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

[Hell Swarm]

I don't give a shit about other buffs at this point. Flame Protect Me is the only thing you need to make Messmer WAY more manageable, and I don't think it required any crazy research. The other thing that helped is realizing that the attack he is doing at the start of phase 2 takes few seconds, which is enough to re-cast it.

Defensive buffs aren't the buffs we're focusing on because you're right it's easy to boost your resistances that way. We're talking stacking multiple damage buffs so you skip entire boss phases.

Big Mogh is objectively the most unfair fight in any souls like I've ever heard of. He's the only boss I've ever encountered where you cannot avoid damage except to burst him down. You can't dodge his phase transition and even if you use the flask it still chips you. I like him and find him fun but objectively there is no way to avoid damage except as a DPS check and there's nothing like that I've run into any where else. Even 4kings which is a DPS check is in theory possible to avoid damage. It's also unfair that From uses the same fire animation for harmless environmental effects in the area and his blood fire attacks. There are times you have safe space that looks like a hazard.

Doesn't using the physick nullify the damage, even though he still heals? Anyway, it doesn't matter. People bitched about unavoidable damage in the Nito fight as well and it just doesn't matter. It's a thing you heal through and go about your business. It's impossible for me to imagine actually getting upset about it and relating it to some point about game design or whatever, because it's so inoffensive. It's cool and atmospheric so it has a reason to exist, and that's that.

Not completely, it reduces it greatly but it's still enough to kill you if you're at like 10% health.

 

[cvv]

We're talking stacking multiple damage buffs so you skip entire boss phases.

You're not gonna skip anything applying just Golden Vow and a weapon buff like Sacred Blade. I don't know what exactly are these guys in the videos doing but the kind of buffing I was using isn't gonna drop the Messmer or Radahn fight from very hard to easy.

 

[Hell Swarm]

This video might help some of you understand where I'm coming from. I assume the people who actually need to watch it won't, but hopefully my perspective will make a bit more sense.

 

[Odoryuk]

This video might help some of you understand where I'm coming from. I assume the people who actually need to watch it won't, but hopefully my perspective will make a bit more sense.

That's kinda cool that you can do this, huh

 

[Hell Swarm]

This video might help some of you understand where I'm coming from. I assume the people who actually need to watch it won't, but hopefully my perspective will make a bit more sense.

That's kinda cool that you can do this, huh

It is kind of cool and it has good data on what can and can't stack. Some of it is glitched even.

 

[NJClaw]

This video might help some of you understand where I'm coming from. I assume the people who actually need to watch it won't, but hopefully my perspective will make a bit more sense.

Wow, no item swapping to also get the bonuses from Kindred of Rot's Exultation, Mushroom Crown, Poisoned Hand, Aged One's Exultation, Black Dumpling, and Madding Hand. What a noob, is he even trying? He's basically halving his damage!

 

[Lyric Suite]

This whole buff discussion makes it look like you need a PhD in buffing, but in reality you don't. My thought process was this:
- fighting Messmer, he hits me hard
- after 5 tries, he still hits me hard
- hmm, the game sold him as a Flame guy and he is using a lot of Flame stuff
- was there a whole school of incantations related to Flame?
- (checks inventory of incantations for flame stuff and looks for the words 'increase fire resistance'
- finds 'Flame, Protect Me'
- uses 'Flame, Protect Me' -> quick status check before and after -> fire resistance goes from 63% to 85% --> makes me happy

I don't give a shit about other buffs at this point. Flame Protect Me is the only thing you need to make Messmer WAY more manageable, and I don't think it required any crazy research. The other thing that helped is realizing that the attack he is doing at the start of phase 2 takes few seconds, which is enough to re-cast it.

This is actually one of the best things in From games for me - the game forces you to rethink your strategy and THINK at certain points. I needed to drop my dual Colossal Sword setup for this fight and adapt (regular Greatsword instead), and there is nothing wrong with that. Less equipment weight allowed me to drop Arsenal talisman and combine FP regen + fire resist talisman, so another win.

They are coping. One wonders how anybody expected the "average" player to even finish Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale. All those priest buffs that are like 10 times more complex to understand than anything Elden Ring.

 

[Vic]

Anybody who plays RPGs knows about prebuffing. The argument against it can only come from a normie retard like Hell Swarm who plays FPS with his feet on a controller.

And for those that don't know, there's always YouTube and reddit to show them the light.

 

[Hell Swarm]

They are coping. One wonders how anybody expected the "average" player to even finish Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale. All those priest buffs that are like 10 times more complex to understand than anything Elden Ring.

Every argument is dumber than the last.

Totally different genres with totally different audiences.
According to steam achievement tracker 20% of people finished BG3 and 8% of people finished IWD.

