Ranking the Best Dragon Bosses in Soulsborne! [Part 1] 

Apologies again for forgetting about Ancient Wyvern. I'm sure people not fully paying attention would be like "Why does he say 21 bosses in the intro when it says 22 on the video title?" Part 2 will be coming out next Tuesday, so stay tuned ^^

I feel like until ds 1 dlc there aren’t any real dragon boss fights, just “dragon” fights. Seath the Scalesses has more in common with Ursula from the Little Mermaid than he does with a dragon.

Personally, all Elden Ring dragon fights, though generally similar, are much better than any other fromsoft game dragon fight with Divine Dragon, Kalameet and Middir being HUGE exceptions of course.

Fun Fact about Ocerius: His charges attack is mostly happens after a crystal breath attacks or when he roars at you. The thing is that if far away from him, he does a unique running before getting close to you and than cancel to charging at you. However if you’re close to him after those two examples, he cuts the running part and starts the charge attack with no warning. They never gave him something if the player was close, causing the insta charge attack to happen.

Placidusax is my favorite fight the disappearing act,the kamikaze dive bombs just makes it too good

I kinda found Ekzykes pretty underrated Dragon bc it's basically a Zombie Dragon and getting Ekzykes Decay breathe attack just feels soo epic in my eyes. But in general, i love Dragons in general in many, many games!

Ancient dragon in ds2 is my least favorite boss in the whole game. It’s the worst combination of slow + boring, but does ridiculous damage if you get clipped by any of its gigantic hitboxes. I’m glad to see Sinh is making the top 10 list though. Also I like Oceiros a lot more than his placement here. The fight tries something different, and the lore is fascinating/creepy. It was one of the most unforgettable encounters for me in ds3

I haven't watched the video yet, but hopefully Oceiros is in a good spot (And knowing Billy's rather contreversial opinions this isn't too far off). To me he's just a really refreshing take on a cliche genre, with some creepy lore and bloodborne vibes, not to mention a pretty fun fight.

I’m a Placidusax enjoyer myself. The sound design is some of the best I’ve ever heard. The massive explosions. Love it.

New subscriber and also new to the soulsborne community! I recently beat Elden Ring (on NG+ rn!) and throughly enjoyed your ranking of these majestic behemoths! I'm also really lookin forward to part 2!!!

wierdly enough I never found ekzykes on my own despite having been to the communion church lol, I didn't even notice him, I saw so many clips of people fighting him but had no idea where he was. same thing happened with smarag where I didn't notice him when picking up the key then suddenly I see rocks moving and realise what I thought was rocks was actually a massive dragon

Love me some Fortisax! Looks cool, cool arena, good music. My top 3 are Midir, Divine and Fortisax

Amazing video as always! Also you don't actually have to fight Glintstone Dragon Smarag, you can run in on torrent and grab the key while the dragon is sleeping

Subscribed as soon as I heard the track from Lies of P

I like the Ancient Dragon in concept. The idea that it's a helpful NPC which looks downright MAJESTIC and amazinglh grand when you first encounter it, only for it to also be an optional boss would be amazing. Unfortunately the actual fight itself sucks.

The first time fighting him, I fought the ancient wyvern head on on the stairs. I got it on my first try, but it was clunky as hell and I didn't enjoy it one bit. He isn't the worst in my opinion though. Getting the plunge attack is pretty satisfying and the area you have to traverse is kinda cool as well.

I can already guess midir is gonna br top three

Haven't played DS3, but if Ancient Wyvern's boss status was removed it'd work just fine, an area encounter like the snake in Sekiro. Demon's Souls other dragons would slot in as worse than Dragon God if they counted in this list. I'd give praise to Greyoll if you fight her as intended, by killing the wyverns which take out a chunk of her health on each kill. Ekzykes' rot nuke made him the only boss I've outright skipped in my RL1 all bosses playthrough. Maybe I'll come back to him after killing Malenia, but the fact that the run I looked up resorted to a hit and run catch flame tactic completely killed my motivation to have at him further. I'd say the biggest flaws of Lansseax are how sloped the arena is, which make certain attacks inconsistent based on her angle relative to the slope, and the fact that the game won't prevent her from falling off the plateau in the back of the arena amidst all the trees. When she does that, the attempt is kaput because there's no way you can effectively fight her down there. Then there's the main flaw of Ancient Dragons in general: their insanely high resistance to poise damage. It takes the element of Elden Ring that spices up combat in a great way and throws it in the garbage, just for this one enemy type out of everything in the game. I think it's the main thing holding back Fortissax's gameplay from being great, resigning the actual fighting to mid-tier in stark contrast to the brilliant presentation.

