How I Actually Use a Boss Planner in Elden Ring
Boss planning in Elden Ring isn't about following a wiki build list. It's about accounting for things that aren't written down anywhere, like stamina management on a 40-strike weapon when you're already at half health against Malenia, or remembering that your fire resistance drop matters more than raw DPS when facing Godrick because you keep dying to the fire breath combo instead of the physical hits. A planner forces you to write these things down before you log in and start failing repeatedly. I first saw someone use a simple spreadsheet to track boss strategies about two years into my playthrough. It was ugly, full of yellow highlighting, and it saved me from quitting Malenia entirely. Here's what that looks like in practice. First, you pick a tool. Google Sheets works fine. Notion works too if you want a visual layout. I've also seen people just use a text file on their phone because that's faster when you're frantically looking something up between attempts. The tool doesn't matter. The process does.
Start by listing the bosses you want to tackle. Not in order of game progression. Order them by difficulty relative to your current build. This is where most people go wrong. They plan Malenia before they've even learned what they do with their current weapon. A proper Planner For Elden Ring Boss Best organizes by weapon compatibility first, then by area, then by personal confidence level. For each boss, I fill out a consistent set of fields. The ones that actually matter are: Weapon and damage type. Not what the wiki says is best. What works for your build and what this boss is weak to. Margit resists physical but not holy. Radahn takes more bleed. This is basic stuff, but writing it down catches the stupid mistakes you make at 2 AM.
Stamina management notes. How many strikes can you fit in before needing to roll? What attack combos drain your stamina? Malenia's waterfowl drive is basically a stamina black hole. If you're using a greatsword, that's three heavy attacks max before you're standing there rolling aimlessly. I wrote this down after dying fourteen times straight and realizing the pattern. Summon availability. Which spirits or NPC summons work against this boss? Some bosses are summons-proof or have massive poise. Malenia one-shot Mimic Tear on her first stance break. This is information that took me six hours and three deaths to learn, so I wrote it down immediately after. Phase transitions. What changes between phases? New moves? Different resistances? Godrick's second phase adds fire breath to his existing kit, which means your fire-resistant armor matters way more than the +50 physical defense on your other options. I learned this the hard way after walking into a fire breath combo in full high-physical-res gear.
Get the Full Details
Personal notes on what works. This is the section nobody talks about. Your own trial-and-error observations. Like how you can dodge the second hit of Radahn's jump-in before he even jumps, or how the best spot to stand during Margit's hammer combo is slightly to the left instead of the right. These details come from experience and they're the only reason you stop dying to the same move twelve times in a row.
What Most People Miss When Planning Bosses
The counter-intuitive part is that your build matters less than your movement patterns. I've beaten bosses with garbage weapons by learning the attack timing precisely. I've failed at bosses with perfect builds because I rushed in. A good planner tracks both your equipment and your positioning strategy, not just numbers. Another thing beginners overlook: status effect buildup thresholds. Burning isn't just fire damage. It's a meter that fills up. If your weapon has low burn buildup, you'll never set Godrick on fire no matter how many hits you land. This is why bleed weapons destroy Radahn while fire weapons do almost nothing. Writing down status effect data next to each boss prevents you from bringing the wrong tool for the job. The biggest limitation of any boss planner is that it can't account for your actual skill level. I've seen people copy exact loadouts from guides and still fail because the guide writer has twenty years of action game experience and the copycat doesn't. The planner is a reference, not a guarantee. It cuts down preparation time from probably four to five hours per boss to maybe twenty minutes, but the actual execution is still entirely up to you.
If you're completely new to Elden Ring and haven't even figured out what your weapon does yet, start with a simpler approach. Just a notebook where you write the boss name and one thing that killed you last time. That's still better than nothing, and it's faster to maintain while you're still learning the fundamentals.
