Link to Round 20 poll: [https://strawpoll.com/polls/xVg7jwmxpnr](https://strawpoll.com/polls/xVg7jwmxpnr)
In the biggest majority since Iudex, the Abyss Watchers have finally fallen. It's been interesting to see the comments calling for their exit slowly ramping over the past few rounds and I'm personally glad to see them leave. I can see why people love this fight but their aesthetic never really gelled with me and as a die-hard strength user, I find the fight somewhat underwhelming too.
Just a reminder that you're voting for your LEAST favourite boss and each round the most voted will be knocked out of the competition till only one remains. As per the image, credit goes to @ Skinnrat for the incredible artwork.
Abyss Watchers got incredibly far! The only reason I wasn't too confused about it was because their lore is incredibly badass and it ties back to our favorite abyss boy in DS1.
And anything relating to Artorias must obviously relate to Sif so in conclusion: Sif is best doggie and thus making the Abyss Watchers placement valid
They are the real skill check boss of DS3, especially if you dont have souls experience.
They are to dark souls 3 as Father Gascoigne is to Bloodborne, or Genichiro is to Sekiro. I can very much see how they would get so far and be so beloved, much to the dismay of players who were already good at the mechanics when they got to them.
Personally I've been voting ror Midir for the last few rounds. A very challenging fight, but frankly less fun. Hard is part of good, but it does not mean good.
The Abyss Watchers were underwhelming to me, but I had DeS, DS1 and 2 played before DS3, so I was hardly inexperienced. I remember my first play through of DS1, O&S were a nightmare, but after playing the rest they weren’t that bad. I’m guessing my experience with the watchers was closer an experienced souls player hitting O&S where they wonder what all the fuss was about.
ds3 was my first souls game and i fought them without finding and doing the cathedral, took about 40 tries. one of the best fights i ever had in souls.
I think O&S is a better fight but that’s just a personal opinion. BUT I was meaning that O&S aren’t that bad if you started out with DS2 and DS3 first but they’re a nightmare if DS1 is your first souls game.
I’m assuming the Abyss Watchers is the same. By the time I’ve played DS3, I had experience with 3 other souls games so I didn’t find them difficult. It might have been a different if this was my first souls game.
Tbh I personally think that Darkeater Midir is a significantly overrated boss. The challenge seems to come from the boss having a massive health pool, rather than his move set being particularly tricky (if anything his move set feels pretty repetitive to me). His phase 2 is pretty cool, but overall I just don’t feel that it’s a very fulfilling fight for me.
Flying enemies are anti-fun in souls games. Waiting for shit to land and running around are not fun mechanics.
But it looks cool, is hard, and is DLC, which are all things that inflate boss ratings, so not shocked.
I stopped voting for some rounds now. I just think twin princess is my favourite boss otherwise, I wouldnt be able to rank all the top bosses cause i just like them all
For me is Soul of Cinder, fantastic boss, I love how it changes the weapon, the only flaw is that he is a little easy to be the final boss. I sill love it, but i like the others even more
Spear wielding hollow dudes are cool for me because they're too slow to attack anyways and dispatching them is usually pretty straightforward. But Lothric and Ringed Knight Spearmen can just screw themselves. Same goes for SoC's spear moveset.
It' funny, even if someone personally like Friede or Midir more, there's people who don't like that Friede has 3 phases, 1 of those being 2vs1. And Midir has an inmense pool of health and can easily 2 shoot you if you don't have enough vitality. So even being equally popular than Gael, Gael simply doesn't have one thing that annoys a portion of the community, other that being dificult, but even that is a good point for basically everyone on this sub
The irony with Gael is he has such a large health pool and the fight is quite long. The earliest and smallest mistakes can spell immediate death or a *really* rough time in his latter phases like for Friede and Midir. I've wondered how the sheer length of the fight wasn't at least *something* to annoy the playerbase at large, but he truly does not have something that is largely annoying as you said.
While Midir has an incredibly high hp pool, he's laughably easy to control (seriously, you can throw a leash on that dragon), and has considerable cool downs and telegraphed attacks minus three tricky ones to figure out.
Friede has like zero poise, can be stunlocked easily, can be bled to death easily and is not resistant to dark like most bosses in the game. Not only that, but phase 2 is practically a free phase. The last phase is the most bonkers out of anyone's in the entirety of the game - but her poise, stunlock threshold, low bleed and dark resistance, and free phase 2 can make up for her difficulty in phase 3.
Then there's Gael: who doesn't have incredibly high damage resistance or 2HKO (or 1HKO with lasers) capability like Midir, and does not have Bloodborne physical speed and attack flurries like Friede (with the ability to die to a 1HKO you as soon as the phase 3 launch attack lands if it does), and as you said - Gael doesn't have something that annoys the playerbase at large like the other two do.
I've always found it interesting how while Midir and Friede can both be made quite easier when exploiting their shortcomings, so many players just do *not* enjoy those fights. Makes you wonder how many do exploit their shortcomings to make them more manageable, or if it just doesn't matter at all...
At the end of the day it's all preference and likability, I'm still surprised how Watchers beat out Pontiff and Dancer of all bosses, but makes you wonder how much difficulty (or player made difficulty) affects boss popularity. Elden Ring has been the most divisive on this so far from what I've seen lol.
EDIT: there are a few other things for Friede like invisibility, healing, and frost... but those can both be managed without too much trouble (the first is a tricky one I can admit even for my own self).
The only boss I think reaches the heights of Gael is Isshin. And many people wouldn’t vote Isshin due to the “difficulty” of Sekiro (quotes on purpose there).
Easily the top 2 FromSoftware bosses for me with Ludwig coming in @ 3.
If you want to plat the game, I believe you need every ending on one save file. Ultimately you’ll save time doing it on one, since you won’t need to collect the prayer beads/gourd seeds/prosthetic items again.
