It’s been a week since I published the last chapter of my adventures in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, but it wasn’t the end. There remains a small epilogue or post-credits scene dedicated to the boss I hate the most in the entire DLC. You can take it as a flashback full of hatred and revenge.
Let’s go back a few episodes. I had overcome Ensis Castle and before me stood the Shadow Fortress. I put my destination on hold and went to explore the Shadowlands. I went to many places and my last stop was the Altar of Dragon Communion. There I found a dragon-woman who gave me the mission of slaying a traitor dragon on a mountain to the east.
I killed two dragons, the Steep Peak Dragon and the Ancient Dragon Senessax, as I ascended the mountain. I also found the lord who was shouting by the Containment Column. He cried out for vengeance and wanted me to summon him during the fight against Bayle the Dread. And I did… the twenty or so times I tried to kill him before I left that death loop behind. Doctor Strange.
A revenge that tasted like freshly baked pizza
I hate Bayle The Fearsome. I accept debate on any boss. Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
I returned to his arena before entering Enir-Ilim. No player was able to help me. I settled for summoning my Mimic Tear and Igon, and just doing this was already a problem with Bayle (and other bosses) because he didn’t let me breathe for a second as soon as I entered the arena.
The summoning marker for Igon is inside the battle arena, so you have to go up to the marker, select it, and confirm that you want to summon him (the marker was set to “No” by default) while Bayle the Dread is either spitting fire at you or charging at you as if his life depended on it. Add in summoning the Mimic Tear and you have a spectacle of panic like no other. 90% of the time I died was when summoning Igon.
When I managed to do all that, I realized that the weak point was in the head and that I had it raised almost all the time. It was obvious why most of the players I summoned and who summoned me used magic. Fighting hand-to-h and against Bayle was an unbearable torture: I couldn’t see what was happening through the camera, I couldn’t reach the head in most cases and to top it off I was going from one side to the other every now and then, which meant chasing him on foot.
There’s nothing I hate more than chasing a huge boss on foot. I’ll admit that Micolash from Bloodborne was funny, but Bayle was about as fun as playing with a controller covered in sandpaper. Even more so with that damn Igon giving his epic speech without understanding what the hell he was saying, because the thing wasn’t for reading subtitles.
I managed to land a couple of blows to his head while I fought for my life and dodged continuous blows. Because Bayle didn’t seem to have a stamina bar like me. As luck would have it, those two heavy blows managed to stun him and I was able to land a critical hit. I had taken half of his life and it was more due to my Mimic Tear than mine, since I was Bayle’s jumping monkey.
The second phase of Bayle the Fearsome is a blatant copy, as with everything related to dragons, of the Dragon Lord Placidusax. He flies around, launches some attacks, and finally lands with a spectacular attack. FromSoftware did a great job with Placidusax, but not so much with Bayle. It was easy to lose sight of him with all that lightning.
Luckily, my Mimic Tear managed to land a brutal blow on him. It took away almost a quarter of his life. The first (and last) time he took off in this attempt, he only had a quarter of life left. All he had to do was survive the landing. I ran around the stage, dodging his lightning attacks and trying to predict where he was going to land.
Bayle missed the landing and I felt like I could defeat him. I positioned myself under his chest after dodging a couple of hits and let the Mimic Tear draw his attention. I watched as Igon’s arrows stuck in the dragon’s head. He had a couple of hits left. My plans backfired: Bayle only wanted to hit me, so I took a couple of hits while the Mimic Tear easily destroyed him… until it delivered the coup de grace.
Igon screamed in revenge and I sighed in relief. I admit I tasted victory for a moment, like a good pizza fresh out of the oven, but it didn’t last long. I don’t think this is a matchup I’ll remember in the future. Its entire difficulty is based on a disastrous, abusive and boring design. The arena isn’t much either and Bayle itself is bland compared to Placidusax.
Fuente | Main Image
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