Posted by Last week I wrote up my thoughts on Elden Ring‘s DLC Shadow of the Erdtree. At the time, I hadn’t finished the DLC and just had the final Legacy Dungeon and boss ahead of me. This week I want to take a focused look at the final boss and share my thoughts on him.
SPOILERS FOLLOW
The final Legacy Dungeon is the tower city of Enir-Elim, populated by inquisitors and divine beast warriors. As a Legacy Dungeon, it’s fine but fairly short. It felt reminiscent of a Dark Souls level in how it was structured. It had a few little side paths here and there, but it wasn’t remotely as sprawling as something like the Shadow Keep, Belurat, or even Castle Ensis. Enir-Elim did have some side paths that connected to Belurat, which makes sense from a lore/narrative and game design perspective, but at the same time didn’t do much from a gameplay perspective. I’ve already cleared Belurat, so connecting elevators don’t feel that necessary, especially when I can fast travel between Sites of Grace. I didn’t mind Enir-Elim. I think it was a cool level, and it did have some incredibly well hidden secrets, though some felt a little too well hidden. Aesthetically, Enir-Elim looks great, just like every other location in the DLC. It definitely succeeds in conveying the aesthetic of a holy city.
The most noteworthy parts of Enir-Elim are the two fights at the very end. The first fight is a battle royale against Needle Knight Leda, Dryleaf Dane, and their allies. The fight could consist of Redmane Freyja, Hornsent, Moore, Dryleaf Dane, and Leda fighting the player, Thiollier, and Sir Ansbach/Sanguine Noble Nataan. I had already killed Hornsent during a different invasion, so I only had to fight the other four. This was a fairly tough fight, in part because it’s a big battle royale/gank where you can end up woefully outnumbered. As a result, I both do and don’t like this fight. On the one hand, you can play the DLC and advance questlines in a way so that you only fight Dane and Leda, making the fight significantly easier especially since you can always summon Nataan or Ansbach and Spirit Ashes. On the other hand, if you don’t know better, you can put yourself in a bad position where you have to fight five NPCs with only one helping you. For example, when I reached this point, I didn’t realize that earlier dialogue options I chose when speaking to Moore would make him an enemy. This is definitely the kind of fight that can end up punishing the player if the player doesn’t know better. The NPCs can also be frustratingly tanky, even with the help of your own NPC allies. One issue I’ve noticed a lot in the DLC is enemy aggro feels off. I played a caster build in both the base game and the DLC, and a common strategy I’d employ would be to summon a Spirit Ash or NPC and stand back while the boss fights the Spirit Ash and I attack from range. Throughout the DLC, bosses seem to prioritize the player over NPCs, at least in my experience. This prioritization could lead to some frustrating moments, especially during a chaotic fight like this one where I’m fighting one NPC in a 1v1 duel and I assume my allies are keeping the other NPCs busy only to get jumped by a second enemy. While this fight can be frustrating, I appreciate it from a lore and story perspective. This is a climactic moment where the followers of Miquella you met at the beginning of the DLC conclude their stories and character arcs. Even if the fight wasn’t great, it’s still kind of cool.
Now for the final boss: Promised Consort Radahn/Radahn, Consort of Miquella. The DLC ends with a showdown against a resurrected Radahn in Mohg’s body. I’ve heard this fight isn’t great for a whole lot of reasons, so I was prepared to use all the tools at my disposal. My first few attempts all involved summoning Thiollier, Ansbach, and my Mimic Tear. After trying and failing a few times, I learned that one NPC summon increased the boss’ health by 60% and a second increased it by 130%. I quickly stopped summoning NPCs and instead relied on my Mimic Tear. I think I spent around two hours fighting the boss before I finally beat him, which isn’t bad compared to some of the horror stories I’ve seen online. Was he hard? Absolutely. Was he fair? No not really. Promised Consort Radahn is the first boss in Elden Ring that actually forced me to change elements of my build and equipment. During my first few attempts, a single hit from one of his six hit combos would delete 2/3 of my health. I eventually switched out some of my magic boosting talismans for increased physical defense and holy defense. These two changes made the fight a bit more manageable. I also had to change up my Flask of Wondrous Physick, opting to keep the Tear that buffs my magic damage but choosing to replace the infinite FP Tear for one that provided more damage resistance. I also reallocated my flasks to have the all healing with one FP refill. No boss has ever forced me to do this. I’m not opposed to needing to adapt my equipment to better handle a challenging boss, but Radahn just felt overtuned. Last week I complained about how Commander Gaius was fast, aggressive, had massive hitboxes, dealt crazy damage, had long combos, and had a ton of health. Radahn is all of that but even more so, and worse (I’ll get to that in a minute). As my attempts progressed and I learned the boss, I realized I’d have to beat phase one all by myself. Phase one isn’t too bad. Sure Radahn could be tough, but a mix of dodging and keeping my distance usually allowed me to beat his first phase while only taking a hit or two. Phase two is another story. Phase two is where the boss fight goes from tough, and occasionally annoying, to outright ridiculous. Miquella steps in to help his struggling consort in phase two, adding a bunch of delayed holy attacks to Radahn’s usual moveset while also adding some crazy holy explosion aoes and afterimage attacks. Radahn’s aggression also spikes. The mix of never-ending attacks and chip damage from the delayed holy aoes led to a not insignificant number of attempts where I would have near flawless first phase, only to die almost immediately because Radahn never turned his attention to my Mimic Tear and just overwhelmed me with attacks while never giving me room to breathe. I never experienced hardware difficulties during the second phase, nor did I find the visual clutter that bad. The fight definitely felt cinematic, but it also struck me as one that prioritized visual flair and difficulty to the detriment of fun. I felt immense relief after beating Radahn not because I’d overcome a challenge, but because it was over. That being said, the victorious attempt was definitely memorable. Radahn was on his last legs and had just killed my Mimic Tear. He rose in the air to do a massive aoe attack. I ran away and used the opportunity to heal up and prepare. Once the attack was done, I approached him and spammed magic. He did his grab attack but completely missed me (I wasn’t even close to being in range) and I kept pelting him with magic. Some of the attacks missed due to not being in range, and before I knew it I was out of FP. He had a tiny sliver of health left. I rolled to close the gap, ate a small hit here and there, and swung my Darkmoon Greatsword. “God Slain.”
Overall, the Radahn fight is hard, and not always for the right reasons. My first attempts were at Scadutree level 18 with my Revered Spirit Ashes being level 9. I hunted down the remaining upgrades I needed, and yes the Scadutree Fragments proved to be even more annoying than I expected especially when I was just missing one. One other point I want to comment on is Radahn’s grab attack where Miquella charms you. I didn’t mind the attack because it does no damage, but does debuff you so the next grab attack instantly kills you (kinda). You can cleanse the debuff with Miquella’s Great Rune acquired from the Scadutree Avatar, and every time I got grabbed I noticed Radahn would switch aggro to my Mimic Tear. it provided a nice breather. As for the lore of the fight, it’s a little disappointing. I would’ve preferred a boss we haven’t seen before rather than just Radahn 2. I understand the lore and significance behind this fight, and its ramifications on the overarching lore of Elden Ring, but again I can’t help but be disappointed the fight isn’t a brand new enemy.
Overall, I still enjoyed Shadow of the Erdtree. I think it’s a very good DLC, even if the final two fights feel very artificially difficult because the enemies are a little overtuned with high damage, high health, high aggression, and questionable hitboxes. I don’t think that the questionable qualities of these fights tarnishes the DLC as a whole, but they do make the ending less of a “I can’t wait to fight this boss again” and more of a “well let’s get this over with.”
Broad Scope Entertainment 