Elden ring!

[pahulkster]

Miquella is coming with epic bullshit

Malenia isn't terrible with a mimic and a decent build. Zero interest in ever beating her without a summon though. If you can get there you can probably beat her. Definitely my favorite part of the game and the coolest boss in a long time.

 

[MFB]

Miquella is coming with epic bullshit

Malenia isn't terrible with a mimic and a decent build. Zero interest in ever beating her without a summon though. If you can get there you can probably beat her. Definitely my favorite part of the game and the coolest boss in a long time.

She'd be fine if either hits don't recover as much health per, OR, she has a dedicated attack that is meant to recover that much so you have a chance to avoid; but having every hit take as much health back as it does, especially if you use mimic/summon and give her free hits because AI dumb, then Phase 2 starting with a one-shot? Get out.

 

[Choop]

I don't remember my exact setup, but I used mimic and stun-locked her for phase 1...so essentially she got cheesed but I'll take it!

 

[wankerness]

She'd be fine if either hits don't recover as much health per, OR, she has a dedicated attack that is meant to recover that much so you have a chance to avoid; but having every hit take as much health back as it does, especially if you use mimic/summon and give her free hits because AI dumb, then Phase 2 starting with a one-shot? Get out.

Phase 2's one shot is easily avoided, the trick is to run as far away from your mimic as possible so it doesn't hit them either. Basically you know when she's done with that first death cloud attack on phase 2 whether you've got it in the bag or not. If your mimic is kept out of the cloud long enough to still have ~80% of their health going into the phase, you're golden as long as you do enough damage to kill her before she does it again (though sometimes I've lucked out and had the mimic survive two of that attack).

The compromise to the mimic preventing her from attacking you AND having tons and tons of health is the health recharge she gets off its dumb ass. If the mimic both kept it off you AND flawlessly dodged all her attacks (or she didn't heal when hitting it) what would even be the point of her as a boss? She'd be way easier than the other "endgame" bosses since she's so easily stunlocked. The game clearly intends her to be the hardest boss, and with how insane some builds are and how overpowered the mimic is, I think the only way the game could ensure at least some difficulty was by tuning it so it's basically impossible as non-optimal builds.

That's why, if you don't want to learn to evade her attacks properly (I don't) you either need to get a build that stunlocks her when combined with the mimic (ex something spammy with frost/fire alternating or bleed since procs stun her - ex if you throw a frost pot at her when she jumps up for waterfowl it is guaranteed to knock her down as long as she isn't already frozen), or use a different ash (ex Tiche is much more evasive and has that health drain, or Rollo you can get lucky with and he'll chain stun her with jump attacks), but then you'd actually have to learn how to avoid her attacks and/or do enough DPS to burn her down before your non-healing ash dies. I think I've killed her with Rollo once (on my dual-wield strength build) and Tiche once (just for experimentation's sake, I forget which build I was).

There IS a bit of a tactic involved in either making sure you stop attacking her when waterfowl dance is off cooldown so she goes after the mimic with it, or learning to properly dodge it, cause if you get hit by more than one or two ticks of it you're dead no matter what unless you have a defensive consumable up at the time. But other than that it's fairly braindead if you're specced correctly and keep the mimic out of the deathcloud. No boss with the mimic tear in Elden Ring is close to as hard as some of the later bosses in DS3 or Bloodborne or Sekiro. Of course, WITHOUT the mimic they're radically harder than their counterparts in the other games. The balance is weird.

 

[Mathemagician]

But, you have the embarrassment of knowing that you're in the bottom 65% of Elden Ring players who haven't beat Malenia!

I'm sort of surprised how high that stat is. More than 1/3 people who play the game at all beat her!

Because we were all lvl200 and summoned in help. Lmao.

 

[wankerness]

Because we were all lvl200 and summoned in help. Lmao.

I have successfully summoned another player into my games a grand total of ZERO times. The summoning is even wonkier in that game than DS1/2/3 where I've summoned like, two players each across all platforms. Probably cause you have to use an item to even see people's summon signs as opposed to the others where you always did if you were "unhollowed".

 

[Mathemagician]

Yep I shredded most bosses in my first playthrough. But Melania? Nah where’s the cavalry.

