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

[MasPingon]

Bold perfectly encapsulates "Elden Ring is all dodging" crowd here on Codex. But he is learning:

 

[Hell Swarm]

Bold perfectly encapsulates "Elden Ring is all dodging" crowd here on Codex. But he is learning:

The videos dishonest because it ignores one of the biggest factors in rolling. It moves you. You can jump some attacks and it does have more iframes but it's rather static. Where as rolling takes you through hit boxes in a way jumping doesn't. Elden ring does occasionally encourage you to jump but it's hardly shocking to find out that jumping avoids some attacks despite it being the sub optimal way to dodge them. It's like saying a ducking emote blocks some attacks. We know, but it doesn't make it the best option.

Any one saying "You don't lose anything from respecting" doesn't understand the value of a game making you make decisions and live with those consequences. If you can always respec into a build that hard counters a boss you don't ever have to struggle in the game. The new super boss is weak to bleed so I melted it with my dex build, while strength users struggled and had to fight a full fight against it. On the opposite side a boss that's really fast and you're only able to hit once before it runs away I'm going to have to find ways to adapt to get the most damage out of my weapon instead of just the status proc. These experiences are what make runs unique and change the games balance to make it dynamic. If I get to a boss I can't proc bleed on then I can always respec into a great hammer and kill it in 5 hits. What value did that fight have then? Absolutely none. I didn't gain or lose anything from respecing is bullshit. You lose the depth of the build system because every character has effectively maxed stats since you're never going to respec 30 times in a single play through. Most people probably soft respec once when they discover a really cool weapon but they need 12 arcane/faith/arc and switch those secondary stats around if they haven't unlocked the easy grind spots to grab the levels yet.

 

[Multidirectional]

Oh gee, so you can avoid a bunch of attacks by clipping into them with jump. That makes combat look way more intuitive and not trial and error bullshit at all, reinstalling immediately.

 

[Damned Registrations]

If you can always respec into a build that hard counters a boss you don't ever have to struggle in the game.

The problem with this argument is that your stats are like 10% of your build in ER anyways. You want to proc bleed? Use a bleed weapon. There's one for pretty much every weapon type and you can always rub the right kind of rock on it to get the effect if there isn't. Can't equip the weapon you want to use? Unless it's the fucking fingerprint shield, you can probably meet the requirements by equipping talismans and using a godrick's rune. Even if your damage output is like 20% lower than with a stat respec, it should still be fine if it's as much of a hard counter as you're claiming. You can use a rapier with the minimum dex requirements and just give it a heavy or elemental affinity, it'll be fine. It's extra irrelevant for the DLC because by then you've got a billion extra levels so you're losing like 5% damage from stats over the softcap to be able to use more weapons instead.

 

[abija]

You're not turning an effective caster into a dex bleeder on a whim. And hitting the softcaps for a faith arcane build for example takes you over lvl 200. The difference between soft and hardcaps is closer to 25% so it keeps almost linear with the stat increase.

I usually finish the first blind run considerably overleveled and was 180ish when I finished the game, you're not flying past softcaps even in dlc.

 

[MasPingon]

Oh gee, so you can avoid a bunch of attacks by clipping into them with jump. That makes combat look way more intuitive and not trial and error bullshit at all, reinstalling immediately.

So now FS game combat being a trial and error is bad? Those hipsters come up with new ways to stand out faster and faster nawadays.

 

[Multidirectional]

So now FS game combat being a trial and error is bad? Those hipsters come up with new ways to stand out faster and faster nawadays.

It is when bosses have loads of HP and can kill you in 1-2 hits. I wasn't bothered by it in Dark Souls 1-2, started hating it in subsequent Souls games. But I wouldn't expect From Soft fanboys who will never play better action games to understand. You people just don't know any better.

 

[Bloodeyes]

I'm having an amazing time in the DLC. 10/10 IMO but I'm not very far in because I keep tinkering with my build and invading to test it. I'm a level 168 thorn sorceror with a flame art fire knight's greatsword and two guilty staves. 60 vig, 80 fth. Blaster mage that can fight his way out of a corner if he has to:



Take a close look at those damage numbers. These aren't base vigor bozos I'm fighting, my damage is just that good.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The softcaps are at like, 40 last I checked. Level 180 is enough to go past that on multiple stats.