Doesn't mean those who didn't didn't understand buffing but it's comparing apples to oranges. Elden Ring isn't an RPG the same way those two are and they usually explain a lot more than "it adds some damage maybe lol" as every item description. Buffing in most PC RPGs involves clicking on your buff button while your animations play out or it's paused. It doesn't involve having to constantly switch your equipment and multiple button presses. Buffing in most CRPGs is 1, maybe 2 mouse clicks if you have a target or it's a single keyboard press. And that's for every buff. From buffing has to use the d pad to switch and then input an attack command, then put away your casting stuff. it's 3 times the button inputs and it's also attached to a game that intentionally makes you grind bosses and instills a lot of fatigue in people.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Totally different genres with totally different audiences.

Again, you just pulled that out of your ass. The premise doesn't actually follow the conclusion even if you could show this to be true. Even if Souls games and RPGs like Baldur's Gate constitute two distinct player bases, you still have no proof whatsoever that people who play Souls are dumber than the people who play Baldur's Gate when it comes to figuring out basic shit like buffing.

Every single thing that comes out of your mouth is either a fallacy, a strawman, a red herring when you are not outright gas lighting or lying through your teeth.

According to steam achievement tracker 20% of people finished BG3 and 8% of people finished IWD.

Which demonstrates, what, exactly?

Oh right, nothing whatsoever. it's an utterly meaningless fact completely irrelevant to the argument.

Doesn't mean those who didn't didn't understand buffing but it's comparing apples to oranges

The question i posed to you is that if buffing in Souls is too difficult to figure out for most people, who do you think plays DnD based games, Mensa members?

My argument was intended to show the inanity of the point you were trying to make, that the average Souls player is too dumb to figure out incredibly basic shit like stacking two buffs, a claim that is simply absurd. If Souls players were really that dumb they wouldn't be able to get out of the house, let alone playing something as difficult as a FromSoft game.

Here comes the next fallacy now: FromSoft games are dumb and simplistic as shit! They are literally slop of course they are played by retards who can't undestand buffs. Waiting for it in 3... 2... 1...

 

[abija]

Kind reminder this whole buffs bullshit started from:

He stacked a bunch of buffs and killed it with a meta weapon to the point where it never even entered 2 of it's phases. The storm phase and the ice phase come after lightning (orders random). So he didn't have patience or tolerance, he looked up all the buffs on a wiki, stacked them with a meta weapon and went "I'm so good at this game!" when he's doing so much damage the bosses barely react.

golden vow and shabiri without a great rune active, result being ~2k per hit on a boss that's supposed to be an "undeniably damage sponge" and harder than Malenia. And apparently "normal fags" cannot possibly reach those results, that's reserved for "autists with a wiki".

When people say stuff like

Personally I don't think applying 1-3 buffs is anything abnormal. And it's also not the automatic WIN button.

(which is absolutely true in this case even if cvv probably didn't even know the video or that it originated this crap), you link an extreme buffing guide as if it that's what the discussion was about.

Textbook arguing in bad faith.

 

[Bulo]

Boiled Prawn is the best buff

 

[Hell Swarm]

It's hilarious that Lyric literally admits to being part of a different audience repeatedly and then goes "What audience!? There's no difference." now. When before he was shit on repeatedly for admitting he doesn't like action games just From games because he can break them.

 

[abija]

It's hilarious how you try to sidetrack again the argument.
It's even more hilarious how hard you fail at logic. Apparently "Lyric doesn't like action games just From games" implies "Lyric isn't included in ER target audience".

 

[Odoryuk]

A lot of talk about bad faith here... In my opinion... All faith is bad

 

[NJClaw]

Boiled Prawn is the best buff

Getting a hug from someone willing to sleep with dead people also isn't bad

 

[Lyric Suite]

It's hilarious how you try to sidetrack again the argument.
It's even more hilarious how hard you fail at logic. Apparently "Lyric doesn't like action games just From games" implies "Lyric isn't included in ER target audience".

He is implying the reason i only like FromSoft games is that i can "break them", meaning i wouldn't be able to play other action games because i would suck too much at them and couldn't "cheat" my way out by using things like "buffs".

Of course, there is a FromSoft game that cannot be "broken", which is Sekiro. Wonder how he is going to get out of the contradiciton on that one. I guess all he could say is that Sekiro is super easy and requires no skill?

 

[processdaemon]

I liked the DLC as a whole and thought most of the bosses were fun, especially Bayle, it was only the final boss rubbed me up the wrong way because I struggled for around 3-4 hours with my normal build (Dragon Incantations) and then just killed him immediately by equipping a shield. I'm less butthurt about it than I was at release because I reloaded my backup save and tried some non-shield builds that worked later, but it annoyed me at the time that one build could make such a joke out of the boss while it seemed so hard with others.

I know that Fromsoft games aren't exactly perfectly balanced, especially at release, and it's possible that shields trivialise all the bosses that much and I was just blissfully unaware because I'd never really used them before, but I'd never really felt like I had to change tack as drastically as that and it felt unsatisfying to do it at the last minute. And yes, that is partially on me for not persevering with my chosen build, I just didn't expect it to go from painfully challenging to piss easy like that, if I'd had to struggle a little bit with the shield it probably would have left less of a bad taste in my mouth to be honest.

