The Worst Boss Runs in Souls Games (Including Elden Ring) 

Thank you all so much for watching, I’ve been wanting to make this video forever and I hope you liked it. Here’s the link for the shirts as well: emberdrops.co Also, subscribe or else next time, I’ll do an outr-

the longest run you could do without a stake of marika was at the Rennala fight. I mean, why Rennala would put a statue of someone that stole her husband from her? storywise, Elden Ring did a great job on putting stake of marika on areas where marika is heavily involved like in Leyndell especially in erdtree sanctuary. they also decided not to put any stake of marika in Crumbling Farum Azula because, you know, Maliketh definitely hates Marika.

The boss run that hurt my feelings most in DS1 was Bed of Chaos. Through the lava, past the fire spewing demon babies, up the ramps, past the chaos eater, down the slide, and cheaply knocked into a bottomless chasm for the 8th time in a row.

How did Seethe the Scaleless not get a dishonorable mention for his run back, everytime you die you have to run through the crystal caves every time

There is actually a lore reason for the absence of Stakes of Marika in the Academy and Farum Azula: the denizens simply don't worship her so it would make no sense to have statues of her there Edit: also includes the Haligtree and the Underground cities for similar reasons. One thing that is interesting however is the stake right before Mohg, might have some lore implications

I never minded the run back to bosses conceptually. Bc it does build suspense and makes you think about your strategy. But I always disliked when it was hard to get back without taking damage or needed platforming.

Maliketh had a bad run? What an odd take given it’s literally one enemy that doesn’t respawn and then you’re at the gate less than a minute later

DS3 definitely had a very egregious run for Midir. You don't need to fight a single enemy on the way to him, but for some reason they make you run like 5 minutes every time you want to attempt him.

Do boss runs have a purpose? Do they make the bossfight more challenging or better in any way? If I think about my favorite and hardest bossfights in Soulsborne then Ludwig, Nameless King, Gael and Sword Saint Isshin come to mind. Neither had noteworthy boss runs. My answer is no, they're purely tedious.

First boss run that came to my mind without watching yet was the path that leads up to the undead chariot in ds2

I'm amazed you didn't mention Laurence for Bloodborne runbacks. while not a long runback by any means, you have to run past a TON of dangerous enemies to get to Laurence. Old Hunters, beasts, dogs, and those big Cthulhu-looking assholes are all possible party crashers. half of my attempts on Laurence were just memorizing the route so I could run back to him without fighting/losing consumables for heals. Not to mention Laurence is easily one of the most difficult bosses in the game, so you're gonna be doing that runback a LOT

i thought the "im just 54 and bald" was gonna be a an incoming keeps ad

This video felt less like "the worst boss runs" and more like "a retrospective on boss runs". Not complaining, as it's a very good video, one that I enjoyed watching. Good job!

For me, the worst boss run in Bloodborne would be the one with Laurence The First Vicar. You have to run past that hunter trying to hit you with his Blunderbuss. Then through a bunch of beasts with a giant fireball coming down from the stairway. After that, you have to face that giant Executioner with his axe. I meant if you get lucky you can roll through him without getting hit. But that is rarely the case. The guy could be a gatekeeper boss himself. I meant he’s literally keeping that gate. I just keep losing my Blood Vials to him and not to mention, dying several times at least. The run isn’t that long, though having to face all that before such a tough boss like Laurence just to die again is really frustrating for me. All that aside, Laurence is definitely in my top 10 favorite bosses in the game or any soul games at all.

i'm curious why one would dislike the idea of stakes of marika? like it doesn't sound like there are any negatives to it, so i genuinely can't fathom what arguments against it might exist

The bonfire for Maliketh is right at the stairs, you run upstairs, up the ramp and you’re there? One miniboss in the way, 15 second walk. Am I remembering that wrong?

