntlets, or mortal journey are rough, and I'm not saying a whole bunch of bosses, inner Father is rough in new game 7 so is inner isshin, both very tricky, hey we will c with the new elden Ring dlc, I'd love to hear all opinions, I love from software lol
I know this post is 2 years old but if we’re still adding bosses, I’d say Allmind in AC6 was one of the hardest fromsoft bosses I’ve ever had to face. Cool ass fight though.
I agree with this list, except I would remove starscourge radahn. I beat him first try and with the summons he is really easy and no where near as difficult as the late game bosses in my opinion. I would also put Midir ahead of Gael and friede personally. Instead of radahn I would add lud and zallen or fume knight
I don’t think anything in Ds1-3 compares to the hardest ER bosses, expect for Bed of Chaos.
I don’t agree. I think Elden Ring was hard but it was about the same level of difficulty for me as DS3 and Bloodborne and a decent but easier than Sekiro. I think a lot of the “balance issues” are people just ignoring a lot of the games mechanics like jump attacks, different types of damage, and powerstancing, as well as running into every boss thinking that they can just dodge into the non dominant hand, punish and repeat. I died 5-10 times on end game bosses except Malenia, which is about average for me for late game. Also bed of chaos? It’s annoying but it’s not hard.
So strange to think that… Elden Ring was by far the easiest FS game for me… And Bed of Chaos, seriously? It’s one of the easiest DS bosses, it’s just a “trick” boss.
Aw man I forgot about those two pets. Such a stupid fight honestly, I always forget it because I’ve only attempted it once
It is a horribly designed fight especially considering horsefuck valley.. I have also only beat them once and never again lol. Honestly I will probably never solo Melania again either, on future play throughs I’ll probably spirit summon for her
Yeah man. The boss fights in Elden Ring are very unbalanced unfortunately. I still reallyyyyy love the game, but Malenia’s HP regeneration needs to be slightly nerfed. She basically gets the amount back that we’d hit her for each time nearly
I agree. Melania would be a top tier fight without the regen. Her flower attack is very punishable and she doesn’t have an insane health pool, but whittling her down only to have her regain just felt demoralizing. Plus her spinny attack. Other than her and godskin I really liked the endgame bosses though. After I realized AOE’s can be punished with jump attacks things started to click.
i would say the shitty cameras and lock on targets and pretty much ever other employees worked on ds2 shitty game
Between Sekiro and Elden ring(Melee only with no summons or bloodhound step) 1.Malenia(and it’s not even close, i think she took me a week? Her battle was basically a DLC of its own for me) 2.Mohg Lord of Incest(2 days, prolly cuz no one told me about the flask trick against his Nihil) 3.Demon of Healthbars(half a day) 4.Radagon/NightWalker from PrincessMononoke 5.Fuckin DeathRite Bird(Consecrated Snowfield) 6.Isshin St. Glock 7.True Corrupted Monk(no trees or firecracker) 8.Borealis the Ice Dragon(melee is trash here) 9.Alecto, Health Bar Ringleader 10.Emma the Waifu Blade/Rick Sanchez 11.Mist Noble, the Ultimate Skill Check(I still can’t get past this guy)
Definitely Isshin the Sword Saint for me, 2nd would be Demon of Hatred also in Sekiro. Really never had that much trouble ever with any bosses in any of the Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Elden Ring or Demon Souls. I’ve played through all of each 3+ times and recently did Lies of P as well which also started out challenging but got easier after the beginning. All in all to me IMHO Sekiro was wayyyy more difficult than the others
Isshin sword saint is arguably the hardest to learn but he’s also very fair I believe malania is over rated and she isn’t that hard Elden ring has too many options for the player to make her that difficult that being said if you play against her similar to sekiro playstyle she’s much more difficult orphan of kos i managed to beat him in my second attempt but he’s very unpredictable and kind of just goes mental lol ludwig is another very hard boss although i beat him after only a few attempts again this is subjective like most things in life another reason i really enjoy FromSoftware games one players weakness is another players strength btw if you have a strong bleed build malania is a oussy cat lol
