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Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
Malenia is the hardest boss in the game for the vast majority of players, and yeah, being a nice high level helps a lot (but only so much tbh). I feel like with the amount of runes you get in the Haligtree it's normal for your level to be much higher by the time you reach her, for whatever good that does you. I think 150ish felt like the natural curve point to me? My most successful runs against her have both featured a powerful weapon's art (blasphemous blade or mogh's spear) and the mimic tear to get two of us spamming it at once to keep her staggered.
 

Yimothy

Red Plane
(he/him)
I took on Mohg after Malenia, so I didn’t have his spear. Mohg was a lot easier - I went in low on flasks after working through the area thinking I’d just see how it was and die, but I beat it easily. The katana I got from Malenia made the area and presumably the boss both much easier.
 
well, if i was in the 170-180 range for malenia, i suppose it's because i did play a lot of co-op on that character. either way, the higher the level the more diminished the return, especially if you're like me where i'm not playing numbers or using buffs well (i was using a poison/rot build, which i feel is less conducive to damage buffs, i was aiming for recurrent damage, not really the damage spikes). it's an achievement whether it took 35 hits or 50 to down her.

but speaking of numbers i've tried doing a build that actually focuses on the numbers, going for a frenzied flame (and black flame for some of the more fire-resistant bosses) and I've come across an absolutely miserable bug. Current patch (1.09) has a bug where many damage boost buffs simply do not work on incantations/spells, or sometimes breaks the spells completely. I had spent a little bit of time gathering jellyfish shield, fire grant me strength, faith talisman, etc. So I get behind the putrid avatar that drops the fire damage buff tear, load up all my buffs and sneak behind, charge up flame of frenzy, and then drown the avatar in yellow plasma, only for the health bar to be completely unaffected. I could downgrade to a previous version, but i think i'll just wait for a fix, even though it's been a few months now. Just a heads up for anyone trying something similar.
 

Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
Did you try with other fire spells, like the black flame? I think one or two of the frenzied flame spells only work on other Tarnished, including The Flame of Frenzy.

I've also heard of this bug before, though I thought I also heard it got fixed.
 
Did you try with other fire spells, like the black flame? I think one or two of the frenzied flame spells only work on other Tarnished, including The Flame of Frenzy.

I've also heard of this bug before, though I thought I also heard it got fixed.
i don't think it's a problem with the flame of frenzy, because its base damage is still just fire. Howl of Shabiri and Inescapable Frenzy are the only ones that only work on Tarnished. Seems like it's a problem with the ash of wars Golden Vow and Contagious Fury (which I was using). I think when 1.09 came out, it introduced a bug where contagious fury could stack with itself, so it's probably part of a hotfix to change that. I've seen cases of a lot of incantations/spells not working with buffs (it does look like those were addressed in 1.09.1), but I think there are just specific cases where it does no damage: catch flame and all frenzy spells. Maybe it's just a fire damage thing. Example here:
 

Yimothy

Red Plane
(he/him)
I finished it. Went with Ranni’s ending, not that it makes much difference. I thought about savescumming to get all the endings which I think would have got me all the achievements, but I couldn’t be bothered chasing down the frenzied flame (and I don’t really care about achievements). Time to move on.

The last boss I found pretty challenging, even at level 200. I’ve been pretty reliant on bleed and frost for quite a while, so not having them available slowed me down. The three bosses before I found pretty trivial, though. I beat Gideon and Godfrey on the first attempt, though my controller’s battery ran out during Radagon’s intro so I had a loss there.

Right to the end I pretty much stuck with my hookclaws from the castle at the start of the game. I used the hand of Malenia for a while, mostly in the farum (and other weapons from time to time in other places), but it wasn’t getting me past the dragonlord so I switched back for the bleed and the frostbite.
 

Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
Gideon on the first try is pretty normal, he tends to be a huge pushover on NG and then on NG+ for some reason he grows fangs. Godfrey and Radagon on the first tries though, that's impressive.

Congratulations! Now to wait for the DLC with the rest of us 😭
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
I got Radagon on the first try, and most subsequent tries (out of all attempts I think he only killed me two or three times). The beast I found a lot harder for some reason. Gideon was a pushover as noted, and Godfrey took a few attempts but not a ton.
 

Ludendorkk

(he/him)
IMG_1014.jpg
 
After two years and with a $40 price tag, I'm guessing this is going to be a beefy expansion.

In interviews, Miyazaki said it's an area bigger than Limgrave, including open field, small dungeons, and a legacy dungeon (or possibly dungeons—Japanese doesn't require making singular/plural explicit, so be wary of reports one way or the other about this, since they could be based on miscommunication/mistranslation... although I'd guess just one).

If true, that definitely feels pretty big, considering Limgrave is big enough that a lot of people have assumed it was the whole game.
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
If I had to guess, I'd figure on roughly a Limgrave + Weeping Peninsula size for this thing. Based on other zones and the price tag, I'm gonna guess about a half dozen to ten smaller caves/dungeons, at least one or two bigger ones (like Hero's Tomb scale), and a large legacy dungeon like Stormveil or Raya Lucaria. Maybe two of those (a castle/fortress, and maybe a new visit to the Erdtree or whatever's growing up around it). It's gonna be a big chunk of stuff, I expect. And might have its own underground section as well.
 

lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
The Miyazaki quote I saw was "comparable to, if not larger than the area of Limgrave".

$40 is kind of a shocking price tag for DLC. I'm very excited to play more Elden Ring and I'm sure this'll be worth the cost, but I do worry that it's setting a bad precedent for other companies to follow.
 

spines

cyber true color
(she/her, or something)
it seems to me this is basically akin to monster hunter expansions, which have had basically the same model for the last couple games now that they can get away with not having to release a whole new cartridge/disc
 

Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
Previous Fromsoft DLC usually went for $10 to $20 each, with bundles being a bit more, and up to $30 for some games if you bought them separately. So The Shadow of the Erdtree is a bit more expensive, but it looks like it's way bigger than the previous ones. And, From's DLC content is always a step up form the base game. I can understand sticker shock just because DLC is usually cheaper, but I bet $40 will end up being a totally fair price.
 

Fyonn

did their best!
Having done Limgrave like eight times, Limgrave is bigger than you probably think it is if you've only done it once or twice.
 

Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
DLC includes 10 new bosses and 8 new weapon Types (not 8 new weapons, entirely new types - the trailer showed a dueling shield, a martial arts moveset that included jump kicks, some throwing weapons et al). Trailer showed new consumables, new arts of war and spells, new armor.

There's also new chunks of lore based on previously-unused parts of the same GRRM-written mythos used for the base game, and it will shed light on Queen Marika's past (the shadow lands are apparently where she first arrived in the lands between, and were later sealed away from the larger lands, but there's a culture that was and remains there).

Anyway, (screams and shouts incoherently)
 
In a separate Famitsu interview, Miyazaki says that, in addition to existing stats, the DLC will have something like Sekiro's Attack Power stat that only functions in the DLC (presumably acting as a significant modifier or cap or something), so even a high level character can experience the intended difficulty progression. Alternately, you could choose to never increase your DLC Attack Power equivalent as a self-imposed challenge. Curious how this functions in practice, but it's an interesting experiment in balancing difficulty for an open world game.

(The interview is from about a week ago, but I saw this particular point being discussed today and went to look at the source.)
 
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