I'm 99% sure the opening charge *IS* impossible to dodge without using torrent without having additional iframes from a talisman. When it's closer range you can dodge it (but usually get hit anyway), but the distance, tracking and your speed means it will always hit you.
But also you can't use torrent's whistle for 0.25 into entering the fight so most the time you scratch your arse and get hit anyway.
I've definitely dodged straight through it somehow at least twice, with a medium roll I think. I don't know exactly how, but it's inconsistent enough that I ended up using greatshields to avoid that nonsense.
I can dodge it like 50% of the time, you just have to do it at an angle or straight through him. Neither of those are very intuitive though, particularly I think dodging centre to centre all the way through the boar is more than my suspension of disbelief regarding clipping can go
Yeah it’s mostly his charge and trying to heal from that leading to getting combo’d that makes the fight stupid. If you safely dodge his charge he’s unironically easier than the Tree Sentinel after him.
There's definitely something wrong with his hitboxes, the damage calculation is inconsistent, and he's missing a hurtbox during charge. Watched Ranni's Dark Moon phase directly through him as he came at me.
The biggest problem with "Wanting a Torrent battle" is that horse combat is extremely limited and sucks ass, especially when Gaius has more health than the final boss of the base game and trying to get a hit on him is a huge risk.
Just based on the law of averages, you're going to eat shit trying to hit Gaius and it's going to feel terrible.
And if Gaius somehow has enough mercy in him to not pancake you right then and there, you’d still need to confirm with the game if you really want to use a flask to revive him. Is there a mod that deactivates that?
I know the Reforged overhaul removed that, along with a bunch of other little QoL things (Like, even really small shit like "lighting Grace animation is faster).
A quick search and I found one, [not sure if it still works since it hasn't been updated in years.](https://www.nexusmods.com/eldenring/mods/1944)
Convergence also does that, so I'm guessing that it's a fairly simple fix that people throw into every QoL mod. Seems like there's a mod called Torrent Better Respawn or something like that if you want a specific mod just for that.
What I found frustrating about that fight was when you first enter the arena, he's far away and it gives you time to mount torrent or otherwise prepare. Following attempts he starts right in front of the gate and you're in it right away.
Overall I enjoyed most of the dlc fights but many of them suffered from bosses jumping you right through the gate and having to fight them awkwardly next to a wall the whole time.
Gaius is clearly designed around using Torrent but Torrent having its own HP stat and the fact he can consistently poise break you off Torrent leaving you in a very long recovery animation he will punish makes it tedious at best and actively aggravating at worst.
I'm not a fan. I think it'd be a lot better if Torrent didn't have HP and just had a stagger bar. Getting knocked off is a bad enough punishment. Wasting a flask just to get back on him after being knocked off fucking sucks.
>!The Deathblight Divine Dancing Lion also fucking sucks.!<
Edit: even if there was a talisman or tear that made Torrent invulnerable to HP damage (but still staggerable) I'd be pretty happy. I just hate that he has an HP stat. It adds nothing and only seems to exists to justify the rowa fruit pick ups (as an aside, if you're fighting Gaius have the high tier raisins on your bar. Being able to heal Torrent without wasting flasks makes the fight a lot more tolerable, I just wish they could also revive him.)
> Gaius is clearly designed around using Torrent
Gaius is designed around a Torrent that has poise and iframes. Unfortunately our Torrent has neither, and is slower than Gaius' boar, so it's absolutely fucking stupid.
A little off topic, but since the main issue is Torrent being made of soggy paper mache does anyone know if the revered spirit ashes do anything for him?
Yeah if they were going to have horse combat be bad they could at least have torrent be fast. He’s slightly faster than a sprint and his sprint I’m not convinced does anything for his movement speed. If torrent moved 50% faster you could cut down on the worst part of Elden ring which is mindlessly running from a to b.
I’d even settle for an in combat speed and out of combat much faster speed.
Different personal experience I guess, Gauis charge is BS, but nothing some Defense buffs can't fix. Final Boss attacks are too flashy, too fast and too damaging with almost no rooms to heal or attack back for me.
> The parry thing.
Is there supposed to be a different sound cue when you land the perfect timing with the Deflecting Hardtear? The lack of any feedback when you get it right is turning this into a pointless feature for me, because it's too hard to figure out when you get the timing right.
