Summary
One ofElden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree’smost difficult boss fights isBayle the Dread, a dragon so fierce he tore off one of Dragonlord Placisudax’s heads. Even with the utmost Scadutree Fragments, he’s a beast to take down, but his devastating crimson lightning is so alluring that it’s hard to stay mad.
Over on the developer’s subreddit, the community is debating whether Bayle is thebestSoulsborne dragon to date, and while many are in agreement that he takes the cake, there are a few worthy contenders. “I’m still a Black Dragon Kalameet supporter, just think he looks the coolest with his laser eye thing,” one fan commented, referencing the fight inDark Souls: Artorias of the Abyss.
[Bayle is] very good, but if you remove Igon there are a lot of annoying parts to it that make it worse than [Placidusax].
“Kalameet will always hold a special place in my heart,” another wrote. “As long as I ain’t trying to cut off its Gwyn damned tail.”
“I like Sinh a lot,” said a third Reddit user, referring to the Dark Souls 2: Crown of the Sunken King fight. “But Bayle is certainly better and probably my favourite now.”
Midir Wins Out, Going By The Comments
Kalameet and Sinh are great choices. After all, Kalameet is the one who paved the way for the modern Soulsborne dragon we’re still fighting today, but one of the most iconic bosses that FromSoftware has ever designed isMidir, a winged beast raised by the Gods to fight the Abyss itself.
“[Bayle] definitely wins in coolness and cinematics, but Midir still wins from a gameplay perspective,” reads one reply. “His fight has a better flow, better hitboxes, more intuitive telegraphs and way less camera and visual issues […] Midir is so good and really is the golden standard for soulslike dragon fights”.
“Fighting Midir was really like a dance,” another added. “Once you knew what was going on you could reliably stand in front of him and feel like an absolute god as you avoided the stuff he directly threw at you. Elden Ring dragons have never clicked the same way for me. I don’t know if it’s because they’re faster, more aggressive, or have wonky hitboxes, but I have never had much success fighting an Elden Ring dragon face-to-face the same way I fought Midir.”
It’s an incredibly easy fight, but the spectacle ofSekiro’sDivine Dragon deserves a shoutout surely?
Midir crops up time and time again in the thread, leaving Placidusax and Bayle neck and neck in second place. Even seven years later, he has a grip on soulslike fans like no other dragon.
Elden Ring
WHERE TO PLAY
With worldbuilding from Game of Thrones scribe George R.R. Martin and developed by FromSoftware, Elden Ring is a masterpiece in what has become known as the ‘Soulslike’ genre of action role-playing games.
