Let's make the unwarranted assumption that someone gifted Doodikoff a lvl 200 (overleveled) character with a meta build and killed Mohg and Radahn for him (which are required to enter the DLC). There is *some* possibility that Doodikoff might make it to the first boss, because he did get to Margit and the first dungeon is both shorter and easier than Stormveil castle.

But he would be filtered immediately upon entering the boss room. The first boss hits much harder than Margit and is faster too. It can hit even an over-leveled character for over half their health. It is on you with a charge attack as soon as you enter the room. In my educated opinion, most of doodikoff's attempts would end in under 10-15 seconds, with negligible damage dealt. At best, with sustained practice, he might get the boss down 25% and last up to a minute. In the unlikely event he got "in the zone" one every hundred attempts and got the boss down to 50% health, he would be greeted by a second phase in which the boss becomes faster, more damaging, more unpredictable, and gains powerful arena-filling AOE attacks. It is highly unlikely that Doodikoff would ever land more than 1-2 hits on the second form.

The difficulty only ramps up from there, culminating in an insane final boss fight that is the hardest ever in a Souls game. I have beaten every Souls game multiple times legit, without using cheap crutches, and this fight is so ridiculous that I had to do a min-max respec and pull every single piece of cheese out of my bag of tricks. Even using the fucking Mimic tear, he took an hour to beat. He makes Malenia look like a normal, non-boss enemy.

I can very confidently say that even if Doodikoff was highly incentivized to beat this boss (such as by being rewarded by having his first choice of past online dates that rejected him become infatuated and willing to marry him), and he was given all the resources needed to do so (including a generous stipend so he could retire and do nothing but practice Elden Ring, hire personal coaches to walk him through the fight, etc.), he would literally still never, ever be able to win and would die having been cucked by this boss over 3.5 million times (assuming 40 years of remaining life, 12 hours per day, 20 attempts per hour). He would NEVER, EVER win.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5545970&forum_id=2#47781591)

In the base game you can use the sword you get from the last boss, the one that has a special that blasts a giant wave of light. There is a spot outside mohg's palace right in front of a save point that has a ton of decent XP enemies all close together. You just blast them with the light wave for XP, then reset them with the save point.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5545970&forum_id=2#47786429)

I enjoyed it a bit at the time but now that the dust has settled I remember very little about it, think the story and worldbuilding were mediocre and not interesting or worthy of much note at all, and barely remember any of the encounters. Zero desire to replay it or get the DLC

BB otoh I more or less remember from start to finish and still await a sequel even if it's more or less perfect as a standalone game so I'm not biased against Fromsoft

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5545970&forum_id=2#47787600)

Is this worth it for me or am I going to just get crushed?

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5545970&forum_id=2#47787635)

Messmer on the other hand...was probably pushing 200 attempts lol

I am planning to do the scarlet rot rapier with a black great shield for radahn

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5545970&forum_id=2#47788436)

there is a late game fight that changes based on the outcomes of various quests. if you are dedicated to not using spirit ashes, the fight could be very difficult if you complete/don't complete quests in a certain way that stacks the deck against you

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5545970&forum_id=2#47789547)

it makes basically all western gaming look totally pathetic and feeble in contrast. it's actually hilarious how head and shoulders from software is over anyone else. the combination of GRRM and Miyazaki was incredible and Miyazaki was a genius in its implementation

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5545970&forum_id=2#47789815)

I think the DLC is great, they cut out the stupid copy paste catacombs which were the worst part of the main game and exploration is rewarding with the scadutree fragments. But I can see how the DLC bosses would be tough as fuck playing melee

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5545970&forum_id=2#49918776)

1st phase is perfectly reasonable and pretty fun. 2nd phase is not only constantly in your face but also spams the screen with shit so you have no fuckin clue what's going on. I am never going to "learn" this moveset and will just have to keep playing until I get lucky enough to RNG a bunch of easy moves or my summon popping off and not dying

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5545970&forum_id=2#49955949)

I've collected so much shit I'm tempted to do a NG+ but dunno what I'd try yet.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5545970&forum_id=2#49959778)

Damn. Brutal

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5545970&forum_id=2#49827237)

I enjoy the bosses a lot more in DS3, Bloodborne and Demon’s Souls. Even Sekiro was more fun.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5545970&forum_id=2#49828807)

I think DS3 has a good, healthy difficulty. Bosses like the twin princes and witch king put up a legitimate fight, but it's not a massive endeavor requiring a huge time investment and near-perfect play to beat them as long as you're decently skilled. The challenges are calibrated to be taken head-on.

This is why I always disliked elden ring (and the expansion is worse than the main game). I feel like some of the bosses are BALANCED around using a summmon/companion or the OP crutch weapons, so you do those things and then the victory feels cheap. Whereas the other soulslikes are balanced around honorable 1v1 combat using a player weapon with reasonable properties, so summons and broken weapons are unnecessary. I don't like being forced into the less fulfilling playstyles.

If you want good boss fights (bland areas though), Berserker Khazan is the game. I had an absolute blast with that.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5545970&forum_id=2#49833333)

And for some reason gamefaqs gatekeeps hard, they’re just like “it’s easy 😏” these are the same people who struggled for months to beat GTA Vice City missions. The game does weird things to people.

Nameless King and most of Bloodborne I just killed bosses nbd, like it didn’t seem like they were like “fuck you champ.”

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5545970&forum_id=2#49833499)

You are just Old (and bald (and jewish iirc)), IMO

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5545970&forum_id=2#49833717)