Elden Ring - From Software + George RR Martin

lol beard growth dopamine hits.

I killed my first boss, the weird beast thing in the cave. I was pretty nervous lol but jesus does the stomp skill work wonders. Using that skill has literally made the game way more enjoyable for me as I can at least hit that stun and then have a chance against some of the more annoying enemies. I stun and power strikes with greatsword like 6 times and downed it. It only dropped some gay ass flame protection talisman. Its probably the easiest boss in the game lol. The boss in the catacombs is much harder.

Slowly but surely my wretch is starting to look more respectable. I havent even found a shield yet, nevermind used one. 2h all day all night. The claymore sword with stomp is righteous.

Mizake said:

Every chest and glowing item in the game is fixed, so everybody gets the exact same drops. Mob drops are random, fixed drop tables but small percent chance. There are items in the game that can increase this chance.

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Seems like all the fixed chests in the opening area are strength based weapons, at least that I've come across so far and it sucks as a dex/faith build!

Fucking horse battles man.

Great game.
Only complaint really is that the dodge roll has some sort of delay and sometimes obvious hits won't registers, the sword/axe/whatever will clip straight through my avatar but won't hit. Mostly frustrating when expecting a block riposte chance but the attack will clip through and miss so my R2 attack isnt a riposte and thus slow as hell.

I guess my other issue was i had to spend 2 hours looking for a place with smithing stones(1), i had plenty of (2)'s but the (1)'s were hiding from me, so that was a bit aggrevating.

Talenvor said:

Seems like all the fixed chests in the opening area are strength based weapons, at least that I've come across so far and it sucks as a dex/faith build!

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First bandit camp (Gatefront Ruins) has 2 big black carts you can’t miss. Both have chests, one contains a flail that requires 18 dex and I would say is the best early dex weapon you can find. The other contains a great sword which requires 16 str which I think is a great early weapon for strength builds. Pretty sure they did this on purpose to give players good weapon choices near the beginning of the game.

Hateyou said:

The dodge roll and attacks not hitting you when rolling is by design, that’s how they all play. Lots of fights you accomplish the win by dodge rolling into their attacks. It’s weird to get used to when coming from most other games where you’re actually trying to not get touched and roll away.

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Which is also why in Souls games it’s important to watch your equipment weight. You never want to go over medium load, otherwise your dodge and rolls get really sluggish.

Some reviewers had complained about copy paste bosses in the small dungeons, but after defeating the double Erdtree Watchdog, I think it was a brilliant decision. With the sheer volume of small dungeons, Fromsoft making a hundred unique bosses is unrealistic. Plus, it reinforces their player behaviour ideology. Oh, you have memorized this bosses moveset and whooped it's ass? How about we give it adds, or new moves, or double it up? Great feeling, the gradual growth and understand of an increasingly complex moveset.

All the bloodhound fights are the same, but with modifiers. If you can deal with one, you can deal with most. It's honestly brilliant design. You learn by doing, and while doing you learn that nothing is the same... except when it is, and you revel in those moments. "Oh cool, a bloodhound knight; I need to do xyz and win. Oh it does blood damage? Ok, I have jkl tools to handle blood damage."

Also full tangential sidenote:
I'm like 7-8 hours in, and I have done fuckall to progress the main story. But I have done a ton of side shit, and it is glorious. Like Ghost of Tsushima meets Dark Souls. Just riding the horse around finding new things and then focusing on grace points to make paths back if it gets too hard.
I think it is probably somewhat unintentional given how most FromSoftware games are designed, but it's genius.

I guess this is what "real" combat is in a adventure/action/rpg game. I bet there are a ton of fags who just give up or wont even try playing because they just cant deal with the brutal deaths and loss.

The only thing I dont particularly like as it seems kind of counter productive, is the fact that after you lose in a boss fight, you have to go all the way back to the beginning of the dungeon and kill all of the trash all over again. That is garbage they should let you spawn at fog door, or at least give you a few tries and then boot you back.

Hateyou said:

The dodge roll and attacks not hitting you when rolling is by design, that’s how they all play. Lots of fights you accomplish the win by dodge rolling into their attacks. It’s weird to get used to when coming from most other games where you’re actually trying to not get touched and roll away.

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Yes, i suppose i wrote that in a way just asking to be misunderstood.
My point was i can be standing still, holding block down, on level ground, against another humanoid whitin striking distance...And the attacking weapon can clip right through me instead of bouncing off my shield. Hence how my expected block riposte just turns into me doing the normal R2.

Okay Godrick down in like 5 tries, once I adjusted for his phase two It wasnt too bad. Going to explore for a while now and not try to advance the story for a LONG while.....I wanna savor every second of this one.

