I remember Orphan of Kos and Isshin taking a long time for me. Multiple days of several-hour long sessions, I assume. I would probably have trouble beating Orphan today too, but Isshin has gotten pretty easy for me over my 4 or so playthroughs. Laxasia from Lies of P is also a huuge pain despite my four playthroughs. I feel like her second phase is just waaay too much whereas her first phase has gotten pretty easy by now.
Currently playing Khazan and some of the bosses did give me a lot of trouble too. Especially the first two you get to after beating the tutorial were a pain because the bosses felt really spongy, I didn’t have a lot of damage, and they dealt damage like a semi-truck. I’ve gotten better at the game, though, and now bosses don’t take nearly as long. I’ve gotten better gear by now, I’ve got better skills to use, and my overall skill in the game is also good enough to not struggle as much anymore.
Which ones did give you trouble on your playthroughs?
I did do the DLCs and i don’t recall any of them being too bad. It did help in general though i had already done plat so had gone through the game several times and had practiced most bosses and was familiar with their moves before doing SL1. the problem with NK was just that i had never bothered learning the timing of his sword attacks and the one that one-shotted me i kept dodging too soon or too late.
SoC for me was pretty similar to NK but i found it more forgiving since there’s more strikes that won’t instant kill you. I do think once i started playing more patiently i was able to stop trading hits and that made the difference.
I don’t recall trouble with twin princes or champion gundyr. Unfortunately i think i deleted the folder that had all my death tracking for each SL1 run 😭
NK is really sneaky like that. I remember noticing he has that slight delay which became prominent with Elden Ring bosses.
What did you use to track deaths?
Ha, exactly! this was before i did elden ring and i hated that about elden ring 😅
Just used pen and paper with tally marks, and then i had saved them on the computer at some point. It was kind of fun to see the deaths per boss. I know speedrunners use some software that can track the deaths per segment too but you need to manually increment it still