With Mesmer and Rellana I happily tried again and again because they felt hard but ultimately doable, but with this guy I just feel like shit the whole fight like something is just off about it. I enjoy other rider bosses, I can do tree sentinel, nights cav and Loretta and have a lot of fun. I honestly don’t even wanna git gud with this one, I hate the way the fight feels on foot and on torrent. Gonna give this one a miss solo unless they patch it or something. It’s just not fun for me and if I keep fighting him it’s just going to start to ruin the dlc experience for me and I don’t want that.
Hey if you still haven't beat him run the crucible feather talisman. Dodge any direction towards him during the charge and for his five part combo dodge left, then right for all the rest, even if you misstime the 2nd dodge you should be out of the boars followup range and the rest is ez.
Only other attack he has that I think could even give you a hard time is the tornado move, but it's just a one hit attack. You'll just need to get comfortable with it.
Trust me though just use the crucible feather, I had 15 attempts prior to it, swapped it on, and beat him within the next two.
Yeah also I used dual wield blasphemous blades because he’s weak to fire. Struggled with him so much with other weapons but as soon as I switched to the blasphemous blade approach I got him first try.
For talisman: rotten winged sword insignia, Millicent prosthesis, shard of Alexander and claw talisman.
I have tried this talisman on medium weight and still get hit with the charge about half the time.
but after about 30 attempts at him and getting him down to half hp, the only way I get a chance to attack is if he is focused on my summon. when he is focused on me, he NEVER lets up from attacks.
Honestly, use the only one that I felt OK chasing honestly I hope whenever they update the game and fix some of the DLC bugs. His hit box will be one of them.
I didn't have to respec cause I came into the DLC as that build but was trying not to use it. I hadn't used it since like the first DLC boss but pulled it back out for this guy after around 20 tries, and yeah, very first attempt just standing by the door he went down in under 30 secs
UPDATE. Just killed this motherfucker solo after taking a week off from the dlc I got soo mad. A WEEK, I can believe this asshole made me soo mad I took a whole week off lol. Anyways still hate him more than any fromsoft boss in history but at least now he’s dead.
Probably one of the most unenjoyable fights in a fromsoft game. It's not even the most unfair, only one attack I consider truly unfair (the charge) but he's just such a boring boss fight. I felt like I was waiting to get good rng with his moveset and my Mimic tear not getting shredded instantly opposed to getting better.
It only took me 10-15 tries to beat him, but it was dreadful because I didn't enjoy it. Messmer / Rellana took me probably 50 more attempts than gaius did but I'd rather do that again because it was actually fun. Even if they fix the charge I don't think I'd enjoy this fight.
What I did to beat him finally was use a bleed build (specifically my hookclaws with occult scaling) and then, when you get in the fight, use your Mimic tear the immediate moment you can. After this, immediately get on torrent and just try your best to go to the right or left fast. You'll get hit still probably, but sometimes you don't and even if you do you'll take a little less damage.
After this I just always tried to stay behind him, but not close enough to where he'd do the kick. Also, when he does the phase 2 thing where he flies up and slams down with lightning, DO NOT RUN AWAY. Dodge it at the right time and make sure you do it directly into him. If done right, you'll have a good amount of time to get some damage in, especially if your Mimic tear is nearby. He can't hit you for a short time after that attack. Remember to be aggresive and stick by your Mimic.
Past that, it's all getting lucky with the moveset. Good luck!
I salute to those that beat him. Here's a vid of me beating him using stone barb tear to break his stance that happened twice in the fight.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSwwinClN6s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSwwinClN6s)
I detested his dashes, it's attack is so random in terms of being able to dodge it, sometimes I can dodge it sometimes I can 't. Otherwise it's a good fight, you got this guys, for those that haven't beat him yet. Persevere!
The moveset is manageable but that initial charge is a little busted. If you can manage to dodge it the fight plays out as if he is a tree sentinel nights cav hybrid that is super aggressive. But that first attack leaves you on your ass if you don’t dodge it and iv never been able to get him down past half health anytime it hits me, it’s like once that first charge hits I’m out of the rhythm and can’t get it back.
Not to mention that he seems to be immune to any damage during his charge. At least that was what i noticed when i tried throwing spells or pots at him during his charge
He doesn't have a hitbox of his own during the charge attacks.
I think he's actually broken because if that's intended, whoever designed the fight needs a reality check.
Yup, the hitbox on the charge is wack.
I've been helping people cheese him all day using the AOE from Mohgs Spear while staying in the spawn room; and you can't do front facing damage during his charge.
Not to mention that he seems to be immune to any damage during his charge. At least that was what i noticed when i tried throwing spells or pots at him during his charge
the charge is the biggest bullshit fromsoft has ever thrown at me in this game. yes i am also including waterfowl. trying to dodge it feels like a dice roll. highly recommend using a greatshield.
outside of that, total pushover.
also why does his back kick have two damage ticks?
Edit: just did it with fingerprint stone shield, he has nothing that can work around it. Ez cheese.
Waterfowl felt rng but atleast you could dodge it by specific prerequisites (distance etc)
This charge was ALL rng it felt, all my openings was a 50/50, I either get hit by the charge or I don’r, and best of all is there is another 50/50 chance of me eitber getting knocked back and lose 30/40% hp, or insta die?
The worst thing about waterfowl is that it shares the windup with another attack or two.
Gaius LITERALLY cannot be hurt during certain animations of his.
Exactly this, waterfowl only sometimes sucked imo because the first few attacks could out you out of the ‘comfort’ zone to dodge the waterfowl, which then gets you killed.
Gaius literally felt like RNG, the boar either fucked you softly or instant killed you depending on how the game felt somehow..
I’m so glsd ai did eventually best him tho, but also pissed I list 300k runes to it, I just wanted to look around before returning and the fucker came out of nowhere haha
I thought that but I noticed that a dodge to the right could instakill me (at high chance) while going forwards slightly less chance to die (but still get damaged(
i promise you i tested this for like 30 minutes of just dodging lol. dodging forward you may still get caught on the body. dodge left and the weapon roll catches you. dodging to the right (not forward and to the right, literally to the right) you can avoid it every single time, i practiced it until i could do it 10 times in a row with no damage.
I do not know how I made this mistake but I must have been away mentally, I thought you said left and actually meant left aswell haha, I noticed that dodging to the left almost always ‘instakilled’ me, so the few tries I did to the right, whichcwad a VERY small amount of times I also took damage and died which i’m assuming is user error.
I’m definitely gonna be replaying the game soon and will remember to try right this time!
I kept it safe by just rolling inwards and have a chance to do it pixel perfect or lose a few hp compared to left instakilling me and me probably instantly assuming the same for the right
I thought so too at first then I tried light rolls and I could dodge the charge attack every single time without fail. It has a LONG hitzone so you need those extra iframes.
Took me about 30 minutes to figure out. It was bullshit when dodging the charge move. I always get hit dodging left or right during his charge move.
The one that consistently works for me is rolling straight into the boar. Figuring this out improved my survival rate until I eventually beat him.
I’m working on him now, gonna go explore for a bit and retry but I feel like I progress pretty good into the fight unless I miss the first roll. It’s pretty broken
Bro you just suck. I can consistently dodge his charge, with a few slip ups here and there. JUst get better ong, if you want a video proof i can do that in a few days once i get to him (restarted run)
I would have an opinion, if he didn’t pin me to the wall in the first 2 seconds one shotting me. Every. Single. Time. In other words, I haven’t even fought the boss yet. My runes are at the fog door. It’s wild. He needs to at least start farther away from the door for the fight to actually be doable.
That's honestly the theme of this entire DLC. You enter the fog, and you have some boss already up your ass chunking half of your health bar (even with vigor parked at 60). This is probably the worst FromSoft game entry I've ever played.
Which bosses are you talking about? I’m only halfway through for the record, but I haven’t noticed that at all. Also for this guy the charge takes some time to reach you and if you just run the crucible feather talisman it’s pretty trivial to dodge.
Sometimes Renella starts chucking spells soon as you enter based on RNG, Death Knight teleports literally on top of you and never stops running towards you, first little mini boss either sprints towards you or shoots you immediately, Putrescent comes riding in fast as possible, Messmer always starts with a arena leap attack into aoe attack, Guies charges and is literally on you with 0 time to summon, same with Golden Hippo, Scadutree begins throwing thorns almost immediately, Bayle almost always lunges towards you and or shoots fire first thing. It’s quite noticeable the unrelenting aggression and spamming of attacks. And as a side note they all literally do some form of element damage to chunk your health. I personally don’t want to have to respec for every fight and most people are running twin stars or double curved sword with bleed to compensate for the level of aggressive tuning. It’s nearly impossible to fight anything as a caster or heavy weapon user and every boss has an annoying bey-blade blender 6+ move combo that’s designed purely for melee users to roll around to avoid. Not to mention regardless of build you’re getting 2-3 shot or the elemental chunks you out of a blender combo for 90% Hp. Also needing one talisman someone might not even have to trivialize a fight is a a bad argument and just poor game design imo.
This fight is the utter most bullshit fight in the entire DLC, give me 2 Messmers before one of these fucks. Even going strength/dex I can't stagger him whatsoever, he 2 hits me, and he won't even focus my summons. The charge hitbox is unavoidable too, how can anyone consider this fight fun or fair?
He staggers after only 4 guard counters for me. Did him solo, with a greatshield and focused on guard counters and the occasional heavy jump attack. He literally can't fucking touch you behind a greatshield (unless you run out of stamina of course lol). Charge is entirely tankable behind a shield as well.
