I find this game incredibly hard lol. I have killed exactly one boss so far and the rest have been mostly not particularly close except for Tree Sentinel which I’ve gotten down to 10% once but then ate shit
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brick walling on radahn was the first multi-day break I’ve taken from this, came back, yup the time off didnt matter still a brick wall. I can’t be any less than 40 attempts deep at this point. yall are superhuman. gonna keep at it
yet somehow I’m still having fun with him?? like between the summons, the spacing and how differently he behaves at different ranges, how easy it is to get jacked up just approaching him, etc every time feels fresh. I get the criticisms everyone’s leveling against the weird incongruity of a lot of the bosses this time around but I dunno, I can’t think of a dumb npc-with-boosted-stats boss or a big homunculus monstrosity I haven’t had a blast with
maybe thats just my infatuation with jumping R2s on a greatsword talking tho
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he’s the only boss in this game for which I had to employ my orphan of kos tactics: put on an extremely boring audiobook while doing the fight for two hours straight over remote play in order to achieve the necessary zen state
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his OTGs alone should be the stuff of breaking controllers in frustration but somehow they only ever make me wildly cackle. maybe im just in love with this game, I cant be objective, george r r margin can do no wrong
that one time I got him down to 20% or so and in response he mushroom clouded me from space was like some japanese game show shit I absolutely lost it
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I finally delivered the fatal blow to starscourge radahn while absentmindedly listening to brian cox talk about cheating on his wife in the 70s
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The shields I tried to upgrade gave me 1 point of guard boost per +2. I was wondering if they had changed it too because the first +1 doesn’t do anything.
According to the wiki, it works for the brass shield too. Base brass shield has 56 guard boost, and +25 has 69 (like a base heavy greatshield).
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The weapon art that temporarily increases guard boost helps you block everything too. Turtle shield comes with it and was what I was using for half the game. With it you can block things that look ridiculous.
One hint with it: it applies immediately when you press the button-- the animation doesn’t have to go off – and you can do it while blocking.
I wonder if it works and is effective with greatshields.
edit: it’s called “Barricade Shield”
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Great now when some NPC goes to mark my map she’s gonna see “Abductor Virgin.”
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oh no now i have to crowdsource my upgrade budget
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I feel like I pushed past so much in this game but am still having the same problems. The more I learn I think dex builds are the most handicapped in the game unless you’re a parrying god.
Magic is insane in this game. Strength builds get incredible tools. Dex builds get toothpicks you swing around wildly.
i’ve got most of the way through on an almost pure dex build with an uchigatana and bloodflame blade, almost everything i’ve fought has been vulnerable to bleed!
though yeah i think i’m going to respec (the game is begging me to with the amount of respec items i’ve got in the last couple of hours) for moonveil and some utility spells
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Made me want to abandon the church and go full edge, currently am remaining steadfast.
Initially wanted to go Cosplay Sir Vilhelm with the Black Flame Blade incant but it only lasts for like 5 seconds, a real shame, a sadness.
try buffing your (pure physical damage) dex weapons with items or low requirement spells. weapon buffs apply a flat damage increase so they’re much much more effective on fast dexterity weapons. find weapons with higher critical to make the best of counter opportunities. take advantage of your higher cast speed by putting a couple points in faith for utility buffs. wear light armour and use the accessory that boosts damage with low equip weight. you have tons of options with dexterity but you can’t play it like a big numbers build like strength or a pure mage
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You also can take any fast/bleed weapon and apply an AoW to change the scaling to any other stat, and then have all those same options available.
It’s definitely worth investing enough dex points to meet the requirements for a nice weapon, which could mean up to 20. I’m really not sure about using dex as a scaling stat though. I would only consider it if there was a Keen-type skill that I desperately wanted to use, but on paper, those skills all look underwhelming.
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All the good-for-dex AoW skills I have suck yeah. I wanted to do a dex build and I have stuck with it for hours but it really locks you out of a ton of nice stuff. There are very few fun dex weapons and a lot more fun ones that require high strength.
I always do dex builds in souls games because I do actually get really good at rolling. A lot of the fights in this game have very clear audio cues that I can use for rolls and I generally take no damage right up until I take it all at once and die, haha. But yeah I am probably pivoting away from dex once I get a few more levels
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A pivot to Quality might be a good way to take advantage of your existing Dex investment. Looks like there’s a bunch of ranged attacks and high-damage attacks in that skill category. And you would start meeting the min requirements for any pure-physical weapon or shield.
I noticed that even at only 16 Dex, Quality damage level stayed competitive with Heavy until I got to around 35 Strength.
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Narrative observation: at this point in the game, Elden Ring seems more existentially optimistic than the Souls games were.
In DkS1 your initial quest was to ring two bells (an absurd, purely symbolic action) and after that it becomes to link the fire (sounds more destructive than creative). Serpent Frampt is trying to pull the wool over your eyes with his renew-the-world talk: Serpent Kaathe’s cynical interpretation is more believable. The shadow of doubt hanging over the world also allows for a certain lightness, which you can sense in cheerfully insane NPCs like Solaire: this quest doesn’t really matter anyway so why not just do things for fun?
In Elden Ring, I have yet to meet any NPC who questions the ultimate power or value of the Elden Ring or the Erdtree. When the holy turtle speaks hopefully, it sounds wise, and when M*rg*t tells me to give up, it’s easy to brush off (for example, he claims I’ll never be able to enter inside the Erdtree, but I expect to prove him wrong).
So far, I don’t really like this change. It makes Elden Ring’s narrative more similar to a zillion other games where you journey from weakling to world-bestriding hero.
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I’m basically doing 100% dex and was surprised at how little damage output I had against Margit at level 19 with a +2 Uchigatana. It wasn’t impossible to beat him but it felt really weird, like I’d have to basically play perfectly to beat him solo.
Maybe I’m engaging with the open world stuff less than most players. I sort of hate the entire idea of an open world game.
yeahhhh moonveil is really shredding stuff even late game and it’s nice having some ranged utliity, bows seem kinda bad in this one?
any particularly fun str weapons? realised i’ve never really done the huge club thing since meat cleaver in demon’s
I agree with this – I think the fundamental absurdism of Dark Souls was totally unique and perfect, and what we have here is not quite the same thing.
having said that, I’ve seen way more consensus from the general public that Elden Ring is both thematically and in practice incredibly funny, while I remember it being much more difficult to make that case to the Dark Souls audience. so you win some and lose some.
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