Taking On 12 Major Bosses in Shadow of the Erdtree at Level 1 with No Armor

The first opponent is Rellana, Twin Moon Knight, who blocks the way at a castle early in the Realm of Shadow. Since she is a humanoid swordfighter, he figured he could parry her as much as he liked, so he brought a shield. Golden Parry lets him knock Rellana out of the air as she leaps around. After a successful parry, he switches to dual wielding to attack. According to the player, Golden Parry "becomes a parry if there's a delay and a dodge if there isn't," so it covers both options in the enemy's mix-up.

When her HP drops to half, she enters her second phase. The player predicted she would draw her greatsword here and slashed at her with his dual blades during the windup. He admits, however, that while dual wielding lets him stack damage, he misses parry opportunities until he switches back to the shield, which makes it tricky to manage. In the second phase her combos become more intense, and there are fewer openings to get in close. To bait attacks that are easy to parry, he first steps into the range of her fast close-range attacks, dodges the first hit, and then parries. He says this is the basic pattern. After a parry, Rellana often leaps to the left or right, which gives him a chance to parry again.

Her big late-fight attack comes with a mechanic that has to be avoided by jumping. The player says that since "the ground is so well trodden," he's just happy there's a mechanic that uses jumping at all. He finishes her with a parry as well.

Fighting the Divine Beast Dancing Lion up close makes the camera go wild, so the player switched to a crossbow, one that fires three bolts per shot. He first lands six scarlet rot bolts to inflict rot, then switches to bleed bolts. According to the player, bleed bolts can be bought from a merchant in the Realm of Shadow, making them well suited for the DLC.

In its second phase, the Dancing Lion cloaks itself in weather, with many varieties: thunderstorm, windstorm, and blizzard. He says the follow-up lightning blasts in the thunderstorm state were strong. In the windstorm state it launches large and small tornadoes, but the player says both are "honestly not that troublesome," and that the windstorm state didn't seem to do much. Finally it switches to a blizzard and uses yet another set of attacks. He defeated it after firing around 80 bolts in total.

As for the Golden Hippopotamus waiting at the main gate, the player points out that despite its appearance, its stance is easy to break: two Square Off heavy attacks are enough. He buffs with Royal Knight's Resolve before landing a critical hit. What caught the player's attention is that the hippo takes an extremely long time to get up after a critical hit, long enough to land two more Square Offs. In other words, he just has to repeat "Square Off, Square Off, critical hit." He ran out of FP partway through, but after replenishing it he landed a third critical hit and finished it off with Square Off.

Commander Gaius, who charges in on his boar, is said to be highly susceptible to status effects. The player first hits him about five times with the Venomous Fang to inflict deadly poison, which deals about 5,400 damage. He then switches to the Antspur Rapier and lands about ten hits to inflict scarlet rot, which he calculates deals about 7,000 damage. For one particular combo, he explains that backing off three times and then running left gives him a window to thrust about five times.

After applying the status effects, he switches to a straight sword. He chips away at Gaius's stance with Square Off, buying time by keeping the boss from doing anything while the status effects slowly wear him down. The player says that once the enemy is poisoned or rotting, he can "watch with a smile" no matter how long its attack animations go on. In the second phase, against the combo that follows a slam, slipping around to the far side as Gaius raises his body opens a window for one Square Off. He says that once you get used to it, Gaius is surprisingly full of openings. He praises Square Off for its excellent stance damage and for offering two different attacks, which makes it easy to slot into gaps between enemy attacks.

For Romina, Saint of the Bud, he brought a fire-infused broadsword. Fire is effective against her and her stance is low, so two Square Off heavy attacks knock her down. Since he can land another Square Off after the critical hit, he can break her stance again depending on her actions. However, she attacks the area around her when changing phases, so he says it's safest to back off rather than follow up at that point. Right after the phase change, she basically always uses a three-hit combo, after which she acts freely. Her two-hit combo leaves a big opening, and the player explains that you can either hit her with Square Off from behind or dodge the second hit with a jump attack.

Against the Putrescent Knight, he used a scythe. Its skill is excellent, dealing heavy damage with just three hits. By his calculation, ten hits will kill the knight, so he swings whenever he sees an opening. Seven hits push it into the second phase, and three more win the fight. The fire attack during the phase change can be avoided by jumping three times.

Against Metyr, Mother of Fingers, he used a new crossbow added in the DLC that can fire 12 shots in a row. The player says, "I miss the days when I was excited about firing three shots at the Dancing Lion." Unlike the crossbow from the Dancing Lion fight, it has low stat requirements and is easy to use even at level 1. He kept firing bleed bolts from a distance and finished her off before she could attack.

