Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

Putrid avatars are those big lumbering tree Guardian minibosses. There are two in succession soon after the start of the Brace - one walking along a catwalk, another waiting for you further along the route, flanked by crossbow snipers. Both a severe pain

Yeah I learned the heal trick on the revenant only recently. They're so fast though, they sometimes reach me before I can cast. Plus there are ao many of them. I find I'm coming to the end if my FP flasks by the end, and then I have Cleanrot Knights and Crystallians to deal with straight after

Re: putrid avatars, oh right!

I think I spent four months of my life just running and re-running through Elphael. Cleanrot and Haligtree Knights made excellent dummies to test new builds and weapon choices and so on. Generally I found I was able to fight-back against most of the comers in that zone: wield a bonk for the Crystallians, heal the Revenants, learn the patterns of the Avatars. Aside from the trio of Crystallians guarding the Rotted Crystal Spear (I think?), those three guys I had to suss out one at a time, real danger zone there.

But the absolute hellbeast I never figured out an easy pattern are the Ulcerated Tree Spirits. Fuck those guys.

The putrid avatar on the Elphael bridge is the toughest one imo, between the poison and the confined space. I did better last time, the whole game is recognizing when they're going to do the homing missile as soon as possible and getting enough distance (normally circle strafing works, but not on the bridge).

I've got a soft spot for that second one because iirc I ran past and made it to the grace immediately beyond him before taking him on. Took the pressure off.

& it had been a bastard stretch of you died to get there

Oh yeah I think cheesing that one from the grace is the only way to go, lol.

thank you I'll have those runes back now let's go again

Oh I always had far more difficulty with the avatar guarding grace #2. I’d sneak through the Cleanrot dark room, deal with the crossbowfuckers, climb up the branch to the Halighelm room, save to grace, and bait the Halig Knights to come in before attempting that avatar

Best Mohg guide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dN7HCjqfxc

Oh my god, using Glintstone blades to kill the invisible scarabs is good -

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

How much do you all use shields in this game? Me, barely, apart from maybe right at the start...

But in DS2 I've got my shield up pretty much all the time.

Another difference is that in DS2 I'm basically rolling naked with no armour and the highest strength weapons and shield I can wear

i’m just always walking around with my shield up basically and relying on the very dodgy and not at all universally useful idea that i can get a guard counter in. also one of my builds is a tank so…

but i had covid last week and fancied a dex build play in limgrave, getting used to parrying etc. it takes some getting used to.

bloodborne was my entry to soulsborne and i completed with a dex build so i’m used to rapid sidestep as part of dancing round the enemy (ie zero shield usage). the sidestep weapon art isn’t close enough to do that reliably or responsively enough to make it useful.

Not at all except for parrying (especially Carian retaliation), but shields are still super good. It lets you pressure and do mix-ups, but I still have dumb biases against shields from my Dark Souls 1 days.

I did my very first playthrough as many do, with the biggest shield I could find (tower) and the highest damage weapon I could wield one-handed. Never really learned to roll properly, was scared of everything, just blocked and then counterattacked. Then I started watching youtube vids of people playing with two-handed katanas + no armor + dodging everything and I never really went back to shields. In DS3 it was always left-hand weapons or caestus parries for me. And I don't really like the uncertainty of not knowing whether an attack is going to break my guard, especially in pvp. I also try to minimize the number of things I need to think about, so would rather just focus on dodging rather than deciding whether to block or dodge. So while I do think there are advantages to not using shields (your left hand is free for spells or other weapons), a good player with a shield can be scary.

These Revenants! They kill me before I can even use that healing spell, every time!

the guts sword is one of the better shields in the game so all the time i guess

Best Mohg guide

I just watched my partner summon her Mimic and smash Mohg with repeated blasts of Comet Azure fueled by the Cerulean Hidden Tear before he even "nihiled". What other strategy do you need? Just get a couple larval tears and make quick work of him.

I remember spending an entire afternoon guide digging to get his shackle and the Purifying Crystal Tear to even get to his 2nd phase.

Spending an hour+ repetitively learning a boss's moveset so that my reflexes can respond to their cues on a subconscious level is how I get my kicks I guess

First playthrough I was drawn to dual wield, roll at random, hit the buggers more than they hit you and make them bleed. Sort of didn't believe that shields actually protected you against big things and guard breaks/staggers made me nervous. NG+, with a lot of stamina, learned to stand my ground and counterhit & came to love my no skill brass shield +25.

Also experimented with carian parry - a lot of fun but never really got consistent. Keep it on a back-up shield tho.

I never had any issue killing reveants with a heal spell, maybe it depends on the spell? Or maybe Ive only tested it on the easy ones in Liurnia haha. I didn't know about that trick in areas where it wouldve really helped like that poison castle.

xxp Jordan I see you like to git gud. Some of us have lazy days, or are magic users.

Tonight! So excited!

(As if I haven't been playing ER every evening this week)

Jealous! Hopefully I get some time to dig in this weekend, gonna try and avoid spoilers in the meantime.

