First, dodge … then inadequate feelings ahead.
Dear reader, I’ve started to be able to set my watch by the amount of time between the release of a new FromSoftware game and the eventuality, sure as the heat death of the universe, of a YouTuber swaggering along and making me feel very bad for the amount of times I’ve seen the ‘You Died’ text. Or, in the case of Elden Ring Nightreign, ‘Defeat’.
Parry master Ongbal, who has made us look like chumps in Sekiro before, is back at it again. After strutting up and solo-ing a Nightlord as the Executor last week, Ongbal has now officially defeated the game’s penultimate big bad without taking a single lick of damage. Not so much as a bruise. Flawless, incredible, aspirational victory.
You might notice Ongbal’s health ticking down a little—don’t worry, that’s just because they’re using the Executor’s passive that gives them extra damage in exchange for a little self-inflicted hurt while in their Cursed Sword stance. The rest is all pure, perfectly-timed parry goodness. Heolstor the Nightlord gets repeatedly rebuffed like an absolute chump.
My favourite part of the run, by far, is the particularly inventive use of the Executor’s ultimate. This is a fact I’ve only just recently discovered, but it turns out the transformation itself has iframes—meaning Ongbal is able to dodge a powerful AoE by going dogmode, then immediately using the form’s weapon art to get back to parrying.
In the video description, they echo what PCG’s own Ted Litchfield has said before—Nightreign is a game composed of the longest boss runbacks in FromSoftware history. “The runback to the boss is so brutal. I really wish there was a practice mode or something.” Me too, bud, me too.
They also beat one of the game’s other bastards, Fulghor, who is currently the last on my hitlist in my own game before I go and tackle Heolstor myself. Hitless, of course, because I need new and exciting reasons to feel bad about my own game.
In all seriousness, this has me sorely tempted to put together a parry-focused build and tackle some of these challenges myself. I’ve recently been all-in on a status build Executor, but I’ve got enough relics to give this tanky, parry-based cousin a try.
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