Highlights

  • Black Knife Assassins in Elden Ring are difficult and unpredictable enemies that can overwhelm new players with their speed and combos.
  • Players must learn to overcome the difference in pace between themselves and the Black Knife Assassins by being patient and observing their moves.
  • Slowing down and taking the fight second by second is key to success, allowing players to find opportunities to retaliate and counter the Assassin's speed.

The various Black Knife Assassins across Elden Ring stand as some of the most difficult and unpredictable enemies that can be found in the lands between. However, while the final Black Knife Assassin Alecto might be among the hardest fights in the entire game, even the earliest and easiest can be a learning experience for new players struggling to get their bearings on the difficulty of other bosses.

With developer FromSoftware being known for designing extremely difficult combat, it isn't uncommon for players new to Elden Ring to be quickly overwhelmed by the speed at which enemies and bosses string together combos. This doesn't make Black Knife Assassins too different from someone like a Margit or other fast-paced bosses, but mastering these quick enemies can be the first step towards learning how to conquer the Lands Between.

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A Quick-Paced Fight to Overwhelm New Players

Elden Ring Melina Blade Black Knife Comparison

Rapid Fire Enemy Vs Deliberately Slow Players

The first thing that players may notice when going up against the Black Knife Assassins is how quickly they can move from combo to combo, especially when compared to the lack of speed for most player attacks. This often results in players being overwhelmed by the speed of the boss, as it starts to feel like there's no way to make up for this major difference in the pace of attacks. However, as players learn how to beat the most aggressive Black Knife Assassins, it can quickly become clear that the difference in pace can easily be overcome with some steady patience.

An Onslaught of Charges, Effects, and Grabs

To simply call out the Black Knife Assassin's moveset as including a handful of quick and powerful attacks only really paints half the picture. Getting into the specifically dangerous moves, all Black Knife Assassins have access to a lunging attack that can cover most distances, as well as a powerful grab attack with a very similar telegraph, and several ways to deal a unique status effect. Each of these can easily kill a player, especially those who aren't aware of how some of Elden Ring's unique status effects work, such as the health-draining destined death Black Knife Assassins have access to.

Making Every Attack Count

It may seem counterintuitive for players to slow down their own pace in order to fend off an enemy as quick and aggressive as the Black Knife Assassin. However, taking the fight second by second and pulling away from the instinct to attempt to match the boss' speed is the key to success, by waiting through the flurry of attacks for the best opportunity to retaliate. Sometimes this means delivering massive damage with FromSoftware's iconic backstabs, or simply getting another powerful attack in at a time. The result is a slow, methodic fight that counters the Black Knife Assassin's speed with patience in a war of attrition.

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elden ring black knife alecto

Patience is Key to Learning Elden Ring's Bosses

As FromSoftware has continued to push forward with the developer's iconic style of games from King's Field to Dark Souls and beyond, every new title has pushed players the master different qualities of the Souls-like genre. While this has led to Bloodborne's focus on player aggression to Sekiro's defensive and reflexive combat, the new perspective needed for success in Elden Ring might be best described as patience. That is to say that Elden Ring punishes players for greedy aggression, in order to incentivize players to take their time and get comfortable with an enemy's moveset before pushing faster reflexes.

The Black Knife Assassin's Speed Forces Patience

It is this focus on patience that dictates the ways that many bosses have been designed, with many attacks having elongated telegraphs that have to be memorized rather than reacted to. However, even the earliest Black Knife Assassin manages to push for the same patience without using delays too frequently. Instead, these bosses are sped up so intensely that they will naturally punish aggression that isn't focused on the minor openings between attacks like the jumping slam.