From Software Elden Ring - From Software's new game with writing by GRRM

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Lmao, so i got summoned for Maggot whats his face ten times in a row and all ten times i was the only one with the shackle. WTF people you can buy that shit from Patches in Limgrave.

I suspect there's such a stupendous amount and variety of items in Elden Ring that many players will have forgotten about it by the time they reach Morgott, even if they had purchased it from Patches.

 

[Mauman]

I don't even use the shackle for the fight.

Nowadays I must use the shackle for getting rid of illusions and disabling traps :/

 

[Lyric Suite]

I don't even use the shackle for the fight.

Nowadays I must use the shackle for getting rid of illusions and disabling traps :/

It's useful in co-op obviously. You wanna kill the boss as quickly as you can to get that sweet Run Arc, so the shackle is great there.

 

[Andnjord]

Please refer to this handy guide I wrote for Bloodeyes, it should answer your questions:

So, unless I missed it in your write-up, one question remains obscure for me; if a weapon does not have an innate bleed effect, but you were to take two such weapons and apply the Bleed type with the Whetblade, would power stance with two of them reliably inflict bleed status for most enemies? Or is that not how it works, and a weapon must already have the passive effect innately?

My thinking was that you should be able to power stance two basic weapons that do not have the bleed effect originally but were infused with the Whetblade and still override most enemies resistances to it since you would be striking with two weapons with each hit (or in rapid succession if they are not simultaneous, like katanas for instance, say Nagakiba and Uchigatana), but I actually don't know because I've only grasped the basics of status effects.

You'll have to test it with different weapons to see what kind of Bleed (x) you end up with. Weapons that have native bleed AND can be infused will have better bleed than weapons that don't have native bleed. I take that back, I've checked the wiki and this is what came out:

For infusable weapons, at +25, the bleed(x) value before scaling ends up the same regardless of prior native build build up once you put a bleed infusion of it. For example, the Uchigatana (native bleed(45)) ends up at bleed(82) while the Falchion (no native bleed) also ends at bleed(82). Twinblades all seem to end up at bleed(100). Similarly, all greatswords including the Flamberge (Lyric Suite ) end up at bleed(100). The colossal swords end at bleed(120). So the final bleed(x) resulting from an infusion is only a factor of the weapon class.

This means that the only advantage you get from using weapons such as the Flamberge or Uchigatana is that they'll keep their bleed regadless of the infusion you put on them. You will end up with the relatively low baseline bleed value, but enjoy better normal damage with the occasional bleed proc once per boss fight, which is consistent with what Lyric was experiencing.
In terms of raw bleed build up per hit though, it actually does not matter which weapon you're using as long as you can infuse it, it will always end up with the same bleed(x) regardless of innate value, the only factor being the weapon class. The Arcane scaling you get from the infusion also seems to always be the same, D.


Where does that leave non infusable weapons though. There's a lot of weapons like the previously mentionned Winged Scythe and Ghiza's Wheel that have native bleed(x) but no arcane scaling, so they should be picked for other reasons than their bleed which is still a useful bonus for that ocasional chonking away of 15% of a boss HP. As far as I'm aware there's really only two that are relevant for a bleed build: Eleanore's Poleblade and Rivers of Blood. Their bleed(x) is actually fairly low (50 and 55) and doesn't go up when upgrading it. Going off memory, you can have that bleed(x) go up to around 70-80 with arcane scaling, but their strenght lies in their weapon art. If you've never seen them, look them up, it's pretty insane and is there's a reason people call the latter Rivers of Cancer.


When you powerstance weapons, it's very simple: you'll end up hitting twice per input, which directly translates to double bleed build up. Nothing less, nothing more. There's a reason bleed builds are all power-stanced weapons or Rivers of Blood.

Most bosse seem to have between 300 to 400 bleed resistance at the start (it goes up each time you proc it, so the first one will happen pretty easily, but for example Morgott caps out at 1100 apparently), so just look at the bleed(x) value of your weapons and you can calculate how many hits it will take you, keeping in mind that your bleed build up will go down over time, so you'll always need a few more.