Like, how is this even a fucking discussion. I've done this shit multiple times. Switching from a heavy infusion to a frost/bleed/poison one without changing my stats had pretty trivial impact on the damage numbers. You're not losing that much damage unless your build is something retardedly lopsided like 80 points in multiple stats. Only casters justify that and they have enough build variety in their spells. Just pick different spells.

 

[abija]

You're comparing a middle of the road proc X to a middle of the road proc Y. Ofc if you don't maximize damage for either the difference when swapping is small... And the soft caps are more like 50-55 and 60 for spells.

 

[Hell Swarm]

You're not turning an effective caster into a dex bleeder on a whim. And hitting the softcaps for a faith arcane build for example takes you over lvl 200. The difference between soft and hardcaps is closer to 25% so it keeps almost linear with the stat increase.

I usually finish the first blind run considerably overleveled and was 180ish when I finished the game, you're not flying past softcaps even in dlc.

175 is about average for the base game on a blind play through.

So now FS game combat being a trial and error is bad? Those hipsters come up with new ways to stand out faster and faster nawadays.

It is when bosses have loads of HP and can kill you in 1-2 hits. I wasn't bothered by it in Dark Souls 1-2, started hating it in subsequent Souls games. But I wouldn't expect From Soft fanboys who will never play better action games to understand. You people just don't know any better.

The issue isn't the 1-2 hits as older bosses could do that. It's the cinematic attacks can 1-2 hit you and there's no way to prepare for them. I know a boss is going to attack me with his swords. I don't know phase 2 starts and the area explodes, 5 quick attacks come from all angles and then a flame AOE fills the floor with lava. It's the exact problem the Midir had where his huge laser just melted you and you had no way to predict any of it except to grind the boss to that point over and over. Having to spend 10 minutes to learn to dodge 1 instadeath attack sucks and this DLC has that problem.

The softcaps are at like, 40 last I checked. Level 180 is enough to go past that on multiple stats.

Like, how is this even a fucking discussion. I've done this shit multiple times. Switching from a heavy infusion to a frost/bleed/poison one without changing my stats had pretty trivial impact on the damage numbers. You're not losing that much damage unless your build is something retardedly lopsided like 80 points in multiple stats. Only casters justify that and they have enough build variety in their spells. Just pick different spells.

Soft cap is 60 in Elden ring and in the DLC you're barely going to level. You need so many runes to level you almost never have enough except for boss fights. Your not getting much from your runes so you will gain like 10 levels in the DLC. You have no direction to level things. except to get those small things like 12 faith for weapon requirements.

 

[Multidirectional]

The issue isn't the 1-2 hits as older bosses could do that.

I don't like older bosses who do that either. If an enemy is that lethal than he also needs to be glass cannon type who dies fast himself. If enemy kills fast but dies slow in my book that is the lamest way of increasing difficulty, I never liked that in any game. I am not one of those people who think that more difficult always equals better and if that makes me a bad gamer then so be it.

 

[Bloodeyes]

The softcaps are at like, 40 last I checked. Level 180 is enough to go past that on multiple stats.

You're right that changing infusion without changing stats isn't a big deal. I've done plenty of low level runs and the only stats that really effect difficulty are vigor, damage negations and weapon upgrade level.

That being said you're wrong about soft caps being 40. Its a bit more complicated than that. For vigor there is a soft cap at 40 but a second, much more severe soft cap at 60. 60 vigor is strongly advised for this DLC.

For damage its a lot more weapon specific. A strength build using infusible weapons will hit the two handed soft cap at 54 str because of the two handed bonus, and the one handed soft cap at 80 str.
A fth build using infusible weapons (sacred of flame art) will hit a very severe soft cap at 50 fth on their melee damage, but casting tools all have their own soft caps. For a caster its advisable to get as close to 80 in fth or intelligence as possible. Its also desirable 30 to 40 dexterity for maximum cast speed when using the radagon icon as well.

Somber weapons all play by their own rules. I won't get into it, use a build planner. This one is fine: https://www.tarnished.dev/build-planner

Stamina soft caps severely at 50 endurance but equip load increases beyond that. I don't know the soft cap for equip load because I'd never take more than 50 end.

An optimal melee build has 60 vig, around 50 in its main stat, weapon requirements only in its secondary stat, and enough equip load for its desired poise breakpoint (nobody knows what these are yet because we just had a DLC and a patch, but I was running 125 poise on patch 1.10. You can get this done at RL 125 with a tight STR build, or RL 139 with a comfier, more versatile build.

