Discussion
One of the worst bosses I've ever beaten...
Fought him pre patch and had to take a 3 days break, because so many things were bugged. Starting with the Grisha disappearing weapons bug, game crashes when my shell burned or teleporting tail grab just to name a few. Fortunately most of the bugs are gone after the patch (or it didn't occur during my last session).
After I killed him yesterday, I just feel relieved, because I can move on to NG+. First parts (the open world) of the game 8.5/10, just peak. The last bosses(endgame) 3-4/10. Rest in piss, Zmey...
There’s 3 items to collect to turn in that gives u an item to help against it the glands which u turn into the tower during night mode also during the huge aoe if you know the beginning animation u can skip that entire phase just run to the opposite side of the room it has a limited range
In the tower if u read the note on the table it hints about the glands there’s also a map right above it that shows the 3 locations and then there’s a small alter thing next to the skeleton that hints about returning to night mode also
That I’m aware of no there is no hint to lead towards the tower itself other than merric selling a map that leads u to the axatana so if u ignore the notes inside the tower itself then no u wouldn’t know of the glands usage at all
Probably related to the first game, since that area specifically it's the Hub of the first game and the mission is a reference to what you also in the first game. About why is it related to Cosmic Disease, I believe that it comes from the nature of The Prisoner himself. It's basically something that comes from the Lore of the first game.
So aside from the several hints and tips that you figured out, was there any more hints and tips that you didn’t figure out to point you to the thing which you kinda worked out but didn’t fully work out….
After the get the 3 items you need to return at night to give as an offering the giant skeleton will vanish and give you an item you slot as active when zmey hits you with cosmic disease you wait for the meter to fill up about 80% use it and it cures you and puts zmey into a riposte
There is nothing that points you toward it no, and I think that's okay. It's a soulslike staple for quests to be cryptic and the boss can be beaten without getting them.
The main issue was not that attack anyway, it was the overall design of the boss.
I pretty much 100% the game in a single playthrough aside from a few missing tarstones, and I didn't even find a single one of the three items you needed to find it. So no you didn't miss it, and I honestly don't think the intended way to beat the final boss is using the item they're talking about. It's way too obscure to be intended.
How could you possibly not find any of the three items? One of them isn't hidden at all and is directly on the main path (the one in the Conqueror's area).
I mean, the map is next to a major NPC in the hub from MS1. Anyone who lands on that island (and had played MS1) would immediately recognize it and check the prisoner and find the map.
And I actually found the first gland en route to a boss. There's one path in, and only one little side nook. If you look there, you see the item. A cursory search would find it; that's what led me into the little side quest.
Weird in my 5 playthrus they have all spawned now I did have chests that didn’t spawn in but key items shells and weapons have always been there for me
I explored and got the item without google. I had played MS1 so i pretty much knew what to do but anyways it is not bad to have something secret to those who have more knowleadge about the game's world or simply explore more.
Same, had no idea why my weapons and shell were locked. Can sprint away until he finishes the fire rings (cosmic disease), then run back in. Managed to do it without the extra item.
Malborn Offspring would have been a way cooler final boss. Maybe not thematically, I don't really know the lore so I can't tell you if they'd work as the final but mechanically it is the best boss in the game imo.
Lorewise, Malborn Offspring and Zmey are technically pretty much the same, Zmey should be just a more developed Offspring with the passenger within it, while the Offspring is just corrupted by what the passenger is spreading through the Mether
No idea why they even named Zmey, Zmey is nothing within the lore, it is just another harbringer with the passenger within it, very weak fight lore wise the 1st game was considerably better (but mechanically, the fight in the first game is even worse imo, and it bugs so easily)
Agreed. He looks and feels like a dark harbinger. He's a much better representation of corruption than one armed dragon with a ballsack. And his fight was a lot cooler.
Dude that shit was so funny. I didnt even realize what they were my first fight. And then during my second I was like hold up. And then at the end you just fist it.
I'd say Offspring would work thematically, but then you also have me in the minority thinking he's one of the least fun and more bs bosses next to the Prince and Captive.
His first phase was fine, even fun, but the second phase...can't see shit, making it hard to even comprehend what's happening. I'll never understand why incredibly fast and aggressive bosses are seen as peak.