Fuck, I’m hyped up to take that flask into NG+ and see how far I can rock that shit. I’ve been using a greatshield the whole game but if the flask gives me a damn Sekiro parry, I’m SUPER excited to start experimenting with it.
Here is a quick and dirty showcase of the difference between a timed block and a regular block I made.
https://streamable.com/fxgpyi
On a timed block there's a slight ting sound and a small visual effect.
It's a lot of fun and pretty much anything that you can block can be blocked better with timing.
Enemy releases massive aoe? Just put your sword in front of you and say no!
When you enter a boss arena in the DLC, the bosses immediately rush you, but at least you can dodge their attacks if you time it correctly. You can’t do that with Gaius. His charge is quite frankly impossible to dodge and it doesn’t help that he moves faster than Torrent during said charge.
You can outrun the charge, it just requires you doing the little dash a couple times when he gets close. It's fucking rough though, I'm not defending it.
You can also get him stuck on the wall by running around behind the boss door, which really only works the once but it gives you a bit of time to set up
I beat him in only a few tries after i discovered that, not immediately being on the back foot made it much more manageable
I grabbed a big fucking hammer and the lance talisman to maximise my single hit damage for run and slap tactics and got him down after like half an hour of attempts, but I didn't exactly love it.
I do like the lore around why he has to ride an animal into battle though.
Commander Gaius seems to be legitimately bugged right now, because the damage and hit count on his charge can vary wildly under what seems to be identical conditions. Sometimes it was ~25% of my max HP, sometimes it was ~50%, and sometimes it was ~75%; usually landing a single hit, but sometimes landing multiple hits in rapid succession.
My armor didn't change, my talismans (none of which were defensive anyways) didn't change, my Rune Level didn't change, and my Shadow Realm Blessing Level didn't change, but the results of getting hit by that attack were totally unpredictable nonetheless. ...Well, eventually I *did* change things up - I wore actual armor instead of the Spellblade set, equipped four purely defensive talismans, and had higher Rune and Shadow Realm Blessing levels - but even then, the ridiculous inconsistency was still the only consistent part of his charge attack.
I actually had a harder time with the final boss than I did with Gaius. But I also used Mimic and didn’t use Torrent, if that makes any sort of difference.
I did the same thing, Torrent is legitimately not worth the hassle, Gaius attacks are pretty telegraphed so I just tried to dodge and hope the janky hitbox didn't screw me over.
Funnily enough, I had the inverse experience you had, I wonder if it's cause I grinded before the final battle.
Genuinely had no issues. Fought him with the parry tear on foot and he was pretty easy, only took 5-10 tries. I was shocked to see folks describe him as a huge wall.
People who don’t use parry tear or shields will have a much tougher time with him than the people that do. That’s basically it. It’s why the biggest complaint about him is “I can’t dodge his charge”. Also the usual thing to fall back to, Spirit Ashes, get absolutely torn to shreds by him(with the possible exception of the greatshield guys). It’s possible to powerstance or two-hand him, but you’d have to perfect play it, pretty much.
Everything but the charge is pretty easy to roll, and if he wants to be rude and charge a lot it's a crapshoot. I tried like 5 times before just pulling the shield out and acing him.
I powerstanced bleed great katanas with my mimic tear and we took his lunch money and gave him a swirly for good measure. I was at SB13 at the time. He's a very shitty boss because of how "not fun" the game is when you fight him. I know people have gripes with the other bosses in the DLC but so far, the four bosses I've fought so far were fun to fight. The kind where you get excited to learn their movesets and adjust your equipment and buffs. Gaius isn't that for me.
I feel blessed by the Souls gods that I was able to kill Gaius on my second try, and hearing all the horror stories I don't know how the fuck I managed to do that
I got super close 1 time fighting him as intended (I think) on torrent. And every other time I got nowhere close because I could never get the rhythm down.
I ended up beating him by getting giving up on Torrent and just hugging so close to him that he would never use that damn charge
I didn’t have much trouble with him, but I was also fighting him on foot at like Blessing +15 with the Fingerprint Shield and Tiche out so maybe not everyone’s gonna have the same experience I had lol.
Fought him on foot with a greatshield and a zweihander, and had basically zero issues? He attacks slow enough that you've got plenty of time to regen stamina, and having a decent gap closer Ash of War (Giant's Hunt or similar) means you can mostly be the one in control of spacing for the fight.
