Elden Ring (From Software RPG)

Lud and Zallen are a pair of panther bosses from a DLC area in Dark Souls 2. They're bad enough by themselves, but you have to sprint through one of the roughest areas in the whole game to even get there. They'd be top 5-7 by themselves, but having to run through "horsefuck valley" to even get to them makes 'em top 2-3.

I don't think Bloodborne had any bosses that were among my top 10. It had some tough foes (and a couple roadblock bosses along the way), but nothing too crazy.
I actually might have to go back to DS2 DLC, honestly don't remember them. Is that the DLC with the horsemen?
 
I actually might have to go back to DS2 DLC, honestly don't remember them. Is that the DLC with the horsemen?

I don't recall horsemen necessarily (there might be some), but there were 3 DLC's for Dark Souls 2. Sunken King, Old Iron King, and Ivory King. Lud and Zallen were in Ivory King, which took place in a snowy/frozen wasteland. The DLC areas for Dark Souls 2 were all brutal, but the levels were also mostly terrific. Some of the best, but also toughest, in the series. I know some folks don't like Dark Souls 2 very much, but I still appreciate the "epicness" of it. The long view shots and open areas made it feel larger than life. The normal game was comparatively easy once you leveled up a bit, but the DLC changed all of that.
 
Took down Astel last night in 2 tries. Almost had him on the first but wasn't expecting the grab. The shadow before Astel was actually tougher and took me 5 or 6 tries.
 
The funny thing about the Rivers of Blood special attack is that tons of enemies use it (or something like it) and have in prior games, too. There are a few ashes of war that look like they should do the same thing, yet they don't. It just seems to be the first time they've let players let it rip, and it's powerful as all hell. Even if it doesn't interrupt most enemies, it exchanges hits with the best of 'em. If you use the potion that gives you unlimited FP (for like 15 seconds), look the fuck out.
 
I started looking at my Steam achievements and I actually discovered that getting all of 'em was feasible. You can actually get all but one in a single pass. If you backup your final save (so you can get 3 different endings), you can get 'em all. I looked up what I was missing and it wasn't all that much. I missed 3 dungeons that had legendary loot and one talisman, so it only took like an hour.
At this point, I'm done with Elden Ring for the moment. I ended up deleting my NG+ progress just because my heart wasn't in it. I figure I'll keep this save for some potential DLC down the line, but I'm just not feeling a NG+ run with how huge the game is.
 
Rivers of Blood is definitely insane. I'm a full on mage, but I upped it to +9 for Malenia fight. Already had Moonveil at +10, but now I've used my second Dragon stone to up Rivers to +10, and I'm using it almost exlusively, even over any spells. I beat the three invaders in front of the giant jar with it in around 10 attempts. Would have been faster, but as I can't really take hits, I gut sucker punched a few times by the last invader. I even managed to kill a few before they even start attacking. Just spammed the R2. At least I have no problems with FP, I usually kill one invader before using up half of my FP.
 
I'd like to say I planned it, but when it was happening, I couldn't figure out what just went down.
I was crambushed during the Dung Eater invasion, only he got the worst of it.
 
I'm closing in on the end. Over the weekend I took out
Morgott, Mohg, Rykard, the Fire Giant,
and finished everything in Caelid. Got the UGS to +25 (using Giant Killer ash) and since I'm level 120 or so I'm melting the bosses. 115 hours in now; I suspect I have 10 or 15 left once I factor in doing all of the dungeons in Altus and Mountaintop.
 
115 hours in now; I suspect I have 10 or 15 left once I factor in doing all of the dungeons in Altus and Mountaintop.

Depending on what other things you do (the Haligtree and surrounding areas), you might still have quite a bit of stuff you can still do if you want.
 
Finished it up over the weekend (not feeling the urge to jump into NG+ quite yet). Tried to start a new game, Greedfall - but the combat feels extremely chunky after being immersed in Elden Ring for so long. Actually considering trying out their earlier games now (never played any of the Souls or Sekiro), so maybe Elden Ring will end up being my 'gateway drug' into the Souls-like genre.
 
Finished it up over the weekend (not feeling the urge to jump into NG+ quite yet). Tried to start a new game, Greedfall - but the combat feels extremely chunky after being immersed in Elden Ring for so long. Actually considering trying out their earlier games now (never played any of the Souls or Sekiro), so maybe Elden Ring will end up being my 'gateway drug' into the Souls-like genre.

I've tried to get into Greedfall 2-3 times and I keep bailing after an hour or two. It's just kinda clunky even if the story seems worthwhile. At this point I don't think I'll ever end up playing it.
 
So I was playing NG+ and all of a sudden got very bored with Blasphemous Blade so I spent 2 hours trying all different kinds of weapons. I settled on Malikeths Black Blade cause I liked the special attack and also its ability to stagger enemies. I assume all colossal swords have a high stagger chance. I also found out that you can spam certain spells like Honed Bolt.
 
