Perfectly doable, although I'd recommend to combine the two. Elder has an attack by which he temporarily summons thorns from the ground to attack you when nearby. These are the most dangerous for full-melee approach. Thus, you can time your dodges/blocks against his stomps attacking in between, but if you keep doing so in presense of the thorns, you can easily get hit by either and take a lot of damage.

Therefor you can switch between using the bow from cover and charging for melee attacks every time the thorns are summoned into your current position. This is the fastest way to defeat the Elder.

Originally posted by DivineEvil:

Perfectly doable, although I'd recommend to combine the two. Elder has an attack by which he temporarily summons thorns from the ground to attack you when nearby. These are the most dangerous for full-melee approach. Thus, you can time your dodges/blocks against his stomps attacking in between, but if you keep doing so in presense of the thorns, you can easily get hit by either and take a lot of damage.

Wait wait wait.. everytime I fight against the elder.. and I do it often because I like to hang the trophies in my bases... the tendril aoe attack never hits you when you are in melee range since the aoe avoids the elder. Sure.. getting hit is nothing to laugh at but I always believed they could never hit you if you hug him.

I have only ever fought the elder standing at his feet with a bronze buckler and bronze mace. you can parry him, and the mace does big damage. The Axe might actually be better since the Elder is a tree lol

yes it's possible. LIttle risky but amply doable with upgraded bronze shield and timing.

Originally posted by Aztara:

Trying to prepare for the second boss.

Is it possible to take down the second boss with a good melee weapon shield and armor or do I have to kill the second boss with a good bow and arrows?

Seconding the upgraded big shield route, but you may still want to back up during the stomps to avoid getting the full brunt of the damage.

I haven't tried without the shield, though would be curious with lighter armor, enough stamina, and the first boss stamina sprint buff.

some arrows and troll armor make this a minimal risk 10 min adventure. getting a decent tower or parry shield at that stage is kinda redundant since you unlock iron right after it anyway

Sure. It's kinda easy if you figure the range of his stomp out. He wont do his ranged attack if you are near him. Only his weird kinda useless tendril aoe and a stomp attack.. which is easy to parry imho but eh dunno if it's a working parry with only black forest tier stuff.

Just go ahead and try it. Even if you die.. shouldnt be that much of a problem running in and out of aggro range.