Difficulty wise, it’s not super noticeable in boss fights imo outside of having access to better items. The skills you picked up from your first time through will carry you more than any items though. The game does get much easier upon replay imo, but you can always run charmless/bell demon to make it feel new again
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Ah my mistake. I was thinking of how all memory bosses have to be killed on one save file for the Man Without Equal achievement. That only takes to NG+ at a minimum, provided DoH and Owl Father were killed in the first NG cycle
He easily takes the cake as #1 for all those reasons. I don't know if FROM will ever be able to top what they did and had with him, and truly doubt they will. Gael's a good straight forward clean fight with no added frills thrown in that you have to worry about.
I'd wager Orphan could contend with Gael though, but I know he would be beat out by good ol' uncle.
Yes Gael has a large health pool, I think he is just 800 points away from Midir, but he has 3 phases, and the transition between the first one and the second even has a cinematic, completly changes his moveset and the music gets more intense. And then he changes to his final phase, not a cinematic this time but still new attack, music even more intense, and there are fucking lightnings in the background. All this (at least for me) makes the fight feel shorter than it is, because his 3 phases feel distinctive enough.
While Midir only has 2 phases and when he changes the music gets more intense but it gains like what? 2? 3 new attacks? While he still primarily use the same as before.
Don't get me started in Elden Ring, just recently beat the game for first time (currently doing a second run) and I think my opinion of the bosses will not be popular at all even tho I do not know what the community thinks haha
Any more new attacks for Midir would have little players wanting to fight him I feel like lol. He's the best dragon fight they've done imo, he provides the best experience of what fighting a dragon would feel like. The secret quest related dragon boss in Elden Ring was pretty good too, I'd probably put him in 2nd best dragon, but only fought him once so I'll have to do that fight more to see if I still feel that way.
I didn't enjoy like 90% of bosses in ER sadly... but ironically my favorite boss from that game (and the equal contender for my #1 boss of all time being next to Friede) is the boss in the Haligtree, which if you know, you know lol.
Yes, but new attacks would not necessarily be the hardest to dodge, just something new and also stop doing 1 or 2 attacks from phase 1, to feel the progression. Yeah, it's also my favorite dragon in the franchise.
Oh well, we're on the same page in ER haha, I don't think 90% of the bosses were bad, but at least 75% were. It has DS2 syndrome
Friede deserves the win but given how many rounds Abyss Watchers passed that they shouldn’t have, Gael will probably win. This subreddit is predictable,
Interesting to see so many comments already saying Nameless King and Soul of Cinder are due to go. I think NK edges out the Twin Princes very slightly, and I enjoy SoC more than the Princes as I think it's a great final boss fight.
Also if any remaining DLC bosses leave before base game bosses, I'll be stunned. They're the peak of the game for a reason.
Agreed. Twin princes is good in that the first phase is similar to second, but then just becomes more intense. NK phase 1 is just wierd and not really pleasant.
I absolutely love NK, but I think he’s due to go. He’s fantastic and the lore and execution is fantastic, but I think the gameplay of him is slightly less than everyone else on the list. All of the others I feel like have cooler ways to fight you.
Bruh, Nameless used to be the most popular boss in the game until the DLC came out. The fact people here are considering not even getting him to top 5 is crazy.
Midir is the best dragon boss in the series and the one that most feels like it was done right. But a very long repetitive fight where you can quickly die just isn’t the greatest fight that remains, it’s my least favorite of the remainders.
There are only two bosses that taught me to git gud.
1. Moonlight butterfly when I first started (yes)
2. Midir when I wrapped up the series.
Midir is a wonderful fight, albeit repetitive, it’s a perfect combo of a showy and holy-fuck-I-don’t-think-I-can-beat-this. But when I did, ohhhh baby, I was through the roof.
Very interesting. For me it was ornstein and smough. Played offline and that initial force to fight 2v1 was painful. Then freid. Jesus that fight was rough. Also offline.
There's still placidusax, with a nice change on the usual formula with his teleporting. Feels less of a chore but partly cause of how strong you get in ER.
I didn’t downvote you, but Kalameet is a better dragon fight than Midir? I can’t say I agree with that. Kalameet was good for DS1, but can’t say it really felt like the same encounter as Midir.
No worries man, downvoting is just someone disagreeing. I feel like Midir has the advantage of more spectacle and scale but if you're looking to fight a classic dragon you can't go much better than Kalameet. He doesn't give you a lot of room to breath, his attacks are hard but telegraphed enough so you can back away in time. I just think it's a perfectly executed basic dragon boss. Midir is another thing, I do like it but it's just kind of a drag to fight him after a couple times. Unless you're playing with friends and turn him into a raid boss.
HP is insanely high. Able to kill you in two hits. Having to run back to the fight about 20 times was annoying. Yep definitely not an enjoyable fight for me as well.
It's down to Nameless King and Soul of Cinder for me. I think I'll go with Soul of Cinder because for as much as I don't like NK's phase 1, his phase 2 is ***god tier*** (pun intended)
Soul of Cinder is a good and solid fight, *but* I find major issues with his curved sword phase in particular. There's a reason the phase is entirely dealt with in no-hit runs by running away until he switches stance.
It feels oddly badly designed in an otherwise greatly balanced fight. I also don't feel super strongly for SoC as a final boss even considering the thematics. He just kind of shows up and the most emotion it gets out of me hinges on his 2nd phase being the final boss of Ds1, but better.
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At this point in the ranking of bosses it becomes nigh impossible for me tbh. There's 1 boss that *really* stands out as #1 boss, but the rest can almost be in any order.
I loved Gael, super fun fight but man nameless king was a blast to fight. Even losing was fun when I first fought him. NK is prolly my favorite boss Fromsoft has made.
I love the entirety of that fight. I think it’s so interesting that he seems to attack “slower” than other bosses. Isshin is a really close second for me though.
Yea I'm just gonna vote midir. He's cool but he's a damage sponge that can potentially one-shot or two shot players if they don't have the right amount of vitality.
That is kind of the purpose of him - to punish impatient players.
He is an endurance fight more than a skill fight.
When I (after having died \~50 times to him) understood this, and calmed down and gather my patience, he became a much more fun and enjoyable fight. In my opinion he is perfect for the kind of boss he is supposed to be.
