Why Margit is so good at killing you in Elden Ring 

Okay there seems to be two kinds of people in the world: people who struggled with Margit, and people who struggled with Godrick. WHICH ARE YOU?

I'm proud to say I have never once died to Margit. That may of course have something to do with the fact that I don't own Elden Ring but still.

tip for killing him: dodge his attacks and hit him until he dies

Here’s some lore reasons why as well: he has been protecting the erdtree as margit since the wars, and he was able to whoop the ass of General Radahn, the man who could stop the stars.

Best thing about the and this boss is you can pretty much decide yourself how difficult encounter Margit is. Knowing I could had just overlevel, -gear and abuse summons to easily defeat him but instead decided to use HOURS learning his moves, patterns and bashing my head against to wall ust to beating him using 2handed club without a shield. It was love/hate relationship at its best.

Delayed attacks that punish panic rolling and an AI that knows to use knife throws when you're about to heal also add to its difficulty as well.

I've said to a friend that the Limgrave is like a mini-Breath of the Wild, and you can charge Margit (Ganon) as soon as you'd like, but its better to search the corners of the map and find tools you need to handle him. Limgrave was designed to have this giant obstacle in Margit, to encourage the player away from rushing straight through the plot bosses and get them to explore the world more. I think the whole game is brilliantly designed, but you can really tell how much thought and planning went into the first area.

This boss is easily the most memorable out of all the bosses for me. I went into this game completely blind, other than what I had heard about Malenia being the hardest boss. I still remember the first time I walked into his boss arena. I love everything about his design, from his combat to his voice acting. From Software should be very proud of this boss. He literally teaches you how to play the game. If you are losing to him, you are simply being punished for making mistakes. It is a bit jarring at first, but he teaches you the fundamentals of the combat in Elden Ring. Although I do love Malenia more than Margit, i still feel that Margit is easily the most memorable. Foul Tarnished, ill never forget the first time I heard that. Fucking masterful design all the way down to the core.

I hate long wind-ups. Especially ones that have arbitrary wind-up times for the seemingly same starting moves, and keeps you guessing which it is. Combine that with one-shot/fast combo/stunlock, and there you go, a recipe for anger.

One thing I always love about Souls teacher-bosses is that they always have 2 phases. Phase 1 is "Here is a boss specifically designed to teach you how to fight in a Souls game" (And in Elden Ring, that gets extended to "Here is a boss specifically designed to force you to learn how the game wants you to interact with the world). Phase 2 is "Eat shit and die."

A FromSoft game, Bruce Lee, fighting game concepts; this is truly the Dark Souls of Pat Gill videos.

margit is like this because Elden ring is going to be the first souls game alot of people played, you need a boss that teaches players the collective knowledge of 6 other souls games in the span of 2 phases, it punishes getting greedy, it teaches you to be mindful of your arena, it teaches you the extent of your dodge and how you can memories an attack to learn the best way to dodge, it teaches you whats a general safe distance for healing and time intensive actions with his slow walk speed, he even teaches you to sometimes take a break because you might be under leveled or under equipped.

Margit is such a beautifully cruel “first boss.” He reminds me of Owl, Father with his start-ups and how he adapts to the player.

Showed up at level 15, went "Oh, I hit this dude for a drop in the pot, he slaps me for half my health." Then I left and did everything else and came back at level 40 with +3 sippy and +5 weapon and put his foolish ambitions to rest.

I just love his phase two transition dialogue that's goes, "ah, thou art of passing skill," IDK why I just think it's a huge flex because anyone new to the game will immediately get the confidence they built up through phase one pushed straight back in.

It took me like two or three days to beat him and then I beat Goodrich in three tries. Margit managed to become my favorite character in the game so far though. The omens are so cool

First, I needed to Margit good, then I Morgott good

It’s kinda funny how even though Morgott is a much harder fight than Margit, but people will usually spend way longer fighting Margit. It makes sense, people will be more used to the game and way more appropriately levelled by the time they reach Morgott, but it’s still kinda interesting to think about.