What this doesn't tell us is that there are two weapon classes innately better than any other for bleed builds: power stanced curved swords and twinblades, powerstanced or not (someone will have to chime in for the greater wariant of the curved swords, I've never used them). This is because a lot of their moveset does two hits for each attack, so double the build up every time you do an attack and they already attack very fast to begin with. Again, please let me know if there are other weapons that have a similar moveset quirk that I might not be aware of. THIS is when you get those insane damage numbers where you're proccing bleed almost every attack and can just laugh at the increased resistance after the first bleed procs.

 

[Dhaze]

So, I finished my second playthrough. First one, blind, nearly exhaustive and very exhausting, lasted for about 128 hours and led me to discover pretty much everything the game has to offer. Second one was much quicker, clocking in at under 35 hours.

It only reinforced my first impression; it being that for every boss I like, there exist four or five I dislike and a couple I abhor.

And I think it's safe to say that of all the bosses, Loretta, Knight Of The Haligtree, is by far my favorite. She has a distinct, easily readable moveset; good spacing; clear punish windows; no spastic, 360-spinning, camera-breaking, seizure-inducing movements; attacks whose range match their visuals; no exaggerated tracking; short combos, of the like make it seem as if she had a stamina bar to manage; appropriate damage output and health pool.

Good fight, the zenith compared to Dragonbarrow Bell-Bearing Hunter's nadir. I'm guessing developing and balancing her was, for Fromsoft's team, a more involved effort—at least more involved than copy-pasting helicopters cosplaying as Gargoyles/Kindred, and reskinned Asylum Demons, all over the world. I wish every boss was of a like make, quality-wise.

 

[unseeingeye]

Where does that leave non infusable weapons though. There's a lot of weapons like the previously mentionned Winged Scythe and Ghiza's Wheel that have native bleed(x) but no arcane scaling, so they should be picked for other reasons than their bleed which is still a useful bonus for that ocasional chonking away of 15% of a boss HP. As far as I'm aware there's really only two that are relevant for a bleed build: Eleanore's Poleblade and Rivers of Blood. Their bleed(x) is actually fairly low (50 and 55) and doesn't go up when upgrading it. Going off memory, you can have that bleed(x) go up to around 70-80 with arcane scaling, but their strenght lies in their weapon art. If you've never seen them, look them up, it's pretty insane and is there's a reason people call the latter Rivers of Cancer.

Interesting to learn that there is an effect cap that isn't very high variable by weapon class on Arcane scaling.. it makes perfect sense why it is designed this way and I appreciate your taking the time to study and share this information. I guess I supposed that the results of leveling Arcane super high would show up in combat with significantly faster and faster status inflictions, and that this would continue if only incrementally beyond the hard cap when approaching 80 or wherever it is for this attribute, similar to the way physical damage increases with successive hits in a combo. In other words I thought that the Bleed effect number on a weapon went up with upgrades and the Arcane value, but that the actual potential of leveling Arcane to extremely high levels would only be apparent in combat the way that poise and resistance bars for enemies are obscured. I see now how it works and it is much more simple than I imagined it to be.

As for those particular weapons I am certainly familiar with them; in my main (and first) character save file (currently on Journey 2) I made it a point to collect at least one instance of every armament, armor, ash of war, cracked tear, cookbook, incantation or sorcery, tool &c available in the game, and use it this save to test out different builds and weapon styles to get a feel for future characters. I actually used the Winged Scythe for a bit of the earlier portions of the game since I had such high Faith, and I've messed around with Ghiza's Wheel in the field but have yet to employ it in a boss fight. Rivers of Blood I didn't bother upgrading at all because I much prefer the Nagakiba, Hand of Malenia, and Serpentbone Blade, even the Meteoric Ore Blade; I know from the discussion online that Rivers of Blood is considered to be a top tier weapon but I'm not crazy about its appearance and I sort of don't like the flow of combat with the katanas in general. They are extremely useful when fighting groups of enemies or for catching moving targets on horseback because of the slash arc (and especially so with Hand of Malenia and Nagakiba) but fighting bosses or even tough regular enemies like Banished Knights feel kind of boring for me with katanas. Considering the appearance I dislike Eleonora's Poleblade for similar reasons, although it isn't quite as offputting and I have messed around with power stance using it in the offhand with Godskin Peeler (a gorgeous weapon, for me) in the main hand. Of course, just as when I power stance Hand of Malenia and Nagakiba in the offhand, I have to quickly switch to two-handed in order to access Bloodblade Dance or whichever skill I've assigned to the Nagakiba (this katana in particular I have to keep on the offhand because otherwise half of the sheathe is clipping through the ground no matter what position and it drives me crazy).

