Why I Started Keeping a Boss Workbook
I got tired of dying to Margit again and not remembering what build I used last time. My spreadsheets grew from a single sheet into something that took up most of my drive. Other people asked for copies. So I made one that was actually useful. The Top 10 Elden Ring Boss Workbook is exactly what it sounds like — a structured reference document for the hardest and most important bosses in the game. It tracks your attempted strategies, effective builds, damage patterns, and phase transitions. Not a wiki entry. A personal battle log. I built mine in Google Sheets because it syncs across devices. You can make it in whatever you want. The format matters more than the platform.
Top 10 Elden Ring Boss Workbook Download
There is no official downloadable version of this. I am not hosting a file. What I will do is lay out the structure so you can build your own in under ten minutes. That way you are not relying on someone else maintaining it for you. Set up columns for Boss Name, Area, Difficulty Rating (1-5), Recommended Level, Best Build Used, Key Damage Phase, Fatal Move, Successful Strategy, and Date Completed. That is the core. Everything else is optional. Difficulty Rating is subjective. Put yourself in the room where you need honesty. If you beat a boss on your first try with a build you barely enjoyed, that is not a difficulty of 1. That is a difficulty of 2. The boss did its job. You got lucky with the right tool at the right time.
I learned this after putting Radahn at a 2 and then dying to him twenty times on a second character. The first clear was not skill. It was a pre-built weapon that had enough reach to safe-spam before he got close. Damage Phase is where most people mess up. They write "he goes blue" or "big sword starts spinning." Be specific. Write "third health bar — aerial lance strike every six seconds, dodge left or block." Specific notes save you more than vague impressions. Fatal Move gets its own column because the ones that kill you repeatedly are always the same three attacks. Identify them. Write them down. Your future self will thank you when you come back to a boss six months later.
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How I Actually Use It
Before I sit down to fight a boss, I open the workbook and scan my previous attempts. This takes forty-five seconds and usually tells me exactly what went wrong last time. Sometimes it tells me the boss does something I did not notice before because I was too busy dying. For example, with Maliketh the Black Blade, I had no entry initially. I died roughly thirty times and still had nothing written down. Eventually I filled the sheet after finishing him and realized I had been making the same mistake over and over — committing to rolls during his second phase when I should have been backing off and using ranged attacks. The workbook entry captured that insight. I used it on a subsequent playthrough and saved myself two hours of unnecessary attempts.
Common Mistakes People Make
Most people turn their workbook into a victory log. They fill it out only after winning. That defeats the purpose. The real value is in the failed attempts. The bosses that beat you are the ones worth documenting more thoroughly. Another mistake is not updating your entries. I once had a sheet with fifty bosses and half of them had blank strategy columns because I only recorded the ones I cleared quickly. Those blank entries were usually the bosses I struggled with the most, which is exactly where the notes would matter. A third mistake is using the workbook as a strategy guide instead of a personal record. The internet already has all the strategies. What you need is a record of what worked for you, specifically, with your specific build and playstyle. Two people can fight the same boss with completely different results based on loadout and habit. Your workbook should reflect that.
What This Workbook Cannot Do
It cannot replace practice. Writing that Mohgwah phase two involves standing to the right and waiting for his blood flame incantation to finish before rolling in does not make you capable of executing that. You still have to do it. The workbook just reminds you what to aim for. It also does not scale well if you play co-op. Your solo strategy might fail in co-op because another player is aggroing the boss differently. I stopped tracking co-op clears separately and just noted in the remarks column when the fight changed due to a second player. That was easier to manage than maintaining two separate sheets. If you find yourself spending more time maintaining the workbook than actually playing, step back. Simplify the columns. Remove anything you have not used in three bosses. The format should serve you, not the other way around.
My Personal Edge Case
Dragonlord Placidusax broke my system. The boss has multiple phases that do not follow a traditional health bar progression. The second phase triggers at a specific time and with specific environmental changes that most generic column structures do not account for. I tried forcing it into my standard format and ended up with a mess of crossed-out entries and confused notes. The workaround was adding a sub-section within the boss entry called Phase Breakdown where I documented each transition separately rather than trying to capture everything in a single row. It added about five extra minutes to logging that fight but made the information actually readable when I needed it later. If you encounter a boss with unusual phase mechanics, do not fight the format. Adjust the format. A small structural change saves more time than trying to cram irregular data into a rigid template.
Advanced Tracking
Once you have completed fifteen or so bosses, you will start seeing patterns across entries. Certain weapons appear repeatedly in your successful builds. Certain damage types show up in fatal move columns more often than you might expect. This is where the workbook becomes genuinely valuable. Look at which weapons you used successfully against multiple difficult bosses. Cross-reference with which moves killed you most often. You will start to see what your build weaknesses are without needing to mentally track everything yourself. I found through this that I was consistently underestimating the importance of poise buildup against heavy-armored bosses. Every entry showed the same problem — I was rolling through attacks that would have interrupted me if I had just stood my ground and traded hits. After noticing the pattern, I adjusted my loadout and the subsequent entries reflected a much lower death count per boss.
Should You Use One
If you play Elden Ring casually and rarely return to the same boss, you probably do not need this. The knowledge stays fresh enough that a notebook or even just memory serves fine. If you spend significant time on boss fights, revisit them across multiple playthroughs, or run into the same wall repeatedly, the workbook will save you hours over time. The investment is roughly twenty minutes to set up the initial structure plus a few minutes per boss after each attempt. The alternative is spending that time searching the internet for strategies you have already read and forgotten. A personal workbook is faster than any external resource because it contains only information that applied to your actual experience with the game.