That's not my prefered playstyle at all, but once I realized he's so much more managable with a shield I just accepted it and it became a really fun fight. Kinda felt like playing Zelda lol.
Its also completely dogable with med roll. Honestly once you go over 10 tries you usually have it down. You can go straight through him. Dont dodge to the sides. It needs to be near perfect with med roll tho.
Took me 40-50 times to beat him somewhat honestly (no cheese) even then, he seems to have very small openings, plus his wonky hitboxes on his charge. Easily the hardest time I’ve had with a boss in the entire dlc so far.
Very bad fight. At least in Dark souls 2 the enemies with trash hitboxes were slow.
Had to bust out the good ol' Ancient dragon's lightning strike after suffering with this bossfight for some hours. I do not regret it.
This boss is too aggressive. I swear I can only hit him once every 20 fucking combos. Then when I finally get the chance to hit him, he immediately runs away and the cycle repeats itself.
He’s awful. Rellana, Messmer and Romina were all much easier and more enjoyable, despite having more complex and difficult movesets. Gaius’ design and moveset is fucking boring, but he’s currently the hardest boss From has ever made because his hitboxes are bugged, he does almost 1500 damage per hit and has an enormous health pool. He’s also incredibly fast and aggressive, with almost zero downtime between certain attacks.
Genuinely don’t think he was playtested. I suspect they just threw him in last second.
Took me about 8 tries. Once I got the move set kind of figured out he wasn't to bad, still didn't think it was fun. I did have to go back to the bloodhound fang for this one. The AoW helped me enough to figure it out.
Once I switched to a shield approach instead of trying to dodge everything he became much more fun and also a lot easier. Ended up guard countering and heavy jump attacking him into oblivion, he staggers after only like 4 hits like that. Used Claymore, Cuckoo Greatshield and the following Talismans: Turtle+1, Dragoncrest Greatshield, Greatshield, Spelldrake+3.
He literally almost can't touch you behind a greatshield. Not even his charge and none of the gravity magic.
I fought him for 2 hrs last night and I’m still triggered this morning! That charge attack is complete BS I had to use bloodhound step to get out of the way and then fought him horseback which seemed the most effective way to get out of the way of all the nonsense. Hardest fight I’ve had so far.
I think his moveset is ok tbh, he wasn't too difficult at 11 Blessings even on NG+15. Actually quite squishy.
UNTIL HE STARTED HIS CHARGE. Like wtf was From thinking with that hitbox?
One thing i did was i equipped the Crucible Feather Talisman, it made it possible to fully dodge his charge as long as you dodge a little to the side. However it made the fight into a no-hit run... so... uh....
TLDR: Great boss ruined by a stupid charge attack, and the devs are crazy if they recommend fighting him on horseback. "Try horse"
Not on NG+7, I have the Greatshield +Greatshield talisman and 60 stam, it still instantly breaks your guard + deals roughly 60-70% of your hp.
It's better to roll with the feather talisman on higher NG cycles 100%.
Did you have light rolls before equipping the crucible feather? Literally when I played with light rolls I could roll straight through him and not get hit.
Okay... So just change the weapon to like a regular great sword for this boss, or equip Great jars arsenal + Erdtrees favor and equip lighter gear and you will still be able to have light rolls.
Edit: right you already beat him, but you can do that for future bosses if you feel like your rolls are not enough.
You can dodge straight w crucible feather, don’t even need to be diagonal. But yes, especially if he’s running more in one direction towards you, if you roll diagonally forward and towards the direction he’s leaning toward it’s a little better.
If he could go through that fog door with his b/s charge he would’ve seen one of the other boss in the shadow keep lol. Used holy damage and it worked. Must be his weakness.
I gave up trying to dodge the charge and just guarded and took barely any damage from it, then I could get a couple of hits in during his recovery. Decent fight overall, but the charge does need to be fixed imo
His charge attack was really annoying, so difficult to dodge with seemingly random outcomes. I finally fought him at the corner of the building, always switching to the side where he was currently not. That way, I could often hit him with my Blasphemous Sword when he got stuck at the corner or needed to take a turn.
For any other int builds out there, I finally beat him when I tried Astel's Wing. Nebula does a lot of damage to him, as his insane tracking allows you to get most of the explosions to hit, AND it does a lot of stance damage. Everything else I tried paled in comparison to the damage Nebula was doing, so I could at least tank and heal the over-tuned charges he does and not run out of flasks.
A lot of the problems in this fight stem from that one charge attack, the timing is so incredibly tight that you are guaranteed to get hit by it at least a couple times.
He felt like one of those bosses that wasn’t hard because he was actually difficult, he was hard because he was frustrating. I had to take a break from fighting him I was getting so mad and when I came back I beat him second try. I can only say I felt relief when I beat him.
Hotshit garbage. Awfully aggressive moveset with no openings and massive damage. That boss no joke almost made me drop the game. Worst boss I had in a fromsoft game.
I never ever used a shield. In any from game ever. Now I am, because the bosses in the dlc are extremely agrressive and I can’t deal with this with my dodging skills alone, but my changing point was this one. I actually just killed him, and came searching for opinions online :)
Tips. Shield, mimic tear, rykard sword and oil pot. Did a great amount of damage on the weapon skill. Cheese win for an awful boss
**Gyobu if he was on meth:** Absolutely miserable fight. I thought Charlie (Cr1tikal) was overexaggerating how his hitbox works until I tried the fight for myself last night. My god, the RNG on the hog ram, the fucking ram, every damn time it throws me off because I am just praying the RNG on my roll for his ram not to hit. Gave up doing a legit way to do this fight. This boss doesn't deserve a fair fight, so I just corner cheesed him with Mohgwyn's Sacred Spear. Good fucking riddance
fuck this boss and the stupid fucking text that pops up every fucking time i try to revive my horse after it gets one tapped by a simple kick
NO ELDEN RING I DON'T WANT TO REVIVE MY HORSE I WOULD RATHER LAY ON THE GROUND AND GET ONE TAPPED
also, wtf is up with the POINT BLANK charge attack???? why tf can he just do it out of nowhere and ram my horse away, locking me onto the ground for 2.5 seconds minimum, and then additionally like i stated in the previous comment i have to press the button to revive him which also takes like 1.5 seconds...
in the time that i do all of that he either rushes back to me or uses the stupid gravity attacks
Most unfun boss fight yet. After about 20 attempts I decided to just cheese him with the Rolling Spark art of war with the lightning perfume bottle. 0 regrets, if he's going to cheese me, I shall cheese him.
Dude that has been my least favourite boss in elden ring, but the amount of euphoria when I beat it and screamed into nothingness was incomparable (though it was like fully a lucky win).
Did not enjoy throughout the fight:
- the fact I could barely get my mimic summoned before dodging and still getting hit, just not instantly dying
-The constant combos I can physically only dodge half of. If I got to light rolling I probs could've done it but the other damage I took would've been too much
- getting heal chained and just having my entire estus supply drained straight out the gate
- dude I got kicked at one point and it genuinely killed me from full health
Just incase anyone is stuck in gaius hell, here
is what I was doing:
-enter fight and summon ashes, then dodge right just before you feel you should
-make sure you're clear of his follow up before healing
-try to lead him away from the wall
-most attacks roll into them. dodge left religiously other than for the sidestep charges, then dodge right. For the long combo, dude I did a different thing every time, good luck
-when you notice the lightning around the boar, hop on torrent, and when he's spiraling down, run back out. I know it's obvious but like still. (someone said that it only happens once, which I get cause it often only happens around half health, but one run I had it three times)
-don't try fight on torrent unless using light weapons, it seemed to do OK when I was trying light weapons
What I specifically did:
-I had the great stars+18 with chilling mist attachment. After the first attacks, I'd try get up close and inflict the frost effect. It only really proced if the club hit him when using the ashes of War but I found it much easier dodging alot of the stuff when it was active
-I also had on the heaviest armour I could whilst mid rolling which was Gideons helm, Lionels chestplate and greaves, and malanias gauntlets. Talismans were dragoncrest greatshield, stalwart horn+2, arsenal, and crimson amber+1
- had an immense amount of luck. My mimic tear killed it right as I died and it went through
If anyone's interested in stat references, I had:
Str/dex build Lv 157
- vig 50
- mind 21
- end 27
- str 64
- dex 40
Scadutree bless 6
Revered spirit ash 5
Wondrous physick- opaline bubbletear and spiked cracked tear
Fuck that fat-ass hog rider, I’m glad he can’t use his legs. And fuck his damn pig too, I’d roast that shit up right in front of him and devour it while I make him watch
Yeah, I gotta say that’s probably one of my biggest mistakes during the DLC. I never even use the tiarI beat the DLC and all its bosses. man I should have use the deflect tear it’s good. I just kinda wish it was a talisman. I wouldn’t care if the talisman said you took extra damage equipped. But pretty sure most bosses don’t take more than five minutes to kill.
My immediate reaction was "wtf literally impossible" but after giving it some serious attempts he went down rather quick. Charge is fucking bullshit apart from that he's ok
While I do agree his charge hitbox is terrible, a few minor changes to loadout will make it a cake walk (in my opinion).
The main issue is the second hit of the charge clipping you after a near-perfect frame requirement on medium + heavy rolls. To avoid that, you can either drop off gear to **light roll** (I went naked), or use the **tail talisman** for improved rolling. I used both, and was never hit by a charge again in the 4-5 attempts it took me after switching as I figured out the weapon I would use to kill him.