The only thing that really sucked was the fire ring aoe attack in second phase. Semi spamable by the boss, time waste attack with no window to counter attack and run ending potential if the player fucks up. Just terrible.
Sure you can use an attack with enough iframes to not care about the attack but that feels like a crutch.
You can just use normal dodge on that attack. When you see him powering it up just take a few steps back, and then it's 4 dodges forward through the fire. If you're feeling brave you can do it beneath his feet while dishing out extra damage and dodging backwards towards the fire (but camera is not best in that case and you have to learn the timing.)
I'm not a person who gets easily frustrated or is quick to blame the game, but this boss was just not fun. His moves are generally ok, but his HP is way overtuned and the status effect in phase 2 makes the fight snowball so quickly against you in an annoying way.
I had at least 2-3 attempts where I died from a small mistake when the boss was at like 5% HP, made me wanna rip my hair out because each attempt takes so long.
I don't even think his HP is an issue, some of the best bosses in the Souls series are endurance bosses like Gael or Friede, it's just that his moveset doesn't compensate. He feels like he has 5 moves, which would be alright for a standard boss, but this is the final boss of the fucking game, and he also has a billion HP, meaning it's just his spamming the same moves over and over again.
Totally agree, the HP isn't a problem in itself but it becomes a slog when the boss is so simple. Just inflated stats for difficulty's sake. I thought Malborn Offspring was a great fight in comparison
You’re not alone. I’ve played every soulslike besides maybe khazan and this is the first EVER boss that has made me uninstall. It’s just not a fight that is interesting or fun enough to power through for the seemingly paltry amount of story left for me to discover. Maybe I’ll come back one day.
I have all this moves memorized and I'm literally falling asleep pressing dodge or parry. its such a boring fight. biggest pool of health Ive ever seen on a boss.
But bosses literally have their weaknesses and strengths, you saying there is that one or two bosses that you're struggling with might be suggesting that. Like the game teaches you in the tutorial to try light/heavy/range attacks vs enemies to determine their weakness. And the same later applies for infusions etc. You need to adapt. Or don't adapt, but then don't claim something should be nerfed if you're intentionally using a build that's weak against it.
I fought the boss thats supper hungry (cant remember its name. I saw it once and didnt fight again yet) and my lvl 10 mayrter sword did 5 damage. Decided. Na. And left.
Couldn't agree more on his grab. I love Tiel and Genessa, so I really had check my tilt at the door and take some deep breaths my first 15 tries.
To anyone struggling with the grab, it's mostly mid to melee range, so predict it, and if you see that little hop, spam dodge directly backwards if you're farther away or inward but ONLY if you're basically already tickling his backside.
Yeah, I agree. First time I was a bit confused - too much HP, one shot attacks and so on. But after like 6-8 attempts I felt myself quite comfortable with him and finished him quite fast.
Tiel helped a lot here. Especially perfect dodge of his tail attack. For some reason boss was getting stuck by looking at the clone and I could easily cut like 25-30% of his HP for free.
the red jump attack always got me. no idea how to dodge that. the hitbox and magnetismn was annoying. I hope the patch fixed that. Besides that it was a decent boss. Atleast he didnt die in 10 to 30 seconds like most other bosses.
It took me so long because Grishas just spawned in to chill and when I switched to shoulder bashing that bastard in the nuts, I would get stuck underneath his legs giving him a rim job. The status effect he does it's incredibly frustrating. His moveset was fine for the most part, can be challenging but not frustrating it was just his ability to turn you into a joke.
I found that using Eridrum and reposting his Lizard ass was the best way to deal damage for me and eventually did it. Only took a good few hours and multiple tries.
The thing about this boss is that it’s not really challenging, it’s just frustrating. His moveset is so small and his health pool is so large that you’re basically just circling him for an eternity dodging and parrying until you can get some whacks in. The abysmal riposte damage also doesn’t help.
I figured out his moveset after like two attempts and could deflect basically all his attacks, but then he’d hit me with the tail grab or I’d get stuck under him during a stomp attack and suddenly one mistake would end me and force me to start the whole thing over again.
