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

[Spike]

Remember the Convergence mod for Dark Souls 3? That's entered alpha for Elden Ring now.

https://www.nexusmods.com/eldenring/mods/3419

Already there's a load of new classes with new gear. And of course a lot of new spells.

I'm looking at those revamped areas/new bosses

 

[Skinwalker]

And if you really like the gravity theme and want to do some more magic damage go check the beach south of where you found the teleporting chest. You can jump down safely into the updrafts, and make sure to peek around the beach for a route to something you might have seen before.

Did you mean the Gravitas ash of war, or is there also a spell that I missed there? Also, the tutorial cave is there, nice!

 

[JDR13]

Anyway, the page says those guys were weak to sleep but i had no idea how much lmao:



Since they are immune to status effects of any kind aside for this one, to keep with the theme of this run i wanted to be "strategic" and switch to the one thing they are actually weak to, but apparently all i managed to do is bypass the fight entirely.

Pretty sure they're not immune to Rot.

 

[Caim]

And if you really like the gravity theme and want to do some more magic damage go check the beach south of where you found the teleporting chest. You can jump down safely into the updrafts, and make sure to peek around the beach for a route to something you might have seen before.

Did you mean the Gravitas ash of war, or is there also a spell that I missed there? Also, the tutorial cave is there, nice!

Yep, that's the one. It's an easy and early way to get access to magic damage on your weapon, and while it might not be the best ash of war it'll do its part. Plus it ties into the whole theme.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Anyway, the page says those guys were weak to sleep but i had no idea how much lmao:



Since they are immune to status effects of any kind aside for this one, to keep with the theme of this run i wanted to be "strategic" and switch to the one thing they are actually weak to, but apparently all i managed to do is bypass the fight entirely.

Pretty sure they're not immune to Rot.

They are.

Don't forget we are talking about the illusory versions created by the snail, they are not like the regular kind.

Today i had shit to do but later on i'll make another attempt this time fighting them fair and square. Will be good practice for the duo later on in Farum Azula.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Ok, gave it a spin this afternoon, this is as far as i got:



That belly bounce is starting to become psycologically oppressive. I died for failing to hit dodge at the right microsecond but it's the belly bounce that made me lose confidence. I can't figure out how to get out of it, and i refuse to accept i'm just supposed to eat it. Everytime i go punish him there's a 50% change i'm gonna get slammed to the ground and i can't also safely stay close to him to fish out a parry.

On the plus side, i finally figured out how to parry the Apostle lmao. He has a lot of parryable attacks but it's all screwy. Some you can't parry if you are too close, while for a couple it's the opposite, and he has one or two super fast unparriable attacks that just screw you over even more. I might try switching to Golden Parry all though i found the Carian one to be better close up, not sure if it's my imagination or not. Like the hilt slam the Noble does, it seemed harder with Golden Parry. It's not that big of an issue though since you can just mix up some good roll-fu and merely focus on the easier parries. It's the frikking Noble that's ruining my shit. In fact i think i give up i'm going to go look for a video to see how other people manage to get out of that belly bonk lmao.

 

[Skinwalker]

I think that the various random teleporters they placed in the lake area are completely unnecessary and sequence-breaking. One such thing teleported me straight to the gates of the Academy, and then I went back and it was so much more fun to make your way normally to the gate through the lake, then the Academy town ruins, then the gate area, then finally the bridge.

Honestly, feels like in-game spoilers. Bad game design. Same goes for the teleporting chest.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Both damage and defences are extremely bad now lmao. Even my cheese spells don't do much anymore:



I still totally cheesed the big guy with the whip by luring him to the cave and just pop my head around the corner long enough to cast Night Maiden's Mist only to run away as fast as i could. Took about 4 casts.

Can't wait to get to the area with all the giants, big hands, t-rex crows etc.

A small hint on efficiency: None of those buffs scale at all. So you can swap your clawmark seal for a weightless seal like erdtree seal, dragon communion or frenzied flame (no need to meet requirements on the seal or level it up at all). Enjoy a little more equip load at no detriment whatsoever! It took me far too long to realize you can do this but it was a game changer for my low level builds.

