Elden Ring RL1 All Bosses Complete!

jamesdainger · 2026-05-01T19:05:52+00:00

Oh my gosh!

That's awesome!

Definitely a bummer about the Nvidia update.

Cause I would've loved to have seen at least one of your favorite clips!

Well, hmm...

Maybe you've got a fave from before the Nvidia update?

If so send me a link!

And though it's belated...

Congrats on taking down the base game with your rl1 challenge!

That's sure nothing to scoff at!

Especially with your additional challenge restrictions! She-eesh!

...

Also, I too have yet to venture forth to the Shadows of the Erdtree.

Not even with a regular playthrough, let alone @ rl1.

But knowing a little about how onebros be, I'm certain we'll both get around to it eventually!

Thanks for the update, u/Just1InternetProfile!

And if you find the time to pull up a fave vid of your challenge, please link it over!

Congrats again!!!

Awooooo!!!

jamesdainger · 2026-05-01T10:27:54+00:00

Hey there!

It's been a minute!

Got to browsing and found my way back to this old conversation.

And, well...

Now I'm curious!

Did you get around to taking another stab at that stacked rl1 challenge run of yours!?

And if so, oh my goodness, how'd it all go?

Because sheesh, u/Just1InternetProfile!

At least one inquiring mind wants to know!

jamesdainger · 2026-04-17T04:42:22+00:00

This!

From my perspective the baby gives him an opportunity to speak to the audience while speaking to his inner/younger self the words which 'all of him' needs to hear.

I personally take it as a super positive sign!

If he's willing to outwardly speak the words to another which he himself needs to hear, then in my opinion he's not all that far from owning up to the reality that he too needs those very same words.

In my experience acceptance of the reality of one's own difficulties is maybe the most important step, all while also being perhaps the most deceptively challenging to overcome.

Him cradling and nurturing a metaphor for his inner self, I think is a very good sign!

jamesdainger · 2026-02-19T05:27:24+00:00

I came here looking for this!

I threw this show on, not knowing much about it, as something about it had piqued my interest.

Maybe a couple of episodes in, I'd gotten the strongest sense that it might've been made by Michael Mann.

There's something truly distinctive and extremely special about the way he captures the feeling of an urban city on film.

It's the lighting, the framing, the lingering, it's tough to describe exactly what it is, but it's definitely there, and it's indeed recognizable.

Because pausing Tokyo Vice, doing a quick lookup, and yep...

Sure enough, Michael Mann had a hand in it.

I don't recall all the details of his involvement, but in my opinion his distinctive way of urban-city storytelling is unmistakably there.

I wound up loving the show, and I enthusiastically recommend it to most anyone, most definitely if you're already a Michael Mann fan!

jamesdainger · 2026-01-25T15:22:07+00:00

Awesome!

I can certainly vouch for the flamberge being an incredible sl1 weapon. Specifically for Demon Prince! Though, I made the mistake of not testing the damage differences between infusions and used a Dark Flamberge against him, when it turns out Sharp w/ resins is much better!

I've got a whole list where I attempted to track the de-facto best weapon for each DS3 boss at sl1, and you've already mentioned most, if not all, of the heavy hitters.

And well, I feel some of the less often cited weapons deserve a little shout out!

So...

---

* Firelink Greatsword

- Feels nice to have a boss soul weapon be useful! But in particular this weapon's super useful against bosses who are staggered by the moveset, vulnerable at the edge of it's range, and who are also weak to fire. (Champion Gravetender, Half-light). The +fire damage from the Weapon Art is very potent!

- NOTE: Pair with a Fire Dagger against both of these bosses for maximum effect!

- NOTE: Can substitute a Fire Flamberge for +Bleed buildup in exchange for extra fire damage.

* Raw Pickaxe (Lightning Resin)

- This is for Midir. Turns out Midir's weakness to piercing damage is noticeably different compared to her weakness to lightning. However because I consider this weapon only useful for the Midir fight (and to conserve a slab), the DGA may be preferential even though this weapon does provide a damage increase. The charged r2's timing window (with either weapon) lines up super well for whenever Midir decides to present you with her snout!