Mizake said:

First bandit camp (Gatefront Ruins) has 2 big black carts you can’t miss. Both have chests, one contains a flail that requires 18 dex and I would say is the best early dex weapon you can find. The other contains a great sword which requires 16 str which I think is a great early weapon for strength builds. Pretty sure they did this on purpose to give players good weapon choices near the beginning of the game.

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Is the flail better than the confessor starting sword? Maybe I’m reading the stats wrong or misunderstand them but the sword is something like 117 + 17 and the flail is 99 +24. doesnt that make the sword quite a bit better? I’m at 18 dex and have put my other points into health, stamina, and maybe 1 or 2 in strength before I knew what I wanted to aim for.

Is there a way to store runes and not keep it on your character? I spent a while farming runes to level up. I was exploring an old castle and accidentally landed my ass into the Margit fight. Too fucking low in level to kill him, died and lost a nice chuck of runes. It’s nothing I can’t refarm but hate spending time doing so. I fucking love/hate this game.

Talenvor said:

Is the flail better than the confessor starting sword? Maybe I’m reading the stats wrong or misunderstand them but the sword is something like 117 + 17 and the flail is 99 +24. doesnt that make the sword quite a bit better? I’m at 18 dex and have put my other points into health, stamina, and maybe 1 or 2 in strength before I knew what I wanted to aim for.

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Don’t focus too much on stats, it’s more about play style. I would say for melee there are 2 main archetypes - the first is 2handers dodge/roll. So you keep light weight, you avoid attacks, and when the opportunity presents itself you strike. The other is high weight/poise shield with polearm/long reach weapon. Here is a more methodical approach. You block attacks with shield then counter. Once you figure out how you want to play, then pick a weapon based on your play style - focus on strength or dex, but not both. Eventually what you are looking for is a weapon that scales well with you main stat - A or S scaling….early weapons scale at D or C which will suck long term.

Weapon damage numbers themselves aren’t that important, for example you might dual wield daggers with low numbers, but your speed plus bleed effects more than make up for it. Conversely, a heavy weapon might not give sustained dps, but it has other benefits like breaking and interrupting enemy attacks.

One of the funnest aspects of these games imo is trying out the different weapons. I think the first 2 games I went shield/spear, and later on went to 2handers, then double short swords, daggers….

And this doesn’t even touch spellcasting!! Which boils down to magic and faith, kinda like wizard vs clerics spells. There are soooooo many ways to play this game, which is just a small part of what makes it so great.

Nola said:

Is there a way to store runes and not keep it on your character? I spent a while farming runes to level up. I was exploring an old castle and accidentally landed my ass into the Margit fight. Too fucking low in level to kill him, died and lost a nice chuck of runes. It’s nothing I can’t refarm but hate spending time doing so. I fucking love/hate this game.

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No. That is part of the challenge of this game, the risk/reward…..do I press on, carrying a bunch of runes, or do I go back to camp and level, knowing that the level will reset?

The runes that you can “store” are those golden runes you pick up. Each bigger size yields more runes, and they stay in inventory upon death so you never lose them. Use those judiciously when you need more runes to make a level or when you find some equipment you need at a vendor.

Yeah once I finish my initial playthrough I'm gonna see if I can pull off a crazy 2hand build and then go for a spell build. The game is completely different depending on your playstyle - which is a main reason these games have such replayability.


Still wish they would add encounters and enemies for NG+ but not if the first playthrough suffers for it.

Jozu said:

The only thing I dont particularly like as it seems kind of counter productive, is the fact that after you lose in a boss fight, you have to go all the way back to the beginning of the dungeon and kill all of the trash all over again. That is garbage they should let you spawn at fog door, or at least give you a few tries and then boot you back.

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Once you know the trash you can just skip them and sprint to the boss arena

I honestly have not met any egregious boss runs. I was in this one poison cave but I learned the path and trash well enough to make the few runs back to the boss

Nola said:

Is there a way to store runes and not keep it on your character? I spent a while farming runes to level up. I was exploring an old castle and accidentally landed my ass into the Margit fight. Too fucking low in level to kill him, died and lost a nice chuck of runes. It’s nothing I can’t refarm but hate spending time doing so. I fucking love/hate this game.

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Never heard of "storing runes" (or souls / blood echoes for that matter). But there's a rare item called sacrificial twig that goes in a talisman slot and is consumed on use. It prevents you from losing your runes upon death.

nu_11 said:

Downed Godrick earlier this morning. He's a joke (because he's so slow) compared to Margit.


Unfortunately, I found a spot where I net 4400 xp every 1.5 minutes. It's too good. Location is Farum Greatbridge just southeast of Bestial Sanctum

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Found an even better spot if you like horse combat, feels like EQ swarm kiting they really stack up. left and right on that road between that spot of grace and the tree.