Featured Image Credit: FromSoftware, Bandai Namco, Discovery Communications/Discovery Channel
Topics: Elden Ring, Fromsoftware, Bandai Namco
Topics: Elden Ring, Fromsoftware, Bandai Namco
You know, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with utilising a bit of cheese to get through particularly hard sections of games. I mean, at the end of the day, it’s just strategy, right? Right. Let’s call it that.
It goes without saying that Elden Ring isn’t meant to be easy, but some of its bosses really make you question how far you can push a game's difficulty before it becomes just cruel. Thanks to that, since launch, players have been coming up with a whole load of ways to make some of these fights a little easier, and regardless of your stance on whether your victories can even count when you’re playing that way, you can’t deny that this strategy to beat Commander Niall is pure genius.
Before we go on, check out this absolutely unstoppable Elden Ring mech suit build (there's lasers).
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Found in Castle Sol, within Mountaintops of the Giants, Commander Niall is a tricky customer. So tricky, that Reddit user H3NRY-56 was forced to find another option to take him down that didn't involve directly fighting him - namely, targeting him with arrows through a tiny hole in the wall of the castle. Bit by bit, they chip away at his health until eventually, those glorious words, “Great Enemy Felled”, appear on their screen. It’s potentially the cheesiest Elden Ring strategy to date, but you can’t even be mad about it - work smarter not harder.
Others in the thread are in agreement: “At this point I think finding that tiny speck of red pigment to shoot is honestly more impressive than having fought and beaten the boss,” wrote Kurokai_SS. “No such thing as cheese in Elden Ring. You live or you die. You chose to live,” added miromas.
Given how little damage each arrow was doing, you might be wondering how long it took to pull this off, and how many hits it’d even take. Thankfully, someone’s already worked that out, too: “Commander Niall has 16,000 HP, you[‘]re doing between 34 and 36 damage an arrow (not including any other affects). So averaging around 35 damage an arrow. It took you around 458 arrows to kill this boss. Bravo for the patience sir,” calculated Procureman. “Best 20 minutes of my life,” replied H3NRY-56.
Whether or not that hole will be mysteriously renovated in the next patch is yet to be seen, but I honestly think it’s a really smart move - the game's given you a tool, so why not use it? Bear Grylls would be proud.