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1 hour ago, Craig H said:

Once I beat this, I can’t imagine going back and putting in another 90+ hours to do it all again.

Ran into a couple disappointments. The prison town that surrounds Volcano Manor seemed like it would be cool or lead somewhere and where it leads to is…right back to the start of prison town. I figured there would be something cool there given the unique look and some of the unique enemies there, but there’s really nothing.

Same thing with the shaded castle except the shaded castle doesn’t look nearly as cool.

So I guess I pretty much have all of that area of the map cleared out including Leyndell. Leyndell is another place that is pretty cool and one of the main bosses is there, but I almost wish that city actually were a city with NPCs or normal tarnished folks living under the rule of someone else. Instead for how huge and intricate it is it’s a little empty.

Yea I'm with you. I really enjoyed my playthrough and did a lot, but I missed a lot as well. Never did some of the optional bosses, skipped parts of Leyndell, but I have no desire to play it a second time. It felt like the perfect "one playthrough is enough" game for me, that I will remember fondly but I was good. Now if they come out with some big DLC (no sign they are) and do a "Final Edition" I may replay it one day but that would be years down the line.

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On 10/7/2022 at 12:26 PM, Craig H said:

I'm going to catch some flack for this, but Rotten Breath is too op and should probably get nerfed. I've only used it twice and once was on the Godskin Disciple in the Divine Tower in Caelid. It melted him.

If they nerf Rotten Breath I might as well stop playing. That's pretty much how I beat every boss. Summon my Mimic Tear or Lhutiel, let them take the aggro, Rotten Breath and then channel my inner King Arthur and run away, run away.

 

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Rotten Breath hasn't been nerfed yet, thankfully, but I'm on this Mohg Lord of Blood fight and it is fucking impossible. The weird thing about this fight is that it's random for how much damage is getting dealt. I've used both my Mimic Tear and Tiche in this fight against Mohg along with Rotten Breath and there are times where Mohg is just melting before he gets OP. Other times, he takes no damage, Rotten Breath's DOT falls off too early, Tiche or Mimic Tear die within minutes, etc.

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I just beat the Godskin Duo. The difficulty of this game is all over the place. I pretty much stomped them in just two tries. Those stupid knights that guard the portal killed me more than The GD. I had to use Bewitching Branches on one of them and sneaking to get past the other ones. First time I fought the GD, I got their health pretty far down but then that fat one hit me with his rolling attack and I got stuck in a corner where it kept damaging me. Second time, I just stayed away and did Scarlet Rot on them and let my Mimic Tear and the other dude whittle them down. 

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I was using Bloodhound Fang for a long time until I got the Rivers of Blood katana and then got the Godslayer Greatsword. I also found a great dragon somber smithing stone and my Rivers of Blood is now fully maxed out. I don’t think it’s wrong to stick with one awesome weapon for the majority of your game. Plus, Fang is really good for it’s left trigger right trigger combo.

In other news, after about 30 tries or so, I finally killed Mohg. Holy shit. I basically got lucky. I had doused him with rotten breath after he transformed and kept trying to get in hits when I could. I then ran out of healing pots and was running for my life while he slowly died. I went in for one final hit and he hit me first. That took me down to a sliver of health. I said fuck it, went for one last normal sweeper with my katana and killed him.

The rest of that area can fuck right off. It is probably deadlier than Mohg himself. Even the normal dogs do about half my life bar and I have 1300+ health.

I did chuckle at the reward for killing Mohg being 420k runes.

Then I remembered what I was trying to do before trying to kill Mohg, which was trying to find the real body of the Turd Eater or whatever his name is. Wound up finding him. I had no idea that there was such an intricate sewer system under Leyndell. Pretty cool stuff to roam around, explore, and get lost.

