Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

Man the frenzy flame boss is TOUGH. Still haven’t beat him even with Mimic and +14 scadutree power.

xp lol I really need to watch the Acolyte now do I

Scadutree Avatar - now that's a boss. Wtf.

come back from a short break and am still wandering around smashing things with my hammer. tho i also just got pummelled by a large salamander in a cave.

[proud toddler voice] on my restarted playthrough on PC I am dual-wielding uchigatanas and I only died once on Rennala this time instead of like 20

Finally killed Scadutree Avatar. That's up there with the hardest fights in the game for me. Forgot the buzz of finally winning those!

In a world where I seem to be getting two-shot by pretty much everything whatever the case, it can be hard to know if the area I've marched on up to is suitable for my level or not sometimes

My mate came over to stay and beat a good third of the base game with no armor and pretty much just a basic shield and sword while he was here. Absolutely put my gameplay style to shame

is his online name Let Me Solo Her?

i've been wondering about abandoning armour. not sure tho. i'm so levelled up now that i might just keep adding to endurance until i can wear some hulking armour set but leap around like a ballerina.

has anyone been to finger ruins of dheo yet? some incredibly creepy enemies, new ones, but also those horrible hand things.

lol xpost

Tried this out for first time. I do like that you can start as a samurai with cool sword and bow.

The starting armour for the samurai seems really good statwise as well

samurai a v good starting build imo. hope you enjoy, kingfish!

btw for anyone who hasn't already made their way up there - the view from the The Suppressing Pillar is wonderful.

not got there yet but the names of the places are consistently hilarious. the suppressing pillar!

fort of unpleasantness

bad mood vista

lol. fwiw it's an early gravesite plain location, and has a good item at the top. nearby cave is also where my ass got handed to me by aforementioned salamander despite me now probably being a bit op for the opening section. what can i say - it's a confined space, camera angle issues.

i think i missed a lot of stuff in gravesite plain. sometimes i just want to purely explore, but then i miss stuff, however the alternative is to read online guides which sort of kills the freedom a bit. maybe a combo of both is the only way.

i think in the main game, and in erdtree, i also tend to go back and do a bunch of stuff i missed when i get stuck later on, or to alleviate the stress of a difficult boss fight. i think that's key to my enjoyment of this game, you can always take a break and be in the open world.

yeah otm. i try and follow my nose and do what i feel like. don't feel like tackling a new area or boss fight, go and have a nose round some old areas where you're op. one thing i will say in comparison to the original game, for some reason i'm finding it very easy to forget points where i've said 'oh i'll come back to that later'. i only found the suppressing pillar because i got to a fork in the road, and realised 'oh fuck i never went down *there*'.

it's maybe a bit more disorientating than the main game? i feel like i've already found areas in one part of the map by going off and doing something in a totally different part. i think that was the case in the main game but in a different way, like in this it is a smaller world but more intricately interlinked or something.

that said, the whole shadow keep dungeon is just mind-boggling level design, maybe topping stormveil castle.

Yeah shadow keep is incredible. Messmer is smashing me to bits so I might go and find this suppressing pillar I’m hearing so much about

coming out at the foot of the jagged peak armed with a dragon hunter great katana and surveying the scene - do any other games come close to generating this sort of dread and wonder? genuine trepidation and excitement. just love it.

After feeling a bit not-sure about parts of the DLC, I'm now at the Church District area that's like a cross between Liurnia, Raya Lucaria and New/Old Anor Londo and omg this game has just ramped up. Absolutely love this bit

It's a shame the Suppressing Pillar is just a cool viewing tower with a single item at the top. Felt a bit anticlimactic to go all the way there and not much to do

Fizzles, I skipped that Salamander fwiw. I've left a marker to go back when I'm a bit more powered up

I have dropped my trusty Blasphemkus Blade and currently sport a Quality Milady (lol, the names, yes) with the Wing Stance Ash, which is great fun and very effective in melee.

Beat the Hippoporcupine last night with my two NPC summons. Couldn't imagine fighting these bosses solo really

Church District is indeed amazing, just a beautiful blend of environments and challenges. You must be close to Scadutree Avatar.

Hm I’m at the same part. Just got burnt by a magma dragon in the pit (after clearing the way to Jagged Peak). I dunno if I’m enthralled by this new world but I certainly could see myself living here

I'm on a break, I fell into a sort of dream-come-true musical collab (fgti, I'm just going to assume you know each other) and now I will feel bad about myself if I play ER instead of working on this at every opportunity.

