Elden Ring - Draconic Tree Sentinel - Review

Draconic Tree Sentinel is the most impressive boss in Elden Ring for me so far. The move set has a wide variety of distinct animations that's properly telegraphed and it's absolutely satisfying to fight. I wanted more of the Tree Sentinel and I definitely got it with the majority of attacks being divergent compared to the one I fought in Limgrave.

The strategy I picked was more close ranged this time because if I attempted my manipulation calibration method then I wouldn't get very far. Thankfully this boss doesn't excessively strike because usually after a few strikes the boss would move away from the player to start using fireballs. This attack at first seemed very inconvenient however it eventually became one of my favorite moves to counterattack and it also has a slightly different response time depending on how close you are.

You can probably tell that I favored the boss's left side and this is because the attacks are more manageable to access for hits. The other side can work but the attacks do not allow much room to work with since there isn't much distinction about what level of swing is going to execute. I only used the right side to force an opening for the left side which worked extremely well.

The second phase is where things get very interesting. So the boss conjures it's inner Nameless King from Dark Souls 3 and wears it proudly. The Nameless King is one of my favorite boss fights so you can imagine how excited I was to see this unfold. One attack that threw me off the most was the lightning strike that actually has a slight double window of damage detection and thankfully the boss has movement properly telegraphing when it's going to strike. This attack isn't in the showcase because it's a ranged triggered action and I was mostly up close.

My biggest complaint about this design is the ground lightning sparks which can be very difficult to see near the boss and you'll notice in the footage that I don't get close until that last strike but that's only because the boss already used that attack so many times so I got impatient.

Overall a fantastic gatekeeper. I heard there's a bypass but why would you skip on such a well crafted piece of From Software art?