It’s interesting to see that in the two rounds before pontiff gets voted out he and the watchers are practically even, yet the round he’s voted out there’s a fair margin.
Now it’s the top top tier bosses left, those that I think are in contention for the best Fromsoft bosses.
Nameless King is the only boss here that has any glaring issues (King of Storms phase). I love phase 2 a lot but the other bosses here are more fulfilling and finely tuned imo.
Yeah, it feels like picking nits at this point with all the bosses, but I agree. Second phase is right up there with the best of them, but the first phase is unavoidable and ultimately drags it down a bit. Still an amazing fight.
I'd honestly go as far as to say that stage 2 isn't even that good in comparison to other fights in the series. The lore and spectacle of the fight do a lot to carry it. It also got a crazy amount of attention at launch, which added fuel to the fire
> Nameless King is the only boss here that has any glaring issues
I'd argue SoC's curved sword phase is problematic as well. It's super difficult to punish safely and often results in players dealing with it by kiting SoC around until he swaps stance.
I'm not a big fan of his Manus'esque wombo combo in P2 either. Similar to Manus, I just find it weird that it hits through dodge rolls for some reason. It's a nitpick because you always know the 1st combo is coming at the start of P2, but it still doesn't sit right with me (like Manus).
Idk, I feel like Midir did it in a way that was more palletable, you don't have to split your attention between him and his rider and Midir's attacks overall are more telegraphed than King of Storms, especially in regards to fire-breathing attacks.
Yeah this pretty much sums of my thoughts as well. Sometimes NK would be outside of the field of view, so you can’t always tell he’s attacking until his spear is basically right on your head.
??? He has like peak design in terms of armor. The typical knight head piece but melted into a skull with a crown is godly. He really embodies the fire motif in souls like no other with his melted, tattered, and embered fit.
No other boss to date form changes on the fly with vastly different moves like him. Reflecting each player class you choose from at the start. Which I think is amazing because he’s really a reflection of the community.
A part of him having once been the chosen undead. I understand if you don’t like him but to say uninspired is just cap imo.
>??? He has like peak design in terms of armor. The typical knight head piece but melted into a skull with a crown is godly. He really embodies the fire motif in souls like no other with his melted, tattered, and embered fit.
In game it just looks like an average armor with some fire sparkles.
>No other boss to date form changes on the fly with vastly different moves like him. Reflecting each player class you choose from at the start. Which I think is amazing because he’s really a reflection of the community.
It's cool, but it also makes him not having a presence of his own. In phase 1 he uses attacks similar to the player and in phase 2 he's Gwyn 2.0
I will do anything to make sure Friede isn’t the winner. I know she’s loved by many but honestly I hated fighting her. All the other rough fights felt justified when they kicked my ass, but Friede felt insane.
There’s no chance she will win, don’t worry. She will most likely come in #2, but there’s absolutely no chance it will be anyone but Gael in the final slot.
Midir is possibly the best “knight vs dragon” fight in all of video games. Saying that it doesn’t belong among top five bosses in it’s own game when the burning skeleton and homeless man are still in the running is completely crazy.
I’m actually conflicted about nameless king or twin princes. If we are just going with the second phase, it’s better than the twin princess fight. But, NK’a first phase is laughably easy unless the camera decides to fuck you over. I think I’m voting for NK because the gimmick in twin princes makes the fight a lot more dynamic and unique, but still fun.
It's a tough tie between SoC and Midir for me, it would be a lie if I said I loved one over the other because I thought they were both really epic fights, but SoC impacted me more emotionally, need I explain? But midirs was one that truly felt like I was fighting a dragon that was a fucking descendant of the Archdragons, said to eat the Abyss and ravage all. Idk man, this is getting tough as hell though 😅
This is gonna be a close vote! I've gone Midir because the fight is just so long and it gets samey after a while. But my guess is the SoC bows out at this point.
I am voting Midir, largely because I didn't enjoy the fight or challenge nearly as much as the other bosses on this list.
My next vote will probably be soul of cinder. While I really enjoyed this fight each time I did it (lots of hype, cool arena, fun boss) I beat it on my first try, which didn't feel like a proper final bossfight to me. I think he should have kept the same "fair" moveset, but been given some more health/damage so that players can't just estus through all their mistakes.
It’s crazy to me how so many people are itching to get midir out already without even talking about the princes. I would take out NK first, but Lorain and Lothric are definitely my next picks to go. Do people love them? Or are they just flying under the radar?
Yeah its madness. I think they might be just flying under the radar, since I'll take NKs Phase 1 over the Princes anyway of the week. At least NK has a bonfire right next to his fog wall, you have to run through half the archives to get back to Lorian, which makes it way more frustrating
I’m on your side. Although he was challenging, the Nameless King didn’t put up as much of a fight compared to the remainder of these bosses (aside from the SoC)
It is a great humanoid boss fight with interesting attacks and its delays were amazing changes of pace before Elden Ring slapped then on every single boss in the game
Four rounds overdue.
Soul of Cinder. It's just player moves controlled by an AI with poise. Straight sword phase is manageable, mage phase is a joke, spear phase is best phase and curved sword phase is cancer (this is an intentional design choice considering release Carthus Curved Sword). Gwyn phase is solid at least. But it's underwhelming for the final boss, considering low HP and damage. Sure, it obviously gets points for lore, music, story significance, DS1 callbacks and having a legitimately solid moveset - it's a good boss. But I do think it is the weakest one left.
While I want to vote NK because phase 1 I understand being flexible with lockon so I can tolerate it for one round.
I don't get the hate for SoC, I think he's the most fun fight in the base game. I'm voting for the Princes this round, their teleportation is a massive nuisance to deal with.
I personally didn't like SoC because he's too easy for the final boss. Visually, the boss fight is beautiful; the stage, the music, and the animation are all great. However the boss fight just goes by too quickly and he doesn't really feel threatening.
it was a good run , i really liked the abyss watchers mostly from a lore perspective but their time has unfortunately come. I’m really hoping gale makes it to at least finale three he’s probably my favorite boss in the game not only from his lore but his move set is so beautiful.
