Elden Ring

[Golgo]

OK, so I crafted some more of those things that clear scarlet rot, caned it over to the minotaur, killed him, got his charm and warped back to the fire.

Put on his resistance charm and another one I've got, then headed to the boss...

...and proceeded to spectate from a safe distance while your summons took 2/3rds of his health.

[QualityChimp]

...and proceeded to spectate from a safe distance while your summons took 2/3rds of his health.

I literally listened to the previous advice to use the summons more!

Work smarter, not harder!

[Golgo]

Well, you sure watched the hell out of that fight! I never knew Elden Ring was an auto-battler.

ps.: Only kidding. Soulsbornes are made to be cheesed.

[QualityChimp]

This a-hole was doing my nut in with his laser beams, teleportation, meteor summoning and instakill chomp attack, so I switched from the mimic to this archer to attack from afar whilst I kept aggro and dodged the attacks.



EAT IT!

[Golgo]

^ Nice bit of boss, that. She's good she is, the archer, but obviously a bit vulnerable as she can't move. Whenever I had the opportunity I would park her up in trees or in crevices so that enemies couldn't get near her. Several dragons were shamelessly cheesed in this manner.

[QualityChimp]

I was watching a video about using her to defeat the Frost Giant later on, by luring him to the cliff edge and then chipping away at his health with her arrows whilst you keep his focus.

I tried doing this boss the normal way and got the health to one hit away (see below), but panicked and died, so thought I'd try a different technique as it's hard to hit a flying boss and nearly every hit it does connects and halves your health.

I got to the next bit only to find there are 2 flipping dragons up there, which I left well alone.
I kinda feel bad attacking them when they're relatively docile.

Found the evergaol for the Black Knife Tiche guy, which drops another popular summon, but he decimated me after a couple of early hits, so that's one for another day!

[QualityChimp]

This is insane.

Some guy builds a character that stays at Level 1 and one-hits all the bosses.

I lolled at the prep time as he adds all these buffs, then walks in and wallops them once.

[Brad]

This is insane.

Some guy builds a character that stays at Level 1 and one-hits all the bosses.

I lolled at the prep time as he adds all these buffs, then walks in and wallops them once.

What the actual ****

[Atticus]

Defo inspired by this thread to dive in. I did start it very briefly at launch but wasn’t in the mood for the Souls deep dive (I opened the wrong chest and got transported to a hell I didn’t realise I could fast travel from, doh).

I’m in the mood for it now and a straight away I love feeling so small and vulnerable in such a great land (and what a land it is!). I’m generally mooching the areas I had before (leaving a certain chest for now) … managed to get the Bloodhound’s Fang and just building my strength and dex to use it, hopefully a decent foundation for the pain ahead.

[Atticus]

Enjoying my time with this. The open world has brought a new dimension of adventure and discovery. All gels lovely. You can tell From are courting new players as well as fans ... with more things explained and less cruelty, so far anyway. Only 20 or so hours in. Bloodhound's Fang, something like 30 VIG, 20 END, 22 STR, 22 DEX. Really need to start thinking about a ranged option, probably a bow.

[QualityChimp]

Glad you're enjoying this too, Atticus.
Bloodhound's fang is a great tool to get the job done!
I do keep looking at those crazy builds and wondering if I should try something different, though, rather than some thug boshing everything he sees.

Last night, I dipped in for an hour, mopping up a few bits including a tower in the Lake of Liurnia which was full of zombz that kept respawning until I killed 3 ghost tortoises.
Funny because I've refused to kill any normal turtles. They're one of the few things that don't want to kill me!
Got something at the top that I have no idea what it does.

Then went back to the four portal things.
Last time I was there, I mainly ran from the giants protecting it, so totally bailed on the portals.
By this point, I have all the keys needed (I hope I don't need them elsewhere!).

The top portal took me back to the start area with the church and the... OH YEAH, massive boss that instakilled my Lvl.1 chump.
NOT THIS TIME!
He deeed now!
Got some loot. Don't know what it does.

Next portal took me to back to the spacey underground bit, but found a knight that does this kind of lava attack and grows flame wings and does a swoop attack.
He deeed now!
Got some loot. Don't know what it does.

Final portal took me to that underground city created when the meteor strikes.
Two tough enemies that I sniped then jumped down to attack.
They deeeed nooow!
Got some loot. Don't know what it does.

So basically, I keep acquiring loot but don't know what most of it does.
I mainly stick with the extra runes charm and a couple of others.

Not sure what's next. I'm procrastinating going up the lift as I'm convinced there's more to find in the lower sections.

[Lebowski]

Glad you're enjoying this too, Atticus.
Bloodhound's fang is a great tool to get the job done!
I do keep looking at those crazy builds and wondering if I should try something different, though, rather than some thug boshing everything he sees.

Last night, I dipped in for an hour, mopping up a few bits including a tower in the Lake of Liurnia which was full of zombz that kept respawning until I killed 3 ghost tortoises.
Funny because I've refused to kill any normal turtles. They're one of the few things that don't want to kill me!
Got something at the top that I have no idea what it does.

Then went back to the four portal things.
Last time I was there, I mainly ran from the giants protecting it, so totally bailed on the portals.
By this point, I have all the keys needed (I hope I don't need them elsewhere!).

The top portal took me back to the start area with the church and the... OH YEAH, massive boss that instakilled my Lvl.1 chump.
NOT THIS TIME!
He deeed now!
Got some loot. Don't know what it does.

