Elden Ring

[RumHam]

Just now, aceluby said:

Have you fought the huge bear in its lair?  That one was a big PITA for me, even with the wolves that have trivialized almost every other boss, including Margit. 

Where is this? I fought three of them in the woods

Spoiler

where Pate sends you with the chest. Then I found another I think near the Uld Palace ruins. I never had any actually have a boss health bar though.

 

[aceluby]

1 hour ago, RumHam said:

Where is this? I fought three of them in the woods

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where Pate sends you with the chest. Then I found another I think near the Uld Palace ruins. I never had any actually have a boss health bar though.

 

I honestly can't remember.  One of the caves, I think in the southern peninsula (still getting my bearings and names)

[Fez]

I'm not loving the Renala fight it turns out. I don't think its bullshit or anything (though I did get caught by an invisible wall which kinda sucked). It's just that the first half of the fight takes so long to get through, and isn't hard at all. It's just a time sink to get through each go round. Plus its a solid minute run to get back to her from the closest bonfire. I should beat her after a few more tries tomorrow though; just need to get down the dodge timing towards the end of the fight.

On a separate note, has anyone figured out a use for the alter equipment system? I have two separate sets of tailoring tools, but only 1 piece of equipment seems to be an option to alter, there's only one thing I can change it to, and it makes all the stats worse. Feels like I'm missing something.

[mcbigski]

21 hours ago, Fez said:

On a separate note, has anyone figured out a use for the alter equipment system? I have two separate sets of tailoring tools, but only 1 piece of equipment seems to be an option to alter, there's only one thing I can change it to, and it makes all the stats worse. Feels like I'm missing something.

I could be wrong, but I think alterations are cosmetic only.  I found one piece of altered armor and that one at least had the same stats as the base piece as far as I saw.  That being said, everyone go check your armor.  I had an Imp Helmet (Cat) that I hate the look of, but put it on sometimes when I was trying to optimize a resistance.  Noticed today it also gave +5 INT, so I'm going to wear it regardless.  That's a big fucking deal.  I even have a piece of commoner garb that gives +1 Faith.  So just take a quick run through all the armor pieces.

I did look up where the Meteor Staff was, turns out I already had found the Rock Sling spell on my own, but didn't want to hang around that area once I got the underground chest.  I was building stats towards getting the Uchigatana, and then found Moonveil.  That was an immense power-up for an INT build, only needed to add +1 to STR and DEX to wield it, and hadn't used any somber stones yet so instant +5.  Way better than Magic Short Sword +7!

I am having trouble with the skills from the Ashes of War.  Playing on XBox.  I have a shield with an Ash that works when I LT, but as far as I can tell, the right hand weapon still just has the regular strong attack with RT.  How are they supposed to work? 

[briantw]

Spent the past hour tackling Castle Morne.  There were a couple of tough stretches, but I managed to get to the end and face off with Leonine Misbegotten without having died even once, and I went into the fight having just leveled up, so I basically had nothing to lose. 

The boss swiftly relieved me of the notion that I'd complete the whole castle sans death.  He's got some crazy fast attacks that close the distance in a fraction of a second and a really annoying leaping attack with a delay at the very end that makes dodging tricky.

I think it took me about five or six tries to get him.  I got sort of lucky on the final try and cheesed it a bit.  I got him stuck by the entrance mist in a sort of tunnel created by the scenery.  The wolves I summoned were blocking him from getting to me and I was able to just pummel him with Rock Sling, which staggered him so I could keep throwing stones.

Not sure where I'm off to next.  Maybe I'll go ahead and try to finish Stormveil.

[Fez]

1 hour ago, mcbigski said:

I could be wrong, but I think alterations are cosmetic only.  I found one piece of altered armor and that one at least had the same stats as the base piece as far as I saw.  That being said, everyone go check your armor.  I had an Imp Helmet (Cat) that I hate the look of, but put it on sometimes when I was trying to optimize a resistance.  Noticed today it also gave +5 INT, so I'm going to wear it regardless.  That's a big fucking deal.  I even have a piece of commoner garb that gives +1 Faith.  So just take a quick run through all the armor pieces.

So the one piece that I can alter does change the stats, but it makes all of them worse. Which furthers my confusion. I also found a hat that gave extra INT, but it lowers health and stamina and hasn't seemed like a good enough trade-off.

 

I beat Renela tonight. I think I burned down her second form too quickly, since she didn't end up doing a bunch of the attacks that I had seen in earlier attempts. But whatever, I'll take the W. And now I'm off at Caria Manor in the northern area of Liurana. Thinking I might be a bit underleveled again though, the enemies there are hitting like trucks and taking way more to kill than ones at the Academy. Might go try out Caelid instead.

[briantw]

The sheer variety of enemies in this game is insane.  Breath of the Wild has like ten different enemies in the entire game, and you spent 90% of your time fighting the same three or four.  There are about thirty in Limgrave alone.

Visually, this entire game is heavy metal album covers.

[aceluby]

10 hours ago, mcbigski said:

I am having trouble with the skills from the Ashes of War.  Playing on XBox.  I have a shield with an Ash that works when I LT, but as far as I can tell, the right hand weapon still just has the regular strong attack with RT.  How are they supposed to work? 

There’s a noop ash you can assign to your shield which replaces the shield special (like parry) to whatever is assigned to your right hand. You can only use one or the other when you have two weapons/shields equipped

[RumHam]

11 hours ago, mcbigski said:

I was building stats towards getting the Uchigatana, and then found Moonveil.  That was an immense power-up for an INT build, only needed to add +1 to STR and DEX to wield it, and hadn't used any somber stones yet so instant +5.  Way better than Magic Short Sword +7!