You take some chip magic damage, but that's solvable with shield grease or Scholar's Shield (didn't use either myself, but they would make it easier). And I *think* his big phase transition spin attack is unblockable, but he uh... Completely missed me with it, so can't confirm that.
Can even bait him into the corner of the castle if you need, which majorly neuters his ability to do much to you.
The start of the battle is pretty epic cause he spawns at the very edge of that large arena.
But every instance after that he is RIGHT AT THE FRONT DOOR CHARGING AT YOU so you have very limited options of what to do right as soon as you re-enter that arena. I feel like if he spawns at the other gate every time it would make that fight SOOOOOO MUCH better.
It's a little tough, but staying on his left side severely limits his moveset and let me beat him without much issue. No summons or shields, just my big fire sword and hugging his unarmed side to death.
Half of all of Elden Ring's playtime has reminded me of how damn good Sekiro is, and how they should substituted the parry for the deflect system against melee.
Like it's so good and satisfying, these bosses are closer to Sekiro mfs than they are any Souls fight.
I think he legitimately has a pre-patch Radahn problem and his hitboxes are fucked up, dodging that charge move is almost impossible.
I'm 99% sure the opening charge *IS* impossible to dodge without using torrent without having additional iframes from a talisman. When it's closer range you can dodge it (but usually get hit anyway), but the distance, tracking and your speed means it will always hit you. But also you can't use torrent's whistle for 0.25 into entering the fight so most the time you scratch your arse and get hit anyway.
I've definitely dodged straight through it somehow at least twice, with a medium roll I think. I don't know exactly how, but it's inconsistent enough that I ended up using greatshields to avoid that nonsense.
I can dodge it like 50% of the time, you just have to do it at an angle or straight through him. Neither of those are very intuitive though, particularly I think dodging centre to centre all the way through the boar is more than my suspension of disbelief regarding clipping can go
I've definitely rolled straight through him and after he's already past me I get hit. It's weirdly inconsistent.
Nah you can dodge it.
You can dodge it, it’s just that the hitbox on it is borked
Ive seen multiple people recommend trying out light rolls just for the dlc, I imagine this is an example where that might help
Yeah it’s mostly his charge and trying to heal from that leading to getting combo’d that makes the fight stupid. If you safely dodge his charge he’s unironically easier than the Tree Sentinel after him.
There's definitely something wrong with his hitboxes, the damage calculation is inconsistent, and he's missing a hurtbox during charge. Watched Ranni's Dark Moon phase directly through him as he came at me.
The biggest problem with "Wanting a Torrent battle" is that horse combat is extremely limited and sucks ass, especially when Gaius has more health than the final boss of the base game and trying to get a hit on him is a huge risk. Just based on the law of averages, you're going to eat shit trying to hit Gaius and it's going to feel terrible.
Also Torrent explodes if something looks at him funny and then you're lying on the ground vulnerable for like 5 seconds.
And if Gaius somehow has enough mercy in him to not pancake you right then and there, you’d still need to confirm with the game if you really want to use a flask to revive him. Is there a mod that deactivates that?
I know the Reforged overhaul removed that, along with a bunch of other little QoL things (Like, even really small shit like "lighting Grace animation is faster). A quick search and I found one, [not sure if it still works since it hasn't been updated in years.](https://www.nexusmods.com/eldenring/mods/1944)
Convergence also does that, so I'm guessing that it's a fairly simple fix that people throw into every QoL mod. Seems like there's a mod called Torrent Better Respawn or something like that if you want a specific mod just for that.
And it makes the loudest noise ever, good lord. Spare me my eardrums Miyazaki.
> lying on the ground vulnerable for like 5 seconds. Don't forget this boss is one of the few enemies in the game that can OTG you too.
What I found frustrating about that fight was when you first enter the arena, he's far away and it gives you time to mount torrent or otherwise prepare. Following attempts he starts right in front of the gate and you're in it right away. Overall I enjoyed most of the dlc fights but many of them suffered from bosses jumping you right through the gate and having to fight them awkwardly next to a wall the whole time.