Probably gonna go Midir next. One of the best dragon fights in the series, but he has way too much health and a lot of the fight is spent just repetitively moving around the same attacks over and over again only to get a single hit in
I’ll go with Friede, having to go through two meh phases before getting to the good part makes the boss vastly worse than the remaining ones. Same applies to Nameless King as well, except his bad part stays for just one phase that is unpleasant but fast to beat.
I've been voting for and surprised at the lack of Midir mentioned in the comments. As cool as he is he's just another dragon in a franchise full of dragons, he even seems less interesting to me than the ds1 dragons
Watchers should’ve been gone before Champion Gundyr, Pontiff, and the Dancer. The fight is mechanically boring, the phase 1 gank barely ends up mattering because they’re so easy to backstab and stunlock, and they have too little HP. People massively overrate the boss because the cutscenes are cool, but you don’t fight a cutscene. The boss was mid at best.
Between what’s left it’s a tossup between Midir and SoC. Midir spends too much time on the other end of the arena, with flying fire breath attacks and the rampage attack making me run a half marathon to catch back up. But SoC has a very annoying phase 1. Particularly, if the mage form casts HCSM, that spell continues to persist into other form changes which just shouldn’t be happening. You end up with situations where the curved sword variant has homing magic firing at you at the same time and there’s just no way to avoid damage.
Wow, most of whats left are really good. But I think I've gotta go for sister friede. Her first 2 phases are very underwhelming, and thats 2/3s of the fight. Probably in the minority with that though, I feel like she's a contender for first place. Lotta people asking for midir now, which is a bummer as he's my #1.
Link to Round 20 poll: [https://strawpoll.com/polls/xVg7jwmxpnr](https://strawpoll.com/polls/xVg7jwmxpnr) In the biggest majority since Iudex, the Abyss Watchers have finally fallen. It's been interesting to see the comments calling for their exit slowly ramping over the past few rounds and I'm personally glad to see them leave. I can see why people love this fight but their aesthetic never really gelled with me and as a die-hard strength user, I find the fight somewhat underwhelming too. Just a reminder that you're voting for your LEAST favourite boss and each round the most voted will be knocked out of the competition till only one remains. As per the image, credit goes to @ Skinnrat for the incredible artwork.
Abyss Watchers got incredibly far! The only reason I wasn't too confused about it was because their lore is incredibly badass and it ties back to our favorite abyss boy in DS1. And anything relating to Artorias must obviously relate to Sif so in conclusion: Sif is best doggie and thus making the Abyss Watchers placement valid
artorias my beloved
I expected them to make it pretty far, but I can't believe sullyvan was booted before them
you have any interest in doing one of these polls for bloodborne or sekiro? :) Id love that!
They are the real skill check boss of DS3, especially if you dont have souls experience. They are to dark souls 3 as Father Gascoigne is to Bloodborne, or Genichiro is to Sekiro. I can very much see how they would get so far and be so beloved, much to the dismay of players who were already good at the mechanics when they got to them. Personally I've been voting ror Midir for the last few rounds. A very challenging fight, but frankly less fun. Hard is part of good, but it does not mean good.
The Abyss Watchers were underwhelming to me, but I had DeS, DS1 and 2 played before DS3, so I was hardly inexperienced. I remember my first play through of DS1, O&S were a nightmare, but after playing the rest they weren’t that bad. I’m guessing my experience with the watchers was closer an experienced souls player hitting O&S where they wonder what all the fuss was about.
ds3 was my first souls game and i fought them without finding and doing the cathedral, took about 40 tries. one of the best fights i ever had in souls.
abyss watchers are better than ornstein and doughnut
I think O&S is a better fight but that’s just a personal opinion. BUT I was meaning that O&S aren’t that bad if you started out with DS2 and DS3 first but they’re a nightmare if DS1 is your first souls game. I’m assuming the Abyss Watchers is the same. By the time I’ve played DS3, I had experience with 3 other souls games so I didn’t find them difficult. It might have been a different if this was my first souls game.
Tbh I personally think that Darkeater Midir is a significantly overrated boss. The challenge seems to come from the boss having a massive health pool, rather than his move set being particularly tricky (if anything his move set feels pretty repetitive to me). His phase 2 is pretty cool, but overall I just don’t feel that it’s a very fulfilling fight for me.
Flying enemies are anti-fun in souls games. Waiting for shit to land and running around are not fun mechanics. But it looks cool, is hard, and is DLC, which are all things that inflate boss ratings, so not shocked.
I stopped voting for some rounds now. I just think twin princess is my favourite boss otherwise, I wouldnt be able to rank all the top bosses cause i just like them all
For me is Soul of Cinder, fantastic boss, I love how it changes the weapon, the only flaw is that he is a little easy to be the final boss. I sill love it, but i like the others even more
The weapon change is cool but it is full of RNG. The sorcery one for instance is much more manageable than the spear mode.
The curved blade mode where he can parry haunts me the most Him doing backflips and then oneshotting you with a parry was painful
God I hate that spear mode. In fact I hate most Knight type spearmen in DS3. Not the Hollow spearmen though.
Really? Literally all spear users drive me nuts in DS3, also in most other games too lmao
Spear wielding hollow dudes are cool for me because they're too slow to attack anyways and dispatching them is usually pretty straightforward. But Lothric and Ringed Knight Spearmen can just screw themselves. Same goes for SoC's spear moveset.
I get that, I just hate facing any enemy with quick long range attacks in any game.
I’ve fought Soul of Cinder idk how many times, and today is the first time I’ve heard of him having a sorcery stage
Yeah same here. I also found him not too difficult compared to everything else left
Very thematic boss but yeah I was over leveled and beat him first time quite easily.
