Beast Clergyman/Maliketh, The Black Blade - Review -
3(SOLO, No Summons, No Damage, No Magic Tricks)
Beast Clergyman feels like a traditional boss from Dark Souls very similar to Manus, Father of the Abyss which is probably why I absolutely loved fighting this boss. At first this boss felt super fast and questionable however it eventually slowed down after consistency observations. I didn't care for the pillars in the arena, they do have a purpose in the second phase but they disrupted the flow of the first phase too much in my opinion.
Simply my strategy was to keep distance and react properly to incoming attacks. Unfortunately staying close resulted in the boss constantly attacking which just leads to stamina exhaustion. As you can see I'm finally using jumping attacks which flows very well with this fight. The freestyle jumping didn't feel useful to me until this moment in the game which is about time. The mechanic was especially useful for the Beast Claw attack. I used to roll through it however the jump attack was much faster to avoid a follow up attack like the Rock Spray which was the most problematic for me. Luckily I found the proper i-frames and timing to react effectively all thanks to the freestyle jumping. One thrust attack in particular was very interesting due to the few variations of attacks to distinctively react to like the back up sweeping, Rock Spray and Beast Claw. All which had very satisfying and unique i-frame timings.
Maliketh, The Black Blade is the most generous part of the fight with more openings to attack surprisingly. The move set however is all over the place which sounds good but works more against the boss than complementing the approach toward the player. This battle design reminds me of Slave Knight Gael but with the vulnerability of Vordt of the Boreal Valley both from Dark Souls 3.
My strategy was to also stay close to avoid most ranged attacks. I noticed if you keep your distance then the boss just zig zags around with flashy attacks. Staying underneath the boss avoids a lot of attacks at least until the Piledriver attack which is a basic AOE or the Black Blade projectiles which requires a nice rhythm to evade. I do wish I had more time to further explore this section of the boss however I didn't realize my weapon would inflict as much damage like it did so I never planned to defeat Maliketh so quickly. There is one attack that I didn't fully develop a strategy for and that's the Destined Death move however that aside I thought the Beast Clergyman was the better fight in my opinion due to the more brutal move set that I personally found more satisfying to learn.
I feel very conflicted with this one. I really liked both fights yet put together like this doesn't work well in my opinion. I think both fights are too short and should have had their own fights. Beast Clergyman with a second phase with additional attacks could have benefited well on the bridge before the main arena instead of the Draconic Tree Sentinel as much as I love that fight. I feel the same way about Maliketh. The reason why a fight like Sister Friede from Dark Souls 3 works so well is because it's a constantly evolving move set with the boss instead of something entirely different. Learning how to fight two vastly divergent designs was fun but also tiresome at times and discouraged practice for me personally until I was finally comfortable.
In the end this is the reason why I play that way I do and if I'm not spending days or weeks on a boss to fully experience what it offers then it's not rewarding to me. I love the From Software games because they offer situations like this. I may not love every single boss design however when I do it's the best gaming experience I could possible ask for as a gamer.
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