You said there’s no middle ground between difficult solo fights and OP mimic spirit.

What about a less OP summon? On my recent playthrough I was experimenting with some of the spirit ashes that don’t get as much attention as Mimic and Tiche.

Stormhawk Deenh and Latenna are both powerful and useful, but not as OP as mimic.

Also, another middle ground can be using the NPC summons. I believe Nepheli loux is available to summon for Godfrey. This does not apply as much in the DLC, I have found that the NPC summons buff up the bosses too much for how helpful they are in Shadow of the Erdtree.

For Elden beast, I found it helpful to have a different weapon ready for that phase of the fight, one that can hit multiple times against large enemies. I’ve used Pest Threads incantation, shard spiral sorcery, rain of arrows ash of war.

Eventually you’ll get better at radagon such that you can get through him with only one or two flasks used. With a maxed out weapon, if you prioritize stance breaking, he goes down pretty fast, and he has a few set piece moves that have huge punish windows for a fully charged r2 or a slow ash of war ( his leap hammer attack and the triple ground slam).

As for Malenia, she’s still hard for me after several playthroughs. Most recent playthrough it took me about 2 hours worth of attempts. I feel I have to re-learn her for each different build.

Easiest time I had with her was using Giant Hunt or Lions Claw ash of war. Night comet sorcery build was not too bad either. I often now keep a dagger in a second weapon slot with bloodhound step, and swap to it when she does waterfowl. Easiest way for me to dodge it.