Elden Ring - From Software + George RR Martin

Phazael said:

Its in Caelid, at the fort with the shortcut to outside Rahdan's palace, but on the backside between to flame thrower carts (you can sneak in and grab it if you need to). Its not much for stat reqs (think Cleansing Flame) and has a massive impact on certain fights and weapons. Blasphemous Blade, in particular, is nuts with it active. You can get it without a fight if you yolo in there for it and dont care about surviving afterward, but the tower iself is worth brooming for the Starscourge Talisman, the shortcut, and the other random drops.

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i cleared the tower a while ago for the Lion's Claw ash of war but missed that FGMS buff entirely. Went ahead and grabbed it, but now I need to get faith up to 15 to use it.

Defeated Messmer on the second try. After what a complete drubbing I've taken on most of the DLC bosses, I was shocked at how little HP Messmer seemed to have in comparison. Scadutree level 10/5, so maybe that's why.

Used the stronger fire-resistance consumable before walking in the door which made a big difference from the first try. Had a lot of luck dodging his attacks and their follow-ups. Even with how aggressive he is, I still managed to get enough whacks in to trigger bleed procs.

Probably a very comparable boss to Malenia, just without the self-heal ability. Bayle is definitely harder and I assume the final boss is as well. I couldn't even get out of the doorway with Bayle.

Now I get to see the tower. I don't intend to beat the DLC with this NG+++ game but I'd at least like to see all of the areas before I call it.

DickTrickle said:

That's what I love about this game. Ask 20 people to rank their five hardest fights and you'll get 20 different lists. Says a lot about the depth of gameplay as well as the equipment variety.

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Yeah it's pretty awesome how that happens.

Talked to a random tomboyish lesbian today, said I couldn't wait for the evening so I could get back to Elden Ring, and she proceeded to tell me how she loves the game and thought the Fire Giant was the toughest fight in the whole game and she couldn't get past it after doing basically everything up to that point.

The crossover appeal of this game is nuts.

Rajaah said:

tomboyish lesbian

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well that's an oxymoron

I literally said you were wrong. ER is fun for people who are not pussies, or at least deal with challenge constructively. And yes, you absolutely can just log on and bang out a dungeon. I regularly just put myself in coop for randos to help them out because it is stress free fun for me. Cyberpunk is a good game but gets boring really fast, even on the hardest difficulty. And a lot like W3, the story is pretty much just who did you bang and what did you do with 32bit John Wick in your head. Go do anything involving a vehicle and tell me again how Cyberpunk is stress free.....

As for me, I wrapped up most of my first semi casual run tonight. I did not feel like leveling up a finger shield and repeccing just for the last boss, so I got my co op buddy (who did ) to tank both the final boss and Bayle for me. After taking many tries to drop the final boss, we one shotted Bayle pretty easily (if you don't want to cheese thorns, Ancient Rancor on the final and Ancient Lightning Storm/Spirit Rings works on Bayle if someone is pulling agro). Despite some serious balance issues in both directions, this is likely the best expansion for any game I have ever played, with DS2 Scholar of the First Sin and W3 Hearts of Stone being the only really in the same ballpark. Exploration was fun and while I feel like some of the toys should have been in the main game (as they would be useful early on), playing around with them was fun enough and I also did not feel like my main game prep work was wasted.

I am missing a few hidden drops I intend to backtrack for and pooched a number of NPC quest lines due to how fucking obscure they were. Being a sorcerer mostly sucked until I leveled up my FTH to match my INT (and thus the Death Prince Staff and Ancient Rancor went into overdrive) and started bouncing back and forth between incants and sorceries for fights. I went in there swinging a DMGS wearing Mogh's robe and exited it with the Uzi Spear and Mesmer's set (which proved to be the consistent best light armor option) using mostly the same main game talismans (or their +3 DLC upgrades) for most of it. Rocked the Brass Shield almost the entire time, as well.

