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

[NJClaw]

I've got a PS3 in a drawer. I was going to get the remake though. I've seen footage and it looks good. Any reason to prefer the original other than education?

I know nothing about the Remake since I don't have a PS5. It looks beautiful and supposedly plays exactly like the original, with most complaints being about sound design and monsters' more realistic visual design (which are a big deal to me, but probably won't ruin the game for a new player). I'd love to play it, but buying a console just for a single remake is the next level of the "Bloodborne-machine" meme and it's just too much for me.

If you decide to go for the original, playing on an emulator allows you to remove the 30 fps cap, which on its own is enough to make the PS3 version completely obsolete.

 

[Bloodeyes]

If I can eventually get good there's a whole genre of games for me to enjoy and PVP in this game too.

From here, you can go almost anywhere. Just remember that each game does many things a little differently, so you can't expect to play all of them in the same exact way (or better: you can do that, but you'll probably have an awful time with some of them).

The halal thing to do is to play them in chronological order, so the first thing you should do is to download a PS3 emulator and Demon's Souls. You won't have the same amount of options and freedom in building your character, but with your terminal stage of restartitis this won't necessarily be a bad thing.

I've got a PS3 in a drawer. I was going to get the remake though. I've seen footage and it looks good. Any reason to prefer the original other than education?

Some people prefer some of the art direction and musical scoring and stuff. If none of that bothers you, the remake is true to the original with the exception of an extra set of secret collectibles afaik. I haven't played the remake myself, but I was following it for the brief period I was considering trying to get a PS5.

I didn't actually realize it was ps5 exclusive. I figured it would be ps4/ps5 like Elden Ring. Yeah they're not available in my area either. I'd have to get one from a scalper. They're for sale but it's quite a risk buying something that expensive online. I'll look for a disc copy of the original if I can find one and play it on my ps3. So then I'd have 2 ps3 games. Red Dead and this.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I didn't actually realize it was ps5 exclusive. I figured it would be ps4/ps5 like Elden Ring. Yeah they're not available in my area either. I'd have to get one from a scalper. They're for sale but it's quite a risk buying something that expensive online. I'll look for a disc copy of the original if I can find one and play it on my ps3. So then I'd have 2 ps3 games. Red Dead and this.

Yeah, it's a PS5 system seller. Maybe it'll come to PC later because of Sony's new strategy on ports.

Imo, don't try to scalp a system if you actually want one, just wait it out until you get one from a retailer. Here they've had waitlists at some stores where you can put yourself on it. I was actually in a store that received them and saw people picking up months ago.

 

[DemonKing]

I haven't played the remake myself, but I was following it for the brief period I was considering trying to get a PS5.

I never played the original as I didn't get into consoles until mid-way through the PS4, but can recommend it in its own right. Despite being a PS5 launch title it's still probably one of the most graphically impressive titles on the system and the gameplay is absolutely fine if you've played any DS titles and/or Elden Ring.

 

[Egosphere]

If I can eventually get good there's a whole genre of games for me to enjoy and PVP in this game too.

From here, you can go almost anywhere. Just remember that each game does many things a little differently, so you can't expect to play all of them in the same exact way (or better: you can do that, but you'll probably have an awful time with some of them).

The halal thing to do is to play them in chronological order, so the first thing you should do is to download a PS3 emulator and Demon's Souls. You won't have the same amount of options and freedom in building your character, but with your terminal stage of restartitis this won't necessarily be a bad thing.

I've got a PS3 in a drawer. I was going to get the remake though. I've seen footage and it looks good. Any reason to prefer the original other than education?

Don't know if the remake has the original soundtrack or not, but if not, then playing the original is preferable.

 

[mediocrepoet]

If I can eventually get good there's a whole genre of games for me to enjoy and PVP in this game too.

From here, you can go almost anywhere. Just remember that each game does many things a little differently, so you can't expect to play all of them in the same exact way (or better: you can do that, but you'll probably have an awful time with some of them).

The halal thing to do is to play them in chronological order, so the first thing you should do is to download a PS3 emulator and Demon's Souls. You won't have the same amount of options and freedom in building your character, but with your terminal stage of restartitis this won't necessarily be a bad thing.