 

[unseeingeye]

I don't even use the shackle for the fight.

Nowadays I must use the shackle for getting rid of illusions and disabling traps :/

I didn't use it either; the Margit's Shackle I only acquired well after having fought Margit, and when facing Morgott I didn't know it could be used again, nor did it even occur to me. And by the time I fought Mohg I'd completely forgotten about having bought Mohg's Shackle, even after making a mental note when I picked it up in the field to make sure I equip it before heading into battle. But then I got there and the whole sequence was so overwhelming as I was trying to encompass visually every aspect of the environment in an effort to deepen my knowledge of the lore that I once again simply forgot it was even an option.

In my current new play through I'm going to try to remember this time, just to see what its like. I made a new character last night, and taken inspiration from Bloodeyes I am determined to actually roleplay this time around, but I'm going to dedicate my time to studying the environment and dialogue and any other source of potential lore information. This is remarkably careless of me, but on my first character I went for the Ranni ending because I enjoyed her questline more than any other that I completed, with only the sewers beneath the Capital surpassing it in terms of dungeon crawling and exploration, and yet I didn't even notice until this brand new play through begun only last night that she literally has two faces. When I went back to the Church of Elleh in order to get the gesture for Blaidd and grab the Spirit Calling Bell and Lone Wolf Ashes, as I was talking to Ranni I looked up and was stunned to realize that she had a second, more ethereal face merged at the right eye, and it completely blew my mind. I already knew from my previous play through that she was openly duplicitous at the outset and that even our interacting with her is only furthered by an act of deception which she immediately calls us out on, but this took my mind in multiple different directions as to the possible implications. I assumed that her appearance is not genuine, and is based on the doll that we can find, given the broken cables coming out of her wrists &c and that this doll itself may have been fashioned in the image of her former mentor the Snow Witch, while her actual empyrean body with the mark appears to have had red hair and is several feet taller than our characters like her siblings. Upon closer inspection it seems that her ethereal face is unique, unless I'm blind (quite likely) it appears that her nose is broader and her eye is wider; perhaps this is her actual face? I just can't get over that I missed this for an entire play through devoted to her, I haven't felt so stupid in a long time!

But anyway my new character is based on a roleplaying idea I had to make one based on the games lore, so I pretended that she is ambiguously related to Malenia and Miquella the way Millicent is, not a full sibling necessarily but a bastard child or even a descendent of such. I based her physical appearance and concept on an Irish girl and named her accordingly, and made her eyes green and her hair color in between the shades of red and blonde between Malenia and Miquella, or Radagon/Marika. I was going to start another Wretch but I instead opted for a Prophet, and am going to play as a character extremely sympathetic to the ideas of Brother Corhyn and what he thinks of Gold Mask, and use incantations with intention rather than haphazardly and based solely on maximal damage or buffs. Definitely going for zero summons, and will continue to play offline, and plan to never change the basic Prophet Robe with the penitent block of wood around the neck as an ascetic reminder of suffering. I suppose given that the Prophet starts out with a Short Spear that I ought to use spears or great spears, although Brother Corhyn wields a basic Flail so maybe I'll expand my useable armaments to include those deemed acceptable under 2nd edition AD&D rules for Clerics? I'd forgotten what it felt like to die lol, one of the first things I did was fight the Mad Pumpkinhead outside of Sellen's Limgrave location, and since I started with the Crimson Amber Medallion this time after learning of the over abundance of Golden Seeds and the like, I only had the 3 basic flasks and faced this field boss at the starting level 7. That thing absolutely smashed me with two hits, and I died several times before taking him out wielding only the Short Spear and the Prophet set, but my God was it rewarding.

