Multiplat Elden Ring

[jannissary]

I've only fought the one at the start, but extremely easy - make sure you are mounted. Damage sponge but you can crit them for huge damage, and they can barely hit you while mounted.

noted!

i only tried once and got smoked, but i feel like that's the intention. trial and error.

 

[Gethelred]

Far out, are you mainlining the critical path or just have an abundance of free time?

Teacher, towards the end of term, with all my marking and report writing done. Single, no kids.

Makes it easier, and I'm can get pretty fixated when I'm interested.

Also, my build's 170 glass cannon mage. I've been able to sit out of range for quite a few bosses and to change strategies between attempts to incorporate different spells to try different things.

Spoiler

Mesmer, for all his offensive might, is a bit of a glass cannon himself. The dancing lion was arguably harder for my build, and the putrescent knight was piss easy when it refused to attack me going instead for Tholier. The Saint of the Bud wasn't all that tricky either as she's not an endurance fight. Even the gank boss is nothing much when you do the NPC questlines and successfully outnumber her and her allies; the Dual Moons Rellana sorcery went gangbusters in that fight!

Only the final boss is really causing me to struggle. Having to completely change setups to improve defenses completely to avoid getting oneshotted by everything - and I mean, everything - will do that.

 

[Gethelred]

I also went into it blind and have been following the path of 'see what's over there'. The game's exceptional at funnelling you through an open world in the correct direction to make progress.

 

[BOMBERS 4 LIFE!!!!]

Playing the dlc

Not having many issues with regular enemies but man the bosses can go get farked

 

[Cooldude]

**** dragons

Spoiler

Went to Jagged Peak, getting gatekept by Senessax, **** dragons in this game

 

[Dez!]

Anyone else keep getting "Network status check failed"?

Haven't been able to connect for days.

 

[SnakeMan86]

Wowee, I forgot the bloody anxiety that is this game. Running around a new catacomb with a pocket full of 150K runes and then dying... Then trying to get back and rocver them without dying again.

 

[mickelboy182]

Wowee, I forgot the bloody anxiety that is this game. Running around a new catacomb with a pocket full of 150K runes and then dying... Then trying to get back and rocver them without dying again.

You'll quickly discover that losing that many runes isn't that big of a deal, as mobs drop heaps of runes in the DLC. Not to mention the scadutree blessings are far more impactful than leveling a level ~150 character.

 

[Cooldude]

This DLC is basically the same amount of content as a standalone souls game, crazy

 

[Gethelred]

Wowee, I forgot the bloody anxiety that is this game. Running around a new catacomb with a pocket full of 150K runes and then dying... Then trying to get back and rocver them without dying again.

I lost nearly 250000 runes to the furnace golem in the ruins of Rauh, and I wasn't even upset.

The DLC just throws runes at you.

 

[SnakeMan86]

I lost nearly 250000 runes to the furnace golem in the ruins of Rauh, and I wasn't even upset.

The DLC just throws runes at you.

Apparently there is a bloody twig that helps you not lose them.... news to me 150 hours in

 

[Ohitsthatguy]

As a pure caster I've been pretty disappointed there has been nothing for us in this

Faith builds, so much.

But it has still been good. Been some good bosses and some really shitty and cheap bosses.

 

[Gethelred]

As a pure caster I've been pretty disappointed there has been nothing for us in this

Faith builds, so much.

But it has still been good. Been some good bosses and some really shitty and cheap bosses.

...

Gravitonic missile is the shit, so is Rellana's twin moons, so is fleeting microcosm and the nail spells, and that's without counting the homing death rings sorcery or the thorn sorceries. Range, AOE's, crowd control and posture break are all available here.

Haven't tried Blades of Stone yet, but I've tried Miriam's teleport spell and it's ordinary because camera. But outside of that, the sorceries are pretty awesome.

 

[Struggle]

Bayle is the best boss fight I've had in this game. Easily clears all the original bosses, I'll be shocked if there's any other fights in the DLC that are more enjoyable with a better visual throughout the fight

First attempt I got him down to about 5% health left, the next 25 I never even got close to that

 

[Cooldude]

Yeah nah the final boss ain't it, I do no summons dual greatswords and this is just torture. I'm playing Dark Souls and the boss is playing Dragon Ball Sparkling Zero

Plus it's the only boss where the 2nd phase's beam attacks lag the hell out of my PC, I run the game at 4k max graphics settings and always got max frames in every fight but this one

EDIT: beat it, **** this fight, don't say I ain't a god gamer

 

[Gethelred]

Bayle is the best boss fight I've had in this game. Easily clears all the original bosses, I'll be shocked if there's any other fights in the DLC that are more enjoyable with a better visual throughout the fight

First attempt I got him down to about 5% health left, the next 25 I never even got close to that

Bayle is ****ing sick.

