oh boy it's another essay about the fat fuck dragon boss from the 6 year old video game by an MR 999 player

This might be a bit of a hot-take with some of the people struggling with Fatalis, but I think it is a genuinely, really well designed monster. After you get past the initial hurdles and rage, it's probably my favorite fight from any of the more recent titles. HOWEVER; Some of the design choices ARE questionable at best:

The most glaring example I can think of is the damage-threshold bellyflop. With your average pubstack there is absolutely no way to know when this move is going to happen. There are simply too many variables to realistically keep track of. I would go as far as to say this is the only outright 'unfair' move in his moveset; If that threshold is reached & you're in some kind of committed action it's a coinflip as to whether or not you die. Genuinely the only thing that still makes me roll my eyes and sigh when it happens.

His fire attacks being primarily RAW dmg instead of, well, fire. This is not communicated to the player at all. People say Alatreon's mechanical explanations are egregious but I think this one takes the cake.

His ability to fly in general. I don't see this talked about a lot but this adds absolutely nothing to the fight. It exists solely to waste your time and nothing else. None of the attacks he does while in the air are even remotely threatening, and blademaster weapons just can't do anything for the entire duration.

• You can use smokes to force him to land, though pubs typically don't know this for some reason or refuse to do so.

• You can use binders, but you only get two of them, and it's best to save those for specific moments.

You could remove fatty's flight and the fight would only be benefit from it. Even in solo you're just going to immediately smoke and force him to land, so what is the point?

Some of the hitboxes are legitimately bad or confusing. The bodyslam, his tail swipe doing full damage even if you get knicked by the very tip of it. I'd argue the 360 breath in P3 is questionable too but that could be debated.

Some more personal nitpicks (skill issues 100%):

• It doesn't happen super often, but when the AI decides to be a dickhead and have Fatalis spam long-winded, uncounterable attacks like the fireball-takeoff it's just exhausting. Nothing more obnoxious than walking in circles while he does it over and over again.

• The fight overall is designed in such a way that some weapons are miserable to use (at least in mp) due to the necessity of headbreaks and tempos/reach of some moves. Entirely subjective but I will never use a gunlance or chargeblade here despite those being my favorite weapons. LS, GS and SnS just come out on top, no question about it.

• It is actually just flat out annoying trying to clutch-claw onto certain parts of him sometimes. Especially the head with how much it flails around.

I genuinely enjoy Fatalis. It's pretty much all I do when I hop on World these days. A lot of these problems could also be solved by just 'not doing SoS', which, also fair, and call me insane, but I enjoy MP fatty despite how chaotic it is. Some things get under my skin regardless, though.