Ignoring the broke as fuck thorn spell, the sorcery standouts were Fleeting Microcosm and Spirit Rings. Glint Nail, the blink spell, and the double moon had their uses at times, but were aggressively mediocre. The rest were trash. Incants were all over the place, but the new Ring spell, Land of Shadow, and the multishot lightning were rock solid. Mesmer's suicide bomber spell and the upgraded pestelent threads were workable. The rest were utter dogshit mostly due to poor output, but a lot due to ridiculous requirements combined with massive mana costs.

Of the weapons I actually played around with, the M'Lady with a custom art was good when you got it early, but not good enough to edge out the MLGS for PvE. Fireknight GS was obviously absurdly good. Uzi Spear was flat out amazing, on top of being a spear. The fist art stuff looked fun, but weak overall (this DLC demands shields at times) and a number of the new weapon types had limited options. The lightning mace off of the Communion quest line might dethrone Gransax as the best lightning weapon art in the game. Really the story of this game are the broke dick weapon arts all over the place, particularly the one you can pull off of the pig dude's spear and the Lion leap arts. Combined with the vast array of generic weapons, it is a playground for weapon art centered characters. Armor selection was also really good, but really for the DLC you will mostly pile on the best Holy/Fire resist combo that fits in your encumbrance allowance, since most of the major bosses spam those elements. Outside of the Black Night and Lion shields, there were not really any standouts for that item type. Talismans were mostly good, but very niche. Seals and Staffs were garbage, unless you are someone who offhands them for the passive (I personally valued my shield too much), because their scaling is largely shit even when compared to the main game single stat ones (and the dual Stat ones are just completely skunked by Prince Staff and Order Seal).

My biggest concern going forward is the Scadoosh shard system. Kirun touched on this, but typically when you replay with a new character after a big sweeping run of the game you will skip over shit that does not pertain to the quests or build you are focused on. But the Shard system basically demands that you go grab the obscure shit because if you will get bodied repeatedly if you don't, especially if you are relying on your summons to not suck. Whats more, if you are looking for co op help, the helpers operate at whatever your shard level happens to be instead of their own. I think this is going to negatively impact both replay value and accessibility, but the scaled Shard changes seem like they might have the right idea. Now I was playing what I felt to be (for this DLC) a weak build at Shard level 18/8, but if I wanted to complete the two hardest fights I would have had to respec into shield counterpoke to do it. I think they need to address that on some level to keep the interest in the DLC that the main game has maintained.

I entered the DLC as Lvl 160ish and ended it at 229ish, with V40, M40, E16, S16, D18, I80, F80, and A18 or thereabouts. Even hunting down shards, I struggled until my faith started closing in on my INT which made the Prince staff and Order Seals kick into high scaling. At that point, shit started melting and most fights became a race between poop man surviving and me burning shit down with either Ancient Rancor Call, the new ring Incant, or the Uzi Spear. I can see my upcoming dagger powerstance run being a lot harder, but my Unga and Lightning DEX/FTH run being easy mode compared to a caster. You dont need 60 vigor. I finished it all as a caster with 40 vigor without feeling I needed more life bar (though I did slot the extra heal talisman to maximize my estus heals). Slot gear with an eye on defense and be aggressive in the fights themselves. This will get you past most of the game, no matter how casual you are. And pay attention to enemy resistances, no matter the build. Realizing that some enemies get smoked by holy and others by frost is key to winning decisively, especially against Mesmer, Pale Rider, Bayle, and Relanna.

Last bit of info, for those planning around it: It appears that there are roughly six total Ancient Sombers and almost a dozen ancient dragon stones in the expansion. There are a total of three places to duplicate remembrances, which let you dupe base game ones as well (but not Bayle). Finally, go back to NPCs after beating their related boss, because there are some good things that they give you after.

Phazael said:

Despite some serious balance issues in both directions, this is likely the best expansion for any game I have ever played, with DS2 Scholar of the First Sin and W3 Hearts of Stone being the only really in the same ballpark.

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Interesting that you put Hearts of Stone over Blood and Wine, I hardly ever see that