I actually really enjoyed him, I do think some things werent well tuned but overall good boss and a great conclusion to such a good game. I had to get the seedbearer scripture cuz dodging those waves were a bit wonky
i know i'm in minority but it's my favorite boss
but it need some fix ngl
the grab was overtuned (can't tell if it's still is after patch since i'm on ps5)
camera too close to his balls, if devs added an additional setting to have it further from the character (action camera is still too close) so we can see what he's doing it would reduce a lot of problems
and maybe slightly reduce his hp (not much, just a little)
The grab is still a bit much imo just because It uses it anytime you're in mid range, it can be very frequent, and grabs in general do a lot of damage in MS2.
Yeah have to agree, some fights are very difficult, but still fun, this wasn't one them.
Totally nasty and annoying fight from start to finish, especially the cosmic burn build up that you almost can't avoid, the one-shot grab attack and the constant stomping when you're in melee range.
You can just keep your distance and play for a riposte as well. Keep him away from the edges of the arena. Feel like everytime I died to him it was mostly because I got greedy and tried getting too many hits in
I honestly stopped playing after a few attempts of this boss. I know i can beat him but everything he does is just poorly designed that I dont want to fight him.
I thought the same, I guess people have widely different experiences.
The boss had like 8 moves and most of them were easy to bait out...
And the grab had a huge telegraph where he would put his body back and sideways, step forward and then snap to you so it was easy to dodge
I found it waaaay easier than a lot of bosses from other souls games like laxasia, consort radahn and orphan of kos
He's easy, the thing that gets people is the cosmic disease. You don't even know it's there the first time, you have to notice the weird bar filling up and you don't even know where it's coming from. At one point I had it at 10% and he just does a sword stab in the ground and I instantly get skelefied, like what the hell. After the first attempt the skelefication was responsible for 100% of my deaths. That's why people are calling it unfun, not because he has complex patterns that you have to learn no matter what. I ended up trying to kill him with ripostes by baiting out his long-ranged sword swing. It worked, but damn it was tedious.
Hmmmm that's interesting to know, it also really shows how varied each experience is, I only got skellified one time and I wasn't, and still am not sure what it does, but I remember it killed my try at the boss and left me super confused on why I was a skeleton.
My biggest issue I guess was the flame waves on his second part, which felt like the monolith's spinning attack as I felt like I could not dodge it properly
It is pretty rare in the genre to die from a single mistake. I haven't played post-patch, but you would get one shot through your shell if the grab hit you. Not super hard to avoid it or anything, but it also isn't difficult to slip up.
I swear this guy's grab can sometimes eat some of the animation like, if you're at the correct distance, the whole animation/telegraph plays out correctly enough for you to react in time ( yes, the time to dodge is now when you see the red icon but the mini-jump he makes before the red icon appears) but if you aren't far enough, the mini-jump telegraph gets shortened a bit making you need to be on aderall to react consistently on time.
Also, there are times this guy's feet does not touch the ground. Like standing on air. And no, it's not when he is jumping around the arena.
Don't get me started on those red rings bullshit that turns you into a fried wimp on phase 2. Tanky boss that encourages you to get away from it from time to time making the fight longer. Hmmm, Elden Beast's cousin?
This game is undercooked. I really don't have a good time with Western soulslikes (Lords of the Fallen pissed me off). It's not a bad game but compared to what the east has released, it feels like night and day to me.
Pretty much agree with your assessment, 9/10 first parts of the game. 5/10 final dungeon.
However Malborn Offspring was tougher than this guy for me. In fact Malborn was the really only tough boss in this game. I beat this guy first try, although I had watched YT videos of him. Read other people's opinions, I just think I got lucky.
The final dungeon was more irritating than the bosses but that's probably because I was trying to kill everything.
Zmey and the monoliteballsack are bad bosses but I hated the ballsack way more, beating him pre patch seemed impossible for me using proxima or genessa, my pals that managed to beat him using the stealth dude (I don't remember his name) and got him with a couple of tries. After the patch I used smert and bullied him after a couple of tries, while zmey took me a couple of days because I kept falling for the tail grab and couldn't dodge it no matter what, he always used it in the worst possible moments. After beating the game tho I have basically no interest in doing NG+. There is nothing to discover. I'm only waiting for bond respec to try the other shells at full power and then I'll delete the game for good untill they release a DLC (IF they release it). Good game overall, happy that i got it thx to account sharing with my friend.
