It’s a terrible experience. I have 600 hours and i shouldn’t have to design a character to defeat him at level 23. I’m 2handed, not heavy and no torch. Purple bubbles are stupid and hard enough to see WITH light. It’s just a terrible experience at that point in the game. He has other moves that are hard to parry or insta stagger you and kill you.
Add him to later pestilence, fine. But as first boss? Shouldn’t be happening. Most aggravating boss in dark close quarters.
Do the enchanter quest at the beginning and you get illuminate utility rune. Will help with the darkness, which does suck for this fight. Without shove, it’s much harder to prevent him from doing any of his nasty stuff. Shove trivializes the fight, assuming you have decent stamina regen. Never leave home without it. Level 23 seems pretty low for end game though.
Agreed, Bloodborn Torment pushed me to learn how to cleanse the Pestilence, I must’ve thrown myself at him thirty times with no luck, and that was with an Illumination Rune equipped, I can’t imagine going up against him blind.
Definitely shouldn’t be removed from the rotation, but for a first boss it’s just an unfair difficulty spike compared to the campaign.
I tried him, not kidding, 30 times with my recent character (I have 10). Gave up and went to easiest difficulty. I put it back to normal difficulty and did mariners keep, one timed Falstead, no issues.
Yeah I have the illuminate but going out to chop trees to get focus or use focus food shouldn’t be required to see as your first pestilence boss. It’s just not a good look.
I was level 22 finishing main campaign, which is pretty standard for me.
I just think from a game design point he’s probably the hardest boss in the hardest location and you shouldnt throw players at that on their FIRST pestilence outbreak boss.
There is easier ways to get light, without relying on illuminate.
Theres barrels that lie a little here and there just walk on them with you character so they tumble over and roll down to where Bloodbound Torment is and destroy them there and just pray that they contain loot and use the Loot as a light source and also use the digspot in the back as light source (i usually go to where the digspot is and take cover from the spin-to-win moves or whenever i need to regain HP or Stamina or use utility runes and its also easier to see the Hairball that he cough up and throw at me when i stand there, also a chance that he hit a wooden pillar instead)
Just remember to not pickup the loot until you have killed it!
Also you can use 2H Swords like sieger and use the first attack sequence or whatever attack sequence that makes it hit the ground to make sparks that light up your surroundings (or if you know any other weapon that make sparks whenever it hits the ground?)
that’s some cool stuff but not really the main issue. His attacks are obnoxious, you’re sitting in a pool of water so mobility is poor and the room is small which makes it hard to avoid his huge AOE attacks which are almost all of them.
Did I mention the obnoxious purple stuff?
It just shouldn’t be the first boss you see after defeating the campaign, especially in that Brine Vault.
I think making the pustules and elemental hazzards despawn in a third or half of their current duration would go a long way in addressing most people’s complaints. Hazzards in the game last way too long, even after mobs are dead, and you can’t even dodge through them because you’ll still take damage, on top of their damage being overtuned.
Increasing the radius of illuminate is another possible fix is OK, but I think the better solution is to just make the Shallows boss spawns all on the beach; the brine vault arena is way too small, and same for the Black Trench equivalent where its a tiny arena circle if he does not spawn in Darak’s room.
Something about the elemental damage mobs apply in general feels overtuned. On my cloth/leather builds with 50-55% elemental resistance I can lose 1/3 my health to one prisoner witch firebolt burn, but on my plate 70% elemental resistance build it slightly budges my health bar. Same goes for echo knight plague projectiles – it’ll take like 25% my health on plate at 70% resistance but on my mage at 50% plague resistance it can remove 1/2-2/3 my health at the same 300 HP.
I’m interested to see how these damage calculations are going through, especially for the dot portions because player burning and bleed does significantly less damage than enemies’ versions despite the fact a player can nuke mobs for 11k damage with all damage scalars that don’t seem to apply to burn or bleed.
Yes and thats mostly why i need light sources that constantly light up the area in the brine vault..
the worst of all places for me is still when he shows up in the black trench, just getting hit by that spin and flying off the platform makes his HP start to reset.