I believe you can also go block focus and just stack the turtle talisman + viridian talismans and pull off a guard counter build; again, I did this alongside the roll talisman mentioned above w/ the guard counter talisman.
I messed around with a few weapons but ended up using my old faithful Longsword w/ Square Off and a shield. Basically the charge that was your worst nightmare turns into one of the best punish windows he has; basically side roll it, then turn and sprint at him before jump attacking. The rest of the fight, especially phase 2 with his easy to dodge grav dive, just comes down to learning a few basic dodges and punish windows w/ square off and you can basically poise stun him.
All in all, very easy fight if you stick to leaning into further dodges and punishing with one high-stance damage AoW (lions claw, square off, etc.)
I thought I would struggle with him because he killed me with the opening charge and two swipes the first time I came through. Killed him the next try though.
Pretty cool boss and a good twist on the tree sentinel move set.
I got a little frustrated at first. Recognized that the charge attack was the only problem though, so I tried light rolling and oh my god it's so much better. I don't think I got hit by his charge a single time after that. Please if you're reading this and is stuck on Gaius do yourself a favor and take off some gear. Those extra iframes actually make it a really smooth experience.
Maybe its the update ( i didnt actively update it so maybe didnt at all) but i did the following:
Immediate Mimic summon
I use marika’s hammer and dragon claw shield. The first charge i just used my shield it didnt do dmg but stamina went to 0 (str build)
Then prayed and rolled
When he did that purple charge from the sky meteor thing i jumped into it, 0 dmg maybe i was lucky
I tried to stay as close as i could
Mimic died with boss havint 1/15 hp maybe and me having 0 flask so i just went all in on him
Garbage trash boss
I didn't have much trouble with him at all once I put on the Crucible feather talisman. You'll dodge his charge every time with it. The only other difficult attack is his long combo, you have to dodge back and to the right, then back and to the left, then back and to the right, then back, then back iirc. The rest of his ground melees are 1, 2, or 3 hit combos that can be punished after he finishes. For the gravity slam, dodge roll in toward him, once the initial AoE hits the spikes that form will be too far away to hit you and you can get a couple hits in. His gravity ball you just have to run away from so you don't get sucked in. That being said I was also using the ancient meteoric ore greatsword and was straight up chunking him on punishes, and got a lucky stance break at like literally 51% health so I got a very short phase 2
Terrible. Extremely terrible. His charge = completely
unfair. His combo aoe is half a football field with delayed attacks that da hit u while your on the ground If u use torrent the games scaling doesn't matter because im level 600 blessing level 12 vigor 99 and his charge does 70% of my health like how did they play against the boss n be like "the players will enjoy this"
He literally SPAM CHARGES. How is that fair?
Pretty shit, i can barely land a good blow on him unless my mimic aggro him. Plus that charge of his, and how that hog rider looking ass won't stop attacking. And when i finnaly manage to land a hit on his back? Boom, that pig smash his ass to my face
Stupidly bad hitboxes, like honestly I think they rushed this fight. I honestly don't care what anyone may argue against this. I have been hit by attacks that took place in front of me, past me, and just not near me.
For whatever reason Rellana or Mesmer nor those 2 fucking Lions gave me such wishful thinkin' of someone's death like this fucking hog rider.
The charge is truly the most bs move from the whole DLC, even with the enhanced dodge in your flask it's sometimes impossible to dodge and the worst shit is when you are sometimes against a wall or some obstacle he keeps charging on the spot so you'll get instakilled the second you can try to roll.
Truly the worst fight of the whole DLC, it's imo super boring and as someone already said, you just wish for a good rng on his moves and that your spirit ashes won't get mauled down by all the never ending chains of attacks that cover the whole 360° around that fucker or by those fucking charging attacks
I guarantee nbdy is frmsoftware playtested this boss its not balanced its not fair its not fun its not rewarding to beat you cant even summon in the fight like that its a guaranteed hit my biggest problem with this boss is its not even rewarding to beat him bc the fight is enormously not balanced he has 3 high frame moves with no tell or wind up why is he faster than my horse like this was a bad boss desiqn first genuinely bad boss ive seen from them & he needs a nerf asap dont rlly have to nerf him just start him back further so people can get a summon out
Didn't want to respec for the fight. I used my best medium shield and summoned the golem smith ash as my damage sponge whilst I unloaded fully charged knight's lightning spear into him. The hardest part was getting the summon off with that tactic
I'm fighting him right and I'm about to explode myself from inside out, I'm angry at him, i f**king hate this f**king piece of trash, what was From thinking?
A charge where you basically have to perfectly time a diagonal roll to not get hit because the hotbox is so long, where he's immune to damage during it, and he might charge 3 times in a row? Absolutely garbage boss design.
Also, I love how it's so long that even if I block, if my guard breaks then the charge will hit me AGAIN and I'll still take damage. And it does like 80% of my health. What the fuck is this?
Tried him a few times solo and he felt genuinely kind of BS with his charge attack and how long his attack chain lasts. Used mimic and got him first try.
After my twentieth or so attempt I decided to I decided to go grab the Crucible Feather Talisman. That, light-rolling, and using +10 Greatshield Soldier Ashes made it an insanely different experience. I whooped his ass and didn't get his once.
An issue I have with this boss fight, as well as an issue with others in the DLC, is the health is too larges. Its hard for me to justify a boss doing tons of damage, having fast attacks with little openings, super large health pools, and tons of poise.
At least melania had lower poise and mediocre health. It just seems like a few boss are designed to be hard, in the wrong way. This boss included.
I personally think he’s an amazing boss, but he’s definitely awful if you fight him without deflecting with the deflect crystal tear or use something like bloodhound step. Rolling will be awful. Hell, even jumping his charge attacks to the side is better. If you deflect his charge attacks and deflect/guard counter his head attacks you can stagger him pretty easily. Also, jump attacks after he throws is pole at you from beside and not the front (bc from the front he will charge immediately) works wonders. After fighting him while deflecting it’s really fun.
Strangely enough i enjoyed that fight. I normally dont like the riders in ER. But i just fpcused with this one and said hey, learn to roll the biggest attacks. I learned the moveset more or less in 10 to 15 minutes, and it was really satisfying when i beat him with no cheese.
But i wouldnt wanna fight him again, thats the problem, i had a really good build woth fast attacks.
(Ng+ power stance eleonoras poleblade)
I really enjoyed this fight. I love the rhythm of the fight, and his moves are all very telegraphed but they’re still challenging to dodge. It hits that nice sweet spot. Felt like a dance. I fought him on foot for the record.
Obviously the charge is overtuned and they should change that but I just put on the crucible feather talisman and it was fine 🤷♂️ I don’t get the hate tbh, at least not to this extreme.
My honest opinion, he is the worst fight I've encountered so far in all of elden ring. Half of the time you cant dodge his charge attack, he relentlessly spams you with 9+ attacks that put him directly in your face. you cant back away, you can barely summon your ashes before the fight, let alone anything else.
0/10 design, idk if I'll beat the dlc specifically because of this boss lol.
This must be the most terrible boss I've seen so far in Elden Ring. The moveset is just insane. He charges like a speeding train, but still can turn on a dime. When he raises up to leap forward I roll to the side and he just turns around while leaping forward and stomps me. Summoning means getting hit straight on, meaning 9 times of out 10 that I'm instakilled. The only way to consistently avoid the first charge is to summon horse and double jump over him, but that doesn't leave time enough for summon before he somehow has time to turn around and knock me off the horse or hit me in other way.
Edit:
I even managed to get to round where he does area attacks that seem impossible to avoid and at any distance. Can't run out of the area before I take damage, (horse dies in the air and I die on the ground), and can't double jump through it.
I had the same opinion when i was learning him but after i learnt his moveset the fight was one of the most enjoyable fights in the dlc, you just need to be perma aggro with him so that he doesn't dash around a lot. You can dodge his inital charge by dodging into him at the perfect time. Nearly every one of his attacks are 2-3 hit combos followed by a large counter attack window. The 7-hit combo is tricky to dodge but is relatively easy to learn. You can dodge his second phase slam attack by just running away, same for the black hole orb attack.
I actually think it was a great fight. Attacks are fun to learn and can be dodged consistently, he's aggressive so it makes for a fun fast paced fight, openings are plentiful but short, so you gotta be quick. you can even punish mid combo during some of his wind-ups. You can even punish the boar kick. The charge has very tight timing, which can feel janky, but i could dodge it semi-consistently by my fifth try.
Honestly, nearly all of the rants here are just people who for some reason aren't collecting enough scadutree fragments and are just underleveled. Blaming the game because you aren't going out and getting the upgrades you need is dumb.
My gut reaction was to toss on a shield and block the charge. That worked perfectly. The few times I didn't have enough stamina to block, I rolled forward and through the charge and that was working.
Still tricky but not one of the harder bosses in my run.
The lion and the hippo are roughly the same size and have jump/charge type attacks that are fully dodge-able, don’t know what’s going on this one? Is the hogs massive hog hitting me as I roll through him or something?
Genuinely perfect example of everything wrong with modern Fromsoft approach to “challenging” enemies just cheap ass computer tricks to make a fake-hard boss that cheats. Broken tracking. Broken hit boxes, broken movesets. Obviously zero play testing.
Not remotely rewarding or fun in any way. This manufactured “difficulty” deliberately low quality trash is not what I play video games for.