For a dual stat build you're probably only going to be approaching two breakpoints rather than hitting both, but if you've got a dual scaling weapon approaching is more than enough for superior damage and the optimal choice is to put the rest into endurance and wear very heavy armor. To be a fully complete dual stat melee build that wants for nothing you're probably looking at around RL 180 to 200, but you can do a totally fine dual stat in the 150s or 160s.

 

[Val Doom]

One option is to start as Wretch and stop leveling at 150. This way you can respec quite freely from build to build. The price of this is that many builds' stats are not super optimized if you care about min-maxing since the starting stats are all 10s, but when it comes to PVE I personally don't care that much. I did play with one build and one or two weapons per playthrough in Souls games but now that Elden Ring is 200+ hours per playthrough I find it too boring to stick with one build all the way

 

[Crayll]

Soft cap is 60 in Elden ring and in the DLC you're barely going to level. You need so many runes to level you almost never have enough except for boss fights. Your not getting much from your runes so you will gain like 10 levels in the DLC. You have no direction to level things. except to get those small things like 12 faith for weapon requirements.

Depends on what level you enter at, but I leveled 60 times in the DLC (120 to 180). Even starting at 180 should get you more than 10 levels.

There is one lore tidbit that could be a Gloam Eyed Queen hint, but that's all.

Which is..?

Lore spoilers

Messmer drops a kindling item that mentions a younger sister that also had 'visions of fire'. Soft confirms Melina, who also serves as kindling, as a daughter of Marika.
In my opinion it's also a point towards the Melina as GEQ theory as apart from the GEQ we know all the Empyreans are children of Marika/Radagon, and it further relates Melina to fire.

The issue isn't the 1-2 hits as older bosses could do that.

I don't like older bosses who do that either. If an enemy is that lethal than he also needs to be glass cannon type who dies fast himself. If it kills fast but dies slow in my book that is the lamest way of increasing difficulty, I never liked that in any game. I am not one of those people who think that more difficult always equals better and if that makes me a bad gamer then so be it.

For what it's worth nothing in the DLC 1 or 2 shot me aside from the mentioned super moves, which while bullshit are a minor part of a few fights and don't happen that often. People crying about being 2 shot by regular boss attacks are playing wrong by not leveling vigor or not getting the blessing items.

 

[Silva]

Messmer drops a kindling item that mentions a younger sister that also had 'visions of fire'. Soft confirms Melina, who also serves as kindling, as a daughter of Marika.
In my opinion it's also a point towards the Melina as GEQ theory as apart from the GEQ we know all the Empyreans are children of Marika/Radagon, and it further relates Melina to fire.

Thanks. Yeah, that confirms Melina as the little sister who saw the Erdtree in flames and went on to concretize the prophecy. But I still struggle to see how that relates to GEQ? Edit: frankly, this even trounces the "Melina is GEQ" theory for me, since the GEQ was 1) supposedly a Queen, 2) killed by Maliketh for her Destined Death. If Melina really was GEQ she couldn't be Marika's daughter. It seems GEQ is another, vague character not touched upon at all by the DLC.

Anyway, why Miquella goes to this Shadow land again? What's his/her objective and motivations?

 

[Hell Swarm]

Anyway, why Miquella goes to this Shadow land again? What's his/her objective and motivations?

LORE A WHORE

You can only ascend to Godhood in the Shadow land. Marika did it there and his objective is to do the same.

 

[Strange Fellow]

I'm having a great time with the DLC. The content is just as high quality as the main game so far. The open world is.. still there. Just a bit of extra ground to cover between the good stuff. Anyway, a friend tipped me off to the

Spoiler

Physick you get from killing the big fire giant thing in the first area. Basically, it lets you avoid any damage (or near as) if you guard just at the time an enemy attack hits, even without a shield, kind of like a parry but in practice more like Sekiro's deflection. And you can guard-counter when you hit it, which this physick also boosts. I've been using it on a couple of bosses and harder enemies, and it's a great middle ground between the old stiff all-or-nothing parry mechanic and just dodging. I'd say I'm gimping myself pretty heavily by using it, but it really freshens up the boss fights. Currently stuck on Renalllilalnlanla. I think I would have had her by now using conventional methods, but Sekiro deflecting is so much fun that I'm happy to keep trying.

Re: all the whining. I recommend trying to let go of the idea that you're supposed to be good at these games. Try to enter into the same mindstate you had when you first started with Souls games, when everything seemed impossible. You will have fun again.

