Elden Ring is finally real

The escalating difficulty is definitely an issue. When your games are known for being hard, any backslide in difficulty is a disappointment to expectations (I disagree, but that's the idea, I'm convinced). And there's definitely something to be said for an epic series of battles, especially as a final boss. I don't see it too different than, say, multiple stages of a JRPG final boss fight (except, of course, way more punishing and frustrating).

That said, the spirit ashes in ER can make a huge difference in adjusting the difficulty of a fight. Depending on your build, Mimic Tear can completely trivialize fights. I just beat finished my second run the other day; I was having trouble with the final boss/es too, until I went to get and level up a particular spirit ash that made my next attempt almost disappointingly easy - and only at +9, not even +10! (What I mean by disappointingly easy is that it felt like a victory I didn't particularly earn. I did fine in the first fight, but in the second battle I missed almost every dodge, ate almost every hit from most big attacks. But since I had a decoy running around doing sick damage, drawing focus and dodging attacks like crazy, plus stacking a ton of defensive buffs, I was able to survive and heal through it all; I'm not even sure I did a majority of the damage in the fight. Not every boss fight victory where I summon help—ash or player—feels that way, if I feel like I still contributed and did well against the boss. But this time did feel unearned because I otherwise did so poorly throughout the latter fight.)

Anyway, if you're interested: Go to the altar of the moon, the south-Liurnia plateau you get access to at the end of Ranni's questline. I think her questline doesn't get shut out by progress at any point so you should still be able to backtrack for it if you haven't yet. In the plateau's NW corner is an evergaol with a bitch of a fight against a black knife assassin. Beat her and you get a spirit ash that absolutely shreds.

Back to the main point, this is what makes me a little torn on the difficulty in ER: it feels harder than ever before, but they also give you so many tools that can make those fights doable or downright easy beyond the usual option of "summon help" (which is still also an option). They even give you plenty of respec tears and upgrade items to, if you really feel like it, level up a new weapon and respec to use it. Like, I can totally give you a build to trivialize Malenia, or even just a particular helper summon. But I also see how that might be less satisfying than being able to overcome any given boss with a certain build through dedication and practice.

My frost/bleed build with Mimic Tear +10 shredded every boss between Fire Giant and Radagon. Now suddenly both bosses are immune to everything and my summon doesn't have enough life after Boss 1 to survive much of Boss 2, which means more work one way or another. If I could solo Radagon I'd probably be fine but I just can't be on for that many attacks in a row.

Just let me fucking punish a boss once in a while, ER, please.

Oh yeah, it really sucks that a spec that's so powerful throughout 90% of the game is just completely defanged for the final battle alone. I get that it's meant to be harder, and that it makes sense for them to be immune, but goddamn, that's mechanically pretty shitty. Have you switched up for any of the previous bleed- and/or frost-immune bosses (few though they may be)?

What's the stat spread on your build, and what gear? You might be able to upgrade a new weapon or change the affinities and/or arts on your current weapons so that you and the tear can bust through the boss with much more ease.

It was easy to switch up for the other bosses because they were weak to magic.

TBH, I summoned two way experienced players to help me beat Soul of Cinder when I played DS3 in 2020, and I'd do that here but A) My ethernet port is busted so I can't summon, and I can't afford repairs and B) Are there enough people who can clap both bosses that easily to make summoning worth my while.

I honestly don't know if I have it in me to go spend 10 more hours getting whatever it is I need to finish this. If they'd just left Mimic Tear the fuck alone this would probably be a non issue.

I'd ask Miyazaki what he thinks, but he's apparently busy tweeting pictures of Ernest Borgnine.

Paul le Fou said:

Oh yeah, it really sucks that a spec that's so powerful throughout 90% of the game is just completely defanged for the final battle alone. I get that it's meant to be harder, and that it makes sense for them to be immune, but goddamn, that's mechanically pretty shitty. Have you switched up for any of the previous bleed- and/or frost-immune bosses (few though they may be)?

What's the stat spread on your build, and what gear? You might be able to upgrade a new weapon or change the affinities and/or arts on your current weapons so that you and the tear can bust through the boss with much more ease.

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Anyways, venting aside I'll get everything compiled and posted tomorrow. Thank you.

