Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

So maybe it is just the 'ever visited the grand lift of roid?' condition. I did Yura pretty carefully first time around iirc, so can't really give any first-hand info.

Oh - I've never played FromSoft DLC before. Does the weapon upgrade system stay roughly the same? I'm hoarding ancient dragon stones/sombers on this NG+ amble (wouldn't call it a run) in the expectation that they will be useful in June if I take this character in & there are fun new weapons.

Apparently the DLC will have its own unique levelling-up system similar to Sekiro so that it still presents a challenge to people who've overpowered themselves in the main game

@ Jordan, yes, a lance typically

I’m a big time lance enjoyer, my best duelist was a light rolling 2h lance user with a silly cleaver as my second weapon

But like in the depths of my Elden Ring obsession I had 15 copies of every ash, maxed ingredients and consumables, 10 to 20 of every weapon, I helped people out over Reddit a lot

I had a go at rolling a halberd last night but it was quite slow to swing. I generally just go for the weapon with the most attack power that won't take me over medium load - that's what we all do, right?

My big fun was to wield several copies of the same weapon (cleanrot rapier for example) with different complimentary ashes applied. I’d swap my right hand so the opponent never knew which ash was coming next

But for PvP, yes, lance and haligtree great shield with a misericorde offhand, parry and crit all comers. I’d swap to something more powerful like a great sword for bosses

I find the halberd r1 poke to be quite fast and good at interrupting people's attacks (good poise damage I guess), but I need other options for horizontal/unlocked attacks against multiple targets.

Upgraded the dragon halberd and dual halberds definitely has some potential! With pvp I'm remembering that it's often not enough to have a vanilla build and ignore all the talismans/buffs/ashes/etc. In DS3 you could sort of do that if you were good at the fighting mechanics, but in ER you just need that big damage sometimes.

I tried the Great Jar Challenge last night (at lvl 50) and failed miserably, it was hilarious though. It uses real player builds, and now every npc is a ridiculous fextra/youtube build, relentlessly spamming ashes with infinite mana and buffed hp.

Apparently the DLC will have its own unique levelling-up system similar to Sekiro so that it still presents a challenge to people who've overpowered themselves in the main game

Yeah this is interesting, it sounds like they're trying something new so that there's still a challenge for people's overpowered level 300 builds. But I assume things like the weapon upgrade system will stay exactly the same, if past games are anything to go by.

@ Jordan yes, the Great Jar Challenge became impossible around the arena update. I think I was trying to get a RL 80 character going, and I had to re-spec to a cheese build just so I take on those Jar challengers. Awful!

That's cool if there's a new levelling system. Just going to keep getting OP while staying remorselessly stupid.

fgti how did you get parry on a greatshield? I was mucking about trying to learn parry the other day and could only get the parry-ish ashes onto my mediums. Thought it would be fun to have it on a stupid big shield but failed.

Oh I'm likely misremembering, I think you're correct. It's been well over a year since I've Eldened a Ring. In PvP I think I relied on the ridiculous poise reduction of the lances and poise absorption of the greatshield to stagger, for example, those beastly knights in Elphail and Farum Azula, at which point I'd crit with a dagger. One day I'll re-connect my PS5 and revisit my builds but not today!

ELDEN RING!

Okay, well now I've remembered the controls, I spent a lot of time just prattling about again last night in spaces I thought I was familiar. It's amazing how much time one can spend doing this, in fact, just saying "I'm just going to follow this wall or this cliff edge and see where I end up". In fact I'm sure I happened upon a part of Limgrave I couldn't quite remember seeing before with all these abandoned decrepit flame chariots dotted around a field with a rune bear in the middle of them.

This is partly because I can't quite recall where I tapped out of the game almost a year ago. Until now I've been trying to go through the game in the "intended" order, but now I've hit Altus Plateau, it's not obvious where to go next.

Totally. My build is coming together, can confirm that the Dragon Halberd is pretty ridiculous (I happened upon it and only later found the videos about how it's been buffed and the weapon skill now true combos) and the dual halberds are working for pvp. Just goes to show that planning out a build rarely works out for me, better to play through the game and experiment with what feels good. At this rate I'll definitely have two characters for the dlc.