Your video quality is amazing! I hope your channel gets the attention it deserves someday

Absolutely insane, well done...

short boss runs are fine as it gives me enough time to think about what I did right or wrong, if I should use another weapon etc without becoming daunting to do like long ones

if you die to one reborn in bloodborne the runback is your worst nightmare ever

I like boss runs when they are short or at most medium in length and urges the player to still pay attention at dodging obstacles and enemies to make it to the fog wall safely. Stuff like the Twin Princes boss run in DS3 and Bed of Chaos boss run in DS1 alongside a LOT of others are bad because it's almost just mindless waiting and walking to waste your time. But the Capra Demon boss run (boss quality aside) for example is good because it's short yet you need to learn the level's layout and ambushes to speed up the process as much as you can, or you can just take a gamble and try running past the dogs with minimal scratches.

Need a shield for bossrun? My hunter in blood, use the quickening. Just dash *through* the enemies.

One upside to bossruns is the process of finding the most optimal run, which is kind of reward. If you want to find an upside to it.

I love how whenever darks souls 2 is mentioned the majula sound chimes in its so simple but so soothing

Loving the growth of your channel man! Keep it up!

I remember killing the enemies from the Smelter Demon so many times that I got confused that they did not spawn. It was only then that I learned DS2 enemies despawn after being killed a certain number of time.

Love the video, but I must say I never considered the Twin Princes to be that long of a run-back. One elevator ride and waiting a couple seconds for the knights to walk by.

Bloodborne: he literally runs the entire forbidden woods without the two frickin shortcuts

i love these types of videos so much

The long elevators are definitely hiding load screens

Sekiro's bad "boss runbacks" are mostly on the minibosses in the form of the random enemies surrounding some of them, especially before you get access to Puppeteer. I'm thinking of the general miniboss in the Ashina Outskirts right after you get the shuriken and both Juzou fights especially, where you had to attempt to stealth re-kill as many of them as possible to get another crack at the miniboss. Some of the Gauntlets of Strength are another example of this, where the "runback" is having to get through the normal bosses to get a crack at the "Inner X" fight. The Divine Heir gauntlet was the most notable for me, because Gyoubu and Lady Butterfly were so much easier than Inner Genichiro that they were effectively a five-to-seven minute delay between attempts at the actual challenge, but did require actually paying some attention, making the runback to Geni non-trivial.

You've to account for invaders invading, if every bonfire was outside boss area, invaders would get invasion error as soon as they do. imo ds1 was best

great video man! i hope you blow up soon, your content is super! 💪

The whole point in the Quelag fight is that you either have to do it while poisoned, wait till the poison ends and use up some of your “heals”, or have the item that gets rid of the poison (even the ones that are finite”

I never had problems with boss runs in Elden Ring, since it was super convenient, always, with the Stakes of Marika. ...and then I found the Black Knife Catacombs. My most hated dungeon in terms of its secret boss. I swear, I feel like I was at an appropriate level to fight the Black Knife Assassin, but that boss run of running past the resuscitating skeletons, avoid the guillotines, line myself up perfectly with the middle one while getting shot by the archer skeletons and then running past more skeletons, all so that you fight a super fast guy in a cramped room (for which you might have unwanted company in the form of a fire slinging skeleton's arm clipping through the fog wall) made me rage so hard at the game.

You are Genuinely one of my fav souls based channels

Dude, your outro-game is on top!

surprised you didn't talk about Midir's runback, the ladder + elevator combo took FOREVER on a super hard boss too

Elevators are hidden loading zones, so i don't think they can speed it up

That parry at 9:30 was fire

Perfect outro as always 👍

I am a being of a single mind when running back to bosses. "I am.... SPEED!"

Boss runs for me are simple: If I remember it, then it was very bad

I think an underrated aspect of this is the first time you do it. There's something so magical and yet dread inducing of fighting your way through an entire level and seeing a doorway and beyond it you can see a giant room, and you know the boss is in there somewhere. Bonus points if its a walkway where you can see into the room and see that its very suspiciously empty. Double bonus points if there's very little in the room/area except for a lonely figure who is usually much taller than the player, but still tiny compared to the vastness of the room, those are the ones who really instill dread. One of my favorites was Lady Maria, sitting alone in a chair in a huge empty room. The lone chair with her sitting seemingly dead was such a spectacle in such a massive space was quite a sight to see

Ngl that random Gunna pop up got me to subscribe. Not that I’m a huge fan but it was such a subtle but clever bit of editing. Enjoyed the video throughout!