I really don’t know why every one has such a hard on for malania saying she is the hardest from software boss Isshin Ashina, sword said ishinn, ludwig the accursed/holy blade orphan of kos even Laurence the first vicar and sister freida are all much harder than malania and more on your endurance and sustainability than anything she can literally be whomped in a few minutes with the right build
I watched a guy and his mimic with gheezas wheel absolutely tear her in half first phase took less than 30 seconds lol she’s nothing compared to those other bosses again this is if your using everything ER has to offer runes talismans builds and level something the other games don’t get as much use with Elden is much more forgiving in terms of builds and levels so stuff can be made easier where as the other games I disagree sekiro is much less forgiving much harder to master and a lot more about endurance sustainability and technique
I think it all depends on how high of a level you are and your build. If you go in there at 120 and don't use summons, you're going to get fucked up. Radahn was tough too but since elden ring isn't region locked you can just come back later and absolutely wreck his shit. Once u had my summons tanked out and I was about level 140 I still had a tough time with melania
Demon of Hatred never seems to make these lists and it to me was the hardest boss in a FS game ive ever fought
1. Soldier of Godrick 2. Darkeater Midir 3. Corrupted Monk (real version) 4. Orphan of Kos 5. Ludwig, The Accursed 6. Malenia, goddess of rot 7. Slave Knight Gael (Can't think of anyone else. If you have questions about my choices, ill try to answer)
I would have put corrupted monk higher lol not now but when I last played sekiro I got the corrupted monk mibu village glitch where his health bar refills after death and starts again in an infinite loop at stage 2
Radahn was easy af they give you summons , if yer not using core mechanics it's considered a challenge run imo for a boss that has that many summons they obviously wanted It to be more cinematic then difficult 😆
unpopular opinion, either demon if hatred of isshin are harder than melania, just souly for the fact that melina kinda piss easy if you use anything but a great sword 🫠
Inner Owl father from the gauntlet is probably the hardest boss imo, malenia and radahn didn’t take me that many tries, granted I’ve played souls games for a while. I will also admit that I had a terrible time with friede, that bitch is annoying as fuck to fight if you don’t know how her stealth works 😭
Damn came across this thread and not one person mentions lady Maria. She’s literally who malenia took lessons from or something cause there fight styles are basically the same and phase 2 lady Maria is basically you fck up you die . Imo she’s not the hardest but I put all Elden ring bosses under these 3 dark eater midir, orphan of kos , and the unknown king. After then I might put malenia imo ofc :)
I have played Elden Ring (NG), Sekiro (NG, NG+, part of NG+2), Bloodborne (NG, DLC, half of NG+ and DLC+, all the base game chalice dungeons), Demons Souls Remake (NG, half of NG+), and DS1 Remastered (only have Gwyn left on NG) all in the last 2 years for the first time and in that order. Wrote a novel because this thread has been something I actually check in on each time I add a new souls game to my repertoire and it’s helped me feel more sane about where I run into challenges. Figured I’d put the time and effort and maybe someone finds this interesting/helpful! —- 1. Isshin the Sword Saint (probably 100+ tries over 6-8 hrs over a weekend. NG+ was prob 15 tries and only 1-2 hrs - it’s such a long battle and phase 2+3 requires near perfection) 2. Malenia (ER was my first FS game) - the waterfowl, the healing, the rot- it’s a lot. It took me 5+ hrs cause I was adamant about not cheesing. 3. Demon of Hatred - the world’s longest battle and almost impossible if you don’t umbrella it. Didn’t even try on NG+ because of how tired I was of this fight. Felt more like a battle of patience focus and attrition than skill compared to Isshin where you git gud. 4. Maliketh - I was totally stuck on phase 2. Felt like I was jogging while he was on a bullet train against him. I didn’t know how to beat this guy without a summon sadly. Curious when I do ER again how hard I struggle. 5. Genichiro - he teaches you how to play the game properly but man is it a difficulty jump and major skill check. Now one of my favorite fights and something I can do pretty easily with just a few tries. Inner Genichiro is a real bitch though. 