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

[unseeingeye]

If we're talking fashion, I've switched to wearing confessor robes and hood with the Lionel greaves and gauntlets. Not the most practical choice but it looks cool and I'm over-levelled enough to survive getting hit like this. I just looked up the night's cavalry armor and I'm definitely wearing that when I get ahold of it, probably with a confessor hood instead of the helm. My character's name is Mustache Man so having the mustache visible is kind of crucial for my enjoyment of him as a character. It's a roleplaying thing. He has a backstory.

I'm loving being in all black and the lighter gear let me remove my arsenal charm +1. Now I'm using Crepus' Vial and sprinting up behind enemies and stabbing them with giant hunt. Much faster than a sneak attack. The vial doesn't just silence my footsteps, it seems to silence my kills too. It's very fun and effective, and goes well with the look I've got going.

Nice! Yea that Night's Calvary armor piece is one of my main jams; I mainly only love the chest piece with the cloak, the gauntlets are decent and the greaves are tolerable but that helm is grotesque, even altered. But then I think the Veteran's Helm is the peak of aesthetic perfection yet almost every comment I've read regarding it and the set opines that it is one of the ugliest armors in the game, and that the helm would be much better with the visor closed. The visor being open is the entire reason I love it so much!

But your gear set up sounds cool, I'll have to give it a whirl when I get home tonight to see exactly how it looks with those pieces mixed. Lionel's Set, when complete, is overall my favorite matching armor set in the game, and I wore it pretty much nonstop once I got it in the Capital (and I found it pretty early on once I got down to the ground level inside the walls) right up until I got the Veteran's Set, and even then I kept pieces of it because I couldn't entirely let go. The best part is how Lionel himself wields a thrusting sword (I think the Rapier?) and so I wear it when I switch to power stance with Godskin Stitcher and Great Epee. Even though they are heavy thrusting swords, so it isn't an exact recreation of the NPC Lionel, but the cape on the back of his chest piece is literally two Great Epees crossed so once I get my second copy of it, you know what'll be going down. It just looks so awesome to be this huge blocky all-black rounded mass that pokes with super long but thin swords.

So I have a new jam now since last night, and I "THINK" I'm finally settling on this one. Still wearing the Lionel's Greaves beneath the Fell Omen Cloak and the Gold Bracelets with no helm, but my weapon loadout has switched. Since my endurance and thus my carry weight is pretty high (Its around 113lbs with only the Erdtree's Favor +2 boosting it), and my armor besides the greaves is so light, I have in the first slot on the main hand a Maliketh's Black Blade and in the first slot on the offhand an Icon Shield. Then in the second slot on the mainhand I have a Bloodhound's Fang, and in the corresponding offhand slot a Morgott's Cursed Sword. Finally, in the third slot mainhand I have an Arbalest, and offhand a Clawmark Seal. This enables me to run around with my two preferred fighting styles immediately at the ready to be switched out in a split second as necessary, so I'm mainly running around with Maliketh's Black Blade two-handed with the Icon Shield on my back (which looks so cool, I love that shield), or I can one-hand it and use that colossal sword with the shield, which is not a playstyle I am used to so I'm mainly doing it to try something different. Then if I need to be a bit faster, I instantly can switch to power stance Bloodhound's Fang with Morgott's Cursed Sword, or the Fang with the shield. The crossbow is for situations that call for a ranged attack, while the seal can do likewise but also with 38 Faith currently I have access to almost all of the Incantations. I was using the Meteorite Staff instead of the Arbalest at one point because as my Intelligence goes up I liked to mess around with the spells, but I don't know, it just isn't for me I think.

EDIT - I might as well say it, that the reason the Omen Fell Cloak is my favorite is because it is one of the very few chest pieces that on a female character removes the cloth that covers their breasts, and when performing certain attacks or movements, lets just say you get a nice view, especially if you adjust the camera perspective angles. I'm sure my wife wonders why I sometimes walk up to walls and rotate the camera, lol. Never gets old.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Alright, so no Dung Eater puppet, and no warrior wombyn what's her face puppet. Which means if i want all achievements with this character i need to finish NG++.