I've got a PS3 in a drawer. I was going to get the remake though. I've seen footage and it looks good. Any reason to prefer the original other than education?

Don't know if the remake has the original soundtrack or not, but if not, then playing the original is preferable.

They redid the soundtrack. It's one of the common complaints about the remake. That and people who hate the new art.

 

[Bloodeyes]

So I'm having a problem with my get good run. I'm not sure if this is something that advice can help with but I'll just put this out there and see if anyone can suggest something.

I can't seem to master the parry playstyle. I can parry parryable attacks. Most of the time. I'm at about 80% success with Godrick soldiers on their parryable attacks. The problem is when enemies have multiple types of attack I react one way because the time it takes them to attack is less time than it takes me to react and I have to act as the attack is starting. I don't have time to decide what to do. So against a soldier I either pull of a stylish riposte or get bashed in the face by a torch or tower shield. Against anything that delays its attacks, like say Kaiden sellswords or wandering nobles even I just get hit 100% of the time.

I think the buckler playstyle is unattainable to me. When I first got the game the prisoner and the bandit were the coolest starting classes to me, but I quickly realized that the archetype of the swashbuckler with the small shield requires an incredible, seemingly impossible level of expertise to pull off. Is parrying a troll, only for the top 1% of skilled players, or am I missing something fundamental? I know to use a buckler, I know to press parry when they move their weapon arm.

 

[mediocrepoet]

So I'm having a problem with my get good run. I'm not sure if this is something that advice can help with but I'll just put this out there and see if anyone can suggest something.

I can't seem to master the parry playstyle. I can parry parryable attacks. Most of the time. I'm at about 80% success with Godrick soldiers on their parryable attacks. The problem is when enemies have multiple types of attack I react one way because the time it takes them to attack is less time than it takes me to react and I have to act as the attack is starting. I don't have time to decide what to do. So against a soldier I either pull of a stylish riposte or get bashed in the face by a torch or tower shield. Against anything that delays its attacks, like say Kaiden sellswords or wandering nobles even I just get hit 100% of the time.

I think the buckler playstyle is unattainable to me. When I first got the game the prisoner and the bandit were the coolest starting classes to me, but I quickly realized that the archetype of the swashbuckler with the small shield requires an incredible, seemingly impossible level of expertise to pull off. Is parrying a troll, only for the top 1% of skilled players, or am I missing something fundamental? I know to use a buckler, I know to press parry when they move their weapon arm.

The parry window for a buckler is different than other small shields. Despite the buckler being better for parrying in previous games, I've found the regular small shield parry window to be more intelligible in Elden Ring and find better success with it. I know I'm not the only one to have this opinion, so my advice would be to try using a regular small shield of some type, preferably one with a decent physical block percentage so if you want you can block and parry (sometimes blocking a hit in a combo before parrying can help with timing). And don't worry about rolling or just hitting a guy before he hits you. It's not like you have to be a purist about it or can't dodge around until you've got your timing groove set up.

 

[Bloodeyes]

So I'm having a problem with my get good run. I'm not sure if this is something that advice can help with but I'll just put this out there and see if anyone can suggest something.

I can't seem to master the parry playstyle. I can parry parryable attacks. Most of the time. I'm at about 80% success with Godrick soldiers on their parryable attacks. The problem is when enemies have multiple types of attack I react one way because the time it takes them to attack is less time than it takes me to react and I have to act as the attack is starting. I don't have time to decide what to do. So against a soldier I either pull of a stylish riposte or get bashed in the face by a torch or tower shield. Against anything that delays its attacks, like say Kaiden sellswords or wandering nobles even I just get hit 100% of the time.

I think the buckler playstyle is unattainable to me. When I first got the game the prisoner and the bandit were the coolest starting classes to me, but I quickly realized that the archetype of the swashbuckler with the small shield requires an incredible, seemingly impossible level of expertise to pull off. Is parrying a troll, only for the top 1% of skilled players, or am I missing something fundamental? I know to use a buckler, I know to press parry when they move their weapon arm.

