Elden Ring - From Software + George RR Martin

Never did Elemer of the Briar on my first playthough. Fucker died to my scarlet rot tick, right as I got the YOU DIED screen. Fucking finally.

JFC was he a motherfucker. He's so much more aggressive than the version of him you fight at the shack, during nighttime, for the ball bearing.

Chris said:

Asmongold generally has very good takes on whatever the internet is talking about today, particularily the psychology of people. I watch his YouTube clips.

The only time I ever watched a stream was when Pewdiepie did it and I was working from home. It's like having a friend talk to you while working. Usually I find a long YouTube video if I'm grinding in a game for similar effect.

I don't really get people watching others play games when you can just play it yourself, but sports is the exact same thing. So it's a bit of a boomer take to watch sports commentary yourself then critise games commentary. Maybe you are like me and dislike both though.

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Sad to hear Asmon is having mental issues / depression / whatever. People can make fun of him for living in a ramshackle house with his mom, or whatever it is that he does, but he seems like a legit good guy who just wants to put out content and entertain people. And a lot of his audience are fucking dipshits who'll pounce on him when he shows any weakness.

He should probably leave the powergame streaming to the Elajjaz and his hot GF, and the Kai Cenat types, and play the game on his own time until he gets things figures out. Well, he'll probably never read this so it is what it is.

Aazrael said:

Whats a good level to aim for to start DLC now that many of you have started it?

Currently lvl 53 on my Magic Build I had started earlier. And still got some content to do before I can even unlock it.

Can you still farm the bird for exp?

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If you are Unga Bunga or a Bleed Build, 120 is workable. If you are a faith caster and/or Dex build, maybe a bit more. Sorcerer? Well you basically need to be setup like going into NG+ because pure sorcery is flat out useless in about half the content, ESPECIALLY the mandatory story bosses so much higher level. I think a Lightning Faith build might be the best to try it at a lower level because the stat dependencies are much lower and nothing seems to resist both lightning and holy. Mesmer and maybe the holy spear guy might be the only two bosses where Sorcery really shines (if you can call it that in Mesmer). And if you had a dagger/whip fast roller build, prepare thine anus because it is not going to be a fun run.

Having done most of it as a caster, let me highlight the major issues. First, the VAST majority of the enemies are hyper agro aggressive. This is especially true of most of the bosses who will unload long ass wombo combos from across the fight arena, often face raping you the moment you enter the arena. Mesmer, Bayle, and several of the NPC Phantom/Gaol type enemies are all like this and make it a struggle to even get a summon out. Mesmer takes that last bit to a whole new level by super leaping across the map to you and them putting the fucking NPC summon sign inside the room a ways in (thanks trolls for piling all the fucking white signs on that.....). Bayle literally either Bald Bull charges you the instant you zone in or drops a fire breath that does over half your health. Another thing is that a massive number of the boss enemies are very sorcery resistant, so even if you WANT to use Sorcery you need to rock the Prince of Death staff and a monster Faith to go with it just to hit a scaling high enough to matter. Ancient Death Rancor winds up being the best option for most of the expansion as a result, along with the Darkmoon GS for the bulk of the expansion since there are no real alternatives that are mana efficient until late in the progression. Basically you have to either have strong summons or be a spell blade to matter as a sorcerer (or be way high level to have a matchi faith stat).

Itemization also fucks over certain playstyles in this DLC. There is one useful spell and one situational spell (Frost Rings thing and Double Moon respectively) that I have come across. I have not seen a single armor piece for casters period, end of sentence, unless you want to count the fire knight helm (which is good for anyone). The only caster related talisman I have seen is the Storm Talisman which really only benefits faith casters from what I can tell. The twin light greatswords from Rellana look nice on paper, but really are not a viable alternative to the DMGS. The catalyst sword is completely broken (scaling does not work) unless you want a shitty rapier while using the two actually useful Sorcery Buffs and are too lazy to switch weapons. And I can't recall a single shield dropping at all that is even remotely competitive with Brass Shield/Silver Shield. So the itemization is truely dogshit. Its worse if you are a dual dagger/whip user type. The only interesting daggers all have shit scaling and elements, with the Dancer daggers doing WAY less damage than Reduvias even if you do go full Dex (most builds like that are Arcane) all with zero bleed for the handful of bosses that seem to care about it.

Faith Sword and spear is king in this expansion, though. The golden spear with the super inexpensive uzi weapon art completely tears shit up. Clunker spells like Elden Stars and Ancient Dragon Lightning completely dominate a few major fights. Lots of great weapon options drop along with several viable weapons, particularly the golden ring spell right before undead horsey guy. There are a TON of arts and items to fit that playstyle, along with many of the harder boss fights being weak to bleed poke strats or lightning, especially the early ones and the last two big ones. Unga Bunga pretty much cleans up in this expansion too, with a vast array of larger weapon options.

I like the DLC a lot (played it all last weekend) but there needs to be some balance tuning. And the whole 20 hit 30 second wombo combo shit (while your summons sit around picking their ass) needs to be dialed back, at least a little. Particularly there needs to be a window for people to get a summon out in fights like Mesmer or Bayle. And the viability of the smaller powerstance type weapons (including the new fists) needs to be looked at. Right now, the two main spear drops (Holy Uzi and Mesmer) completely outclass anything else seen in the DLC. Finally, if From wants to make Bloodborne 2 so bad, just fucking make that game and let the souls series be the tactical combat game. This DLC is way too dominated by twitch play and RNG boss AI, especially the ludicrous controller reads the AI does.