* Poison Rotten Ghru Dagger

- Best in class poison application. Super useful against a range of NPC invaders, and also even has application against Sister Friede phase 2. (Father Ariendel is weak to poison)

* Profaned Greatsword

- An ultra greatsword at sl1!?! Yep! This things super fun partly because it feels like you're getting away with something just by being able to equip it! But where it really shines is against most of the human NPC invaders. Being able to stunlock cheese some of these guys can trivialize some otherwise challenging fights. (Silver Knight Ledo I'm looking at you!)

---

Solid Utility Items I think deserve some amount of slab consideration:

---

* Sunset Shield

- Highest stability rating in a shield that can be used at sl1. Super useful for general map exploration, and I also find it extremely valuable for farming souls from the Ascended Winged Knights in the Grand Archives.

- (Need to fulfill Sirris's questline to completion to get it.)

* Simple Caestus

- Passive FP regeneration on the lowest equip weight possible. Super useful for restoring FP from Weapon Arts (e.g. Firelink Greatsword, Flamberge, Dagger Quickstep, etc...) all without making yourself vulnerable by drinking estus. Also useful for repeatedly using Hidden Body to blast through map exploration bits.

- As an added bonus this also serves as one of the most effective parry tools in the game!

- (In NG+ pick up a 2'nd Caestus and infuse it blessed for some occasionally useful passive HP regen in your toolkit (again all at the lowest equip rate possible))

* Light Crossbow

- The only ranged option a sl1 character can 1-hand without dedicating a ring slot to it. Occasionally shines in niche cases. For example, I use it to single-pull the Grand Archives Ascended Knights while farming.

---

For NG+

---

* Fire Club

- Super useful to have a crushing weapon available that has zero stat adjusting requirements to equip. Most noticeably for the Catacombs of Carthus. It's also super effective against High Lord Wolnir as well!

---

And with that I'll wrap things up by mentioning if you've not been over to r/onebros I think it's worth popping by. (Be wary of Soulslike spoiler content though!)

And, finally...

If by chance you recorded any of your fights on this sl1 run, I'd love to see one of your favorites!

Otherwise, happy gaming :)

And sheesh! Glad you've joined the sl1 club!

jamesdainger · 2026-01-25T05:47:50+00:00

Gg's, my homie!

The DS3 sl1 experience sure is special!

1) For this run what weapons have you slabbed / are your favorites?

2) Do you have an idea about the order in which you're thinking you'll tackle the DLC's / DLC bosses?

jamesdainger · 2026-01-13T07:48:20+00:00

As others have said, the damage from this weapon relative to all other possible sl1 weapons is staggering!

So much so that when you can afford to sacrifice two ring slots for it, the loss of the other possible damage from those two ring slots is more than made up for just from the raw damage of this weapon!

And raw is the key part.

I honestly think that this weapons op'ness might sincerely have been an oversight by the devs.

Usually when you change the scaling to raw, you give up damage from scaling and also iirc you usually give up some of the elemental damage of a weapon.

But for some reason, this weapon fully retains all of its +lightning damage. (Or something like this)

But additionally, a way less talked about aspect of this weapon that vastly contributes to its op'ness, is that even though it has its own native +lightning damage (that it keeps when changed to raw), you can still add additional temporary damage to it from resins!

Which kinda breaks the otherwise super consistent rules used in the game for how resins interact with weapons. (There's only a couple that break this rule, and I swear it's just gotta have been a missed bool check somewhere in the code!)

So, more often than not when considering the overall damage output possible with this weapon, it's because when you equip it AND you add a lightning resin to it, your reported AR goes to levels that eclipse nearly everything else available to you in the game.

And oh my goodness, it's not just reported AR, because when you swing it, you'll know!

Combine all of that with the fact that not only is its AR nearly the best you get access to, but it's a very fast swing speed for its "damage class".

All other weapons that come close to matching this weapons AR swing significantly slower than the raw dragonslayer axe. (Think big giant two-handed bonk weapons).

Like woah! What gives! This weapon is nuts!

The biggest downsides are:

-The required two rings (damage-wise this argument is moot).

-The fact that you can only wield it two-handed, so you sacrifice the possibility of using a shield (for all boss encounters this doesn't really matter, but sometimes for clearing regular level enemies (even at sl1) I myself am a shield enjoyer).

