Elden Ring - Shadow of the Erdtree Expansion Announced

[Hawklord]

4 hours in and lvl 40. Forgot how much there is to do in the starting area. Anyway Margit down. I'd like to say on first attempt but I rolled off the fucking edge first time lol

[Oz]

9 minutes ago, Hawklord said:

Mimic is basically a copy of your character albeit weaker. Same armour, spells, equipment and weapons. Still fairly OP even after the nerf

Yes but is there a specific way in which people use the summon? One thing I have noticed organically learning by using it is: mimic gets the game items you equip in your  inventory slots when you summon it. So worth having bombs if the boss is weak to something. Or oils for its blade.

[Hawklord]

24 minutes ago, Oz said:

Yes but is there a specific way in which people use the summon? One thing I have noticed organically learning by using it is: mimic gets the game items you equip in your  inventory slots when you summon it. So worth having bombs if the boss is weak to something. Or oils for its blade.

Yeah that's the idea. An example of how I was using it late game.

 

I had Blasphemous Blade as my main weapon and Rivers of Blood as my 2nd weapon with Flame of Frenzy as an Incantation. I'd make sure RoB was active when summoning and as soon Mimic appeared, I'd switch to Blasphemous Blade. Mimic was running around proccing bleed and hitting them with FoF while I was sitting back and hammering them with BB then running in for the critical hit when they had their stance broken.

 

It also pulls the aggro to them as they are constantly attacking so lets you get more hits in before they turn on you (Tiche is very good for that as they are very fast and constantly dodging)

 

You can even equip the Talisman that forces aggro on you (Shabriri's Woe) then quickly un-equip after summoning so only Mimic has it. 

[Parappa]

6 hours ago, rgraves said:

 

It's perfectly possible to dodge (or block with a sheild) that attack though.....

 

 

Pissed both of them tonight with brute force. (And my trusty mimic) . Have I got far to go? Think I have got to Melina now? Not a chance 🤣

[Hawklord]

35 minutes ago, Parappa said:

 Have I got far to go? Think I have got to Melina now? Not a chance 🤣

Depends  

 

Spoiler

I'm presuming you are talking about Godskin Duo in CFA?

 

If not, don't open this  

 

Also, don't know what progress you've made in side quests so may contain other spoilers

 

Spoiler

After Godskin Duo you have the main boss of the area (point of no return after this one for some stuff and next direct section is end game. There's also another optional boss available in CFA. After that and not including Malenia (who's also optional and has a puzzle area, 2 full areas and a boss fight to get through to even get to, not to mention all the side quest pre-requisites), there's a minimum of a required mini boss, and 2 main boss fights before the final boss (the boss rush section)

 

And all that depends on whether you've gone for or are intending to go for the other optional "main" bosses

.

 

 

 

 

 

[Talvalin]

14 hours ago, rgraves said:

Fucking lobsters can do one though. Bastards. Especially those ones at the bottom of the sewers.

 

Fucking A. I was sniping at the sewer ones from above before accidentally falling down and with no flasks to my name. Managed to survive by spamming the Blasphemous Blade's special attack but it was a very close thing. This was after several failed attempts and a lot of lost runes. Wankers!

[MardiganX]

11 hours ago, Hawklord said:

4 hours in and lvl 40. Forgot how much there is to do in the starting area. Anyway Margit down. I'd like to say on first attempt but I rolled off the fucking edge first time lol

Who or what is Margit? I’m about 20 hours in, have just beaten Godric and still feel like my sword and shield build is nowhere near as powerful as it should be. 
 

I picked up what seems like an excellent sword (Carians Knight Sword) but I’ve been putting almost all of my points into vigour, strength and endurance so don’t have the intelligence level it requires. Are all powerful straight / standard shape swords like this that they require intelligence or something else to wield? I don’t want to use great swords or rapiers, so like the balance of what I would call normal sword types.

[Talvalin]

Does it have some kind of magical Ashes of War? That might explain the INT requirement.

 

https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Carian+Knight's+Sword

 

Does magical damage, that would be it.

 

Basically, it all depends on the additional damage, special attack or Ashes of War that the sword does or has. For example, holy attacks/damage would have a Faith requirement, bleed damage would most likely have a Dexterity requirement and so forth.

