Elden Ring is finally real

[estragon]

Apparently this game has something like the equivalent of the Link's Awakening screen warp glitch in it, so now speedruns are under 7 minutes and combat free because the whole run is about glitching out of bounds, quitting out of the game, then glitching out of bounds again. There are technically spoilers for late game bosses in here, but they don't actually fight them. They "beat" the game as they lose a fight to a boss that isn't the final boss of the game.

 

[Paul le Fou]

Certain categories of speed run have always completely baffled me. This is one of them. Like... that's nothing. That's not even recognizable as playing the game. It's like driving a car into the stands, doing a donut on the grass, and then driving across the finish line in the opposite direction and saying you won a race.

The trick to Lusat's staff is that you only really want it for bosses, and you want to use the "10 seconds of infinite FP" and "boost magic damage" options in your Flask of Wondrous Physick. (I think you get those from the Ulcerated Tree Spirit guarding the Minor Erdtree in Mt. Gelmir and the Erdtree Avatar in Liurnia.) All of that combined gives you something like a 30% damage increase right out of the gate. For regular casting, Rennala's staff seems to be the go-to.

Our sorcery runs have mirrored each other pretty closely - I've also been leveling intelligence to the detriment of other levels (20 vigor and mind), but I can't say it's really been an issue because the damage output from magic is so high. Most regular mooks die in one or two Glintstone Pebbles! I was using the Meteorite Staff until the sorcery scaling from Rennala's staff began to outpace it, and I haven't looked back. I'm at 70 intelligence now when I use a rune arc (or maybe even without a rune arc, actually, I have to double check) and it feels like easy mode. Once I hit 80 I'll start putting those levels back into vigor, mind, and endurance.

Yeah, I finally found the tears so I've had that combo on my flask now. I was spamming night comet, then comet, with it but the stamina cost eats through valuable spam time. I keep trying to remind myself to put terra magica on my bar too.

I hit 60 int with buffs so I've been putting some points into vigor, I think once I hit 25 I'll start going back and forth.

 

[lincolnic]

Yeah, I finally found the tears so I've had that combo on my flask now. I was spamming night comet, then comet, with it but the stamina cost eats through valuable spam time. I keep trying to remind myself to put terra magica on my bar too.

Stars of Ruin is another good one to spam with infinite FP, if you're not doing Comet Azur.

Anyway, those unrestricted speedruns are wild. I might go so far as to say they're not even playing Elden Ring anymore. It's more like...Elden Ring-themed Getting Over It?

 

[Ludendorkk]

I thought the death machine on wheels was an incredible idea for a dungeon in the first hero's grave, then when I found out that all of the other ones were variations on that same idea, I noped out. That kinda sums up the side content in this game in general for me, honestly.

three of them have the chariots, the rest don't

 

[zonetrope]

Ha, I just checked, and those are the exact three I visited. Guess I got the wrong impression.

 

[Fyonn]

Regarding staff scaling, If you have less than like 65 INT, you want the Academy Glintstone Staff in virtually all situations unless you're trying to use a specific spell school staff. Turns out the way they scale is weird, and the high-end staves like Rennala's and Lusat's don't start to outpace the basic ones until after 60 INT.

 

[Adrenaline]

three of them have the chariots, the rest don't

Ha, I just checked, and those are the exact three I visited. Guess I got the wrong impression.

Me too. Wtf.

EDIT: This is specifically hero's graves, not mini-dungeons in general

 

[lincolnic]

Okay, I had to look it up to confirm, but Ludendorkk is right: there are five Hero's Grave dungeons, three of them have the chariots. Which is two too many.

 

[Behemoth]

It's been a while since I've checked in. I was out of town all of last week, so I've fallen even further behind. That said, I continue to make steady progress (well, of the game overall, I don't think I'm advancing the story much). I did some clean-up exploring in Liurnia; I beat the Black Blade Kindred asshole in Caelid; and I explored Nokron, got the Mimic Tear, and beat the gargoyle twin assholes, as well as the Regal Ancestor Spirit . Next up I'm going to try the Liurnia Divine Tower. Following that I think I'll finally check out the plateau.

 

[Paul le Fou]

three of them have the chariots, the rest don't

Wait, how many hero's graves are there? And not all of them have chariots???

I wish I'd known that in my last playthrough. There are some items I would've liked down there... Oh well, that's what a new playthrough is for.