 

[Strange Fellow]

This has always been the case, if you're playing without a shield you're playing on optional hard mode.

 

[Ravielsk]

Anybody who plays RPGs knows about prebuffing. The argument against it can only come from a normie retard like Hell Swarm who plays FPS with his feet on a controller.

Elden ring is not a RPG like Neverwinter, Baldurs Gate or WoW. Those games can expect the player to actively use buffs because those buffs are directly baked into class skill trees. You do not need to sleuth around the game world to find the blessing of fortitude for your priest, you just level him up and pick it as his next unlocked skill. Done, finito, nothing more to it.

In Elden ring the buffs are often far apart so unless you know ahead of time where to get them the chance of even having them is rather low. They also are not completely free in terms of casting requirements so even if you find them its not a given you will be able to use them individually(let alone stack them) and finally the the duration of most buffs is so comically short that stacking them without prior knowledge of the fight is at best a gamble at worst a pointless waste of FP. Oh, yes and the interface is so cumbersome that unless you buff in a specific order your first buff may expire before you apply the last.

The game could not be less built for buff stacking if it tried. I could imagine it as a valid strategy for NG+ playthroughs but for a first time playthrough the only way to use them efficiently is to follow a guide or a wiki. If you want to see how the game would look if it was built around buff stacking I wholeheartedly recommend the Convergence mod. It adds a whole host of classes, each comes with its own buffs, most of which have no stacking limitations and last at least a minute(usually 3 minutes or forever). There are even individual buffs on all armor pieces so in one way or another you will be stacking buffs.

A lot more was added and changed. Much of which I cannot even get into because I have yet to see most of it but its an entirely different kind of experience and when it comes to buffs it perfectly demonstrates how much more different the game would have to be for buff stacking to be some kind of intended playstyle instead of the accidental option it is now.

 

[NJClaw]

it's possible that shields trivialise all the bosses that much

Yes

 

[cvv]

This has always been the case, if you're playing without a shield you're playing on optional hard mode.

This has absolutely NOT been the case since the DS2 DLCs. After seeing how effective turtling is in DS1 and DS2 vanilla FS made a specific effort to neutralize shields and everyone who played the game in sequence knows the moment of sudden clarity when the first DS2 DLC boss (usually Alva) rips you a new one through your favourite impenetrable shield.

They stuck with their anti-shield guns in BB, DS3 and Sekiro so successfully I never even thought of using a shield in ER vanilla. And neither did anyone else, seemingly. I don't even know if shields were good in the vanilla. It wasn't until SotE the shield meta came back after a 10 year hiatus.

 

[Strange Fellow]

This has always been the case, if you're playing without a shield you're playing on optional hard mode.

This has absolutely NOT been the case since the DS2 DLCs. After seeing how effective turtling is in DS1 and DS2 vanilla FS made a specific effort to neutralize shields and everyone who played the game in sequence knows the moment of sudden clarity when the first DS2 DLC boss (usually Alva) rips you a new one through your favourite impenetrable shield.

They stuck with their anti-shield guns in BB, DS3 and Sekiro so successfully I never even thought of using a shield in ER vanilla. And neither did anyone else, seemingly. I don't even know if shields were good in the vanilla. It wasn't until SotE the shield meta came back after a 10 year hiatus.

Neutralize in the sense that you could no longer just stand there and laugh in the boss's face while it exhausted itself wailing on your chunk of metal, but shields have always been useful. It's impossible to mistime a block like you can a dodge, that alone is a reason to keep one on hand, even if you do have to be judicious about which attacks to block and which to evade. There's not much of a downside either. Swapping equipment with the d-pad and two-handing the weapon takes no time at all.

 

[abija]

He is implying the reason i only like FromSoft games is that i can "break them", meaning i wouldn't be able to play other action games because i would suck too much at them and couldn't "cheat" my way out by using things like "buffs".

There's still NOTHING that implies that you are not in ER/From software target audience. They are playing extremely fast and loose with basic logic, that's the issue.

I liked the DLC as a whole and thought most of the bosses were fun, especially Bayle, it was only the final boss rubbed me up the wrong way because I struggled for around 3-4 hours with my normal build (Dragon Incantations) and then just killed him immediately by equipping a shield. I'm less butthurt about it than I was at release because I reloaded my backup save and tried some non-shield builds that worked later, but it annoyed me at the time that one build could make such a joke out of the boss while it seemed so hard with others.

At least in my experience your build also trivialized some encounters :p

 

[NJClaw]

They stuck with their anti-shield guns in [...] DS3

Shields are extremely strong in DS3. With a high-tier greatshield and a high investment in Endurance, you can block even the longest combos from Midir and the Soul of Cinder.

I never even thought of using a shield in ER vanilla. And neither did anyone else, seemingly.

I've been spamming "equip a shield" in this thread since the game got released.

Greatshields in ER have always been completely broken. You can basically hold L1 without any regard for your stamina 99% of the time. Not only that, guard counters are also the strongest possible attack in the game for most weapon types.