 

[Hawklord]

40 minutes ago, MardiganX said:

Who or what is Margit? I’m about 20 hours in, have just beaten Godric

 

Spoiler

The boss that you have to beat to get into Stormveil.

 

[MardiganX]

29 minutes ago, Hawklord said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

The boss that you have to beat to get into Stormveil.

 

Ah right, forgot his name 🤦🏻‍♂️ I wandered off to places I had no right to be anywhere near after beating him so the memory of that battle has faded into a hundred deaths.

 

How the fuck you hit lvl 40 at that point?!

[Oz]

25 minutes ago, MardiganX said:

Ah right, forgot his name 🤦🏻‍♂️ I wandered off to places I had no right to be anywhere near after beating him so the memory of that battle has faded into a hundred deaths.

 

How the fuck you hit lvl 40 at that point?!

I’ll never forget his name 

[df0]

Mimic is you but weaker. Same gear, same items, same spells, same attacks but without most (if not all) negative effects. For example, your Mimic can eat the poisonous mushrooms that heal without getting poisoned. Weapon arts, weapons, spells, items. Mimic uses it all (not always at the most convenient of times obviously).

 

Tiche is nimble and fast. Dodges like mad, closes any gap with ease and comes with melee and ranged attacks. Top tier Ash, definitely worth getting to +10.

[Parappa]

11 hours ago, Hawklord said:

Depends  

 

  Hide contents

I'm presuming you are talking about Godskin Duo in CFA?

 

If not, don't open this  

 

Also, don't know what progress you've made in side quests so may contain other spoilers

 

  Hide contents

After Godskin Duo you have the main boss of the area (point of no return after this one for some stuff and next direct section is end game. There's also another optional boss available in CFA. After that and not including Malenia (who's also optional and has a puzzle area, 2 full areas and a boss fight to get through to even get to, not to mention all the side quest pre-requisites), there's a minimum of a required mini boss, and 2 main boss fights before the final boss (the boss rush section)

 

And all that depends on whether you've gone for or are intending to go for the other optional "main" bosses

.

 

 

 

 

 

Crickey. I dont really know what sort of progress I have made with side quests but I have done a few optional bosses etc and seem to be at a point where I either beat Maliketh or return and try and beat bloody commander Neil.

[Hawklord]

1 hour ago, MardiganX said:

Ah right, forgot his name 🤦🏻‍♂️ I wandered off to places I had no right to be anywhere near after beating him so the memory of that battle has faded into a hundred deaths.

 

How the fuck you hit lvl 40 at that point?!

 

 

 

There's couple of ways but the guide I followed got me this...

 

Spoiler

There's a sleeping dragon in Dragonbarrow. If you get the Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot and a bleed weapon you get about 90k runes for a few minutes patience (consume the foot when you get near the final blow).

 

Then you can go to Lenne's Rise. At night on the bridge nearby, there is a Night's Cavalry who can be killed easily in a couple of ways for 42k runes. You can bait him then run back and down to the side of the bridge. He'll still kill you but will also fall off and you'll get his runes just before you "die". You also get Bloodhound's Step from him.

 

[Hawklord]

1 hour ago, Parappa said:

Crickey. I dont really know what sort of progress I have made with side quests but I have done a few optional bosses etc and seem to be at a point where I either beat Maliketh or return and try and beat bloody commander Neil.

 

 

There's a fair amount of them and a couple are fairly long. There are two others that will affect the ending and Malenia is after the end of Millicent's Quest

 

 

 

[MardiganX]

Eh, found one of those things you mentioned @Hawklord

Spoiler

 

 

 

🤑
 

With a community or a guide is really the only way to play this game and get the most out of it isn’t it?

[Hawklord]

43 minutes ago, MardiganX said:

Eh, found one of those things you mentioned @Hawklord

  Hide contents

 

 

 

🤑
 

With a community or a guide is really the only way to play this game and get the most out of it isn’t it?

Nice one

 

I did get to a point in one of my original runs where I needed 200k+ just for one level lol. And that was a run where I didn't farm them!

