Elden Ring - Boss Fight - Dragonkin Soldier of Nokstella (11th Attempt)

This is a clip from my gameplay footage of 2022's popular video game "Elden Ring" on Playstation 4.

If you're unfamiliar with "Elden Ring", here's some quick info:

[GAMEPLAY]
"In Elden Ring, players control a customizable player character on a journey to repair the Elden Ring and become the new Elden Lord. The game is presented through a third-person perspective, with players freely roaming its interactive open world. Gameplay elements include combat using several types of weapons and magic spells, horseback riding, and crafting." (Wikipedia)

[STORY]
"Elden Ring takes place in the Lands Between, a fictional landmass ruled over by several demigods. It was previously ruled over by the immortal Queen Marika, who acted as keeper of the Elden Ring, a powerful force that manifested as the physical concept of order. When Marika eventually shattered the Elden Ring and disappeared, her demigod children began warring over pieces of the Ring in an event called the Shattering. Each demigod possesses a shard of the Ring called a Great Rune, which corrupts them with power. In the game, the player character is a Tarnished, one of a group of exiles from the Lands Between who are summoned back after the Shattering. As one of the Tarnished, the player must traverse the realm to repair the Elden Ring and become the Elden Lord."
(Wikipedia)

• Ainsel River is another underground region of the Lands Between in the game of Elden Ring. It's full of giant ants and these weird bug-eyed salamanders that spit out a status-effect I don't recognize.

• Luckily, the giant ants and salamanders were all able to be defeated with a single strike from my character's Lightning Spear incantation spell.

• This video starts with me runing toward the golden misty veil that signifies an upcoming boss battle.

• I lost several times where I'd gotten this new boss down to half-life but there were a few attempts where I made stupid mistakes or tried the wrong spells and got obliterated very quickly.

• Have to say first off -- this boss fight arena is gorgeous. The mishapen stone bodies littering the ground, the shrubbery and high ceilings, and the giant seated statue just really left me with a feeling of wonder.

• I was actually relieved to be fighting the Dragonkin Soldier and not the colossal seated figure in the background.

• The battle starts with me sprinting my little legs toward my fallen runes from my last attempt at this boss who drops down from the ceiling. Dragonkin Soldiers look like giant mummies with dragon heads and claws.

• I was really worried about those fallen runes because they were over 35 thousand runes so I didn't want to lose those.

• My next move is unleashing Dragon Rotten-Breath spell on the boss. He's a little far away but the clouds will eventually reach him and strike him with the Rot status effect which will start to quickly eat up his health.

• The first hit does 195 points of damage but only ten seconds later 25% of Dragonkin Soldier's health is gone and he's losing 1000 points of health a second.

• He tries to strike with his claws and it completely misses me thanks to the Bloodhound Step I duse to dodge.

• After that I hit him with a second Rotten Breath spell so it stacks to make him lose 2000 points of health a second now.

• Ever since running into the rot status effect. in Caelid I've just been amazed with rot's potency and am glad I have a spell capable of dishing it out against enemies.

• It hasn't even been a minute yet and I've already cut Dragonkin Soldier of Nokstella's health bar in half a lot quicker than previous attempts.

• Like in my other tries, at half life he activates his lightning powers and starts crackling with electricity.

• The first time I saw this I started to panic because of all the water between the mounds on the ground but for some reason that never seemed to have an additional effect with this boss's electrical attacks.

• When fighting the Dragonkin Soldier in Sofiara River, I kept waiting for wings to sprout from the cape-like pouch on its back so when this Dragonkin Soldier finally released its wings I was both happy and terrified. Sadly, his wings are tattered remains and are mostly bone.

• He starts throwing down waves of lightning and ride along the ground and I try to avoid it all with regular dodging but get caught and electrocuted.

• Wanting to return the damage, I try to wind up another Dragon Rotten Breath spell but the boss flies down and smacks me off my feet lol.

• Not wanting to waste time charging up a heal spell, I take and Crimson Flask (health potion) and back away while looking at the status effect Dragonkin Soldier's hit me with -- I think it's a frozen/ice related status effect.

• He hits me with an uppercut, sending me flying into the air and the game tells me with a nice bloody banner that I've contracted something called Frostbite that makes me wonder if my stamina and speed will be affected.

• Also, that last hit basically undoes all the recovered health I fixed with my health potion a second ago.

• Thankfully I have enough magic focus points to Bloodhound Step out of his next attack and hide behind a large pillar where I cast a healing spell.

• As you can see in the fight, we're both standing in water so I'm a little confused why I'm not taking damage while wading in the same shallow lake as this electricity dragon-humanoid.

• I hit him another Dragon Rotten Breath and he starts losing 1000 health points a second again.

• He's nearly dead but starts throwing down a bunch of lightning attacks into the water but it's futile since the game's not letting me get electrocuted by it through the water. I almost feel bad because the rot status-effect is basically like an extremely strong version of the poison status effect.

• The boss tries cornering me but I'm able to Bloodhound Step out of most of his attacks and charge up a Black Flames fireball that only hits him after the rot effect's already killed him.

• "GREAT ENEMY FELLED"

• I get rewarded with a new spell Frozen Lightning Spear and 12 thousand runes -- pretty fantastic.

• The Ash of War called Bloodhound Step and the incantation Dragon Rotten Breath spell both leave me a little conflicted.

• While I know Bloodhound Step's already recently been nerfed by FromSoftware to be slower and travel a shorter distance, I feel that it's drastically improved my evasion -- to the point it feels more like teleporting than actual movement. Can't imagine what this Ash of War was like six months ago before the nerf.

• And then there's Dragon Rotten Breath which was almost unusable when I first got it due to how slow it took to activate the spell. Now thankfully after pouring thousands of runes into my Dexterity stat I can cast it a lot quicker which makes me wonder how fair it'll be to future enemies when I dump even more runes into Dexterity. I imagine I will feel both guilty but mighty haha

• Hope you enjoyed this boss-fight post and feel free to leave comments below!

• See you all on the next post of my Elden Ring adventure :)