I’ve noticed lately that I’m a little on edge when someone pops into the room while I’m playing something. It’s like I’m getting the dopamine hits, but I’m also just mildly agitated by the experience. Not so with this one. Just happy to play it every day and then happier to have played it, like I managed to exercise in the morning or something.
I haven’t recommended Souls games to anyone because I do realize how much unwieldy jank I just accept, including the upgrade system which is almost never thoroughly explained or emphasized enough. I rarely complete side quests the first time through (though have done so this time around thanks to this thread), but I do think you can get on with the main quest without looking anything up because nearly every mark and clearing on the map is something and exploring every point of interest will reveal enough. I did have to be conditioned to do that though.
yeah, the game works if you don’t look anything up! the game also works if you feel compelled to look things up. best of both worlds imo.
when a game throws a marker or quest log on your HUD the implication is that the game is designed around that. if you ignore the quest log in games that have them, you’ll often have a pretty bad time.
the lack of signposting in elden ring actually communicates that it’s ok if you miss something, and the player is free to decide how to spend their time based on what they value. there’s secret optional bosses behind fake walls, there are unique items in every corner of the world, there are characters that you’ll only meet again by chance. it’s ok if you miss some of them. it’s expected even! and since things are obscured, they actually feel special and gives that much more meaning to your exploration and encounters.
in elden ring i’m pretty content to trot around a swamp for hours looking at all the weird nooks and crannies because the game hasn’t curated a list of Important Things One Should Do To Enjoy The Game.
Even with a pure magic build I’ve been struggling with FP as a resource in the earlygame, my flask allocation is 2x health / 4x mind and most spells are too costly or niche, so I’ve stuck with the two basic astrologer ones most of the time.
The spell that conjures a magic sword (not the one that turns your weapon into a magic weapon) is really powerful and economical though, probably very appropriate for a hybrid tank mage build (but I’m trying to be a total coward here)
Yeahh that makes sense. Think if I respec I should just get out of the magic game? Go for a quality build instead? It sounds kind of like hybrid melee magic builds aren’t really viable past the beginning
I’ve been thinking of my build as “dex/int” even though I barely have more dex than str (entirely for weapon requirements) and despite int being my highest stat, I don’t really use offensive magic very much because it’s in the no man’s land of low 30’s, and my very best spells that I can cast all of three times do like 400 damage, which is about as much as my weapon does on each hit of a combo
not sure if this helps lol but I’ve been making progress happily even so, there are tons of fun utility spells in this and you have a ton of offensive options if you have, like, any 3 of str/dex/int/faith at >20
I always have this problem in From games where I want to do some magic (because it sounds cool) and then it just isn’t good unless you’re 100% all-in haha. So I ALWAYS do quality builds. Thought I’d do something different this time but it mostly sounds like it’s similar in this game unfortunately. I feel like almost all the spells I have access to are shooting shit at people (except for gravity which so far I haven’t found a great use for). Maybe I’ve just missed the utility spell vendors or texts?
yeah i’ve got an all-around build too, and i’ve entirely switched equipment and strategies (usually not weapon, but certainly spells, armor, shield, skills, etc) depending on the boss or area. thought my build sucked but i got vigor up to like 25 and now i’m not having nearly as many problems.
with low vigor you 1) get one shot pretty often and 2) are wasting all the extra healing from all the tears you’ve collected because each heal caps out at your max health bar.
i had to splash a little faith to get most of my utility spells (or use the talisman that boosts all the magic-related stats) but the main utility of the offensive ones is not having to get as close to the enemy
The build incentives have changed a lot, just as first-order consequences of the world size itself rather than any of the balance tweaks they made.
Versatile builds are better than ever. There’s always some boss vulnerable to one of your bag of tricks, and you can procrastinate on the ones you can’t come up with a trick for until your level is high enough.