I kept the strengh seal to maximize some of the few offensive incantations i use, but i just checked and the arcane seal is actually around the same incantation scaling. The claw seal can be used two handed but i think there's no point using offensive spells anymore. Enemies just have too much health so dragon seal it is. Just need to figure out how to take advantage of the extra 1.5 of weight lul.

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

Started my very first playthrough of Elder Nig. I think I'll go with a mage build, as I have never used spells in souls games before, and in a huge open-world game I don't really care if killing enemies is too easy, so long as it's fast.

Man up. Magic, buffs, goofy-looking gear, anime-looking movesets and helmets is for women.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Ok, yesterday night tried it a few more times and managed to push through it:



Second phase of Noble is still messy, could probably perfect it with more practice wish i hadn't erased my last save with the Noble in Volcano Manor as i could have used a bit more training there without having to go through the Apostle every time. I kept trying to keep my distance so as not to trigger the belly bounce (checked some videos on youtube and apparently nobody knows how to actually dodge it. I just saw one guy use Quickstep to get out of it which i guess i could have used as well) but that just made it long winded, made me miss a ton of easy parries and made me prone to errors as i kept losing focus on other things.

Also, for some strange reason i couldn't get inside his flame ring in this fight. He feels... smaller than the one in Volcano Manor, not sure if it's an impression or maybe the camera was closer there i don't know. So in order to get some hits while he is doing that i decided to use the Carian Parry to eat his fireballs and throw magic darts back at him. I was initially using a bunch of lighting pots for that but the Carian thingy is cooler.

I'm actually keeping a back up of this fight just in case i want to try to perfect it even more. I'm actually really starting to enjoy those guys and their avant-guard moveset lmao, at least now that i've finally managed to make sense of them for the most part. second phase of the Noble notwithstanding. The Apostle at least i mastered almost completely. There's only two parries i still need to perfect, the one where he does that backward jump and the one where he hits you with the pointy back side of his weapon. The jump one is hard to pull off because he usually does it while i'm recovering from something else and looks way too similar to another kind of swing that i wasn't able to parry at all. The one where he pokes you in the face is also annoying because you can only parry it by standing very close to him but that makes other parries harder so there's a level of RNG involved when it comes to positioning and i decided to play it safe for now.

 

[Spike]

I think that the various random teleporters they placed in the lake area are completely unnecessary and sequence-breaking. One such thing teleported me straight to the gates of the Academy, and then I went back and it was so much more fun to make your way normally to the gate through the lake, then the Academy town ruins, then the gate area, then finally the bridge.

Honestly, feels like in-game spoilers. Bad game design. Same goes for the teleporting chest.

Hate this too, and for the same reasons except for when the chest teleports you. That is cool. When you get there, it it so foreign and feels so dangerous. One of my top gaming memories. But the other teleporters suck and are immersion destroying. Who put them there? Why are they the same throughout? I don't mind them in the 4 belfries either but the rest are awful. Most egregious example aside from the one you posted (I did the exact same thing) is the only way to get to le snake boss by being through one of them outside of doing the tarnished-hunting quest. So dumb. I don't want to hunt fellow Tarnished. Sucks. Zoomerportals.

 

[Lyric Suite]

They put them there in case people want to skip the open world and to give people direction. You can argue this is just pandering to normies, but FromSoft never made it a secret they want the game to be accessible to new people, and whatever you wanna say about this, the way they go about it is the best possible way. The alternative is quest compass, direction arrows and all that other Ubishit garbage so pick your poison.

Just like summoning people to help you in a boss fight, those things are optional.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Anyway, as you would have guessed, i gave it another go yesterday night and i think i pretty much got them both mastered give or take a few kinks here and there (i tried charged attacks here but as you can see they don't work). This was like on the second or third try:



Main strategy basically is to just not give a fuck and brutalize them. Especially the Noble trying to be skillful and strategic in the second phase is just a waste of time. Aggression seems to be the best tactic if you gotta eat some hits so be it. Even as SL1 i can still survive that belly slap and staying to his face just makes it possible to fish out easy parries which makes mince meat of his entire second phase.