Malekith is like...30 sec runback? And no enemies. Some others you mentioned also leave me scratching my head (crystal sage/abyss watchers are also really short and simple).

1:27 fun fact, 4-2 boss run was actually harder in the original! In the remake they destroyed a pillar allowing you to drop down onto it (to the right, after you get passed the skeletons,) basically skipping the ghost guys part. In the original, the pillar wasn't destroyed and there was no way to drop down without dying, forcing you to do the whole run and get past the ghost guys.

I found that Gwyn's runback to be tedious. It's a great place to farm shards. But having to spend several minutes having to walk through the kiln over and over began to grow tedious. I am not skilled at Parrying so I really struggled with Gwyn. Also I hated Kalameet's boss run, having those dogs near the fog gate is just cruel. I also found that the walk to the Throne of Want in Dark Souls II is not frustrating, but it felt like unnecessary filler as you had to walk a long bridge and wait for a door to open

Thank you for this!!

I dont know if you know this, but the shortcut to old king allant is actually only there in the remake. I played the original with a PS3 emulator and whenever i didnt first try the old king, i had to run through the entire level past the dragon again. Definitely would take the top spot for demons souls even above old hero

The smelter demon's run was so painfully infuriating. I only got through because I just kept killing them until they stopped spawning.

Elevators are a long ride for a reason. Dark souls uses most of them as a loading screen actually. elevators like the shortcut to the twin princes act as waypoints, the moment you go up the game starts to load in the next area.

yeah a def agree that placidusax can be tedious especially because it’s MORE platforming, but it’s wayyy better than previous installments

Why do you keep putting (including elden ring) in the title? Like it's almost 9 months old now

Maliketh's run was too long? huh? It's a 15 second jog from the site of grace

DS2 does have one feature that if you're _really_ committed, can help with the boss runs - the fact that normal enemies no longer respawn after 12 resets. If you _really_ want to commit to having a nice relaxing trek back to a boss you're expecting to be banging your head against for hours to come, might as well just take the time to literally clear the run out before even attempting the boss. Granted, it's a rather unreasonable amount of time to devote to prep for a boss, and I guess some of the runs also have enemies/enemy groups that are literally harder than the boss you're trying to beat, but still, it's a feature that's there if you want to use it

I love your videos, mainly the outros

Placidusax boss run was way worse than maliketh, but honestly after playing ds1 and ds2 bro those two runs are literally nothing. Literally a walk in the park.

I love the boss runs. That's how I've learnt to play on my first Souls game aka Dark Souls. It made me learn a lot of stuff like back stabs for example. Then I've learned how to parry the black knights in Anor Londo, I felt like a boss when I started grinding there for Souls cause Ornstein and Smough were too hard. The only game that I don't like is Dark Souls 2. That game felt hard just to be hard with too many enemies and weird placement. It got better though with Dark Souls 3 that was more fast combat than the first

Man, my favorite boss fight in Souls series(and also the one the I died the most) is Fume Knight from DS2. A hard honor battle without boring boss run.

This is top notch editing and personality, consider doing videos outside of DS, might go real big.

Mate, Maliketh takes 10 second from the stairway grace on the side of the...bridge I suppose? Placidusax quite long I must say and because the rest of the boss runs are so quick it made fighting him again especially annoying.

I think the Maliketh runback is actually pretty perfect. The Draconic Tree Sentinel doesn't respawn and it takes about 30 seconds, which is the amount of time I generally need to come up with a new plan without getting bored. Boss runs that give you enough time to reflect on what you did wrong and think of adjustments are useful. If there was a Stake of Marika right outside of the area, I think I would have died far more times in that fight, since I would have just run back in without reflecting.

That outro though *chef's kiss* 🤣

Loved the outro 10/10

I mean.....just dont die to the boss, so there's no boss run necessary

Thanks for the vid. I ended up giving up on Bloodborne because of how devastating the runbacks were. I'll get back to it eventually, but I was not in that place at the time.