The parry window for a buckler is different than other small shields. Despite the buckler being better for parrying in previous games, I've found the regular small shield parry window to be more intelligible in Elden Ring and find better success with it. I know I'm not the only one to have this opinion, so my advice would be to try using a regular small shield of some type, preferably one with a decent physical block percentage so if you want you can block and parry (sometimes blocking a hit in a combo before parrying can help with timing). And don't worry about rolling or just hitting a guy before he hits you. It's not like you have to be a purist about it or can't dodge around until you've got your timing groove set up.

Hmm. Blocking with the shield you say? That could just be crazy enough to work.

I guess I could roll up golden order type dex/fth/int hybrid and grab the shield buff spell and blessing's boon. I found 84% guarded damage negation quite playable with my guts greatsword character, so long as I had a bit of regen going. I've already got a save file with a str/fth/int version of that build too, so it would be easy enough to substitute the stat in my level progression plan. Could be a cool character.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Hmm. Blocking with the shield you say? That could just be crazy enough to work.

Boy I can't wait for you to discover fire.

 

[NJClaw]

Unless you want to use the buckler for style points, the best parrying tool is a medium shield with 100% physical negation and Carian Retaliation. If you really like the idea of a "small round shield", the Large Leather Shield, Black Leather Shield, and Round Shield are excellent with 85+ damage negation. This setup allows you to do this:

blocking a hit in a combo before parrying

while taking negligible amounts of chip damage. Keeping your guard up for the first attack of a combo and parrying the follow-up is almost always your best bet against enemies with multiple fast combos (and it's one of the PvP fundamentals).

 

[ADULF HITLOR FAN KLUB]

This is the first FromSoftware game I have ever played and now I am addicted.

That is all.

 

[Child of Malkav]

 

[Aeschylus]

Unless you want to use the buckler for style points, the best parrying tool is a medium shield with 100% physical negation and Carian Retaliation.

Parry with a dagger w/the AoW in your offhand. Anything else is for sissies.

 

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

I've also been doing a git gud parry run. Despite never parrying at all in any Souls game I actually found it much easier than I expected. There are absolutely enemies (crucible knights, bell bearing hunters, etc) I will be parrying in the future even when not doing a meme run where it's the main thing I try to do.

Didn't think to start recording until Malenia though lol. I had to do more damage from regular attacks on her than most other parryable bosses, early on I tried only doing damage on ripostes but I'm not good enough to riposte frequently enough to offset her healing



Fight went well until I absolutely butchered the start of the second phase. This build is a total meme because I wanted to force myself to go for crits so most of my levels beyond vigor and endurance just went to meeting the stat requirements of various weapons I wanted to try.

 

[Bloodeyes]

I'm a university student again for the time being, so I have less time to play games now. Still, I'm having a bash at my honest run sometimes in the evenings. I restarted it, because of course I did, but I did it for the right reasons. Fashion. I wanted the vagabond armour so I rolled one. My character looks far too cool in that set. I swapped out the dorky helm for the bandit mask and traded the longsword for a broadsword then rushed to Margit for my 12k runes and talisman slot.

Doing that fight immediately has gotten pretty easy now. I can space him and punish him pretty well in phase 1 so I can go into phase 2 with all my flasks. Because I pretty much only use the WA for the broadsword, no regular attacks, I stance break him every second or third hit. So I can drink my 1 blue flask when he's on the ground normally, or heal without a dagger in the face. Phase 2 is still pretty damn hard. That combo of his may as well be endless, but I can avoid all his other shit pretty well so I just keep my flasks for that.

I killed everything in Limgrave (including that fucking bell bearing hunter and the crucible knight) and the weeping peninsula pretty quickly, and wandering through the forest a few times doing the quests let me kill all the big bears on my way through each time. Lots of runes for levels and purchases. When I finished for the night he had 20 vigor, 10 mind, 20 endurance, 20 str, 14 dex, 11 int, 12 fth and 7 arcane. Honestly, this doesn't feel like a challenge run at all. At this point I'm just playing the game. This character is a fucking monster. I usually use my straight sword for the 20 - 30 minutes it takes a wretch to get and qualify for a greatsword. This time I'm sticking with it all the way. I always knew it was good I don't think I ever fully appreciated how good.

PS: I tried an aborted Wolverine run with occult hookclaws and I'm now convinced by both bleed and hookclaws. Devastating, but ultimately too hard for me to play without either magic or a shield. It took me like 5 tries just to kill a frickin erdtree avatar.