My advice for the final boss is to load up on non-physical/holy damage reduction and when you get to the second part, stick as close to its body as you can.

On a related note, I've made it to Malenia... I'm going to keep chipping away at the fight, but even with Mimic Tear or Tiche at full strength I can't get very far into her second stage without getting steamrolled.

I finally jumped on board this freight train. Made a warrior to start and am enjoying the dual-wield build. So far I've only explored a small portion of the map and beaten a few minor bosses. One was a watchdog, another was a Rune Bear, and then an Erdtree Avatar.

Most of my time is spent aimlessly wandering though. I've found rather little in the way of stuff so far. The occasional mini dungeon that feels very much like a Bloodborne chalice dungeon comes along but I have yet to explore any fully fleshed out dungeons. And I've found like, only two weapons and a handful of armor drops so far. Everything else has been spirit ashes it seems.

I said when I beat it I'd make a huge effort post, and it's been like over a week and I don't have the energy. You'll have to settle for a medium effort post.

Yeah so I beat it; it's good! Elden Ring is very very good, but fuckin' a, it is so fucking long. That's it's core strength and weakness. It is so long because they basically said "hey, anyone here at From Soft got a wild idea? Yes? WE'RE PUTTING IT IN" and they did. There's tons and tons of clever things to find and the game will constantly surprise you. Uh, for like 70-80 hours. Then it kinda runs out of ideas and pads things out with More Stuff™. Some of the semi-late game areas (the last section of Giant Land in particular is an aggressively unfun experience that I just eventually ran through because I couldn't be bothered) are just a massive, massive slog full of enemies you've fought 100 million times, oh but now they can one-shot you because it's "late game". But then again, some of the late game areas (Haligtree, the capital, and Azula) are incredible and up there with some of the best areas they've ever made. Some of the boss fights are incredible, tense, and wild affairs that require precise timing and knowledge to succeed at. Others go for "spectacle" and end up being frustrating (the triple fight against Fucked Up Camera Zoom and Fucked Up Lock On that happens DURING the Fire Giant fight is the most fucked up boss Souls has ever tried...like any one of those bosses is fine, but all THREE at once???? [note to people who don't read the spoiler, this is a joke]) or frustrating (Rykard sucks ass and is the worst gimmick fight in all of Souls, don't @ me, yes I have fought the Bed of Chaos I'll take RNG over infinity billion exploding skull rain for 30 seconds any day) or also frustrating.

Optional super boss Malenia. ...this fight sucks???? It kinda sucks. Not because it ACTUALLY sucks, but because the way I beat it was just by being so aggro, so intensely aggressive that she just could never do her attacks. I loaded up on stamina and offensive damage increases and just bullied the fuck out of her until she died. I still have no idea how her attacks work (well, the deadlier ones anyway). But I beat it anyway. That seems fucked up???? I beat Mogh by skipping his 2nd phase because I just didn't stop attacking and did a fuckbillion damage during the phase transition. There's so many ways to break bosses that it just...feels wrong and weird. The final boss was pretty decent for a From Soft final boss (let's be real, they're not usually the highlight of any Souls game) but the FINAL final boss was so easy, so pathetically dumb that it took a lot of the satisifaction out the whole thing. Meanwhile, when I found the Godskin Apostle in Caelid wayyyyyy before I was supposed to? That ruled, it absolutely fucked. Best boss fight in the game. ...mostly because I was way underpowered, but it was fun as hell.

It's all such a mixed bag. There's tons to love, tons to hate and revile, and everything inbetween. But it mostly works, and it's highs are higher than it's lows (though it's lows can get pretty damn low). The lore stuff is fantastic and I liked it way more than I expected to and there's tons of build variety and flexability and customization. I have a natural aversion to open world games; I usually play them obsessively for like 80-100 hours and then get so burnt out when I realize there's still hundreds more to go that I just give up altogether (see also: Witcher 3, Breath of the Wild). This one I at least came back and finished, so that's saying something. I'll probably play it again, even, though not trying to do all the optional areas and keeping it very focused.

