Elden ring!

[wankerness]

This playthrough has been easy going so far. Been using the greatsword with hoarfrost stomp on it, and primarily just jump attacking everything. Bosses I struggled with on previous playthroughs like the draconic tree sentinel have been getting annihilated. Though I think I’m suddenly going to hit a wall in the consecrated snowfield, as usual, and at that point may have to try getting some bleed weapons or respeccing. But yeah, I’m to Morgott already after about fifteen hours (haven’t started Ranni’s quest or done volcano manor yet). Haven’t done any cheap grinding like bird farming, either, just been killing tons of bosses!

The one thing I have been doing on new characters that’s sort of cheap is going to Caelid right away and killing that hugeass defenseless dragon with a bleed weapon for 75k souls, that’s a big early boost.

 

[pahulkster]

Running through NG+ a little bit at a time. Just beat Radahn so not too far in. Really just want to run through the main bosses again. I heard the difficulty jump is at the snowfield again which would be nice because it's just a massacre at this point. Might respec to use some of the dragon spells. Other than that I'm not sure how else I'd even want to play.

 

[Mathemagician]

Just cheesed Alecto finally. Not a fight I can do ranged and I don’t care about my gamer cred. Got Tiche and ramped her up to 10.

 

[wankerness]

Just cheesed Alecto finally. Not a fight I can do ranged and I don’t care about my gamer cred. Got Tiche and ramped her up to 10.

If they ever fix that exploit, that’s going to be the hardest boss in game for a lot of builds. I got so frustrated with that fight on my int and dex characters that I did the cheese. Just turn off her bleed immunity and it might be doable. As is she has WAY too much health and attacks way too fast for it to be doable unless you play near-perfectly for about five minutes sustained.

Well, unless you play a big strength build and then you can just walk up and R1 her to death with the greatsword. I beat her on faith characters too, but it was scarier and I definitely was doing a combination of blasphemous blade spam and lightning Spears.

 

[Mathemagician]

I used jellyfish shield and my moonveil and just kept letting her throw herself into the corner. I get that the game should have some hard bosses. But idk, for me FromSoft games are all about the level design and lore more than the actual “combat”. Idk how to explain it. Maybe I’m just old and don’t feel like “getting gud”? Oh god. There goes my gamer cred out the window again. Lol, I never beat the lightning dragon king in DS3 either. You design a BS boss? I either cheese it or just skip.

 

[wankerness]

Nameless King is easy with the dragonslayer greatshield, never tried it without. I suspect after the huge emphasis on relentless boss combos and delayed hits in elden ring that he’d seem easy now.

 

[Flappydoodle]

I played up to NG+3 and got the platinum trophy a month ago, then literally just stopped playing. And I have zero desire to get back into it. Kinda weird, right?

I played DS1 and Bloodborne a ton of times and they never get "old". Even though Elden Ring has so much more content, variety etc, it just feels like a slog. It's a lot of effort to start a new playthrough.

Elden Ring as a blind first playthrough is absolutely magical. One of the best gaming experiences ever IMO. And the second playthrough I consulted a ton of guides to find things I missed. Third I got the platinum trophy. Around 120 hours in total.

Sekiro, on the other hand, I never finished, and it's my least favourite From game. The final Genichiro is just too difficult and the fight is way too long and punishing. I'm just not able to learn every single attack timing, and then not screw up in 3 phases. And if you die, doing the whole damn fight again from scratch is super frustrating. Same for Demon of Hatred. It's just such a damn long fight. Even watching the guys on YouTube who play flawlessly, it's like 6 minutes long. I also kinda hate that there's no build variety or levels. Yeah, I suck and I don't like that I can't tank my way through things, haha.

I'll wait for Elden Ring DLC and I'll definitely play it. But for now, I'm done with the game.

 

[MFB]

Oh boy, time to defend a game that everyone here knows infuriated me to my wit's end.

You're not wrong that they're both long fights, and can be infuriating, that said both are definitely doable. Genichiro IMO was far easier than Demon of Hate was, simply from the fact that he was a person and not 3-4x my size to hit like a god damn freight train on top of fire damage.