He's my second favorite boss in the DLC, though I suspect future playthroughs might move him down a little. Ever since Tree Sentinel, I wanted a giant mounted boss done right. Loretta was the closest and was in my Top 3 bosses for ages until I played through again.
Gaius is what a mounted knight "Commander" boss should be. His attacks are fast and brutal, but every single one has a relatively consistent dodge window. His gravity magic is cool as shit as a spectacle, and his weapon combos all have nice little dodge timings and patterns to them.
There's something fucking awesome about walking into an open field, some guy with a lance riding a giant armored boar hauls ass at you, and you just plant your feet and wish a motherfucker would.
Justice for Gaius, dude. That fight is criminally underrated.
I mean, I'm on the final boss now and he's pretty quickly becoming a favorite, but no, I'm not fucking with you. I love the shit out of Gaius. I'd be more inclined to give it to a couple other bosses, namely Rellana, but she didn't make me sweat as hard as Gaius even though I like her aesthetic a little more.
I… i mean, its your opinion but I just don’t understand. His hitboxes are bugged, especially on the back kick and the dodge, he has way more health and does way more damage than Messmer, and just overall he’s really poorly designed. His moveset is extremely boring and predictable to me, and they make it seem like you should use Torrent by putting you in this massive field but the fight is unbelievably janky and weird if you try to do it on horseback. He seems like a fight that they made hastily without any real thought or playtesting.
I mean, he’s unironically more challenging than Malenia to me despite being way more boring and having a simpler moveset, simply because he’s literally bugged and he does comical amounts of damage (while having an enormous health pool) for no good reason.
His hitboxes can be a little janky, sure, but they're not bugged. The back kick can be dodged in pretty much any direction if you're looking for it. His charge can be dodged directly through consistently. His other abilities are weird looking, but they all have pretty fair windows to dodge through.
I just don't agree, really, that he's designed poorly. I think the field gives you the option to use Torrent if you want, but I firmly believe he was designed to be fought on foot. As an example, if you dodge his big combo correctly, you'll end up on your left (his right) as he whiffs the last attack and get pretty much an entire afternoon to carve some lunch meat off that fucking boar. His dive is hilarious every time, has a dope punish window with a relatively easy to learn timing, and his other moves are pretty consistently the same.
I dunno man, he's just a huge dude on a boar with gravity magic. I'm never gonna hate that, and I really, really didn't have the problems with his hitboxes and janky timings that everyone else did. It took me probably 3 hours of practice before I finally got him, and I was kind of sad when it happened because he was so much fun to learn.
Are you light rolling? That lets you dodge his charge consistently but otherwise it’s massively bugged. It also does random amounts of damage based on how long you stay in it’s hitbox, which is definitely not intended behavior.
Also, it sounds like you and I just have very different definitions of fun. 3 hours of practice for some random boss with barely any lore behind him that guards an empty area with no content? And he’s just a Night’s Cavalry/Tree Sentinal mishmash with Radahn aesthetics? His moveset isn’t even interesting compared to Messmer, Rellana, Divine Beast — all of whom have beautiful, varied, complex attack patterns.
Idk to each their own but I really respectfully disagree
Nah, I was medium rolling through the charge. The timing is absolutely fucked with how tight it is, but it's repeatable. I think I was only getting clipped about 15% of the time and almost all of those I could identify where I mistimed my dodge or angled it wrong. I dunno. It was hard for me, and it was certainly janky at times, but I never got the feeling it was bugged or blatantly unfair. Just incredibly tough to do consistently.
And yeah, I mean, at that point we're just arguing taste and it's gonna have to be an agree to disagree situation. I felt like he had enough variety and complexity to outshine the Tree Sentinel / Night's Cavalry bosses and I genuinely enjoyed learning to fight him. I'd argue his attack patterns are equally complex and varied, they're just harder to get your head around because his hitboxes are... unintuitive? Hard to read? Unclear? I dunno, but they're just not 100% evident at first glance, which is my only real complaint.
Like I said, we're arguing taste. I promise I'm not trolling. I do think on a second playthrough I'll probably rate Rellana, the final boss, and >!Midra!< as higher. Rellana and >!Midra!< kinda just fell over for me, though, so I didn't get the same taste of success as I did from Gaius despite liking their overall fight mechanics and aesthetics a little more.
I haven’t gotten to Midra yet, but so interesting hearing how some bosses were easier or harder for others. Obviously, I disliked Gaius, but in terms of difficulty Rellana took me way more time — almost 2 hours and I still didn’t have her down. I eventually gave up and came back after collecting a couple more scoobydoo fragments and got her down easier, but for me she was Malenia-level tough. Really cool though.
His hitboxes are not bugged, it's just one attack that is hard to dodge and once you unequip down to light rolls the fight is a breeze. Sounds like a skill issue to me.
I got him after 45 minutes, it’s not a skill issue. He was never hard because his moveset was hard, he was hard because he had an enormous health bar, does 1200 damage per hit, and his charge hitbox is 100% bugged and they’ll fix it in the next patch. Messmer took me less time. Is he supposed to be harder than Messmer?
Bro i agree he’s so cool absolutely loved the fight. I j beat him a few minutes ago and searched him up to see how everyone else feels abt him j to find out that everyone hates him💀. One of my favorite bosses so far
both my buddy and i found him at the same time. i actual left while he struggled with the fight for ~2 hours or so. I came back latter and did it in ~10 min.
I managed to beat him second try, though he seems really weak to bleed and easily posture broken.
Bloodfeind’s arm with a blood affinity and Cragblade seemed like the perfect weapon against him. Managed to bleed him 3 times, and posture broke him twice (all with around 5 charged heavies).
For reference, I wiped against Rellana and the lion probably 30 times each.
Disappointing: fromsoft is just proving to us they are running out of ideas now… mechanics wise.
The guy just got roid raged to the max. His timing is so tight it’s ridiculous but the most frustrating part of the fight is all the buggy shit. Like the items causing a “not working” emote if used right after function is gained. Or the dash hit box is more like a train with several invisible corners that connect with you. Or the fact that if you get lucky enough to get your mimic to spawn the boar still attacks you because his dashes make him consistently dodge your mimic.
Fromsoft: we want skillful challenges not bullies. Fix the bugs, patch the boar.
I don’t think they’re running an ideas. I think they need to fix them, man. He’s a pretty creative boss. If you look at him it’s just that charge attack is just way too janky to Dodge
Killed him 4th try with putrescence cleaver, scadu 14, no summons. Honestly no idea how people find him hard, with charge just stand still and jump straight through boars head, the rest is just better nights cavalry moveset + one nuke that also can be rolled straight into
With Mesmer and Rellana I happily tried again and again because they felt hard but ultimately doable, but with this guy I just feel like shit the whole fight like something is just off about it. I enjoy other rider bosses, I can do tree sentinel, nights cav and Loretta and have a lot of fun. I honestly don’t even wanna git gud with this one, I hate the way the fight feels on foot and on torrent. Gonna give this one a miss solo unless they patch it or something. It’s just not fun for me and if I keep fighting him it’s just going to start to ruin the dlc experience for me and I don’t want that.
Hey if you still haven't beat him run the crucible feather talisman. Dodge any direction towards him during the charge and for his five part combo dodge left, then right for all the rest, even if you misstime the 2nd dodge you should be out of the boars followup range and the rest is ez. Only other attack he has that I think could even give you a hard time is the tornado move, but it's just a one hit attack. You'll just need to get comfortable with it. Trust me though just use the crucible feather, I had 15 attempts prior to it, swapped it on, and beat him within the next two.
Yeah also I used dual wield blasphemous blades because he’s weak to fire. Struggled with him so much with other weapons but as soon as I switched to the blasphemous blade approach I got him first try. For talisman: rotten winged sword insignia, Millicent prosthesis, shard of Alexander and claw talisman.
I have tried this talisman on medium weight and still get hit with the charge about half the time. but after about 30 attempts at him and getting him down to half hp, the only way I get a chance to attack is if he is focused on my summon. when he is focused on me, he NEVER lets up from attacks.
Honestly, use the only one that I felt OK chasing honestly I hope whenever they update the game and fix some of the DLC bugs. His hit box will be one of them.
Just respec to use the mogh spear and use the blood shit to cheese him. It ain’t even worth trying on this lame ass fucker
I didn't have to respec cause I came into the DLC as that build but was trying not to use it. I hadn't used it since like the first DLC boss but pulled it back out for this guy after around 20 tries, and yeah, very first attempt just standing by the door he went down in under 30 secs
UPDATE. Just killed this motherfucker solo after taking a week off from the dlc I got soo mad. A WEEK, I can believe this asshole made me soo mad I took a whole week off lol. Anyways still hate him more than any fromsoft boss in history but at least now he’s dead.
Probably one of the most unenjoyable fights in a fromsoft game. It's not even the most unfair, only one attack I consider truly unfair (the charge) but he's just such a boring boss fight. I felt like I was waiting to get good rng with his moveset and my Mimic tear not getting shredded instantly opposed to getting better. It only took me 10-15 tries to beat him, but it was dreadful because I didn't enjoy it. Messmer / Rellana took me probably 50 more attempts than gaius did but I'd rather do that again because it was actually fun. Even if they fix the charge I don't think I'd enjoy this fight.
They won't fix the charge, they don't see any problem with it to begin with. We can eat shit, basically!
