Hello and welcome to our little journey to the Land of Shadow. For this list, I'm going to be ranking all main bosses in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.
Disclaimer: I'm going to be ranking the boss fights overall and not on one specific parameter. This ranking focuses on overall enjoyment – how fun is the moveset, does the boss have a cool design, what's the music like?
So, let's jump right in!
© Bandai Namco Entertainment
The fight against Commander Gaius is bad to say the least. He starts the fight off with his infamous charge attack that gives him invincibility-frames while he's doing it, and has a very awkward dodge window. He repeats this attack if you are too far away from him during the fight. He generally keeps you at arm's length, but he doesn't really give you a window to use spells or summons either. His visual design is not the most exciting, but it's also not that bad. Still, he has the worst fight in the DLC. | © Bandai Namco Entertainment
From here on out I actually like these fights. Romina has an awesome looking design that flows very well with her moveset. She has some attacks you can actually jump over, which I always appreciate. The one attack when she jumps in the air and hurls down afterwards looks really cool and is fun to dodge. The problem is that I find her a bit too easy and she almost never really got her scarlet rot off in my playthroughs. | © Bandai Namco Entertainment
The Scadutree Avatar definitely took me by surprise. The first time I fought it, I was shocked at how little HP it had. Of course, I was equally surprised to find out it had three phases that become progressively harder. You won't last in this fight if you waste your heals in the first two phases. I think the moveset is cool, especially its charge attack, but I hate the roots that come out of the ground. The roots have such a weird hitbox it's pretty counterintuitive to dodge. | © Bandai Namco Entertainment
So I liked this fight, because of its difficulty, but the more I thought about it, I liked it less – let me know in the comments if I'm the only one who feels that way. Sometimes his swords reach way further than you think and he has a basically unavoidable attack. The second phase is intense and looks pretty cool, but I think the additional holy damage instances between his attacks are a pretty cheap way to increase the difficulty. His visual design is standard, but cool, although it's not that surprising since we know him already. | © Bandai Namco Entertainment
This is definitely one of the coolest looking bosses in the whole game. Bayle is missing his left leg and part of his arm. You can see Placidusax's heads sticking in Bayle's neck from their legendary battle. His fiery lightning looks awesome as well. His moveset though doesn't impress me that much, except for the move where he flies up with magical wings. A nice bonus to this fight is that you can summon Igon, who will shout:
“CURSE YOU, BAYLE!”
That's already one of the biggest memes in the community. | © Bandai Namco Entertainment
Metyr has a very freaky, outlandish design. I mean, she's literally made of fingers. Her moveset is a nice mix of creepy and funny, since she is just moving so weirdly. She doesn't have a lot of health, but she can also obliterate you in a few hits. The laser attacks are fine, but the best move is when she just smashes, what I believe to be her face, into the ground three times. | © Bandai Namco Entertainment
The Putrescent Knight has cool visual design, coupled with a fun moveset. That one combo where you have to dodge his attacks and his horse separately looks awesome and is exciting to play around. Sometimes he will jump into the air very high, so you can never really let your guard down. The arena looks very cool as well, and the fact that you jump down such a large distance to reach it makes it even cooler. | © Bandai Namco Entertainment
Rellana probably has the most boring visual design of all the bosses on this list. But why is she ranked this high then, you ask? Because the fight itself is probably the most fun I've had with any boss fight in the DLC. Of course, in the first few attempts, you're going to get bodied, but after a while you start to see that this fight is awesome. It's a delicate dance, a real duel between two heavy hitters. Dodging enemies like Rellana is all the more satisfying, since her whole gimmick is that she is a precise duellist. The magic sweeping attack is still stupid, though. | © Bandai Namco Entertainment
Divine Beast Dancing Lion has the coolest design ever. It's basically two dudes puppeteering this Lion costume. What's cool is that you don't really see it during the fight. You only notice it in the cutscene and during a few attacks, because of some nice touches in the animation. The fight is awesome, it gets so intense when the Lion starts cycling through his different elements and the music swells up. I also think that he has no unfair moves. Everything he does is telegraphed and indicated very well. | © Bandai Namco Entertainment
Midra's fight is awesome! You meet him in this abandoned wreck of a house, where you can hear his screams before you even enter his boss room. After you kill his base form, he transforms into the Lord of Frenzied Flame. In this form, his movements are fun to dodge, since he swings his spear/blade with such grace. The frenzied flame attacks he uses condition you to stay close to him since it is harder for him to hit you at point-blank range. For many people, this is their favorite boss in the DLC, and I can certainly understand why. | © Bandai Namco Entertainment
This is definitely my favorite boss fight in the DLC. Messmer's got everything. A great looking design, both in the first and second phase, an exciting moveset and great music. I also like his voice a lot. In the first phase, he mainly fights with his spear, doing delayed swings and stabs. He also has his fiery lunge attacks that took me off-guard in the first few attempts, which I really liked. His second phase is so intense, I still have a 140 bpm heartbeat while fighting him. The snakes he summons are huge and come at you very fast. I think it's a cool mechanic that you do more damage to the snake heads, since you basically hit the snake and Messmer at the same time. It rewards your courage to strike this formidable foe. | © Bandai Namco Entertainment
Hello and welcome to our little journey to the Land of Shadow. For this list, I'm going to be ranking all main bosses in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree. Disclaimer, I'm going to be ranking the boss fights overall and not on one specific parameter. This ranking focuses on overall enjoyment, like, how fun is the moveset, does the boss have a cool design, what's the music like, etc.
So let's jump right in!
© Bandai Namco Entertainment