 

[fantom]

I have successfully summoned another player into my games a grand total of ZERO times. The summoning is even wonkier in that game than DS1/2/3 where I've summoned like, two players each across all platforms. Probably cause you have to use an item to even see people's summon signs as opposed to the others where you always did if you were "unhollowed".

Never had a problem summoning people. You need to use the summon pool locations. People don't drop summon signs in front of boss fog gates like they did in DS.

 

[fantom]

Tried Malenia maybe a dozen times tonight even with respecing for +10 RoB, just can't win, so oh well and goodbye Elden Ring; onto the next game, that juice ain't worth the squeeze.

I don't even particularly remember any challenge in the game that wasn't completely fleeting, apart from Malenia. That fight was basically the whole game to me.

Placidusax far more a challenge to me than Malenia. Malenia isn't too bad if you can roll through the waterfowl dance and the other transition to phase 2. Placidusax has a ludicrous laser beam if you get past his annoying teleportation.

 

[wankerness]

Never had a problem summoning people. You need to use the summon pool locations. People don't drop summon signs in front of boss fog gates like they did in DS.

Yeah, but like, you have to be making a concerted effort to try and summon someone, and it uses a frickin consumable every time you want to try. I just kind of would summon people on a whim cause I noticed their signs in the DS games while running around unhollowed. With this one the only times I tried summoning were early on and I never saw a sign that remained for more than about 2 seconds so I was never able to successfully summon anyone. I think all my attempts were at the draconic tree sentinel outside of the capital cause I was having trouble with that on my first playthrough. Once or twice I'd see a flash of a summon sign by the pool, but that was it. Never saw another in the game cause you had to use those limited items to even check for them.

Unless that "buff" to be able to see signs persists through death or something? I have no idea. The way the game tied invasions to coop makes me unlikely to really experiment with it much since everyone that wants to invade is getting funneled into co-op games almost immediately since almost no one that's by themselves can be invaded.

The PC mod that makes coop work like other games sounds fun. I just don't have any friends that I'd play this game with at this point (not to mention my PC wheezes on this game already in single player!).

 

[CTID]

She'd be fine if either hits don't recover as much health per, OR, she has a dedicated attack that is meant to recover that much so you have a chance to avoid; but having every hit take as much health back as it does, especially if you use mimic/summon and give her free hits because AI dumb, then Phase 2 starting with a one-shot? Get out.

not only this, but recovering her health when she hits your 100% physical damage shield should absolutely NOT heal her, i don't understand what they were thinking with that.

i used my mimic to beat her on my first playthrough and my second playthrough where i'm straight up refusing to use any player or ash summons, she's the only boss i haven't beaten in it. i know it's doable but it's so god damn frustrating that i just have 0 motivation to do it and moved on to other games.

i think a big problem in elden ring in general (especially if you use great/colossal weapons) is that the breaks between enemy attacks are so small that a lot of fights are extremely tedious if you're not willing to trade blows constantly, and that's just no an option with Melania because of her heal + extremely high damage. go back to DS3 and you realize how much time each boss (even including Gael) gives you to counterattack between their attacks. that's to say nothing of the fact that the game does either input or animation reading and will extend boss attack combos at times whenever you do manage to sneak in a counterattack/punish on the end of their combo.

i dunno though, i've beaten DS1, 2, 3, Sekiro and Elden Ring and i'm extremely excited for the dlc but i can't imagine how they could make it "harder" without also just making it even more tedious, at least for certain builds

 

[wankerness]

Whenever you complain about bosses in Elden Ring not giving openings someone will always "well actually" you and post a video like this:



Like, yeah, clearly it's POSSIBLE, it's just very hard. Like, way harder than anything in DS3. I've seen similar videos with Maliketh, Horah Loux, etc. Yes, if you perfectly master the timings and attacks it's most definitely doable even when using the equivalent of a pea shooter and having no armor. But it sucks!

 

[BlackMastodon]

So, uhhhh... I got a PS5 a few weeks ago and borrowed ER from my partner's buddy.

I have next to no experience with any soulsbourne games apart from a few hours into DS1: Prepare to Die on PC and Jedi Fallen Order (also for a few hours). I'm also trying not to look at any guides and figured out some stuff on my own, aside from figuring out what each stat does so I understand the differences between classes.