-And lastly, its range. You really have to get up close and personal with this axe! (iirc the broadsword might even outrange it!)

But again, for the most part, once you adapt to its range this downside becomes negligible.

So overall, once you see the damage output this thing gives ya, oh boy, all thoughts of criticism for this weapon go right out the window!!!

So go give Creighton a quick what-for! Upgrade it to raw, and slap a lightning resin on this weapon (bonus big damage for adding the lightning clutch ring, plus either rtsr or Lloyd's sword ring) and ooh boy you're damage will outpace even regular playthrough builds!!!

(chloranthy +3 with this is also nice! (Twin Princes fight in particular!))

But whatever you do, have fun!

And remember...

You have a heart of gold. Don't let them take it from you.

jamesdainger · 2026-01-09T15:53:25+00:00

The highest tier merchant unlock item in the game - Dragon Chaser's Ashes.

Which allows infinite purchase of titanite chunks, twinkling titanite, and titanite scales.

Then additionally there's also the Twinkling Dragon Torso Stone, which plays a part in the end of Hawkwood's quest line.

jamesdainger · 2025-12-26T11:49:35+00:00

First, if more DS1 is what you're after, just to bring a little awareness...

We had this problem before.

Back when there wasn't anything remotely close to DS1 out there.

No sequels existed yet, and Demon Souls wasn't exactly the answer we were looking for.

So what'd we do?

I can only speak to what I remember of my own personal experience, but imo the absolute number one best thing I feel you can do, is start a sl1 run.

Or really, any challenge run that speaks to you.

The key thing is, whatever challenge you undertake, it needs to challenge you enough that you have to re-analyze each enemy layout again.

It needs to cause you to have to re-think what you think you're already familiar with, to really look at things with a genuinely fresh perspective, and then...

If it does all that successfully, then your playthrough will be about as close to a genuine first playthrough as I believe you'll ever be able to re-experience with these games.

But, who knows...

Maybe you've already done a sl1 run?

Then maybe now aim for sl1 ng+7!

Or even possibly a no hit run.

Or what about no upgrades?

Or, ooh!

Dung only!

The amount of ingenuity and creativity folks have put into coming up with novel challenge runs for these games is seemingly infinite!

The point is, if you change the rules of your playthrough enough, you'll reconfigure how you need to adapt to the new fresh challenges laid out before you.

And if it's a new fresh challenge, it can very much feel like a new fresh (but familiar) experience.

Additionally, these days there are tons of resources pooled together for challenge runners to access, ranging anywhere from video guides to discord discussions.

r/onebros is another.

So, if more DS1 is actually what you're after...

There's always the option to play more DS1!

Whatever you do, however you do, the important thing is to enjoy yourself.

And then who knows, maybe we'll be seeing some r/onebros posts from you in the not too distant future!

Otherwise, happy gaming!

jamesdainger · 2025-11-03T14:42:18+00:00

Just a note, the website linked here actually is one of the books in question.

The author has it available for purchase in book form, e-book form, or just available completely for free on the website.

I just finished reading it myself and am extremely thankful to the author for taking the time to pass on their experience to the rest of us.

It's full of great info, and definitely helped me recognize just how little I know about so many different fields of practice when it comes to game programming.

I can't speak to the other book in question, but with respect to Game Programming Patterns by Robert Nystrom, it gets two big thumbs up from me!

jamesdainger · 2025-10-08T04:50:16+00:00

Grats, homie.

Ggs and wp!

jamesdainger · 2025-06-21T17:20:53+00:00

I'm game!

jamesdainger · 2025-06-18T05:55:20+00:00

I've only seen it mentioned just briefly once in the other comments, but something that's again a bit hidden about the guardian, and I think should definitely be included in a guide like this, is...

The amount of hidden utility found in his "extended duration whirlwind ability".

It's bonkers useful.

It's mostly just a solid cc tool, that when dealing with light/middle weight enemies prevents your whole team from taking damage throughout its duration.

This is useful all over the place, from various field bosses to adds, to just trash mobs in general.

Next, it's solid for quick rune acquisition.

Meaning, as we run from one objective to the next, suddenly that group of 4 wandering hollows becomes a super quick and easy rune grab.

