A player had great trouble with the optional endgame boss Niall in Elden Ring. So, he got creative and pulled out a bow and arrow. The tactic is sure, but quite time-consuming. MeinMMO shows you what exactly happened.
What kind of boss is this? Commander Niall is waiting for you in one of the endgame areas, far to the north. He is located on the mountaintop of the giants, in Castle Sol.
This boss was last in the spotlight when a speedrunner took him down naked at level 1 using an otherwise weak item. Aside from such advanced players, there are enough aspiring Elden Lords and Ladies having real problems with him.
Therefore, the user H3NRY-56 got creative and spontaneously became a sharpshooter. He took down Niall simply from a distance using a bow and arrow. He calls it the “ultimate cheese” method.
However, it took a while, as he writes in the Elden Ring subreddit. Here is the clip:
458 arrows and 20 minutes – then Niall succumbed to the cheese tactic
This is how the player did it: H3NRY-56 found a spot outside the boss room from where he could aim at the boss.
He discovered a tiny window in the castle’s wall. This way, he was able to shoot the boss down with arrows from a comfortable distance. As he states, it took about 20 minutes and 458 arrows.
How can this work?
- The boss’s AI only reacts once players enter the boss room.
- If you attack from outside, the boss does not register any attacks.
- Thus, he remains virtually a defenseless puppet.
The player exploits this. Additionally, quite a bit of patience and a large supply of arrows is needed.
This is how players are reacting: The clip received a lot of attention in the subreddit, has over 31,000 upvotes and over 1,000 comments. Numerous commentators are surprised that H3NRY-56 did not upgrade his bow and did not use any poison or rot arrows.
That would have made him significantly faster. The user does not provide a proper answer to this; he probably came up with the tactic spontaneously and took no special measures. He states that he used all his arrows until he even had to switch to the crossbow at the end.
Many find the tactic amusing and indulge in nostalgia. Because such tactics have a tradition in FromSoftware’s games.
For example, this is the case with the final boss of the DLC for Dark Souls 1, Manus. Here, too, the boss can simply be shot from outside the boss room:
According to the comments, Niall is not the only boss in Elden Ring where such tactics work. They share their own experiences and encounters with bosses they struggle with.
Some suspect that these tactics might soon be patched. But many veterans doubt that FromSoftware will remove these options. The cheese shown above with Manus has indeed been carried over even into the remastered version of Dark Souls 1.
Usually, only a few particularly difficult exploits are fixed by the developers, while such methods are either ignored or perhaps even deliberately tolerated.
FromSoftware might want to keep these tactics in the game so that players can find their own way. As the developer usually does not comment on such matters, one can only speculate about the motives.
What do you think of such methods? Have you already acted similarly or discovered other tricks? Feel free to share your experiences with us.
Perhaps the tactic of another player might help you take down such bosses: An underrated mechanic in Elden Ring makes you the indestructible ‘Man of Steel’