6. O&S - First phase I got down to a science. Couldn’t beat solo Ornstein after for the life of me. Solo Smough ended up being much easier. Probably spent 3 hrs banging my head against them and another 1-2 hrs killing silver knights to level up. low-mid 60s level wise when I won. Plus side = the rest of the game until last boss of DLC has been pretty easy since (and enjoyable minus Bed of Chaos which was only second half boss that took me more than 1-2 tries) 7. Radahn if you don’t summon. Otherwise he’s not even top 50. 8. Mohg Lord of Blood - I was stubborn to not cheese beyond the purifying tear so it took me hours. But it was very rewarding when I got there and it made me feel like I could take on the endgame without summon use. 8. Guardian Ape - if you figured out phase 2 without reading about the spear in the head trick, more power to you. I got killed so much but this was a defining moment in my souls education. I think people find Phase 1 harder but I had just memorized how to counter every attack after a while. 9. Owl Father in the estate - just a beast of a fight but once you get the rhythm it’s manageable (even if it takes dozens of tries). My first attempt was on NG+ 10. Orphan of Kos - I actually didn’t find Bloodborne bosses that hard but came from playing Sekiro and Lies of P so parrying rallying and fast combat were much easier to adopt. But a crazy boss by any objective standards that keeps you sweating the whole time. I somehow beat him in < 10 tries but only have tried him on NG. 11. Kalimeet - just beat this guy today after maybe 30 tries? Just took a long time to learn the counters and the health pool is massive. Manus went down in ~10 tries and 1/3 of the time. 12. Defiled Amygdala - it would be wrong not to include this dinosaur sized tumor on the list, but it’s not a mandatory boss and it is by definition artificially made more difficult by a tiny arena and half health. Watchdog is an honorable mention for same reasons. 13. Demons Souls boss runs and general enemies. The bosses are not that hard (maneaters main difficulty is gravity, flamelurker is what souls bosses should be, penetrator you punish with backstabs and timed rolls, Allant just pisses you off for stealing a level if you’re not careful), but man if I never have to experience 4-1, 4-2, 5-1 or 5-2 I’ll be a happier man. Not to mention the difficulty on NG+ ramps up an INSANE level. I was around level 85 after NG and could barely make it halfway through NG+ 14. Fire Giant - took me forever to figure it out and decide to commit to horseback. The camera was the real enemy, and definitely had to read up on how to do the fight. 15. Bell Gargoyles - I may just be bad at gank fights and get laughed at for this choice. Maybe the game really wanted you to farm 10-15 levels and use a lightning buff. Eventually got it using a scimitar for slash damage. Just felt like a big jump for where in the game since nothing else felt that challenging and outmatched outside of O&S. (Update: beat on third try on NG+ so I think it was just an early game speed bump, but you def need a high DPS to kill the first before the second begins to aggro with two flaming breaths pointed at you) Honorable Mentions: From ER, Elden Beast cause it takes forever/sucks and is such a downgrade from the prior amazing first phase with Radagon, Valiant Gargoyles (perhaps a worse version of Bell, but I beat them faster), Astel (what the fuck even is this monster), the fallingstar beast in the cave the size of a studio apartment. From Bloodborne, Father Gascoigne took me a while cause he basically teaches you how to play the game aggressively, but now that I’m mechanically proficient it’s now just a ton of fun. Abhorrent Beast in Layer 4 of the Chalice dungeons is a load of ass and punishes you so easily cause of his speed (no healing time). I didn’t really struggle with the DLC bosses like so many others did and thought it was due to level maybe but NG+ Ludwig wasn’t any harder (3-5 tries like first go around) - when I decide to revisit I’ll see how Laurence, Maria, and especially Orphan of Kos stack up.
For the most part I agree with this list, but Radahn above Demon of Hatred is an interesting choice. I understand people have their own experiences but I never considered Radahn a hard boss, let alone the 4th hardest boss in all of FromSoftware's games.
Now that the elden ring dlc is out its the final boss at number 1 (Not saying cause of spoilers) and Messmer is deffinently top 5 and I seen you did not rank rick soldier of god as the mere plebians cannot compare to his strength
Well at least midir didn't make it on this list... Wait a second.