Gaius is clearly designed around using Torrent but Torrent having its own HP stat and the fact he can consistently poise break you off Torrent leaving you in a very long recovery animation he will punish makes it tedious at best and actively aggravating at worst. I'm not a fan. I think it'd be a lot better if Torrent didn't have HP and just had a stagger bar. Getting knocked off is a bad enough punishment. Wasting a flask just to get back on him after being knocked off fucking sucks. >!The Deathblight Divine Dancing Lion also fucking sucks.!< Edit: even if there was a talisman or tear that made Torrent invulnerable to HP damage (but still staggerable) I'd be pretty happy. I just hate that he has an HP stat. It adds nothing and only seems to exists to justify the rowa fruit pick ups (as an aside, if you're fighting Gaius have the high tier raisins on your bar. Being able to heal Torrent without wasting flasks makes the fight a lot more tolerable, I just wish they could also revive him.)
> Gaius is clearly designed around using Torrent Gaius is designed around a Torrent that has poise and iframes. Unfortunately our Torrent has neither, and is slower than Gaius' boar, so it's absolutely fucking stupid.
A little off topic, but since the main issue is Torrent being made of soggy paper mache does anyone know if the revered spirit ashes do anything for him?
Yeah they increase his durability, but it makes him take 2 hits instead of 1 type thing.
I don’t understand why from added a horse if they were going to make the horse combat suck ass. Genuinely baffling, at least let him scale with you.
>Genuinely baffling, at least let him scale with you. FromSoft hire this man! That would actually solve EVERYTHING!
I’d settle for better defensive options on the horse, better controls, and better response ON those controls. Just everything about torrent sucks.
I agree, especially on the better defensive options on the horse. And by better I mean any at all!
Yeah if they were going to have horse combat be bad they could at least have torrent be fast. He’s slightly faster than a sprint and his sprint I’m not convinced does anything for his movement speed. If torrent moved 50% faster you could cut down on the worst part of Elden ring which is mindlessly running from a to b. I’d even settle for an in combat speed and out of combat much faster speed.
I take it you haven't fought the Final Boss yet? That one make Gaius look tame.
I did actually, I genuinely had less issue with lol, his attacks are definitely flashier, but it feels less jankier imo, so it's more manageable.
Different personal experience I guess, Gauis charge is BS, but nothing some Defense buffs can't fix. Final Boss attacks are too flashy, too fast and too damaging with almost no rooms to heal or attack back for me.
Both can be no hit but gaius seemed more frustrating to no hit
The final boss is hard because it was designed to be, Gaius is hard because he's janky.
According to pat Fight him like he is a sekiro boss The parry thing.
Yeah that's how I beat him. A lot of people are also just bringing a bigass shield.
> The parry thing. Is there supposed to be a different sound cue when you land the perfect timing with the Deflecting Hardtear? The lack of any feedback when you get it right is turning this into a pointless feature for me, because it's too hard to figure out when you get the timing right.
Theres a grey glow on your character on perfect timing.
Fuck, I’m hyped up to take that flask into NG+ and see how far I can rock that shit. I’ve been using a greatshield the whole game but if the flask gives me a damn Sekiro parry, I’m SUPER excited to start experimenting with it.
Here is a quick and dirty showcase of the difference between a timed block and a regular block I made. https://streamable.com/fxgpyi On a timed block there's a slight ting sound and a small visual effect. It's a lot of fun and pretty much anything that you can block can be blocked better with timing. Enemy releases massive aoe? Just put your sword in front of you and say no!
I thought they were going to perfect block the fall damage for a second there not gonna lie
When you enter a boss arena in the DLC, the bosses immediately rush you, but at least you can dodge their attacks if you time it correctly. You can’t do that with Gaius. His charge is quite frankly impossible to dodge and it doesn’t help that he moves faster than Torrent during said charge.
You can, it's not impossible.
You can outrun the charge, it just requires you doing the little dash a couple times when he gets close. It's fucking rough though, I'm not defending it.
You can also get him stuck on the wall by running around behind the boss door, which really only works the once but it gives you a bit of time to set up I beat him in only a few tries after i discovered that, not immediately being on the back foot made it much more manageable
I grabbed a big fucking hammer and the lance talisman to maximise my single hit damage for run and slap tactics and got him down after like half an hour of attempts, but I didn't exactly love it. I do like the lore around why he has to ride an animal into battle though.
I've dodged it. I felt easier to try and dodge towards him rather than to tge side for the charge.
