For the last couple boss AIs I've analyzed, I've talked about the ways they limit their combos. Margit counts how many of each attack he does, Black Knife Assassin has a bunch of long cooldowns, and Grave Warden Duelist uses a mix of both. But if you take a look at Erdtree Burial Watchdog's AI chart, you might notice something unusual:
That's right: there aren't any limits on its combos. Uniquely among all the bosses I've analyzed so far, Erdtree Burial Watchdog can combo indefinitely, bouncing from attack to attack through its central combo state over and over and over again. It can stop based on the particulars of your positioning and its random rolls, but it's not guaranteed to, ever.
How does it get away with this? How does a player ever compete? If you've played Elden Ring, you'll probably already have an idea of the answer: almost every one of its animations is achingly slow, with a long windup and a long recovery time. Check out this downards clockwise slash:
With a windup of that length, it's not too hard to get an attack in edgewise. What's more, most of its moves have pretty limited tracking so you can pretty easily sneak around to its side and avoid them entirely while getting in another hit or two. Because these pups are inherently clunky and awkward, they can afford to chain attacks indefinitely without worrying about locking the player out of the battle completely.