Lmao yeah ok.

you don't need that puppet summons for any achivement.

 

[unseeingeye]

Maybe you missed one of the optional bosses?

EDIT: wait, if you have 3 achievements left and only got one ending, then you're missing two endings and the "Elden Ring" achievement you get once you have all the others.

There it is, that explains it, thank you. I guess you get like a "platinum" or whatever? I don't ever pursue achievements intentionally but I do of course see them as I open the game through Steam, and it did make me curious.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Hahaha, holy crap i just remembered i have to do the Varre invasions. I almost went ahead to kill Mogh but something in the back of my head was telling me something and eventually i remembered Mogh is associated with the white mask dude quest line.

Finishing up the Catacombs (clever that it basically changes three times) and then i'll move out to check out what the Varre dude is up to.

 

[Lyric Suite]

BTW, getting summoned for Mogh and being the only one who got the shackle before getting to him is pretty fun. Look pretty badass when i drop him and the host didn't expect it haha.

 

[Caim]

Whoops, I knew I forgot two things about Mohg.

 

[Bloodeyes]

I'm playing light, no shield, using a rapier. Started as a wretch. Faith build again. I'll either get good or this is going to be horrible. So far it's been very mixed. I've been surprising myself at what I can do with this setup, but some things seem impossible. That fight in the tomb where you have four imps and the jumping cat statue. I just can't seem to do it. My rapier doesn't damage them enough to get the finish before I get mobbed by everything. The closest I came was when I swapped Sacred Blade for Determination and didn't go for the finish, just single hits, stick and move. I still lost. I don't have eyes in the back of my head.

I need to figure out how to decrease the TTK on this rapier or I don't think this loadout is viable for me. I've got it to +4 which is good for this level. I guess I'll level FTH to 20 and come back. I've yet to level it at all. It's a 10. So that may be all the problem is. We'll see.

I'm enjoying the challenge and I think if I can beat the game with this setup, without grinding for levels or using OP summons, I'll be good at this game by my own standards.

 

[Lyric Suite]

LOL, I just figured out there are TWO Mohg bosses. I guess I can go ahead and kill the one in the Shunning Grounds then.

I'll make a video of the Lord of Blood the Omen version seems scrubby.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Shit, you can't parry Mohg the fake one.

[EDIT] Ok, this guy is not so scrubby. Move set isn't hard to figure out but he has a shiton of health. My +15 is barely scraping him.

 

[Elwro]

I'm playing light, no shield, using a rapier. Started as a wretch. Faith build again. I'll either get good or this is going to be horrible. So far it's been very mixed. I've been surprising myself at what I can do with this setup, but some things seem impossible. That fight in the tomb where you have four imps and the jumping cat statue. I just can't seem to do it. My rapier doesn't damage them enough to get the finish before I get mobbed by everything. The closest I came was when I swapped Sacred Blade for Determination and didn't go for the finish, just single hits, stick and move. I still lost. I don't have eyes in the back of my head.

I need to figure out how to decrease the TTK on this rapier or I don't think this loadout is viable for me. I've got it to +4 which is good for this level. I guess I'll level FTH to 20 and come back. I've yet to level it at all. It's a 10. So that may be all the problem is. We'll see.

I'm enjoying the challenge and I think if I can beat the game with this setup, without grinding for levels or using OP summons, I'll be good at this game by my own standards.

I'm also playing light, but with a slashing weapon, and I will say just one thing: at a certain point I decided to have a secondary small blunt weapon and it's been worth it

 

[Lyric Suite]

Hahaha, just to be fancy and shit i decided to try him with Dragonmaw only:

 

[BLOBERT]

This was kind of fun and interesting. It looks like this guy's channel has a few of these with voice actors if you're interested in this sort of thing.