I did only co-op last night during my stationary bike + Elden Ring session, just to get runes for pre-dlc smithing stones. It was pretty silly - I'd say 90% of hosts died during the first ten seconds. I think they wanted their phantoms to beat the boss, but didn't want to seem like they weren't contributing so they just threw themselves into the meat grinder instead? I saw hosts continuing to spam Radagon with holy spells, Rivers of Blood, and Waterfowl Dance despite the fact that they were doing zero damage to him (and he would poise through and destroy them). I felt bad for the person who put on three buffs and promptly ran off the ledge at the entrance to Maliketh's arena though, lol. We did manage to beat Maliketh another time though, I think that was the only win. I was surprised to never get a Mohg summon.

Wow, you can use the horse in the Elden Beast fight now! Also lots of nice quality of life additions (new items are flagged, you can see how much FP different skills consume in the menu, roll out of gestures sooner, etc).

https://en.bandainamcoent.eu/elden-ring/news/elden-ring-patch-notes-version-112

Decreased the effect that increases the power of spells of Terra Magica.

Decreased the effect duration of the Cerulean Hidden Tear.

How dare you nerf my magic user cheese!

Increased the speed of some attacks of the following weapon types:

Axes / Greataxes / Hammers / Flails / Reapers

Increased the damage of charged attacks of the following weapon types:

Axes / Greataxes / Some Colossal Weapons

Okay - definitely time to respec to my dual great stars bonk build

Heh I'm curious how the changes to spinning slash affect my dragon halberd build. It's probably a good time to nerf the strong builds (power-stanced weapons etc) to get people to try the new dlc weapons.

They done nerfed the Blasphemous Blade just as I was getting to Malenia. DAAAARRRGHHG

Thinking I might livestream my first play of the DLC in about 30 minutes

Miyazaki interview in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/games/article/2024/jun/21/hidetaka-miyazaki-fromsoftware-elden-ring-shadow-erdtree

Only a couple of hours in. Been more or less poking my nose around the opening area, mostly seeing what there is to see, dying, then going some other place.

It is gobsmacking. Two things that really strike me are in the architectural aesthetics, which truly give the base game a rub for its money. Use of music and general sound effects also feel like a huge step up.

It's so weird starting this after having familiarised myself so thoroughly with Elden Ring over the last two years. To suddenly be unbridled by a lack of orientation is such a thrill, and they've done well to give that sense of "Okay this feels new". The game is screaming at me to stop relying on my old build and try new techniques.

Thanks for the reminder to turn my music back on! I disable it sometimes for boss fights (to stay calm) and always forget to turn it back on.

Woke up at 6am and thought "hmm, why not explore the shadow realm before work?" Loving it so far.

The first boss I found is a real dang doozy, incredible design though. Can't decide if I'm going to keep throwing myself at him (I've gotten him down to half health so far and have been making progress, but he can kill me in three hits) or come back later. It also crashed my game spectacularly at least once (no big deal, the save file was fine and I'm sure they'll patch everything soon).

(he also

Also loving the new 'recent items' tab, although it's a bit silly that your flask keeps rotating to the top every time you use it.

gave it quick go round after returning from some travel. enjoying the desolation. some nice jump scare SHRIEKS in the woods, killed a gargoyle, got mauled to death YOU DIED by some spectral dogs that i didn’t think would be a problem.

A+ would YOU DIED again. (and will when i go back to retrieve my runes i imagine)

Yeah the recent items tab is a great addition. I'm loving my somewhat over-leveled NG+2 character going into this. Retains the challenge of mid-late game of my first run, but with a bit more damage. Dying frequently but making some decent progress. Killed the first big boss after about 20-30 go rounds and with the help of the given summons. I've been getting more items to strengthen spirit ashes vs my character proper and I kinda feel the game is telling me "yeah it's okay, use your spirit ashes"

On this run I am doing a magic user build too, which is a fun and less frustrating way of taking this on so far. Still in the initial area, but already seeing that there's a LOT here to explore and it's got the feeling of "this is just getting started".

Not sure it's a good idea to respec to my proposed bonk/strength build yet (was going to tackle NG+3 with it)

Where is this Recent Items tab? I can't see it

God the scare shriek. I jumped so hard I had to spend 10 minutes rearranging my skeleton

Level 130, I'm dying to everything

Where is this Recent Items tab? I can't see it

everything does *so much damage* lol.

even the scorched mobs, which aren’t hard to kill but man if you get at all overwhelmed…

Xps thanks!

I left the boss for now and am having fun exploring. I'm having build fomo though...finding all these fun dex weapons, but I'm on my dual halberd strength character. And I don't actually like most strength weapons because they're too slow, but want to switch things up. Might respect but will wait to see what else I find (seems like a lot of hybrid stuff with requirements in 3-4 stats?).

Lol nevermind, I embraced the bonk and equipped the giant anvil I found in the forge, proceeded to destroy that boss. I guess if you're gonna do a strength build you may as well play to its, uh, strengths.

just lost 200,000 souls rolling off a ledge on a run back thru the gaol. the purist dark souls experience.

Got a friend to help me on the first boss, and it was fun! Now we're both very much stuck on the second boss

I was at the bottom of a great dungeon, which literally kept going down and down, having a good boss fight when the power went out. Then our basement flooded and we had to unplug and disassemble everything, so I don't know when I'll be getting back to the shadow realm. :(

Sounds like the realm of shadow came to you :(