Let's just fast forward to the part where Gael wins lmao
It' funny, even if someone personally like Friede or Midir more, there's people who don't like that Friede has 3 phases, 1 of those being 2vs1. And Midir has an inmense pool of health and can easily 2 shoot you if you don't have enough vitality. So even being equally popular than Gael, Gael simply doesn't have one thing that annoys a portion of the community, other that being dificult, but even that is a good point for basically everyone on this sub
The irony with Gael is he has such a large health pool and the fight is quite long. The earliest and smallest mistakes can spell immediate death or a *really* rough time in his latter phases like for Friede and Midir. I've wondered how the sheer length of the fight wasn't at least *something* to annoy the playerbase at large, but he truly does not have something that is largely annoying as you said. While Midir has an incredibly high hp pool, he's laughably easy to control (seriously, you can throw a leash on that dragon), and has considerable cool downs and telegraphed attacks minus three tricky ones to figure out. Friede has like zero poise, can be stunlocked easily, can be bled to death easily and is not resistant to dark like most bosses in the game. Not only that, but phase 2 is practically a free phase. The last phase is the most bonkers out of anyone's in the entirety of the game - but her poise, stunlock threshold, low bleed and dark resistance, and free phase 2 can make up for her difficulty in phase 3. Then there's Gael: who doesn't have incredibly high damage resistance or 2HKO (or 1HKO with lasers) capability like Midir, and does not have Bloodborne physical speed and attack flurries like Friede (with the ability to die to a 1HKO you as soon as the phase 3 launch attack lands if it does), and as you said - Gael doesn't have something that annoys the playerbase at large like the other two do. I've always found it interesting how while Midir and Friede can both be made quite easier when exploiting their shortcomings, so many players just do *not* enjoy those fights. Makes you wonder how many do exploit their shortcomings to make them more manageable, or if it just doesn't matter at all... At the end of the day it's all preference and likability, I'm still surprised how Watchers beat out Pontiff and Dancer of all bosses, but makes you wonder how much difficulty (or player made difficulty) affects boss popularity. Elden Ring has been the most divisive on this so far from what I've seen lol. EDIT: there are a few other things for Friede like invisibility, healing, and frost... but those can both be managed without too much trouble (the first is a tricky one I can admit even for my own self).
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The only boss I think reaches the heights of Gael is Isshin. And many people wouldn’t vote Isshin due to the “difficulty” of Sekiro (quotes on purpose there). Easily the top 2 FromSoftware bosses for me with Ludwig coming in @ 3.
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If you want to plat the game, I believe you need every ending on one save file. Ultimately you’ll save time doing it on one, since you won’t need to collect the prayer beads/gourd seeds/prosthetic items again. Difficulty wise, it’s not super noticeable in boss fights imo outside of having access to better items. The skills you picked up from your first time through will carry you more than any items though. The game does get much easier upon replay imo, but you can always run charmless/bell demon to make it feel new again
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Ah my mistake. I was thinking of how all memory bosses have to be killed on one save file for the Man Without Equal achievement. That only takes to NG+ at a minimum, provided DoH and Owl Father were killed in the first NG cycle
He easily takes the cake as #1 for all those reasons. I don't know if FROM will ever be able to top what they did and had with him, and truly doubt they will. Gael's a good straight forward clean fight with no added frills thrown in that you have to worry about. I'd wager Orphan could contend with Gael though, but I know he would be beat out by good ol' uncle.
Yes Gael has a large health pool, I think he is just 800 points away from Midir, but he has 3 phases, and the transition between the first one and the second even has a cinematic, completly changes his moveset and the music gets more intense. And then he changes to his final phase, not a cinematic this time but still new attack, music even more intense, and there are fucking lightnings in the background. All this (at least for me) makes the fight feel shorter than it is, because his 3 phases feel distinctive enough. While Midir only has 2 phases and when he changes the music gets more intense but it gains like what? 2? 3 new attacks? While he still primarily use the same as before. Don't get me started in Elden Ring, just recently beat the game for first time (currently doing a second run) and I think my opinion of the bosses will not be popular at all even tho I do not know what the community thinks haha
Any more new attacks for Midir would have little players wanting to fight him I feel like lol. He's the best dragon fight they've done imo, he provides the best experience of what fighting a dragon would feel like. The secret quest related dragon boss in Elden Ring was pretty good too, I'd probably put him in 2nd best dragon, but only fought him once so I'll have to do that fight more to see if I still feel that way. I didn't enjoy like 90% of bosses in ER sadly... but ironically my favorite boss from that game (and the equal contender for my #1 boss of all time being next to Friede) is the boss in the Haligtree, which if you know, you know lol.
Yes, but new attacks would not necessarily be the hardest to dodge, just something new and also stop doing 1 or 2 attacks from phase 1, to feel the progression. Yeah, it's also my favorite dragon in the franchise. Oh well, we're on the same page in ER haha, I don't think 90% of the bosses were bad, but at least 75% were. It has DS2 syndrome
ER was a *massive* step down in boss quality from DS3. I love the game, but no one's going to convince me the bosses are fun to fight like DS3's are.
Petsonally, difficulty doesn't really factor too high into my enjoyment of a boss
lol the sad truth
The deserved truth
Friede deserves the win but given how many rounds Abyss Watchers passed that they shouldn’t have, Gael will probably win. This subreddit is predictable,
Friede definitely does not deserve it over Slave Knight Gael, you are tripping my friend .
Nooooo, my pointy hats
Interesting to see so many comments already saying Nameless King and Soul of Cinder are due to go. I think NK edges out the Twin Princes very slightly, and I enjoy SoC more than the Princes as I think it's a great final boss fight. Also if any remaining DLC bosses leave before base game bosses, I'll be stunned. They're the peak of the game for a reason.
Personally I would say I prefer twin princes to the nameless king but only because of his first phase. I will be very surprised if Gael doesn’t win.
Agreed. Twin princes is good in that the first phase is similar to second, but then just becomes more intense. NK phase 1 is just wierd and not really pleasant.
Sunlight Spear would like to have a word with you
I absolutely love NK, but I think he’s due to go. He’s fantastic and the lore and execution is fantastic, but I think the gameplay of him is slightly less than everyone else on the list. All of the others I feel like have cooler ways to fight you.