 

[cruel]

Did you finish the game at least once though?

Sent from my KB2005 using Tapatalk

 

[Morgoth]

Fromsoft CEO Hidetaka Miyazaki to receive the top gong from Japan's industry body​

By Rich Stanton published about 1 hour ago

He joins a list of truly distinguished creators.

(Image credit: Fromsoft)

Japan's Computer and Entertainment Developer Conference (CEDEC) has announced Hidetaka Miyazaki as the recipient of its 'special award' (opens in new tab), basically the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award. Miyazaki joins a list of truly distinguished creators: the first recipient was Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto, while others include Dragon Quest creator Yuji Hori, Namco founder Masaya Nakamura, 'father of the PlayStation' Ken Kutaragi, and Sega's arcade god Yu Suzuki.

The citation for Miyazaki's special award reads as follows (this is an edited machine translation):

"Beginning with Demon's Souls, Miyazaki's consistently challenging game design continues to fascinate fans and break new ground within its own genre. Fromsoftware's most recent game, Elden Ring, is a culmination of their previous work that also achieves quality and scale that greatly surpasses what had come before: the game has received extremely high praise from users all over the world and been a huge hit. Hidetaka Miyazaki has won numerous awards, and his titles have attracted admiration from both game players and game creators."

Elden Ring (opens in new tab) has been a wild success for FromSoftware and publisher Bandai Namco, and is certainly some sort of capstone on the Souls series. Its huge open world and vast array of bosses were a true feast at a time when there just weren't many other big games delivering that kind of spectacle, and it seems certain to scoop up countless game of the year awards come the end of 2022.

Elden Ring remains most active on PC, where the modding community has taken to it like a demigod to runes. Most recently this wag chopped down the giant Erdtree at the heart of the world to get an enormous performance boost (opens in new tab), while elsewhere the game has birthed its own community legends (opens in new tab). There's no news yet on any DLC for the game, though given its commercial success (opens in new tab) that seems inevitable, and if FromSoftware's past DLCs for the Souls series are any guide then expectations should be high.

CEDEC takes place later this month, August 23-25, and Miyazaki will receive the award in a presentation on the final day. CEDEC itself is a part of the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association, which exists to promote the Japanese industry and, among other things, runs the Tokyo Games Show and Japan Game Awards.

 

[Caim]

Fromsoft CEO Hidetaka Miyazaki to receive the top gong from Japan's industry body​

By Rich Stanton published about 1 hour ago

He joins a list of truly distinguished creators.

(Image credit: Fromsoft)

Japan's Computer and Entertainment Developer Conference (CEDEC) has announced Hidetaka Miyazaki as the recipient of its 'special award' (opens in new tab), basically the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award. Miyazaki joins a list of truly distinguished creators: the first recipient was Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto, while others include Dragon Quest creator Yuji Hori, Namco founder Masaya Nakamura, 'father of the PlayStation' Ken Kutaragi, and Sega's arcade god Yu Suzuki.

The citation for Miyazaki's special award reads as follows (this is an edited machine translation):

"Beginning with Demon's Souls, Miyazaki's consistently challenging game design continues to fascinate fans and break new ground within its own genre. Fromsoftware's most recent game, Elden Ring, is a culmination of their previous work that also achieves quality and scale that greatly surpasses what had come before: the game has received extremely high praise from users all over the world and been a huge hit. Hidetaka Miyazaki has won numerous awards, and his titles have attracted admiration from both game players and game creators."

Elden Ring (opens in new tab) has been a wild success for FromSoftware and publisher Bandai Namco, and is certainly some sort of capstone on the Souls series. Its huge open world and vast array of bosses were a true feast at a time when there just weren't many other big games delivering that kind of spectacle, and it seems certain to scoop up countless game of the year awards come the end of 2022.

Elden Ring remains most active on PC, where the modding community has taken to it like a demigod to runes. Most recently this wag chopped down the giant Erdtree at the heart of the world to get an enormous performance boost (opens in new tab), while elsewhere the game has birthed its own community legends (opens in new tab). There's no news yet on any DLC for the game, though given its commercial success (opens in new tab) that seems inevitable, and if FromSoftware's past DLCs for the Souls series are any guide then expectations should be high.

