Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

Wow, can't believe how things are speeding to a conclusion here.

One more for the day, I thought the WWF superstar fight actually ended up being really fun, especially once I got a consistent phase 1 strat.

(obviously please ignore these if you're avoiding spoilers)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNGanyegGUE

I beat Radahn! I finally feel like i’m getting somewhere. Does anyone else feel bad having to kill the viking dudes in Nokron btw? They’re just strolling about singing and herding sheep it feels wrong somehow.

yeah, killing them and the giants the latter of whom are obviously the slave caste makes me feel bad :-(

theres a spot by moghwyns palace with tons of albinaurics just chilling out, you want to leave them alone but they drop 2k runes each, my murderous greed bums me out

I feel bad killing darn near everyone in this game. Especially now that I'm at the Haligtree, which if I understand the lore correctly, is supposed to be a safe haven for all the weirdos cast out by the Golden Order? I'm like "why am I murdering all these Misbegotten who are just trying to chill out at Scary Lothlorien"

This game is so sad :(

do they remember their countless brutal murders at your hands as they are reborn again and again?

they sure don't act like it, with all these backstabs I'm getting

I'm such a monster

Looking up at you with their big dumb eyes...

Well, I did it, it's done. Wasn't a huge fan of the final boss(es), but oh well. Immediately started up a new Prisoner character to start the level 40 invader build, and of course everything goes so much faster. Magic is fun too, it turns out.

Congrats Trayce! That's great, you're definitely on your way now.

Nokron is definitely good at making you feel like an intruder.

yeah i feel bad attacking any of the dudes who don't go after you unless you attack them first. all those poor miner guys mining smithing stones or whatever.

i'm a little stuck on a rennala, which is annoying bc it seems like she should be easy. i think i'll be able to knock her out pretty soon though. i haven't had much playing time recently.

Rennala is a little tough at first, but the learning curve on her is pretty easy. The most useful thing is in phase 2 to ignore her summons entirely because they vanish after a few seconds. Also, I think her summons are random and some of them are easier to avoid than others, so a certain amount of luck is involved.

xp the miners are a good example! They may be weird inter-galactic crystalline entities but they are mercilessly slave-driven by their prawn overseers, and don't deserve to be clubbed over the head by a presumptuous Tarnished

I respecked yesterday. My bleed/sorcery build was incredible but I started feeling like I was cheating a bit. A few rock slings was taking down even tough bosses.

So I'm either going to work on this Strength/Faith build I've got going on or maybe look to specialise in Strength and just be a tank or maybe be a dragon dude, I dunno

Btw I tried starting my new game on the PS5 version, but there was all this stutter/jitter when moving the camera around. So weird! I scrapped it and made a new file on the PS4 version (playing on PS5) and it's buttery smooth, same as the playthrough I just finished.

Also I just realized that I forgot to turn the music back on after my Malenia fight, so I missed out on the soundtrack for all the final boss fights. Ha, no wonder it felt slightly anti-climactic.

I ran a strength-focused build for a while and found myself well-protected (with my great shield) but that my damage output was so wimpy in comparison to my quality build (with which I won the game, Bloodhound Fang + Omen Cleaver), my DEX/ARC katana build I ran for a while, and my current DEX/FTH cold/buff powerstancing situation

I'm realizing that the advantage to strength builds (aside from the availability of great shields) seems to really be about taking advantage of the 2H stat boost. Two-handing a weapon adds 50% to your stat, so theoretically you can be dealing the same damage at 64 STR two-handed as you could at 99 STR.

I am interested in trying it out, before I became seduced by Elden Ring's power stance mechanic I was a resolute 2-handed no-shield player in Dark Souls games. I don't think I've ever run with the standard-issue greatsword and I'd be interested in trying it out for sure

What exactly is meant by a quality build? I haven't really got my head around that aspect yet, and I suspect it's because the Moonveil I was previously using didn't need ashes of war etc on it

And what about power stances?

Quality build usually means equal strength and dex, can use a wide variety of weapons. Usually the damage is a bit lower than a specialized strength or dex build though.

Also strength builds got some big buffs in the most recent patch.

Power stance = using two of the same kind of weapon, one in each hand. There's a special moveset for some attacks (this was a thing in Dark Souls 2, and Elden Ring is the first time it's made a return).