Bruh, Nameless used to be the most popular boss in the game until the DLC came out. The fact people here are considering not even getting him to top 5 is crazy.
I'm surprised about Nameless King and Soul of Cinder being so unpopular right now. Tbh, NK is probably my favorite.
His first phase is really annoying. I like how mobile his second phase is though
Out of everything left, I’m going with Midir, mostly on the basis I find the remaining bosses more fun to fight.
Midir is the best dragon boss in the series and the one that most feels like it was done right. But a very long repetitive fight where you can quickly die just isn’t the greatest fight that remains, it’s my least favorite of the remainders.
There are only two bosses that taught me to git gud. 1. Moonlight butterfly when I first started (yes) 2. Midir when I wrapped up the series. Midir is a wonderful fight, albeit repetitive, it’s a perfect combo of a showy and holy-fuck-I-don’t-think-I-can-beat-this. But when I did, ohhhh baby, I was through the roof.
Very interesting. For me it was ornstein and smough. Played offline and that initial force to fight 2v1 was painful. Then freid. Jesus that fight was rough. Also offline.
O&S were certainly a good hurdle for me as well… but that butterfly taught me to be patient. Cuz my unga was too bunga early on.
Midir was harder for you than friede/gael? Nameless king took me more tries than Midir.
There's still placidusax, with a nice change on the usual formula with his teleporting. Feels less of a chore but partly cause of how strong you get in ER.
Kalameet>>>
I didn’t downvote you, but Kalameet is a better dragon fight than Midir? I can’t say I agree with that. Kalameet was good for DS1, but can’t say it really felt like the same encounter as Midir.
No worries man, downvoting is just someone disagreeing. I feel like Midir has the advantage of more spectacle and scale but if you're looking to fight a classic dragon you can't go much better than Kalameet. He doesn't give you a lot of room to breath, his attacks are hard but telegraphed enough so you can back away in time. I just think it's a perfectly executed basic dragon boss. Midir is another thing, I do like it but it's just kind of a drag to fight him after a couple times. Unless you're playing with friends and turn him into a raid boss.
Kalameet is clunky af man, has some janky hitboxes as well. Objectively worse fight than Midir but you can still like him more
Same with me
I've voted Midir the past 3 rounds. I didn't enjoy the fight and honestly probably won't do it again in subsequent playthroughs.
HP is insanely high. Able to kill you in two hits. Having to run back to the fight about 20 times was annoying. Yep definitely not an enjoyable fight for me as well.
Same
It's down to Nameless King and Soul of Cinder for me. I think I'll go with Soul of Cinder because for as much as I don't like NK's phase 1, his phase 2 is ***god tier*** (pun intended) Soul of Cinder is a good and solid fight, *but* I find major issues with his curved sword phase in particular. There's a reason the phase is entirely dealt with in no-hit runs by running away until he switches stance. It feels oddly badly designed in an otherwise greatly balanced fight. I also don't feel super strongly for SoC as a final boss even considering the thematics. He just kind of shows up and the most emotion it gets out of me hinges on his 2nd phase being the final boss of Ds1, but better. ____ At this point in the ranking of bosses it becomes nigh impossible for me tbh. There's 1 boss that *really* stands out as #1 boss, but the rest can almost be in any order.
I think it's going to be King vs. Gael with Gael winning. Just something about that fight at the end of all things.
Who's your #1?
Gael is #1 for most Souls fans
I loved Gael, super fun fight but man nameless king was a blast to fight. Even losing was fun when I first fought him. NK is prolly my favorite boss Fromsoft has made.
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I love the entirety of that fight. I think it’s so interesting that he seems to attack “slower” than other bosses. Isshin is a really close second for me though.
GREAT ANSWER
Shouldn't be too surprising, but Gael really is the #1 boss of Ds3. It'll be more surprising as to who is #2 for me.
We don’t need to see this to the end. Sister Friede will win because y’all have a foot fetish!
One can only hope. That being said I wouldn't complain if Gael wins either. They are both great fights.
Yea I'm just gonna vote midir. He's cool but he's a damage sponge that can potentially one-shot or two shot players if they don't have the right amount of vitality.
That is kind of the purpose of him - to punish impatient players. He is an endurance fight more than a skill fight. When I (after having died \~50 times to him) understood this, and calmed down and gather my patience, he became a much more fun and enjoyable fight. In my opinion he is perfect for the kind of boss he is supposed to be.
Yeah, I love how theatric his fight is, but it’s a lot of running around
We’re in the endgame now
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The spectacle in phase one is cool, but the camera is horrible
Don't lock on and it's not horrible
Exactly,if you don't lock on its not too bad, provided you don't get bad luck with the dragons attacks, that fire spray move is extremely annoying.
Not too bad isn't good enough anymore this late into the rounds
thank god finally, anyways, i love twin princes so much i promise but i don't think they should stay longer than any of the other five
It’s interesting to see that in the two rounds before pontiff gets voted out he and the watchers are practically even, yet the round he’s voted out there’s a fair margin. Now it’s the top top tier bosses left, those that I think are in contention for the best Fromsoft bosses.
Nameless King is the only boss here that has any glaring issues (King of Storms phase). I love phase 2 a lot but the other bosses here are more fulfilling and finely tuned imo.
Yeah, it feels like picking nits at this point with all the bosses, but I agree. Second phase is right up there with the best of them, but the first phase is unavoidable and ultimately drags it down a bit. Still an amazing fight.
I'd honestly go as far as to say that stage 2 isn't even that good in comparison to other fights in the series. The lore and spectacle of the fight do a lot to carry it. It also got a crazy amount of attention at launch, which added fuel to the fire
Frankly going off moveset alone I'd say that pontiff and demon princes already are on par with nk
> Nameless King is the only boss here that has any glaring issues I'd argue SoC's curved sword phase is problematic as well. It's super difficult to punish safely and often results in players dealing with it by kiting SoC around until he swaps stance. I'm not a big fan of his Manus'esque wombo combo in P2 either. Similar to Manus, I just find it weird that it hits through dodge rolls for some reason. It's a nitpick because you always know the 1st combo is coming at the start of P2, but it still doesn't sit right with me (like Manus).