Other then a no-hit attempt which i don't think i care to do right now there's nothing much i can show here. Those guys have always been among the hardest enemies for me, harder than the Crucible for sure, so i hope some people here can make use of those videos. Those parries may seem scary but once you get down to it they aren't that difficult to pull off, especially that hilt slam the Noble does it's super easy to parry and it's the best tool you have against him, and i would wager it was propably intentional given how difficult everything else he does is to counter.

 

[Bloodeyes]

So far I've collected 141 rune arcs. That's still probably not enough for me to beat the game RL1. The more invasions I do the less I give a shit about finishing anyway.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I collected around 471 before that +8 weapon dropped and burned through 133 so far lmao. If you are autistic enough you can cheat by save scumming. I didn't try that too much as i'm not sure if the anti-cheat picks that up even if you play offline. I do know it doesn't care if you do it a few times since i used save scumming to get all endings last year and nothing happened. On some of the harder bosses, i make a back up of my save once then practice them until i feel good about it then restore the earlier save and start recording after that. I know, it's incredibly pathetic but i tried grinding rats a few times and it's just not for me. I rationalize it by arguing in my head it is FromSoft's fault for making match making so retarded.

 

[Bloodeyes]

I collected around 471 before that +8 weapon dropped and burned through 133 so far lmao. If you are autistic enough you can cheat by save scumming. I didn't try that too much as i'm not sure if the anti-cheat picks that up even if you play offline. I do know it doesn't care if you do it a few times since i used save scumming to get all endings last year and nothing happened. On some of the harder bosses, i make a back up of my save once then practice them until i feel good about it then restore the earlier save and start recording after that. I know, it's incredibly pathetic but i tried grinding rats a few times and it's just not for me. I rationalize it by arguing in my head it is FromSoft's fault for making match making so retarded.

Everyone but me uses backup saves to dupe items. Its not considered cheating by the PvP community and certainly nobody minds if its done in PvE. There's actually a whole subreddit devoted to it called Patches Emporium where people will trade items and mule for each other. The normal thing to do is have a character that's collected everything and duped all the crafting mats then back it up and have a third party mule the stuff to you every time you make a new build.

I just make my builds by getting stuff through gameplay. It does disadvantage me in PvP to do this.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Well, i'm not duping anything. Everything was collected normally and i wouldn't bother using save scumming if i could collect rune arcs as usual through multiplayer. I just can't grind rats for them, it's too boring. If you noticed i didn't use arteria leafs until i was close to the Mountaintops of Giants because i do plan to farm those as it is at least engaging. Rats by contrast just piss me off. I tried taking the volume down and grind them while playing something else in the background but i lasted 30 minutes before i gave up lol.

 

[Skinwalker]

I think I'm spending way too much time playing this game, but on the other hand, it keeps genuinely surprising me with its scope and creativity. Who could have thought that there is an extensive underground area that looks downright otherworldly and magical?!

I really should have finished exploring Limgrave before moving on to Liurnia, this area clearly has a number of things for beginners that I totally missed until now. Restart from scratch with a brand-new character?

 

[Silva]

I just found out the Wakizachi power stances with the Uchigatana. Aaaand you can put parry on the Waki. Neat.

Btw, Unsheathe or Bloody Slash for the Uchi? It seems Bloody Slash inflicts more damage but Unsheathe is faster and also breaks guard/poise.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I think I'm spending way too much time playing this game, but on the other hand, it keeps genuinely surprising me with its scope and creativity. Who could have thought that there is an extensive underground area that looks downright otherworldly and magical?!

I really should have finished exploring Limgrave before moving on to Liurnia, this area clearly has a number of things for beginners that I totally missed until now. Restart from scratch with a brand-new character?

Up to you if you want to restart but keep in mind this game is absolutely massive, almost shockingly huge. This means burn out is likely at some point unless you are resistant to it or unless you can manage to take breaks (which you can do if you treat each "zone" as it's own game basically).

