Saw this post super late but personally I don’t think the bosses were designed to need spirit ashes. When I use them, it feels like it’s primarily to give me extra openings I wouldn’t otherwise get. At least for me, it doesn’t feel as satisfying, so I only use it for the really obnoxious bosses like the double fights.

That said, they definitely don’t feel like they’re meant to be done exclusively melee. The game gives you a lot of ranged tools, with spells, incantations, bows, some weapon abilities, and craftable items all being options. A lot of bosses become way harder if you have to be in melee to do damage, especially the giant ones that move around a lot and fuck with the camera. I haven’t used ashes at all in the DLC yet, but if I was going melee only I might have had to on some of the bosses.

You can take my jellyfish girlfriend from my cold undead hands.

DLC bosses are balanced around them. Not using spirit ashes in the DLC seems to crank the difficulty to 11.

Either way they are not easy mode.

I think the game is balanced around them, yeah. I don’t think they’re easy mode.

My problem with them isn’t a “git gud scrub” thing, I just hate ai companions making the bosses behavior erratic. It’s why I usually prefer to play Monster Hunter solo instead of multiplayer, the boss randomly switching target makes watching for tells and openings harder than 1v1.

Although this means that I’m slamming my head into the brick wall that are these dlc bosses lol

I think they’re intended for base game even, doubly so in the DLC. However there are at least three bosses I know of who, through a combination of aggression and arena design, actively punish trying to spirit summon so idk.

many bosses are balanced around them especially in the DLC i’ve noticed

Usually easy modes in fromsoft games are a limited resource, humanity for summoning players that also puts you at risk of invasion or finite use healing items to use when you run out of flasks (not ds2) the concept was to make the game easier there needed to be a risk nothing was given for free.

Was there actually ever any game after Demon Souls where the coop enabling item wasn’t in some way farmable, if just by helping other players in coop?

I do feel like spirit ashes are just a continuation of From making coop play easier and easier while at the same time giving offline players coop-like options. Dark Souls 1 already introduced NPC summons and added tons of ways to farm humanity (including giving the player passive soft humanity just from beating enemies), Spirit Ashes are simply way to allow the player to almost always have a summon available, while also integrating them into the loot and progression system.

Elden Ring certainly does feel like the bosses are tuned for you to either be in coop or use the summons, but I feel that the game encouraging you to use any option you have when interacting with the world is more in tune with the spirit of these games than the 1v1, no summons, no magic, sword only mindset some players have. It just obviously sucks when a boss is impossible when playing solo and a cakewalk when using summons, but for the most part they get the balance somewhat in the middle.

I’ve only beaten two of the rememberance bosses in the DLC so far and while I did use both the NPC summons and the mimic tear for them, both fights ended with both of my summons dead and me without healing items, making for a pretty tense finish, which seems pretty much perfect.

as a strength user seemingly was impossible to do anything without a not strength build.

A strength build in elden ring is kind of hardmode in its own right. You get some really strong options for some bosses, but you’re still generally stuck with slow melee weapons that you basically have to already know a fight very well to use. I went into it the first time with an ultra-greatsword build and did mostly fine up until reaching some of the later bosses, while my second playthrough I went arcane with dual whips and just rolled everything without trouble.

Which makes me wonder if the game was intentionally balanced around players using them for every boss fight.

It definitely feels like it. The game actively pushes it in your face and says “here use this,” they’re a frequent reward for clearing dungeons, and there’s even some quest content that requires you to use them to make things happen. They’re not mandatory, but they seem like the expected choice. Especially since there’s the tradeoff that they make bosses more erratic and rarely do all that much on their own - they’re a force amplifier when used right, but it’s easy for them to make a fight harder and then die without contributing.

I feel like the game was absolutely balanced to an extent around spirit summons - especially the NPC companion ones you can get for certain bosses like Rogier for Margrit. If a NPC has a summon, I’m summoning them every time if I have trouble soloing the boss but I will usually rarely also do a spirit ash; but I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with doing so.

ur a casual if you use them

your also a casual if you run, dodge, block, parry, jump, use a skill, use a spell, use a jumping heavy attack , use a charged attack or use a flask

The game is definitely balanced around them but making the player reliant on the jank of AI can make the fights hit-or-miss.

Sometimes your summon will get bodied by the boss in 10 seconds, sometimes it’ll last the entire fight taking off a quarter of the boss’s healthbar. There’s just a large range of things that can happen which are mostly outside of player control.

Latenna is my bestie who watches over me from high up that cliff right at the edge of the summoning zone.

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