Definitely was nerfed as far as I can tell. I just made a new character and fought him at level 60-something and got him on my first try; a far cry from the dozens of desperate attempts the first time around. He didn't do any of the relentless AoE spam from before, his hits seemed to cover less area and when I did get hit it seemed to do less damage (it felt like just about everything was 1-2 hit kills before, and I was higher level and had heavier armor too). I was both relieved and a bit bummed.
Saw this article that was kind of relevant to what we (me?) were talking about here the other day: Elden Ring's NPC quest markers are just a Band-Aid
Elden Ring is designed in such a way that if you play through it 'normally' without looking stuff up—which is what I'd recommend to anyone, forget the guides and go in blind—you will absolutely miss both big and small parts of it.
In other news: I fought the Godskin Apostle and the Godskin Noble in separate fights (I know about the dreaded duo version ala O&S).
The first, the Apostle, I fought at the very bottom of the Caelid divine tower as a boss. I beat him on my first, but it was really an exciting fight!
The Noble I fought, coincidentally, on a bridge leading to the divine tower of Liurnia, though he didn't have a boss health bear, just appeared as a strong enemy. Also killed him on my first. 'Twas fun too.
Currently, I'm on the bottom of the world in the Deeprooth Depths, smacking about ants left and right.
Man, I love this game...
I seem to be running into a lot of big, stupid, AOE-type bosses, and I don't like it. I just killed Rykard and it was kind of a bullshit fight, with an earthquake attack that always killed me instantly and I couldn't dodge, so I ended up just tanking it and getting constant lava damage. Gimme more dudes in armour! Learning the movesets of enormous bosses is not as fun for me as having a good duel. I loved Margit and Godrick, though, so hopefully more of that style is coming up. This game is impossibly huge. The map has expanded beyond my expectations like four times now. I haven't even seen snow yet!
[Volcano Manor spoiler]Did you pick up the serpent slaying spear by the entrance? It's the same sort of a gimmick fight as the manta ray in Demon's Souls. Both light and heavy attacks have a huge range, and the weapon art basically keeps him stunlocked. Combine with the mimic tear for an extra easy time.
I'm with you on the huge bosses thing. Although not quite the same scale, one of my personal least favorite ones is the Ulcerated Tree Spirit which you run into half a dozen times and not only is it big but it just zips around like a maniac the whole time knocking you on your arse as soon as you get up. I don't really even know what it looks like because it's always twist into an angry pretzel and bouncing off the walls of the too small arena.
Re the Volcano Manor spoiler, yes, I did, and it wasn't until I upgraded it like six times and used Mimic Tear as well that the fight felt doable. I went into Elden Ring thinking I would play it like Bloodborne and learn every boss's moveset, but it's getting to be a grind -- there's just too many bosses for that -- so I'm starting to resort to more OP strategies. I haven't found any Ulcerated Tree Spirits yet, so something to look forward to I guess!
Also, while we're complaining, the Bloodborne-style dungeons everywhere are pretty tedious, and I've been putting pins in the map to come back to them later, but I'm not sure I actually will.
At this point I can't say Elden Ring is my favourite Souls game; it feels too sprawling and unfocused, and I don't particularly enjoy the whole fingers/demi-gods/GRRM-style story compared to Dark Souls or Bloodborne. And the voice acting direction feels off compared to previous games; some of these characters' lines sound so laboured.
Maybe I need to just take a break and come back to it later!
Okay this was a fun fight. It took maybe 20 tries to learn enough of the moves to dodge (and parry!) my way to success, which is about the right balance of time spent to skill improvement. (It’s the boss of Shaded Castle in case you don’t want it spoiled. I don’t think the thumbnail gives anything significant away)
Last edited by Aja; 26th Mar 2022 at 01:03.
Yeah, I'm in the late game right now, and it seems like every boss has an enormous, unblockable AoE attack. Technically it makes the game harder, but really, it just makes everything much less fun. I'd rather be dueling with other knights. Actually some of my favorite fights are with dragons- I love how they can knock down and burn trees- they feel properly epic. I swear I had one battle with a dragon that ended a mile away from when it started!
