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

[mediocrepoet]

Trailer didn't have enough roll or parry spam, or some dickhead bloodhound stepping for hours just to screw with you.

 

[Dadd]

Git gud

 

[Bloodeyes]

I just went to Raya to have a crack at dueling. The build I brought was suboptimal to say the least and I paid for it. It's a Death's poker/black knife using golden order build with madness and fire incants. It's meant to be a 150 invader but I'm still levelling him up so I was 130 and only had 40 vigor. I got bodied 3 times and won once. I quit after I got the win. I just wanted to get one.

Death's poker is a great weapon but I'm not skilled enough at PVP to land its WA yet. I'll finish this build then keep it in my back pocket for when I'm more experienced at PVP and have a better feel for the timings of it. That WA is usable I swear, at least the heavy version. Just not by me, not yet.

I left my Vykes build as a level 32 + 5 sleeper. I didn't enjoy the spear. It's powerful but it allowed me to beat people more skilled than me by just pressing L2. I've hosted with it a couple more times and it is kinda funny to look like a vulnerable noob host with catch flame and a shortspear, then go phase 2 with vykes and madness incants when the sunbro dies. It's a neat trick to play on people and an invader with a sense of humor would get a kick out of that but I don't want to put 100 hours into levelling up that build. Its effective, but really boring to play.

 

[Talby]

Who cares about multiplayer duelfag shit, bring on the singleplayer content expansion.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Who cares about multiplayer duelfag shit, bring on the singleplayer content expansion.

Agree. I usually kind of like janky Souls PvP, but Elden Ring is shit for it. Best one was DS2.

 

[Dadd]

Who cares about multiplayer duelfag shit, bring on the singleplayer content expansion.

Agree. I usually kind of like janky Souls PvP, but Elden Ring is shit for it. Best one was DS2.

There are too many unwieldy and flashy skills in DS3 and Elden Ring that overwhelm pvp fights.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Noob question but I don't want to go into the huge guides: I'm lvl 32 abd ny Attribute distribution is Vigor 24 ... Endurance 15, Strength 18, Dex 19 ... I haven't touched the other stats.

I'm using Bloodhound's Fang (twohanded), upgraded to +2. I know I can upgrade it further if I skip to the right merchant, but I don't want to do it.

My question is, have I put enough in Vigor for now or should I keep putting points there?

You should keep putting points there. 50 - 60 is advisable for endgame. 40 is viable. Anything less is a challenge run. As for how you get there that's up to you. 24 will get old real fast anywhere other than the starting area or Liurnia of the Lakes.

Without using soreseals I usually go for 20 - 25 to start, then get an easy to reach weapon prereq, then go for 30 ish to beat my second shardbearer, then 40. Then I leave it at 40 until my build is fully functional with 50 ish in its main stat. Then I take it up to its final value which for me is between 52 and the 60 softcap. This always coincides with when I'm approaching the late game so I've got it at 50 or better befoer I get there.

That's is for a casual playthrough. If I'm challenging myself I'll stay behind the curve a bit with vigor. If I'm making a PVP build, levelling it to different RLs and weapon upgrade levels and doing invasions as I go I'll try to be ahead of the curve with vigor. You can't btw. Everyone just gets weapon requirements with gear and dumps everything into vigor.

 

[racofer]

Best boss.

Spoiler

 

[mediocrepoet]

Best boss.

Spoiler

So considering she's literally rotten, just imagine the smell.

Spoiler

You're welcome!

 

[Dadd]

Never smelt one that didn't smell rotten. Must be the "self-cleaning" they allegedly do.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Never smelt one that didn't smell rotten. Must be the "self-cleaning" they allegedly do.

Not sure if you're gay or have only met dirty whores. Possibly both.

 

[Dadd]

You don't have to be gay to dislike the stench of rotting fish and vinegar. Anyway it's undoubtable that my lady smells like flowers down there.

 

[Zerth]

Anybody of you have beaten the game with guard counters?. I like it and is pretty strong to break boss stances , seems like the best options for a dedicated guard counter build are straight and curved 1h swords since it's pretty fast. But 2H guard counters are great too imo, despite you cant spam them as much as 1h since those are noticeably slower, and thus need longer openings.

 

[Talby]

"I have never known defeat." *gets defeated* "Nuh-uh that doesn't count."

Malenia was one of those kids who hit the reset button on the console when she starts to lose.

 

[Delphik]

Anybody of you have beaten the game with guard counters?. I like it and is pretty strong to break boss stances , seems like the best options for a dedicated guard counter build are straight and curved 1h swords since it's pretty fast. But 2H guard counters are great too imo, despite you cant spam them as much as 1h since those are noticeably slower, and thus need longer openings.

I don't know what the numbers are but I beat the game with Jump > Heavy Attack, seems to break poise really fast and is more reliable than guard counters in my experience.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Anybody of you have beaten the game with guard counters?. I like it and is pretty strong to break boss stances , seems like the best options for a dedicated guard counter build are straight and curved 1h swords since it's pretty fast. But 2H guard counters are great too imo, despite you cant spam them as much as 1h since those are noticeably slower, and thus need longer openings.

I personally am not a fan of counters but a streamer I watch beat Malenia while heavily relying on guard counters. She used a straight sword and great shield.

I don't use them much, but I've found a shield and Zweihander can work well because its reach means they don't miss so much. Guard counters are fine. Green turtle talisman, curved sword talisman, greatshield talisman and dagger talisman. High 30s - 50 endurance. There's a quite brutal softcap on stamina gains around 50 endurance.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Anybody of you have beaten the game with guard counters?. I like it and is pretty strong to break boss stances , seems like the best options for a dedicated guard counter build are straight and curved 1h swords since it's pretty fast. But 2H guard counters are great too imo, despite you cant spam them as much as 1h since those are noticeably slower, and thus need longer openings.