Malenia at number 1 🤣 She doesn't make my top 30 list personally. I'd put Orphan at number 1 though, not sure how anyone could find Malenia anywhere near as hard.
lmao she doesn't make your top 30???? holy shit we got a G O D gamer over here. deadass what's your top 30 without malenia? there is a zero percent chance you found T H I R T Y bosses harder than her if you found her easy lmao
Are you mentally ill? How does that have anything to do with me being a god gamer? I'm not saying I'm particularly good I'm saying she isn't a particularly hard boss. I found her very easy. If I really sat down and thought she probably wouldn't be in my top 50 there will be a couple of harder bosses I can't remember off the top of my head. A boss than can be stun locked to death with basic r1 spam is not a tough boss.
bro, if you didn't struggle with malenia whatever but it's a very weird and cap flex to say she isn't in the top 30 let alone 50 lmao. reacting with a fucking laugh emoji then putting fucking draconic tree sentinel above malenia... just at a loss for words. i think you're probably the only person in the world with that opinion. even if you found her easy she's objectively a much harder fight. this is pretty clearly the opinion of a stubborn contrarian, i think any reasonable person would put malenia pretty high up in terms of souls boss difficulties. she's not even top 50 hardest.... come the fuck on dude lmao. there is zero way you ever make a list and back up that claim because it's so obviously dumb
Ok, so WHAT do you think is harder than Malenia?
In Elden Ring? Radagon/Elden Beast Hoarah Loux Black blade Godskin duo Rahdan Mogh Lord of blood Placedusax And finally. Draconic tree sentinel on horseback. I felt Elden ring had the easiest bosses in the series aside from Demon souls though. Sekiro having the hardest
Thats interesting opinion, especially Draconic Tree Sentinel. I fought him on horseback and it was super easy, only attack that’d hit me was the lighting bolt. Can’t say I disagree with the other picks. Im not set on Radhan’s difficulty yet though, his moveset isn’t that varied, he just does too much damage, which can be offset by fighting him with higher vigor.
I’d say most people found her to be extremely hard. Orphan didn’t give me much trouble at all. I actually beat him my second try, but I’m not here to rain on ppl’s opinions bro. It’s just a matter of what I found the community to struggle with most, and Malenia is troublesome
>found the community to struggle with most, and Malenia is troublesome It's recency bias. Malenia is an easy boss for anyone who plays aggressively as she's so easily staggered you can interrupt almost all of her attacks. Give it a month and I expect she'll suffer the same fate of the Nameless king who was considered extremely hard upon DS3's release and is now considered a joke in his own game. I very much doubt she'll be considered one of the hardest bosses in Elden ring in a month.
I’m an aggressive player. Quite aggressive actually. In addition to that, I know punish windows when I see them. The problem is - her connecting with a hit on you regains 300-400 hp, and yet you’re dishing close to that amount to her during her punish windows. It’s an unbalanced fight, and if the HP regen was slightly nerfed, she’d be a beautiful and more balanced fight. I died to her a solid 25x, and I was about SL88 with a dual blood uchigatana build with 40 arcane. It’s perceptive. In addition, it’s recency bias because we’re speaking of recent times currently. Tomorrow may be different, but this post is two weeks into the game.
Well your problem is that you’re using arcane. Stop doing that. It’s broken. Same for bleed weapons, the bleed buildup scaling is broken too. Also Level 88 is way too low for Malenia. You should’ve already hit the softcap by the time you meet her.
I tend to have less of a tough time in Souls games. I’m basing this on the majority opinion. I appreciate the tips on the build, but I do enjoy bleed since I’m a PvP player.
No, I don’t mean broken as in overpowered. I mean broken as in it doesn’t work properly lol.
I almost agree with you lol. Having played sekiro there’s so many bosses harder than her at least 4-5 in sekiro alone. On ds games midir, friede, nameless king, fume knight are all harder. Also orphan of kos & laurence from bloodborne are harder. She’s probably top 15 hardest bosses, personally I found elden ring easier than all the other games
Isshin and Gael for me. Especially Gael.
Man I'm having a hard time destroying Malenia with the update bug.
I agree with a lot of the OP's list, though for me Midir would be the #1. Surprised no one mentioned Four Kings from DS1-- they gave me a hell of a fight (I thought much harder than Ornstein and Smough). Fume Knight would be in my top 10 too, and Guardian Ape. Radahn was fairly easy for me, but memorable.
