An Elden Ring boss has a particularly aggressive response to the player using their healing flask, mimicking the moves of a Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice boss.
Just below, you can see a clip from a player on the Elden Ring subreddit depicting their fight against the imposing Malenia. Whenever the player attempts to heal using their Flask of Crimson Tears, the boss swoops in for a gigantic thrust attack, completely decimating their health all over again.
The strange thing is, this isn't the first FromSoftware boss to respond in the exact same way to the player healing. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice players might recall that in the first main fight against the villainous Genichiro Ashina, the boss jumps up into the air and lunges at the player with his huge katana whenever they would attempt to heal.
In fact, speedrunners playing Sekiro have actually used this to their advantage, baiting Genichiro into a stabbing attack by healing, and quickly pulling off a Mikiri Counter to deal huge posture damage to the boss. At last year's Awesome Games Done Quick event for example, one player repeatedly baited Genichiro into this attack and finished him off in merely a few seconds.
It's equally fascinating and weird that two FromSoftware bosses are hard-coded to pull off the same attack when they see the player healing. It's worth noting, however, that there's no actual way to counter Malenia's thrusting attack in Elden Ring, unlike Genichiro's diving attack with the Mikiri Counter, so players are left with no way around taking some huge damage.
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