Fizzles, I skipped that Salamander fwiw. I've left a marker to go back when I'm a bit more powered up

jordan, you need to get your priorities right.

i just had to decide whether to explore a new shadow realm area or watch beverley hills cop 3 we all have to make tough calls.

has anyone been to finger ruins of dheo yet? some incredibly creepy enemies, new ones, but also those horrible hand things.

Don't really know how I got there but the moment I arrived and looked round at the um decor I thought gtfo miyazaki are you really doing this?

Fizzles and LG otm on the overall world design - it feels knotty on a larger scale than the base game but seems easier to forget where I haven't explored. Like I did Bonny Village days ago but until today completely failed to notice the obvious 2 bridge route on the map going out to a huge fucking building in a lake.

I've had a bit of a break but a session this afternoon - cathedral (as per last paragraph), cracked into church district, explored cerulean coast and temple town a bit more.

Though I suppose part of it is that it's possible to open up a lot of the map quickly - my brain was a bit overloaded with gloomy locations from the first week's play.

Lol, I was watching a video the other day and realized I totally missed a route from Bonny Town where you can climb the hill by the perfumer's tree and go into a poison swamp (tm).

Okay Shadow Keep is easily the best legacy dungeon since Stormveil. Absolutely staggering!

Speaking of Bonny Village, anyone notice the shedded snake skin on the outskirts? I wonder what that's all about. Could be something to do with Messmer, but looks more like Eiglay, the Rykard serpent.

I found it very funny that the route up to Bonny Village is a very long ladder, where people write soapstone messages saying "Visions Of Snake" asa reference to Metal Gear Solid. Then you get to the top and there literally is a snake!

But yeah, I've gone from finding the first area of the DLC a bit stretched out and empty to being bowled over by the sheer number of paths I can go down to explore. Really need a system to let me come back to areas I've explored but not properly!

It really opens up when you start exploring the Shadow Keep, doesn't it, although after taking down that hippopotamus thing hardcore the dude riding a boar and the Scadutree Avatar seem significantly more difficult.

just killed the hippo - which i found plenty difficult thanks - but am heading back to the temple ruins and Taylew's Ruined Forge before going full Shadow Keep.

Bumped into the Scadutree Avatar! That was a surprise. Managed to somehow get it down to about 15% health on first try by just keeping very close to its left foot and smacking away.

Shadow Keep is just a maze of alternating branches. I keep going back to the various grace sites and realising there's a little path I forgot to go down, leading to another three paths, leading to yet another split! You can get so beautifully lost in there, but man, I am never going to find everything!

Yeah the boar rider dude is mega hard. Scadutree Avatar took me a good twenty goes or so, and then that weird thing of the time you beat it you have three or four potions left.

I tend to find sometimes the boss seems on beast mode and just annihilates you, and you know from early it is doomed, but other times it's like the game goes easy on you. Maybe just luck.

There definitely seems an RNG aspect where a boss will go *absolutely fps destroyingly mad* at you, lining up all its worst multi-move combos at lightning speed, and still hammering away well after you're dead (which happens after about twenty seconds). and then yes, other times where it acts like a big softie that just wants to play with a ball of wool in the corner while you wale on it.

Absolutely! Sometimes that happens and I'm thinking what's the point may as well just restart the PS5. I remember with the Elden Beast trying it absolutely loads then the time I beat it I just got sort of stuck behind it and walloped away until it was dead, had loads of potions left etc.

Haha, okay, let me eat my words about Scadutree Avatar

The first time I fought it, I somehow got stuck on its foot and was able to wale on it without any repercussions for a while

I was wondering if you meant you got to the end or just phase one? Some of the attacks are horrible.

Another thing I hate is trying to get your summon in as it pummels you.

So apparently it's pronoucned "Shadowtree", not "Scoobydoo Tree"

I was wondering if you meant you got to the end or just phase one? Some of the attacks are horrible.

Another thing I hate is trying to get your summon in as it pummels you.

― LocalGarda, Monday, 8 July 2024 15:00 (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

YES! Why can't you summon until you're a step into the arena?! So annoying! And he just fires those stupid thorns at you before the fog has barely cleared.

Yeah, first phase - what a mean trick! I'm putting a skull on that bit of the map and coming back later with some power-ups.