Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

never used that sword, but v similar experience otherwise - nosing around, taking in the atmosphere, avoiding anything that looks major for the moment, also i’m 160 and similar wrt combat - reminding myself not to spam R1 to give myself time to move away / dodge, separating out messmer troops, especially those massive lightning hammer wielding arseholes, who are slow but can p much two shot me.

i need to think about changing my weapons as well - completed ER with the Magma Sword, and also a big of the ah twirly herald club bubble blowing thing.

hoping to get some serious hours under my belt over the weekend tbh.

hello LG! The Belurat Gaol is a one-boss one-grace dungeon with lots of jar enemies as well as... jar-related enemies. It's fairly early-game and not too difficult but definitely has vibes.

i am still using bloodhound's fang and a hugely levelled up omen cleaver

xpost i must be in belurat adjacent area or similar.

I love the sacred relic sword from the final boss of the main game but I’m trying not to rely on it because there’s so many cool new weapons to try out. The lightning perfume bottlle is nuts and so fun to use.

I learned that the backhand blades get an A scaling in strength when heavy-infused, which means that my strength character is now also my dex character! Amazing, I can't say how happy this makes me. So I've been swapping between my giant anvil on a stick and these crazy fast blades (with a running attack that you can KEEP RUNNING After).

Found the Belurat gaol last night finally, I had overlooked it before. Had a weird thing happen - I died to the boss because I was trying to parry him, lost 200k souls, then stupidly died again. Got him on the 3rd try and picked up my souls...and they were all there?! Must have been a glitch.

Only gone 4pm and already today I've killed the dancing lion first go.

!!

wth. rude. i still haven't faced it though will be shortly (i'm assuming). it had better go down first pop.

Here's my fight against the two guys in a lion coat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyDDO8CrTQs

Finally started going through Castle Ensis last night, loving the verticality. There are a few tantalizing cliffs (probably just containing broken runes) that I have no idea how to get to.

They just updated the scaling of the scadu shards yesterday. Should make it a bit less intense.

BTW I've been using the Sacred Relic Sword (Elden Beast weapon from his remembrance) on and off for two runs now. It's easily one of my favorite weapons in the game, up there with Mohg's staff for mowing down fools en masse

Idk if I just had one of those battles where you get lucky? Took it down fairly easily. I know from the full game sometimes you try for hours then a battle plays out like none of the others and you win easily.

xpost it is so satisfying

Btw scadu is pronounced "shadow", supposedly the old English spelling

Lion took me like 20 tries with both ashes and the summon, but I shockingly best Rellana first try with just ashes! And pre patch last night. Game can be very different experiences for people

In my panic I couldn't even get my ashes summoned but realised the summon was doing a great job so went in for the kill. I can't say I did much more than roll towards it a lot.

I found the second huge knight thing way harder tbh than the lion. Still haven't killed him, just ran away in the end.

Anyone beat any of those giant fire missile launching things yet? They seem impossible rn, not even going to try until in at scadu level 10

(many xps) I use sacred relic sword to clear out trash mobs or soften up the soldiers in an encampment. But don't really use it for actual scrapping - of the new weapons enjoying backhand blade (love blind spot) and milady, the light greatsword.

I get the impression that some npc sidequests rely on summoning them for boss fights, I really don't like that (prefer to play solo, and it seems to go against the 'play how you want' ethos). Let's be real though, I'll mess up all the questlines anyway.

I heard that you can kill those fire giants by tossing a bomb in their basket, but it was not working for me, lol. Maybe it has to be the heftiest of pots, or maybe you need to stagger them first (I believe it takes three 'staggers' before they'll actually lay down for a critical).

The furnace golems? Took down the first one today (I'm scadoobie 7 or 8). Took a few goes and some patience.

Stick near its feet - the fire stomp is jumpable with a v generous window, and the grab is slow and avoidable. You don't want to be at mid/long range or he'll throw the fucking rocks.
Just keep hitting its feet till it falls over and then hit it in its stupid face for a massive damage crit (you've got ages for this - it just lies there and does nothing). Dunno if it's weak to anything. I went pure physical.

Huh might try that out next time then. They're very intimidating!

i completely bounced off the first one but hadn’t been scadoobied up the wazoo at that point, and have some under belt now so maybe shd go back for a bit more hack and slash.

i wondered whether the frozen maggots you collect in belurat gaol might be part of bringing them down but haven’t found the right cookbook yet.

do love the way you can see their burning braziers from afar. “hmm” you think.

btw ime you won't feel like you're getting anywhere till you get the first knockdown. Not really making a dent in its health till then.

what's our approach to the shades? they have a tragic air about them, which sometimes makes me leave them alone and other times seems to make me want to hack a load of them down as i ride past.