 

Yeah you can play blind but without a lot of luck you'll probably miss a fuck ton of content. I have limited gaming time as it is so I have no qualms about using a guide if I feel I need one. I've already completed the game 3 times and I think it totals at nearly 400 hours over PS5 and SX. Without a guide and help from the community (including here) I'd still have completed the game (eventually) but it would have been much, much more difficult and could probably finish in under 40 hours due to what I'd have missed and there would also be a high chance that I'd hit a wall and give up. It's also one of the things I love about the series, the optional and sometime very obscure content can be as long as another Developers AAA game.

 

My NG+ on SX was around 28 hours to complete as I was only playing (and rushing through) to get a couple of missed achievements but the main playthroughs on NG on PS5 & SX were both around 160-180 hours as I made sure I done every quest.

 

One of the things I love most about all of the Soulsborne games is the community part. Yeah there's the folk that say Git Gud but those are in the minority. Everyone else loves helping others get the most out of the games. 

 

 

[MardiganX]

After sticking my haul into a mix of vigour, endurance and strength I feel my build is pretty handy now. Like I’ve now got the stats at a level where I can actually do the things I want that were impossible earlier. 
 

Im still not blown away by the weapon and armour options so really hoping I come across some good stuff soon as I don’t want my gear to just be effective… I want it to be empowering and visually impressive.

[Oz]

 

13 hours ago, Oz said:

I’ll never forget his name 

 

Spoiler

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Hawklord]

6 hours ago, MardiganX said:

After sticking my haul into a mix of vigour, endurance and strength I feel my build is pretty handy now. Like I’ve now got the stats at a level where I can actually do the things I want that were impossible earlier. 
 

Im still not blown away by the weapon and armour options so really hoping I come across some good stuff soon as I don’t want my gear to just be effective… I want it to be empowering and visually impressive.

The armour is Fashion Souls, only a very few items give any kind of stat boost. So just go for either what looks good or whatever may give a specific boost/defence for the area.

 

The weapons OTH, oh yes there's some good ones. YMMV depending on your expectations, and they've mixed up traditional souls upgrade paths (in a good way IMHO) with the Ashes of War being transferable between most weapons.

[MardiganX]

12 minutes ago, Hawklord said:

The armour is Fashion Souls, only a very few items give any kind of stat boost. So just go for either what looks good or whatever may give a specific boost/defence for the area.

 

The weapons OTH, oh yes there's some good ones. YMMV depending on your expectations, and they've mixed up traditional souls upgrade paths (in a good way IMHO) with the Ashes of War being transferable between most weapons.

I’m favouring a combination of armour that gets my guard boost highest right now whilst keeping the load medium and it’s giving me the kind of capability I really want. Working out which attacks I can block without wiping out my stamina is now my first step in every new encounter and it’s making things really fun. 
 

There have been a few enemies and at least one mini-boss that became a piece of piss because I was able to block an attack that would have wiped me out a few hours ago so I want to retain that ability as things get harder.

 

I just acquired a full set of Carian Knight Armour, which looked lovely but it got wardrobed because it took 20 points off guard boost, haha. I’m a little obsessed with this game!

 

 

[Oz]

Summoned mimic on my last boss fight and the only thing it did over and over was allow itself to be caught on the grab attack which for me was an insta death. This is what it thinks constitutes mimicking me. Lol

[Oz]

On 06/10/2022 at 20:00, df0 said:

On my third run at final boss, as soon as you reach Lyendell the quality of everything plummets. Open world is almost gone completely, bosses are variations of "a ton of stuff everywhere that can one-shot you". What a complete slog this melee run is.

 

I think I am completely done with this whole SoulsBorne thing by From, my indifference has reached levels I thought were unique to Ubisoft games. Uninspired copy paste content, over and over. The upcoming game by From is going to suffer from the exact same issues as previous Souls' entries, guaranteed. It has yet to be unveiled and I've already played it.

Oh wow Kansa I really disagree with this so far. I did find I had not used the horse in ages given how long I spent in the city and sewers. But then I came back out the other side to the mountains and continue to be blown away every 10 minutes.

 

There’s for example a couple of tombs I found in the city which were probably the best in the game so far. 