The most interesting experience i have ever had with the runbacks was at the Academy of Raya Lukaria, when i have been frustrated because, unlike everything i have seen before, there were no Stakes of Marika whatsoever. And then, after taking a deeper dive into the lore, it hit me, that it would make sense for Raya not to include the stakes of someone, for whom her husband has left her to

The run back for the old hero in demons souls was the hardest of the series for me..... I had a lot of bother with that....

The Sir Alonne run gave me autotoxemia

I think the worst one for me is Bed of Chaos, not only is the boss the worst in the series but the run back arguably is as well. The one saving grace of the Frigid Outskirts is that you can summon your own little army and they can help draw agro and hopefully some will still be alive to help you with the boss. I'm actually very against using summons but the Frigid Outskirts are one of the rare exceptions lol. Also an honorable mention to the Twin Princes, one of my favorite Ds3 bosses but the run back genuinely took away from the experience.

I think for the most part, Elden Ring's boss runbacks are almost perfect, and the stake of marika was well executed. One thing that bothered me about them was the inability to change your loadout (ashes of war, flask charges, physic etc) at the stake of marika. On my first playthrough, I remember stumbling through Auriza Hero's Grave, getting wrecked by the crucible knight duo (before the 1.3 patch), and not wanting to run through the hellish gauntlet of chariots to change shit up so I can be a little better prepared to defeat them. Obviously I know the chariots can be made essentially redundant on future runs now, but I didn't at the time. It's a small complaint but it was my main point of frustration with boss runbacks, except for maybe the runback to placidusax.

I believe boss runs are overall better for these games because it increases tension, forces people to learn the layout of enemies and their movesets and it keeps invasions more active due to hosts having to run through an area.

Bro included Sekiro just to not even list a run for it.

I think one thing I LIKE about DSII boss runs was that you can actually clear out levels eventually, while it took a while it was kinda nice that after getting railed by a boss 200 times i was still making some semblance of progress.

The run up to the Ancient Dragon in Dark Souls 2... God damn

Everyone else is here for the Souls content..... I'm here for the outro

This dude has the best outro game in the business. I watch his videos just for them outros.

I used to think Ludwig in BB had the absolute worst run back, that was before on my 2nd playthrough noticing that the church just before the cannon Cthulhu monster had a lamp in it. That took so much of my time.

I’m surprised you can talk about boss runs in Elden Ring without mentioning the many catacomb dungeons! For most of them, once you unlocked the boss door it was an easy straight shot from the grace. But the fact that every single catacomb/cave dungeon only ever has a single site of grace and it was at the very beginning of the entrance, means running to the boss would take forever. And you would end up running past the same enemies dozens of times with each time you died trying to get to the boss the first time. But I get it, the hard part about the catacomb/cave dungeons was the initial run to the boss, not the run back. So maybe that’s why you didn’t mention it.

Honestly I kinda missed boss runs in Elden ring, I think there is a balance you can achieve in regard to that, not too challenging but challenging enough to add some stakes to fighting a boss rather than making it a "hit your head against the wall until it works"

For Sekiro I think we can mostly agree that Juzou the Drunkard, had the worst runback. basically two gank squads in a row, except the boss was included in one of those gank squads.

I didn't see the video yet but I am surprised i didn't see anyone in the comments talk about demon's souls boss runs like the old hero boss run and, the flamelurker i think was his name, not to mention the swamp of sorrow boss runs, man these boss runs brought me nightmares.

I feel so sad that DS 2 had these problems because it really had potential :( It has some of the more interesting areas and mechanics, and its more puzzly than the others, yet its ruined by having areas with MILLION enemies, that follow you for 20 years all the way to Africa, and yet you still dont have invinsibility frames when entering a fog door. Thanks alot FS, for forcing me to fight over 50 enemies over and over just to ATTEMPT a boss. Just seriously, is there a mod that fixed the invinsibility?

To be honest, I really like the boss runs. I was disappointed in Elden Ring with the spawns so close to bosses. Great video man!