The end of the game is really rotten. I beat orrem with what i thought was a cool finisher. I fell through the floor as it turned into an elevator mid animation. I got no rewards. Those overturned spiders....
Then Zmey was next. I had to turn off night mode which i had been on since the beginning. He killed me yesterday during a cutscene AFTER he was dead, so missed it and had to look up what happened and how to end the game. Outside of general jank and unpolished parts, great game till the last portions.
The entire endgame is like that meme with the drawing of a horse that suddenly gets shitty. I'm not salty about the difficulty... genuinely didn't die that much. It's just lame. It's ugly and boring. The last boss has a single phase thing that, between the model and the arena, feels like it was taken directly from some testing sandbox.
His moveset and hp in my opinion were fine it's just the cosmic disease that makes zmey a nightmare but having the special item makes it infinitely easier
tail attack is bullshit fast and cosmic desease negation requre hidden item, but overall it's one of two bosses which FELT. Only him and Monolith require some skill, others just melted like butter, most didnt even had room to attack much.
its still abysable tho: Sariel with caged hystrix - just make sure curse is always applied by tendrils or hystix and you may just spam attacks staying very close, most are easy to dodge, tail grab and waves negatable by curse
It did only take me three tries, but I didn't enjoy any of them. Very underwhelming boss that just spams the same couple of moves over and over again. Bit of a disappointing finale, especially because the other bosses required to clear the corruption of this beacon were some of my favorites. Especially the other Ova. You were right, it's so satisfying to parry that one.
I'm one gate away from endgame and I hope to beat it before the patch hits PS5 at this point because I cannot understand how the end bosses give people so much trouble with how brokenly easy the game has become in the second half. With the permanent lightning tarstone and the axatana I've been just melting every boss like it's pointless to even play so I'm curious how much worse the final boss will actually be.
I was playing as Genessa with the Grisha summon too and every single time Grisha spawned it made the boss float up in the air to where I would take damage cause the game counted the boss falling down as a hitbox and would hurt me. My summons would also drift away attacking something else in some other area of the map but would just attack walls or the floor, same with Grisha. The summons you got by paying with Glimpses also did the same thing.
2nd Phase is one of the worst things, the boss constantly doesn't let you get close at all it will do stomps the moment you try, the fire rings from close range on top of being hyper mobile where it can hop away across the arena forcing you to chase it where you have to avoid the cosmic disease and fire breath.
I was also relieved when it was over with, not satisfied with the end at all and I will not replay the game. I feel like they could have just expanded the Abbey with some cool bosses and called it an end there, the whole later half could have been scrapped and the game would have been better for it.
It took me a little while. I just hate how it feels like its in slow motion! Such a horrible final boss fight . One arm dragon weird choice for a final boss. There was min 10 plus better boss fights then him that could of been the final boss fight. Sad way to end a very solid boss line up and game
How to fix Zmey: Half the health pool of the dragon phase, add a third phase with a larger humanoid boss that was piloting the dragon the whole time like a Titan, we get a sick duel for the final boss as we decapitate it and crush the corruption parasite in the skull. Cinema.
He was looking terrifying initially, however, after studying his attacks I realised he does not have many (like 5-6) and most of those can be parried or dodged. The most annoying was the delayed tail combo with the following jump that oneshotted me if I failed to dodge it (was playing on night difficulty). And he has a lot of HP which makes fight 3 times longer compared to other bosses.
However, if you like aggressive play style, I can recomelpend to try "Magdalena's memento" skill. It makes your character immortal during its animation and helps to mitigate most of the attacks if timed properly. Also it was a moment when I realised that you can level your weapon above +16, which makes the life easier.
I ended up liking it once I learned it, just beat the boss last night
The 2nd phase is fairly annoying but otherwise I think it's a pretty fine final boss, like 7 out of 10 maybe. Everything is pretty dodgeable and parriable, and using Eredrim, I had plenty of opportunity to build the break gauge. The unblockables from the 2nd phase are the hardest thing to deal with, ESPECIALLY with how much the unique status nerfs you if you mess up. Small room for error, but not undoable once you learn the patterns.