BRO NICE

AS LITTLE AS IT MATTERS I HAVE ALWAYS LIKED THE VOICE ACTING IN SOULS

IT ALWAYS AT LEAST SEEMED TO MAKE THINGS BETTER RATHER THAN WORSE

 

[Bloodeyes]

Rankedboost score the Rapier as and F tier weapon and I'm inclined to agree. It has some redeeming features. It's impaling thrust skill makes dealing with tower shield users much easier. It also makes short work of mounted foes. In general, for low HP, tricky and irritating foes like bleed dogs it's a big advantage. But for anything serious? Anything with actual hit points? Fuck this weapon. I guess I'll see how I do with a great Epee.

 

[NJClaw]

Rankedboost score the Rapier as and F tier weapon and I'm inclined to agree. It has some redeeming features.

With 130, the Rapier has one of the highest crit modifiers in the game. Unless you use a colossal weapon, it's great if you rely a lot on backstabs or parries.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Rankedboost score the Rapier as and F tier weapon and I'm inclined to agree. It has some redeeming features.

With 130, the Rapier has one of the highest crit modifiers in the game. Unless you use a colossal weapon, it's great if you rely a lot on backstabs or parries.

I'm still using it. It's getting better. It's got amazing speed and acceptable reach. The ability to hit through a shield is incredible. Its issue is its damage and I'm working on that. I'm using Order's Blade and levelling DEX and FTH equally as well as upgrading it. Once I'm buffing myself as well as the sword things could get better still.

Damage per hit is now comparable to a non-upgraded Lordsworn's straight sword but it's much easier to spam hits with the rapier. Once I hit the late game and get the Frenzied Flame seal I should get my DEX added to my casting as well, so that should be something. Hopefully that effects enchant scaling as I'd be double dipping from that stat, gaining the bonus from a keen weapon and from dex-boosted magic.

I'm actually starting to like it. It takes a bit to get going but I think it could end up quite good in the mid to late game. I'm going to collect more blade enchant buffs. I can't remember what they all are but I'd like the lightning one (Electrify armament) and bloodflame blade.

Not sure if bleed would proc on a non-bleed weapon without an investment in arcane which I can't do, but if I could get bleed on this thing as well the it would be the tits. I think the poison blade one scales off DEX so I could try that as well. I'll also try blackflame blade but I suspect I'll hate it. A buff with a 6 second duration is too clunky for me I think.

 

[unseeingeye]

I'm playing light, no shield, using a rapier. Started as a wretch.

Thrusting swords are excellent; I prefer the heavy thrusting swords, but they are certainly not as agile and I don't even use them in the ideal manner (i.e. with a shield). I think that thrusting swords, heavy thrusting swords, spears and great spears are the only weapons which can be used while maintaining the blocking position with a shield, and I've messed around with this setup using the Godskin Stitcher and the Icon Shield to test it on a few trolls and knights, but I inevitably revert to power stance and use the extended move-set options like the standing backwards dodge followed by a quick L1 which has both heavy thrusting swords do awesome simultaneous poking attacks, or the roll into L1 followed by a jumping L1 or R2, mixed with Bloodhound Step or Quickstep which with enough practice negates much of the mobility penalties on this weapon class.

For your current build I would recommend just stopping by the Gate Front Ruins and hitting up the hearse that is parked on the north-east side (closest to the Agheel Lake North site of grace) for the basic flail, which does strike damage and is extremely effective on enemies like the Imps, the Erdtree Burial Watchdogs, Crystalians, the miners &c basically any heavily armored opponents or those made out of stone (which I believe includes the Valiant Gargoyles and Black Blade Kindreds), etc. Or you could use a Warpick which can drop from the basic Godrick soldiers, or the Mace which you can buy as soon as you get to Roundtable Hold. Another easily had striking weapon is the Morning Star found in the broken down hearse alongside the trail between the site of grace where Irina is located and the site of grace directly to the south where the merchant rests (right nearby the Nights Calvary, who conveniently I believe drops the Nightrider Flail). And then whenever you enter a cave or a tomb, you can put one of these in your secondary slots or just switch to one if you don't have enough carry weight capacity, and even without being upgraded it will do significant damage and, most importantly not bounce of causing you that brief but deadly moment of disorientation.