The beginning of Elden Ring almost feels like a red herring or a mean trick. You do the tutorial and the game says follow the light of the grace and almost makes you take a linear path. That path leads to Margit who beats your ass. Like he's meant to be saying, "What are you doing here? It's an open world game! Go explore and face me when your stronger!" It's okay to leave a boss fight and come back later if you are having trouble. You'll be less stressed about the game. I promise.

For anyone that is at their breaking point with this boss there's a spell you can get that will engage him for several seconds and allow you to beat on him. It works only 2 or 3 times before he becomes immune though

Small tip for newbies: Find a character named Patches in a cave near the starting area, spare him then return later with a lot of runes, he sells a very special item just for Margit that gives a advantage.

One thing that always hold true so far in my journey in Elden Ring is that stronger and bigger the foe, you roll *forward* not back. My instinct always makes me run back, and the game never fails to punish that.

Margit really is the culmination of Fromsoft design. Its probably why I can't stop playing this game, even though there are still some bosses that arent perfect, Margit is a boss that just feels like Fromsoft really loves to kill us, and that warms my heart.

When i defeated him I felt a joy I've never felt in my 14 years of bring alive. This game truly makes you suffer for a short period of happiness

I spent the majority of my first play through exploring and leveling, I didn’t get to Margot till I was lvl 42, and by then I had a large enough health pool to soak up his damage. I was shocked I managed to beat him first try.

He exists as a reality check for souls players new and veteran. ER bosses have AI that are triggered by using flasks, hyper aggressive combos that often can last longer than your stamina bar if you aren't spec'd properly, and possible one shot attacks that wind up for just that little extra amount of time so that you're to roll incorrectly and get knocked.

I feel like the reason that I died so many times to this fairly predictable boss is because I'd come close to winning, get greedy, die, sloppily rush the fight again in frustration, get close again, die again.

I took me approx 1 hr and a half to beat him at lvl 17. no prior experience with souls game. The first five tries I almost killed him with only a tiny bit of HP left. Then he swings out of nowhere. I spent rest of the hour trying to beat margit Because I got impatient and greedy. This boss taught me a lot of things. For example, learn to swing to his side instead of away from him, when he's winding up an attack and about to dash and slash, I slashed him until he staggers. When he staggers after stabbing him a lot You can perform a visceral attack. my victory felt quite earned :D

Tip that worked for me: the only fast attack that he does from neutral is also the only upward slash, all his other slower attacks are downward, if he starts to move and does not have his arms raised you need to roll immediatly

The cuts to the Jailer Demon were so funny and weirdly endearing. He's doing his best!

While getting my ass completely kicked, I couldn't help but notice just how awesome the animation work was for Margit, too. The respect he commanded made the fight all the more satisfying when I finally landed the finishing blow, and the second round even more personal.

I love his invisible barriers which prevent him from falling off the sides.

Also, his game of waiting an eternity before landing is truly brilliant. You must look at his hands, his eyes, or a movement of elbow to catch the exact moment to roll, otherwise it will hit you. Of course it's exagerated to keep it possible, but when fighting you don't fight a dumb AI. You feel like a duellist who's in a psychological fight against a living being, more skillfull and more patient than you. And it's amazing !

Literally beat him two hours ago after starting Elden Ring on day one. I’m a souls newbie and he is the first boss I’ve defeated. I’m so proud of myself. (‘:

Me: tries to think of good joke Brain: Put these foolish ambitions to rest

It took me 6 hours to beat Margit and I did so by learning the timing of his moves and parrying him into submission. I started to notice the little details of his attacks, such as how his longer windups usually end with a step of the foot or a final swing back into the hit. Looking back on my fight and all the different ways you can defeat Margit, I’m starting to think I took a sort of brute force route

As a player at the endgame of Elden Ring right now, Margit is genuinely the most challenging boss fight in the game, I reserve hardest boss fight for bs bosses like Godskin duo and Fire giant but Margit is a genuine fight and he is one of my favourite bosses

I felt SO BAD when I kept getting crushed by Margit early on. "I beat Gael, Midir, and Isshin, why is this guy fucking me up so badly?" This is a really good breakdown, especially on how his strings vary it up to punish fear and predictable behavior. I felt a little bad when I got him using jellyfish poison, but now I use ashes on every boss and don't feel bad in the slightest. (fuck you hoarah.....)

fantastic video! Great work

This video is great, and I think struggling with Margit is absolutely fine. Spot on analysis of why he is a hard boss. I would say that he is even harder than Papa Gas Can, who still got me a couple times on my first BB run. He actually does players a favor though. If you heed his lessons and learn to manage your stamina and time rolls well, the rest of the game is a lot easier.

