TurtleRock
Moblin
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Eh, I think he’s fine if he was like the final of the first 5 shardbearers you encountered. But realistically he’s not. Most people encounter him around level 40-60, and given the way soft caps work in this game especially when it comes to vigor, players are simply too squishy against him. He is late early game to early mid game boss. For where he is in the game he was tuned way too high.Eh, it's not so bad. I've gone back and melee'd him down pre-patch and seen plenty of different consistent strats. It's actually pretty surprising how easy it is to get around most of his stuff. I think the most annoying thing he has is homing orbs which still can be beat in a single roll. Jumping, horse riding, posture break, and weakness to consumables all interact with him very well too if you're open to using those options. Admittedly his statting can be a bit harsh, but I feel that's more a problem with the way Vigor works and is telegraphed in this game in general. It's a really strong boss design that asks the ER player to really understand their options and use them well.
That list bit is the problem though. The fight is built around the assumption players will have gotten a good handle on all the different approaches to the combat system by the time they've got there, and most players just haven't. The tutorializing in the game is honestly quite poor(even though they've shown to be able to do this well in Sekiro), and it's easy to blow past most of the content in the first 3-4 major zones without really engaging with a lot of the combat options. I can empathize with the players who reach him and go "what am I supposed to do about that?" with his initial statline and just felt defeated out the gate, since there's a high likelihood they are unprepared. It was just punishing enough too that I'm willing to bet most didn't feel payoff for experimentation and just gave up.
Tough problem for FromSoft to balance really. I think where he's at now is fine, since the average player probably still needs to cycle through 2-3 different combat approaches to him for a clear. That mostly preserves to me what makes the fight really great, so it's whatever. Just wish the game was structured in a way to actually get players engaging with the combat systems earlier. Elden Ring is really stretching the bare bones combat of Souls to the limit, so it's going to be really interesting to see what other balance changes they choose to make. I think they really overshot the endgame for no real reason other than their hardcore difficulty brand, so I'd like to see them swing at that. Even if you're good enough to blow through it the pacing tanks, and most of the fight mechs aren't engaging cause they're too focused on punishing the player.
It’s my personal philosophy that you should never get one shot in a souls game unless you are purposely running super low HP builds. His meteor can kill in one hit with as much as 45 vigor. His AOE moves happen so frequently that most players using melee strats will struggle. The damage was simply too high for when players typically encounter him. Players should get the chance to overcome a mistake not just instantly die (which is why I think an infamous late game fight is also poorly designed).
Another problem was pre-patch a tried and true souls strat was borderline useless against him and a lot of late game bosses, which is shielding. Shielding is how players learn a bosses moves. I’ve played every single Dark Souls game as sword and board and my first couple of runs at a boss I’m usually shielding just to get a feel for the moves.
You couldn’t do that against Radahn because the hit box on his moves would almost always hit you from the side and bypass your shield, and if you blocked the old guard point value on shields wasn’t enough to sustain his onslaught without getting guard broken.
So yeah, the changes IMO are good. I think it’s a lot more fair of a fight now and players can now actually scope out his moveset with a shield and actually get a chance to learn the fight properly. That’s what boss fights on Souls game need to strive for.