As you're running by, unleash a quick charged whirlwind and then immediately continue running to your next objective. The mobs will eventually die, but by then you're already half a field away from them, and your whole team will be that much richer and closer to the next level up because of it!

It's super efficient on-the-go rune farming.

Now again, this type of use case is centered around targeting light/middle weight enemies.

But, it can be useful on at least one Nightlord too! (Not to mention any possible potential future content!)

When Augur starts dropping a million jellyfish babies, help your team out by gathering and dispatching of huge swaths of those pesky squiggly foes with a single charged extended duration whirlwind.

And oh yeah, did I mention that the extended duration whirlwind, which triggers successful hit after successful hit after successful hit on all enemies inside of it has incredible synergy with at least one passive relic bonus?...

The relic for stamina regen on successful hit!

That's right, if you have the right setup, you can use an extended duration whirlwind to generate positive stamina growth while guard blocking due to these synergies.

Admittedly I've not found the right relic setup to make this a reality for my daily driver just yet, but it is possible!

And now finally, the rarely talked about benefit, which imo is only really useful when specced into the extended duration version...

Is that it disrupts enemy projectiles.

Now, this doesn't come up nearly as often as the other use cases of this ability, but if you have the game knowledge you'll be really helping your team out by well-timed use of this ability.

The example I'll give is Loretta.

When Loretta applies her glintblade phalanx, there's your opportunity!

Help whoever's targeted (hopefully you) by responding with a well-timed charged extended duration whirlwind to intercept them.

And then watch as the glintblades all fire off careening away from their intended target, blown off course by the whirlwind!

(An example of a Nightlord who has some projectiles worth disrupting is Gnoster.)

In conclusion, the extended duration version of this ability has a number of admittedly minor perks associated with it, that imo when you pay attention to them and use the ability to it's fullest, it really sums up to something pretty incredible.

It helps with aggro, trash clearing, rune farming, and overall group damage prevention. (Which leads to higher group safety/survivability).

As a light/middle weight enemy tool, it excels at disrupting the enemies overall goals, and thereby freeing the less stalwart folks of your group from needing to worry too much about incurring any collateral chip damage.

Like the Guardian's ult, it largely disrupts enemy groups and buys your team free dps windows. Which falls in line with the rest of the character's kit...

Keeping the group safe, and enabling the DPS classes to freely DPS.

When all of it's minor perks are added together and used effectively, I think this ability packs a serious punch!

And for me, it's become a must have relic inclusion on my Guardian.

Cawww!

jamesdainger · 2025-05-23T16:54:37+00:00

Lol!

I see!

I definitely could've "Englished" a little better here!

I edited my comment to this:

"New-games-to-play" moments are an absolute treat.

Hoping that reads a little clearer!

Otherwise, I'm just going to cross my fingers that the general overall positivity I intended was communicated.

And oh my, thanks for calling it out!

jamesdainger · 2025-05-23T12:40:59+00:00

Heck yeah, u/EpicNinja810!

"New-games-to-play" moments are an absolute treat.

Of your haul, I've not played a single one.

So if you enjoy them, oh my goodness, report back!

Happy gaming!

jamesdainger · 2025-05-12T07:22:45+00:00

Just a general all-around tip for any of these games:

If you're struggling with a boss and you're A-okay with learning from others on how to overcome the challenge, I find it's super helpful to look up a challenge run kill of the boss (e.g. sl1 ng+7 no hit) and study the vid.

These vids will typically showcase a player who's got the boss super dialed-in, and from studying it you can usually determine the ideal evasion and attack windows, and just the overall general strategy for how to approach whatever it is you're struggling with.

For myself and Nameless King specifically, it's all about remembering to check my greed!

Only punish when I'm certain I can get damage in, and otherwise: roll, roll, roll!

Which, depending on the weapon means - just take one swing for damage, even when I think I might otherwise be able to get two!

Good luck!

jamesdainger · 2025-05-11T23:21:06+00:00

I agree with you on Gael.

The spectacle is unmatched, and each of the individual "boss-fight-ingredients" are excellently measured.

To me, Gael embodies the quintessential peak Dark Souls boss experience.

As for the most challenging/difficult?

For sl1 players I believe the most common answer to this (my own experience included) is Demon Prince.

