What is Black Knife Tiche Weak Against?

Black Knife Tiche, despite being one of the most formidable Spirit Summons in Elden Ring, is not invincible. While she excels at dealing significant damage and evading attacks, Tiche’s primary weakness lies in her relatively low poise and vulnerability to certain forms of crowd control. Unlike some summons that possess hyper-armor or inherent resistance to being staggered, Tiche can be interrupted by powerful attacks, leaving her open to follow-up damage. Specifically, effects that can launch or knock her down, such as certain weapon skills and heavy attacks from larger enemies, can significantly disrupt her offense and make her vulnerable. Additionally, while her cursed blade damage is potent, she has no specific resistances to any damage type, and like most summons she takes increased damage from attacks that do additional damage vs spirits or summoned characters.

Understanding Tiche’s Strengths and Limitations

Before delving deeper into her weaknesses, it’s essential to understand what makes Tiche such a powerful ally. She is known for:

• High Mobility and Agility: Tiche is incredibly nimble and adept at dodging attacks, making her difficult to hit, especially for slow, telegraphed attacks.
• High Damage Output: Her cursed blade attacks deal significant damage over time, often offsetting boss healing and contributing significantly to DPS.
• Aggressive AI: Unlike many summons that might play more defensively, Tiche is aggressive and constantly engages the enemy, applying consistent pressure.

However, it’s these very strengths that also highlight her weaknesses. Her focus on aggression means she can be predictable if the enemy has abilities that can easily disrupt her, and her lightweight style means that large impacts will send her flying. Her reliance on damage over time can also be negated by healing abilities from the bosses she faces, and although her cursed blade deals a ton of damage if it lands, it is not unavoidable.

Exploiting Tiche’s Vulnerabilities

Given her susceptibility to stagger and launch attacks, here’s how players can exploit Tiche’s weaknesses:

• Launch Attacks: Weapons and skills that can launch enemies into the air or knock them prone will drastically reduce Tiche’s effectiveness. Enemies that possess movesets that constantly knock down are a significant threat to Tiche, interrupting her attacks and leaving her open.
• Staggering Attacks: Heavy, poise-breaking attacks are also effective at disrupting Tiche. These attacks will briefly stun her, preventing her from attacking or dodging effectively, thus minimizing her overall combat effectiveness.
• Area-of-Effect (AoE) Attacks: While Tiche can dodge single-target attacks fairly well, she is susceptible to AoE attacks. If she is caught in a large AOE, she can take a lot of damage in a small time frame and can die before she can heal.
• Status Effects: While Tiche’s cursed blade deals damage over time, she is just as susceptible to status effects such as Poison, Rot, and Bleed as other enemies. These effects can stack to significantly reduce her survivability, especially if she is also being actively attacked.
• Focus Fire: Though she’s highly mobile, Tiche is vulnerable to being singled out when fighting a group or a boss. Enemies that can rapidly switch targets and focus their attacks on Tiche can overwhelm her defenses.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Black Knife Tiche

Here are 15 frequently asked questions about Black Knife Tiche, providing even more insights into her abilities and limitations:

1. Is Black Knife Tiche good against every boss?

No. While Tiche is incredibly powerful against many bosses, she struggles against those with frequent launching or stagger attacks. Bosses that frequently use AOE attacks are also a bad matchup for her.

2. Can Tiche heal herself?

No. Like most spirit summons, Tiche cannot directly heal herself. She relies on her high mobility to avoid damage and her damage output to offset potential health loss. She can however gain health back by damaging enemies, but this is limited and not reliable.

3. Does Tiche’s damage scale with the player’s stats?

No. Spirit Summons generally have fixed stats and damage output, which are not directly influenced by the player’s stats. However, upgrading Tiche with Ghost Glovewort will significantly increase her overall stats and damage.

4. Is Tiche better than Mimic Tear?

It depends on the situation and player preference. Tiche is a more aggressive summon, better at rushing down single targets and softening them up with consistent damage output. The Mimic Tear is a perfect replica of your player build, and therefore might out perform Tiche in builds that are exceptionally strong and optimized.

5. Where do you get Black Knife Tiche?

You obtain Black Knife Tiche by completing the Ranni the Witch questline and reaching the top of the Deep Ainsel Well.

6. Can Tiche be revived if she dies?

Yes, she can be resummoned as long as you still have FP (Focus Points). However, each death will require another summoning, using another FP charge.

7. Is Tiche useful in multiplayer co-op?

Absolutely. Tiche provides valuable additional damage and can help distract enemies in co-op situations, making her a great choice for a summon. This can help take off some of the pressure that might be on a summoner or cooperator.

8. How does Tiche’s Cursed Blade damage work?

Tiche’s Cursed Blade deals a percentage of health as damage over time, which means it’s effective against enemies with high health pools. This damage also offsets some healing from the enemies, making her very effective at boss fights.

9. Is Tiche good against Malenia, Blade of Miquella?

Yes, Tiche is one of the best summons against Malenia. Her dodging allows her to avoid a lot of the damage and health drain from Malenia, and her cursed blade deals consistent damage that can overwhelm her health regeneration.

10. Can enemies resist Tiche’s damage?

While Tiche deals a mixture of physical and holy damage, most enemies have no real resistance to the specific type of damage that she does, her biggest strength lies in the curse that she applies that ticks off health percentage. The curse can not be resisted as well.

11. Is Tiche a good distraction for bosses?

Yes, Tiche is an excellent distraction. Her aggressive AI and constant engagement draw enemy aggro, giving players an opportunity to heal or reposition and get good hits in while the boss is distracted.

12. Can Tiche’s summon cost be reduced?

No. The cost of summoning Tiche is fixed, and it cannot be reduced by talisman or gear.

13. Does Tiche scale with her spirit ashes upgrade level?

Yes. Upgrading Tiche with Ghost Glovewort significantly improves her survivability, damage, and overall effectiveness. Maxing out her level is often essential to getting the best performance out of her.

14. How is Tiche’s AI?

Tiche’s AI is generally regarded as very good. She actively dodges attacks and constantly seeks to engage enemies, making her both reliable and effective in a variety of combat situations.

15. Is it worth completing the Ranni questline just for Tiche?

For many players, yes. While the Ranni questline can be long and challenging, Tiche is often seen as a highly valuable reward, making it worth the effort.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while Black Knife Tiche is an exceptional spirit summon renowned for her agility, aggression, and damage output, she is not without weaknesses. Her vulnerability to stagger and launch attacks, AoE damage, and status effects can be exploited by certain enemies and bosses. Understanding these limitations is crucial for maximizing her effectiveness and overcoming challenges in Elden Ring. By using her correctly and understanding these weaknesses, you can fully harness her power as one of the best summons in the game.