[Alask]

18 hours ago, MardiganX said:

I just acquired a full set of Carian Knight Armour, which looked lovely but it got wardrobed because it took 20 points off guard boost, haha. I’m a little obsessed with this game!

 

You can keep your fancy looking armour on, it won't affect how well you block at all. Armour has poise, which is how resistant you are to flinching when you get hit. Guard boost is just on shields and weapons and affects how much endurance you lose when you block an attack. They're not quite the same thing. Poise is essentially what you want if you want to be able to trade blows with an enemy without flinching out of your attack animation each time they hit you. 51 is the magic number for what it's worth for most stuff in PVE. If you haven't got 51 points of poise, you basically aren't getting any benefit from it Vs most of the enemies in the game.

 

If you block with your shield though, you aren't taking any poise damage so it's just a case of is your guard boost high enough and have you got enough endurance to take the hit on your shield.

[MardiganX]

24 minutes ago, Alask said:

 

If you block with your shield though, you aren't taking any poise damage so it's just a case of is your guard boost high enough and have you got enough endurance to take the hit on your shield.

Yeah this. That armour reduces my guard boost making my proficiency with blocking weaker. As you say, lower guard boost means more stamina loss when blocking, so I don’t want that.

 

I understand how poise works and not really bothering too much about it, but taking 20 points of guard boost for the sake of a fancy cape can fuck right off. I need my shield wall!!

[MardiganX]

Hit my first real ‘this game can go fuck itself’ boss today.

 

Spoiler

Rennala phase 2

It’s not terribly difficult, it’s just really boring. All the skills, all the level ups, all the armour and weapons reduced to running in circles and getting 1 or 2 hits when it’s safe. 
 

The previous boss was tougher technically and it became a really exciting battle but this is not a enjoyable at all 😞

[Oz]

9 hours ago, MardiganX said:

Hit my first real ‘this game can go fuck itself’ boss today.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Rennala phase 2

It’s not terribly difficult, it’s just really boring. All the skills, all the level ups, all the armour and weapons reduced to running in circles and getting 1 or 2 hits when it’s safe. 
 

The previous boss was tougher technically and it became a really exciting battle but this is not a enjoyable at all 😞

Did you use any ashes? I have the same take I’m afraid. This has been a low point. It is also annoying how long it takes to get to the phase and that you have to repeat the boring part. I have a feeling our general take on the encounter  may be to do with our build though and which ashes you choose to use or not. 

[df0]

That boss can be interrupted/stunlocked rather easily especially with the help of an ash. Tip: do not summon during phase 1 and also not at the very start of 2 unless you want to take a spell to the face.

[PikaStu]

Up until I got the mimic, I used the Jellyfish summon which is good at distracting bosses as it keeps its distance, or the two wolves who were quite handy against Margaret.

However as soon as I got the mimic, I used him with pretty much every boss. Got me out of some tight battles where one more hit and I’d be dead, he’d kill the boss and I’d collapse in a puddle of sweat.

 

He’s useless against Malenia though… as am I 😢

[robdood]

14 hours ago, MardiganX said:

Hit my first real ‘this game can go fuck itself’ boss today.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Rennala phase 2

It’s not terribly difficult, it’s just really boring. All the skills, all the level ups, all the armour and weapons reduced to running in circles and getting 1 or 2 hits when it’s safe. 
 

The previous boss was tougher technically and it became a really exciting battle but this is not a enjoyable at all 😞

 

4 hours ago, Oz said:

Did you use any ashes? I have the same take I’m afraid. This has been a low point. It is also annoying how long it takes to get to the phase and that you have to repeat the boring part. I have a feeling our general take on the encounter  may be to do with our build though and which ashes you choose to use or not. 

For that boss:

 

Spoiler

For the easiest time, you want either a weapon that is really quick so you can stunlock her.  OR.  A summon that has multiple aggressive ghosties.  Wolves, skellies or demi humans are great choices. Thye don't even have ot be strong/levelled, just enough to stop her casting big summons and stuff. 

 

I'm gonna guess its the magic attacks that are killing you super quick / in one hit?  They take some practice but can be dodged quite reliably.  Or try using armour with high magic resist to avoid getting one-hit-killed.  

 

 

EDIT - here's how my big axe boi polished her off.. 

 

Spoiler