Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been sinking practically all of my gaming time into the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC for Elden Ring. It was pretty tough getting back into the flow of game’s combat, but it did eventually come back and I’ve since gone on to almost finish the DLC in its entirety. Well, not quite. See, I’ve not been playing the most skill-based build out there, and what’s more, I never have. When it comes to skill in Elden Ring and other 3D soulslikes, well, I don’t actually have all that much.

In the main game, I was one of those guys who was shielding, running Rivers of Blood and summoning the Mimic Tear every chance I got. For all the damage Rivers did, and, as much as I wanted to just dodge, duck, dive and, uh, dodge my way through the boss fights, I couldn’t manage it without even more help. My reaction times are too slow and I’m too prone to panic rolling. Even for the Malenia fight, I still summoned Black Knife Tiche.

The same has held true in the DLC. I stun-locked my way through the early parts with Radahn’s swords. I re-specced into a Strength/Faith build and switch to the Blasphemous Blade when Commander Gaius proved to be an absolute menace of a boss, brought back the shield after Messmer kept catching me coming out of my rolls, and added a lightning sparks secondary weapon when Bayle proved to be too much to handle with just Blasphemous Blade.

All the while, my Mimic Tear has been faithfully serving at my side drawing aggro at key moments and allowing me enough breathing room to get heals off. Doing this, that is, by exploiting every possible advantage, has brought me all the way through to the end of the DLC, with only one boss standing between me and total victory. It’s worked, and I’ve had a lot of fun along the way, but this method has basically allowed me to ignore a lot of what would normally constitute conquering a boss: trial-and-error, dialing in timing, and memorizing attack patterns. So yeah, I’m not good at the game. But what does it matter, anyway?

Are all these bosses doable the “normal” way? Absolutely. We wouldn’t have hardcores complaining about the game being too easy or YouTubers/streamers flawlessly taking them down blindfolded if they weren’t. It’s just that, for me, the “normal” way ain’t happening. Maybe if this had come out when I was in high school, but not now.

Now, I will happily exploit a broken build and extra tools if it’d get me the win, and, frankly, I don’t know how on earth anyone can get anything resembling regular damage on some of these DLC bosses without the mimic to distract them for a second or two.

With 2D soulslike games like Hollow Knight, I’ve got no problem taking down the bosses “pure” (regardless of how some hardcores like to scream that using charms is “cheating”), but in 3D ones like this, where the enemies are always much, much stronger, faster and more agile/acrobatic than your character, yeah, I take all the help I can get. If I didn’t, then I probably wouldn’t enjoy the game very much. Seriously, I can only take getting knocked around so much before I start cutting out the handicaps.

Am I “good” at soulslikes? No, probably not. Am I having fun with them (particularly Elden Ring) by taking every advantage I can get? Absolutely! And I’ll never stop.

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Are you good at soulslikes? What’s your playstyle like?