If you're struggling, just remember these helpful gameplay tips:
Bleed is strong
Frost is strong
Spells (of any kind) are strong and magic is maybe better than it's ever been???
Spirit ashes are fucking bananas (Black Knife Tiche is fucked up beyond words and should be your go-to "I'm over this I wanna just win now" button, but Mimic Tear is also extremely, extremely fucked up and strong)
Rot/poison are strong, Arcane builds in particular are wildly powerful
Dual wielding is strong as hell
Shields are great in this? The block counter is not a 100% solution but it works in a lot of instances and is quite strong
If you're stuck, just leave and do something else for a while
Did I mention bleed and frost are strong because JESUS
When In Doubt, Moonveil It Out™

Alixsar said:

If you're stuck, just leave and do something else for a while

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This is the only advice you need. There is always a ton to do, and whenever you come back to something you were stuck on you'll do better.

I just hit level 100, and I'm at about 70 hours. I'm basically crawling through the game compared to most of you, but that's all the time I have for games right now. I got to the end of the capitol like 10+ hours ago, and I could have beaten the boss there already, but I keep finding other areas to finish up first. Like, I've just been spelunking and killing bosses and following quest lines and whatever else comes up. There's so much side stuff!

I was disappointed the Bloodborne and DS3 were a lot more linear that the earlier games in the series, and this game goes hard in the opposite direction. I love it. There are so many weird abilities and pieces of equipment that are just fun to mess around with.

Alixsar said:

Shields are great in this? The block counter is not a 100% solution but it works in a lot of instances and is quite strong

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ALIX USED A SHIELD

ALIX USED A SHIELD

Paul le Fou said:

ALIX USED A SHIELD

ALIX USED A SHIELD

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Sort of! I started a 2nd character and messed around with one against the Tree Sentinel at level 1. I ended up beating him without using it (because 2handing and having good reflexes is better than using a baby shield >=3 ), but I've seen people use a shield and counters and have lots of success. Honestly the block counter is something I'd never thought of that immediately makes shields way more appealing...but at the end of the day, you can't beat a good ol' fashion dodge roll/slice em up with a dex weapon or pound em up with a strength weapon combo.

Patrick said:

I was disappointed the Bloodborne and DS3 were a lot more linear that the earlier games in the series, and this game goes hard in the opposite direction. I love it. There are so many weird abilities and pieces of equipment that are just fun to mess around with.

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Conversely, it feels a lot more scattershot and random versus BB's laser focused and dense areas. YMMV! I like all of them, even Demon's and Dark 2 (which are both fucked up in their own ways)...but "giant sprawling clusterfuck of ideas" is not my favorite. But it's very good all the same, and the build variety is indeed *chef's kiss*; I spent a huge chunk of my time just experimenting with stuff.

I forgot the most important Pro Tip™ of them all:

Jump Attacks Are Illegal™

Seriously, this shit should be banned. They're so good. DUAL WIELDING jump attacks????? Pfft, forget it. FORGET IT. They're so wildly strong. For a while I was rocking 2 greatswords and only jump attacking enemies with L1 and most bosses would get staggered in one or two hits. It's stupid, wildly stupid

Oh yeah, Bloodborne is super popular, and I appreciate that it's very well made. No value statements there. I'm just finding a lot more enjoyment in Elden Ring.

I love BB, but the lack of build variety is what's going to keep me from replaying it nearly as much as any other game in the series (and Elden Ring's huge variety and ease of switching around means it will likely take the most-played crown with ease).

The more I play Elden Ring, the more I like it, and also the more I like every previous Souls game (never played Bloodbourne or Sekiro). I used to have series rankings, but now they're flat. All of these games are good to me, and I can see myself coming back to any of them because they all have such a distinct niche.

I've said this a bunch already, but now that I've beat all the bosses with it: I don't know what it was like pre-patch, but in the current version of the game Incantations give you an extremely diverse toolset to deal with basically any situation and it's very fun. I've never enjoyed the feeling of controlling a character in one of these games more. I worried that the tendency for late game bosses to be Holy would make a Faith build struggle in the end, but it seems like nothing serious ever resists Holy and Lightning and Fire and Scarlet Rot and Bleed, so there are no brick wall bosses like I've run into for caster builds in previous Souls games. On top of never really having to face a boss that fully resists all the tools available to an Incantation user, you get a spell that prevents most of the final bosses' attacks from doing any serious damage to you. It's pretty ridiculous.