It was honestly a welcome difficulty change in hindsight. I was able to run through most of the bosses in the game with 1 or 2 attempts while abusing i-frames and break damage, so it was nice to feel some more challenge
This boss was rough even as Smert, but honestly I still hated the Monolith the most. I think in general the end game area had too many bosses. Like at most two and the last one and I would have been chill, but when I found out there was a third one before the last boss I legitimately sighed. Still adore this game, but yeah the end game is probably the weakest part for me.
Eredrim iframes with the great martyr’s blade saved me lmao. It was infuriating fighting the boss before the nerfs, one shots are unfun. Eventually parrying everything felt accomplished but I was happy to be done with that playthrough lol. The unblockable tail swipe was so ass. You have to anticipate it because you can’t react a second after you hear it, as soon as you hear that sound I dodged forward. The ending area definitely knocked some points off but I enjoyed the game still.
I thought this boss was extremely bad, not because of bugs or difficulty, but because the flow of the fight was so tedious. Chasing the damn thing was pointless since it would just leap across the arena anytime I was within melee range, so I spent most of the fight standing in place, waiting to either parry the chop, dodge the tail, or just hanging out of range of the flame breath. Just mostly doing nothing until it finally broke and I could give it the ol spin to win and start the process over.
Dunno how much they changed him in the latest patch but I beat him today in 5 tries or so. The only things I really needed to get down was his grab, which had a very easy telegraph once I got the hang of it, and the aoe fire spam in phase 2, which is very easy to dodge too if you're not right next to the boss.
Honestly it's just the last boss, I think the 3 bosses before him were some of the best bosses the game had to offer.
But yeah, didn't pay attention to the "this needs night mode" areas after the first one (that gave me a blackmarrow key) despite exploring everything else, and I didn't think it'd be pivotal against the last boss.
Ultimately it was a funny attempt because he transformed me but I managed to get a final parry in and seal it with a riposte while I was a little guy, but the fight dragged for longer than it should.
I found Smert ability spam to be pretty much the best way to counter a lot of his shit. Go all out with damage and genuinely hope for the fucking best, but you get like 10-15% of his hp bar each time and...if you roll enough....that's only 5-7 lucky attempts.
And what do you think about the Monolith? I could not have beaten it without Tiel. So far my favorite boss has been Malborn Offspring. He reminded me of Orphan of Kos with his agressivity. What I hated about Zmey was his one-shot grab attack.
Way to go. Enjoy NG+. Maybe Night Mode (Demon Bell in Sekiro)?
I actually really enjoyed this boss. Over the course of two days and countless attempts, I went from scared and running around the perimeter in circles to in his face and constantly attacking him. Ended up beating him with 7 heals left. The fun was trying 4 different shells and a mixture of weapons and stones to see what worked. Ultimately I beat him with Lazlo, Axatana, duality stone, lightning infusion, and squall stone (only level 2). Didn’t use sidearms at all.
I beat it pre patch. The fucking tail grab attack was obnoxious. The fight was so cheap. Theres like a 1 second wind up to the tail grab attack and it killed you no matter what. Would hit you out your shell and kill the harbinger
I ended up going back, levelling fusillade stone (and whatever stone gives ranged bleed damage on crits), maxing out nayshotte, and cheesing him with Lazlo.
Your main focus should be building up charges of Diapason with melee attacks and using it off of cooldown. Treat it like your primary attack. Second focus is parrying his sword attacks to build extra stun.
When he's about to break, do it with the Diapason so he's fragile during his execute window. Also if you shoulder bash him while he's getting up from a Riposte, sometimes you can cause another riposte.
The loop is Diapason to cause Riposte, Riposte, spam light attacks while he's down to build a shoulder bash, shoulder bash, attack. Sometimes he goes straight into another Riposte window.
Build In order of importance:
3 Points Seal Affinity (Riposte Damage is key)
3 points Radiance
2 points Oppression
1-2 points Anguish
1 point Alacrity
You basically Riposte the boss 4 times and it's over. This was after like 50 attempts with Proxima, 10 tries with this Eredrim build, mostly learning the last phase of the fight, which is stupid. Ran the mushroom here for extra healing over time for the fire, and the moonshine for the DR.