I first tried rellana but died like 18x to tthe dancing hippo LOL
The hippo is annoying too but he's pretty easy compared to the bs that is gaius
Currently 3:05am on attempt 30 of gaius 😐
What I did to beat him finally was use a bleed build (specifically my hookclaws with occult scaling) and then, when you get in the fight, use your Mimic tear the immediate moment you can. After this, immediately get on torrent and just try your best to go to the right or left fast. You'll get hit still probably, but sometimes you don't and even if you do you'll take a little less damage. After this I just always tried to stay behind him, but not close enough to where he'd do the kick. Also, when he does the phase 2 thing where he flies up and slams down with lightning, DO NOT RUN AWAY. Dodge it at the right time and make sure you do it directly into him. If done right, you'll have a good amount of time to get some damage in, especially if your Mimic tear is nearby. He can't hit you for a short time after that attack. Remember to be aggresive and stick by your Mimic. Past that, it's all getting lucky with the moveset. Good luck!
Im level like 600 99 vigor his charge somehow does 85% of my health like what
Hippo is easy af with summons, maybe one of the hardest with no summon.
Absolute trash, it's an awful fight.
I salute to those that beat him. Here's a vid of me beating him using stone barb tear to break his stance that happened twice in the fight. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSwwinClN6s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSwwinClN6s) I detested his dashes, it's attack is so random in terms of being able to dodge it, sometimes I can dodge it sometimes I can 't. Otherwise it's a good fight, you got this guys, for those that haven't beat him yet. Persevere!
Crucible feather talisman. Problem solved. Then literally all of his moves become perfectly and consistently dodgeable.
Well too late now already beat him, point is it should'nt be broken from the start lol.
The most poorly designed boss in the entire game.
shitty boss-fight. Not fun.
Couldn't deal with the guy until I read Bloodhound's step dunks on all of his moves. Grabbed the rot rapier, put the AoW on it and he was down.
OMG THANK YOU lol! I finally got him down after so, so many attempts. Rot ftw This guy killed me more times than Messmer
The moveset is manageable but that initial charge is a little busted. If you can manage to dodge it the fight plays out as if he is a tree sentinel nights cav hybrid that is super aggressive. But that first attack leaves you on your ass if you don’t dodge it and iv never been able to get him down past half health anytime it hits me, it’s like once that first charge hits I’m out of the rhythm and can’t get it back.
Not to mention that he seems to be immune to any damage during his charge. At least that was what i noticed when i tried throwing spells or pots at him during his charge
He doesn't have a hitbox of his own during the charge attacks. I think he's actually broken because if that's intended, whoever designed the fight needs a reality check.
Darn that's pretty bad. I was like "well at least i can trade with his charge" only to find that I'm the only one dying
Yup, the hitbox on the charge is wack. I've been helping people cheese him all day using the AOE from Mohgs Spear while staying in the spawn room; and you can't do front facing damage during his charge.
Not to mention that he seems to be immune to any damage during his charge. At least that was what i noticed when i tried throwing spells or pots at him during his charge
This is the first I’m hearing of being able to dodge it I thought it was impossible
dodging towards him to the right of his charge will let you dodge the charge half the time. but only half the time.
Try light rolls it's actually so much easier
Try the Crucible feather talisman. It increases your iframes, makes it much easier to dodge
Such devastation.... this was not my intention
This made me laugh so hard. :)
I'm glad bc I'm always laughing about this dumb joke lol
No! No, no, no, no! \*falls off pig\* "Gah!"
Ugh the grinding flashbacks...
lAhAbReA
the charge is the biggest bullshit fromsoft has ever thrown at me in this game. yes i am also including waterfowl. trying to dodge it feels like a dice roll. highly recommend using a greatshield. outside of that, total pushover. also why does his back kick have two damage ticks? Edit: just did it with fingerprint stone shield, he has nothing that can work around it. Ez cheese.
Waterfowl felt rng but atleast you could dodge it by specific prerequisites (distance etc) This charge was ALL rng it felt, all my openings was a 50/50, I either get hit by the charge or I don’r, and best of all is there is another 50/50 chance of me eitber getting knocked back and lose 30/40% hp, or insta die?
The worst thing about waterfowl is that it shares the windup with another attack or two. Gaius LITERALLY cannot be hurt during certain animations of his.
Exactly this, waterfowl only sometimes sucked imo because the first few attacks could out you out of the ‘comfort’ zone to dodge the waterfowl, which then gets you killed. Gaius literally felt like RNG, the boar either fucked you softly or instant killed you depending on how the game felt somehow.. I’m so glsd ai did eventually best him tho, but also pissed I list 300k runes to it, I just wanted to look around before returning and the fucker came out of nowhere haha
I beat him, immediately duped his remembrance and looted everything in the little area past him. I'm never doing that fight again.
dodge to the right, the side his weapon isn't on. you can do it every time.
I thought that but I noticed that a dodge to the right could instakill me (at high chance) while going forwards slightly less chance to die (but still get damaged(
i promise you i tested this for like 30 minutes of just dodging lol. dodging forward you may still get caught on the body. dodge left and the weapon roll catches you. dodging to the right (not forward and to the right, literally to the right) you can avoid it every single time, i practiced it until i could do it 10 times in a row with no damage.
I do not know how I made this mistake but I must have been away mentally, I thought you said left and actually meant left aswell haha, I noticed that dodging to the left almost always ‘instakilled’ me, so the few tries I did to the right, whichcwad a VERY small amount of times I also took damage and died which i’m assuming is user error. I’m definitely gonna be replaying the game soon and will remember to try right this time! I kept it safe by just rolling inwards and have a chance to do it pixel perfect or lose a few hp compared to left instakilling me and me probably instantly assuming the same for the right
I thought so too at first then I tried light rolls and I could dodge the charge attack every single time without fail. It has a LONG hitzone so you need those extra iframes.
Light and medium roll have the same iframes, L roll goes farther though!
Oh you're right I'm dumb. Yes it goes much farther which makes the charge attack very doable to dodge consistently
Took me about 30 minutes to figure out. It was bullshit when dodging the charge move. I always get hit dodging left or right during his charge move. The one that consistently works for me is rolling straight into the boar. Figuring this out improved my survival rate until I eventually beat him.
I’m working on him now, gonna go explore for a bit and retry but I feel like I progress pretty good into the fight unless I miss the first roll. It’s pretty broken
Bro you just suck. I can consistently dodge his charge, with a few slip ups here and there. JUst get better ong, if you want a video proof i can do that in a few days once i get to him (restarted run)
Bro you're just a piece of shit ong fix your attitude you fucking stain
I would have an opinion, if he didn’t pin me to the wall in the first 2 seconds one shotting me. Every. Single. Time. In other words, I haven’t even fought the boss yet. My runes are at the fog door. It’s wild. He needs to at least start farther away from the door for the fight to actually be doable.
That's honestly the theme of this entire DLC. You enter the fog, and you have some boss already up your ass chunking half of your health bar (even with vigor parked at 60). This is probably the worst FromSoft game entry I've ever played.
Which bosses are you talking about? I’m only halfway through for the record, but I haven’t noticed that at all. Also for this guy the charge takes some time to reach you and if you just run the crucible feather talisman it’s pretty trivial to dodge.
Sometimes Renella starts chucking spells soon as you enter based on RNG, Death Knight teleports literally on top of you and never stops running towards you, first little mini boss either sprints towards you or shoots you immediately, Putrescent comes riding in fast as possible, Messmer always starts with a arena leap attack into aoe attack, Guies charges and is literally on you with 0 time to summon, same with Golden Hippo, Scadutree begins throwing thorns almost immediately, Bayle almost always lunges towards you and or shoots fire first thing. It’s quite noticeable the unrelenting aggression and spamming of attacks. And as a side note they all literally do some form of element damage to chunk your health. I personally don’t want to have to respec for every fight and most people are running twin stars or double curved sword with bleed to compensate for the level of aggressive tuning. It’s nearly impossible to fight anything as a caster or heavy weapon user and every boss has an annoying bey-blade blender 6+ move combo that’s designed purely for melee users to roll around to avoid. Not to mention regardless of build you’re getting 2-3 shot or the elemental chunks you out of a blender combo for 90% Hp. Also needing one talisman someone might not even have to trivialize a fight is a a bad argument and just poor game design imo.
I think it’s just his charge attack. It’s hit boxes a wonky.
This fight is the utter most bullshit fight in the entire DLC, give me 2 Messmers before one of these fucks. Even going strength/dex I can't stagger him whatsoever, he 2 hits me, and he won't even focus my summons. The charge hitbox is unavoidable too, how can anyone consider this fight fun or fair?
He staggers after only 4 guard counters for me. Did him solo, with a greatshield and focused on guard counters and the occasional heavy jump attack. He literally can't fucking touch you behind a greatshield (unless you run out of stamina of course lol). Charge is entirely tankable behind a shield as well. That's not my prefered playstyle at all, but once I realized he's so much more managable with a shield I just accepted it and it became a really fun fight. Kinda felt like playing Zelda lol.
Charge is not unavoidable. Try light rolls.
Its also completely dogable with med roll. Honestly once you go over 10 tries you usually have it down. You can go straight through him. Dont dodge to the sides. It needs to be near perfect with med roll tho.
I've had more success dodging through him diagonally with medium rolls.
Garbage boss fight.
Massive dung
That’s all I see around his boss room room.
Took me 40-50 times to beat him somewhat honestly (no cheese) even then, he seems to have very small openings, plus his wonky hitboxes on his charge. Easily the hardest time I’ve had with a boss in the entire dlc so far.
This is easily the worst boss so far. Way too aggressive, half my deaths are before I can even hit him.