CEDEC takes place later this month, August 23-25, and Miyazaki will receive the award in a presentation on the final day. CEDEC itself is a part of the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association, which exists to promote the Japanese industry and, among other things, runs the Tokyo Games Show and Japan Game Awards.

(opens in new tab)

 

[Caim]

Suspicious post on Steam earlier this week:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1245620/view/3371525557410477104

Who did the crucible knights serve?⚔️

The majority of these powerful warriors served but one master.
Think not of the outlier, gone to the Volcano Manor. His exception demonstrates the rule.

And you, did you defeat this vigorous knight? ⚔️

Possible DLC that delves into the Crucible?

 

[kites]

Suspicious post on Steam earlier this week:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1245620/view/3371525557410477104

Don't take my word for it, but some people had pointed out this is an old post from their twitter account; may not mean anything, who knows

 

[ferratilis]

Varre's quest is no longer tied to multiplayer, and some good news for PvP fags

https://en.bandainamcoent.eu/elden-ring/news/elden-ring-patch-notes-106

ELDEN RING Notice of Update Distribution – Version 1.06


We are distributing an update to improve the stability of gameplay and to adjust balance.
We apologize for the inconvenience, but please apply the latest update before you enjoy the game.


Targeted Platform
PlayStation 4 / PlayStation 5 / Xbox One / Xbox Series X|S / Steam

Major Changes Included in the Latest Update​

Additional elements

• Added the function to send summoning signs to summoning pools in multiple areas, including distant areas.
• ※When sending a co-op sign to distant areas with this function, summoning pools in “Mohgwyn Palace” will be excluded
• Added the function to invade a larger area, including distant areas
• Added a new way to advance White Mask Varre’s questline other than participating in multiplayer invasion by defeating a new NPC

Balance Changes

• Added the following adjustments to Greatsword, Curved Greatsword and Great Hammers:
• Reduced the time it takes for rolling to become possible after an attack (Jump attack, dual wield attack and attacks while mounted not included)
• Increased the motion speed of strong attack and charge attack (mounted attacks not included)
• Increased Guard Counter’s motion speed
• Increased the attack speed of Great Axes and reduced the time it takes for rolling to become possible after an attack (Jump attack, dual wield attack and attacks while mounted not included)
• Increased rolling distance when player has a light equip load.
• Increased the hitbox of Cipher Pata’s weapon skill “Unblockable Blade”
• Increased the range of Ash of War “Glintstone Pebble” and “Glintstone Dart” projectile while decreasing the damage and stagger power
• Decreased the travel distance and invincibility frames of Ash of War “Bloodhound Step” while adding the changes below:

・Reduced performance when used continuously

・Increased travel distance when on light equip load

• Shortened the activation interval when using “Quick Step” skill in succession, increasing its ability to circle around the enemy when locked-on and add the changes below:

・Reduced performance when used continuously

・Increased travel distance when on light equip load

• Decreased the damage and bleed build-up of weapon skill “Corpse Piler” when hit with the blood attack. When hit by the blade, the damage is only decreased slightly
• Decreased the target tracking ability of sorcery “Stars of Ruin”

