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Strange women lying in ambush distributing goats is no basis for a system of godhood, but she did offer to be your maiden. So now you have to endure humiliation and pain from the gods. Welcome to Elden Ring, Tarnished. You’re a nobody who’s too stubborn or too angry to die in obscurity. So you might as well anticipate who among these enemies will give you the most intense beating in our hitlist for the hardest boss in Elden Ring.
Margit, the Fell Omen
This warty grump won’t give you much trouble in subsequent playthroughs, but those Rune Level 20 mental battle scars against Margit are enough to extinguish thy meager flame. He’s the first important lesson you’ll face about dodging too reactively.
Margit frequently mixes up his heavy, light, and delayed attacks to mess with you. He can even catch Souls veterans off-guard. To add salt to the wound, he’s a rather eloquent trash-talker.
Starscourge Radahn
Like Margit, Radahn the mad rad Chad won’t give you much trouble in New Game+ playthroughs, but he’s a nightmare to fight in the first encounter. You’re given several options to deal with him. You can even mount up. However, those options can throw you off rhythm since fighting on horseback is an acquired taste in Elden Ring.
Thus, he’s one of the hardest bosses in Elden Ring and one of the first serious Demigod enemies. As soon as you enter the arena, he’ll greet you with his space artillery and while you get reinforcements in the fight, they’re mostly ephemeral distractions that can die as soon as Radahn bumps into them. If his blades don’t kill you, him turning into a meteor will do it, most of the time.
Crucible Knight Ordovis
Remember that relentless input-reading cheat in the early-game Evergaol on Stormhill? How he didn’t let you heal while taunting you? Well, here’s two of them. Crucible Knight Ordovis is a mid-game boss but this duo can be too much to handle and might force you to finally use your Mimic Tear Ash for solo gameplay backup.
It’s the same absurdity, but with an added randomness since there are two of them. The boss is notorious for reading all your inputs and reacting to every move, meaning fights with him have tight mistake windows coupled with combos that also require you to mix up jumping and dodges for evasion.
Fire Giant
Speaking of randomness in boss fights, the Fire Giant is also another serious offender. That’s because if you’re a melee character, you won’t get to see his moves while you’re chipping away at the fungal growth underneath his toenails.
The chances of getting randomly squashed by this lumbering boss are too high simply because you can’t get a good view. Apart from the stubborn camera (which is also part of the boss fight’s difficulty), he’ll also spew out ranged area attacks and even damage over time.
Mohg, Lord of Blood
There’s a special trinket that will make the Mohg boss fight easy, but it won’t help much if you don’t have fast fingers. In any case, Mohg is an oppressively dark fight even though you’ve already faced his trial version in the Subterranean Shunning-Grounds.
Mohg’s deceptive attack range and high damage, coupled with his alarming Bleed status infliction make him a traumatizing enemy. If you also don’t have the special trinket or enough health to counteract his special Bleed skill, prepare to die once he starts counting in Latin.
Godskin Duo
If there was one thing worse than duo gank bosses in a Souls game, it would be duo gank bosses that keep coming back. Thus, the Godskin Duo is a certified headache for many. The boss(es) share the same health pool, it’s just that they keep respawning as long as that health pool is at a certain threshold.
The big one has deceptively fast attacks that can stunlock you while the lanky one has some unblockable magic attacks. There are some cheesy tactics to help in the fight, but you’re better off summoning Spirit Ashes, NPCs, or other players to even the playing field.
Dragonlord Placidusax
Dragonlord Placidusax is quite possibly the most epic dragon fight in all Souls games and also one of the hardest bosses in Elden Ring. It’s a good thing he’s not at full power, otherwise, he’d be unstoppable. And even so, this boss has a whole mountain range for its health bar, along with frantic lightning attacks.
Get him angry enough and he can turn invisible while flying towards you and clawing you with his lightning-death paws. If you’re still alive after that, the Ghidorah lightning breaths will make quick work of you. Still, despite the fight’s inherent difficulty, it’s a fun and grand battle in which you usually won’t mind losing.
Radagon of the Golden Order/Elden Beast
The game thankfully ends its story on a high note with a menace that ranks as one of the hardest bosses in Elden Ring. Radagon, who is also Marika, who is also the Elden Beast, who is also the manifestation of the Greater Will, which is also the Elden Ring (save the questions for later), is another epic battle held back by a frustrating arena.
Because in case you manage to power through Radagon’s hammering and nigh-impossible area attacks, the game will pit you against what is essentially Fire Giant 2.0. You’ll spend a big chunk of the Elden Beast fight chasing the huge creature in an infinite arena while also trying to dodge its homing attacks. Torrent would have been useful in that fight.
Beast Clergyman/Maliketh, the Black Blade
The Beast Clergyman, who is also just Maliketh in disguise, is a huge wolf creature. This explains why he mangles you around like a rabid canine. You get almost no window of opportunity for your own attacks with how ceaseless his energy and combos are.
Once he transforms into Maliketh, there goes half your health if you get hit with the red stuff. As if you needed more reasons to dodge his deadly hits. For that matter, he’s a threat regardless of your Rune Level.
Malenia, Blade of Miquella
Even those who haven’t even played Elden Ring might have heard of Malenia, Blade of Miquella. For she has never known defeat. Currently, Malenia is the hardest Souls boss (Bloodborne also considered) and her reputation precedes her.
She heals whenever she hits you, she has two HP bars, she has a near-unavoidable combo, she’s fast, she hits hard, and as an icing on top of that rage cake, she also explodes and causes damage over time. While she might sound like the most overturned Souls game boss ever, letting Malenia know defeat has now become one of the highest trophies in gaming– and proof that you have gotten gud.