Bald Brah said:

You can get 40k runes with a few strikes from blasphemous blade or ruins greatsword at the approach ledge without going new game plus or using any glitches. Just clear the ledge in 3 swipes and the extra patrol at the bottom with 1 swipe. Warp to grace. Repeat.

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For sorcerers, Heima Cannon with enough INT also works for this.

So...is Godwyn in this or is he officially dead dead dead?

And it sounds like "the bosses are too hyper aggressive" is everyone's thought, not just mine. Would have really dialed it back because getting killed in the boss doorway (Bayle) before even having a chance to get my bearings is the kind of thing that legit tires me out.

Going to try to beat the Hippo since I was close on that, and explore the lower lands of the map, and then it's time to get back to the main game and get my new file up to speed to play the DLC for real. Have to beat the last two fights in DS3 as well (Midir and Gael). Basically I'm going to be getting my ass whooped for the next few months.

Some general tips for some of the major cock blocker bosses:
Chinese Dragon thing (Divine Beast?)- No major weaknesses but no major resists to anything. As a caster, Lightning Spear or Ancient Rancor Call work great, just be mindful of the AE sprinkler spam if you are pure Melee.

Rellana- Middle of the arena is full of water, so Lightning Spear wrecks her. She was laughably easy with Gransax Spear. A spell enhanced Silver Shield will trivialize most of her big arena wide attacks, but you probably still want to hop the triple moon attack.

Hippo- Side roll timing is awkward to avoid his chop ohko grab, but nearly everything this guy does can be dodged by rolling right with decent timing. Do NOT roll into him. Ancient Dragon Lightning will kill him in five casts, if you are that build.

Scorpion Scarlet Rot centaur lady- Fire destroys her. If you can dodge her roll and run out of her big AE, the rest of the fight is easy.

Holy Spear Guy- Ancient Rancor or Ruins Greatsword wreck this dude fast. He resists nearly everything else. You can get an early Comet off on him if you time it right and really shorten the battle as a Sorcerer.

Putrid Rider- If you are a faith caster, you can rape him fast by puting up Elden Stars and focusing on avoidance -or- using the Uzi spear to burn him down. Horse double charge needs a fast roll to the right then towards to avoid. All of his frost AEs can be hopped, but the line AE must be hopped. There is zero window to get Mimic out at the start, so use Tiche or Poop man.

Mesmer- The Frost Rings and Ranni's Dark Moon do work on him, but you have to survive the initial onslaught to get the summons up. Bleed melts him. Phase Two is all about recognizing his snake bullshit and timing rolls. Panic rolling gets you killed here, as does greed. Take the small windows and get the fuck out of Dodge after punishing. The Grab that sucks you in from a mile away is very hard to dodge and if the RNG decides to fuck you by spamming it (or he decides to back to back his 14 hit wombo combo of fire chip damage) you are fucked no matter what you do. I also strongly suggest exploring as much as you can (get the DLC root fragment level up to 10/10 minimum) before even taking him on, because you can end up pooching a lot of questlines if you actually manage to kill him early on.

Dancer- Night Comet/Ancient Rancor Call for Sorcs works here. Shield counterpoke spear works better. This mob can be ragdollled but you need to either be razor sharp on dodge timing or use a high guard shield (fingerprint makes the whole fight a joke). Her drops are shit but the armor set looks cool on a female avatar and the entire cerilian coast area (and the red flower area adjacent) are full of loot.

Also, all the undead dragons and cavern generic dragons are sploitable in numerous ways, but Gransax Spear/Ancient Lightning Storm/Loretta's Mastery will really pound most of them, along with anything holy on the undead overland ones. You want to find these and wipe them all out for the Dragon level smithing stones.

There is a sort of priest summoner boss who more or less spams holy arc spells and summons in random adds, right before the dark forest area with the unkillable dude in it. Its in the south central area of the map, iirc. Anyhow, the boss drops an remembrance and one of the options (and the only viable one) is a weapon called the Spear of Light. It has A scaling in faith and modest stat requirements. Its a decent spear on its own merits (and spears are already ezmode in this DLC for many fights) but the weapon art is truely ludicrous. It shoots out a mass of little holy crescent waves with medium range but fast rate of fire, all of the holy element. The FP cost is very light and you can hold down the weapon art button to trigger a longer burst and the Godfrey Talisman buff which when also using Alexander's Jar Shard combined with high faith puts out some really ridiculous damage. At 80 faith and those talismans, just about any trash mob not specifically resistant to Holy gets gibbed (and even the resistant ones tend to die in two trigger pulls). Bosses in general take descent damage from it, though a holy or death caster will have better situational options. But bosses that are specifically weak to holy just get obliterated for less than even a single bar of mana (Death Bird, Undead Dragons, Putrid Rider are all very weak to it). And aside from the hike to go get it, its not terribly hard to obtain. And its not too shabby for defending against invasions either, to be honest. Its basically the release day Moonveil of spears.

Blasphemous Blade nerf hurts most of its use, but its still workable for exploring, especially combined with Taker's Cameo and the life drain axe offhanded on your back. My friend who is co-oping with me a lot has been basically dong that for most of the exploration and switching to twin gravelled up Black Gargoyle twinblades for bosses. He mostly has issues with getting mimic out (he has like zero FP) and bosses that spam tons of point blank AE, like Divine Beast and Mesmer.

Chris said:

Yeah you can either shoot a bird who runs at you and off a cliff for like 8k runes then reload, or kill the enemies there for 1k runes each.

I think it's better for sanity to just kill the enemies.

However DLC may have better rune farms, like the shadow zombie people in the first little town are at least 1k each.

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The bird gives 11k without talismans/etc, and if you practice it it's very very fast. You just have to learn where and when to shoot. It's a 10-15sec turnaround time.