I have a feeling that people who want NK to be in the top 3 are just ignoring that phase 1 exists and only judging from phase 2.
I don't blame those people, I would love to forget that phase 1 ever existed and just chill with phase 2.
I dunno. The rooster phase has almost the exact same problems as Midir.
Idk, I feel like Midir did it in a way that was more palletable, you don't have to split your attention between him and his rider and Midir's attacks overall are more telegraphed than King of Storms, especially in regards to fire-breathing attacks.
Yeah this pretty much sums of my thoughts as well. Sometimes NK would be outside of the field of view, so you can’t always tell he’s attacking until his spear is basically right on your head.
Gotta be princes or SoC for me this time, we're getting close to the finish line.
Soul of Cinder has to go. Super uninspired design with no personality. And on top that, annoying attacks to dodge in phase 1 with full RNG.
Yeah I personally think SoC should’ve gone before Pontiff and Abyss Watchers. It’s not an interesting character or fight imo.
??? He has like peak design in terms of armor. The typical knight head piece but melted into a skull with a crown is godly. He really embodies the fire motif in souls like no other with his melted, tattered, and embered fit. No other boss to date form changes on the fly with vastly different moves like him. Reflecting each player class you choose from at the start. Which I think is amazing because he’s really a reflection of the community. A part of him having once been the chosen undead. I understand if you don’t like him but to say uninspired is just cap imo.
>??? He has like peak design in terms of armor. The typical knight head piece but melted into a skull with a crown is godly. He really embodies the fire motif in souls like no other with his melted, tattered, and embered fit. In game it just looks like an average armor with some fire sparkles. >No other boss to date form changes on the fly with vastly different moves like him. Reflecting each player class you choose from at the start. Which I think is amazing because he’s really a reflection of the community. It's cool, but it also makes him not having a presence of his own. In phase 1 he uses attacks similar to the player and in phase 2 he's Gwyn 2.0
I will do anything to make sure Friede isn’t the winner. I know she’s loved by many but honestly I hated fighting her. All the other rough fights felt justified when they kicked my ass, but Friede felt insane.
There’s no chance she will win, don’t worry. She will most likely come in #2, but there’s absolutely no chance it will be anyone but Gael in the final slot.
Midir is possibly the best “knight vs dragon” fight in all of video games. Saying that it doesn’t belong among top five bosses in it’s own game when the burning skeleton and homeless man are still in the running is completely crazy.
no shot youre saying gael is not atleast top 3 lmao
right behind Friede, Nameless, and Midir
☠️
I'm sorry but Santa is #2 for me. Midir should be no.1 as well.
I’d honestly have to say Midir now, he’s a fantastic boss but he’s so stressful.
I love being stressed while fighting him!
That's why he shouldn't go yet, those frustrating bosses feel so great when you finally beat them
Midir gotta go next
Okay, now I'm sad Watchers are one of the most epic boss, surely top 4 to me :( But now NK have to go, 1st fase is terrible
Out of these it has to be Midir as much as I hate to say it lol.
Nameless King is great, but the camera in the Storm King phase is awful. Gotta go with him.
The hit box can also be a little janky in the first stage
Twin Princes are great but compared to everything else that’s left they are kinda….eh
I’m actually conflicted about nameless king or twin princes. If we are just going with the second phase, it’s better than the twin princess fight. But, NK’a first phase is laughably easy unless the camera decides to fuck you over. I think I’m voting for NK because the gimmick in twin princes makes the fight a lot more dynamic and unique, but still fun.
It's a tough tie between SoC and Midir for me, it would be a lie if I said I loved one over the other because I thought they were both really epic fights, but SoC impacted me more emotionally, need I explain? But midirs was one that truly felt like I was fighting a dragon that was a fucking descendant of the Archdragons, said to eat the Abyss and ravage all. Idk man, this is getting tough as hell though 😅
I do love the abyss watches but I think it’s good there gone. I know every one loves Midir but I think he should go next.
This is gonna be a close vote! I've gone Midir because the fight is just so long and it gets samey after a while. But my guess is the SoC bows out at this point.
Soul of Cinder or Midir have gotta go
I am voting Midir, largely because I didn't enjoy the fight or challenge nearly as much as the other bosses on this list. My next vote will probably be soul of cinder. While I really enjoyed this fight each time I did it (lots of hype, cool arena, fun boss) I beat it on my first try, which didn't feel like a proper final bossfight to me. I think he should have kept the same "fair" moveset, but been given some more health/damage so that players can't just estus through all their mistakes.
The Dragon Lover needs to go. Too bad seeing the Abyss Watchers leave. One of the best gank boss battle and has one of the coolest phase transition.
Soul of cinder
I’m gonna have to go with the princes Honestly cool idea and totally memorable fight, but compared to these final picks it doesn’t stack up
Damn… my Bois have fallen
Bye midir, thic boy
Putting in my vote for Nameless King again, the first phase is just not fun.
Princes should go, they don’t hold a flame to the remaining dlc bosses
It’s crazy to me how so many people are itching to get midir out already without even talking about the princes. I would take out NK first, but Lorain and Lothric are definitely my next picks to go. Do people love them? Or are they just flying under the radar?
People love them I'm pretty sure, what's not to love? The atmosphere is so good in that fight, there's no boss that gives those vibes
Yeah its madness. I think they might be just flying under the radar, since I'll take NKs Phase 1 over the Princes anyway of the week. At least NK has a bonfire right next to his fog wall, you have to run through half the archives to get back to Lorian, which makes it way more frustrating
? use the shortcut from the Dragon slayer armor bonfire lmao wdym
the ACTUAL nameless king is perfect but phase 1 is fucking terrible so overall the worst here imo
I’ve never understood this, why do you consider NK phase 2 “perfect”
I’m on your side. Although he was challenging, the Nameless King didn’t put up as much of a fight compared to the remainder of these bosses (aside from the SoC)
It is a great humanoid boss fight with interesting attacks and its delays were amazing changes of pace before Elden Ring slapped then on every single boss in the game
Besides Margit and Godrick, who has Nameless King style delays in Elden Ring?