The 1st phase of ISS is just Way of Tomoe that you fight far earlier in the game, nothing you haven't been fighting for ages by this point and you can break that phase without taking any damage easily. Phase 2 of ISS is harder as he sheds and you're fighting the true boss who has a different moveset, but again, from what I remember it's nothing that can't be countered relatively easily; I believe it's a combination of either side-stepping like the other Sword Saints, forward dashing through one of his attacks, or a parrying combo. This one isn't any worse than the other human bosses in the game, but unfortunately it's when you get to Phase 3 that shit goes off the rail. Once he gets his halberd, this is where you have to be on your A-game or he can put you down quickly. I think this is the only phase in the fight that you actually need to use Prosthetics to bridge the gap and put him on edge with his overhead attack, and I believe he has a sweep that you need to Mikiri counter. The gun you basically just need to outrun but that's provided you're in a good spot TO run, so that's a different problem.

Sekiro is one I've thought about replaying, but I don't want to harm myself either as I've beein in a good mood lately

Elden Ring I definitely fell off on by getting to Maliketh, it's so RNG that it's insane, even with having Blasphemous Claw. I don't think I've ever seen the indicator to use it, and the fact that he moves as quick as he does, I can't imagine switching to an ITEM and using it quick enough to actually deflect it. So it seems like the game shoots itself in the foot for certain builds, and the fact that it may very well mean respec'ing whether you want to or not seems foolish.

 

[cwhitey2]

My first playthrough where I barely used any guides until I started going for the last trophies I got the platinum at around 130 hours, and was about level 175 at that point (the end of one playthrough - on subsequent ones it's usually more like 50 hours/level 150). Are you dying a whole lot, or are you grinding enemies that don't give many runes, or are you really poking into every corner of the map carefully, or what?

What weapons are you using? You're not yet to the point where the game gets really silly hard, that comes after you finish Leyndell. If you're having trouble I'm guessing you've got problems either with your build or your weapon choices. What kind of stats do you have, and what weapon(s)? I think you'd want 30 vigor at the absolute minimum before going into Leyndell (I've aimed for 40 on all subsequent playthroughs since I had a bad time with 30 on first playthrough even though I did make it through), and probably something like 40-50 strength and 25-30 endurance. Endurance is good if you're trying to carry around two huge weapons, but armor's kind of a diminishing returns thing here, too - it does reduce damage, but at some point the incoming damage is such that you'll still get 2-shot by everything even if you're in heavy armor unless you also levelled vigor really high, so armor becomes kind of useless except in PVP for the poise (though poise only works against wimpy weapons).

I'm doing a second strength playthrough, going to avoid cheesing with the fallingstar beast jaw this time. The early strength weapons are kind of terrible, their range is so bad. Used the brick hammer for a while again, then started using the bloodhound's fang for the wider swings, but thinking I might go back to my fav from DS1/3 and use the Claymore.

Bleed is stupid overpowered so using a strength weapon either that comes with bleed (ex Great Stars) or that you can infuse with bleed (or frost) helps with a ton of enemies. I started seeing really diminishing returns on non-bleed damage at some point around Leyndell.

I wouldn't say I'm dying a whole lot, there are certain enemies that deff beta me into the ground lol I'm also looking in every corner of the game. I noticed I missed a few things along the way. I'm primarily using the icerind hatchet (i think I have it +9). I have 40 vigor, 40 strength, maybe 25ish dex. I have bumped up the other stats a little but nothing crazy. I honestly think it's my build that's causing the issues.

 

[MFB]

I wouldn't say I'm dying a whole lot, there are certain enemies that deff beta me into the ground lol I'm also looking in every corner of the game. I noticed I missed a few things along the way. I'm primarily using the icerind hatchet (i think I have it +9). I have 40 vigor, 40 strength, maybe 25ish dex. I have bumped up the other stats a little but nothing crazy. I honestly think it's my build that's causing the issues.

Dex or End? I'm assuming you mean Endurance for stamina, or else yeah, those points definitely seem wasted to me. I'm at like 166, and got my Strength to 80 with 50 vigor I think, and then 40 Endurance for a pure unga-bunga STR build (Highlands Axe +25, and Horned Shield combo)

 

[cwhitey2]

Also, I'm fighting Radahn right now....like wtf. I can knock off about 1/4 of his health then I'm murdered.