I made a Confessor to try out since I figure I'd have a shield to start and a bit of magic since I've heard people say magic makes the game much more interesting. Gave him a cop moustache and a receding hairline and named him Officer Baldin; hell yeah, so far so good. Finished the tutorial section and the tutorial boss was easy enough. Left the castle thing, talked to buddy and found out I'm maidenless. Followed the golden light, ran into a giant in gold armor on horseback and figured, "it's the first enemy after the tutorial, how much harder can he be? Plus if I die in right there anyway." Well he was much harder, the Tree Sentinel killed me after about a minute of me rolling and him eventually breaking my stance.

Didn't have time to play more but I'm digging the vibe so far. I'm hoping I jive with this better than my other attempts to get into games like this.

Tips for a beginner are appreciated (though I don't care much about meta or min/maxing).

 

[MFB]

Tips for a beginner?

Git gud scrub. GG EZ.

 

[Werecow]

Gave him a cop moustache and a receding hairline and named him Officer Baldin

I love doing doing that kinda thing, especially in deadly serious games. Trouble is i take it too far occasionally. I restarted Dragon Age Origins after about 2 hours once, because i gave my character the biggest nose i could possible get out of the character creation screen. Was hilarious at first, but then i got tired of looking at it.

 

[BlackMastodon]

Tips for a beginner?

Git gud scrub. GG EZ.

*scribbling in notebook* get.... Goooood... Scrub (bad thing? Probably bad thing; must do more research).
NTS: find the "EZ"

Thank you, kind stranger!

 

[wankerness]

So, uhhhh... I got a PS5 a few weeks ago and borrowed ER from my partner's buddy.

I have next to no experience with any soulsbourne games apart from a few hours into DS1: Prepare to Die on PC and Jedi Fallen Order (also for a few hours). I'm also trying not to look at any guides and figured out some stuff on my own, aside from figuring out what each stat does so I understand the differences between classes.

I made a Confessor to try out since I figure I'd have a shield to start and a bit of magic since I've heard people say magic makes the game much more interesting. Gave him a cop moustache and a receding hairline and named him Officer Baldin; hell yeah, so far so good. Finished the tutorial section and the tutorial boss was easy enough. Left the castle thing, talked to buddy and found out I'm maidenless. Followed the golden light, ran into a giant in gold armor on horseback and figured, "it's the first enemy after the tutorial, how much harder can he be? Plus if I die in right there anyway." Well he was much harder, the Tree Sentinel killed me after about a minute of me rolling and him eventually breaking my stance.

Didn't have time to play more but I'm digging the vibe so far. I'm hoping I jive with this better than my other attempts to get into games like this.

Tips for a beginner are appreciated (though I don't care much about meta or min/maxing).

If you want to do magic damage, Confessor isn't a great choice - Faith increases the damage of "incantations," but offensive incantations are not very viable as a primary damage mechanic. They're more of a self-buffing class with spell utility until late-game. Don't get me wrong, faith builds are a lot of fun, but if you're looking to be able to blast people down with spells randomly you want to be an intelligence build more than a faith build.

The key with these games is to not overengage and not button mash. Carefully pulling enemies is critical - thanks to the stamina system, if you pull a mass of enemies, no amount of button pressing and timing skill is going to save you when they swarm you and stagger you to death as you don't have the stamina to roll away or kill them. Get good at pulling as few enemies as possible, get a bow (or a weak spell like glintstone pebble) to pull mobs back away from groups, etc.

You were right to look up stats first. Another basic that you might not be aware of but is very important is scaling - if you look at a weapon you'll see letters like S A B C D E over certain stats that represent their damage scaling with those stats. For example of a weapon has A scaling in strength it will get a big benefit from you leveling up your strength stat. If it has a C scaling in strength it will get some benefit but not nearly as much, especially not once your strength gets above a certain point. S is the best. If you like a weapon, make sure you're leveling the stats that it scales well with. If a weapon doesn't have good scaling (at least a B) in any stat it's going to be fine in early game but probably will drop off in relative power as you get late in the game with a ton of stats.