EDIT - Quick edit to say that I also started a Wretch, over the past weekend on my Xbox. I mainly play on PC but whenever my children or my wife are using it and I'm looking to play, I'll use the console version for a while. I do really love the way you start out at level 1 and have to rely on what you find through exploration to even have basic clothing. Oh and that reminds me, I think you can use the basic Club that the Wretch starts off with to take care of those Imps and the like. I noticed that a critical with a basic Lordsworn's Straight Sword that I found was killing the Godrick Soldiers in one go, whereas the Club only took part of their health down and although it staggered them with just one charged R2, it took an extra hit or two to kill them. But I assume that if you were to use it on the Imps it wouldn't bounce off, and could do more damage than a thrusting sword?

 

[unseeingeye]

Not sure if bleed would proc on a non-bleed weapon without an investment in arcane which I can't do, but if I could get bleed on this thing as well the it would be the tits. I think the poison blade one scales off DEX so I could try that as well. I'll also try blackflame blade but I suspect I'll hate it. A buff with a 6 second duration is too clunky for me I think.

I haven't messed around with any of the status effects yet, and although I've used a few bleed weapons and assume I've gotten the effect to take hold (is it when you see a broad slash of flashy blood?) I can't say I have a thorough grasp on how it works. I believe Arcane is what increases the amount of bleed damage is done per hit, but my suggestion if you are going to use a bleed infused weapon that isn't innately bleed-inflicting, would be to power stance two of them. So if you were to copy your ash of war, or even use two different bleed based ones, or the Black Whetblade &c. and turn two rapiers into Bleed-based rapiers, then L1'd especially by doing the standing still then backwards dodge into L1 and immediately going into the basic power stance combo, you almost certainly should be able to overwhelm most enemies bleed resistances. At least, I think you should.

I guess I'll see how I do with a great Epee.

Now, we're talking! I'm telling you, second best weapon in the game for the fun and cool factors. It looks phenomenal, power stance two of them with Lionel's Set is the peak of coolness, and power stance one with Godskin Stitcher is just fucking insane. I use Bloodhound Step on the Godskin Stitcher in my main hand, and Giant Hunt on the Great Epee in the offhand, and compensate for the slower move set and recovery times between swings by Bloodhound Stepping. You can get off a power stance combo, even one initiated with the aforementioned backward dodge forward double poke, then R2 Bloodhound Step "through" an attack AND the enemy to come behind them, and if you're target locked-on, you can immediately do it again by letting off the left stick and hitting dodge followed by L1. Also, the jumping attacks will break the stance on most bosses within 4 hits (one more than the 3 by the great swords), maybe 5 or 6 on the really resilient bosses but they are very, very close to great swords in poise and stance damage. I don't know the precise numbers but I'm going off of intuitive feel for both weapons, which the two classes together occupied both hands for 90% of the game. Heavy Thrusting Swords were such an awesome addition and I lament that there are only four of them, and the fourth one is so ugly. The other three are gorgeous though.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Not sure if bleed would proc on a non-bleed weapon without an investment in arcane which I can't do, but if I could get bleed on this thing as well the it would be the tits. I think the poison blade one scales off DEX so I could try that as well. I'll also try blackflame blade but I suspect I'll hate it. A buff with a 6 second duration is too clunky for me I think.

Now, we're talking! I'm telling you, second best weapon in the game for the fun and cool factors. It looks phenomenal, power stance two of them with Lionel's Set is the peak of coolness, and power stance one with Godskin Stitcher is just fucking insane. I use Bloodhound Step on the Godskin Stitcher in my main hand, and Giant Hunt on the Great Epee in the offhand, and compensate for the slower move set and recovery times between swings by Bloodhound Stepping.

How do you use two ash moves? R2 only does the main hand move unless there's a shield, in which case it does the shield move. That's why I always put no skill on my shield and torch. If I could find a way to run quickstep and impaling thrust together I'd be unstoppable.

As for your suggestions for gear changes, there are plenty better weapon loadouts I could use but if possible I want to make just the one melee weapon work for me this time. The only secondary weapon I might want would be a dagger. It's not optimal, it's just what I'd like to do with this character. So far results have been very mixed. Sometimes I love this weapon and wish I'd been using one from when I started playing.