I think this game has also mostly avoided the common Souls problem of flashy endgame spells being too unwieldy to use. I spent this morning beating and then getting summoned to help beat the final boss, and it feels great that you can very reliably open phase one with the Scarlet Aeonia rot bloom to inflict rot with one cast, which looking at comments used to be considered basically unusable in basically any situation. I imagine dragon breath would also work, but Scarlet Aeonia has better hyper armor, and in most cases its roll-into-a-little-ball animation for the player means the boss is mostly swinging above you anyway. Also, its FP consumption is fairly minimal so if you get unlucky and whiff you can try it again with no real consequence instead of losing a whole FP bar like most charged dragon incantations. It's definitely not a win button, but it has its own niche and now feels like a fun and flashy reward for beating the optional boss with lifesteal.

No more new characters for me, but I think I'll keep it installed and refrain from levelling up so I can get summoned for the final boss every once in a while.

Faith in every other Souls game is the "loser" magic. I'm not saying it's not viable or even good (seem to remember it was broken in DS2 at launch but maybe that was just lightning?) but it's always the "lame" magic. Like the coolest thing Faith can do is throw lightning, then you'd go look at sorceries and be like "why would I ever use faith over this"? Not to mention that as a not-religious person, the appeal of playing as a Priest-type character was, like, negative one hundred billion.

Uh except now Faith can set people on fire or set them on blood fire or DARK EVIL FIRE or summon a giant dragon head that vomits evil poison fog barf. Faith is now the "cool" magic, and it's WILD that after a decade plus of these games they finally made me believe that.

Sorceries compensate by being bonkers powerful (and pretty cool in their own right), nd INT weapons and builds are very strong, but there's no question that Faith is super versatile and cool in Elden Ring.

Anyway. I did the Stormveil skip last night and...I was shocked at how easy it was. I'd heard you could skip Stormveil but never looked into how and assumed it was an "unintended" thing and involved double jumping up and down weird cliffs and the like. ...but there's just a road. You can very easily accidentally find your way around Stormveil, despite EVERYTHING pushing you that way. It's pretty wild.

I actually did skip Stormveil by accident on my playthrough just through exploring, but realized I might be getting in over my head and so went back and did it right away.

I heard someone say True Godfrey/Horoah Loux would make a great Tekken character and I don't know if anything I say about the fight could top that

Pretty easily my favorite fight of the game so far, kicking my ass but having a good time

estragon said:

but it seems like nothing serious ever resists...Bleed

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Actually a ton of stuff is immune to bleed, the game sticks pretty pretty rigidly to "It has to have blood to bleed" as a rule so any enemies made of stone, ghosts, and very annoyingly the Crucible Knights are all immune or extremely resistant to bleed

Ludendorkk said:

Actually a ton of stuff is immune to bleed, the game sticks pretty pretty rigidly to "It has to have blood to bleed" as a rule so any enemies made of stone, ghosts, and very annoyingly the Crucible Knights are all immune or extremely resistant to bleed

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No, no, what I'm saying isn't that nothing resists bleed. I'm saying that

estragon said:

nothing serious ever resists Holy and Lightning and Fire and Scarlet Rot and Bleed

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(and I guess I'd also add "and throwing a rock")

and as a result, a Faith build never runs against a hard counter in the way the less versatile Faith (and even Int) builds did in previous games. Int is mostly totally overpowered in DS1, but still Seath is extremely annoying for a bulid that primarily does magic damage. There's nothing like that in Elden Ring for an Incantation user.

It's a big difference from when the main options to deal damage for a caster were Lighting Spear and Lightning Spear+1 or Soul Arrow and Soul Arrow+1.

I’ve been doing a pure sorcery character, and despite being super easy most of the time, it is fairly boring. As mentioned above, incantations has access to multiple forms of fire, multiple forms of lightning, holy, dragon breath, MADNESS, heals, buffs, etc. Sorcery has a bunch of blue lasers, a few ice and gravity spells, and a couple outliers that fall in between faith and intelligence.

I’ve reached the final boss for the second time now. As much as it will gnaw at my brain, I will have to leave a third run through the game to get the Frenzied Flame ending for some other time.

