Elden Ring - From Software + George RR Martin

I’ve managed to get in maybe 5 hours so far. It feels like 10 with how dense the new areas are. I’m more or less randomly bumbling around, but managed to take out the Blackgaol Knight (he’s readily knocked down), the lion/human centipede thing, Death Knight, and Rellana. That’s not a fun fight to deal with while swinging around a ponderous 2-hander. The asshole knight with the big ass magic sword in the middle of the castle can go fuck himself, though. I’ll be back for you later.

Then I ran into a colossal radioactive bear from Fallout and got torn to shreds in seconds. After about my fifth “last attempt, will return when after I get gud”, my spastic-retard roll and slash tactic paid off. The reward was a helm that would have been obsolete like 150 levels ago. Thanks, weird itemization. I did manage to find a couple armor of pieces worth using and only came within an inch of snapping my controller in half twice so far, so things are off to a promising start.

Hatorade said:

Spoiler

See the blue area at the bottom go there that straight north up the middle.
View attachment 533889
Can also jump down the circled area and then go west. I am 7/7 and only slightly more map so you missed a bunch of stuff.
View attachment 533890

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Wut? You got to the blue area from the red area?

I got to the blue area, I can't get to the red area lol.

I really want to play this, but man I don't feel like slogging all the way to Mog or whatever his name. I started a NG+ long ago but never progressed that far in.

ShakyJake said:

I really want to play this, but man I don't feel like slogging all the way to Mog or whatever his name. I started a NG+ long ago but never progressed that far in.

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I was in the same boat. It isn't bad once you get rolling. Take about 2 hours.

ShakyJake said:

I really want to play this, but man I don't feel like slogging all the way to Mog or whatever his name. I started a NG+ long ago but never progressed that far in.

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Just look up Vaare's quest line and follow it to the point where he gives you the teleport item to Mohg's palace. It's not at all bad and goes pretty fast if you simply make a beeline for the relevant locations.

Rajaah said:

Defeated the giant lion costume boss. Probably one of the coolest bosses I've ever seen in a game, moved exactly like the Chinese wushi performers. Was surprised at how not-bad it was compared to the other bosses so far. The last 40% or so of the fight went completely off the rails bonkers with the lightning storm and everything and I just barely got through it, but the boss attacks didn't do a massive amount of damage and he didn't have a lot of HP, so I basically bruteforced it.

Still have Bayle (which I don't see a win happening over in this file) and the hippo. Both have way more HP than the lion. We'll see what happens before I tap out and switch to my NG file and get the rest of the way to the DLC in that.

Spoiler: Shadow Tower

The shadow tower beyond the lion boss is super compelling. Reminds me of reaching the sealed Ganon's Tower early in Link to the Past. I'm guessing this is where Messmer is and that I probably have to unlock it by beating Bayle and the Hippo and whatever else. No clue and it's pretty awesome having no clue. Gonna try to avoid spoilers for however long it takes me to actually get back here and get this done.

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Playing blind 1 scadu, killed Lion costume then some sewer rotten dragon... looking for more scadu. Lot of time roaming and looking for where to go.

Yeah, just going to Mohg and Radahn and then trying to do the DLC is going to end in disaster. At bare minimum you should have all your relevant talismans (and even more importantly, all 4 slots to equip them), the somber stone 7 from Volcano Manor (unless your build uses only normal weapons), and whatever weapon(s), AoWs, and/or spells you intend to build around. Also, stuff like White Mask and Raptor Feathers if you're doing a bleed/jump build.

Levels are really important too. My str/arc character was 83 just from getting to and killing Mohg and based on my int/dex playthrough I'd say that's nowhere near enough; haven't killed Rodahn yet though, or Godfrey for the last talisman slot. By the time I do that and then head to Azula for my swords I should be at least 120 which is probably fine. I've yet to see anything in the DLC that I'd call a particularly good rune farm so whatever leveling you need to do you're going to have to do the vast majority of it in the base game.

Done for the day, how is everyone doing?

I'm DLC level 10/5 and just got the two remembrances people saw in the previews. Explored most of the map though now, just missing the root area but on my way to it (it's the one thing I googled).

Rajaah said:

You need some levels and gear for the DLC though, so I'd recommend playing through the game regardless.

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He said he's on NG+, so presumably he's reasonably geared and leveled already. It took me about 5 hours from the start of a NG+ run to finish the DLC pre-reqs, and that's with a lot of screwing around and doing other unrelated things.

zignor 4 said:

He said he's on NG+, so presumably he's reasonably geared and leveled already. It took me about 5 hours from the start of a NG+ run to finish the DLC pre-reqs, and that's with a lot of screwing around and doing other unrelated things.

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Yeah my character is like level 250 or something. I used that jump-off-a-cliff exploit to gain an absurd number of runes. I assume I should be able to mow down anything even on NG+ to get to the DLC.

very little love for sorcery so far. Only got a short blink spell thats the distance of a forward roll.
very disturbing...

ShakyJake said:

I really want to play this, but man I don't feel like slogging all the way to Mog or whatever his name. I started a NG+ long ago but never progressed that far in.

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Do the skip quest and teleport to him, takrs like an hour.

Rajaah said:

Defeated the giant lion costume boss. Probably one of the coolest bosses I've ever seen in a game, moved exactly like the Chinese wushi performers. Was surprised at how not-bad it was compared to the other bosses so far. The last 40% or so of the fight went completely off the rails bonkers with the lightning storm and everything and I just barely got through it, but the boss attacks didn't do a massive amount of damage and he didn't have a lot of HP, so I basically bruteforced it.

Still have Bayle (which I don't see a win happening over in this file) and the hippo. Both have way more HP than the lion. We'll see what happens before I tap out and switch to my NG file and get the rest of the way to the DLC in that.

Spoiler: Shadow Tower

The shadow tower beyond the lion boss is super compelling. Reminds me of reaching the sealed Ganon's Tower early in Link to the Past. I'm guessing this is where Messmer is and that I probably have to unlock it by beating Bayle and the Hippo and whatever else. No clue and it's pretty awesome having no clue. Gonna try to avoid spoilers for however long it takes me to actually get back here and get this done.

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Crazy how far you are yet so behind/different… you can do this DLC in crazy orders it seems.

I just did the jumping lion. Fight was okay but the area was a bit disappointing. Only a couple knight enemies were interesting. The rest were just some dumb flies and birds and ghosts. It was total garbage compared to stormveil and not really even as good as castle mourne. Oh and the same extra not really a boss in the basement as stormveil. And again this added fight was tougher than the main boss.