Elden Ring: Erdtree Avatar (Weeping Peninsula) Boss Fight

I apologize for the picture quality of this video – the recording settings had somehow gotten reset, and I didn't realize this until I was about to edit the video. I hope it's tolerable, nonetheless.

As you may know, bosses in Elden Ring are divided into three tiers. From lowest to highest: Field Bosses, Greater Enemy Bosses and finally Demigods and Legends.

Erdtree Avatar is in the lowest tier, Field Bosses, and can be found near the Minor Erdtree on the Weeping Peninsula where the very large tree is pictured on the map.

It actually came as a surprise to me that this is not a Greater Enemy Boss, because it sure felt like it while I fought it, but perhaps that's just me being silly again ;-)

When you approach the very large tree, you will notice the boss standing with its back to you amidst what appears to be several very large cooking pots, many of which are broken.

It looks like a large, headless tree-like creature, but if you were to think that this is a peaceful ent in the Lord of the Rings style, you'd be wrong. It's more like Old Man Willow, trying to kill unwary travelers if it gets the chance, although way less subtly.

As you approach it, it will turn around and demonstrate that not all trees are peaceful as it immediately tries to make you a couple of feet shorter with what appears to be a very large hammer-like object. I suppose all the broken pots in the area are from some sort of ill-fated outdoors cooking endeavor, and the boss is now in a foul mood and want flattened Tarnished pancakes for lunch.

Apart from the big hammer and its use in several combos that have very long reach, this boss also has two holy-based area of effect attacks to be aware of.

One of them has the boss lifting itself up in the air and then smashing down. When you see it doing this, get away from it as quickly as possible, as the effect goes all around it and there is no way that I could see to avoid it without keeping your distance.

The other one has the boss slamming its hammer into the ground and then summoning some holy homing missiles. When you see it do this, keep your distance as well, but be ready to roll sideways when the missiles come flying in.

After several failed attempts at taking this boss in melee, I decided to give ranged a go, since what typically killed me was my failure to gain sufficient range from the area of effect attacks. As I have mentioned in other videos, ranged combat is actually my preference when feasible, but at this stage in the game the cost of arrows is a bit too prohibitive to use it when not strictly necessary.

It being a tree and all, I figured it probably wouldn't be very fond of fire, so I decided to make a big dent in my supply of fire arrows, which proved to be highly effective. I just don't want to think about the number of sheep, birds, and smoldering butterflies who had to die for me to spend this many Fletched Firebone Arrows on putting a grumpy old tree in the ground. I actually think the boss was a bit inconsiderate when it didn't catch fire and go up in a blaze on the first arrow, but that's bosses for you.

The boss becomes much more manageable when going ranged instead of melee, as it's much easier to stay out of range of both its massive hammer slams and its area of effect attacks. As the boss closes large distances very quickly, it's unavoidable to get close to it every now and then when kiting it around, but just make sure to gain some distance again as quickly as you can and just keep chipping off its health with arrows.