 

[cwhitey2]

Dex or End? I'm assuming you mean Endurance for stamina, or else yeah, those points definitely seem wasted to me. I'm at like 166, and got my Strength to 80 with 50 vigor I think, and then 40 Endurance for a pure unga-bunga STR build (Highlands Axe +25, and Horned Shield combo)

My endurance is somewhere around the same as dex (ill have to check when I get home, can't remember off the top of my head). I think I just made a shit build.

 

[wankerness]

My endurance is somewhere around the same as dex (ill have to check when I get home, can't remember off the top of my head). I think I just made a shit build.

My reaction to your stats is that they're totally fine, you mainly just should get a different weapon. The icerind hatchet was mainly only good when the game first came out cause Hoarfrost Stomp was insanely overpowered, people would get it and blast it up to +9 and basically never hit enemies with the regular attacks from it. I think those stats are fine, the icerind hatchet just really doesn't hit for very much (it has D strength scaling and B dex scaling, meaning if you're a build with a lot more strength than dex it will be even worse). If you like the Hoarfrost Stomp you're better off getting the ash of war (it's off in a pond by Carian Manor) and putting it on a really damaging weapon with better strength scaling. You should get something HEAVY and do a lot of jump attacks, they tend to be much better at staggering enemies.

With a similar build to yours (I think I had around 40 str, 15 dex, 20 end, 30 vig) I annihilated Radahn by just fighting him off horseback and doing a bunch of jump attacks with a Hoarfrost Stomp-infused Greatsword (it's in a crashed one of those caravan treasure chests in Northwest Caelid, by a bunch of dogs and one bird) while he was distracted with the NPCs. He was at about 25% when he did the phase change meteor and I killed him before he could summon his meteors of bullshit, which are the worst part of the fight by far and were responsible for almost all my deaths on all my other characters. Another good basic strength weapon is the Brick Hammer that you get out of Stormveil Castle. Or the Great Stars mace from the caravan in Altus. Or once you have 60 str, the Giant Crusher from an abandoned camp south of the Capital.

Don't fall into the trap of using unique strength weapons like Grafted Blade Greatsword, most of them kinda suck since in the later game you basically need either frost or bleed to do reasonable damage to any bosses.

 

[wankerness]

I played up to NG+3 and got the platinum trophy a month ago, then literally just stopped playing. And I have zero desire to get back into it. Kinda weird, right?

I played DS1 and Bloodborne a ton of times and they never get "old". Even though Elden Ring has so much more content, variety etc, it just feels like a slog. It's a lot of effort to start a new playthrough.

Elden Ring as a blind first playthrough is absolutely magical. One of the best gaming experiences ever IMO. And the second playthrough I consulted a ton of guides to find things I missed. Third I got the platinum trophy. Around 120 hours in total.

Sekiro, on the other hand, I never finished, and it's my least favourite From game. The final Genichiro is just too difficult and the fight is way too long and punishing. I'm just not able to learn every single attack timing, and then not screw up in 3 phases. And if you die, doing the whole damn fight again from scratch is super frustrating. Same for Demon of Hatred. It's just such a damn long fight. Even watching the guys on YouTube who play flawlessly, it's like 6 minutes long. I also kinda hate that there's no build variety or levels. Yeah, I suck and I don't like that I can't tank my way through things, haha.

I'll wait for Elden Ring DLC and I'll definitely play it. But for now, I'm done with the game.

I'll upload my video of killing Genichiro-Sword Saint sometime, you'll see that you can play like utter dogshit in Sekiro and still succeed! You just need to make sure you always have Rice on you!

 

[Naxxpipe]

Finally getting somewhere in this game. It was an absolute slog up until Rennala for me. It is my first FromSoft game, and I just got absolutely obliterated by every single thing. But now it seems I have "got" the general timing of the game. Most bosses are down in one try now.
Went into Radahn blind and unbuffed yesterday, and got him to 1/4 health, so I am probably somewhat over leveled at 62.

I am liking it way more now as I am not just getting my shit shoved in at every turn.