True, (and in crucible we can get the option to remove environmental effects such as water, but sadly not in the brine vault of course) and never getting to witness the true enemy that is water i would say shows pretty clearly how much we as players overestimate our own understanding to a degree where we underestimate such environmental effects in this game (but for some reason we dont do that in Elden Ring why?)
When you see this !! skip reading whatever you are reading.. and continue here:
-this is not any point im trying to make just saying.. because its so random and i guess my mental block right now is a bit of a problem and im just too lazy to fix the placing of my text i will just blur it meaning that you can skip all that is blurred.. (Festering Earth is a weapon i highly recommend just because it has an unusually fast run attack spam)
If you never get to experience the boss at those places you mentioned..
Why would you think it matters whether they place this boss right after you finnish the campaign or later?
Its still your own choice to cleanse it through crucible.. its just like the kids always say about many other things if theres mechanics in the games that the players dont use then its bad game design or whatever the young kids says nowadays.. so dont complain just use the intended mechanic that exist.. and you know very well that we have pretty much set up this trap for ourselves eventually, And it is in just a matter of time that we might start to realize that our own ego and mindset is what actually has become the problem at this point, if we never try and make sense of it, how will WE ever be able to make sense of it?
Im sorry but this text doesnt contain any correct answer or valid response to your question so we can just skip going forward here cause we wont reach any desirable answers or outcomes out of this discussion as we are just the complete opposites if-
“if you get triggered by reading what i have blurred out”
so we will only do more harm if we continue here . . .
Nahh i dont think it would fix anything
I dont even think that you can fix it through being creative at this point or find any solution because the problem lies else where.. or even using the trade bag that gets created when you give an item to another player that has no empty slots in co-op the trade bag gives a light source so if we say that the item you gave was a torch i wouldnt see it as abusing the mechanic, anyways correct me if im wrong tho wether it gives a light source or not?.. i guess you cant see this message even because it was blurred..
Is it? You have two directions to go that is big enough for you to work with.. i dont think its the size of the arena at this point because its bigger than the one in the black trench. Here’s where your message stop @Zenith .
The only thing that comes to my mind at this point is underestimating bosses with slow movements because it moves slow..
did you know that you can have alot easier to read and predict fast movements and have a very difficult time at reading slow movements?
if anyone that have a hard time at this they should probably try to change how they approach these types of bosses if they want to learn they first have to have some patience and dont try rush everything..
This not an order of any sort just a harmless tip that you can completely disregard if it doesn’t suite your playstyle.
This never happened to me in 400 hours, but I wished it would. I would like to experience this myself 
The problem with saying ‘run crucible to cleanse everything’ is that this is not said ANYWHERE. So from a game design point you don’t even know this is an option. So from a new players perspective it’s a horrible boss to experience. FIX IT. Just hard code it so it’s not the first damn boss you see coming out of the campaign at level 22.
I’m fine with him being anywhere at any other time including the Brine Vault. By fine, I think he’s a terrible boss to play in those areas but at least a new player has more understanding under their belt.
I don’t need to know how to beat him. That’s not the point of this post. For NEW players it’s a TERRIBLE experience. IF it wants me to poke my eyes out with 600hours under my belt then imagine you are a new player?
Get rid of him at this stage of the game for this games sake unless your intent is to drive players away. Don’t tone him down necessarily, just don’t make the player fight him at this point. Don’t nerf him like you did the first boss you fight before Sacrament.
Oh but i enjoyed this one so much! I was lucky to get him as the 2nd pest, in the same spot; that reminded me the plague was supposed to be the damn end of the world, which, after a little too much snowballing, was refreshing. It is actually challenging, to say the least.
To address your point, most players must have figured out how to deal with those spins/ground at this point in the game; I would not worry too much, especially when you can run away and refresh in peace. Having to adapt and enjoying doing so this late in the game should already be second nature to most players.
What tier of pest was it?
i found him down in the dungeon on like 3rd or 4th character for the first time. when i thought i had the game figured out.
and then…. up to waist in water. in the dark. dealing with screen-wide attacks.
it humbled me and it was awesome. i love that non-linear difficulty spike. died like 20 or 30 times. had to figure out a way to lead him around the arena to survive the purple blobs and his frenzy attack.