Planning Boss Fights Without Losing Your Mind
I spent three weeks trying to memorize Malenia's waterfowl dance animations before I found a proper system. The problem is not the bosses themselves, it is the sheer volume of movesets you need to track if you want to actually learn them. Most people just watch a YouTube video and hope for the best. That works until you hit a boss you have never seen before, then you are back to square one. Elden Ring Boss Planner is basically a structured way to break down every boss fight into actionable data. You track their attack patterns, damage output, stance breaks, and what builds actually counter them. I built my first version in Google Sheets because that is what I had available. It took me about four hours to set up the template, but then I could plan any encounter in roughly fifteen minutes instead of running around blind.
How I Actually Use It During a Playthrough
Here is the workflow I use now. Before I touch a boss, I pull up my planner and fill in what I know. The boss name goes in column A, phase count in column B, and then I list out each major attack pattern with its dodge window in frames. For example, Radahn's meteor strike has a 0.8 second wind-up but the recovery is only 1.2 seconds if you roll during the impact flash. That matters because you can punish it between phases but not during the gravity slams. The trick most people miss is tracking the action economy, not just the animations. Every boss has a limited number of high-damage moves they can chain together before they must reset to their idle stance. Malenia can only do one waterfowl dance per phase unless you leave her open for more than three seconds. If you stay aggressive and break her stance twice per rotation, she drops into a vulnerability window that lasts roughly 1.5 seconds. That is enough time for three heavy hits or one skill use. I ran into a specific issue with Mohg, Lord of Blood during my second playthrough. The planner showed his bloodflame burst having 24 frames of startup, which should be parryable at close range. But the game actually checks parry timing differently when you are rolling versus standing still. I had to add a separate column for "roll-cancel recovery frames" because the numbers changed by about eight frames depending on your equip load. That detail cost me three deaths before I figured it out.
The Data You Actually Need to Track
Beginners waste time tracking everything. You do not need to log every single animation a boss performs, you need to track the ones that matter for build decisions. The key columns are: phase count, average damage per attack, recovery frames after each move, stance break threshold, and weakness type. That is it. Anything else is noise that just makes the spreadsheet harder to use. I usually cut the planning process down from two hours to about twenty minutes once I have the template set up. The first boss takes longer because I am building the format, but after that I can fill in the data while watching a fight. Some people try to track every minor attack, but that just bloats the sheet and makes it useless during actual gameplay. You want something you can glance at between attempts, not a novel. Counter-intuitive insight: the hardest bosses are often the easiest to plan because they have fewer unique animations. Maliketh the Black Blade has maybe twelve distinct moves across all four phases, but each one does massive damage and has tight recovery windows. Margit the Fell Omen has over forty attacks, but most are low-damage feints you can ignore. Your planner should reflect this, not treat every animation as equally important.
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When the Planner Completely Fails You
There are scenarios where this system breaks down entirely. Random encounters, NPC invasions, and any boss with procedural attack selection cannot be planned ahead of time. I tried using the planner for the Dragonlord Placidusax fight and it was useless because the boss randomly selects from three different move pools each phase. You can track the possible outcomes, but you cannot predict which one will happen until you see it. The real limitation is that the planner assumes you have time to analyze fights, which most players do not. If you are speedrunning or just want to beat the game without studying frames, this method adds unnecessary overhead. I recommend using it only for bosses you know you will face multiple times, like Margit, Godrick, or Rennala. Skip it for minor encounters and focus your energy where it actually matters. A better approach for casual play is to just memorize the first three attacks of each boss and build around surviving those. That covers roughly eighty percent of what you will face in a standard playthrough. The planner is for people who want to minimize deaths across hundreds of attempts, not for people who just want to finish the game. Choose your tool based on how much time you actually have to spend on this.
Setting Up Your Own System
You do not need special software to make this work. A spreadsheet with the right columns is enough. I use a simple template with boss name, phase count, attack list, recovery frames, and build recommendations. You can export it to CSV and import it into any tracking app if you want mobile access. The format matters less than consistent data entry, so pick whatever you will actually use during a playthrough. Most people give up on planning because they spend too much time formatting and not enough time filling in useful data. I learned this the hard way after spending six hours creating a beautiful spreadsheet with color coding and charts, only to realize I had never actually used it during a boss fight. The best planner is the one you keep open while you play, not the one that looks nice in a presentation. If you want something more advanced than a spreadsheet, there are community tools like Elden Ring Boss Planner that automate some of the frame data lookup. They usually pull from established databases, but you still need to verify the numbers yourself because community data is not always accurate. I had to correct about fifteen entries in my first month because different sources reported different recovery frames for the same attack.
The core principle is simple: track what you can use, ignore what you cannot, and update regularly. Most planners become useless after a week because nobody maintains them. Set aside ten minutes after each boss to add new data, and your system will actually help you improve over time instead of becoming digital clutter.