Sometimes I curse it. I beat Margit at level 2 with a straight sword, then I realized I wanted to use only a rapier so I restarted. I'm level 25. I've got 14 DEX and 15 Faith and I buffed the weapon with the only sword buff available to me at this time - order's blade. I went to fight him and got demolished six or 7 times before finally beating him - with a non upgraded, non buffed lordsworn's straight sword, the first time I fought him after switching weapons.

On the verge of ditching the fucking rapier I went down to the gatefront ruins. There I fought the knight with the tower shield and spear, an enemy I can't seem to beat using any other weapon without chugging a ton of flasks or being way over levelled and just steam rolling him. I beat him without getting hit and it was effortless.

I love the idea of a divine duelist with one blade which he buffs with different things for different enemies. That's what I want to achieve with this character. I'm fine with having other kit - a torch, a shortbow and I've actually found that situationally I do need to equip a shield or I just hate life. But I really don't want a second primary weapon. I just need to fix the low damage.

I think a big part of it is Margit has 40% resistance to holy damage but takes 10% extra damage from slashing. So in using the R1 version of square off on him I was unwittingly using the best damage type there is to fight him with. Maybe that's all it is. I really don't want it to be because the rapier is just too low damage to be viable against bosses outside the hands of a highly skilled player. Time will tell. For now I'll keep trying with it. It really does make shield users look like chumps.

 

[unseeingeye]

How do you use two ash moves? R2 only does the main hand move unless there's a shield, in which case it does the shield move. That's why I always put no skill on my shield and torch. If I could find a way to run quickstep and impaling thrust together I'd be unstoppable.

Well I can't use them both simultaneously, but what I do is I mainhand whichever heavy thrusting sword has the art that will fit whichever circumstance I'm anticipating, and then if I want to use Giant Hunt or Impaling Thrust for instance and it in the offhand, I'll do a quick Bloodhound Step and then rapidly hold the two buttons that makes you two-hand whichever armament is in your offhand and immediately hit R2 to get off that weapon skill, then switch right back to power stance. The swiftness with which you can switch between power stance and two-handing either weapon is so unrealistically fast but with just a bit of practice I've incorporated it into my own playstyle combos, getting off two different ashes of war or weapon skills with only a split second between them.

I see from your post that you are intending on a very particular build, so I understand why you want to abstain from including a strike damage weapon among your armaments. I just figured that perhaps you didn't know about the different damage types but obviously that was stupid on my part to make such an assumption. I think sticking to a build idea is one of the most enjoyable ways to play the game, because otherwise you end up like me where I've spent the past two weeks just messing around because I couldn't settle on a weapon. I exacerbated my own indecisiveness by farming to get enough smithing stones to either fully upgrade or take to +24 / +9 at least one weapon in every class and multiples of my favorites. I should have avoided this because although it is fun to have access to any weapon and armor in the game at a moments notice, I love too many of them and can't make up my mind, lol. I'm sticking with the Maliketh's Black Blade and Icon Shield swapped between two-handed with the shield on the back and holding it, with the Great Epee and Godskin Stitcher occupying the second slots for both hands as a backup, so I can switch between damage types and playstyles on a whim, doable now that I am wearing such light armor.

 

[Andnjord]

I haven't messed around with any of the status effects yet, and although I've used a few bleed weapons and assume I've gotten the effect to take hold (is it when you see a broad slash of flashy blood?) I can't say I have a thorough grasp on how it works. I believe Arcane is what increases the amount of bleed damage is done per hit, but my suggestion if you are going to use a bleed infused weapon that isn't innately bleed-inflicting, would be to power stance two of them.

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

Spoiler

Weapons that cause bleed will have the "Bleed (x)" towards the bottom of their stat page, with x representing the amount of bleed build-up caused in a single hit. For most weapons that x will be around 45 to 65. You can see your own bleed resistance at the bottom right of your stat page, below your damage reduction values, together your other status effects resistances (which are actually grouped into subcategories likes Immunity, Robustness, and Focus; make sure to press Help button to see which one is which exactly), enemies will also have their own resistances similar to your own.