I've always wondered about From games and the like, what is the lexicon used in the original Japanese? Do the weapons and classes and bosses and whatnot have different, Japanese names, or are some of the nouns (proper or otherwise) still some variation of Medieval English?

there seems to be a whole cottage industry of lore hunters going through the various translations and versions of the item descriptions to dig up potentially missed content or alternate meanings to the flavour text

I just washed a fraction of that Rusty guy go through his two and a half hour YouTube video about best weapons in Elden Ring, and man ... From the clips to his selections, it's like I have never played this game before, I can barely recall so little. Utter madness, given the amount of time I spent on my playthrough.

Yeah I just watched it (at 2x speed) and felt similarly. Happy my beloved lance made the top 10. Wtf are Raptor's Talons? I mean I had them but never thought to use them

Continuing to enjoy my second real playthrough, even though I'm back in the sewers and still don't remember my way around (eventually I caved and looked on youtube, and they sure do a good job of hiding the correct tunnel, it's dastardly).

Doing better at invasions too. Most people just spam their crazy damage move (whether that's a weapon art, spell, or bleed weapon), so my current philosophy is not to rush in, get a few pokes in so they're not at full health (but not yet compelled to heal), and wait for the right moment to unleash my crazy damage move. It's not as fun as DS3 where I could just get in there and react on the fly, that gets you killed instantly in ER (or at least you're rolling the dice on whether your poise + crazy damage move beats theirs).

nobody knows their way around those sewers

i don’t think i ever properly got to the bottom on my first play through. i’m on a second now and will give it a go.

Well, I beat Mohg on my new character after nearly a week of re-learning all the timings, so vanilla strength halberd guy is ready for the dlc. At first phase 2 once again felt impossible, and now I'll almost miss fighting him over and over again. Stockholm syndrome for boss movesets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD1saF3RCxU

Noice. I'm trying to think, if I have my end-game OP guy still sitting in virtual purgatory, where I left him (her?), where should I go first to remind myself how to play this game and ready myself for the DLC?

Running through Elphael would be a proper endgame training course.

@ Jordan, a thrilling video. A message appraisal saved your life! I think I was always kinda over-powered by the time I made it to Mohg and so I never really basked in the beauty of his moveset. What a sublimely designed boss he is

Ha, that message appraisal was when I knew it was the run (although I was pretty high health already - but ended at zero flasks, so who knows). It's more exciting to be just good enough, I mean it would be boring to never take a hit.

Watching some other videos I realized that the one explosion move that got me more than any other -- you just cannot roll into it, seemingly, you need to run around him or get a lot of distance (which maybe is not possible if you're right in his face).

Was pleasantly surprised to find that my older brother, who has always admired the FromSoft games and has attempted every one from Dark Souls 1 forward but has given up in frustration and resignation each time with “I don’t think I’m good enough at video games to do this”, for some reason recently got a fire under his ass and willed himself to sit down and beat Elden Ring.

Which he did. Then he went on to beat Bloodborne. Then Dark Souls 1. Then Dark Souls 3. Then back to Elden Ring to get a character ready for the DLC. Been texting with him throughout and it sounds like he’s wrecking shit now and absolutely stoked that he finally cracked it. #1 obsessed super fan.

There’s a wealth of context surrounding the dude’s mental health and what he’s going through right now that I won’t get into. But he confided that just being able to accomplish this one dumb thing has helped him in an outsized way. Been a shelter for him.

So yeah. Pretty rad. Video games can be good for you.

That's brilliant! I love that

Also: ELDEN RING!!!

I went back through my playthroughs saved across PS5 and PS4 versions. I currently have:

- A Lvl 250(ish) NG playthrough where I've speed run through to the Elden Beast to get the platinum, but with very few sites of grace lit and a minimal amount of sidequests (likely including Mohg)
- The start of another playthrough Lvl 250 where I was fed up and started knocking off random NPCs including Kale and Turtle Pope. A celestial absolution seems to do nothing to bring them back
- My current playthrough where I've done about half the game but still not killed Mohg

So I'm wondering exactly how much of the game I'll need to have done to get the full expansion experience. What if, for example, Kale turns up in the expansion and I've killed him?