I'm actually thinking to only level my Vigor to 30 this time around, and only start doing so once I'm beyond Raya Lucaria just so that I don't die to single hits wearing the robe. Having 113 Poise, 60 Vigor, an endless Morgott's Great Rune and smashing things with a maxed out Claymore and Sacred Relic was getting boring because I almost couldn't die unless I chose to, even without summons. I figure the only way to keep that edge of your seat sensation alive was to not focus so many resources on Vigor, Poise and the various defenses so that bosses are actually a threat again. God, I love this game so much. Even knowing where most things are with it being so fresh from my first journey, I love discovering the subtle details and hidden aspects of lore so much that it alone is encouraging another play through. I understand why people feel like the game falls off after the Capital but I don't feel discouraged by it; granted it isn't as engrossing to romp around Mountaintop of the Giants and Consecrated Snowfields as it is Limgrave, Liurnia, Mount Gelmir &c because it is sparse tundra under near constant blizzard conditions, filled with enemies that are ridiculously powerful, but I am still intrigued by the history there with the war with the giants, and the sheer desolate despair and violence of the realm necessary to cross at approaching the foot of the Haligtree. It reminds me of when Marco Polo crossed the Gobi desert before entering into China proper, which is one of the highlights of his book, especially when he talks about how it is believed that the voices of ghosts are what is heard in the night and why the caravans close in tightly as many people are lost to the call of the voices that wander beyond reach of the light of the campfires. I look forward to facing Malenia without summons this time, and going through the Haligtree is one of the most enjoyable parts of the game for me, so I don't lament the condition of the latter areas and bosses, to me it is what the first half was preparing you for, a profound struggle to the top against living gods.

 

[Dhaze]

The more I play, the more I experiment with what combat in Elden Ring has to offer, the more I'm perplexed by what Fromsoft has done with the input buffering. I don't remember being inconvenienced by it in Demon's Souls, or DS1 and DS2 (they were slower games), and it was an occasional problem in DS3, but in Elden Ring, with the enemies' heightened aggressiveness and general ability to wombo-combo for ages then cancel or recover promptly, the problem is now amplified manyfold. And I see a lot of people defending that buffer with a 'git gud' attitude, comfortably entrenched in the idea that it punishes button mashing. But that's not what it does—or at least not only, and in fact quite poorly as I'm willing to bet that for the majority of players it feels more unresponsive than punishing.

As it is, it functions similarily to a loose, forgiving gatling system: mash R1 > R1 > R1 without paying any attention whatsoever to timing, and your character will attack three times in succession, as quickly as the animations allow. In fact the second and third R1 will gatling if you input them before the first attack even enters its active frames, that's how overly generous the buffer is.

A preferable way, methinks, would probably be a very short input buffer, much shorter than the one we have now, and so short it would require you to wait for the first attack to enter the last of its recovery frames before inputing the second attack. That would put it closer to a link than a gatling. People could still button mash their way into chaining attacks, but I think it would serve well to teach those who do it that only pressing attack anew during the last moments of the previous one results in the input being recognised and validated.

Still I would argue that simply dropping those mashed inputs altogether might be the best solution. Make it so that you have to wait for an attack's recovery frames to have ended entirely before any other input can be recognised, and any extraneous inputs before the appropriate timing would invalidate those that immediately follow (think along the lines of the old system of False Roman Cancels in Guilty Gear, for those who are familiar with that). That would not only punish button mashing, but moreso would actually reward proper timing—though I've no idea whether or not rewarding that interests Fromsoft in the least. (I suspect that, at times, they confound punishment and reward, as if their minds were confused upon seeing a Möbius strip for the first time.)