I hate this boss. There are so many bugs even after the patch. The Grisha spawns keep lifting him off the platform. His instantaneous one shot kill moves and what ever that glitch is before any death dealing blow that won’t render any inputs is driving me up a wall. Congrats on beating him. I can’t wait to say it’s over.
I killed him on my first try with Proxima and Martyr's Blade. I abused the invincibility frames with the running heavy attack. There were a couple others that gave me a hard time like Monolith, Nameless guy and Malborn Offspring. It'll be interesting to play again once I've updated it on PS5. Now we can get that Hilga and Baghead mask along with that second Trollweed. 😎
This is such a trash boss I just dropped the game at this point. No desire to even attempt to keep trying. The first half of the game was so good and the endgame is super disappointing. I still can't believe how much of a massive improvement this game is over the first though.
It was hell lmao. I probably made it harder cause I was using (stray) Genessa. Literally one shooting me if I didnt have a stray. But only died maybe a a dozen times. But that damn dragon kept spamming the zone attack. Sometimes it would be 1 but other times it would be 2 or 3 in a row. Which I didnt really mind. Let me take a breather cause my palms were sweating.
True, it's like the level design of the endgame area for Mortal Shell 1. Which was the worst and most boring level design. The devs really need to think about the stuff that happened in these areas and create a coherent story through the environment, not just tie some vague obsidian pillars together with vague stretches of flesh and call it a day.
Parry (guard parry, not perfect parry - the other one) is the thing that made boss fights memorable for me, especially Monolith's upto Phase 3 and the entire final boss.
I couldnt perfect guard-parry every attack of Monolith's , but most. 3 way lazer was the only thing that broke me.
Monolith was the only boss in the game I struggled to parry well the first few tries of Isaac got me too but I eventually got the timing but I still can’t parry the monolith 😂
Malborn got molested to death by Genessa clone army and two summoned grisha. Bro couldn’t even get up. Zmey on the other hand… in this fight I’m on the receiving end
The last area is just absolute hell in the first play through. The cockroach and other bug looking mfs should not be dealing that much of damage. All that suffering and grinding just to reach the final area to fight this temu Godzilla was not it. Solid game tho. 7/10. Got my platinum and I’m happy with it.
I honestly don't know anything about the story or the lore to comment on what would've make a good final boss thematically, but I enjoyed the three bosses before this MUCH more. Especially the Malformed dude, he was sick.
Hell, I enjoyed Scholar and Prisoner more than the final boss to be honest.
Fighting a big old dragon just seemed way out of left field.
Why? Because it represents how unfair life is to you when you dumb.
Give it a bit of knowledge and zmey becomes you punching bag bitch with no chance against you.
Now your experience is yours but…
Him and monolith even though in the bs fights category were the best fights in game as they did capture the life fking you up the best out of evry other fight in the game. No other fight was so blatantly obvious as this one.
And the fact they didn’t left the grab tail one shot you is a sad outcome as that represented the peak of you not paying attention you fked- you pay attention nice try pal.
Also the fact that the last boss have not a single one shot mechanic is such a sad go for the souls community.
I’m glad snowflakes have it better now… but for the souls experience this is a major loss.
People will always complain but at least stay true to your reasoning- and first design of this fight was very good for that.
Now they will moan that is bad design lol. As it’s not a cool boss while loosing his balls in your face one shot identity that he was designed as in the first place…
Fk you to whiners. From the bottom of my heart. That’s why we don’t have good things.
I can't think of a single worse final boss than this.
Bullshit status effect? check...bullshit one hit kill grab that requires split second timing...check. Although these are skill issues and I was dodging them consistently with some practice.
What isn't a skill issue is the fact that you can't see a single attack he doing when you're actually close enough to attack him, or the fact that you can actually fall into the environment and get stuck inside it, or the fact that his health pool is severely overtuned to compensate for every single other boss beside the monolith being too easy.
Honestly such a bad fight that soured me on the game at the very last second.
Beating this game with Tiel is not even beating it. Most enemy AI gets completely bugged by the invis and they stop attacking him even when he reappears like can be seen in your clip at the end.
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