Played a ton, I'm now in the end game! I think. Mountaintop of the Giants, made it to the consecrated snowfield. I'm finally getting some Ancient Dragon Smithing stones and I softmaxed out my strength and I'm almost there with vigor at level 133.

I'm finally just mowing through enemies at basically every area in the game that I've been to previously and I'm getting enough runes to allow me to buy and upgrade weapons that I just think are "neat" to try em out.

I'm guessing that I still have 20ish hours to go as I haven't got to haligtree or crumbling sky city, but I can't wait to give Melania a go when I finally reach her given that the last few bosses went down really quickly. Even the "hard" version of Astel in the snowfield mines only took me a couple tries.

Main weapons are still SerpentGods blade with bleed (83 bleed!) And magma curved sword, allows me to get some super quick attacks in and the magma blade special staggers enemies like crazy. Otherwise because I buffed my stamina enough to dual wield colossal weapons earlier, I'm rocking the highest defense/poise armor that I've found in the game thus far and I'm tanky enough that I can just tank stuff for a bit while I power stance swing on enemies till they get staggerlocked.

At least for most things.

Fuck you crucible knights.
 
The final Crucible Knight in Crumbling Farum might be the single hardest enemy I faced in the whole damn game. He isn't even a boss - he's just wandering around. I eventually cheesed him with arrows after getting mad and he dropped a whole lot of nothing (except like 50K runes) for the effort.
 
The final Crucible Knight in Crumbling Farum might be the single hardest enemy I faced in the whole damn game. He isn't even a boss - he's just wandering around. I eventually cheesed him with arrows after getting mad and he dropped a whole lot of nothing (except like 50K runes) for the effort.
Worse than that 4th Bell Bearing Hunter? That guy was about 2mm from a busted controller for me.
 
Elden Ring Patch 1.04.1

Bug Fixes

-Fixed a bug in which the effect duration of the Cerulean Hidden Tear was revised downward
-Fixed a bug with Malenia, Blade of Miquella in which her HP was not healed correctly in the online multiplayer environment
-Fixed a bug that caused some bosses to die at unintended times
-Fixed a bug that prevented the boss "Elden Beast" from working properly under certain circumstances
-Fixed some texts

https://en.bandainamcoent.eu/elden-ring/news/elden-ring-update-notes-104
 
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Worse than that 4th Bell Bearing Hunter? That guy was about 2mm from a busted controller for me.

VERY similar. The Bell Hunters were total pains in the ass in general. I ended up cheesing some of them by riding away and then repeatedly doing ride-by slashes. I think the last one (the one in Caelid) was the only one I fought without resorting to lame tactics. That's mainly just because I was finally somewhat powerful.
 
I think I'm waaaay overleveled for where I am. Level 140, +20 guardian's fire swordspear. Just fought Morgott and beat him in a minute?? He staggered with 2 shots of flame of the redmayne, then all I had to do was a critical hit and repeat that a few times. Didn't even get a chance to see his move set. :(

I wish enemies scaled up with your level because this wasn't even fun.
 
I think I'm waaaay overleveled for where I am. Level 140, +20 guardian's fire swordspear. Just fought Morgott and beat him in a minute?? He staggered with 2 shots of flame of the redmayne, then all I had to do was a critical hit and repeat that a few times. Didn't even get a chance to see his move set. :(

I wish enemies scaled up with your level because this wasn't even fun.
Come back after you've fought Malenia a few times and tell us if you still feel overleveled.
 
pfft, I'm not scared of some small woman. I defeated the LORD OF BLOOD ffs.
If the Lord of Blood was so badass, he wouldn't have come in like a sneak thief and stolen his waifu from under her nose. Lord of Blood? More like Lord of Running Away.

At least Radahn took his punishment like a man.
 
Yeah, morgott was a letdown around level 110, I beat him on my second try. I could have beat him on my first but he did a move that basically instakilled me because I didn't know how it worked.

I'm almost done.
Lit the Erdtree on fire, finished up Crumbling Farum Azula, did the questlines for all the alternate endings, finished every questline that I'm aware of. I think I only have a single cave dungeon left to do unless I happened to skip one.
Only bosses that I have left are Malenia and the final one. I can see why Malenia gets so much hatred, she's just unbelievably frustrating and the fact that she seems to be constantly healing is unlike any other boss in the game.

Mohg was a cinch, I think i got a bug there because he didn't even enter phase 2 on the round that I killed him - only my 3rd or 4th try. Maliketh took a few more tries because I had to get the timing down for the special parry mechanic.