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug which caused some attacks of “Lucerne” to not pierce enemy’s guard
• Fixed a bug which made it harder for a two-handed jump attack with “Bloodhound’s Fang” to break enemy’s stance
• Fixed a bug which caused the effect of “Determination” and “Royal Knight’s Resolve” to disappear after using the “Parry” skill with a dagger
• Fixed a bug when dual wielding Axe and Greataxe which caused additional effects from Spells, Weapon Skills and Items to not be applied correctly
• Fixed a bug when two-handing a Halberd which made it harder to withstand enemy’s attack after using guard counter
• Fixed a bug which caused the physical attack affinity of some weapons to be different from the affinity listed in the description.
• Fixed a bug which caused the player to become more easily noticed by the enemy when wearing “Deathbed Dress”, even when crouching
• Fixed a bug which caused charge attack with flail to damage ally character when wearing “Deathbed Dress”
• Fixed a bug that caused HP to regenerate when switching your equipment to certain type of armor
• Fixed a bug where the effect added to the weapon upon using “Mists of Slumber” was lost when the player receive an attack
• Fixed a bug which caused the playable character’s movement to become unstable upon hitting certain enemies with the skill “Ghostflame Ignition”
• Fixed a bug which prevented player from using “The Queen’s Black Flame” skill’s follow-up attack when performing the skill with insufficient FP
• Fixed a bug with the weapon skill “Zamor Ice Storm” which allowed player to more easily withstand enemy’s attack when using the skill with insufficient FP
• Fixed a bug which caused the effect of spells and items added to right-hand armament to occur when using certain weapon skills with left hand.
• Fixed a bug which caused the FP consumption description of certain weapon skills to be different from its actual FP cost
• Fixed a bug that allows “Rock Blaster” to not consume any FP when used with a staff on the left hand and no weapon on the right hand
• Fixed a bug which caused the charged version of “Black Flame Ritual” to consume the same amount of stamina as the normal version
• Fixed a bug which caused the player to receive less HP recovery from incantations and items other than “Flask of Crimson Tears” when activating the effect of “Malenia’s Great Rune”
• Fixed a bug which caused the “Opaline Hardtear” to not boost physical damage negation
• Fixed a bug which prevented the player from jumping mid-air while riding under specific condition
• Fixed a bug which allowed jump attack with Colossal Weapons while mounted to hit twice consecutively
• Fixed a bug which caused some signs to appear more than once in the Summoning Pool
• Fixed a bug which caused the effect of some weapon skill’s attack to persist under specific circumstances
• Fixed a bug which sometimes caused significant performance issue at “Ordina, Liturgical Town” under certain circumstances
• Fixed a bug which prevented the player from picking up dropped Runes upon death under certain circumstances
• Fixed a bug which allowed users to reach certain inaccessible area during multiplayer
• Fixed a bug which caused the multiplayer area to have different boundary than expected
• Fixed a bug that causes some enemies to have incorrect visuals and behaviors.
• Fixed a bug that caused incorrect sounds to be played under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a bug which caused some areas to make the player unable to move which lead to death
• Fixed a bug that caused some places on the map to have incorrect visuals and hitboxes.
• Fixed a bug in some maps that allowed users to reach unexpected locations using certain procedures.
• Fixed a bug with the PC version which caused click input to occur when equipping Staves or Sacred Seals and switching Windows to active.
• Other performance improvements and bug fixes.

Other

• Added the “ERROR” text to unauthorized items

※In update file 1.04, we have fixed a bug that allowed players to pass unauthorized items that cannot be obtained in game to other players

After the distribution of this update file, possession and usage of these unauthorized items will be subject to warning or penalty after a certain period of time.

 

[Caim]

Removing the PVP requirement for Varre is a good thing for the longevity of the game. Gotta wonder how exactly that's going to turn out. Also from the looks of it they didn't patch the wrong warp glitch.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Balance Changes

• Added the following adjustments to Greatsword, Curved Greatsword and Great Hammers:
• Reduced the time it takes for rolling to become possible after an attack (Jump attack, dual wield attack and attacks while mounted not included)
• Increased the motion speed of strong attack and charge attack (mounted attacks not included)
• Increased Guard Counter’s motion speed

So my favourite weapons got a buff. Shields indirectly also got a buff. My already strong play style of heater shield and greatsword just got stronger, just as I am working on my PVP build. This is meant to be. I'll have to get back into doing guard counters. They were so useless I'd taught myself not to do them.

I actually hadn't found the greatsword recovery to be too bad. Especially because I'd become used to the colossal sword recovery.

(The rest of this post isn't in reply to your post, it's just me talking about my build and current adventures)

My get good run is still happening. I'm playing through with a Hero, making a 150 +25 build while doing a no summon run. What seemed impossible is happening: I can kill crucible knights, gargoyles, bell bearing hunters and every boss I've run into with honest 1v1 melee, no jelly fish. By the end of this run I'll hopefully be good enough to start learning to fight other players in duels with this character. So I can't level him above 150 or I'll fuck up my matchmaking.

No I haven't finished the game. I will, but the story isn't that important to me. I'm still having a lot of fun making builds and improving my skills as a player. That's much more interesting and finishing this long ass game always takes a back seat to that. I can do it any time though, I've got a save right outside the final boss room. I'd just rather finish with a more legit character, that save is above level 190. It's very likely that my current character will be the one that finishes though, as I need shit from endgame to make my build.