Two places in elden ring that could have massively benefitted from a stake of marika are the abandoned cave in Caelid, and the knights of the great jar, also in Caelid. The boss at the end of the abandoned cave is a cleanrot knight duo, and they aren't very hard, but to get to them, you're basically force-inflicted with scarlet rot. Dying means you have to run back through the rot to reach them. The knights of the great jar takes well over a minute to reach, despite being able to use torrent, and for 80% of that time you're shot at by golem archers. These archers respawn, unlike most golems, and have over 10k health, so killing them takes a lot of time. But if you don't kill them, one of the golems has line of sight on the place where you fight the knights of the great jar, and can interrupt the fight.

I say another big thing they did was actually gain your health back when you attack like you have a possibility of gaining it back that is amazing or the other thing where you're able to pick up health off the ground from certain enemies cuz sometimes they drop it sometimes they don't just go in that murder spree and then you should have tons of blood vials

Enemy placement in DS2 is a lot more forgiving in the base game. SOTFS kind of screws over new players.

As some puts it, the boss run was meant to be part of the boss. You might disagree but tiss interesting to think about it.

"Also if one more person tells me to do an outro I'm gonna..." LMAAOOOOOOOOOOO

I'm so glad I'm not the only one that took forever, underleveled, on draconic tree sentinel just because I wanted to see Leyndell

The boss runs in darksouls 2 are actually not that bad, so long as you aren't playing scholar, scholar is basically a much *much* harder version of the game just cause they added absurd enemy spam in early mid game, leaving the end game sorta bare for some reason.

I feel like i'm one of the only people who never really minded any boss run back, maybe because i didn't die as much to the annoying ones.

In terms of Elden Ring, there's not really any super bad MAIN boss runs, this does not include any possible optional areas that have boss runs Rennala, is super easy to get back to. She has a shortcut option, and the main way there past the ball is super easy to get past without worrying about damage The entirety of Crumbling Farum Azula does not have Marika stakes, and if you don't find the option grace site, Godskin Duo has a mini boss run that can be a bit of an inconvenience, but all you have to do is backtrack and find the site of grace right outside their arena that also comes with a summon site. Maliketh is a 15 second run with an enemy that doesn't respawn if you kill it, so, thats even easier. Elden Ring all in all really tamed the boss runs and I think it's pretty good for people who hate the agony of taking damage on the way back and wasting a flask.

Having played a lot of Seemless Co-OP ER where stakes of marika don't work, I'm very glad they exist on some of the bosses now. I've done the Aurizas Heroes Grave enough times to last a lifetime.

Sorry but boss runs are stupid. Boss run apologists are some of the oddest in the souls community. Boss runs are basically just artificial difficulty that exist solely to piss you off rather than encourage you to improve as a player. If it was the latter concept, it wouldn’t be as universally hated but instead be appreciated. “b-b-but boss runs are so you can prepare and strategize for the boss!!!1!” I’m sorry what..? Enough with this fake deep argument. I’m too busy strategizing the best way at traversing this toxic ass 500 mile boss run as opposed to thinking about the actual boss ahead who is going to one shot me anyway. Elden Ring is now proof that boss runs are fundamentally useless and unneeded punishment and those that defend boss runs need to hang it up. Even Miyazaki doesn’t see the value in them anymore.

Renalia in ER is weirdly long, too. You have to cross half a courtyard, walk along a beam, climb some stairs, another courtyard, and then an elevator. Why isn’t there a Stake of Marika outside 5e Library?

I liked the boss runs because I have the tendency to wiggle my way into areas I absolutely shouldn't be so killing a ungodly amount of enemies and leveling up a few times definitely helped me get through areas

Nice video but I think you overlooked a major point of these games which is the lack of loading screens while traveling through the world. Things like long elevator rides are used to give the game time to load the next content, this is also used in long tunnels without much content for the game to load/calculate

I've always viewed the player's ability to run back as a good litmus test for the boss. If you can't get back with more than minimal health or time lost, you're probably not ready for the boss.