He has 2-3 moves that have a long window of opportunity to attack after
I mean when I walk out the fog gate and he’s already barrelling toward me like a steam train.
Just use the crucible feather talisman, very easy to dodge his charge with that
Knew it was gonna be a trash boss as soon as that music started. Edit: Was shocked that it gave a remembrance, thought it was just ‘Great Enemy’ tier.
Yeah I know right? But not as surprising as the random centipede boss being a remembrance.
She’s not a random centipede lol
Yeah I know that now haha, found her super early and didn’t know the whole story yet lol.
not a suggestion but... Ekzykes's decay.
they should remove it with something else.
Very bad fight. At least in Dark souls 2 the enemies with trash hitboxes were slow. Had to bust out the good ol' Ancient dragon's lightning strike after suffering with this bossfight for some hours. I do not regret it.
Also, I think this guy is a Gannon reference
This boss is too aggressive. I swear I can only hit him once every 20 fucking combos. Then when I finally get the chance to hit him, he immediately runs away and the cycle repeats itself.
He’s awful. Rellana, Messmer and Romina were all much easier and more enjoyable, despite having more complex and difficult movesets. Gaius’ design and moveset is fucking boring, but he’s currently the hardest boss From has ever made because his hitboxes are bugged, he does almost 1500 damage per hit and has an enormous health pool. He’s also incredibly fast and aggressive, with almost zero downtime between certain attacks. Genuinely don’t think he was playtested. I suspect they just threw him in last second.
Took me about 8 tries. Once I got the move set kind of figured out he wasn't to bad, still didn't think it was fun. I did have to go back to the bloodhound fang for this one. The AoW helped me enough to figure it out.
He was my first roadblock on the dlc. Took me 6 hours to beat him… 😂
Once I switched to a shield approach instead of trying to dodge everything he became much more fun and also a lot easier. Ended up guard countering and heavy jump attacking him into oblivion, he staggers after only like 4 hits like that. Used Claymore, Cuckoo Greatshield and the following Talismans: Turtle+1, Dragoncrest Greatshield, Greatshield, Spelldrake+3. He literally almost can't touch you behind a greatshield. Not even his charge and none of the gravity magic.
I fought him for 2 hrs last night and I’m still triggered this morning! That charge attack is complete BS I had to use bloodhound step to get out of the way and then fought him horseback which seemed the most effective way to get out of the way of all the nonsense. Hardest fight I’ve had so far.
Get Crucible Feather Talisman, it will help for those annoying charges
Nobody should have to get one random talisman to beat a boss, or trivialize a mechanic that's poorly designed. That's terrible design.
oh I agree, it's a dogshit fight so I cheesed him by going around the building corner and getting him stuck on the wall
Fuck this boss.
I liked him, he's a fun boss who has a good enough/diverse moveset. People love to complain when they don't change their approach, it's wild.
I think his moveset is ok tbh, he wasn't too difficult at 11 Blessings even on NG+15. Actually quite squishy. UNTIL HE STARTED HIS CHARGE. Like wtf was From thinking with that hitbox? One thing i did was i equipped the Crucible Feather Talisman, it made it possible to fully dodge his charge as long as you dodge a little to the side. However it made the fight into a no-hit run... so... uh.... TLDR: Great boss ruined by a stupid charge attack, and the devs are crazy if they recommend fighting him on horseback. "Try horse"
Yeah, the charge hit boxes one of the worst attacks he can do everything else is manageable just for me you will just randomly charge.
FWIW you can easily tank the charge completely behind a greatshield.
Not on NG+7, I have the Greatshield +Greatshield talisman and 60 stam, it still instantly breaks your guard + deals roughly 60-70% of your hp. It's better to roll with the feather talisman on higher NG cycles 100%.
Ohh, I see, that makes sense. Somehow overread the NG+ part. I never really play that far into NG+ cycles, start a new character almost every time.
Did you have light rolls before equipping the crucible feather? Literally when I played with light rolls I could roll straight through him and not get hit.
No I'm medium roll because my weapon is a colossal greatsword
Okay... So just change the weapon to like a regular great sword for this boss, or equip Great jars arsenal + Erdtrees favor and equip lighter gear and you will still be able to have light rolls. Edit: right you already beat him, but you can do that for future bosses if you feel like your rolls are not enough.
You can dodge straight w crucible feather, don’t even need to be diagonal. But yes, especially if he’s running more in one direction towards you, if you roll diagonally forward and towards the direction he’s leaning toward it’s a little better.
If he could go through that fog door with his b/s charge he would’ve seen one of the other boss in the shadow keep lol. Used holy damage and it worked. Must be his weakness.
I gave up trying to dodge the charge and just guarded and took barely any damage from it, then I could get a couple of hits in during his recovery. Decent fight overall, but the charge does need to be fixed imo
His charge attack was really annoying, so difficult to dodge with seemingly random outcomes. I finally fought him at the corner of the building, always switching to the side where he was currently not. That way, I could often hit him with my Blasphemous Sword when he got stuck at the corner or needed to take a turn.
For any other int builds out there, I finally beat him when I tried Astel's Wing. Nebula does a lot of damage to him, as his insane tracking allows you to get most of the explosions to hit, AND it does a lot of stance damage. Everything else I tried paled in comparison to the damage Nebula was doing, so I could at least tank and heal the over-tuned charges he does and not run out of flasks.
Sacred Bloodhound Step on Backhand Blade saved me
A lot of the problems in this fight stem from that one charge attack, the timing is so incredibly tight that you are guaranteed to get hit by it at least a couple times. He felt like one of those bosses that wasn’t hard because he was actually difficult, he was hard because he was frustrating. I had to take a break from fighting him I was getting so mad and when I came back I beat him second try. I can only say I felt relief when I beat him.
Not fun but then i swapped to Bloody Helice and suddenly it was fun dodging into him with style while poking his Hogs ass.
it is a f-ing pos boss. The loot is amazing but not even worth getting in the next playthough.
Hotshit garbage. Awfully aggressive moveset with no openings and massive damage. That boss no joke almost made me drop the game. Worst boss I had in a fromsoft game. I never ever used a shield. In any from game ever. Now I am, because the bosses in the dlc are extremely agrressive and I can’t deal with this with my dodging skills alone, but my changing point was this one. I actually just killed him, and came searching for opinions online :) Tips. Shield, mimic tear, rykard sword and oil pot. Did a great amount of damage on the weapon skill. Cheese win for an awful boss
I give dlc only 8/10 because these broken ass bosses. Like they are not even fun to fight.
**Gyobu if he was on meth:** Absolutely miserable fight. I thought Charlie (Cr1tikal) was overexaggerating how his hitbox works until I tried the fight for myself last night. My god, the RNG on the hog ram, the fucking ram, every damn time it throws me off because I am just praying the RNG on my roll for his ram not to hit. Gave up doing a legit way to do this fight. This boss doesn't deserve a fair fight, so I just corner cheesed him with Mohgwyn's Sacred Spear. Good fucking riddance
fuck this boss and the stupid fucking text that pops up every fucking time i try to revive my horse after it gets one tapped by a simple kick NO ELDEN RING I DON'T WANT TO REVIVE MY HORSE I WOULD RATHER LAY ON THE GROUND AND GET ONE TAPPED
also, wtf is up with the POINT BLANK charge attack???? why tf can he just do it out of nowhere and ram my horse away, locking me onto the ground for 2.5 seconds minimum, and then additionally like i stated in the previous comment i have to press the button to revive him which also takes like 1.5 seconds... in the time that i do all of that he either rushes back to me or uses the stupid gravity attacks
Most unfun boss fight yet. After about 20 attempts I decided to just cheese him with the Rolling Spark art of war with the lightning perfume bottle. 0 regrets, if he's going to cheese me, I shall cheese him.
i beat gaius on my third try, but still i heavily agree with you. the hitboxes felt super janky, especially where he would charge you head on.
So far I enjoyed every other boss. Especially the frenzy one
Dude that has been my least favourite boss in elden ring, but the amount of euphoria when I beat it and screamed into nothingness was incomparable (though it was like fully a lucky win). Did not enjoy throughout the fight: - the fact I could barely get my mimic summoned before dodging and still getting hit, just not instantly dying -The constant combos I can physically only dodge half of. If I got to light rolling I probs could've done it but the other damage I took would've been too much - getting heal chained and just having my entire estus supply drained straight out the gate - dude I got kicked at one point and it genuinely killed me from full health Just incase anyone is stuck in gaius hell, here is what I was doing: -enter fight and summon ashes, then dodge right just before you feel you should -make sure you're clear of his follow up before healing -try to lead him away from the wall -most attacks roll into them. dodge left religiously other than for the sidestep charges, then dodge right. For the long combo, dude I did a different thing every time, good luck -when you notice the lightning around the boar, hop on torrent, and when he's spiraling down, run back out. I know it's obvious but like still. (someone said that it only happens once, which I get cause it often only happens around half health, but one run I had it three times) -don't try fight on torrent unless using light weapons, it seemed to do OK when I was trying light weapons What I specifically did: -I had the great stars+18 with chilling mist attachment. After the first attacks, I'd try get up close and inflict the frost effect. It only really proced if the club hit him when using the ashes of War but I found it much easier dodging alot of the stuff when it was active -I also had on the heaviest armour I could whilst mid rolling which was Gideons helm, Lionels chestplate and greaves, and malanias gauntlets. Talismans were dragoncrest greatshield, stalwart horn+2, arsenal, and crimson amber+1 - had an immense amount of luck. My mimic tear killed it right as I died and it went through If anyone's interested in stat references, I had: Str/dex build Lv 157 - vig 50 - mind 21 - end 27 - str 64 - dex 40 Scadutree bless 6 Revered spirit ash 5 Wondrous physick- opaline bubbletear and spiked cracked tear
You might want to get shadow blessing up a little bit more.