I did, just as you said faster weapons are much better. Later on some bosses recover really quickly from counters.

Edit: So I checked some info about new Colosseums and they are looking good.

Limgrave Colosseum has team based fights and a free for all mode, both timed with most kills at end wins.
Caelid Colosseum is only for 1vs 1 duels with no respawns.
Leyndell Colosseum is all of the above and bell summonning is allowed in all of them.

Leyndell sounds like just my kind of fucking chaos, will check all of them for sure.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Free for all sounds casul but also the most fun more likely. I still wish covenants were in the game bad move to remove them IMHO, even if most of them were pointless or wierd in previous games.

Any words on the DLC? I think i'm going to wait until content for this game has settled a bit before giving it another spin, probably restart my SL1 run from scratch.

Also, has Bloodeyes ever actually finish the game? Lmao.

 

[Zerth]

I personally am not a fan of counters but a streamer I watch beat Malenia while heavily relying on guard counters. She used a straight sword and great shield.

I don't use them much, but I've found a shield and Zweihander can work well because its reach means they don't miss so much. Guard counters are fine. Green turtle talisman, curved sword talisman, greatshield talisman and dagger talisman. High 30s - 50 endurance. There's a quite brutal softcap on stamina gains around 50 endurance.

Guard countering malenia? That's quite a feat since She'd be healing.
I'd have just 2H the Zweihander instead with the same talismans, altho that way I couldnt block everything as with a greatshield.
For instance, I broke godfrey stance by guardcountering with the Giant ToeCrusher, the pain came after wrestling phase began tho.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Also, has Bloodeyes ever actually finish the game? Lmao.

Yes actually. I've completed an all remembrances playthrough with a strength and faith build using the Zweihander and the Guts Greatsword. I killed Malenia with my Guts Greatsword and posted screens ITT of my character in her empty boss room. I've probably done a couple hundred partial playthroughs making builds and doing different challenges. I still haven't completed the game on PS5 (my achievements don't carry over from PS4) but I've done it and I'll do it again.

 

[Bloodeyes]

GOTY but no DLC announcement.

 

[Aeschylus]

Noob question but I don't want to go into the huge guides: I'm lvl 32 abd ny Attribute distribution is Vigor 24 ... Endurance 15, Strength 18, Dex 19 ... I haven't touched the other stats.

I'm using Bloodhound's Fang (twohanded), upgraded to +2. I know I can upgrade it further if I skip to the right merchant, but I don't want to do it.

My question is, have I put enough in Vigor for now or should I keep putting points there?

You're at a good place to do Stormveil and the associated bosses. As has been said you'll want to end up with a minimum of 40 vigor. 60 is where it starts giving diminishing returns, so somewhere in that range is best for endgame. You'll probably benefit more in the immediate term from pumping strength a bit.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Noob question but I don't want to go into the huge guides: I'm lvl 32 abd ny Attribute distribution is Vigor 24 ... Endurance 15, Strength 18, Dex 19 ... I haven't touched the other stats.

I'm using Bloodhound's Fang (twohanded), upgraded to +2. I know I can upgrade it further if I skip to the right merchant, but I don't want to do it.

My question is, have I put enough in Vigor for now or should I keep putting points there?

You're at a good place to do Stormveil and the associated bosses. As has been said you'll want to end up with a minimum of 40 vigor. 60 is where it starts giving diminishing returns, so somewhere in that range is best for endgame. You'll probably benefit more in the immediate term from pumping strength a bit.

Why do you suggest STR? Bloodhound's Fang is a Dex preferring quality weapon. At +10 with 17 DEX and 80 STR it give 690 AR two handed. At 18 STR and 79 DEX (for fairness) it gives 774 AR. At 55 DEX 42 STR it gets 807 two handed AR. To optimize for Bloodhound's fang go to 55 DEX and then dump whatever's left over into STR. Even one handed it seems to do better with this split. A build like this could use a lot of different weapons too. Probably most of the weapons in the game.

Though with this weapon you have another tempting option. It's a somber weapon that can take buffs and greases. So you could chuck those extra points into FTH instead of STR and cast a blade buff on it like bloodflame blade or electrify armament. Bloodflame blade adds fire damage and around 40 bleed build up that stacks with your weapon's base bleed. A build like this could fight competently and cast a lot of magic spells. It would also get some very cool somber weapons.

Just bear in mind that you should use the Godslayer's seal if you do this, because blade buffs only scale with faith (Or INT if you're using one of those two) so a split scaling seal like clawmark, Dragon Communion or Golden order will be suboptimal for that purpose. I say Godslayer's because a mixed build is unlikely to hit levels of FTH where Erdtree Seal becomes better. Finger seal would suffice below requirements for Godslayer's.

But that's for later. With scaling being so poor in the early game you really don't get much from going above requirements for your weapon. I'd suggest taking 12 faith. Even if you don't want to be a cleric Flame Cleanse Me, Heal, bestial vitality and the fortification spells are incredibly useful. You could just use consumables instead if you don't mind crafting and just don't want magic at all.

Other than that, just try stuff out. If you find a cool spell you want to use or another weapon you want to try take requirements for those. If you find some armor you want and you can't mid roll get endurance. If you chug too many blues take a little mind. You can respec later and you can do it a lot of times. Experiment early on then tidy up your build to focus on whatever you end up preferring. If you've got a level up and you don't know what to do with it, throw it in vigor.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Yep, in my impression the game is quite forgiving of suboptimal builds, provided the player has the time to try and retry.

 

[Lyric Suite]

That goes for all Souls games. When you have people finishing the game naked at SL1 using only a rusted fork there's really no point fretting over about optimal builds. Getting gud is all that matters.

Optimal builds only matter in PvP.