Adapting is definitely an important lesson that Margit teaches you! Example: when Margit does that agonizingly long cane windup (you know the one), I started backing up to make him charge me and do his double spin because it was easier for me to consistently time my dodge roll to that than to his close up swing. Every little advantage helps. Don't fight fair. Use pocket sand.

2:35 of note, there actually is no wind-up on the dodge animation whatsoever, s start the same moment the roll does. the reason that there *is* an extremely noticeable and sometimes inconsistent-feeling delay between pushing the button and the roll happening is because the roll doesn't start until the button is *released*. a consequence of the decision over a decade ago to put sprint and dodge on the same button, that causes endless frustration to this day as countless players (including me) go "what the fuck i definitely hit roll and my dipshit bonehead character just stood there and got willingly pummeled"

A big thing to remember to do is to use the Jelly ashes. If you can get that and use Rogier, the 3-way aggro pull makes it near impossible for him to focus on someone long enough to get a kill.

The slap sound on Asylum Demon gave me the biggest chuckle. Thank you 😂

I think and important aspect that was missed here is he is designed to teach you the new fight mechanics of elden ring. Using shields, jump attacks, etc. are VERY strong against him!

I noticed that this style of boss becomes much easier after watching someone else fight them. Partially because you see new boss patterns if players do different thing, maybe because it's easy to internalize timing without having to play at the same time? Anyway, the attack string boss with frequent small punish windows is definitely my favorite style in elden rings. I wish they didn't have as many one shot attacks, though.

Very well done video!

Been out of RU-vid for a whole while and gotta tell you, i've missed on Pat, the way he unpretentiously almost made me cry at this ending really got me. Great mfking guy

I fucking adore the Margit fight for so many reasons, helps that he's really cool and has really cool moves etc etc. But I kinda adore how he's basically a thesis statement of the game. Both in the actual rhythm of the combat (slow hitting heavy attacks that punish spam mixed with lighter attacks to throw you off) but also the greater nature of the game. Like you said you don't have to fight him immediately, you can complete the whole game and then fight him for pete's sake. You can look elsewhere, get buffed up, find more powerful friends or you can smash your face against this boss until you break the wall. But it's up to you, the game isn't going to demand you fight him *now*. What's cool about that is that's the entire game! Everything you need to know about Elden Ring is summarised in the boss and the options you have to face him! That's fucking rad!!!

This video is really, really good! I would love to see more boss breakdowns like this, they're so, so instructive, and so rare. Most videos about bosses just focus on a single move, or just pointing you towards some sort of cheese. There's gotta be a sweet spot between "do this and you barely have to think about it" and "i dunno man, just git gud". Within the first, like, 3 tries, I could already tell he was pulling some shenanigans, with those combo extensions _and_ some variable timings as well. The big vertical windup that's comically long? It's perfectly timed to catch you if you roll, realise the attack still hasn't come out, panic, and roll again. But then I tried circle strafing it, and margit just.... kept holding the attack and trying to track me. Eventually, he just gave up? It was really weird and frustrating, finding out that there just wasn't a window for punishment there. It looks like such a _huge_ commitment!

Man, the first crucible knight taught me all I needed to know before facing Margit

i could genuinely watch pat analyze boss battles for the rest of my life

In my quite extensive musical experience, Pat is right. "The slow knife penetrates the fast roll." That also reminds me of someone who once said the Arkham games' Batman fights are just rhythm games, and there's a lot of truth to that.