Weapon upgrades are king with damage increases - it's very important to collect smithing stones. "special" weapons are a lot easier to level up than "standard" weapons - the special weapons only require one "somber smithing stone" per level and only go up to level 10, but the standard weapons require something like 12 of each level of smithing stone and go up to level 25. Standard weapons have the benefit of being able to be "infused" by the blacksmith to get different scaling or damage enchants, and can also have buffs applied to them (either weapons or spells can do this). The weird, interesting weapons mostly are in the former category - can't be buffed, but are easier to level up and some of them are incredibly good.

If you want to play as easily as possible, get a good shield and use a fast weapon, not a big heavy slow one. Be aware that "bleed" on weapons (it shows up as a bleed rating in the weapon description) means that every time you build up the bleed status effect on an enemy, it bursts off a percentage of their health, so with any enemy weak to bleed (most enemies, but not all) that is a gigantic damage increase.

If you want to do a build without hiding behind a shield like a scrub, then you have some other options:

-fast weapons, probably with bleed, and either go dual wield to overwhelm with damage and rolling, or also learn how to parry (it's NOT very intuitive, you learn through trial and error the timings and what attacks can't be parried cause the game doesn't give you any visual indicator unlike Sekiro, the main thing to be aware of is the buckler shield has much easier parry timing than heavier shields). Arcane increases the speed at which bleed builds up and there are some good weapons with arcane damage.

-slow, heavy weapons, and stagger enemies nonstop with things like jump attacks. this is incredibly fun but you will die a lot early game as you learn the timings and how to best do this to avoid damage since you're going to be face-tanking a lot of stuff.

-primarily casting - put most of your points in int (with some physical stats because you can't do 100% of your damage as magic without being out of mana all the time and struggling on magic-resistant enemies) and experiment with sorceries. There's a TON of them in the game.

-faith build - put most of your points in faith and some physical stat, use incantations as utility, be aware that some of the self-buffs are VERY good - you can get two really good faith/str weapons through the game that you can use to the end easily (a scythe in one of the early zones, and a particular boss weapon about 2/3 of the way through the game).

Then there's some weird other stuff, like "Dragon Incantations" which require faith and arcane but can be really powerful debuffing spells.

It's a great game! Just be aware that you want to be careful to pull as few enemies as possible, this is not like Batman Arkham Asylum or something where if you have the skills you can fight 50 enemies at once flawlessly. That stamina bar is very important to pay attention to.

If you get in an area that's really difficult I'd suggest just backing out and going exploring for mini-dungeons. It's very easy in this game to massively outlevel the progression content. The bosses can be VERY hard if you try and fight them without either:

1) leaning on spirit summons, which you unlock early in the game either by meeting an NPC at night in that first church after getting the horse or by getting a ways into the first progression dungeon, the huge castle.
2) massively outleveling content - upgrading your weapon and having done a lot of side content and leveled up effectively
3) GITting GUD - it's POSSIBLE to beat every boss in this game at level 1 with a level 1 sword but you absolutely shouldn't try it. BUT, it is POSSIBLE to get past anything with enough skill other than pulling too many enemies at once.

 

[p0ke]

Followed the golden light, ran into a giant in gold armor on horseback and figured, "it's the first enemy after the tutorial, how much harder can he be? Plus if I die in right there anyway." Well he was much harder, the Tree Sentinel killed me after about a minute of me rolling and him eventually breaking my stance.

I just circled around him, figured I'll come back when I've leveled up and found better weapons. In DS3, I had the black knight sword which does around 400-700 damage depending on what I'm hitting, whereas now I have a little knife that does about 30 damage So it doesn't really make sense to attack a big enemy like that yet - seems logical to at least get the horse before fighting him, to even things out... Though it is immediately in the beginning, so it's probably not that tough anyway...

 

[BlackMastodon]

I did grind out a few levels and upgrade my health before trying the Tree Sentinel again. I also got the ash summons so I was able to get some good hits on him while he was distracted with the wolves, but after maybe a dozen tries I only managed to get him down to 30% health once, so I'll come back to him when I've levelled up more and have better gear.

 

[Siggevaio]

Man, I'm so ready for the DLC. I have a constant urge to play Elden Ring but I think I'm gonna keep myself from playing the game until the DLC release. Just to keep the game kinda fresh.

I hope Lies of P and Lords of the Fallen will get rid of that "soulsborne-itch" for a while.