Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

You can also bait a monster chicken in the distance into running off a cliff there, netting you something like 20K runes a pop.

Just started NG+. It's amazing how much gobbledegook I now understand. I feel like I've come back from a foreign language course

I fucking hate how the answer to every good farming spot and/or weapon is "oh you have to complete this end-game vast and complex area first". Whats the point of only having all the good shit once you're basically done?

God help me I'm thinking of buying both volumes of the strategy guide. Never done anything like that as an adult but… I've already spent 150 hours of my life in this world, so it might be nice to have a physical memento of the good times/you died times.

I know... I want them too. Are they really £40 each though?

Albinauric Farm is the one. Equip a golden scarab and you're good. You can get there early/mid game if you know what to do (although it's not exactly obvious what you're meant to do)

xp yeah, fraid so. fwiw the comparable From guides seem to end up going for a lot more 2nd-hand, but I'm not really thinking of it as an investment, just a nice thing to have.

I'd like to know more about what's in them. Would I garner more from them, or are they just reiterating what's on Fextralife? I'd love it if they were a bit more lore based than just game guides

full list of Elden Ring cheat codes or I'm not interested

Up, Down, Left, Right, circle, triangle, square, cross: completes Ranni's questline

I fucking hate how the answer to every good farming spot and/or weapon is "oh you have to complete this end-game vast and complex area first". Whats the point of only having all the good shit once you're basically done?

I totally agree. The whole leveling system, while a huge part of these games, makes experimenting with builds and weapons and stuff pretty fraught. If you find, I dunno, a sword that requires 50 strength and 45 magic to wield, there's no way to even try it out without investing all that time into stats you may not even want or need. Though the fact that so many great farming spots come late (at least via regular game progression) may coincidentally coincides with the slight uptick in difficulty (not that I found the end game enemies *that* much harder than earlier enemies, but when I had not much game left I was definitely more inclined to still farm a bit just to try out a few fresh approaches; like I mentioned, I wish I had gotten rotten breath earlier in the game, it's as OP if not more than even the nerfed Mimic or Horefrost Stomp).

There's a really easy early (like, super early) farming spot involving one of those giant balls that tries to kill you in Caelid. You can hoof it there fast to a nearby grace, avoiding all the bullshit/dogs/birds/dragons, then repeatedly get it to spawn and roll off a cliff for I want to say 2000 runes. That's nothing later, but early on that's a great fast way to level up enough to wield a couple of good weapons you can get early whose stats seems irritatingly out of reach.

Speaking of mimics, did anyone else play this with a slight sense of dread every time they opened a chest?

I dunno. Felt there were reasonable farms all the way through:

- Stonetroll at Stormgate who you can double-back and shoot with an arrow from a vantage point
- Stonetroll field in Limgrave near (I think) Artist's Shack
- Vulgar Militia field in Caelid
- Bird farm
- Albinauric farm

You'll come across these as you progress and level-up, and they'll reap more runes as they go along

i was pretty annoyed when i summoned another player for the first time to help me with the draconic tree sentinel, only to find that doing so prevented either of us from using torrent, which is an essential part of that battle. i did finally end up beating it myself a few tries later though, i guess i did just need to level up a bit more.

going back and reading through my posts on this thread has made me realize that since i am not great at the finesse/timing aspects of combat in this game, my most successful approach has been to make sure i'm slightly overpowered for each boss. like if level 50 is the standard to fight a certain dude, i'm better off waiting until i'm at level 60.

I felt the opposite re: levelling. Fully exploring an area before attempting the hardboss would generally leave me feeling overlevelled with the rune payout. I think I farmed outside the Beast Priest for about five levels on my first playthrough but that was the only incident

Regarding respecs, or trying things out, it had for me the same appeal as perusing baseball stats. I found myself equipping four of my favourite weapons and tweaking my stats with Rennala and eyeballing the damage output— it’s administrative pleasure, but pleasure nonetheless

It’s such a far cry from DS1 (or 3) where you were seriously limited by your decisions and options. You couldn’t respec at all in DS1! those resistance points you wasted are a shame you have to live with

What has amazed me even now with Elden Ring is the realization that pretty much every Ash Of War is useful to a degree, once you understand them. I’m playing strength focus right now (mostly duels and invasions around level 80) and it’s so so fun to be quick swapping to different weapons as is context appropriate

Last night I fought the balcony gargoyle before Shade Godwyn with a halberd and flaming strike and felt for the first time like it was a beautiful dance instead of a boxing match

Mm that was reductive toward boxing. Replace “boxing” with “shoving match”

Unless I misunderstood, to respec you need a larval tear, right? And those are rare. I just googled and apparently there are only 18 of them in the game (don't know if they ever drop), so that right there seems to *discourage* respecing, doesn't it? Why not just make them easier to come by? Likewise, the Ashes of War, there are so many, which is cool, yet to level them all up to try them out would take so much time/runes, right? Or items to +10/+25 your weapons; you are outright severely limited in how many weapons you can max short of playing the game over and over again. Rune arcs, on the other hand, are practically infinite, right? And yet I don't think I used them at all on my playthrough.