I mostly ignore the passive chill kneeling ones and take out the aggro ones. Though the aggro ones do annoy me so once I'm done with them I generally go back and slaughter the kneelers.

Nobody likes a holy Joe

i kill them all. matter of principle.

also some of those fuckin kneelers get up. as i found when i was answering a text during what i thought was a fallow moment.

Really enjoying the Twin Full Moon spell you get from Rellana's remembrance, I'm using it to decimate those mounted black knights. If you can get it off in close up melee combat it's devastating.

And I think I found my new dex weapon to replace the beast claws I adore: the Smithscript Cirque. This thing will fuck shit up, and scales insanely well. Claws got bleed though, so still useful in some cases, but the cirque can be thrown!

It occurred to me that both the Haligtree and Land of Shadow are wholly independent locations from the main map and story of the Lands Between, both involving the empyrean siblings. I wonder if From Soft thought both would be DLCs at one point, since the Haligtree would be a pretty good smaller DLC addition. Malenia is arguably the hardest boss in the game (though I have a build ready to turn her into mushroom tea if I get too frustrated).

Or maybe they intended to have the Land of Shadow be in the OG game, but realized it needed to be bigger and decided to pull it and develop further into what we have now?

blackgaol knight the hardest enemy yet for me, had a good few efforts tonight then decided to leave him. did belurat gaol earlier and killed the boss in two shots or so. also found the golems in ruined forge lave intake really hard, just running past them for now.

hit those guys in the back a few times and they collapse and allow a critical hit. But doing that is all about timing. They remind me of the chained ogre in Sekiro, infuriating until you get the tempo right.

Well, with the understanding that this game would fill a couple hours a night that I’d otherwise be enjoying a pint, and I’m trying to shed some of that COVID weight and not drink, I booted this shit up last night

I used to have four or five characters levelled 10 to 250, all kitted out. They are gone! Where did they go and how do I get them back?

Instead I have one wizard character named Annie Lennox who is 150 and missing all the larval tears except one, so it’s like “pick a respec and then live with it”. I’m not friggin trying to wizard my way though DLC thank you

What should I respec as? I think I might be returning to my Haligshield/lance STR friend, or perhaps a STR/FTH Miquellan sword… keeping with the Miquellan cosplay

What?! Are you on PS5, and if so, can you try and dl the cloud backup save?

There are larval tears in the DLC, one quite early. I'm looking forward to a dex-foward playthrough given the weapons I'm finding, but there's lots of stuff geared toward hybrid builds, and I'm enjoying my current strength run.

I'd go STR/FAI core and start pushing DEX alongside - I think that would get you a lot of fun new weapons to try.

Just getting into the perfume bottles and they are incredible fun.

this game would fill a couple hours a night that I’d otherwise be enjoying a pint, and I’m trying to shed some of that COVID weight

Love this rationalizing btw, lol. You should try playing Elden Ring on an exercise bike, that's how I justify it.

xp, definitely want to try a perfumer build at some point, although apparently now they are completely OP and will almost certainly get nerfed

Right - I'm not optimised like the real OP perfumers but even so it's very strong and absurdly good fun. Enjoying it while I can.

There's a popular Erdtree weapon you can find in a chest called Milady... it's a light greatsword that scales on STR and DEX.

So good. Keep coming back to milady - zippy moveset, hits hard, infusable.

i was thinking this game really wants me to be a perfumer and i may oblige!

Jordan how do you ride your bike? Leaning forward with arms on the handlebars holding the controller or more vertically upright? Kinda wish I had that setup

Excellent question, I go back and forth depending how lazy I'm feeling core-wise.

ok. dragon down second go. almost a shame. such a lovely boss.

not dragon. dancing lion.

I’ve found 3 forges so far with those big ogre dudes. Best to circle around them with shield up. After a few hits they’ll be stunned and you can get crit in.

Maliketh Black Blade seems to do a lot of poise damage.

Poking around with a paladin build, I just love a lance. Kinda boring so far? All the enemies act the same and just hit (much) harder. Did enjoy a v difficult duel against a beast claw fuck face, that took several deaths to deal with. At the Bahamut town now

ugh the deathknight at the bottom of the fog rift catacombs is a real dick.

i am close to him now i think. not a big fan of knights in general.