With those hard-stop bosses I either look up the cheese strategy. Or I just turn on an infinite health cheat. That way I can try and learn the boss without the wasted time of reloading again and again, and then I try doing it for real… and if it’s still too annoying for whatever reason I just kill it with cheats. Promised Consort can go fuck himself, a lame plot twist boss deserves no respect.

I also cheat drop rates up, because I don’t do grinding, and usually infinite materials, because I don’t give a fuck about crafting systems any more. I like that they’re there, but I have better things to do than collect hog butts. If a game starts wasting my time so overtly then I start thinking I should probably just read a book…

Incidentally, the Convergence mod made major changes to items in Elden Ring, by removing drop rates for equipment and just placing them in appropriate locations or as guaranteed drops from appropriate miniboss enemies. I really dig that.