 

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Ok, so level 110+ is just the fucking shits. I'm too high level for places I haven't explored and level 110+ may as well be level 1 when going into, well, anywhere in the mountaintops region or anywhere in Caelid where there are giant crows. I know others have said the giant dogs are a problem too, but I've been able to farm the giant dogs pretty easily. I feel like I'm hitting a stopping point with this game.

Add to that that I watch Vinny and Alex on the Nextlander stream try to beat the game and seeing what the final final boss does is terrifying. Even though I've defeated a bunch of the hardest bosses I've ever played against in any video game, seeing that final boss makes me think, "nope." They're not vulnerable to anything, they spam the shit out of attacks that can two-shot you, and they're relentless. I just don't think I'll have the skill to beat this game.

Shit, I still haven't even faced off against Miquella yet and I heard he or their twin is one of the hardest in the game. 

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On 10/30/2022 at 2:59 PM, Craig H said:

 

The rest of that area can fuck right off. It is probably deadlier than Mohg himself. Even the normal dogs do about half my life bar and I have 1300+ health.

 

That was my issue with killing Malaketh Black Blade. The area around him was way harder than he was. All of the platforming, beast men and hawks had me dying a ton. Once I finally got to him, I beat him in three tries just by Rotten Breathing him and running away and getting in random hits while my mimic did most of the damage.

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Dammit, I'm so stuck right now. I'm level 125, 144 hours in, and I'm kind of lost for where I go next. I finally unlocked the last part of the map as I got to the secret snowlands place. Once there, I basically did all there was to do and was surprised there isn't any kind of a big boss there. I'll spoiler this just in case...

Spoiler

But the biggest boss in the area is fighting Astral again and that fight with Astral is a million times easier than the fight with Astral in the underground lake of rot area. I also only got 120k runes for killing her/it. It feels low, but maybe that's a normal amount of runes.

And some of that shit in the consecrated snowlands is brutal. Lightning balls that are grouped together that essentially kill you if you stumble into them, a runebear that's harder than most bosses and it's not even a boss, OP roaming mobs that are those spectral soldiers, smaller dogs that do way too much damage, etc. Like, you have to go through so much to get to the consecrated snowlands and it's basically empty. Or rather, it's just an area to get to MIquella's Haligtree. 

So, I guess I just go through the Haligtree area? It's not particularly hard, it's a little rune-farmy since I can quickly rack up 100k runes there in a few minutes of killing the lumpy white guys with their horns, but it also gets a little cheap when you don't notice a few of those lumpy white guys that have blown a bunch of bubbles at you that hit you and kill you. 

Also, is +10 the highest you can level up a weapon? Some YouTubers refer to leveling weapons up to level +25 so I'm confused.

Edited by Craig H
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1 hour ago, Craig H said:

Dammit, I'm so stuck right now. I'm level 125, 144 hours in, and I'm kind of lost for where I go next. I finally unlocked the last part of the map as I got to the secret snowlands place. Once there, I basically did all there was to do and was surprised there isn't any kind of a big boss there. I'll spoiler this just in case...

  Hide contents

But the biggest boss in the area is fighting Astral again and that fight with Astral is a million times easier than the fight with Astral in the underground lake of rot area. I also only got 120k runes for killing her/it. It feels low, but maybe that's a normal amount of runes.

And some of that shit in the consecrated snowlands is brutal. Lightning balls that are grouped together that essentially kill you if you stumble into them, a runebear that's harder than most bosses and it's not even a boss, OP roaming mobs that are those spectral soldiers, smaller dogs that do way too much damage, etc. Like, you have to go through so much to get to the consecrated snowlands and it's basically empty. Or rather, it's just an area to get to MIquella's Haligtree. 

So, I guess I just go through the Haligtree area? It's not particularly hard, it's a little rune-farmy since I can quickly rack up 100k runes there in a few minutes of killing the lumpy white guys with their horns, but it also gets a little cheap when you don't notice a few of those lumpy white guys that have blown a bunch of bubbles at you that hit you and kill you. 

Also, is +10 the highest you can level up a weapon? Some YouTubers refer to leveling weapons up to level +25 so I'm confused.