You can also follow the progress route here if you feel you need some direction:

https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Game+Progress+Route

If you don't want to read the guide itself you can just look at the sequence of zones at the very least. Or you can just keep playing blind again up to you.

 

[Egosphere]

Codex hate popular things, no more explanation needed.

I think it's more of the fact that ER feels too close to Souls 4, than it does to a truly original IP like Bloodborne. I never got far in ER, simply because it felt like I had in some capacity already experienced it over the years. Also the soundtrack was very subpar in comparison to its predecessors. Not many tracks that can stand up to DS3/BB quality.

 

[Skinwalker]

If you don't want to read the guide itself you can just look at the sequence of zones at the very least. Or you can just keep playing blind again up to you.

Well, every time I tried looking up some very specific minor info while playing Bloodporn or DSIII, I ended up getting a result that basically says "The rare upgrade material is in the XYZ area of the game where SEEMINGLY BENEVOLENT CHARACTER is doing SECRET SEX MAGIC RITUAL that involves the WOLFHEADED KNIGHT who serves Queen Melania Trump and then ATTACKS YOU in a sudden betrayal sending you to the MYSTERIOUS UNDERWORLD AREA where the GLOWING ORB OF DOOM lets you choose between the 'NOBLE SELF-SACRIFICE' or 'EVIL OVERLORD' endings of the game because the GIANT TURTLE POPE was manipulating the main character all along".

So I just avoid the guides a.k.a. spoiler diarrhea like the plague now.

I think it's more of the fact that ER feels too close to Souls 4, than it does to a truly original IP like Bloodborne.

Elden Ring is 75% Dark Souls, 20% Skyrim, and 5% Game of Thrones.

Not many tracks that can stand up to DS3/BB quality.

DS3/BB had sound tracks? Oh, you meant the ridiculously bombastic orchestra that flares up suddenly when you walk into a boss arena by accident because you were looking for a way to get that item from the corpse dangling on an unreachable ledge?

 

[Lyric Suite]

BEHOLD, even more massive autism ahead:



Basically as close to a no-hit as it is possible given that belly slap just can't be avoided.

I think i'm more than ready to take on the duo one in Farum Azula lmao.

For the record, now that i'm at the end game i'm going to slow down considerably and take my time to give as good an account on those late bosses as i can, not the least because this is the last time i'm gonna bother with this game for many years to come. As i mentioned many times, i basically winged it on my first playthrough because the corrupt save just made me not give a shit anymore. This time around i rushed through the early portion of the game precisely so i could slow down and take my time at the end, redressing the shit performances i gave originally. So from now on i'm just going to move on casually, taking breaks, taking my time to perfect bosses etc.

 

[Lyric Suite]

DS3/BB had sound tracks? Oh, you meant the ridiculously bombastic orchestra that flares up suddenly when you walk into a boss arena by accident because you were looking for a way to get that item from the corpse dangling on an unreachable ledge?

To be honest i barely remember the music from any of the Souls games since i'm too busy trying not to die when i fight bosses to pay attention to anything else, but since DS2 or DS3 i noticed the music in those games, while not necessarely bad, got a bit artificial and formulaic. Like it still uses some decently unusual harmonies compared to the banal/shit/boring orchestral scores from AAA western garbage but it's really not as interesting as it used to be.

 

[Spike]

DS3/BB had sound tracks? Oh, you meant the ridiculously bombastic orchestra that flares up suddenly when you walk into a boss arena by accident because you were looking for a way to get that item from the corpse dangling on an unreachable ledge?

To be honest i barely remember the music from any of the Souls games since i'm too busy trying not to die when i fight bosses to pay attention to anything else, but since DS2 or DS3 i noticed the music in those games, while not necessarely bad, got a bit artificial and formulaic. Like it still uses some decently unusual harmonies compared to the banal/shit/boring orchestral scores from AAA western garbage but it's really not as interesting as it used to be.

Elden King theme slaps though.