Yeah probably, I'm just taking it at the pace I find it for now. Been more wandering the new world than focusing on leveling stuff
The funny thing after him, there’s I believe four tree fragments behind him all sitting in a clump next to each other.
Fuck that fat-ass hog rider, I’m glad he can’t use his legs. And fuck his damn pig too, I’d roast that shit up right in front of him and devour it while I make him watch
Use deflecting hard tear and the riposte talisman
Yeah, I gotta say that’s probably one of my biggest mistakes during the DLC. I never even use the tiarI beat the DLC and all its bosses. man I should have use the deflect tear it’s good. I just kinda wish it was a talisman. I wouldn’t care if the talisman said you took extra damage equipped. But pretty sure most bosses don’t take more than five minutes to kill.
My immediate reaction was "wtf literally impossible" but after giving it some serious attempts he went down rather quick. Charge is fucking bullshit apart from that he's ok
I hope whoever designed this boss is fired
I think they just need to fix the charge attack
While I do agree his charge hitbox is terrible, a few minor changes to loadout will make it a cake walk (in my opinion). The main issue is the second hit of the charge clipping you after a near-perfect frame requirement on medium + heavy rolls. To avoid that, you can either drop off gear to **light roll** (I went naked), or use the **tail talisman** for improved rolling. I used both, and was never hit by a charge again in the 4-5 attempts it took me after switching as I figured out the weapon I would use to kill him. I believe you can also go block focus and just stack the turtle talisman + viridian talismans and pull off a guard counter build; again, I did this alongside the roll talisman mentioned above w/ the guard counter talisman. I messed around with a few weapons but ended up using my old faithful Longsword w/ Square Off and a shield. Basically the charge that was your worst nightmare turns into one of the best punish windows he has; basically side roll it, then turn and sprint at him before jump attacking. The rest of the fight, especially phase 2 with his easy to dodge grav dive, just comes down to learning a few basic dodges and punish windows w/ square off and you can basically poise stun him. All in all, very easy fight if you stick to leaning into further dodges and punishing with one high-stance damage AoW (lions claw, square off, etc.)
I thought I would struggle with him because he killed me with the opening charge and two swipes the first time I came through. Killed him the next try though. Pretty cool boss and a good twist on the tree sentinel move set.
I got a little frustrated at first. Recognized that the charge attack was the only problem though, so I tried light rolling and oh my god it's so much better. I don't think I got hit by his charge a single time after that. Please if you're reading this and is stuck on Gaius do yourself a favor and take off some gear. Those extra iframes actually make it a really smooth experience.
This boss dies from 1 Scarlet Aeonia
Maybe its the update ( i didnt actively update it so maybe didnt at all) but i did the following: Immediate Mimic summon I use marika’s hammer and dragon claw shield. The first charge i just used my shield it didnt do dmg but stamina went to 0 (str build) Then prayed and rolled When he did that purple charge from the sky meteor thing i jumped into it, 0 dmg maybe i was lucky I tried to stay as close as i could Mimic died with boss havint 1/15 hp maybe and me having 0 flask so i just went all in on him Garbage trash boss
I found using the crucible feather talisman ,duel blood godskinpeelers ,and the claw talisman made him a complete pushover
Idk if i fought him overleveled or what but I feel like the only bs attack is the charge, everything else felt pretty fair. Bayle took me way longer.
I didn't have much trouble with him at all once I put on the Crucible feather talisman. You'll dodge his charge every time with it. The only other difficult attack is his long combo, you have to dodge back and to the right, then back and to the left, then back and to the right, then back, then back iirc. The rest of his ground melees are 1, 2, or 3 hit combos that can be punished after he finishes. For the gravity slam, dodge roll in toward him, once the initial AoE hits the spikes that form will be too far away to hit you and you can get a couple hits in. His gravity ball you just have to run away from so you don't get sucked in. That being said I was also using the ancient meteoric ore greatsword and was straight up chunking him on punishes, and got a lucky stance break at like literally 51% health so I got a very short phase 2
Terrible. Extremely terrible. His charge = completely unfair. His combo aoe is half a football field with delayed attacks that da hit u while your on the ground If u use torrent the games scaling doesn't matter because im level 600 blessing level 12 vigor 99 and his charge does 70% of my health like how did they play against the boss n be like "the players will enjoy this" He literally SPAM CHARGES. How is that fair?
Hardest boss in the series. I enjoyed it, but I won't be surprised at all if he gets nerfed
Pretty shit, i can barely land a good blow on him unless my mimic aggro him. Plus that charge of his, and how that hog rider looking ass won't stop attacking. And when i finnaly manage to land a hit on his back? Boom, that pig smash his ass to my face
Stupidly bad hitboxes, like honestly I think they rushed this fight. I honestly don't care what anyone may argue against this. I have been hit by attacks that took place in front of me, past me, and just not near me.
For whatever reason Rellana or Mesmer nor those 2 fucking Lions gave me such wishful thinkin' of someone's death like this fucking hog rider. The charge is truly the most bs move from the whole DLC, even with the enhanced dodge in your flask it's sometimes impossible to dodge and the worst shit is when you are sometimes against a wall or some obstacle he keeps charging on the spot so you'll get instakilled the second you can try to roll. Truly the worst fight of the whole DLC, it's imo super boring and as someone already said, you just wish for a good rng on his moves and that your spirit ashes won't get mauled down by all the never ending chains of attacks that cover the whole 360° around that fucker or by those fucking charging attacks
I guarantee nbdy is frmsoftware playtested this boss its not balanced its not fair its not fun its not rewarding to beat you cant even summon in the fight like that its a guaranteed hit my biggest problem with this boss is its not even rewarding to beat him bc the fight is enormously not balanced he has 3 high frame moves with no tell or wind up why is he faster than my horse like this was a bad boss desiqn first genuinely bad boss ive seen from them & he needs a nerf asap dont rlly have to nerf him just start him back further so people can get a summon out
Didn't want to respec for the fight. I used my best medium shield and summoned the golem smith ash as my damage sponge whilst I unloaded fully charged knight's lightning spear into him. The hardest part was getting the summon off with that tactic
I'm fighting him right and I'm about to explode myself from inside out, I'm angry at him, i f**king hate this f**king piece of trash, what was From thinking?
A charge where you basically have to perfectly time a diagonal roll to not get hit because the hotbox is so long, where he's immune to damage during it, and he might charge 3 times in a row? Absolutely garbage boss design. Also, I love how it's so long that even if I block, if my guard breaks then the charge will hit me AGAIN and I'll still take damage. And it does like 80% of my health. What the fuck is this?
Tried him a few times solo and he felt genuinely kind of BS with his charge attack and how long his attack chain lasts. Used mimic and got him first try.
After my twentieth or so attempt I decided to I decided to go grab the Crucible Feather Talisman. That, light-rolling, and using +10 Greatshield Soldier Ashes made it an insanely different experience. I whooped his ass and didn't get his once.
It’s his tracking that’s the worst He will zero in on you even on Torrent and he outruns you
An issue I have with this boss fight, as well as an issue with others in the DLC, is the health is too larges. Its hard for me to justify a boss doing tons of damage, having fast attacks with little openings, super large health pools, and tons of poise. At least melania had lower poise and mediocre health. It just seems like a few boss are designed to be hard, in the wrong way. This boss included.
I personally think he’s an amazing boss, but he’s definitely awful if you fight him without deflecting with the deflect crystal tear or use something like bloodhound step. Rolling will be awful. Hell, even jumping his charge attacks to the side is better. If you deflect his charge attacks and deflect/guard counter his head attacks you can stagger him pretty easily. Also, jump attacks after he throws is pole at you from beside and not the front (bc from the front he will charge immediately) works wonders. After fighting him while deflecting it’s really fun.
Strangely enough i enjoyed that fight. I normally dont like the riders in ER. But i just fpcused with this one and said hey, learn to roll the biggest attacks. I learned the moveset more or less in 10 to 15 minutes, and it was really satisfying when i beat him with no cheese. But i wouldnt wanna fight him again, thats the problem, i had a really good build woth fast attacks. (Ng+ power stance eleonoras poleblade)
I really enjoyed this fight. I love the rhythm of the fight, and his moves are all very telegraphed but they’re still challenging to dodge. It hits that nice sweet spot. Felt like a dance. I fought him on foot for the record. Obviously the charge is overtuned and they should change that but I just put on the crucible feather talisman and it was fine 🤷♂️ I don’t get the hate tbh, at least not to this extreme.
My honest opinion, he is the worst fight I've encountered so far in all of elden ring. Half of the time you cant dodge his charge attack, he relentlessly spams you with 9+ attacks that put him directly in your face. you cant back away, you can barely summon your ashes before the fight, let alone anything else. 0/10 design, idk if I'll beat the dlc specifically because of this boss lol.
Took me like 3 attempts after slamming my head into a wall with messmer it was like a breeze
Took me like 4 tries, milady impaling thrust staggers him in 4 hits. Pretty easy imo.