Without spoiling anything, the Consecrated Snowlands and Haligtree area are all optional. You just probably zigged when you should have zagged at some point (not that those areas aren't worth doing, just not required for the main story).

Weapons that use a Smithing Stone to upgrade can go to 25, those that use the Somber Smithing Stone can only go to 10.

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Ah ok. I'm not using anything other than weapons requiring somber smithing stones so that makes a ton of sense.

And it's so easy to zig when you should zag in this game. It's one of the most unique open worlds I've ever played in mainly because in every other open world game you have quest givers and quest tracker and even though you can play a Skyrim or a Witcher 3 in a non-linear fashion, there's still a linear path to take to get to the end. This is just the most fuck around and find out game I've ever played. 

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Have finishing DS 1-3 and recently got through Bloodborne. Now playing Sekiro and it's kicking my ass. I'm getting slow in my old age...

Getting Elden Ring for Christmas. Don't think I've anticipated playing a game this much since GTA V was released.

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18 hours ago, Craig H said:

Ah ok. I'm not using anything other than weapons requiring somber smithing stones so that makes a ton of sense.

And it's so easy to zig when you should zag in this game. It's one of the most unique open worlds I've ever played in mainly because in every other open world game you have quest givers and quest tracker and even though you can play a Skyrim or a Witcher 3 in a non-linear fashion, there's still a linear path to take to get to the end. This is just the most fuck around and find out game I've ever played. 

I've been using this as a guide on how and when to complete things

https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Game+Progress+Route

I may skip the Malenia fight. I think there's a lot of platforming to get to her and I HATE that in games. Also, I'm kind of at the point where I just want to finish this game and move on. I've unlocked the Ashen Capital so I think I'm just gonna go fight the mandatory bosses there and finish up.

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11 minutes ago, Kevin Wilson said:

I never even tried Malenia, it didn't sound fun so I noped out of that entire optional area. No regrets.

Don't blame you. The whole area is pretty ridiculous. It just seems that this game goes out of its way to not be fun at times. There are times when I do like playing and then there's something like this that just grinds the experience to a halt. Reminds me of those stupid DiMa puzzles in Fallout 4. Luckily it's optional but it's just one of those things that sucks the fun out of the game.

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ARGH. Fuck Malenia. Fuck Malenia. Fuck Malenia. And fuck me for trying to go back to kill her. I went to her before and she annihilated me even with a +10 Tiche. So I figured I would just skip her and do other stuff. Then last night I fell asleep early, woke up, saw it was midnight, and figured, I'm going to play some Elden Ring. For whatever reason when I loaded up, I thought, I'm going to give her one more go.

On my second try last night/this morning I quickly and easily got to her second form where she proceeded to two shot me. I figured, ok, that was actually pretty easy getting to her second form, I think I can do this.

ALMOST THREE HOURS LATER...She kept killing me. Maybe 1/4 of the time Tiche and me whooped her ass on her first form. Then, 1/4 of the time on her second form I'd get pretty close to killing her and Tiche would die and then Malenia would do the waterfall dance attack or do the mirror image attack and that would one or two shot me. The rest of the time? UTTER FUCKING BULLSHIT. So many times we wailed on her in her first form until Tiche stopped aggroing her for whatever reason and then she'd waterfall dance on me and kill me. Other times she instantly went into the waterfall dance to kill me. There is no rhyme or reason to this fight at all. It's completely random. It's full on RNG bullshit and it's the only boss I've come across in this game where there is this much RNG fuckery to have to deal with. I mean, many times when she'd kill me during her first form, she was at half life only to be back at full life when she died. Other times during her second form where she'd two shot me on her initial explosion attack, I'd watch Tiche get her down to half life IN THE FEW SECONDS THAT I WAS DYING. Then I figured out how to not get hit by that initial attack and not once, not fucking once did Tiche drop her health down by much. IT MAKES ZERO SENSE. Why is she nearly dying to Tiche in seconds while I'm loading up the death screen and then when I live Tiche isn't doing any damage? It's also total fuckery that Tiche will be pulling aggro on her in her second form and then, all of a sudden, when I have her lined up for a kill, she'll go up for the waterfall dance attack AND SHE'LL WIND UP COMING AT ME WITH IT INSTEAD OF TICHE, WHO HAD BEEN AGGROING HER THE WHOLE TIME! WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