 

[cwhitey2]

Finally made it into Leyndell I haven't had a lot time to explore too much other than getting to the Erdtree Avatar that appears. I cheesed the knight guarding the entrance with poison mist from behind.

 

[Metropolis]

This is the first FromSoftware game I've managed or even been interested to play this far, currently at level 92 dex/int build mostly with Moonveil katana. Just finished Ranni's quest and Leyndell the Royal Capital yesterday.

 

[Mathemagician]

Spoilers.




So I finally beat it. (PS5). I save-scummed all the endings. And man, the endings sucked. The ending idea for the two non-lord endings were good concepts. But 15 second cinema with like 8 lines of dialogue and then boom credits.

If the last episode of GOT was a game ending this would be it. “U da king now, da end”.

But if a letdown for all that work. I mean FromSoft games have never had “great” endings. But like they didn’t even fucking try to pretend they tried. Thank god the rest of the game was so damn good.

All in all an imperfect 10/10 for me. No such thing as a perfect game. But this is the best Zelda-style game I’ve ever played. So much fun and so much to do. If I had played this as a kid I’d easily be discovering more and more stuff on repeat playthroughs.

 

[wankerness]

Spoilers.




So I finally beat it. (PS5). I save-scummed all the endings. And man, the endings sucked. The ending idea for the two non-lord endings were good concepts. But 15 second cinema with like 8 lines of dialogue and then boom credits.

If the last episode of GOT was a game ending this would be it. “U da king now, da end”.

But if a letdown for all that work. I mean FromSoft games have never had “great” endings. But like they didn’t even fucking try to pretend they tried. Thank god the rest of the game was so damn good.

All in all an imperfect 10/10 for me. No such thing as a perfect game. But this is the best Zelda-style game I’ve ever played. So much fun and so much to do. If I had played this as a kid I’d easily be discovering more and more stuff on repeat playthroughs.

The endings for this game are no worse than any of their other games. Indeed, they're a lot better than Dark Souls 1 especially. I've seen 4 of them, I think (the three required for the trophy and then the one where you become the dung eater). I think at least the frenzied flame one is really cool visually.

That said, they're not good. I never got into the plot of this thing but I have looked at a handful of lore videos. Some of the stuff out there is really cool and I missed it entirely on my several playthroughs (like I never registered the giant fishy thing at the throne of the prince of death).

I beat Malenia again yesterday on my sixth character, this time as a strength build for the first time (my previous strength build I got frustrated and respecced dual katanas/bleed). I tried a variety of dual-colossal sword setups and the one that eventually worked was a blood-enchanted Watchdog Greatsword dual wielded with a Cold Greatsword with Bloodhound's Step. It was ridiculously RNG-dependent - she swoops around all over the place all the goddam time and some attempts I'd miss like 10 jump attacks in a row and others I'd hit her with most of them. I did successfully evade waterfowl dance on a couple of attempts, but usually I just got killed by it instantly or she'd get two of them off before the phase transition so my stupid spirit would then suicide as soon as she did the flower explosion phase change (seriously I wish this game had better ways to command ashes, even just the rudimentary "go stand over there" command that most games with helper NPCs have). Eventually the stars aligned and I got an attempt where she got knocked out of every single waterfowl dance so it took two entire flower explosion/clouds before my stupid spirit managed to die.

Once I finish this game (just have the second half of Crumbling Farum left and then the last story bosses) I might finally be done with this game till there's some DLC or content added for NG+. Still haven't started a single NG+ since it's totally pointless other than getting a second one of the various unique weapons if you want to dual wield greatswords or rivers of blood or whatever. DS2 still has BY FAR the best replay value of this series when it comes to NG+, but DS3 is a distant second and it's so weird that this was such a huge step back from DS3. It's almost as bad as Sekiro.

 

[Wc707]

Started a 2nd character as dual uchis dex/arc. Did str/fth the first time using Ordovis' greatsword and Blasphemous blade and it is a different approach to fighting battles now. I'm still getting used to the L1 combo hit box and moves, but Bloody Slash just obliterates bosses and enemies. I kinda like the pacing with power-stancing and how much more aggressive I have to be.