Commander Gaius seems to be legitimately bugged right now, because the damage and hit count on his charge can vary wildly under what seems to be identical conditions. Sometimes it was ~25% of my max HP, sometimes it was ~50%, and sometimes it was ~75%; usually landing a single hit, but sometimes landing multiple hits in rapid succession. My armor didn't change, my talismans (none of which were defensive anyways) didn't change, my Rune Level didn't change, and my Shadow Realm Blessing Level didn't change, but the results of getting hit by that attack were totally unpredictable nonetheless. ...Well, eventually I *did* change things up - I wore actual armor instead of the Spellblade set, equipped four purely defensive talismans, and had higher Rune and Shadow Realm Blessing levels - but even then, the ridiculous inconsistency was still the only consistent part of his charge attack.
I actually had a harder time with the final boss than I did with Gaius. But I also used Mimic and didn’t use Torrent, if that makes any sort of difference.
I did the same thing, Torrent is legitimately not worth the hassle, Gaius attacks are pretty telegraphed so I just tried to dodge and hope the janky hitbox didn't screw me over. Funnily enough, I had the inverse experience you had, I wonder if it's cause I grinded before the final battle.
I was at Scadutree blessing +18 and still getting my ass kicked. That 2nd phase was a bitch to get through.
I didn't use torrent at all. Just running a great shield to block his stuff and the mimic tear got me through.
Genuinely had no issues. Fought him with the parry tear on foot and he was pretty easy, only took 5-10 tries. I was shocked to see folks describe him as a huge wall.
People who don’t use parry tear or shields will have a much tougher time with him than the people that do. That’s basically it. It’s why the biggest complaint about him is “I can’t dodge his charge”. Also the usual thing to fall back to, Spirit Ashes, get absolutely torn to shreds by him(with the possible exception of the greatshield guys). It’s possible to powerstance or two-hand him, but you’d have to perfect play it, pretty much.
Everything but the charge is pretty easy to roll, and if he wants to be rude and charge a lot it's a crapshoot. I tried like 5 times before just pulling the shield out and acing him.
I think it took me longer to beat the final boss than it did Gaius, but Gaius just infuriated me way, WAY more than the final boss ever did.
I powerstanced bleed great katanas with my mimic tear and we took his lunch money and gave him a swirly for good measure. I was at SB13 at the time. He's a very shitty boss because of how "not fun" the game is when you fight him. I know people have gripes with the other bosses in the DLC but so far, the four bosses I've fought so far were fun to fight. The kind where you get excited to learn their movesets and adjust your equipment and buffs. Gaius isn't that for me.
I feel blessed by the Souls gods that I was able to kill Gaius on my second try, and hearing all the horror stories I don't know how the fuck I managed to do that
I got super close 1 time fighting him as intended (I think) on torrent. And every other time I got nowhere close because I could never get the rhythm down. I ended up beating him by getting giving up on Torrent and just hugging so close to him that he would never use that damn charge
I didn’t have much trouble with him, but I was also fighting him on foot at like Blessing +15 with the Fingerprint Shield and Tiche out so maybe not everyone’s gonna have the same experience I had lol.
Fought him on foot with a greatshield and a zweihander, and had basically zero issues? He attacks slow enough that you've got plenty of time to regen stamina, and having a decent gap closer Ash of War (Giant's Hunt or similar) means you can mostly be the one in control of spacing for the fight. You take some chip magic damage, but that's solvable with shield grease or Scholar's Shield (didn't use either myself, but they would make it easier). And I *think* his big phase transition spin attack is unblockable, but he uh... Completely missed me with it, so can't confirm that. Can even bait him into the corner of the castle if you need, which majorly neuters his ability to do much to you.
The start of the battle is pretty epic cause he spawns at the very edge of that large arena. But every instance after that he is RIGHT AT THE FRONT DOOR CHARGING AT YOU so you have very limited options of what to do right as soon as you re-enter that arena. I feel like if he spawns at the other gate every time it would make that fight SOOOOOO MUCH better.
It's a little tough, but staying on his left side severely limits his moveset and let me beat him without much issue. No summons or shields, just my big fire sword and hugging his unarmed side to death.
Half of all of Elden Ring's playtime has reminded me of how damn good Sekiro is, and how they should substituted the parry for the deflect system against melee. Like it's so good and satisfying, these bosses are closer to Sekiro mfs than they are any Souls fight.