The Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC that launched last month is arguably the hardest piece of content that developer FromSoftware has ever released, and sparked plenty of passionate debates online about damage scaling, long boss attack chains, and overall difficulty, even amongst Soulsborne veterans. Of its 10 major boss battles, the one the vast majority of its players agree is the most challenging is the expansion's final fight — a brutal struggle against a boss that's got upwards of 50,000 HP, lethal damage output, a moveset so aggressive players can barely get just one or two hits in between combos, and resistances to most damage types in his second phase.
Even when faced with a boss this hard, though, unbelievably skilled Souls challenge runners have done what unbelievably skilled Souls challenge runners always do — make us mere mortals look like wimps by sending that boss to kingdom come with no stat improvements from levels, no weapon or Scadutree Fragment upgrades, and other self-imposed limitations. Now, though, one masochistic Elden Ring player has successfully completed the wildest challenge run I've seen yet: beating the DLC's final boss without any levels, upgrades, or status effects whatsoever, all without taking a single hit, in an absolute marathon of a fight that lasted over 30 minutes.
The legendary gamer responsible for this feat is GinoMachino, a popular Soulsborne streamer, content creator, and challenge runner with nearly 450,000 subscribers on their YouTube channel. Though their grueling 31 minute and 9 second-long war against Elden Ring's Promised Consort Radahn isn't up on that channel currently, you can watch it in a post GinoMachino shared on X (Twitter). I've embedded it below:
Please enjoy 31 minutes and 9 seconds of Consort Radahn at level 1, +0 weapons, on NG+7 with no status effects without getting hit 🤓👍I dont really like this boss but he's kinda fun for some reason pic.twitter.com/OQxThTNtnuJuly 19, 2024
With no levels to take advantage of weapon scaling or upgrades of any kind, GinoMachino's weapon of choice — the Fire Knight's Greatsword, a new colossal sword from Shadow of the Erdtree — was only hitting for a pitiful 300-600 damage or so, even with a 20% boost from the Red-Feathered Branchsword talisman that buffs damage when you're at low health and when buffed with a coating of flame via the Flame Spear Ash of War. That, combined with Radahn's insanely aggressive combos that barely give players any time to land counter-attacks, is why GinoMachino had to spend more time patiently and perfectly fighting the boss than I do watching many full TV episodes.
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GinoMachino's choice not to take advantage of status effects is another big reason the bout lasted for so long. Weapons like the Star Fist, Venomous Fang, and Antspur Rapier (Elden Ring community hero Let Me Solo Her used that one to no-hit Radahn a little over a week ago) are useful for Level 1 challenges since they intrinsically build up status effects like Bleed, Poison, and Scarlet Rot; these statuses deal damage based on percentages of a boss' HP instead of flatly, which significantly speeds up the rate at which you can burn through their health pools at low levels. Scarlet Rot in particular comes in very handy against Radahn since it's one of the few things he's weak to, but clearly this Tarnished champion was prepared to suffer for the sake of accomplishment.
Ultimately, the only thing GinoMachino had going for them was that they were using some very handy talismans. In addition to the boost from the Red-Feathered Branchsword, the Radagon's Soreseal gave them an extra five points in Strength and Dexterity to meet the requirements for the Fire Knight's Greatsword, while the Talisman of All Crucibles gave them access to a unique backstep with iframes that's often used to avoid some of Radahn's attack chains easier. With the Great-Jar's Arsenal, GinoMachino was also able to achieve a Light Load despite the hefty weight of their weapon, allowing them to dodge roll with additional distance and iframes.
"If youre wondering about the build its basically just flame spear on the fire knight's gs," they wrote in a comment on the video. "Not an optimal setup for this by any means but just practicing with the same build as I use for no hit."
By the way, if you're curious what GinoMachino thinks of Promised Consort Radahn, here's what they had to say: "I dont really like this boss but he's kinda fun for some reason." To not go insane during the quest to complete this challenge, I'd say he had to be.
The Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is finally here, and it makes one of the best Xbox games and best PC games of all time even better. It's out now on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and Windows PC for $39.99.