Ludendorkk said:

I heard someone say True Godfrey/Horoah Loux would make a great Tekken character and I don't know if anything I say about the fight could top that

Pretty easily my favorite fight of the game so far, kicking my ass but having a good time

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My build and summon absolutely destroyed this fight, so I have no opinion on it.

Issun said:

I actually did skip Stormveil by accident on my playthrough just through exploring, but realized I might be getting in over my head and so went back and did it right away.

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Me too.

Ludendorkk said:

I heard someone say True Godfrey/Horoah Loux would make a great Tekken character and I don't know if anything I say about the fight could top that

Pretty easily my favorite fight of the game so far, kicking my ass but having a good time


Actually a ton of stuff is immune to bleed, the game sticks pretty pretty rigidly to "It has to have blood to bleed" as a rule so any enemies made of stone, ghosts, and very annoyingly the Crucible Knights are all immune or extremely resistant to bleed

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As someone who has played a decent but not massive amount of Tekken, I have no idea what they mean. So either they need to play more or I do.

Anyway

Ok here's where I'm at so far. I made a Warrior cuz I like the outfit and so far dual wielding curved swords has felt pretty good. I did swap the right hand weapon out but it's a Falchion now so more or less the same. I also like the base weapon skill on it so I've stuck to that as well.

I've got a variety of spirit critters and minions I can summon but I don't rely on that too often, but it has come in handy in tight spots. I also sometimes go for long stretches forgetting I can use the horse to cover ground faster.

I've beaten what amounts to a few mini bosses I believe. First was a watchdog thing that actually came off as cat-like if you ask me. And weirdly robotic. Then a rune bear that gave me a pretty tough time, but I eventually took it down. Imagine my surprise to find an entire forest littered with them later with no apparent decrease in their intensity. Also I beat an Erdtree Avatar whatever that is.

The first Capital B Boss I feel I've encountered is this chum named Margit. Ain't beat him though. Kills me pretty bad as I have very little in the way of defensive capabilities thus far. I've kept most of my points in hp and stam to start off before I commit to any damage stats but I do have beefy-ish dexterity.

Might be I just need to keep wandering the map slowly increasing in power and finding goodies that I slowly grok. I only just recently figured out that you can see the location of the map towers in the blank version of the map, so that'll make exploring easier I think. Though I still lose my sense of direction quite easily.

The ash summons are great help. I didn’t use them much for most of the game in my first go, and things got a lot more manageable when I remember I had collected a bunch of them.

Dealing with the last two bosses as a pure sorcerer and no renowned ash helpers was the least amount of fun I’ve had with this game. I had gotten quite rusty over this playthrough, what with never needing to get near anyone for the whole game.

oops it's only been a day and i've already banked 10 levels worth of runes i can't actually cash in without eventually forcing myself out of the organic range to get summoned to help with the last boss anymore. this character is going to be incredibly over-levelled whenever dlc comes out and i use this stash power him up.

i know i'm in the minority, but i really like the whole final boss encounter—i even like the part when it runs away all the time, because i like the opportunity to regroup and calm down between dodging a bajillion types of golden glowing energy blasts going wild simultaneously. the shift between overstimulation and calmness works for me, and when you've run it enough times most of the attacks are pretty fair to dodge. i honestly think that margit (early boss, for most people the first boss) is harder to read than elden beast (final boss). the dodges for the final boss feel much more intuitive to me, while the usual first boss always tricks me into a badly timed dodge roll...

(i also think iudex gundyr is one of the hardest bosses in ds3 though, so maybe something about me doesn't mesh well with recent fromsoft first bosses...)

I went back and tried the boss at the capitol after ten hours of tying up loose ends, and I absolutely demolished him. I was unprepared for how thoroughly I was going to beat him without even trying very hard. I may be a bit overpowered.

Random question about later parts of Siofra River: is there any way to reach the temple up near the roof of the cave? I finished up everything in Nokron, and I found the random ledge that you can teleport to from the four belfries, but I still never found a way to the temple. It looks like part of the Siofra map might be missing too.

There is. In the last big overworld area there's a way to teleport over there.

Also I got a weapon that upgrades with Sombers and got it to +9 without having beaten a single boss (except the Tree Sentinel) and I'm level 40 without having finished a single dungeon

Uhhh, I think I solved Elden Ring