The music for the final boss is really lovely, would have definitely enhanced the experience.

On the other hand for some of the really bombastic themes, I kinda prefer the starkness of just hearing the sound fx.

Man, trying to explain what is "a quality build" really demonstrated to me just how deeply internalized From's whole scaling mechanic has become over the past three years since I started playing their games.

Yeah, @ dog latin, a "quality build" is, in its purest form, "40 VIG, 40 STR, 40 DEX", with some points put into END, and INT/FTH/ARC essentially ignored except for minimum requirements for certain weapons and/or spells

Quality builds are great because they are super flexible, you can try out all sorts of weapons, you can use a greatshield if you desire (or bows if you desire). They generally are not as high-damage as other builds-- at least, historically this is the case, but I found my quality build in Elden Ring to be pretty damaging!

Powerstancing is as Jordan said a DS2 mechanic that has returned. All your weapons are sorted into types, try equipping two of the same type in both your left and right hands and tapping L1 a few times. You have the capacity to attack with both weapons simultaneously.

One of my favouritest little things is that you can power stance any katana with the Wakizashi dagger! So, so cool. Not really viable though... the parry on that dagger is slow and its window is brief

ok i beat renalla lol. she was pretty easy ultimately. it has become clear to me that half the time i have problems with a boss in this it's because i'm being impatient and trying to get too many hits in at once

when I beat renalla she died and then .2 secs later a giant troll she summoned fell out of the sky and killed me, all the stuff was in the room when I came back tho but it was very shocking

I just spent a bunch of time exploring the capital city before realizing that the Caelid and Mountain areas in the northwest is probably intended to be tackled first? Getting mega xp in the capital though, it’s tempting to stay there and level up a bit.

I’m at at LVL 71 now, 31 vitality. (Been pumping they ever since my last stay update, per Jordan’s advice, and it does make things quite a bit easier to have 1000 HP instead of 500!

Haha.

Some of the endgame bosses really had me telling myself "ok, you're only allowed one attack at a time, and you can only heal instead of attacking after dodging a combo", etc. But others were about waiting for the longer, more rare openings and mashing attack as much as possible before they started up again.

Leyndell is so big and detailed, you can clear part of it and go to Mt. Gelmir whenever
I seem to remember though that Volcano Manor is kinda more difficult than anything in Leyndell proper (but easier than the sewers below)

I got turfed into Leyndell by accident quite a while ago via a damn chest trap. Threw me onto some balcony guarded by a fire golem of some sort who I just cant kill. And wont, just yet - I want to finish the Academy boss before I do anything else now.

I just wish some areas like Leyndell would be quieter/safer so you could just relax and buy things but I know thats not the Souls way.

I had a lot of trouble with the lightning knights in Leyndell, they're real dicks, but now might be the time to go back and have another look around

Funny, I found VM much easier than Leyndell for the most part. But I think I tried some of Leyndell first, noped out, and then went to the Mt. Gelmir region for a while. This game is so flexible and hilarious in its flexibility. I was watching a Tim Rogers stream where he builds a Samurai, decides he wants to make a sorcerer out of him instead, beelines for Carian Study Hall, gets the Carian Staff, then realizes that he has nowhere near the INT required to use it.

Also I came back to Leyndell after doing all of the Mountaintops of the Giants to do the sewers and found them pretty tough!

I got turfed into Leyndell by accident quite a while ago via a damn chest trap. Threw me onto some balcony guarded by a fire golem of some sort who I just cant kill. And wont, just yet - I want to finish the Academy boss before I do anything else now.

― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Tuesday, April 26, 2022 12:51 AM (fourteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ah yeah, that's one of these little "gotcha" life lessons they throw at you. I can't remember where the chest trap was but I got the same thing

thanks for explaining Jordan and fgti!

I've just started on my journey towards a full re-spec as a "Blasphemous Beastmaster" (see Fextralife's Builds guides) whcih is a Strength / Faith build using the sword you get from Rykard. The sword deals insane damage, but I need to upgrade my weapons and especially my Clawmark Seal because my Incantations are weak AF. Tracking down those Smtihing Stones (and Deathroots) is an adventure in itself. But it's annoying when you need one specific stone and have no idea where to find it. I guess my next job is to hunt some Bell Bearing Hunters

I only got one of those in my playthrough. I did kill a bunch of Night's Cavalry, because the bridges where they appear were pretty obvious. But if I were a good explorer I guess I would have done a lot more 'pass time until nightfall' in different areas. Especially around...shacks?