I keep thinking that I never farmed, which is mostly true, although I did do invasions as I went and that definitely can rack up some runes. I ended the game at 150.

Being higher level (ie being able to do more damage and also take more hits) just means you spend less time in a boss battle, and can make more mistakes. If you don't do much damage and can die in 1-2 hits, then you really need to know all the boss's moves and how to avoid them. And there's nothing wrong with needing a high mistake threshold! I love that the game accommodates different ways to play (ie low level challenge runs and blasting the boss with spells/spirits/summons).

I fucking hate how the answer to every good farming spot and/or weapon is "oh you have to complete this end-game vast and complex area first". Whats the point of only having all the good shit once you're basically done?

I think all the weapons are actually good! But the really flashy ones and boss weapons are endgame, yeah. Maybe to encourage you to go into new game plus and wreck shop?

Btw it's funny to do invasions and encounter weapon skills you've never seen before, but know how to dodge because they're all boss attacks. Miniature little Malikeths, Radagons, and Elden Beasts running around.

18 respecs is a lot! And if you really want to, you can back up a save and re-download it later.

I do agree about weapon upgrades, it would be so nice if you could downgrade your weapons and get the materials back. They made the Ashes of War so easy to swap around (those don't get levelled up btw), why not everything else.

i need 30 respecs

xpost Whoops, I was thinking of Spirit Ashes.

Between 18 respec opportunities and the very real fact that you can back-up your game and revert after trying out some stuff, I think I have zero complaints about this aspect

I don't know how to backup and revert my game, and tbh, that's more work than I'm willing to do, lol.

but wait...how many times have you respec'd your character?

i haven't reached the endgame level spike bullshit yet but i've been super overleveled since limgrave and i've never intentionally leveled up. combination of doing everything humanly possible in the areas i've been and making use of my golden runes whenever i need to. i would definitely appreciate better early game farming spots if smithing-stone miner's bell bearing 2 and 3 came up earlier in the game though. i've avoided messing around with my build because i don't want to waste smithing stones on weapons i may not like.

by "intentionally leveled up" i mean grinded for levels

but wait...how many times have you respec'd your character?

Twice? Three times max? But I might have done it more were it not limited. I have no idea how many larval tears I even had, but I know it wasn't 18.

yeah, i only have a handful. zero respecs. "i don't get no respec", etc etc

Apparently I respecced while drunk the other night. Honestly slightly surprised when I went in the next day & found myself wearing a silver tear mask with a lot of points dumped into arcane.

lol. Maybe your mimic did it while you were drunk?

tbf he's a lot better at fighting than me.
If that's his decision, I'll go with it.

Me, absolutely twisted, respeccing so I can farm a couple of bandit’s curved swords

Me waking up the next day with hundreds of human bone shards and zero bandit’s curved swords

Once again, I feel like this game has taken my breath away. Super nerdy post incoming.

This past week I've been tooling around with my Level 80 strength build, enjoying some duels and invasions. Considering that it feels as if this game is highly, highly developed, in its environments and its lore and its combat, I guess it kinda felt like the arsenal was a strange blind spot. It felt to me as if there were so many weapons that were less-useful, kinda also-rans, and I'm starting to realize that the opposite is true.

When I first started playing, I gravitated more toward the Somber Stone package-deal weapons... the Bloodhound's Fang is so resolutely powerful that I didn't feel as if I needed much else. But wait: you can power stance with another curved great sword. You can slap an Ash Of War on that other great sword and enjoy some variety.

These large swords hit hard and are powerful. But wait: smaller swords get off more hits quicker, so you can play with proc builds. Play for bleed, play for frostbite, play whatever.

The Ashes Of War seemed pitiful in comparison to the Somber Stone skills, at first, but wait: most of them just require some understanding of their mechanics, at least half of them are as powerful as the Somber skills with a few minutes of practice.

So half the Ashes Of War are essentially useless. But wait: the other half of them are actually just as powerful. I was amazed to realize that the most simple set-up, a Claymore with Storm Stomp, was powerful enough to challenge even the most complex of builds.

The lack of pause function makes changing weapons annoying. But wait: you can do it mid-combat if you're fast enough, swap from one weapon to another if you need range, or another if you need AoE, or another if your opponent has a shield that you need to deal with.

It's received knowledge from Dark Souls that split-damage weapons (across two or three stats) are less useful. But wait: once you pass level 150, split-damage is the way to go. Once three of your stats can get stratospheric, suddenly all these seemingly-mediocre weapons start to really shine.

There are many weapons that you have to fastidiously farm if you want access to them. But wait: these weapons appear unassuming, but are amazing. The Iron Greatsword has unbelievable damage for mid-level Strength builds. The Beastman Cleaver has very high poise break. The Bandit Curved Swords hit harder than their other quick slash cousins. Even the Vulgar Militia Shotel is suddenly a wonderful tool if you're looking for a bleed-y halberd.