I know there are a ton of optional things that I haven't gotten yet, some items that are just rarer to get, don't think i've killed all of the overworld night bosses. I know there's that deathrite bird somewhere that I noped the fuck away many, many hours ago.

I'm still having the best time with my dual curved swords but because runes are flowing at an absolutely ridiculous rate and because I can buy smithing stones up to +9, I'm going through and trying out other weapons that I want to give a go. Mostly just limited by my stats - cause larvel tears aren't infinite.
I did spec myself up an overpowered blasphemous blade build and it's kinda hilarious how powerful it is. It's so powerful that I don't really find it that fun to play.

I'm gonna give myself a few more days, make sure I beat Melania before I take on that final boss and then I think i'll shelve the game for a while. I'm at a little over 100 hours now and level 160 or so. The final areas have just been *frustrating* not fun, and its wearing on me.
 


This person kept on summoning me for Mohg. Finally had a great round, all of my dodges were on point, everything was clicking. Then I made the mistake of looking at Mohg's health. Only one hit left! And of course I lose my cool and start panic rolling like an idiot and die. I took at look at the host's health and it wasn't looking good, but to my delight, they managed to get the final blow in! I wish I could've been there to celebrate with some victory emotes. Still, I was super happy to see them take the win. Good luck on the rest of your journey friend!
 
Just got to Milenia, and damn! What a cool fight, but in all honesty it's damn stressful. Haven't even gotten to the second phase and she's kicking my ass.

It's almost like she has her own unique personality. I feel like she gets pissed if I push to hard, and she holds a grudge....

Probably just an illusion of game design but wow.
 
Just got to Milenia, and damn! What a cool fight, but in all honesty it's damn stressful. Haven't even gotten to the second phase and she's kicking my ass.

It's almost like she has her own unique personality. I feel like she gets pissed if I push to hard, and she holds a grudge....

Probably just an illusion of game design but wow.
Malenia doesn't play by the rules. Up until this point most bosses are predictable and follow a set of standards or rules. For example, when Margit uses his hammer attack he's fully committed to it. Malenia doesn't commit to every move, and will start to dodge in the middle of her attacks. This is kind of bullshit. She's also notorious for reading your inputs in almost esp fashion. Basically, she cheats.

The irony is her attacks aren't that deadly. Waterfowl (spherical slashes), while pretty nasty if you aren't prepared for it, is totally avoidable. With 100% physical shield and tons of endurance you can pretty much tank most of it. Waterfowl is one of her few attacks that she commits. The bullshit is that everytime she hits you or hits your ash spirit, she heals chunks of her health back. So as long as she's attacking, she's going to heal.

She does have a weakness though, she staggers very easily. That's about the only moment where she is predictable. The best strat for her first phase for me was to minimize her number of attacks. Bleed offsets her healing a little bit. The fight for me is this constant juggling of keeping the pressure on her but not allowing her to get many hits in so she'll heal it all back.

Her second phase is annoying because her wings make it hard to discern what she's doing when up close. But it's essentially the same strategy except she's got some extra special attacks that force you to dance around the arena. I was using a pure melee build which made this fight a chore. It was obvious to me she's got plenty of opening for you to use ranged attacks.

That's why I think Malenia is the hardest ER boss if it's your first time through. She flips everything upside down. You go into the fight with all this boss fighting experience you accumulated that is ultimately useless because her fight is nothing like anything before. It's probably a good thing From made her optional, because I can see how she would be demoralizing to the masses.
 
Elden Ring Screenshot 2022.05.01 - 16.01.51.92.png


This pissed me off more than any boss has. 250k runes on that platform below. Gotta make these ridiculously precise jumps to get to it. This game has some of the worst jumping/platforming of all time. No air control, barely any room on the platforms to make a running jump. Every single one of those platforms was drenched in blood which only further proves my point. Needless to say, I lost the runes.
 
View attachment 469351

This pissed me off more than any boss has. 250k runes on that platform below. Gotta make these ridiculously precise jumps to get to it. This game has some of the worst jumping/platforming of all time. No air control, barely any room on the platforms to make a running jump. Every single one of those platforms was drenched in blood which only further proves my point. Needless to say, I lost the runes.
That's another area that I've attempted and then said "maybe sometime later."
 
The main thing I recall about Malenia that made her less of a threat (but still tough) is that she only rarely interrupts you. I found myself exchanging damage with her a lot of the time. Especially in phase 1. Phase 2 gives you time to heal, so you can trade hits to seal the deal in phase 1.
Her special attack is the one thing you have to be particularly wary of. It can kill you in a hurry. Otherwise, don't be afraid to keep swinging and occasionally running like hell to heal. My fight was ugly as hell, but a win is a win.
 
Malenia was the only boss who 'forced' me to respec (to a bleed build) - then she became relatively easy (I beat her over and over with Rivers of Blood).