Spoilers for non-main path bosses:

Spoiler

Meytr is pretty... otherworldly. It's a different spectacle, but it's amazing.

But the best spectacle fight for me came at the end of the Abyssal Woods, at the other end of a mansion filled with spirits and burns, from a person begging us to flee before the madness takes him, who throws himself at us before we reduce his health to zero and he pulls his own head off through removing the blade that inhibits the Frenzy taking him, and the Frenzy Lord awakens.

On another note, the music in the DLC hardcore slaps. Just the default theme had me wondering WTF Miquella had done, why I felt almost... guilty, uncovering these secrets.

 

[Gethelred]

I'm levelling my faith PVP caster tomorrow, to try and take Mohg as soon as possible. Gotta try a few other builds and weapons now I've had my initial fill.

 

[Red Black and Blue]

A little annoyed, kinda went the long way around Rellana and ended up advancing the story further than i wanted to. I think ive missed a lot of the character dialogue in the dlc.

 

[Gethelred]

Okay, final boss talk. Seriously, if you want to do this blind, do not click.

Spoiler

I've now fought Promised Consort Radahn around 50 times, between how many times I lost before I respecced my build and beat him as well as co-oping.

I genuinely think the boss is poorly tuned at present. While playing exceptionally, you can genuinely not be doing enough damage to credibly win the fight due to your build choice; you can go through the game oneshotting major foes, you can go through the DLC having smashed other bosses only to be hard walled by him because it's an endurance fight with an obnoxiously fast opponent whose second phase is almost entirely AOE's and starts not at half health but at two thirds.

The better builds for his setup - bleed and tanking greatshields - are the only ones I've seen beat him in the wild; not, that these builds are better; just, these are the only viable methods. The thorn sorcery being bugged badly to cause massive bleed buildup is about the only effective spell in the game against him, because he's resistant to sorcery holy damage; I've not tested fire, so dunno there.

I think the secondary progression system via scadutree fragments is what ****ed it. He's tuned to around 16-17, three short of max when I think he should be tuned to around 14-15. And there's a massive, massive difference between lvl 16-17 and lvl 14; at lvl 14, most of what he did oneshot me before I went out and explored a bit more.

What I will say - because the above looks like it should prompt a 'git gud' or the like - is that even knowing all this, I had a blast with that fight. The music lives in my head, the flow of it is unbelievable when you're dodging around his attacks and him; it feels like the Nameless King on meth.

It's an awesome battle. I just wish it was either an endurance fight or a duel, instead of both.

 

[Cooldude]

Last boss was overtuned AF but the biggest problem is that we're still stuck with Dark Souls 3 combat when Bloodborne and Sekiro exist, if the rolling and healing animations in Elden Ring don't feel so cumbersome when you're fighting these agile bosses then it wouldn't be so bad

It's good that Miyazaki wants to evolve his boss designs but then the combat needs to evolve, too.

 

[Gethelred]

Last boss was overtuned AF but the biggest problem is that we're still stuck with Dark Souls 3 combat when Bloodborne and Sekiro exist, if the rolling and healing animations in Elden Ring don't feel so cumbersome when you're fighting these agile bosses then it wouldn't be so bad

It's good that Miyazaki wants to evolve his boss designs but then the combat needs to evolve, too.

But that's the thing: the Rally mechanic from Bloodborne is in Elden Ring via Melania's rune, and so is the dash quickstep with bloodhound's step and the two lightning dashes in the DLC. You have the various weapons that heal you on hit, a talisman that lets you heal on kill or from crits, and an ash of war that lets you heal on impact, and a boss weapon with a massive straight line AOE that heals you when used alongside talismans and a shield that let you regen health; you have a shield ash of war in holy ground that gives you extra damage, poise, defense and passive healing. You can parry like the main character in Sekiro with one of the first cracked tears from a furnace golem. At present, the teleport sorcery seems bugged to me - it might be that my controller needs to be replaced, I've got severe controller drift - but if I can figure it out it'll let you teleport through an enemy. Combine Leda's armor set and the backstep/rolling talisman, and you've got damage for days; combine it further with the enhances backsteps but increases damage taken talisman, you have a build that can I-frame through shit at less time than rolling takes.