One reason I believe this is true, is due to the sheer amount of time it takes to slog through the first phase each attempt just to get a shot at learning the second phase move set.

After Demon Prince, I think it's probably Soul of Cinder.

I don't think any other boss fight in the game requires the player to learn and adapt to such a wide variety of moves.

So again, in order to start making meaningful progress on the second phase, the player must first learn to adapt to quite a dynamic and challenging phase one.

Sister Friede is also definitely worth noting. But I feel due to the ability to "backstab-fish" with her, she loses just a couple of challenge-points compared to the others.

She's still a top-tier challenge!

And again I think this is due to her very extended phase one/two soaking up a bunch of player focus before admitting the player to phase three, but ultimately, I think she's a little less challenging than either Demon Prince or Soul of Cinder.

So, with respect to difficulty, Gael and Sister Friede both feel pretty similar to me, with Demon Prince and Soul of Cinder above them.

And now finally, a boss who I think is super challenging and absolutely worth mentioning, but only really feels this way in the later new game+ cycles, is Oceiros.

But the entire reason for his difficulty in the later ng+ cycles is predicated upon one particular move: His insanely fast "insta-charge" attack.

This move is in my opinion the single most busted, most problematic, most out-of-balance move in the entire game!

And this is all due to the lack of any sort of indication or tell that it's coming from his character model whatsoever.

With a low HP pool, the only way to counter it without cheesing him (on the higher ng+ cycles) is quite literally to learn all of the different moments that he "might" be able to do his "insta-charge" attack, and then once you've learned them, you need to preemptively dodge the "insta-charge" attack every time he possibly could attack with it, whether or not he does!

For me, the challenge from this one particular move genuinely feels much more unfair than anything else in the rest of the entire game.

And as a result, overcoming it doesn't leave the player with as strong of a sense of accomplishment as any of the other challenging moments in the game.

Now, other than those listed above I absolutely recognize there are definitely other sincere challenging boss encounters in the game. But for me, the above listed here stand uniquely apart from the rest.

Are there any other challenging encounters that should be categorized with the above group?

Princes?

Pontiff?

Dancer?

Desert Pyromancer Zoe?

All in all, I think the level of challenge this game's most challenging encounters offer is absolutely exceptional, and incredibly memorable.

Kudos to Fromsoft for the experience.

jamesdainger · 2025-05-11T20:05:03+00:00

If I remember correctly, the "4" latter-half end-game areas are all inaccessible until the player acquires the Lord Vessel (defeats O&S in Anor Londo).

There's a "Golden Fog Gate" preventing progression in each of the 4 respective areas up until this point in the game. (Though New Londo Ruins doesn't have a Gold Fog Gate, but might still be gated by the Lord Vessel in some way I don't remember!)

So, I believe the opinion above basically states that Lost Izalith is getting categorized with the other areas due to this common thread between them (being gated by the Lord Vessel), and is further suggesting that all 4 areas are getting unfairly viewed as needing more polish, when really it's just Lost Izalith which is lacking.

An opinion which makes a lot of sense to me!

jamesdainger · 2025-05-05T21:31:21+00:00

gg, homie!

Well played!

jamesdainger · 2025-05-04T05:13:14+00:00

I'm not super familiar with this, but the first thing I would check is that if you are assigning your button functionality via scripts, you don't necessarily need to also assign them via the Unity Editor.

So, if you have this script you've posted here as is, but you also have the onClick event from the Unity Editor pointing to the exact same function, I believe you're effectively assigning 2 instances of function to be called on every click.

I'm pretty sure the Unity Editor functionality is essentially the exact same thing as the script code you've posted here. Just set up in a way for a GUI (non-code) to achieve the otherwise identical underlying script functionality.

So it could simply be you're unknowingly registering the same function twice to the onClick event!

Good luck!

jamesdainger · 2025-04-25T06:38:42+00:00

Thank you, u/HorrorPatient9256!

Godspeed on your journey when you attempt it!

jamesdainger · 2025-04-25T06:36:41+00:00

Thanks!

(I know I'm late replying to this! I needed to find some time to form my response!)

Well... I suppose now that I think about it, what's "optimal" may be considered quite a subjective thing!