Shieldless melee builds are worse than ever. Who has time to memorize every attack animation of this menagerie of like 100 different bosses? Better to stay out of range or block
So Elden Ring’s combat dynamics are generally the polar opposite of Bloodborne. As opposed to DkS3, which seemed to try to make Bloodborne’s boss style work in the context of a Souls game
Man I spent hours last night trying to kill Rahdan and couldn’t pull it off, haha. My biggest problem was being unable to approach him consistently without dying to an arrow shot. I keep trying to get alexander pot man into the battle and then dying while I’m trying to run to the next shelter. I got pretty good at just dodging all the arrow shots, but it’s so outrageously frustrating to spend minutes summoning a buddy and then to immediately leave them without a reward because I die accidentally, haha.
Am I really just supposed to be hiding behind the debris of the field? I keep accidentally bumping into the debris and destroying it right before the arrow hits me, haha. or getting hit by the arrow because I’m on horseback avoiding the arrow rain, etc. Brutal!!!
this was my approach for radahn. also took my quite a while until i learned some of these lessons. it is absolutely a brutal fight.
stay back and summon while he shoots arrows. roll through every arrow shot or hide behind cover
if he shoots “rain of spears” or whatever get on horse and avoid it but get back off if he starts shooting purple arrows again
when the summons reach him and he aggros them instead of plinking arrows your way get on your horse
attack his butt while he aggros your summons (try to dismount attack and get combos in if you can. it’s nearly impossible to do enough damage just on the horse and it’s way harder to dodge attacks because you don’t get roll iframes on a horse)
get back on horse and run to safety until he’s not facing you or is doing another move with a long cooldown
if you ever run out of summons, resummon
repeat steps 4-6 until dead
oh, and i wouldn’t summon real person help on this fight because i think that precludes you from using your horse?
run to first group of summon signs, mash Y to summon, try to roll through the arrow but stick behind the debris for a half-second just to be safe anyway
run to second group of summon signs, repeat
get on the horse and make an arc about 90 degrees around him maintaining more or less the same distance to outrun the arrow rain, until I got to another barricade I liked
hang out there for another shot or two, depending on what he was in the mood for
close distance as her starts to engage all my other NPC summons, summon the last one whose sign was right near him, begin battle
and after that like parker and gate88 have said it really is mostly about staying behind him, using the horse is down to preference, I eventually found I could pressure him into using a more manageable moveset if I sort of rode directly into his armpit and stayed on the horse except for when he was staggered, but other folks prefer just fighting on foot.
I will also say that the time I beat him he started the second phase with all of like 15% health because I managed to stagger him right as he was trying to do his second form transformation and he does 0 damage to you while trying to complete that whole process, and if he has to restart it because you started a combo when he was at like 55% health, you can easily knock off 40% right then and there
Sweet yeah. These strategies look a bit like what I’m trying to do (largely unsuccessfully haha). A difference for me is that I actually have to go to three groups of summons in order to get Alexander, who has a ton of HP and I believe lasts longer in battle than the other summons, and Blaidd, who I need for the quest.
One thing I haven’t tried is repeatedly mounting and dismounting during the close-up battle itself to get in attack combos. I’ve either been totally on horseback, or almost entirely on foot but switching to horseback during the moments when he swings around me while dragging his swords.
It’s possible that most people are not dropping signs for summoning near Radhan because there’s simply no viable attack strategy that involves buddy summoning. That would explain why it takes me forever to get a buddy if I want to try out what the fight is like with help, haha.
I really like the HP regen buffs in this game. They’re quite fast, and I love the synergy with the talisman that gives you a defense bubble when at full HP (which makes hits that would one-shot me remove 1/3rd of my health instead). When I get chip damage that’s not worth flasking for, the regen gets me my bubble back
radahn tip: you’re fully invincible while you’re dismounting your horse, so you can just dismount to dodge certain things. when he’s shooting the purple arrows, you can just dismount and then get back on the horse and keep running towards him. later in the fight when he throws the four purple meteors at you, you can also just dismount and dodge the whole thing if you time it right. that trick in general is like, such a huge help in certain fights where you can use the horse, especially some dragons, it’s really surprised me how much mileage i’ve gotten out of it
