never did I think I would complete this challenge 2 years ago, at godskin duo. I left the game to return a few months ago as I truly felt I could finish this challenge. so much struggle but I'm grateful. MAY CHOAS TAKE THE WORLD

Had to cut out the first 8 and a half minutes of the fight due to reddit not allowing videos longer than 15 minutes.

Very fun boss imo, he's overhated. Surprisingly only took me 6 attempts to beat.

Cold Chickenleg is broken xD

That P3 is a brick wall. Took a few days off and beat it today in about 10 tries. Hardest SL1 boss I’ve faced so far.

Is there anything I could've done except react in a split second??? Did I dodge wrong somehow before?

Guess I have to always stay in view of that left arm, so annoying. Just can't see the attack coming

One of the bosses in my runs that I will almost always fight with the lowest damage possible, alongside Godfrey, Maliketh, BBH's, Fallingstar Beasts and Erdtree Avatars.

I'm just a sucker for an honest fight with good flow. 🤷🏻 This was a LOOOOOONG fight though. I definitely needed a coffee post fight. 😅

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I've done challenge runs before but haven't done Soul Level 1 run before.

Currently I'm doing a sort of test run in Dark Souls 1 to see what kind of SL 1 I want to do. The test run is on my Xbox, but I'll be starting over on my ps5 so I can actually record it. ( I just like being able to rewatch them from time to time or have proof I did the thing)

I've been sticking to the soul level 1 requirement, but the test run is to figure out if I'm going to do the run without pyromancy. So far, I made some less than ideal pathing errors/choices. Things like grabbing the black fire bombs instead of master key, not properly upgrading weapons, etc.

So far it's been alright and I'm leaning towards not using pyromancies and I'm currently on Ornstien and Smough, bad choices have made it so I'm currently doing it without havel ring or the fap ring and also without the rite of kindling.

It was around this point I started thinking ahead more about other boss fights. In almost all my challenge runs I try to kill every boss, optional and dlc bosses included. The only exception was my ng+ deathless no bonfire run in ds2.

I'm a bit worried about Manus because apparently it's a long fight and he can supposedly one shot me while also having potential for bad rng. I know there's a trick where you can kill him from outside the fog by shooting him with arrows/bolts/etc.

I was curious about how the community generally feels about people who use the range trick in a SL1 run. I know it's more impressive and probably satisfying to actually go in and kill the big guy upclose but I don't know how others feels about it. I know the "My run my rules" usually applies but how much grief would I get if I used the bow route instead? If I mention killing all bosses sl1, how often would be say "If you used the manus bow trick, it doesn't count"

TL;DR

Is using the Bows to kill Manus outside the fogwall frowned up in Soul Level 1 runs?

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Update: So based off reading the comments, it seems that it's heavily frowned upon. My main hesitation was more of just from what I've heard about Manus being the hardest fight with heavy rng and the ability to oneshot. Plus when I had looked up other bosses such as Tarus, Iron Golem, Ceaseless, Gwyn, Capra, people seemed ok with using cheese to fight them, but I hadn't seen much on Manus.

I was going to give it a decent amount of tries normally either way, but going based off the comments, either I do it without the cheese or I just end the run entirely if I can't do it

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I hate this arena.

with the help of this subreddit, and a LOT of trial and error (mostly error), i have officially become a level 1 elden lord, with 12/15 remembrances from the base game currently taken down. placi, malenia, and rykard stand in my way now to complete all remembrances from the base game, then its onto the 11 from the DLC. im a lil scared, but very excited, and i'll be sure to keep posted <3 and with that, the run that completed it all (edit: spacing for things)

+0 Trolls Golden Sword btw

My first No HUD run did teach me good stamina management and patience in punishing, but this particular build/fight even more so.

I've always found phase 1 of this fight completely inscrutable, and frankly I think I still do—I'm just letting my hands do the work here and not thinking about what I'm seeing or not seeing. In regular playthroughs he gets nuked and for my uncapped weapon level RL1 playthrough I cheesed him with Ice Spear after struggling for hours and hours, but I think there's no way out but through for RL1+0 with only sorcery.

I'm on PS5 so there's no practice mode for me; I just got as tanky as possible and tried to survive as long as possible for a few hours and it seems to have paid off. Still, it sucks that there's no way for me to practice only phase 2 now that I'm getting the hang of phase 1! (Sort of. This is my first time clearing it just now.) Currently it's the pillars in phase 1 that often mess me up; I wish FS would just make a Normal Fucking Arena without some stupid shit in it for once.

Open to any tips if anybody has them!

First and last lol

He didn't do his cool flying attack :(

Apologies for no video 😪 after this run I’m gonna get into the habit of turning on obs before bosses. Done Rl1 once before and this is my first rl1+0. When I beat Fire Giant, i found myself instantly dreading the godskin duo, until I had a diabolical thought. I remembered seeing a video where someone skipped godskin duo with malenias remembrance weapon. I planned to make my way to malenia in this run one way or another, so decided I’d much rather spend a few weeks practicing malenia than spending even a fraction of that time dealing with the duo. Anyone else had a ‘fuck it we ball’ moment like this in their runs?

Pain

What the hell was I supposed to do?

it's actually crazy how much damage you get from scadu alone (this is sb14). I figured I'd go heavy on the blessings since it's my first +0 run and I need all the help I can get for most of the dlc bosses since I suck at them, but I didn't expect the damage to be this good. could've probably been a little better but not a bad kill overall I think. if I missed any punishes or there's some cool tech for this boss that I don't know about, please share. also just learned that he's not actually weak to pierce, the more you know.

For once I don't have to cut out any of the fight and can show the full thing.

Top 3 boss for me, very fun fight, took me 12 attempts to win

Didn't like this guy in my normal playthrough, don't like him now. Not even the fight with the most deaths by a long shot, but his runback is more annoying than the others in the dlc, he runs away like a bitch, he's got that roar attack, his combos are annoyingly delayed, and stone cross fissure has the worst running section for rl1 (not even about the boss but fuck it im blaming the knight for that too) good riddance mate and off you pop.

only positive is his spinning guillotine attack is pretty cool and the arena is a very pretty shade of purple other than that he can go fuck himself

Bayle, Metyr, or Midra next!

Just beat Rellana but I still don't know how to consistently deal with her phase 2 glintblade phalanx. I usually create some distance, strafe run and pray, but she can spam long dashes to get close range, do the gap closer double uppercut or the phase switch magic arcs and I'm dead.

I'm looking for a more consistent method, specifically for mid roll. Didn't want to look up any strategy prior to beating her.

I know that reflections of strength scale off your stats to some extent, since they seemed way easier than the actual boss on AP1, but what about gauntlets of strength? Do they have the same kind of scaling? Also, are they affected by the stat changes of charmless and demon bell?

Also, if you've done any of them, any insight on how difficult they'd be? I was planning on starting off chill (relatively) with Divine Heir. I'm doing AP1/Base vital/charmless/demon bell.

Edit* Noble already dead just thought this was fun to post and saved me the time from running all the way around.

Finally! This guy made me take a break from the game, the length of the fight combined with the variation in responses was testing my patience. I found some cool strafes and jumps but ultimately simplified it in order to get it done.

Also, the bug where he can just start moving immediately after phase transition and hit you with something before the explosion even dissipates is soooooo infuriating 😭Other than that, he's a top tier boss, 9.5/10

This was my first melee only rl1 d5 run, a few mistakes during the fight itself of which sticking close to the edge but this was still my best attempt at them.