Elden Ring is full of tough bosses, many of whom have no problem showing you the nearest grave quickly if you’re lost, and beating them is often a matter of slowly wasting away at their long health bars until you heave a huge sigh of relief when the words “Enemy Felled” finally appear. However, one player wanted to dish it out to those bosses as much as she did, and then some. So he bolstered his Tarnished to one-shot many of the game’s toughest opponents, from Morgott to Radahn, among others.
BushyGames, a Twitch streamer and Elden Ring speed runner, uploaded a nearly 50 minute video to YouTube on May 16. The video showed Bushy trying – and succeeding – to beat FromSoftware’s action RPG by killing each main boss with a single hit. There were a few rules that Bushy had drawn up before embarking on such a difficult task. For example, he can only perform one attack per enemy or per boss phase (for those bosses, like Rannala, who have multiple phases, making it impossible to completely deplete their health bar with a single attack) and must use the cheap ray spell Comet Azur unless he must “absolutely complete the challenge.” Otherwise, he gave himself free rein to use any item or technique available to aid him in his quest. That included things like buffs and glitches, many of which Bushy used to survive the infernal run.
After creating his Tarnished called One Punch Man, Bushy scoured the Lands Between in search of gear. He collected items such as the Ax Talisman and Pointy Cracked Tear for increased charged attack damage. He collected various forging stones and weapon skills, such as the Ash of War: Determination, which amplifies the power of your next attack. He also chided the horseback Night’s Calvary boss by forcing him to jump off the bridge, all before grabbing his idolized weapon: the colossal power shell. Giant-Crusher hammer. Bushy leveled up here and there too, but he didn’t spend as much time on those screens as just exploring the Lands Between in search of resources and beating enemies for runes.
Things got better when Bushy got the Giant-Crusher. He leveled the hammer several times and performed a number of Wrong Warp skip glitches to quickly move across the map to find high-value resources — such as advanced blacksmiths to further boost his weapon — before testing his single-strike abilities against his first real boss fight: the Deathbird in Liurnia of the Lakes. Bushy tried it once, buffing himself with items like the HP Reparative Consumables Bloodboil Aromatic and the defense-boosting spell golden vow, only to shave off about half of the boss’s health bar with the single, powerful thump of his hammer. A failed second attempt was significantly better, with Deathbird somehow holding on to the tiniest bit of health after Bushy’s attack, but the third time was the charm.
BushyGames (YouTube†
After three hours of belching and one more time leveling his hammer, Bushy polishes his Tarnished with the same items, walked over to the Deathbird and killed the rotten thing in one fell swoop. “Blow! Whoo,” Bushy exclaimed excitedly. I’m not going to lie, I felt it too. He repeated the process for every main boss, from Margit, the Fell Omen to Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon, performing a self-cleaning ritual before starting each fight.
Not every encounter went as planned. For example, Radahn forced him to trade some inventory items to maximize his damage, and chose the Flame of Frenzy spell until he was better able to jellyfish shield‘s attack power-raise Contagious Fury ability. And the Fire Giant bullied him for an hour. But after a bit of trial and error, Bushy did everything in one go Elden Ring‘s main bosses, or in the case of those with multiple stages, he wiped out each stage with a single hit. What made this even more impressive was that, because Bushy used buffing spells that also caused self-harm, such as the attack power boosting ability Seppuku, he very often had 10% or less health during battle. Talk about a glass cannon.
Bushy told Kotaku that while he only killed the bosses “necessary to beat the game”, he is sure that every boss phase can be done in one fell swoop. That said, he did say something Elden Ring acorns that made it difficult for him.
“The bosses Radagon and Elden Beast were the hardest to shoot in one go, and I even had to break my self-imposed rule that there was no Comet Azur to properly shoot Elden Beast,” Bushy said. “Some people commented that Comet Azur shouldn’t be considered a one-shot anyway, as it’s a series of hits rather than one damage, but I disagree. The analogy I’m giving is a shotgun, it fires one shot but hits multiple times.”
All told, Bushy spent just over 25 hours collecting, testing, and executing the full run. He said he learned a lot about Elden Ring of this and even got tips from the gaming community and commentators on his video.
“It was a fun run with a lot of troubleshooting, and I’m very surprised it was possible at all,” Bushy said. “In addition, after posting the video, I received numerous comments and messages informing me of other items that could have helped or improved the build, including Ancient Dragon’s Lightning Strike with a faith build, the Rusted Anchor greataxe, and Zweihander Colossal Sword – both have thrusting attacks that enable another damage buff called “counter damage,” which is inaccessible to non-punching weapons – and the Marais Executioner’s Sword due to its unique Ash of War that can deal a ton of damage. I didn’t use any of these items on the run, but they are all options that could perform better in some circumstances compared to what I was using.
I think if there was a takeaway from Bushy’s run maybe it would be this: In Elden Ringis the best way to win “do a lot of damage” in one fell swoop.
Who knows? If you’re curious, here’s the latest build from BushyGames:
- Weapons: Giant Crusher, Lusat’s staff with Comet Azur (both upgraded to max level eventually)
- Weapons Enthusiasts: Determination and Royal Knights Resolve
- Body Enhancements: Exalted Flesh, Aromatic Blood, Flame Gives Me Strength
- Aura buffs: Golden Vow Ash of War, Golden Vow Incantation, Rallying Standard (Commander’s Standard)
- Shield Buffs: Contagious Fury (Jellyfish Shield)
- Unique buffs: Faith-Knot Crystal Tear, Strength-Knot Crystal Tear, Spiked Cracked Tear, Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear, Flame-Shrouding Cracked Tear, Terra Magica
- Talismans: Radagon’s Soreseal, Starscourge Heirloom, Two Fingers Heirloom, Ax Talisman, Magic Scorpion Charm, Fire Scorpion Charm, Red-feathered Branch Sword, Ritual Sword Talisman, Kindred of Rot Exultation, Lord of Blood’s Exultation.
- Armor with special effects: black dumpling, white mask, mushroom crown
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