Moreover, a much shorter input buffer—or, as I would prefer, no buffer at all—would do away entirely with an infuriating side-effect of the current buffer. Because if I dodge, but do so too late so that my dodge hasn't time to come out as I'm smacked in the face by an enemy, that dodge is still entered in the buffer, and since the current buffer is massive, that dodge will come out as soon as my character can act. But owing to the timing of the delayed attacks employed by most ennemies, that dodge stored in the buffer will make it so that I get caught into another attack as soon as the buffered dodge finishes.

Meaning that I press dodge, but too late, and get smacked once (my mistake, that's fine), then dodge when I don't want to (plainly said, that sucks), then get smacked a second time before I can actually act (sucks²). So I get punished twice for one mistake. And with the damage output of late-game enemies, well, that means 50-90% of my health is now gone.

And it happens time and again. At this point, given that the duration of your character's stagger when caught by an attack, the recovery frames of a buffered dodge, and the length of the buffer all seem to coincide into often being smacked twice by delayed attacks when dodging too late, I honestly can't tell if that is begotten by ineptitude on Fromsoft's part (who, conceivably, might well have not realised that this happens), or if it is deliberate on their part, to push the 'Prepare To Die' memeness to new, stratospherical heights.

On top of that, the buffer manifestly stores a variety of input differently from one another, for different lengths of time. And on top of that, various inputs are sometimes dropped entirely when there seems to be no reason for it.

It's a weird, weird mess.

 

[Suicidal]

The more I play, the more I experiment with what combat in Elden Ring has to offer, the more I'm perplexed by what Fromsoft has done with the input buffering. I don't remember being inconvenienced by it in Demon's Souls, or DS1 and DS2 (they were slower games), and it was an occasional problem in DS3, but in Elden Ring, with the enemies' heightened aggressiveness and general ability to wombo-combo for ages then cancel or recover promptly, the problem is now amplified manyfold. And I see a lot of people defending that buffer with a 'git gud' attitude, comfortably entrenched in the idea that it punishes button mashing. But that's not what it does—or at least not only, and in fact quite poorly as I'm willing to bet that for the majority of players it feels more unresponsive than punishing.

Souls players will defend game breaking bugs as long as it's in a From Software game.

 

[NJClaw]

Yesterday I was reading the Wikipedia page about Esoteric Nazism and:

Since 1945, neo-Nazi writers have also proposed Shambhala and the star Aldebaran as the original homeland of the Aryans. The book Arktos: The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism, and Nazi Survival, by Hypnerotomachia Poliphili scholar Joscelyn Godwin, discusses pseudoscientific theories about surviving Nazi elements in Antarctica. Arktos is noted for its scholarly approach and examination of many sources currently unavailable elsewhere in English-language translations. Godwin and other authors such as Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke have discussed the connections between Esoteric Nazism and Vril energy, the hidden Shambhala and Agartha civilizations, and underground UFO bases, as well as Hitler's and the SS's supposed survival in underground Antarctic bases in New Swabia, or in alliance with Hyperboreans from the subterranean world.[25]

Nomadic merchants being literal Jews and Divine towers forming the Star of David were just coincidences, but now we got three of them.

 

[Dhaze]

Souls players will defend game breaking bugs as long as it's in a From Software game.

The purest, quintessential expression of the "It's not a bug, it's a feature" approach to liking a game.

Yesterday I was reading the Wikipedia page about Esoteric Nazism and:


Nomadic merchants being literal Jews and Divine towers forming the Star of David were just coincidences, but now we got three of them.

Quick, somebody contact Vaati Vidya! We need to know what that means relative to the lore.

As a side note, I always wonder what happens when somebody who fell deep into the lore of these games eventually stumbles upon the bottomless abyss of fan theories that spreads ever around and underneath Marathon, Durandal, and Infinity. And if Bungie, one day, resuscitates the trilogy via remake or remaster, I wouldn't be surprised if its way of storytelling is mistaken for aping that of the Souls games.