 

[Mortmal]

You can always comet azur your way to victory in Elden ring, it's always going to work but that's not what people are complaining about.

I am afraid not. Comet Azur had its range nerfed badly. It will work on some of the easier bosses, on overworld drakes and dragons, for example, but not on the ultra-aggressive and fast-moving DLC bosses. I have seen melee builds doing considerably more damage than this. My sorcery build is easy mode for clearing PvE content, but it doesn’t shine at all on bosses.

Doesn't matter when you have Mimic tear casting it from one side and you the other.

I am afraid the Mimic is overrated when it comes to mage builds. I've seen it use the spinning skill on the Carian Scepter instead of casting spells. Comet Azur is only really good when you are on Terra Magic, use the no-FP consumption tear, and the boss is stationary. The Mimic never does that, and again, on bosses, you will struggle because it isn't enough. The AoE will roast your summons, or even slaughter them in melee, like the last boss. There are so many summons and weapon types, but in the end, only a few builds are viable to finish that DLC.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Re: all the whining. I recommend trying to let go of the idea that you're supposed to be good at these games. Try to enter into the same mindstate you had when you first started with Souls games, when everything seemed impossible. You will have fun again.

What utter bullshit. My mentality is that I'm good at Souls games and I expect the game to challenge me with tough but fair boss fights. I expect to get stuck for an hour+ on a few fights and there will be bad hit box rage moments and a lot of sucker punches until I finally succeed. I'm having fun at times but I'm also not at others because From keep pushing boundaries for no reason. The Furnace golems are 100% pushed fire golems from the base game. 2 staggers to drop them would have been challenging, but it's 3 staggers and you have to drop them twice. When their jump is extremely difficult to dodge. It's not tough but fair at that point, it's bullet sponges with hard to dodge attacks who can 1 shot you if you try to run away from them.

I am seriously considering taking down big Mogh and hitting this DLC with a level 1 character. I think there's enough broken shit you can do to force your way through even at SL1 if you want to.

 

[abija]

1h+ on few fights means game is too easy. And you keep repeating sponges which hasn't been at all my experience in this DLC. If anything the bosses I fought so far died too fast.

 

[Hell Swarm]

1h+ on few fights means game is too easy. And you keep repeating sponges which hasn't been at all my experience in this DLC. If anything the bosses I fought so far died too fast.

Not trying to internet tough guy here but I am probably in the top 1% of souls players. I've been at this since the original Demon's Souls and I've done challenge runs (and not youtubers spamming save states to reload bosses instantly challenge runs). If I get stuck on a boss for an hour that's a serious challenge for most people and getting stuck on the last one for nearly 10 is an unreasonable challenge for most players. I'm good at these games and I have the determination to grind it out even when I'm getting my ass kicked. I don't expect people who started with Elden ring to have an easy time even with the very first non-main boss you find to the left of the DLC entry point. I didn't expect people to have an easy time with a giant katana faggot who randomly iframes your shit and is hyper aggressive.

The DLC bosses are undeniably damage sponges. There's a reason why base game damage is basically quadrupled by the end of the DLC. If you don't go out of your way to get upgrade material you're going to be hitting like a wet sponge. Other than Rykard who has the serpent hunter to balance it the closest bosses in base game have a quarter less HP than the DLC bosses do. And they stay at the 40-45k point for most the DLC with you getting stronger to match them. There's ways to cheese them and 1 shot them but that's not part of the discussion because it's not how the game is being played by most people.

 

[Ravielsk]

When their jump is extremely difficult to dodge.

Funny thing you are not supposed to dodge any of that. The way you deal with them is that you jump over the fires. I only know this because I saw it on Youtube because when you look at it you are still physically in contact with the flame but I-frames carry you through.

 

[Hell Swarm]

When their jump is extremely difficult to dodge.

Funny thing you are not supposed to dodge any of that. The way you deal with them is that you jump over the fires. I only know this because I saw it on Youtube because when you look at it you are still physically in contact with the flame but I-frames carry you through.

The single stamp is easy to jump but the double foot jump I could never find a way to dodge.

 

[Silva]

You can only ascend to Godhood in the Shadow land. Marika did it there and his objective is to do the same.

Cool, thanks. So plot of the DLC: everybody thought Miquella was pure like Baldr, but instead he was Loki all this time. Is that it?

Also, can we say the the Lands Between is Mount Olympus while Shadow Land is Hades? Or Valhalla and Hel? A mythological divine realm and it's "land of the dead" annex/counterpart?