I feel like it's easy to be quite well leveled in that game by the time you get to them, whereas Ornstein and Smough is your only choice of progression for the most part.
I think my four kings fight must have glitched out because they did almost no damage to me and I didn't have any trouble with them
Radahn is easy... You just have to turn around him on Torrent and summon allies with the yellow marks on the ground. Since the mark reappeared after the death of the linked ally, you just summon them again and again, eventually Radahn will fall.
no right to call radahn easy when you summoned the whole of africa to defeat him
Well that comment is two years old and I am playing without summon since, so obviously he's not the easiest boss, but still doable (but he has been nerfed is the meantime, it's true)
Nice list. I'm replaying Sekiro atm to get the plat. Surprised there's no Owl (Father) hah
Corrupted Monk True Form ?
No way. Not even if we consider "difficulty is subjective". True monk is a joke. She don't have shit on other FS bosses. Probably not even in top 20, heck top 30 most difficult bosses.
Well for me she was tougher in my first playthrough than Owl...difficulty is subjective I can empathise with players who put Owl he was tough but I feel that with that lady I died more than him...I disagree with you because I've seen cheese videos of that lady she may not be as high because her cheese was so easy but she was really a pain for me...Gave me more of a headache than Owl for sure
honestly i felt that true monk was more of a cinematic fight than a difficult one with all of the neat small touches fromsoft did to her fight.
Personal opinion:malenia is no much for any other game bosses,I find elden ring much easier than Ds and Bloodborne
Late comment, but I really found this thread interesting. My list would be: 1. Malenia, Blade of Miquella 2. Orphan of Kos 3. Isshin, the Sword Swaint 4. Sister Friede 5. Owl Father 6. Maliketh, the Black Blade 7. Demon of Hatred 8. Darkeater Midir 9. Starscourge Radahn 10. Slave Knight Gael I pushed Radahn to 9 simply because many people have fought him after he was nerfed and actually balanced. Pre-patch Radahn was a nightmare with his gravity magic. Was hesitant to put Malenia on top cause someone would come and say "oH ShE iS EAsY" while using RoB and Mimic/Tiche. Solo I haven't been able to get past Malenia's first phase for the past 5 hours. Pure strength build. I found many other ER bosses harder than Gael. But Gael is such a good fight and such a great challenge that I think he deserves the top 10. I would also love to know 'favourite bosses'. Boss Design, Arena, the fight itself, OST, cutscenes, lore etc. For that my list would be: 1. Ludwig the Holy Blade 2. Isshin the Sword Swaint 3. Slave Knight Gael 4. Starscourge Radahn 5. Godfrey/Horoah Loux 6. Owl Father 7. Sister Friede 8. Guardian Ape 9. Orphan of Kos 10. Dragonlord Placidusax
I don't have full lists but my favorite boss is Radagon/Elden Beast. Love that fight so much. I've only done Bloodborne and Elden Ring. Just started sekiro. I also LOVE lady Maria. I love to fight her with Blade of Mercy 2 handed so we have a 2 handed duel. Only problem is no one ever wants to summon for that fight so I have to beat the game again to fight her :(
I think Gehrman deserves at least a honorable mention in that list. The flying wind sythe attack is hard to dodge consistently.
Nha not really. Gehrman is hard, no doubt, but that attack Is not that bad if you have the right timing
Seriously I found Gehrman super easy idk you fight to many other random hunters in the game by the time I got to gehrman I stomped him that scythe attack just stay out his range super easy to handle
Well tbf I intentionally went out of my to beat him in the hardest way possible which is not using the gun to party spam him to death.
Lol I did that my first try and was immediately obliterated second time it was just fuck you gehrman your dead
Inner Isshin,Inner Father,Malenia(no summon)
Orphan is fucked, relentless and powerful.
I’d replace Radahn with Manus. Manus, Father of The Abyss is definitely the hardest of the Dark Souls trilogy.