I'm loving the fact that this game is ridiculously huge. I beat Godrick around the 40 hour mark. Granted, I had spent some time exploring most of Caelid before realizing I was way over my head there, but still. I'm now working my way through the lake/swamp areas, but I'm probably only, what, 10-15% done? It's going to take me 200, 300, maybe 400 hours more to finish. At times it's somewhat overwhelming, but definitely in a good way. I usually like to check out every corner of the map, quite the daunting task with this one though.
Btw, I love how one site called this game "Death of the Wild." That's pretty much perfect.
I've killed Rennala and am currently trudging through Carian Manor.
Man, fuck those giant hands. It's a toss-up between those and the albino insect assholes in the crystal tunnel & Caelid for creepiest enemy for me so far.
I like how you can score very good loot very early on by just Benny Hilling it with the horse.
This is an accurate description of my playstyle.
I admire the patience of the rest of you - although I was managing ok being able to horse and sneak my way to some better weapons up to a point, I'm shorter on the time an patience that this game requires. Some of the boss fights really aren't for me at all and after a few tries and appreciating the magnificent animations I'm not going to enjoy hours of retries. In fact my strategy has been that more than a few retries means I go off and find something easy to punish.
Eventually I realised I'd have to use a mod to relieve some of the pressure, because even with overleveling - for me - the fights are still tricky with those surprising one-shots and flurries. So with an easy mode mod I still got enough of a sense of achievement and actually got to see the game. It would be a shame to have not got to Mountaintops of the Giants because Morgott was a brick wall, and the fire giant is a tanky bastard but an amazing design.
I'll be interested to know how some of you find Malenia when you find her at the base of the Haligtree. Even with my shameless modding I'm not sure I can get past that fight, even if I'm consistently impressed with the design of the character.
Doesn't modding and whatnot get you banned from the online components? I'm pretty sure that's how it used to work with the previous games.
I was stuck on her for quite a while, but eventually just changed my spec to one that trivializes her (and pretty much the rest of the game). If you use all the tools the game gives you there really isn't any reason to use literal cheats; cheats are basically built into the game. On that topic:Originally Posted by scumble
Blasphemous Blade
Golden Vow + Flame Grant Me Strength
Flame-Shrouding Cracked Tear and Cerulean Hidden Tear for your Flask of Wondrous Physick
Fire Scorpion Charm and maybe Ritual Sword Talisman (Shard of Alexander if you have it, but probably not)
Cast your incantations, summon Black Knife Tiche, a few casts of Taker's Flames and she's gone, probably can barely get up from getting knocked down if you do it from far enough (and the range is supringly long).
It's not exactly the most fun way to play the game, of course, and it could be argued that if you're going to cheese bosses you might as well outright cheat, but if you just want to progress there's in-game ways to remove roadblocks, and they won't get you softbanned either. Of course Blasphemous Blade, Rivers of Blood, Moonveil and the like are arguably unbalanced and will likely get toned down in patches, but even without one-size-fits-all cheeses there'll always be more tailored ways to counter every boss, especially with respeccing being so simple.
Last edited by reizak; 30th Mar 2022 at 07:44.
Useful tip which I may try eventually after a breather...
Modding hasn't been an issue for me as I've been playing offline, which is fine. But my view on the bosses that make a melee approach hideously difficult is that you can try as far as you want, then say, sod this and find a way to undermine the boss entirely. It actually makes it worth going off to take care of some minor bosses to pick up items.
At least my idea of fun is having a fair go at the boss as far as my patience allows, then experimenting with some builds I can look up which means I'll actually experience the variety. Seems like I'm impressed with the game more after making it easier for myself. Yet I wouldn't have got far if it wasn't for the easy access to other players' discoveries, I could explore up to a point and then if I was after something specific I could just look it up.
Part of this is me just not having the time to devote to it and getting absorbed at the same time - I have to accelerate through or it'll disrupt other things. Yet I can still appreciate the design and implementation as it is and don't think it necessarily has to cater to players like me specifically.
Coming back over-levelled is a totally viable strategy.