The Scadutree Avatar has low HP to begin with, so a single attack sequence takes off a large chunk. He has to defeat three of them, reapplying his buffs for each one. The second and later ones start with reduced HP, which the player says is because the damage from the critical hit he landed when finishing off the previous one carries over. Since this much damage gets through even at level 1, he says he's "worried that playing normally, you could kill it in one hit." The second one opens with a charge, so he backs off three times. The third one stops moving if he dodges its first explosion, and he finished it off during that pause.

In the Messmer fight, he meets the opening charge with a jump attack. Messmer is susceptible to bleed, so he fights with a bleed weapon. During Messmer's chain of thrusts, getting in close lets him attack four times. Bleed's damage output is high, and the first phase ended quickly. In the second phase, Messmer mostly uses single charging spear attacks. By dodging and following him, the player can get attacks in. Against the spinning attack where Messmer wreathes himself in flames, he dodges forward three times early. He says it's a hard move to read visually. At one point the player failed to follow the direction of the spear and whiffed. Saying it's important to "get in sync with Messmer," he defeated him.

The Midra fight begins after first defeating a preliminary enemy with dual wielding. At the start, simply circling around and attacking four times dealt about 10,000 damage. After that he switches to a shield and parries with the Carian Retaliation skill. The player praises the skill for its fast startup and generous timing window. Normally Midra uses a long move when transitioning to the second phase, but staggering him with bleed lets you skip it.

In the second phase, too, he fights mainly with parries. Some attacks, like the spinning attack with his left hand, can't be parried, so he only needs to dodge when those come. The fast spinning attack can sometimes be avoided just by moving sideways. The player points out that the text of Midra's Remembrance says he was "too weak to be a lord," and speculates that he's meant to be on the weaker side in the official lore. Still, he says that although Midra is weak, the camera stays calm and you get plenty of parries, so the fight is fun, and he was a boss that felt like Dark Souls. He skipped the big phase-change attack, but says he was glad to see the huge explosion at the end.

Against Bayle the Dread, he uses a magic-infused broadsword and aims to break Bayle's stance with Square Off heavy attacks. The player describes Bayle as "a good guy who has big openings between attacks, so he lets you break his stance just as you'd expect." After breaking it, he chains Square Off, Square Off, and a critical hit.

In the second phase, Bayle's flying attacks can mostly be avoided just by running to the right. However, the lock-on sometimes drops near walls, which he says can occasionally be rough. When an attack comes from the ground, he dodges it with a jump attack, then breaks Bayle's stance with three Square Offs to knock him down. For the charging attack, Square Off fits in after dodging the second hit from the tail, and also after the left and right attacks. He ran out of FP at the end, but since he was still dealing decent damage, he whittled Bayle down without going for knockdowns.

For the final boss, Promised Consort Radahn, he chose a dagger with powerful critical hits. The player calls this dagger "the unsung hero that has supported me throughout this adventure." Many of Radahn's attacks can be parried. Three parries produce a knockdown, so he keeps parrying patiently. The first knockdown also triggered bleed, dealing good damage. When frostbite is inflicted, it deals percentage damage and increases damage taken by 1.2 times. In this state he lands a second critical hit, bringing Radahn's HP down to about 60% and ending the first half of the fight.

If the second half is triggered by a critical hit, it starts at a distance, so he first runs in close. The player describes the second half as a tug-of-war between himself, wanting to bait close-range attacks and parry them, and Radahn, wanting to use big attacks and create distance. It's important to be close when the enemy's attack ends; the farther away he is, the more attack opportunities he loses. He says frostbite's percentage damage is "quietly valuable." However, the second half mixes in many unparryable moves, so he has to be patient.

He also touches on his choice of equipment. One of the talismans added in the DLC boosts attack power for 20 seconds after a critical hit. However, there are few situations where Radahn allows three parries within 20 seconds, so he didn't use it this time. At the fourth critical hit, the player calculates that "two more critical hits and I win," meaning he can win with 18 parries in total. There were moments when Radahn's many big attacks made it hard to close the distance, but he landed the fifth critical hit. When Radahn leaps into the air, running to the edge of the arena gets him clear in time, and he calmly dodges and closes in. He landed the final three parries and defeated Radahn.

Looking back, the player says the DLC was a great deal of fun to explore, with many distinctive bosses that each had their own quirks. Having tried weapons he never used in the base game and finding many of them fun, he says he was reminded once again of how much depth the game has, and closes the video.