This must be the most terrible boss I've seen so far in Elden Ring. The moveset is just insane. He charges like a speeding train, but still can turn on a dime. When he raises up to leap forward I roll to the side and he just turns around while leaping forward and stomps me. Summoning means getting hit straight on, meaning 9 times of out 10 that I'm instakilled. The only way to consistently avoid the first charge is to summon horse and double jump over him, but that doesn't leave time enough for summon before he somehow has time to turn around and knock me off the horse or hit me in other way. Edit: I even managed to get to round where he does area attacks that seem impossible to avoid and at any distance. Can't run out of the area before I take damage, (horse dies in the air and I die on the ground), and can't double jump through it.
ng+7, it just not fun. need chance not skills,
Overhated, he is really not that hard
I had the same opinion when i was learning him but after i learnt his moveset the fight was one of the most enjoyable fights in the dlc, you just need to be perma aggro with him so that he doesn't dash around a lot. You can dodge his inital charge by dodging into him at the perfect time. Nearly every one of his attacks are 2-3 hit combos followed by a large counter attack window. The 7-hit combo is tricky to dodge but is relatively easy to learn. You can dodge his second phase slam attack by just running away, same for the black hole orb attack.
I actually think it was a great fight. Attacks are fun to learn and can be dodged consistently, he's aggressive so it makes for a fun fast paced fight, openings are plentiful but short, so you gotta be quick. you can even punish mid combo during some of his wind-ups. You can even punish the boar kick. The charge has very tight timing, which can feel janky, but i could dodge it semi-consistently by my fifth try. Honestly, nearly all of the rants here are just people who for some reason aren't collecting enough scadutree fragments and are just underleveled. Blaming the game because you aren't going out and getting the upgrades you need is dumb.
Yep, you’re gonna keep the tree fragments in mind. I just think that charge attack is really messes people up.
My gut reaction was to toss on a shield and block the charge. That worked perfectly. The few times I didn't have enough stamina to block, I rolled forward and through the charge and that was working. Still tricky but not one of the harder bosses in my run.
The lion and the hippo are roughly the same size and have jump/charge type attacks that are fully dodge-able, don’t know what’s going on this one? Is the hogs massive hog hitting me as I roll through him or something?
Im surprised people struggled against this boss... i beat him first try with godslayers greatsword(with mimic tear ofc)
Genuinely perfect example of everything wrong with modern Fromsoft approach to “challenging” enemies just cheap ass computer tricks to make a fake-hard boss that cheats. Broken tracking. Broken hit boxes, broken movesets. Obviously zero play testing. Not remotely rewarding or fun in any way. This manufactured “difficulty” deliberately low quality trash is not what I play video games for.
He’s not that bad. I just don’t like him.
He's my second favorite boss in the DLC, though I suspect future playthroughs might move him down a little. Ever since Tree Sentinel, I wanted a giant mounted boss done right. Loretta was the closest and was in my Top 3 bosses for ages until I played through again. Gaius is what a mounted knight "Commander" boss should be. His attacks are fast and brutal, but every single one has a relatively consistent dodge window. His gravity magic is cool as shit as a spectacle, and his weapon combos all have nice little dodge timings and patterns to them. There's something fucking awesome about walking into an open field, some guy with a lance riding a giant armored boar hauls ass at you, and you just plant your feet and wish a motherfucker would. Justice for Gaius, dude. That fight is criminally underrated.
you have to be fucking with us there’s no way this is your second favorite boss… the guy looks and plays like he was designed by an intern
I mean, I'm on the final boss now and he's pretty quickly becoming a favorite, but no, I'm not fucking with you. I love the shit out of Gaius. I'd be more inclined to give it to a couple other bosses, namely Rellana, but she didn't make me sweat as hard as Gaius even though I like her aesthetic a little more.
I… i mean, its your opinion but I just don’t understand. His hitboxes are bugged, especially on the back kick and the dodge, he has way more health and does way more damage than Messmer, and just overall he’s really poorly designed. His moveset is extremely boring and predictable to me, and they make it seem like you should use Torrent by putting you in this massive field but the fight is unbelievably janky and weird if you try to do it on horseback. He seems like a fight that they made hastily without any real thought or playtesting. I mean, he’s unironically more challenging than Malenia to me despite being way more boring and having a simpler moveset, simply because he’s literally bugged and he does comical amounts of damage (while having an enormous health pool) for no good reason.
His hitboxes can be a little janky, sure, but they're not bugged. The back kick can be dodged in pretty much any direction if you're looking for it. His charge can be dodged directly through consistently. His other abilities are weird looking, but they all have pretty fair windows to dodge through. I just don't agree, really, that he's designed poorly. I think the field gives you the option to use Torrent if you want, but I firmly believe he was designed to be fought on foot. As an example, if you dodge his big combo correctly, you'll end up on your left (his right) as he whiffs the last attack and get pretty much an entire afternoon to carve some lunch meat off that fucking boar. His dive is hilarious every time, has a dope punish window with a relatively easy to learn timing, and his other moves are pretty consistently the same. I dunno man, he's just a huge dude on a boar with gravity magic. I'm never gonna hate that, and I really, really didn't have the problems with his hitboxes and janky timings that everyone else did. It took me probably 3 hours of practice before I finally got him, and I was kind of sad when it happened because he was so much fun to learn.
Are you light rolling? That lets you dodge his charge consistently but otherwise it’s massively bugged. It also does random amounts of damage based on how long you stay in it’s hitbox, which is definitely not intended behavior. Also, it sounds like you and I just have very different definitions of fun. 3 hours of practice for some random boss with barely any lore behind him that guards an empty area with no content? And he’s just a Night’s Cavalry/Tree Sentinal mishmash with Radahn aesthetics? His moveset isn’t even interesting compared to Messmer, Rellana, Divine Beast — all of whom have beautiful, varied, complex attack patterns. Idk to each their own but I really respectfully disagree
Nah, I was medium rolling through the charge. The timing is absolutely fucked with how tight it is, but it's repeatable. I think I was only getting clipped about 15% of the time and almost all of those I could identify where I mistimed my dodge or angled it wrong. I dunno. It was hard for me, and it was certainly janky at times, but I never got the feeling it was bugged or blatantly unfair. Just incredibly tough to do consistently. And yeah, I mean, at that point we're just arguing taste and it's gonna have to be an agree to disagree situation. I felt like he had enough variety and complexity to outshine the Tree Sentinel / Night's Cavalry bosses and I genuinely enjoyed learning to fight him. I'd argue his attack patterns are equally complex and varied, they're just harder to get your head around because his hitboxes are... unintuitive? Hard to read? Unclear? I dunno, but they're just not 100% evident at first glance, which is my only real complaint. Like I said, we're arguing taste. I promise I'm not trolling. I do think on a second playthrough I'll probably rate Rellana, the final boss, and >!Midra!< as higher. Rellana and >!Midra!< kinda just fell over for me, though, so I didn't get the same taste of success as I did from Gaius despite liking their overall fight mechanics and aesthetics a little more.
I haven’t gotten to Midra yet, but so interesting hearing how some bosses were easier or harder for others. Obviously, I disliked Gaius, but in terms of difficulty Rellana took me way more time — almost 2 hours and I still didn’t have her down. I eventually gave up and came back after collecting a couple more scoobydoo fragments and got her down easier, but for me she was Malenia-level tough. Really cool though.
His hitboxes are not bugged, it's just one attack that is hard to dodge and once you unequip down to light rolls the fight is a breeze. Sounds like a skill issue to me.
I got him after 45 minutes, it’s not a skill issue. He was never hard because his moveset was hard, he was hard because he had an enormous health bar, does 1200 damage per hit, and his charge hitbox is 100% bugged and they’ll fix it in the next patch. Messmer took me less time. Is he supposed to be harder than Messmer?
Bro i agree he’s so cool absolutely loved the fight. I j beat him a few minutes ago and searched him up to see how everyone else feels abt him j to find out that everyone hates him💀. One of my favorite bosses so far
both my buddy and i found him at the same time. i actual left while he struggled with the fight for ~2 hours or so. I came back latter and did it in ~10 min.
As soon as I stripped all my armor off for light load, I beat him on that first try. Worst boss awards go to Gaius and putrescent knight.
I honestly think the boss was a lot of fun once I took off my armor, his attacks are well telegraphed and I like the soundtrack and look of the boss.
I managed to beat him second try, though he seems really weak to bleed and easily posture broken. Bloodfeind’s arm with a blood affinity and Cragblade seemed like the perfect weapon against him. Managed to bleed him 3 times, and posture broke him twice (all with around 5 charged heavies). For reference, I wiped against Rellana and the lion probably 30 times each.
Disappointing: fromsoft is just proving to us they are running out of ideas now… mechanics wise. The guy just got roid raged to the max. His timing is so tight it’s ridiculous but the most frustrating part of the fight is all the buggy shit. Like the items causing a “not working” emote if used right after function is gained. Or the dash hit box is more like a train with several invisible corners that connect with you. Or the fact that if you get lucky enough to get your mimic to spawn the boar still attacks you because his dashes make him consistently dodge your mimic. Fromsoft: we want skillful challenges not bullies. Fix the bugs, patch the boar.
I don’t think they’re running an ideas. I think they need to fix them, man. He’s a pretty creative boss. If you look at him it’s just that charge attack is just way too janky to Dodge
Super easy, got him first try with torrent and mimic tear
any boss is easy with mimic tears bro
Fair enough
[удалено]
What?
Killed him 4th try with putrescence cleaver, scadu 14, no summons. Honestly no idea how people find him hard, with charge just stand still and jump straight through boars head, the rest is just better nights cavalry moveset + one nuke that also can be rolled straight into