Another thing that you didn't bring up that ought to be mentioned is how he handles more defensive playstyles. Slow windups and dodge rhythm dont matter as much if you block his attacks instead of dodge. However, his summoned weapons deal magic damage which you are unlikely to get 100 percent damage negation against at that point, so turtling up will end up into a battle of attrition your unlikely to win. And he has a specific attack to deal big damage after your guard gets broken, forcing you to learn good stamina management if you dont want to get punished.

it was funny that you were speaking about aaaall of that, that I completely forgot his second phase until you mentioned at the end of the video, like "oh, right, you still need to learn phase 2 as well"

My favourite thing is when RU-vid channels put extra stuff in Closed Captions. Props, polygon.

I feel sympathetic to that prisoner guy. I know the suffering to endure of dying to Margit's bonk stick over and over again. This is painful to watch, but trust me, after you defeat Margit the victory is sweet and satisfying.

I've noticed something similar with Mohg, in that I'm pretty sure he is designed to frame trap you. His attacks are slow and telegraphed, but its still really easy for a lot of people (myself included) to get hit by them if you aren't used to them. His combos are paced in such a way that panic buffering an input will almost certainly get you smacked around. Its like he was designed to punish panic-mashing. If Margit is the "don't panic" boss, then Mohg is the "don't buffer" boss.

This was an actually useful guide, cheers

5:17 The whip crack made me chortle. Excellent comedic timing as always Pat 👍🏻👍🏻

On 3 separate occasions fighting Margit, I was within a couple hits of beating him, things were going well, still had some crimson flasks, and I fell off that stupid arena. 6 out of 5 stars! Would recommended!

I think Margit is intentionally difficult, like the Tree Sentinel, in order to encourage players to go explore elsewhere. If you're getting wrecked by a boss, go fight smaller enemies and do the small dungeons to level up and get some loot that might help make the fight easier. Even if you explore for awhile and find nothing of great value, leveling up is always valuable because it ALWAYS increases your defense.

This is a piece of work from polygon that I've not actually got any objections with geared towards new players. Nice work.

this is so true. time spent really well watching this video. liked and subbed

The second I entered Limgrave I explored for HOURS because I am an openworld weeb. I loved it. Totally forgot there was even main story bosses. Then after like, 20 hours I got a little bored and went looking for a boss. Killed Margit in about 1 minute, first try. FromSoft has and always will reward exploration and strategic thinking over running and gunning.

It is pretty impressive how everything else distracts you from how slow and telegraphed those attacks really are

More vids like this for every boss plis

I just started the game a few days ago and I noticed the slow attacks were alot harder to dodge the he comes in with a fast combo to crush you lmao great vid

He's a great boss for that place in the game; specifically placed where you have played long enough to start to properly grasp the mechanics and rhythm of combat, early enough that you can't have reinforced your bad habits, and with each of the standard traits of strong Souls bosses but not too much of any one. For new players he teaches that space, healing, and positioning are all resources you can spend for damage, and that you have to earn them back because they aren't free - his mobility covers most of the arena if he wants, his attacks are wide but still highly positional, his chains are long enough that panic-rolling will be punished, and the daggers means you can't heal without thinking it through. Each of these are bad habits that new players and veterans alike fall into, and you can't beat him if you refuse to change the habits. The high damage combos with switch-ups also means that even very good players are extremely unlikely to beat him the first time they see him, to remind very good players that this isn't the end of a game they are familiar with but the start o one they are not. Btu while he's capable of punishing all of these mistakes and habits, he also leaves a fair amount of openings,commits to long attack chains, and doesn't have all that much health - as long as you understand the game, you don't need to be all that good to win. And because of the open-world design, there are a huge number of things you can do and resources you can gain first, so that if you really are just struggling you can eventually brute-force it, or bypass him completely. It's very hard to design early-game challenges, and lists of best bosses overly favour the end-game where the game doesn't need to teach and can just test you, but making a strong ,challenging, and educational boss for the early game is a major challenge for any developer. It took ten years for FromSoft to get this good at designing early bosses, and it shows.

Loving this video! I'd love more in-depth breakdowns of challenges like this!