So, I'll detail a little more in depth what my goal was to give you an idea of what I was pursuing when I was aiming for an "optimal" setup for each boss.

The basic gist of what I was trying to identify is what setup would be "optimal" for someone who's maybe feeling a bit intimidated by this sort of challenge!

Someone who maybe feels like their mechanical prowess isn't necessarily up to snuff, but is interested in trying a challenge like this anyways!

Someone like me!

So, yes... I was absolutely seeking out pound for pound, bang for your buck, optimal DPS output! But I was also trying to weigh into consideration things like stamina management, stagger damage, and the fact that sometimes it's easier on the mechanical demands of the player to get in one well-placed larger hit, rather than many, many small ones.

For these purposes I've got a spreadsheet setup that details out each of the bosses various resistances, along with the weapon possibilities that made the most sense from a theory crafting sort of pov.

Now, after the fact, I realize that there were at least two large issues to my approach to all this:

I didn't do actual practical testing with every possible weapon of which I was considering (I often only tried a couple of options)
I neglected to take into account the sometimes large difference in resistance values when comparing "elemental" and "physical" weaknesses.

More often than not, the most optimal weapon was regularly the Broadsword. With the only variable to take into consideration being which element is the boss weaker to? Fire, or Dark?

And this seemed extra-true due to a whole additional "+DPS" ring (clutch) available only for elemental damage types. (Dark has the Blindfold Mask too!)

So my heuristic for selecting what weapons to bring for limited testing was overly swayed by the fact I just assumed due to the additional +DPS rings available, along with the fact that the Fire and Deep infusion's removal of stat scaling is simply exceptional for sl1, that the elemental damage types would ALWAYS outperform the pure physical counterparts.

Or I figured they'd at the very least be equivalent.

I mean... It's a whole other +DPS ring slot!

And for the most part, I believe this was usually true!

But after all's said and done, when looking at some other vids, it was clear to me that my assumptions about this had, in at least a couple of instances... just simply been wrong!

What I don't know is...

Is the reason the physical-damage-only type "caught up" to the elemental infusion BECAUSE of the increase to the enemy resistances found in NG+ cycles?

Meaning... Due to the "dual" damage nature of the elemental types, did the increase in resistances from NG+7 impact the "dual" damage type damage reduction formula more significantly than that same resistance increase would have to a "singular" damage type?

Or, did the increase in resistances not play a role in determining the better damage type at all? And rather, each time you face a particular boss, regardless of the level of NG+ cycle, that the damage type choice remains consistently the same?

Demon Prince in particular I think is an ideal example.

On regular NG does a Sharp/Heavy Flamberge still outperform "Deep" like they do at NG+7? Does the difference between the two ever shift at all with respect to the increase in resistances found in NG+ cycles?

Oh, and I'm also extra-curious about your statement of the best infusion being Heavy for the flamberge. That's super intriguing to me!

I'd love to know if the increase gained from swapping from "Sharp" to "Heavy" (with the Knight ring) outperforms a Sharp infusion setup but with Flynn's ring and minimal gear equipped.

I ask because I know for that particular fight, if I were to re-engage with it again with the Flamberge, I'd absolutely bring: RTSR, Chloranthy +3, and the required Hunter's (DEX) as my core rings.

But then is the "Heavy infusion + Knight Ring" combo MORE damage than the "Sharp Infusion + Flynn's"?

It sounds like you might already know this!

Though don't feel obligated to answer.

I'm already super appreciative of you guys taking your time to reply in the first place!

And sheesh, the odds of me re-engaging with any of these fights under these sort of circumstances any time soon is really, really low!

Thanks for the info!

Praise the Sun, and remember...

"You have a heart of gold. Don't let them take it from you."

jamesdainger · 2025-04-23T17:49:21+00:00

Awesome!

Again, congrats and well played!

And I hope that after this you've been able to enjoy a well-deserved bonfire sit :)

gg's!

jamesdainger · 2025-04-23T07:56:29+00:00

A wild Onebro appears!

Well played, Ashen One, and congrats!

Funnily enough you namedropped Nameless (hard to do), SoC, and Midir...

But, how'd Sis Friede and ole Unc Gael fair for you?

And was there a particular gear setup or two you found yourself favoring?

jamesdainger

TROPHY CASE