There's a series of talisman combinations that allow the Greatsword to be used as a shield into guard counter that is more effective than just about any build in the game, the perfume weapons are bugged but are also completely ****ing different than anything ever tried in a From game. The rakshasa armor set alone can completely change the viability of a build that under other circumstances wouldn't work.

You have more gear that plays with your stats than ever before, gear that does something as opposed to straightforward attack/defense. There's more ranged weapons, more AOE's.

... all of that's to say that I don't agree with you, not really. I genuinely think there's not a lot wrong with the tuning of these bosses, with the sole exception of the final boss.

 

[Cooldude]

But that's the thing: the Rally mechanic from Bloodborne is in Elden Ring via Melania's rune, and so is the dash quickstep with bloodhound's step and the two lightning dashes in the DLC. You have the various weapons that heal you on hit, a talisman that lets you heal on kill or from crits, and an ash of war that lets you heal on impact, and a boss weapon with a massive straight line AOE that heals you when used alongside talismans and a shield that let you regen health; you have a shield ash of war in holy ground that gives you extra damage, poise, defense and passive healing. You can parry like the main character in Sekiro with one of the first cracked tears from a furnace golem. At present, the teleport sorcery seems bugged to me - it might be that my controller needs to be replaced, I've got severe controller drift - but if I can figure it out it'll let you teleport through an enemy. Combine Leda's armor set and the backstep/rolling talisman, and you've got damage for days; combine it further with the enhances backsteps but increases damage taken talisman, you have a build that can I-frame through shit at less time than rolling takes.

There's a series of talisman combinations that allow the Greatsword to be used as a shield into guard counter that is more effective than just about any build in the game, the perfume weapons are bugged but are also completely ****ing different than anything ever tried in a From game. The rakshasa armor set alone can completely change the viability of a build that under other circumstances wouldn't work.

You have more gear that plays with your stats than ever before, gear that does something as opposed to straightforward attack/defense. There's more ranged weapons, more AOE's.

... all of that's to say that I don't agree with you, not really. I genuinely think there's not a lot wrong with the tuning of these bosses, with the sole exception of the final boss.

Quick step in bloodborne's just default roll if you lock on, I shouldn't need to equip a specific Ash of War or tear just to have access to a good dodge or parry. If I wanna rock moonlight great sword that shouldn't mean I can't quick step

Plus the healing animation is just crap, bosses can heal punish so often not because they are fast but because sipping a flask really takes that long, which is nuts.

Plus rally mechanic won't do much in Elden Ring since bosses have quick long strings in late game and a small punish window that you can't really use it effectively at all

 

[Gethelred]

Quick step in bloodborne's just default roll if you lock on, I shouldn't need to equip a specific Ash of War or tear just to have access to a good dodge or parry. If I wanna rock moonlight great sword that shouldn't mean I can't quick step

Plus the healing animation is just crap, bosses can heal punish so often not because they are fast but because sipping a flask really takes that long, which is nuts.

Plus rally mechanic won't do much in Elden Ring since bosses have quick long strings in late game and a small punish window that you can't really use it effectively at all

If there's enough time for a charged R2, there's enough time for you to heal. If there's enough time for you to summon a spirit ash, there's enough time to heal.

An eye opening experience for me was realising that all I had to do to get a window against ****ing Melenia was turn lock on off and turn my back to her. Her AI is such that she will come at you if you're looking at her and you press a button, any button or the range is right; if you're looking away, she doesn't do much more than slowwalk at you until you do something, and you can get almost as much space as you want to do whatever you want. In my first defeat of Maliketh, I wasn't locked on and managed to freeaim a cast of comet at him and because I wasn't locked on his AI was confused and dodged into it's path rather than away from it.

If you're playing solely locked on, the bosses are going to track a lot better than if you lock off sometimes. You can gain distance and windows much easier by tinkering with how you approach the fights. Even agains the final boss, they signal their agro really straightforwardly as if you've got a window - which I used to heal or renew scholar's shield - they'll walk slowly towards you regardless of range and will sprint if you don't have the window.

I'm point blank shit at using the jump to avoid damage. That, I'm simply not good at. Does that allow me to make the complaint that because I can't do this, I now can't find a healing window against Godfrey?

Frankly, DS2 was the worst when it came to healing animations being so much slower than the world, and this is more than fine.

 

[Scallop Industry Thug]

Do you guys actually enjoy these games?

 

[gaskin]

Do you guys actually enjoy these games?

Yes. Why?