It's so good that I forgot about them and went on going through the locations. I came to Margit and Godrick at level 65 and took off 1/6 bars per hit each.

seeing as i did pretty much everything in limgrave i could before going into stormveil castle, i was very prepared for the margit fight. i just couldnt resist exploring :)

Margit is interesting. I did a maidenless run of stormfront castle as my first run of the game. (I eventually decided after killing godrick that due to a lack of raw weapons and limited weapon reinforcements (and not having the right stats for the unique raw you find) to level up after that point). and discovered that Margit is far more like fighting the dancer early than fighting vort with one exception. The dancer will murder you in one hit no matter what. In a low sl run you grab the dark hand or the deep axe and just go to town on her armor less because you want to win as soon as possible, but Margit is different. Margit deals no damage. even with 10 vigor it takes like 10 of his knives to kill you and his other swings will only do about a third to half your health. He absolutely tickles, but has the same level of complexity as fighting dancer, or champ gundyr, but with none of the bite and this made one major change. It makes this boss really easy to clear even if you don't know what your doing by simply out leveling his damage. By level 25-30 you will simply have more health and more stats than this guy if you distribute a decent number to health and damage. You can get hit by every swing and still win the fight or simply bum rush him with damage before you learn his combos. Additionally they nerfed being light weight. In elden ring the difference between light and medium weight are miniscule with some reporting that there are no frame differences at all, but this also means that a light roll no longer launches you further giving you more safety against high level bosses. Similarly while you are faster in light weight even that was reduced to the point in which the line in which you are passively fast enough to just walk around a bosses attack (like the dancer of the boreal valley's attacks most of which can actually just be walked around) is much narrower meaning high risk high reward early game building isn't nearly as much of a thing, because you will always want to be riding the 69% line. The end result is veteran challenge players are getting torn up because when you don't out scale the boss it is like fighting a mid or end game boss right at the beginning, but if you do level up even just a little bit, you can no sell this bosses entire move set and punish him in return.

I was wondering when Pat would talk about the new souls game. Margit slapped me so hard I saw God the first several times

The throwing dagger is actually pretty telegraphed. It only happens when you are in front of him at the end of a combo, unless he does the two hand overhead attack or another one I don't remember the name of. But usually when he does a charged attack he won't throw the knives. Overall he's very easy. Just jump attack to stagger. Works everytime (for a pure melee build, dex for me). +Jump attacks actually dodge alot of his horizonal attacks when you jump, but also when you crouch momentarily after the jump attack. You know how many swipes I dodged after I jump attack in the recovery animation? Too many.

I had more trouble with the Banished Knight guarding the key than I did with this dude for some reason

I found out that people had a really hard time with Margit after I beat him, which made me feel really accomplished. It was hard for me too and I was just about to look up a guide when I finally did it and I'm glad I didn't give up.

When I finally understood the whole switching target thing mid combo in coop, it was a big revelation for me. Honestly it's such cool design that you can't just relax because you don't appear to have aggro and you actually have to observe bosses attacks that aren't even directed at you. The funny thing is that due to the hitboxes some attacks may even be more difficult to avoid if you are coming from the side or the back as a phantom.

Margit is both a fantastic teacher and a great troll from time to time. Also, his animations and adaptability are on another planet. This boss have just a big charisma coming from all of that. This little duellist dance/staring contest realy have a western vibe. Truly an amazing boss, I've loved being beaten nearly 50 times by that old goat !

I could always get through his first phase but I would keep losing on the second phase until I got this spell called the flame sling from an NPC at the roundtable hold and it helped so much

I can definitely agree that Margit switches targets mid combo bc I did coop on him and managed to save my teammate by drawing his attention mid combo to buy him time to chug a flask instead of getting wiped next hit. Was a super fun and hard fight even with another player

i saw that fromsoftware improved a lot its enemies AI, a lot say that it's panic but some mini bosses actally get more aggresive when low health, and who plays with a spell build can see when his enemy decides not to let you have time to shoot after that last 10% health

Amazing video!

Played for the first time a few hours ago and I can tell you watching this showed me most of my mistakes, I’ve never played a souls game so this basically told me rethink how I play games

Margit's only big openings are when he jams his cane into the ground or does that big jumping attack with his hammer. Every other time he'll pull out the daggers if you try to pressure him.