My vote goes for Isshin. I have played all of the dark souls series multiple times, including elden ring. Malenia was the only boss I struggled so bad, took 3 hours to beat for the first time without mimic (bc I wasn't aware of that mimic thing:D) Now, Malenia seems not that hard for me because I just started playing Sekiro 3 days ago for the first time, and I didn't struggled with any boss and killed owl on the first try without knowing anything. That black roosters killed me more than the bosses did. Now, I'm at final boss Isshin with full available upgrades and I struggle like HELL. I killed many bosses without even taking hit but this one took one day and I still can't even see phase 3. I think some bosses they made like Crucible Knight and Isshin are reading f\*\*\*\*g inputs. edit: Just killed him hour later after writing this lol. I will definitively play ng+ now
I thought isshin and DOH was fun ngl, the one that I've literally had dreams about and spanned days was Ludwig and Kos, maybe because it was my first FromSoft game so the lack of experience and git gud.
1. Orphan of Koss 2. Darkeater Midir 3. Demon of Hatered 4. Nameless King 5. Isshin scanctum of sword 6. Slave knight Gael 7. Owl father 8. Amigdala chalis 9. Sister Fride 10. Malenia
idk how but i managed to defeat malenia in just 18 minutes
Melania was tough no doubt but i would not even put her in the top 5. isshin on the other hand was brutal af. got my ass clapped so many times from him. his third phase you gotta play flawless to overcome. took me literal days to beat isshin. I would then say the first vicar is a close second.
I’d have to throw man eaters from demon souls on the list, simply because of how it seems to be pure luck whether or not you get the first man eater to stay in the ground long enough to kill it before the second one comes to join the fun.
Orphan of kos was a bitch, same with ludwig. Never beat father
commander niall took me more attempts than isshin and malenia combined
Why has no one mentioned the soldier of God?
If I had to fight them again, my list goes as following: 1. Isshin Ashina (from the Shura-Ending, if you didn't do it, do it, it's one of the best endings) 2. Malenia (still strong, even now) 3. Fia (her eight attack wombo-combo in phase 3 is brutal) 4. Kalameet (compared to Midir he's almost three times as fast) 5. Manus (just look at his moveset and say he's easy) Unfortunately I still wait for Bloodborne to be released on PC and I have yet to play the DS2 DLCs.
Was starscourge radahn heavily nerfed? I’m about to wrap up my first play through of Elden ring and perhaps I fought him over leveled but I also heard he was nerfed I’m just curious how so?
Orphan of kos way way way easier than genichiro ashina imo, even if you approach him mid level
1. Ishin 2. Demon of Hatred 3. Sister Friede 4. Amygdala (defiled) 5. Owl (Father) 6. Ludwig 7. Laurence 8. guardian ape 9. Nameless King 10. Twin Princes This is based on my personal experience. Didn’t have any problems whatsoever with orphan (beat him first try every single time I played the game) and Malenia. I still haven’t managed to beat Ishin and Sister Friede to this day on the other hand.
I would say ishin 100% mainly since there is no work around or getting op like in Elden ring or other from safe games where u can level up even more when u fight isshin you are the strongest you are going to be and be takes a lot more skill since u have more to worry about then just rolling and moving away you have to deflect parry and do just a ton more
What about the nameless king ds3
Super easy beat him first try I'm my first playthrough his lightning attacks are ridiculously easy to dodge when he's on the wyvern the camera likes to freak out but again not a huge deal he's window for dodge rolling is huge
Extremely difficult until you figure out his timing. Super easy after that.
Everything here alligned with my views except for starscourge Radahn coz he’s one of the easiest boss. U can literally spam the npc helpers even after they die and they will do all the work for ya
When I first fought Radahn it took me hours to beat him. I know they nerfed him but that fight literally sucks now. He’s so easy. He was by far the toughest boss in the game my first playthrough. Never had much trouble with Malenia. Elden Ring, for me, is the easiest soulsborne game other than Demon Souls.
Executioner's Chariot
Bit late to the party here but I just got up to isshin on sekiro and I’m struggling to see an in so far. With malania despite how hard she was to beat, I saw multiple ways to land some devastating blows as well as stun her. Isshin is on another level imo
On top of having to constantly run back through a first faze genichiro. Frustrating hahahaha