All done the game now, finally. Definitely was a good time while it lasted (and it lasted awhile). It's made me a fan of that style of game and I'll be picking up Dark Souls 1-3 when they go on sale again.
 
Malenia was the only boss who 'forced' me to respec (to a bleed build) - then she became relatively easy (I beat her over and over with Rivers of Blood).
Is it worth it to get my arc up to 20 to use rivers of blood? I've been putting everything into str/dex so my arc is only like 11.
 
Is it worth it to get my arc up to 20 to use rivers of blood? I've been putting everything into str/dex so my arc is only like 11.

It has the best special attack of any weapon I tried by far. It's one of those attacks (that some enemies use) that leaves a lingering "X" in blood about 10 feet in front of your character. You can keep mashing it to keep doing those, too. It hits hard, can be repeated, snuffs a ton of enemy attacks, and seems to be tough to dodge. I guess it's crazy strong in PvP, too. I found better katanas, but I stuck with that one because of the special attack alone. Combine that with potion that gives you unlimited MP for 10 seconds to annihilate most foes.
 
Rivers of Cheese. Well that's one way to beat Melenia, I suppose.

I was stubborn on swapping out to another weapon, but I managed to beat her with a maxed out +25 Longsworn Straightsword, but not by myself. For me the path to victory was through a maxed out Mimic Tear that made it a completely different fight. Just kept buffing my RH with Bloodflame Blade (a poor man's Uchi) and soaked up her special attacks with a nearly fully upgraded Brass Shield. Didn't even bother putting Barricade on the shield since I already maxed out Endurance.

Between the Mimic and I wailing on her, we eventually got her in a state that she was almost always on her back. Once you put that much pressure on her, she folds like paper. It's not about the amount of bleed you do to her, it's about how fast you can get the bleed to proc, because when the bleed procs she gets stunned briefly. She's literally weak to being stunned. She's most dangerous when she can counter your attacks, which is how she heals.

Tiche is really good for Malenia's first phase, does far more damage to her than I ever could in a given amount of time. I think Tiche's special attack does over 2000 damage to Malenia. However, I found out later that Tiche can't survive Malenia's second phase due to the AoE attacks. So for my win I gave all the credit to my Mimic.

Edit: One reason Mimic survives so well in her second phase is Mimic is immune to Scarlet Rot. That and its AI is smart enough to use my shield when it counts.
 
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I don't see anyone mentioning Elden Beast. This is proving impossible to me.
If I go in alone(summon mimic) I can get past Radagon relatively easily. But I just can't do anything against Elden Beast. Even if I get there with plenty of health flasks. Once it shoots lightning I'm done. Even if I run sideways, and it misses me, beast starts another attack before all the lightning is done, and kills me.
If I summon other players then Radagon becomes tough and I get killed. Mostly when he does that stomp, I just can run out of area of attack, it just so wide, and after the second or third stomp he kills me.
 
I don't see anyone mentioning Elden Beast. This is proving impossible to me.
If I go in alone(summon mimic) I can get past Radagon relatively easily. But I just can't do anything against Elden Beast. Even if I get there with plenty of health flasks. Once it shoots lightning I'm done. Even if I run sideways, and it misses me, beast starts another attack before all the lightning is done, and kills me.
If I summon other players then Radagon becomes tough and I get killed. Mostly when he does that stomp, I just can run out of area of attack, it just so wide, and after the second or third stomp he kills me.

Both Radragon and the Elden Beast hit you (hard) with holy damage. Wearing gear and casting spells that limit holy damage (divine fortification) makes that fight a lot more manageable. At the very least the Elden Beast isn't sapping like 1/2 your health per hit. It's still a battle of attrition, but you'll survive a lot longer. Plus, you usually have time to heal when it keeps retreating. That's one of the few fights I buffed myself with spells prior to.
 
Chasings Stars attack (homing balls) used to be worse before the recent patch. That said, this is an instance where using Bloodhound Step isn't considered cheese.

The camera is the real enemy in the Elden Beast fight.
 
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I got him :) I put Haligdrake Talisman +2 and Pearldrake Talisman +2 on, and I used Lord's divine fortification to buff myself at the start. And most importantly I got one human summon :) Realistically I ran around trying to stay alive most of the time while the other guy wailed on the beast.
 
Because I was looking up Elden Ring stuff for a few weeks, now my Google feed is full of "how to find [insert weapon]" each time I refresh it. I found most of the things that are showing up, but there are definitely some that I missed. I'm having fun popping back in, hunting down an item I missed, and then moving on. One thing the game didn't fully take advantage of (or did it and we don't realize it?) is the night vs. day concept. Feels like it mainly just unlocked roaming skeletons and maybe a dozen'ish hidden bosses. Was there more to it than that?
 
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