I wish I had answers for you but if you killed Kale and the Pope there are no answers for you

Luckily I didn't do it in my latest playthrough

Lol. DL, I would be shocked if the DLC involved NPCs from the main game, they've never done that before to my knowledge. Once you get in, it should be a fresh experience that's the same for everyone. I think the main thing is getting all the bell bearings so that you can buy upgrade materials for the sick new weapons.

In my playthrough I've reached Maliketh, the boss I was most dreading (because he's so fast, and seems ideally suited for dex builds). On my strength build I can only catch him with R1s, but that's fine. It's coming along though, I need to re-learn what to do in phase 2.

I got to properly do the Godskin Duo boss for the first time, since on my original playthrough they both died instantly from the bleed glitch. So that was a blast. I don't know why people say they're "badly designed", the skinny one is much less aggressive than say Ornstein, and they give you breaks like a) they share one life bar b) they have shorter individual life bars so you get windows where you only have to fight one, even if they eventually resummon the other one. Idk I liked it.

maybe i did the right thing by murdering EVERYONE then, haha.

i would love it if the DLC integrated elements of the main game though. it's criminal they cut Kale's quest as it's got some of the most affecting stuff in there and explains everything about the Great Caravan and the plight of the merchants

Funny, I never had too much trouble with Maliketh or Godskin Duo. Do you use summons / tears?

Placidusax though... I was stuck on him FOREVER; and also, weirdly, the mounted knight guarding the entrance to Maliketh - I died to him more than the boss!

Do you use summons / tears?

Never. :) No slight to those who do, it just doesn't feel satisfying when I do, like I haven't really engaged with the mechanics of the fight.

the mounted knight guarding the entrance to Maliketh - I died to him more than the boss!

Oh yeah he's famously tough. So, I *did* summon someone on him this time around, just because I remember fighting him solo the first time and I didn't feel like doing it again.

i don't ever summon (although I caved on the Malenia fight), but I used Mimic Tear for the majority of my first playthrough. I couldn't imagine beating Elden Beast without some sort of tear

i summoned for godskin duo and we had an *absolute blast*. tag teamed effectively, just about saving each other in the nick of time, both getting right to the end of our health as we finally nailed the last one. was a lot of fun. lots of jumping around at the end.

Oh and i formally challenge all bad elden rings to a contest to see how slowly we can beat this game

Ha you are ON. I will see you back here in 2025.

― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Wednesday, April 6, 2022 9:22 AM

I would like to propose I might win this, because it is now 2024 and I am still yet to get a game any further than Farum Azula.

(I haven't gotten to Farum Azula lol)

You can do it! Someday!

I just got done with Faram Azula myself. Learned Maliketh a bit better this time, got insanely lucky with this phase 2 after a few cumulative hours of practice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B1OXDU-Z-Y

I'm on NG+2 and hoping it's not bad form to use this to play the DLC...

Nah, it just means the DLC will be that much harder!

Man... even two or whatever years after this game was released I can't get over what an amazing piece of work it is. It's literally my favourite thing thst isn't a living thing

I was hoping for a beautiful no-hit dance where I learned to dodge every attack, but this was as close as I came for Godfrey:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUunE7zX6zI

Incredible boss, I appreciated it much more this time. Only the final fight left for this pre-dlc playthrough, which I'm not as excited about but I do kind of want that hammer.

What hammer?

This hammer: https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Marika's+Hammer

Ohhh right. I did so much trading that I forgot even which remembrance birthed which weapon

Preordered the DLC! ELDEN RING!

I have a bit of homework to do now though, namely beating Mohg in this current run-through

I bought the DLC PC edition as I have a steam deck and a better graphics card than when I bought it on ps5.

I suck at it again now (I think I was at Altus plateau in my ps5 playthrough but I barely remember) . When yous are doing subsequent playthroughs do you generally cut to running through the main quest/legacy dungeons more quickly and use better knowledge of the game to compensate for relative lack of levelled up stats? I don't want to redo every Limgrave side dungeon just to grind numbers but I died to fuckin Margit last night

Also what is your favourite early game dex weapon