This whole fight is bullshit and yet I can't stop. I have to beat her. I came close so many times that I know I can do it, but it's all going to come down to RNG and just how lucky I can get. I'm going to beat this bitch though. I never thought I'd throw my controller for any game at this age, but this fight with Malenia got me close to doing it more than a few times. She's going to die. She's going to die big time.

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I just gave up on trying to beat her. Her healing is just bullshit. I'm at the end game and I just want to beat Radagon and The Elden Beast. They've beaten me about 20 times in a row now and I'm getting tired of it. I'm at like level 135 and neither my mimic tear or Tiche who are both at 10 seem to do much of anything. This is pretty much the most unenjoyable game I've ever played.

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Finally beat the game. Realized I left a whole region untouched (the one where you can do Fia's questline). Might mess around in there for a bit to check it out but can't see myself doing NG+. Definitely need a palette cleanser game after this one.  Might do another playthrough of Borderlands 2 or 3.

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I DID IT! Fuck yeah! I killed Malenia. After 200 some odd tries I finally slayed the God of Rot. I don't even know if I'll go on to beat the game, but this feels like one of my biggest accomplishments in gaming. It's up there with beating Celeste. I tried so many different combinations of talismans and weapons and spirits. And I basically beat her by accident.

I normally stuck to using the Rivers of Blood katana and using Tiche. I also have the Blasphemous Blade in my other slot, but I don't use it all that much. I actually had used it earlier on in my trials, but I could never keep Malenia down and I would just wind up pulling aggro on her and she'd two shot me after that.

So I go into the fight again and I accidentally selected my Mimic Tear while having my Blasphemous Blade equipped. Fuck, I thought. My other thought was, well, may as well just use the ashes of war on the blade and see if my Mimic Tear will hold aggro on her. And then it happened. My Mimic Tear and I kept chaining together ashes of war attacks on her, which kept knocking her down and stunning her. It made getting to her second form incredibly easy. Then at that point it was figuring out to kill her second form.

Maybe 20 more tries at that and it happened. On the try where I killed her, she nearly killed me and I got just lucky enough to dodge the final part of her waterflow dance. I heal up twice with one heal pot left. My Mimic Tear casts Agheel's Flame on her which stuns her, I look at her life and I'm like, holy shit, it's going to happen. I swing once with my ashes of war and it hits. She's knocked down. I swing for the kill and...fuck. I'm out of mana. It's just a downward swipe with the blade. I quickly consume a mana pot and she charges at me. Just as she's about to hit me I land one final ashes of war attack on her and she's dead. 

Eat my shit you cheap ass boss.

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Yeah this is why I have to say Elden Ring is not the peak of Souls games and that I hope it doesn’t scare people off from other ones in the series. DS3 and Bloodborne are much better designed to be played completely solo, with bosses that don’t use many cheap tactics, positioning matters more, less hit trading and the speed is fast but not dizzying like some of Elden Ring’s bosses.

Beat Malenia two times, both were just a matter of getting good RNG to only get one or two waterfowl dances in the first phase. Then in phase two I’d just blast a Comet Azure or Rotten Breath and it’s pretty easy from there. The feeling of accomplishment, that you and only you used pure skill and wit to outclass your opponent is weaker in Elden Ring than any Souls game before it. I hated having to use spirit summons for cheap aggro breaks but it felt necessary for some of the worst bosses, unless I wanted to repeatedly die trying learn their moveset and face loading screen after loading screen. And the game is less about “getting gud” than before. Sure I can always beat Renalla and Radahn on my first try attempt instead of the 30 or so it took me the first playthrough, but that’s not so much from skill but more from me knowing where all the smithing stones and good items are. BB and DS3 did a way better job at having checkpoints you couldn’t get past, so you could never be too overpowered for the bosses and the bosses didn’t use cheap ass anime combo attacks that are impossible to have the reaction time for.