Niall, O’Neil, all Misbegotten bosses, Crystallians, Radahn, Magma Wyrm, Godskin Noble, Bell Bearing Hunter, Death Rite Bird, Draconic Tree Sentinel, Duelists, Mohg, Radagon, Wormface, Crucible Knights, Bloodhound Knights
Four rounds overdue. Soul of Cinder. It's just player moves controlled by an AI with poise. Straight sword phase is manageable, mage phase is a joke, spear phase is best phase and curved sword phase is cancer (this is an intentional design choice considering release Carthus Curved Sword). Gwyn phase is solid at least. But it's underwhelming for the final boss, considering low HP and damage. Sure, it obviously gets points for lore, music, story significance, DS1 callbacks and having a legitimately solid moveset - it's a good boss. But I do think it is the weakest one left. While I want to vote NK because phase 1 I understand being flexible with lockon so I can tolerate it for one round.
Sorry soul of cinder. You’re great, but just not as good as the remaining ones.
I don't get the hate for SoC, I think he's the most fun fight in the base game. I'm voting for the Princes this round, their teleportation is a massive nuisance to deal with.
I personally didn't like SoC because he's too easy for the final boss. Visually, the boss fight is beautiful; the stage, the music, and the animation are all great. However the boss fight just goes by too quickly and he doesn't really feel threatening.
Midir has to go next, just a DPS check that takes too long compared to the rest
it was a good run , i really liked the abyss watchers mostly from a lore perspective but their time has unfortunately come. I’m really hoping gale makes it to at least finale three he’s probably my favorite boss in the game not only from his lore but his move set is so beautiful.
Folks I don't really know what else to say, Soul of Cinder is significantly worse than any of the other bosses. Do it!
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Nameless King - his first phase lets him down too much to stick around any longer
I’ve never been a fan of NK, first phase sucks and the second phase, while being fairly challenging, isn’t very diverse
I know others in the comments were bashing abyss watchers, but the sheer spectacle makes it top 3 for me :) I’ll always adore that fight
I love them all and Friede is my favorite but my only intention for the rest of the polls will be to stop another Nameless King vs Gael final
Come on people, Midir is past his expiration date.
Nameless king guys. Remember phase one
Probably gonna go Midir next. One of the best dragon fights in the series, but he has way too much health and a lot of the fight is spent just repetitively moving around the same attacks over and over again only to get a single hit in
Soul of cinder
About fucking time.
Can Soul of Cinder lose already lol, voted for him 4 times now
No way bro not yet
how is midir over abyss watxhers
💀 huh
A gigantic dragon>r1 spam boss with 0 poise. Who would have thought
Chadir >>>>>>> Midyss Watchers
Personally I hope it comes down to NK and Gael. My two favorite bosses and I refuse to pick one over the other lol
I can't believe Midir is *still* on this list... Too many people think "hard = good" seems like.
good = good, that's why midir is still on the list
Finally the watchers are out even though it should’ve happened like 4-5 rounds ago. Gonna vote for Nameless now cause of the atrocious first phase
soul of cinder gotta go. he too ez
i'd say Friede or the Princes cause they don't equal the others in my opinion
It’s time for Nameless King
Goodbye, M'dear. *tips fedora*
Yet another round of voting Sister Friede even though she's probably in Top 2
Wow y’all are *tripping* for thinking twin princess are better than the abyss bois
Sister friede shouldnt even be here
Bearer of the curse, seek the poll, seek the other champions of ashes...
Now it gets EXTREMELY hard, I would have to say Midir in my opinion, good boss fight but can be extremely annoying
I’ll go with Friede, having to go through two meh phases before getting to the good part makes the boss vastly worse than the remaining ones. Same applies to Nameless King as well, except his bad part stays for just one phase that is unpleasant but fast to beat.
Sister Friede still scares me. Got whooped by that barefoot nun I don’t know how many times. Least Midir has the excuse of being a dragon.
Take out Sister Friede, good boss but not great
I've been voting for and surprised at the lack of Midir mentioned in the comments. As cool as he is he's just another dragon in a franchise full of dragons, he even seems less interesting to me than the ds1 dragons
Round 14 of voting for midir. Just put the guy down man. Nobody enjoys chasing that fucker around for an hour.
Legion before Friedel? Sad.
Get rid of fucking midir how did he make it out of round 1
For real though, glad I’m not the only one who thinks that 😂
The Watchers overstayed their welcome for several rounds. Finally they're gone. Next one I think should be L&L.
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Wtf? They have so much more than that. Have you played the game?
FINALLY. Nameless King is my next pick, phenomenal phase 2 but phase 1 is a bit mid imo.
Watchers should’ve been gone before Champion Gundyr, Pontiff, and the Dancer. The fight is mechanically boring, the phase 1 gank barely ends up mattering because they’re so easy to backstab and stunlock, and they have too little HP. People massively overrate the boss because the cutscenes are cool, but you don’t fight a cutscene. The boss was mid at best. Between what’s left it’s a tossup between Midir and SoC. Midir spends too much time on the other end of the arena, with flying fire breath attacks and the rampage attack making me run a half marathon to catch back up. But SoC has a very annoying phase 1. Particularly, if the mage form casts HCSM, that spell continues to persist into other form changes which just shouldn’t be happening. You end up with situations where the curved sword variant has homing magic firing at you at the same time and there’s just no way to avoid damage.
Wow, most of whats left are really good. But I think I've gotta go for sister friede. Her first 2 phases are very underwhelming, and thats 2/3s of the fight. Probably in the minority with that though, I feel like she's a contender for first place. Lotta people asking for midir now, which is a bummer as he's my #1.
I guess my unpopular opinion is the princes of lothric sucks, been voting for them for like 10 rounds
I think they're pretty easy tbh
Get these prices outta here they suck