I had a panic on completing Sellen's quest. Not sure exactly what happens to Renalla for a brief moment and then what happens after, but I'd just respecked to a slightly schonky build and worried I wouldn't be able to change again

I think you just helped me figure out how to finish Sellen's quest!

FWIW I've done Mt Gelmir and Volcano Manor but Leyndell still seems daunting to me.

What I'm finding is that much as I've been meticulously slow at playing this game, wishing to discover as much about an area or a dungeon as possible before forging ahead with the story; there's still so much stuff I seem to skip past.

I'm sure there are bit sof Limgrave I still haven't found yet (not found that Frenzied Flame dungeon people talk about). As for Liurnia, it has so many insurmountable cliffs and plateaus that I'm still finding new parts almost every day. It took me AGES to find the Mausoleum Compound there even though I knew it existed because someone told me. Also hadn't seen that Frenzied Flame Tower that makes you go insane when you look at it until the other day.

As for Altus Plateau, it's such a wide open space, there's so much to explore. I think experimenting with builds really helps to make me as a player go around exploring places I might otherwise have rushed through. I'm seeking out Deathroot, seeking out stones, seeking out weapons and talismans despite feeling trepidatious about things like catacombs and heroes' graves.

xp sorry for spoilers! I had to look up a guide for her. Some of the places and people you have to talk to are really impossibly not obvious, I don't know how a mortal would know to find them

So many of the NPC quests are... not exactly broken, but it's so easy to miss an important bit of dialogue if you don't speak to the right person at the right time. Doing Ranni's quest had me scratching my head so many times, and then I go back and watch a video of the full quest and there's a bit where if you talk to a specific NPC between carrying out a certain task, they fill you in on the whole backstory and what is actually going on. It makes so much more sense, but if you don't talk to them you'll just end up continuing the quest without knowledge of what you're doing

I didn't do her quest either, which I justified as role-play appropriate because it seemed like "wizard stuff".

When it comes to upgrading weapons, I found that it's good to prioritize "finding the bell bearings" for normal weapons, and planning out your usage of found somber stones for the special weapons.

The normal smithing stone bell bearings are reasonably easy to acquire... once completing the boss(es) at Leyndell, you can access the third in the series pretty quickly, and you can turn anything into a +18 (provided you have the runes to do so)

The somber bell bearings are more of a challenge to find, they're held by tough enemies and the last few are really really late game

I played a little last night and I'm trying out big two-handed weapons with a DEX build. A Lightning Zweihander? why not

i have access to the altus plateau/leyndell now but i haven't really spent much time in caelid at all, any thoughts on which i should prioritize? probably the latter, i assume, to build up my level and gear?

If you can deal with the dogs and birds, clear Caelid first, at the very least the ruins and caves and stuff

But make sure you only mess with southern Caelid, or at least avoid the Dragonbarrow region to the north (which is late game difficulty for some reason).

Altus and Mt. Gelmir are probably about the same as southern Caelid in terms of level, I think I did all of Caelid first and then was slightly overpowered for Mt. Gelmir.

Gelmir is... strange. Maybe my least favourite part of the game, although I remember enjoying the Shaded Castle. I'm actually just played through a bit of it now. It's kinda unhinged. The ladders are endless.

Oh gor Dragonbarrow is horrific, there's dragons on every block! I'll only ever go thru that area at full tilt on my horse.

Cept for the fields up at Bestial Sanctum, cos I take those little fuckers out to farm runes.

I haven't explored a whole lot of Caelid. The whole atmos is quite intimidating.

Managed to get to Leyndell sewers last night and spent AGES in there and YOU DIED so many times. Found a lot of things I didn't expect to find too! I'm a bit concerned about progressing too far down there and locking myself out of specific endings (which I've heard can happen).

My Faith/Strength build is really working at the moment although I miss my ranged glintstone sorceries which were really snappy and fast. The ranged Incantation I'm using seems to make my character step forward slightly each time I cast it which makes me paranoid I'll fall off a ledge (easy to do in those sewers).