It's been a while since I've checked in. I was out of town all of last week, so I've fallen even further behind. That said, I continue to make steady progress (well, of the game overall, I don't think I'm advancing the story much). I did some clean-up exploring in Liurnia; I beat the Black Blade Kindred asshole in Caelid; and I explored Nokron, got the Mimic Tear, and beat the gargoyle twin assholes, as well as the Regal Ancestor Spirit . Next up I'm going to try the Liurnia Divine Tower. Following that I think I'll finally check out the plateau.

Fun fact, that northern area of Caelid is technically a whole different area at a way higher level. That area, and I believe the Nokron area with the two gargoyles also, are both higher-level than the Plateau is iirc. Not saying it'll be a cakewalk, but if you can take those down you're more than ready to go on up there.

 

[Paul le Fou]

In my own playthrough, I decided to give in and finally try out the Moonveil katana, what with me being Int and all. And...turns out it's pretty good, like everyone says! It's definitely stronger than my bastard's stars flail (sadface?), but I dunno if I'm quite as sold on sticking to it. I leveled an uchigatana a bit to try some dual-wielding, though honestly that one's not clicking with me as much as the lone katana. I leveled up Rogier's rapier and think I'll do the same for my frost needle and try those out too. Might also bring back the claws, because if I'm going to drop my defenses to two-hand against enemies, I might as well get vicious with it. Who knows! Maybe I'll just put the best ash of war ever, the lightning ram, on my nightrider flail and go nuts.

Hitting the plateau has been a bit discouraging, in that more and more of the stuff I find and fight is just kicking my ass. I've leveled up vigor a bunch, and a bit of endurance for heavier armor, but these assholes are still two-shotting me. This was supposed to be my git gud run, and I did solo my first two shardbearers and only used the provided summons for Radahn, so that's going OK I suppose. But honestly, shit like the catacomb watchdogs, black knife assassins, magma wyrms et al are absolutely bodying me and I'm just not having fun with them. I keep falling back on spirit summons and blasting them with sorcery because I dread the very idea of trying to solo them for some obscure honor-badge reason I don't even care about. It clicked with me last night, and I realized that most of my least favorite bosses for the completely usual boss-hating reasons are also the ones that repeat the most often, which is kind of a shitty realization to come to. Talk about an unfortunate one-two of un-fun design.

I still think the quantity and breadth of content is overall excellent in theory, especially for a first-time play, but on future NG plays (if any exist) I imagine I will have less and less patience for bullshit, only setting foot in mini-dungeons that have something I need specifically for the build and bailing on the boss if it doesn't *also* have something I need, and freely summoning anything I want to get it done. I'd say I'll still fight them for the runes, but honestly, I find that the mini-dungeon bosses usually kinda give shit for runes anyway. This is not how I've done replays of any of the previous games, for the record, I usually just play through the entire game again without skipping or cheesing things. Though this is also kinda way huge to do that with. (And yet here I am...)

 

[R.R. Bigman]

I’m working my way through the optional endgame zones right now. Blood Feast Island Man, or as he’s known in-game, Mohg, is down without too much fuss. I’m glad I had the HP and the flasks to power through his absurd blood stealing move that I could not find a way to counter. His great rune description sounds kind of bad, sadly.

I’m quite a ways into the Haligtree, where Melania appears to be. Not looking forward to it!

 

[Ludendorkk]

The Haligtree is a tough area but I think it's a fantastic area, especially once you get to Elphael, great level design

 

[jpfriction]

I’m working my way through the optional endgame zones right now. Blood Feast Island Man, or as he’s known in-game, Mohg, is down without too much fuss. I’m glad I had the HP and the flasks to power through his absurd blood stealing move that I could not find a way to counter. His great rune description sounds kind of bad, sadly.

There is physik tear you can pick up to counter that. It’s locked behind the end of an unrelated, easy to miss NPC quest nowhere particularly near this boss. Elden Ring!

I actually had done the quest in question but didn’t read my item descriptions and also just healed through it.

 

[Paul le Fou]

I’m quite a ways into the Haligtree, where Melania appears to be. Not looking forward to it!

The Haligtree is a tough area but I think it's a fantastic area, especially once you get to Elphael, great level design

Yeah, I actually like that area a lot. Even the starting area in the branches. It's annoying and downright hellish, but it's full of Doot Blobs and I just can't stay mad at them.

Bigman, what build are you using? There are a couple different useful strategies that work on the boss of that area, but the one I happened to have which made it a surprisingly easy one-shot for me is to have a weapon art that does a ton of poise/stagger damage. The boss is pretty weak to getting staggered or even knocked down, so if you can blast away with something like Flame of the Redmanes or some big-bonk slammer of a weapon art (I was using the Blasphemous Blade and its mega-powerful Taker's Flame art) you can almost keep up a full-on stunlock for a lot of the battle. Having a mimic tear who also used the same art alongside me was a very powerful (if not necessary) addition. (I also had a greatshield which helped me survive the very-difficult-to-avoid attacks, and the healing isn't a problem if you have enough dps/can create enough openings with staggers and knockdowns to dish out more damage.)