 

[Andnjord]

As a side note, I always wonder what happens when somebody who fell deep into the lore of these games eventually stumbles upon the bottomless abyss of fan theories that spreads ever around and underneath Marathon, Durandal, and Infinity. And if Bungie, one day, resuscitates the trilogy via remake or remaster, I wouldn't be surprised if its way of storytelling is mistaken for aping that of the Souls games.

I wouldn't be suprised if the majority of Vaati's viewer view his videos as a sort of "tell me a story with your relaxing voice", nothing more. But I once discovered that the wiki page for some random Assassin's Creed character was over 15 000 words, so even Souls fan aren't actually that bad in terms of deep lore and nothing surprises me anymore.

 

[mediocrepoet]

As a side note, I always wonder what happens when somebody who fell deep into the lore of these games eventually stumbles upon the bottomless abyss of fan theories that spreads ever around and underneath Marathon, Durandal, and Infinity. And if Bungie, one day, resuscitates the trilogy via remake or remaster, I wouldn't be surprised if its way of storytelling is mistaken for aping that of the Souls games.

I wouldn't be suprised if the majority of Vaati's viewer view his videos as a sort of "tell me a story with your relaxing voice", nothing more. But I once discovered that the wiki page for some random Assassin's Creed character was over 15 000 words, so even Souls fan aren't actually that bad in terms of deep lore and nothing surprises me anymore.

Hard to say, I've been getting this random shit in my Youtube feed that are like 4.5+ hour lore videos for various (non-Souls) games. Like, who wants to listen to someone else's asspull for that long? At least here you can textually abuse someone for it.

Anyway, I find Vaati to sound more like a depressed homosexual than relaxing, but to each their own.

 

[Andnjord]

At least here you can textually abuse someone for it.

10+ hour long max length youtube videos were a mistake. Bring back the glory days of 10 minutes long, 240p videos.

Spoiler

how do we not have an 'oldfag' codex troll, this is an outrage

 

[Child of Malkav]

Get enlightened:

 

[The Decline]

At least here you can textually abuse someone for it.

10+ hour long max length youtube videos were a mistake. Bring back the glory days of 10 minutes long, 240p videos.

Spoiler

how do we not have an 'oldfag' codex troll, this is an outrage

Fuck videos, give me a written page with pictures as needed.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Nomadic merchants being literal Jews and Divine towers forming the Star of David were just coincidences, but now we got three of them.

Every regular hexagon contains a Star of David within it, though the 6 Divine Towers are not the vertices of a regular hexagon, just six locations arranged imperfectly around the center of the map.

 

[Urthor]

Nomadic merchants being literal Jews and Divine towers forming the Star of David were just coincidences, but now we got three of them.

Every regular hexagon contains a Star of David within it, though the 6 Divine Towers are not the vertices of a regular hexagon, just six locations arranged imperfectly around the center of the map.

So quadrilaterals are MAGA?

Sounds like a plan.

 

[Dhaze]

I wouldn't be suprised if the majority of Vaati's viewer view his videos as a sort of "tell me a story with your relaxing voice", nothing more.

Yeah, I guess that's possible. Though I'll forever remain dumbfounded as to why people put any credit into the so-called 'stories' and lore concocted by Miyazaki. It's just so lazy, as far as storytelling goes.

I remember reading an interview with Miyazaki some 10 years ago, centered around Dark Souls, and in which the topic of the three statues holding the Divine Ember, Large Divine Ember, and Dark Ember was raised. These statues depict a man identical to Andre the blacksmith, and fanboys on forums had been going wild about the potential lore implications. Cue Miyazaki laughing during the interview, and promptly brushing the topic aside after simply commenting that these statues were remnants of early development, placeholders that were never, you know, actually replaced with something appropriate and meaningful.

That was the exact moment I understood how terribly shallow all that lore is. There's little to no care put into it past a mere handful of names and events. And I can't imagine listening to someone drone about it for hours; it's mental. But hey, people's boats and whatever floats them, I guess.

Anyway, I find Vaati to sound more like a depressed homosexual than relaxing, but to each their own.