Spirit summons + sorcery makes things laughable too, though I have not progressed that far in to the game yet, so suspect I have a lesson waiting for me somewhere.
I've always appreciated just the many ways you can approach FROM's games with their open-ended character design (minus Sekiro, but that works perfectly for its style of gameplay, more focused; Bloodborne being an in-between, methinks), giving you a lot of flexibility how you tackle challenges.
Personally, I'm a bit of a masochist and enjoy going toe to toe with a melee build. :3 As long as a fight feels, in my head at least, balanced, doable AND, most importantly, fun, I'm down for retrying N number of times, knowing that I will eventually overcome.
Recently I've killed Astel, in the underground lands, the Black Gargoyle outside Beastial Sanctuary, some of the Bell-Bearing Hunters at different grace points, the Night Sentinel (Sentry?) on the bridge leading to the Bestial Sanctuary, and more. Good times!
I was having trouble with the knight right before the Rennala boss fight, to the point where I decided to just sneak around him to get to the lift he's guarding. He spotted me, did a forward roll towards me...and rolled right into the open elevator shaft. Got a good laugh out of that one. Thanks for the shield, dude.
I pulled him to the boulder trap, he's set to not follow you into it, but will happily ignore that while attacking. Dropping my favorite spell Night Maiden's Mist in the entrance also works (also convenient for the bell bearing hunters (screw killing that Caelid one honestly) among many other things).
I've gotten less patient banging my head against bosses as the game progresses. I probably could have learned how to dodge Malenia's blender move without resorting to cheesy specs, but after being pretty obsessed with the game for a month straight I think I'd like to just finish one playthrough. I'm also running out of things to do so I can't just bugger off to do something else instead. I'm at the Forge of the Giants and it feels like it might be some sort of a point of no return. Anyone know if the rest of the world is still accessible after doing your thing there?
A new patch, the only change being:
• Fixed a bug in the balance adjustment of the boss "Starscourge Radahn" in update 1.03, in which the power of some attacks was unintentionally reduced.
Makes sense, the difference was pretty stark. Rejoice, challenge-enjoyers!
Whew, I beat him on March 13, according to the trophy, so before 1.03.
welp wont be updating till I beat Rodahn
I had just arrived at Radahn's castle the night before I read about the update, so I went offline next session to beat him before he got harder. Unfortunately, Steam didn't give me the achievement when I reconnected and got the game up-to-date again. Oh well...
"Open world experience that doesn't so much as hold your hand as abandon you during your childhood."
Last edited by Starker; 7th Apr 2022 at 06:45.
I'm only about half way through the game, and I'm sure things will get much worse, but man, these enemies are just pissing me off so far:
Lightning Knights - They can just fuck right off. I haven't been able to dodge their lighting attack besides just pure random, occasional luck.
Those guys in the Shaded Castle who throw a wave of magic fire dust at you. Really awful. I'll think I had a good fight with them and then notice my health is down to 10%.
Ugly ass hybrid bat/old women things - My level is in the 80s, and they do this swoop attack that's near impossible to avoid and either one shots me or takes 90% of my health. If I was playing with a controller, I would have thrown it many times by now.
The robed assassins who ride the giant ants in Nokstella. They nail you strong at a distance with that whip/flail thing, making it really tough to get in close for a hit.
Honorable mentions:
Those horned ghost archers in Siofra that never miss.
The eagle things with knives for claws in Stormveil Castle.
Of course, the giants hands in Caria Manor.
EDIT: Welp, I beat both Godfrey and Morgott's asses on my 2nd attempt each with my melee-only build. Not too shabby. ONWARDS TO THE LAND OF THE GIANTS!
Been tearing ass left and right, taking names and rolling along. :3
My latest notable victim has been Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy at the Volcano Manor. Took me a few tries this one. Really fun fight.I might have killed an extra boss there or two, including a fight with the Godskin Noble while cruising along that area.
I'm back at the royal capital, still tearing ass. I found a hero's tomb next to the capital that had two Crucible Knights for a gank boss fight. I lol'd at that and summoned my clone. Now we're fighting in even ground, bastards. :3
Last edited by Mr.Duck; 15th Apr 2022 at 22:34.
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