I've actually yet to kill any of the Elden Ring dragons, with the exception of the one in Caelid that you can just camp by the tail of and chip away at for a bunch of free runes with zero risk. All the rest I just ran past, because they don't have boss fogs so I didn't need to kill them. Even the one guarding the Reya Lucaria key, I just ran in, grabbed the key, and then ran away. Because why would I fight a boss I don't think I can kill when I can just run away and come back later? (And then forget to come back later). Edit: I forgot about Magma Wyrm Makar! Which is a shame, because I think it's a genuinely amazing fight, and using it as the secret passage to Altus Plateau is an amazing idea and really emphasizes the nonlinearity that Elden Ring is so amazing at. I wish there was something similar for the other Grand Lift, it's a shame that you have to get the medallion, but it's still very cool.

I've actually killed the ancient wyvern with no plunging quite a few times. It really isn't all that bad with a dark pyromancer and aiming for the head when he lowers it. Is he bad? For sure. But the non plunge approach is actually viable believe it or not

Ngl, I love your ranking videos, I'm a newer viewer so I just wanna say, your quality in your videos is top notch, with amazing audio quality and may I say, a very nice voice I love your vids, so keep up the good work!

I like the ancient wyvern fight. It could of definitely been better for sure, could of had it so the plunging attack only halves the health and then you do the rest of the fight like a proper dragon fight, or could of had it so that at certain points of the journey upwards you fight the dragon’s head as its smashing into the buildings tryna bite you. But what I like about the fight as it is, is how epic it feels and chaotic, I like fights that have you moving around a lot, and this one has that journey to it, fighting obstacles and rushing whilst a dragon lays siege to the scenery. Also it reminds me of shrek, so thats all the points there really

A little known fact about the Ancient Dragon is that the enemies in the boss runback don't aggro if you've already reached him once. On the condition that you're playing SotFS, that is.

My thing about Ancient Wyvern is even though its a bad boss and not fun, it's also not frustrating and relatively a more fair fight. You don't need to fight all the enemies you run by just dash through them all and plunge. Fairly simple

Should have been 1 video. All of the dragon bosses in ER are the same with recolored “fire”

With all these rankings people do has anyone one ever rank all of From's game's endings?

If you remove the ancient wyvern healthbar and consider him a level hazard like the giant in cathedral of the deep, it's quite a fun area imo. But yeah as a boss it's pretty bad

I maintain that the Hellkite is my least favorite dragon, and i dont even care how biased i am about it lol but honestly it's because he doesn't feel like youre supposed to fight it, legitimate or otherwise. Plus being able to run through to the bonfire feels completely luck based and overall just an unbalanced affair all around.

I know ive heard the "You found me im yours" before i just cant remember where

I love all of the dragons in elden ring! Even the dragonkin soldiers. Plasidusax is my fave because of how badass he is. Too bad hes not that challenging 😅 But my least favorite gota be Ezekys. For some reason his rot attack does so much damage and he has a lot of health. The only dragon i actually struggle with lol

I actually have a soft spot for the Ancient Wyvern. I know it’s objectively “horrible” and I totally agree with its placement on here, but I just can’t help it, I think it’s so much fun plowing through enemies and finishing with a badass plunging attack. It almost felt like a God of War moment in Soulsbourne

ALL _extremely_ vulnerable to the dragon-killing SPIRAL SHARD sorcery spell.

tbf the Acient Dragon is amazing the whole run up to him from aldias keep following that whole story and then youre standing before the magnificent create and can actualy talk to him. And then you hit him a few times and you stand before the hardest most unfun worst boss Dark Souls has ever known. You dont even get a good reward out of it just another giant soul. Believe me if someone manages to put the Acient Dragon back in his grave you can do Vendrick blindfolded.

When it comes to the worst bosses in a category I usually just go by visual design for the bottom 3… the difference between Ancient Wyvern and Ancient Black Potato really is night and day

I would definitely say Ekzykes and Borealis should both be below Greyll since they have attacks that do damage everywhere around them so all you can do is run away. Fighting them always feels more tedious because every now and then an attack comes out that just breaks up the flow when you run as far away as you can then have to run back. Greyll is plain but also is not offensive in any way.

i will defend the ancient wyvern in that its decent as a level set piece. Take away the healthbar and make its defeat optional and people probably would remember it more fondly.