The build:

Spoiler

Starting class: Hero (lets me dump INT to 7, FTH to 8 and mind to 9 if I want to make this pure STR or STR/ARC. Doesn't waste any points on DEX as none of my favorite weapons need more than 10 or 12.
Attributes:
Vigor: 60
Mind: 17 (full cast of Dragonice with no talisman and almost endless uses of WA)
Endurance: 25
Strength: 70
Dexterity: 10
Intelligence: 20 (gives better AR on my cold weapons to have some INT. How much varies by weapon but none lose AR by having 20.)
Faith: 15 (Minimum for Dragonice)
Arcane: 12 (Dragonice)

Armour:
Head: Zamor mask (decent poise/weight and I like its looks)
Chest: Scaled armour, altered
Arms: Veteran's gauntlets
Legs: Bull goat greaves

This combination both looks awesome and gives roughly 30% damage negation to physical damage types and 25% to non physical. 62 poise without bull goats talisman, 82 with the talisman.

Talismans:
Crimson amber +2
Erdtree's favour +2
Great Jar's arsenal
1 that can switch as needed. I like green turtle talisman a lot as a shield user but don't underestimate the usefulness of Blessed Dew. Blessed Dew + Bestial Vitality = the same regen as crimsonburst while saving a physick slot. Shard of Alexander, claw talisman, bull goat's talisman and greatshield talisman are also options for this slot. For my playstyle though, green turtle is the one I notice most when it isn't there.

Buffs:
Body: Boiled crab or exalted flesh. I've had much more success with the flesh in my PVE adventures but tarnished do a lot of damage and can't take much damage. So the crab makes more sense for PVP.
Health regen: Bestial vitality (Bestiality) stacks with Blessed Dew if I use that.
Stamina regen: Pickled turtle neck stacks with green turtle, but I probably won't use it because too many buffs seem to be frowned upon in duels.
Physick: Speckled hardtear. I hate hardswapping in PVE so in PVP it would be suicide for someone of my skill level. This lets me clear any status once, without needing to look for the relevant bolus. I'd save the physick until I took some buildup. Second tear = crimson bubbletear.
Aura: Probably nothing. AoW Golden Vow would be fine, but again I'll already be doing 3 buffs.

So bestial vitality, physick and boiled crab before a duel.

Armaments:
Right hand 1: Cold Iron greatsword with ash of war sword dance. Cheap, FP efficient, does good damage and procs frostbite. There are many ashes I love on the greatsword. I'll switch it around and experiment, see what works best against players. Gets 741 AR which is above my 700 minimum for what I consider "good".
Right hand 2: Heavy dagger. It's a wand for ashes of war. Glintblade phalanx is a favorite in PVE for how easily it brings down golems, dragons and other big things. Chilling mist would fit my ice theme better though.

Left hand 1: Eclipse crest heater shield (No skill). A beautiful shield that matches my character's blue accents on his armour and gives 100% physical damage negation when blocking. Guard boost isn't amazing but for 3.5 weight a heater shield is the best weight/value for a shield IMO.
Left hand 2: Clawmark seal. Its heavy and shit but its the STR seal.

Alternate armaments:
Great mace, broadsword, watchdog's greatsword, troll's golden sword, iron cleaver etc. Anything that loves STR and needs no more than 10 DEX. That's a lot of good weapons. Would need to wear less armour or ditch the shield for bigger weapons, but the option is still there.

Spells:
Honestly I probably shouldn't even have spells in the build. I always think I'll use them but seldom do. Ashes are just more efficient and effective. Still, I'm a frost build and I want to have dragonice. I'd have to be very careful when I chose to use it though. It's slow as shit. Other than that there's bestial vitality and flame cleanse me, though FCM is slow for PVP I think. There's also magic fortification which I could use as an alternate body buff if my opponent is holding a staff and wearing a big hat. Bestial sling? Maybe. I hate it in PVE except for killing dragonflies.

Throwables:
Frost pots are the main one. Fan daggers as well to pop the Opaline Bubbletear.

 

[NJClaw]

No I haven't finished the game.

NJClaw disapproves. He will remember this.