 

[R.R. Bigman]

I’ve been using a maxed out Greatsword with a lot of buffs, switching out for the Ruined Greatsword when I need some distance. When everything is popping off at once I can get over 2500 damage in on bosses with one jump attack. Can’t afford to miss or get the timing wrong, though. It’s a lot like how I play Monster Hunter, when I think about it.

 

[R.R. Bigman]

Well, I reached that boss. If Fromsoft wants to keep making crazy anime fights, why don’t they just make another Otogi? Keep that nonsense out of your dark fantasy action/RPG.

 

[Fyonn]

If it's the fight I'm thinking of, everybody loved Maria, that fight's just Maria But More And Harder.
And the progenitor of the genre is Berserk, which gets anime as hell.

 

[Regulus]

I'm sure it would be a very fun fight in Sekiro.

 

[R.R. Bigman]

I was actually doing fairly well in the fight, it’s the flurry of slashes that ends up getting me. Probably should use a shield next time I try. I still have about half of the Mountaintop of Giants left to explore, so I should get more levels and gear.

I also learned that there are sewers underneath the Capital. It feels like there’s new stuff added in the game whenever I’m not playing it.

 

[Behemoth]

Progress Report! (None of which involves me going to the plateau, because I'm still wrapping stuff up in Caelid and Liunia).

• I made my way through the Carian Study Hall and Inverted Study Hall. I can see how the prospector (or whatever her name is) would be a tremendous pain in the rear, but in the normal Study Hall I overwhelmed with shear strength, and in the Inverted Study Hall I cheesed her with poison darts and crystal darts (brought back fond memories of Bloodborne).
• Speaking of pains in the rear, that fucker on the bridge was harder than most bosses, and only gave me like a measly 7,000 runes when I finally got him.
• Then I went back up to the northern part of Caelid and fought the Erdtree Avatar up there. Oof, no joke. But I got like 100,000 runes for killing it, so worth it in the end. I then went to the other Minor Erdtree in Caelid and smacked down that Erdtree Avatar, which was much, much easier.
• I finished up my run by clearing out some catacombs and dungeons. The only bosses of particular note were the putrid trio of Crystalline Entities, which took a few tries, and the duo of Beastmen, which also took a few tries. I also killed the Rune Bear in that cave, just to prove I could. Oh yeah, I also tried summoning the fights outside of the Collisseum, but after getting smacked around a few times I think I'm actually going to leave that one for later.

 

[Paul le Fou]

I finally went into the Capital last night and it turns out I kinda hate that fucking place. The knights are such assholes and there are so many of them. If anything I'm overleveled for the place but I'm just getting smashed to pieces at every turn. Last time I summoned help but they ended up running me through almost the entire dungeon, so I've been wanting to do it myself this time, but jesus christ I'm hating it so much.

 

[Issun]

The Fire Giant is the first boss since Godrick to give me real trouble. First form isn't too bad, but even if I wait to summon Mimic Tear until the second phase it doesn't survive very long. Honestly the biggest enemy in this fight is the camera.

 

[zonetrope]

That was the one fight where I found that using the horse really made a difference, especially from the second phase onward.

 

[Issun]

Beat him. It's definitely worth the damage tradeoff to hit the leg instead of the arm in phase 2.

 

[R.R. Bigman]

Hey, I just did that fight! Did you not summon Alexander? He kind of helps.

I did not expect there to be a floating storm temple Zelda Dungeon. I really did not expect being unable to warp!?

 

[estragon]

I did not expect there to be a floating storm temple Zelda Dungeon. I really did not expect being unable to warp!?

This should follow the same principle as other forced teleportation: You can fast travel again once you rest at a site of grace.

 

[R.R. Bigman]

Hmm, maybe I activated it without using it.

 

[Behemoth]

Ran into the Godskin Apostle in the Windmill Village. I think he was all around easier, but after fighting him like 100 times (myself and being summoned for fights) in the basement, this dude's now a chump.

 

[lincolnic]

Ran into the Godskin Apostle in the Windmill Village. I think he was all around easier, but after fighting him like 100 times (myself and being summoned for fights) in the basement, this dude's now a chump.

Being able to ride Torrent also takes a lot of the difficulty out of this encounter.