Working my way up the eastern side of Liurnia, up to the artist’s shack, skipping a lot of exploring (I’ll come back) to get to a Mausoleum to reproduce my Renalla remembrance. On the way I stumbled upon the Church of Vows. There seemed to be not much in it, other than a chest, no seeds or sacred tears. Thinking I may be missing something after doing as much exploring and hitting walls as I could, I looked it up and saw there is a Ball Bearing Boss in this place. I saw a “come back at night” message, tried that numerous times, couldn’t get the boss, finally had to look it up and saw others also could not get him to spawn. The only way that works for me is to sit at the grace point until night, go in and talk to the turtle, go back out, sit at the grace point again until night then when I go in the turtle is gone and the Ball Bearing boss spawns.
After all that he kills me so fast I could barely move. Which means go out to the grace point, rest until night, go back in, talk to the turtle, go back out, rest at the grace point until night, enter back in, fight.
Very frustrating to have to do every time he killed me. Which was a lot. Faster than the process of getting back in to fight him again.
However, I’m starting to see the appeal of a DS game. In previous tries with PS5 Demons Soul, I just got frustrated and bored by getting quickly killed, try again, get killed again, etc. etc. etc. I think the open world (though not really dynamic) world of ER has pulled me in enough that I’m more invested in the game and the occasional get-my-ass-handed-to-me boss is a puzzle I’m interested in figuring out (at least, so far.) In this case, I tried my standard stay back and rock sling and maybe roll in when an opportunity opens up for the Moonveil special attack. But this boss moves so fast across the small space, I barely had time to throw rock sling. And his attacks could take half my health in one shot. I was running trying to get free of that and ranged attacks to get a health potion down. Didn’t come close.
So I tried dual wielding my Moonveil and Meteoric Ore katana for powerstancing. Worked wonders for Renalla! And I could run up to the BBB (Ball Bearing Boss) and hit him hard a few times when he first spawned, maybe for about 1/3 of his health. I could fight and get him to maybe half, over and over and over but could not avoid his attacks.
Hmmm. OK. Tried to hit with Moonveil special when he spawned followed by powerstancing the two blades, got about 1/3 of his health then backed off fast and tried a new spell I had, Star Shower. Cool. Fast to throw, they all seem to seek him out and hit him, it doesn’t knock him down but it does seem to cause him to pause a half second. Not a ton of damage but some and I can cast this fast. So I can get two of these off at a time. Then run, roll, if he does jump on me hope for a quick hit with Moonveil. He still killed me but promising. Next time hit him with Moonveil Special and powerstance attack then back off quickly, switch to Meteorite Staff and focus on nothing but avoiding getting hit and throwing as many Star Showers as possible. Got him down, got hit, two more casts, he’s down! Big “hell yeah.”
So - went from “I’ll never take this guy down” to figuring out an approach that was out of the box for me that worked. Basically the way I progressed with Renalla. I think I get the DS model now - the satisfaction from that is huge.