Edited by A.M.B.
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9 minutes ago, A.M.B. said:

Yeah this is why I have to say Elden Ring is not the peak of Souls games and that I hope it doesn’t scare people off from other ones in the series. DS3 and Bloodborne are much better designed to be played completely solo, with bosses that don’t use many cheap tactics, positioning matters more, less hit trading and the speed is fast but not dizzying like some of Elden Ring’s bosses.

Beat Malenia two times, both were just a matter of getting good RNG to only get one or two waterfowl dances in the first phase. Then in phase two I’d just blast a Comet Azure or Rotten Breath and it’s pretty easy from there. The feeling of accomplishment, that you and only you used pure skill and wit to outclass your opponent is weaker in Elden Ring than any Souls game before it. I hated having to use spirit summons for cheap aggro breaks but it felt necessary for some of the worst bosses, unless I wanted to repeatedly die trying learn their moveset and face loading screen after loading screen. And the game is less about “getting gud” than before. Sure I can always beat Renalla and Radahn on my first try attempt instead of the 30 or so it took me the first playthrough, but that’s not so much from skill but more from me knowing where all the smithing stones and good items are. BB and DS3 did a way better job at having checkpoints you couldn’t get past, so you could never be too overpowered for the bosses and the bosses didn’t use cheap ass anime combo attacks that are impossible to have the reaction time for.

I'll have to respectfully disagree, although I know a lot of it comes down to playstyle. I couldn't beat Bloodborne at all, it was a real struggle for me in the way I play FromSoft games and I just found it incredibly difficult and not at all fun. Elden Ring I thought was relatively easy (on the FromSoft scale) and I rarely felt frustrated by anything in the game that was required. If I ever hit a wall, I'd just go somewhere else for a bit, and I found the checkpoint system to be quite generous. The only times I was particularly frustrated is when I'd just stubbornly really want to beat a side boss and kept throwing myself at it over and over, even though I could have just come back later. I also played the game solo and I don't consider Summons cheap, they were part of the game mechanic when they designed the bosses.

Course, I didn't bother do Malenia at all as I know her fight was stupid difficult, but its also designed to be a completely optional boss for the hardcore players (or the ones that are gluttons for punishment). I've done that in all the FromSoft games (when applicable), if its an optional boss just seems too cheap and not fun I keep it moving. I personally care more about actively having fun than a long lasting sense of accomplishment, but I'm also not a trophy hunter so I know different people play games with different goals.

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None of the Fromsoft games are designed to be played solo except for Sekiro? There's literally NPC summons in all the Dark Souls games for a reason. Ignoring them is, and always has been, choosing to do a challenge run.

"DS3 did a way better job at having checkpoints you couldn’t get past, so you could never be too overpowered for the bosses"

I mean, yes, DS3 is by far the most linear Fromsoft game ever made, that's kind of obvious? Even then you can run Dancer at low level and basically invalidate 50% of the game by doing so (probably the easiest way to do it is run the Sellsword Twinblades and get just enough INT for the most basic sorcery buff), or you can just skip into the DLC as soon as you get to the chapel, so no.

Melania is a 100% optional challenge boss, everyone knows it, I'm not sure what holding up the game's superboss is supposed to say about the mainline difficulty. Then again I've heard plenty of people quit on Fire Giant who honestly falls to the exact same tactic every giant in every Fromsoft game falls to, stand next to his legs and don't get stepped on, so

Can't wait to see how people I stuck on ignore 6 months ago spin this one

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