Me: *will never be interested in playing Eldin Ring* Pat: Let me talk to you about my experience with fighting this boss in Elden Ring! Me: yesss do go on

man, this was a refreshing commentary on a souls boss. don't know why it took me so long to see it.

btw about his dagger you can easily (not so easily but i guess if you have a decent reaction time and know how to strafe its pretty easy) ignore it for the entire fight since he only has one move that will make use the dagger and thats the thrust and because of its slow startup you can strafe around roll behind em so that you can punish safely(also its not really the only one but most of the time thats the one, you can know if he's gonna use them if he takes his hands up) Edit:i forgor to say it but if your doing that pay attention to his tail move

I managed to put off Margit for a while unintentionally, and when I came back to Limgrave had reached a decent level for the fight. Add in a little cheesing with my lone wolves summon and the Sorcerer Rogier right next to the boss area, and I had a much easier time than I felt I deserved based on my skill level lol. I'm struggling to find a new area that I feel well-equipped for right now.

Pat I love you

As a fully hearing-abled man who tries to imagine how much trouble being deaf must be, I gotta say I really appreciate your oddly specific captions - I would know exactly what those little interlude jingles were like to a T if I was indeed NOT hearing-abled, which I am indeed not.

Managed to beat Margit last night, partially thanks to this video! Thanks Pat! Fellow ER newbies: Sacred Blade is a really helpful ash of war even if you're not a faith build. You can get it from a scarab near the Third Church of Marika and I've been getting a lot of mileage out of it

UH HI that's me?? I'm in a Polygon video?? This is kinda awesome! I'm the girl who got f*ckin destroyed at 0:14 what's up everyone?

Since I am very new to this type of game and struggled early on with the combat system and controls I was so nervous to go into Stormveil. I focused on all the other mini-bosses in the starting area and put it off. Finally decided it was time to face my fear and I was surprised at how easily I killed Margit. One shot him with no problems. I did struggle a bit with the trash mobs after him making my way through Stormveil but it wasn't too bad. Also had a more difficult time with Godrick but got him down too after a few tries. Now that I am more comfortable with the game I decided to reroll as a wretch (which is what I wanted to do when I first started the game but it went poorly because I didn't know what I was doing) and rush through to Stormveil to see how I would do. This time I had a much easier time with the trash mobs (and paid more attention to my surroundings and found some roof top traveling trips to skip a lot of annoying stuff) and one shot Godrick too. Felt really good since when I first started this game I literally died like 20 times to that "boss" in the tutorial and never thought I would make it out of the first zone. Now we'll see how I do with the rest of the content.

Great vid, should have talked about phase 2 as thats where it gets super frustrating.

One of my biggest issues is when he used the dagger and I would roll through it like you mentioned but I would still get hit by the second swipe but not every time I just could never get the positioning

I got so mad at Margit after he killed me like 25 times in a row, that the time I was able to fight him again as Morgott, I level'd up to like 100 just so I could put HIS foolish ambitions to rest He didn't stand a chance, killed him with like 5-6 waves of Taker's Flames. God, I love Blasphemous Blade

The jellyfish summon does help somewhat in this fight as he eventually poisons Margit. Unfortunately, I eventually run out of health packs and am unable to survive long enough to finish him off. Took about an hour to beat him...

late to the game but what 's helping me in more intense boss moments is turning the background music OFF. it's on purpose super chaotic and suspenseful which is def part of the fun but I feel really locked in and flowy when it's just the sound of opponent and I crashing about

One thing I heard and noticed at times, is that many of the enemies, not just bosses, are reactive to your character. I noticed this especially when I went back to play an older game. Many ER enemies, especially in the late game, will trigger their moves based on what the player is doing, especially Crucible Knights. And I really like that. They don't just have set combos that they throw out randomly based on how far away you are. Makes the whole experience very new for veterans of DS. Also, another slight thing I noticed is that aggro is different too. ER enemies seem to base it off who hit them last, while previous games seem to have an enemy aggro to whoever it wants for a period of time before they choose someone else (not sure if that how it really works, but it seems more random to me).