Next portal took me to back to the spacey underground bit, but found a knight that does this kind of lava attack and grows flame wings and does a swoop attack.
He deeed now!
Got some loot. Don't know what it does.

Final portal took me to that underground city created when the meteor strikes.
Two tough enemies that I sniped then jumped down to attack.
They deeeed nooow!
Got some loot. Don't know what it does.

So basically, I keep acquiring loot but don't know what most of it does.
I mainly stick with the extra runes charm and a couple of others.

Not sure what's next. I'm procrastinating going up the lift as I'm convinced there's more to find in the lower sections.

A lot of loot you get is spirit ashes, or new weapons, if your not sure on something give it an inspect as their is normally a helpful guide. If youve not experimented then give things a go, you can put ashes of war on certain weapons to make them have special moves and some weapons already have special moves. everybody used to go mad about the horefrost stomp as it sgaggred enemys had a really low fp cost and did loads of damage and frost build up but they nerfed that theirs lots of really cool ashes of war that you can apply to weapons and their great fun messing with them as they change how you play.

i really liked some of the Katanas too, the Rivers of Blood has an awesome weapon skill built on to it that dose some crazy slashing stuff that inflicts massive bleed damage.



I found it handy to have a blunt weapon leaved up too them crystal dudes are really weak to blunt damage and any great hammer will smash them to bits, i really liked the Great Stars hammer as it works with the blood-fang build as your all about Dex and Strength.

[QualityChimp]

I really want that katana, but I think it's fairly late game.

[QualityChimp]

TL: DR used a glitch to gets enough runes to level twice - see end.

Had a fun session last night, mainly trying to get to an area I've not unlocked yet.

I had to follow the White Mask Varré questline.
He's the dude that you meet pretty much in the first few minutes of entering the main world, gleefully rubbing his hands together, suspiciously blood stained and knowing that you're a tarnished and maidenless...

Anyway, you meet him again in a dilapidated church in Liurnia Lake. He then gives you a sheet that needs to be dipped in the blood of a maiden, again he knows we don't have one...

So, having opened all the teleports last night, I returned to the starting castle, where there's a dead woman.
Pieces fall into place and I realise this is my maiden and I suspect it's Varré that killed her, hence he knows we're maidenless.

Anyway, I proceed with his quest, which involves invading other people's games three times.
This, as we know, is the behaviour of an asshat, so I just went in, got killed or used that knife to leave.
He then cuts your finger off and tells you my screams of pain are exquisite.
This mofo's days are numbered...

He then gives you a permanent invasion finger and a trinket, the Pureblood Knight's Medal, telling you not to use it.

I used it.

The trinket takes you to Moghwhyn's Palace area.

I then spent a bit of time working my way up through a mountain area, chockfull of shambling zombies that spray bloodloss upon death. That took a while as there's loads of them!

At the top is a temple, pitch black and these rapier dudes appear and they are well'ard, so after dying, I just ran past the 500 zeds to get my runes and get to the top (some floor tips suggested this) and activate the site of grace to make them chill the eff out.

Next to the site of grace, in the temple were loads of zombz praying to some dude, that I left well alone, saving this upper part for later and teleporting back to the start.

This time I went down the slope and found a lonely Albinauric guard.
Thought it would be an easy kill, but he took 4 hits with my level 9 sword!
Not only that, but as I was attacking, the was a massive roar, the ground shook and some giant ghost skeleton dude appeared and single-swiped half my health!

At this point, I realised I'm in an area above my paygrade. These Albinaurics have clubs or spells or turn into cartwheeling spiky balls of doom. There are infected dogs, giant death birds and to top it all off, there are THREE invasions by the White Maske Varré spirit.

Well, with the odds stacked against me, I died a few times, but managed to kill the three spirits.

I have to invade his world (next to the temple grace) and kill him.
I also have the worshipped dude at the top to investigate and another path up near a third site of grace.

Now, this 3rd site is next to a load of Albinaurics and I rode around, chipping away and avoiding their attacks and I got a decent amount of runes from this and levelled up.

However, the reason I was here was to try a rune farm glitch.
Basically, there's a way to break out of the walls and jump out of the play area.
You fall and clip through the mountains and sea then fall forever.
After a short while all the enemies die and you get all the runes, then you teleport back and repeat.

So I did this once and got enough runes to level up twice but... I just felt dirty.
I don't know where the invisible line lies in my head, but I'm fine abusing game mechanics and animations, beating the map to reach new areas early or finding great weapons, but this just robs you of any feeling of achievement.
Riding around and farming the enemies was fine because that's how the game works and was a genuine risk, but letting them glitch-die and getting the rewards just seemed really cheap.

I know it's there, but for now I don't think I'll do it again and at level 99 now, I definitely want to make it to level 100 under my own merit. Maybe from killing that bast that killed my maiden with a bunch of flowers.

[Atticus]

Yeah, there's an interesting line in From games. I've happily cheesed bosses in Souls games ... comforting myself in the fact that they can be cheap and nasty themselves. But I know what you mean about things like that farming glitch. I've always enjoyed the grind of levelling here and there ... and I always get twitchy carrying too many runes about ... I have to make sure I'm carrying as few as poss going into the unknown.

Interesting what you say about the quest with the invading requirement (I've never invaded anyone, ever). Any time I've been invaded by a human player in Elden they've been a pushover. I was feeling good about myself but maybe you've thrown more perspective on that I do like some of the random story/questing bits in this. It keeps the journey interesting and non-linear.

I did some more in Caelid and Liurnia last night. Firstly Redmane Castle and Radahn then up the Lift of Dectus into a whole new area. The map is huge!