Some men have natural voices of honey. Not Vaati, who coated his plain tongue with some sirupy substance, and wants to insert it into my ears whether I let him or not. I added the Blocktube extension to Firefox just so I could never see his videos appear into my feed (also, to be fair, to get rid of Asmongold's retarded face; that shit is the quintessence of spam).

 

[mediocrepoet]

Some men have natural voices of honey. Not Vaati, who coated his plain tongue with some sirupy substance, and wants to insert it into my ears whether I let him or not. I added the Blocktube extension to Firefox just so I could never see his videos appear into my feed (also, to be fair, to get rid of Asmongold's retarded face; that shit is the quintessence of spam).

You don't have to try to impress me, I already hold your exploits with Mechajammer in high esteem.

 

[Elwro]

Guys, please explain sth to me. I wanted to play quality, but quickly changed to Dex. I leveled the Uchi because I just like it. Now, I'm still kinda low level, I guess, and my Dex is 37. What I don't understand is why, after all that investment, if I make my Uchi (+13) Keen, it actually gives me *less* damage than if I use the Sacred Vow Ash of War and remove almost all scaling. At this particular point in my char's development, this kinda defeats the point of having leveled damage-enhancing stats. Does this change 'later'? Is, say, Keen 'worth it' once my Dex is over 45? 50?

 

[NJClaw]

Every regular hexagon contains a Star of David within it, though the 6 Divine Towers are not the vertices of a regular hexagon, just six locations arranged imperfectly around the center of the map.

But then why is there a race of people despised by everyone and forced to travel around the world because nobody likes them? And why do they have a unique religion that no one else follows? And why did they suffer a genocide where they literally got locked all together in small chambers and turned to dust?

 

[Elwro]

Oh boy, that map gave me strong Battletech vibes

 

[Dhaze]

Guys, please explain sth to me. I wanted to play quality, but quickly changed to Dex. I leveled the Uchi because I just like it. Now, I'm still kinda low level, I guess, and my Dex is 37. What I don't understand is why, after all that investment, if I make my Uchi (+13) Keen, it actually gives me *less* damage than if I use the Sacred Vow Ash of War and remove almost all scaling. At this particular point in my char's development, this kinda defeats the point of having leveled damage-enhancing stats. Does this change 'later'? Is, say, Keen 'worth it' once my Dex is over 45? 50?

Might it be bugged? I know that during my first playthrough, I left some of my weapons at +24 or +9, because upgrading them to the last possible increment would give me worse scaling than before. This has since been patched, as well as various weapon scaling shenanigans, but I wouldn't be surprised in the least if some measure of fuckery remained here and there in that system.

 

[NJClaw]

Guys, please explain sth to me. I wanted to play quality, but quickly changed to Dex. I leveled the Uchi because I just like it. Now, I'm still kinda low level, I guess, and my Dex is 37. What I don't understand is why, after all that investment, if I make my Uchi (+13) Keen, it actually gives me *less* damage than if I use the Sacred Vow Ash of War and remove almost all scaling. At this particular point in my char's development, this kinda defeats the point of having leveled damage-enhancing stats. Does this change 'later'? Is, say, Keen 'worth it' once my Dex is over 45? 50?

Split-damage infusions will almost always give higher Attack Power totals. Split infusions have lower scaling, but they also add a big chunk of base damage.

A +13 Keen Uchigatana has 184 base damage and B Dex scaling. A +13 Sacred Uchigatana has 151 base physical damage, 151 base holy damage, E Dex scaling, and C Faith scaling. The scaling you get from a high Dex isn't enough to offset the higher base damage of the Holy infusion. You will probably break even around 55 Dex, and from there the Keen infusion will give higher numbers.

But (there's a big BUT), at the same character level, you could get even bigger numbers with the Sacred infusion by dumping all those points into Faith instead of Dex: with 55 Dex and 9 Faith, a +13 Keen Uchigatana has 350 AR; with 15 Dex and 49 Faith, a +13 Holy Uchigatana has 412 AR. Even better, a +13 Lightning Uchigatana, with 55 Dex and 9 Faith, has 433 AR.

You can use this to toy around and find out breakeven points.