There are many weapons that seem like wimpy counterparts to other, stronger weapons; the short spear, the Cleanrot knight sword. But wait: you can happily equip four (or more) of them at once because of their light weight, have different Ashes Of War on each, and be able to be more flexible and capable of keeping an opposing duelist off balance.

This morning I equipped a Cleanrot sword with Flaming Strike (for close combat), another with Piercing Fang (to outpace any of their slow build-ups), another with Vacuum Slice (to hit them from a distance), all on my right hand, like an arsenal of options. On my left hand, the same sword with Hoarah Loux's Earthshaker, for a surprise finisher.

I'm just blown away by how the arsenal of weapons boasts boast so many interesting chemistries, everything is looking viable all of a sudden.

Very cool and interesting post fgti

Out of interest, what do youse lot who play NG+ do? Are you going back through the whole game or skipping parts you already did? I spent 300 hours on my first game and I think I only missed a couple of quests and very little else, really, so I'm wondering if I really need to do, say Kenneth Haight's quest again or find every grace point or do all that mucking about in Nokron etc

i missed a ton despite also taking over 300 hours to beat the game and after trying to avoid it i caved and started a NG (not +) and have been exploring more thouroughly

i fucking despise open world games, why would they do this to me? seems like i won't be playing anything else this year

anyhow between then and now they nerfed the fuck out of the sellia hideaway boss. boo!
it was by far my favourite for coop

I’m addicted to “fun builds” and spent an hour last night using an AR calculator to discover what overlooked weapons were viable for my character

I predict that I’m gonna be spending a significant chunk of my next week off acquiring an exhaustive battery. Maybe I’ll take up archery? We’ll see

Archery is secretly OP, I think, I just haven't wanted to make a build that's reliant on crafting.

I fell in love with the frozen needle for my low level build, it's really fun. You have the fast rapier R1s, the R2 that shoots a ranged frost projectile and doesn't cost fp (!), which is amazing for outspacing people, and the L2 goes through shields.

i need to get to the shaded castle already for powerstancing the needle with the rot rapier

Rapiers are so fun. One of my go-to player-murdering setups is four heavy Cleanrot swords powerstanced (3 in the R, one in the L) on a strength build. I rotate the sword for a fast Ash swap, but the opponent never knows which I have equipped. I love Endure followed by Piercing Fang i.e.

Commander Niall is kicking my arse. I tried the trick of siccing them on each other with the bewitching twigs. but Ive wasted 3 this way, dying before I'm done - they work, but th effect is breif and there's only 8 twigs in the world if you dont have the recipe (which of course I dont because its at Moghwyns and Ive never got to that part).

fgti that rules...there was a lot of talk before the game came out about the potential of having multiple copies of the same weapon with different skills, but I've seen very few people actually do it.

Trayce, try taking out the one on the right (with the two swords) first? That one's the most aggressive. Then it's easier to take out the second one (or I guess you could use the branch on him so he attacks Niall?).

Yeah Frozen Needle + Antspur Rapier with bleed on it is such a fun melee weapon. You can jab enemies really fast, inflicting rot, bleed and frost all at once

re: post above. I've been doing NG+ mostly powerstancing Rykard's Blasphemous Blade and the Elden Beat sword you get at the end. They're perfect for just clearing areas of scrubs and getting to where you need to. As such, I'm tearing fairly quickly through the main story this time round, save for a few detours to places I didn't get round to or explore the first time. Easy peasy, until I got to the Fire Giant who proved to be just as tough as the first time round. That is, until I decided to swap to my Frozen Needle / Antspur combo. Run up to him, tap L1 really fast, huge amounts of HP just fall off him. In the second phase I combined these fast jabs with some Bestial Sling incantations and he was toast!

letting you look down and basically see all of leyndell as you enter it is such a flex. however, all these big armor-y dudes are making me wish i had leveled up at least one strike-based weapon along the way.

going back up the thread, i see people saying they did mt. gelmir and volcano manor before leyndell, and i don't even know how to get to those places.

They're easily missed! There are a few ways to teleport there, but I think the main way is just to cross a bridge in the north west part of Altus Plateau?

It was one of my favorite parts of the overworld exploration, just seeing the bridge on the map and thinking "let's see what's over there" and then before you know it you're on this winding journey that I found very satisfying.

xp yes I have I think ~seven~ sets of four identical weapons so I can quick swap ashes and confuse opponents. They think I’m running storm stomp on my GSS and then whoops I bang them with a storm assault, game over

Tbf I came up against an opponent who was doing this and said “aha” and started doing it myself. Not a lot of hellish AoE stuff available with this method (Earthshaker is really it) but I can hold my own

I’m HATING people playing with Marika’s Hammer, it explodes me every time

ok turns out i technically had gotten to the very beginning of mt. gelmir but did not see the way to go up the mountain and kept getting killed by an invader at the shack so i had given up on that route