"prepare for tedium" this sums up entire dark souls 2, from first minute to last. Also the end game of elden ring. EDIT: my man, about scarlet rot, just use flame cleanse me. It has very low stat requirement, in fact most starter classes can use it without investment or with the faith increase talisman or godrick great rune. Just attune the spell when you go to areas with scarlet rot, and unattune it when your are out scarlet rot.

Not sure how u can put reskin dragons from elden ring above ocieros but sure

Nooooo, not the thicc fire bois

The ancient wyvern shouldn’t have been a boss. The music isn’t fitting and there is no point in having a healthbar if the boss fight ends in one hit. It doesn’t ruin it for me but I think if would’ve been better to have an normal obstacle instead of a ”fight“.

honestly the worst dragon boss for me is the dragonkin of the lake of rot cause even though i like the dragonkin as a whole, that specific one has pretty high damage for a large boss you face in a lake of the strongest status affect in the game with small platforms. the dragonkin of noxstella is probably on par with lansseax

Borealis is imo by far the worst dragon in elden ring, the roar hits you when it wants to and you have no say in rather it does or doesn't and if one tick hits you it will all hit you thank god for envoy's greathorn, it probably saved whoever designed borealis a few death threats

It’s crazy how Monster Hunter clears FromSoft. All victims of Alatreon

Number one is totally Greyoll. Calling it now. 😂

Yo why he say Raya Lucaria like that 9:52

Ancient Dragon is really bad but below Dragon God seems harsh even for him Edit: Borealis and Ekzykes this high is wild

Good list as ever except for one thing: God I hate Sinh and can't believe he's top 10.

I think oceiros and the ancient dragon are unique enough to be higher on the list. The best dragon fights are still Midir, sinh and kalameet tho

Seath and Ancient Wyvern are my least favs Seath just has one of the longest runbacks in the series, has bad frame rate on some systems/lower pcs, and the fight itself is so nothing burger for how important the character is. his attacks can be annoying, getting the tail cut is annoying. I don't even like his music much anymore. I just get practically nothing out of Crystal Cave + Seath, which sucks because I thought Dukes Archives itself was a solid level (though the Seath gotcha in that sucks 🗿)

Ancient Dragon Lansseax is definitely the worst in the series. All of Elden Ring's dragon bosses are bad for making the weak point a head that's constantly out of range and moving erratically, as well as the dragons being too big to see anything they're doing while you're attacking them. Lansseax extrapolates those flaws by being even bigger and harder to hit/see what she's doing, having massive AoE attacks, and the second fight taking place in an awful area. I'd go as far as to say Lansseax is worse than every boss in the series except Bed of Chaos. In good dragon boss fights like Kalameet and Midir, the head is kept close to the ground and outstretched so you can lock on to it for attacks and the rest of the dragon's body is still captured by the camera. Fromsoftware completely discarded this core element of dragon bosses with every single dragon boss in Elden Ring.

I think that Ancient Dragon is more insulting than Ancient Wyvern. At least with Ancient Wyvern, you get a moment of “Whoa!” But Ancient Wyvern, is a massive dragon, atop a giant platform in the sky, with hundreds of guardian dragons. It is the perfect setting for an amazing dragon fight, and you just stare at its feet the whole fight.

Can we please get a most gay enemies/npc tier list

While I agree with this part of ranking, I don't agree with inclusion in this ranking Ancient Wyvern and Guardian Dragon. They are wyverns, not Dragons.

There is a dragon in Bloodborne???

You forgot about the undead dragon from dark souls 1. That one that spews poison at you.

watching you fight all of the ER dragons on horse back makes me cringe

Souls Dragon are mostly either boring or annoying but Dragon God is even worse he is an insult to a boss fight for sure my least favorite in the series. Also Amygdala is pretty much a Bloodborne's dragon

Great video but... Why use a dual Spear for the elden ring Dragons? 😭 Watching you miss 80% of the time was unbearable

Not gonna lie Elden ring has some very bad dragon fights

I might have had to unsub if Midir hadn't made top 10 😅

Borealis is such a garbage boss

my worst one is placidusax, hot take I know.

Dragon fights are not fun, we need to come to grips with it. The spectacle and arenas are what people actually enjoy, but whacking away on a giant creature's toe is not fun in any capacity.