Thanks for the heads up about this. I googled it and I'd been to that dungeon and noped out leaving a marker to come back later.  Just killed the boss and upgraded and at +6 it outclasses my +16 richard's magic rapier.

 

[briantw]

2 hours ago, aceluby said:

There’s a noop ash you can assign to your shield which replaces the shield special (like parry) to whatever is assigned to your right hand. You can only use one or the other when you have two weapons/shields equipped

You can also find at least one shield in the wild that has the No Skill attribute.  I found it last night, although I don’t recall if I got it in Morne or Stormveil, as I completed the former and put a dent into the latter. 

[Mexal]

Fringefolk Hero's Grave is the worst. I'm so tired.

[Slurktan]

7 hours ago, Mexal said:

Fringefolk Hero's Grave is the worst. I'm so tired.

Did you find the way to kill the chariot?  The Boss for that one is the hardest one in the game thus far for me as well.  Not sure why I couldn't get a read on it but only got it by the skin of my teeth.

[Mexal]

5 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

Did you find the way to kill the chariot?  The Boss for that one is the hardest one in the game thus far for me as well.  Not sure why I couldn't get a read on it but only got it by the skin of my teeth.

Nope. I died too many times trying to get to that point. I'll go back and try it again when I have some patience.

[Fez]

Looked up a map of Limgrave and Liurina and cleared a bunch of areas that I'd missed. Not sure I found any drops I'll use, but it was satisfying; especially going back and killing the boss of Castle Mourne who I'd struggled with earlier. It's funny, I generally don't feel stronger each time I level up, but I actually am way stronger from where I was 15 hours ago; each little increment really adds up over time.

I also reached the area from the very start of the game and beat that boss that kills you. I didn't realize where I was at first, because I didn't recognize the boss (and was coming from the opposite direction). And you don't have a map at the very start of the game, so I didn't know the spot I found was the opening until I made my way back to the church where you wake up. There's a key item there now, no idea what to do with it yet.

ETA: And I beat that Loretta Great Knight and now seemed to have stumbled in a large quest chain of some sort. I'm starting to really wish this game had some sort of journal. Not even a quest journal, just something like the old Shenmue games had even, with a list of entries like "X told me Y wants Z"; anything to help keep track of these stuff.

I also got the Moonveil and leveled up my strength enough to use it. That's quite a weapon. And I found a crazy OP ashes, called Lhutel the Headless; I don't remember where. But she takes the special glovewort to level up and costs 104 FP to summon. But she does real, serious damage to bosses and tanks like nobodies business. She's almost a second player.

[RumHam]

3 hours ago, Fez said:

I'm starting to really wish this game had some sort of journal. Not even a quest journal, just something like the old Shenmue games had even, with a list of entries like "X told me Y wants Z"; anything to help keep track of these stuff.

Seriously. The manual map markers markers are nice but you should be able to review past conversations at least. Like there is a middle ground between Elder Scrolls-ish "follow the map marker" mode and this.

Quote

And I found a crazy OP ashes, called Lhutel the Headless; I don't remember where. But she takes the special glovewort to level up and costs 104 FP to summon. But she does real, serious damage to bosses and tanks like nobodies business. She's almost a second player.

It's funny because I was coming to say same thing about another one. This one you can't get until you've beaten the boss of Calied. Once again spoiler tags are tricky so I'm just gonna tag the summon name and leave it at that for now. 

Spoiler

Mimic Tear

Edit: I had Lhutel up to +4, but trust me save the rest of your upgrades for this one. 

[briantw]

35 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Seriously. The manual map markers markers are nice but you should be able to review past conversations at least. Like there is a middle ground between Elder Scrolls-ish "follow the map marker" mode and this.

The middle ground exists and is called Breath of the Wild, a game that neither held your hand nor was too obtuse.

[RumHam]

47 minutes ago, briantw said:

The middle ground exists and is called Breath of the Wild, a game that neither held your hand nor was too obtuse.

I played it on my niece's Wii U. I don't have it on my switch to go back to. I'll take your word for it though. 

[briantw]

16 minutes ago, RumHam said:

I played it on my niece's Wii U. I don't have it on my switch to go back to. I'll take your word for it though. 

It does a wonderful job of not holding your hand but providing you with a barebones quest log and a few points on the map.  So it encourages you to explore but also gives you a few points of interest to guide you when needed.

Absolutely loving this game so far, though.  Killed Godrick the Grafted earlier tonight and activated his rune.  Had a couple of crazy fights, including one where I made it to the next point of grace with a sliver of health having just killed around twenty enemies, out of flasks and desperate.  The fight against the three giant golems en route to activate Godrick's flask was harrowing as well.  Those things have some absolutely insane range to their attacks, and like most enemies in this game are about three times as fast as they look like they should be.

[Mexal]

Oh man, time for the Raya Academy place... this feels like it's gonna suck for a magic user. Everything takes so many hits and I run out of FP fairly quickly...

[Fez]

2 hours ago, Mexal said:

Oh man, time for the Raya Academy place... this feels like it's gonna suck for a magic user. Everything takes so many hits and I run out of FP fairly quickly...

Magical melee spells help tremendously there.

 

I found a terrible place called Frenzied Flame Tower. It's in the open world, but you need to clear it to explore the surrounding area. It's the first place I've found where Madness is an issue, and it builds up insanely fast too. Took me way too many tries to clear the enemies at the base so I could climb the tower. Fortunately, it's a one-time deal, the source of the madness doesn't respawn.