Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

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.

I kinda want that hammer and shield that they're using. They look fun.

always enjoyable when you return to a tricky enemy and manage to kill them on the first go. RIP blackgaol knight.

Rellana down! I've been really getting into parrying these bosses in a way that I don't remember doing much in the base game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6FaGiofuLQ

Also just killed Rellana after about 20 tries. Upgraded Milady to +25 and gave it ice power, me and my mimic frosted her to death (actually my mimic friend killed her during my own death animation - the most satisfying type of victory)

Yeah just killed Rellana now, about the fifth or sixth try. Some of those attacks, yikes. One seemed to blow up the entire arena.

I go in expecting to die like 20x while learning their timings, lol.

I'm very intrigued by the physick tear that lets you perfect block Sekiro-style and respond with a souped-up guard counter, going to have to start trying that on bosses.

This is fun. It randomly reminds me of BG3, some of the environments and the general design. Still hoping for some twisty delicious castle design, haven't seen it yet. Generally pretty dreary so far. Killed Blackgaol on my first try but I am struggling against that lion boss. Decided to try and explore around the main area and see about getting kitted up first. Upgraded the Black Steel Hammer and it is so much fun!

Do people use targeting? I haven't been using it in the expansion but I can't remember if I used it in the main game.

You mean, like lock on?

Yep

Oh yeah, I think it's de rigueur, but it's good to be able to go without it too (like for groups or to mess with an enemy's tracking).

I prob did use it, now I have turned it on. Tho as you say kinda easier not to use it when on horseback against groups. For whatever reason I am staying on Torrent a lot more in this expansion than I did in the original game. Maybe cos it's slightly harder so best not to get dragged into anything.

Just killed the Ghostflame Dragon, p cool fight.

the specimen storehouse is really cool, though i did fall off what seemed to be almost the very top after painstakingly fighting my way through.

noticing that being more aggressive seems to be effective this time around, especially with knights and stuff, i can stagger them fairly easily.

Murdered the lion. What the heck! It was like Maliketh and Placidusax’s angry stepdad. Tough tough fight

When I first got into the game, I recall not using lock on, probably because I forgot it was there. It's actually pretty essential in some fights, especially boss fights, and it made the game way easier and helped it "click" for me. Honestly felt like playing on "extra hard mode" until I started utilizing it properly, that and not fat rolling haha

Weird that the lion was so easy for me. The hardest enemies for me so far have been knights. The one in Fort Of Reprimand took me a few goes, maybe seven or eight, until I realised better to go more aggressive and stagger him. I also had forgotten about critical hit until a good few hours into this expansion.

Rellana down! fantastic boss. Ekzyke’s Decay spell still standing me in good stead.

i’ve given up on the fog rift catacombs deathknight. will come back later.

Got a real rush of base game nostalgia taking on the field dragons - find an awkward ledge for Latenna to shoot from, then gallop round haplessly slapping the dragon's feet as she does all the work. She's still got it.