To actually proc a bleed (or rot, poison, frost...), you need to deal enough hits to equal the corresponding resistance of the target, which you yourself can see when done to you by a bar that appears in the middle of your screen when subjected to bleed; that bar is not displayed for enemies, so you'll have to guess how far it's filled up. When that bar fills up fully you'll see a big splash of blood on the target and a burst of percentage-based damage (which is why it's so strong against bosses). So for example, a weapon that cause 45 bleed per hit will need 7 hits to cause bleed on Margit who has 316 bleed resistance according to the wiki. There is no corelation between size of the weapon and bleed build-up strenght, which means a slow weapon will be much worse at causing those bleeds than a faster one, they'll need the same number of hits but obviously a dagger will get you there much faster than a Colossal sword.

BUT, as is the case for you, the bleed build up you've inflicted on an enemy will gradually go down over time, meaning that if a boss does a long combo, hits you forcing you to back off to heal, then does another long combo that you need to stay away from, any bleed build up that you might have caused him will likely have completely disapeared by the time you attack him again, preventing any bleed damage to proc. This means that bleed works best with steady aggression and fast weapons that can get multiple hits in whenever you have a window of opportunity rather than slow ones that can barely squeeze one hit in between boss combos. A result of this is that our previous Margit example is much more likely to require 9 to 12 hits to proc bleed, as he's not going to stand there letting you wail on him uninterrupted.


As for scaling, the amount of bleed caused by a weapon scales with arcane only if that weapon has an arcane scaling in its stats. This means that the Winged Scythe, a faith weapon that causes bleed (55) but has no arcane scaling, will never see an increase in that bleed value. On the other hand, the Uchigatana causes bleed (45) but natively doesn't scale with arcane, but you could put a bleed ash of war (such as bloody slash) which would give it arcane scaling thus allowing that bleed build up value to increase with your arcane stat. Ghiza's Wheel has Bleed (70) but doesn't scale with arcane, BUT its weapon art causes a lot of hits in rapid succession, making it proc bleed reliably. But as it only scales with DEX and STR, it's probably a poor choice for a Faith build like yours.

Generally speaking dedicated Bleed builds will do less damage per hits than other builds but focus on getting that bleed to proc as fast as possible to compensate (and largely overtake really once it gets going), hence why your Forked Hatchet was doing more damage with Sacred Blade than Bloodflame.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Ayy, so Margaret changed sex and she now goes by as a dude called Maggot or some shit. Neat.

 

[unseeingeye]

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

First of all, thank you for your write-up; much of it I believe I already understood through engaging with the games enemies that can inflict status effects on your character, but for instance it didn't occur to me that the increase in the innate bleed damage of a weapon will never increase if the weapon does not have innate Arcane scaling or cannot be infused with the Black Whetblade for it. 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.

 

[Lyric Suite]

For whatever its worth, i can get bleed on most people in PvP in two hits with my Flamberge. The Bleed proc thingy is at (95). I also died against people powerstancing two bleed weapons in one hit many times.

Meanwhile, it takes almost a dozen hits on a boss (stagger + double slash otherwise forget about it) and i rarely ever gotten a second one.

Some bosses may be particularly succeptible to bleed but so far i'm not sure for most of them the bleed proc is worth the lower damage, all though it may be.

Bleed is still overpowered for mooks (especially because it also interrupts them when it happens, which allows you to follow up with more attacks) and PvP where it just seems totally broken.

 

[Lyric Suite]

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 shakle. WTF people you can buy that shit from Patches in Limgrave.

BTW this guy is a great Rune Arc farm spot almost instant summoning and with the shakle you can literally skip the first phase and almost get him down to 30% of his health before the second one even begins. He can be affected by every status so i'm doing bleed (double slash him after the shakle drops him) then rot and finally a freeze proc as well. After all that he is usually almost dead. Al the host has to do is not die like a retard then.

 

[Lyric Suite]

BTW, bumped my toon to SL90 to ditch Radagon Soreseal. Damn thing was starting to piss me off to have there permantly.