Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

Fire guy build looks pretty fun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3fgZxZvB8E

it does! i gotta make my way to the mountaintop for some of that, long term goals. in the meantime maybe i'll hop on the moonveil rocket

I have a new build I'm planning on being a mostly fire-based Faith/dex build, fire spells/bleed swords. Surprised at how much easier a new guy feels now, maybe because after 100 hours I get how this game works more. I'm not sure wether to keep my prisoner glintstone build going - hes at Lv60ish and Ive done all of stormveil but I am SO stuck on Radan/Renalla, and Ive broken the Ranni/Blaidd line a bit, so I dont know. Levelling up's becoming a chore at this level, maybe I'm not taking on enough bigger mobs/bosses.

But one think I like about staffs vs incantations - the staffs seem to have a much further hit distance than my flame sling does? Maybe I'm imaginging it I dunno.

Rennala is definitely more challenging as a caster, but if you beat her and get your hands on a Larval Tear you can always re-spec that character if you’re unhappy with the build.

Actually I think I already have one or 2 larval tear from elsewhere but yeah without beating her, no dice. I'll keep plugging away.

summon two people for rennala, i did it by accident for that fight and it was a piece of cake

yeah Ive not tried any co op/online yet. All the stories Im hearing about aggro invasions, and me not being a great player, is putting me off.

Invasions aren’t really a big deal tbh. Especially if you’re summoning for a boss fight cuz you’re generally right next to a boss door and invaders can’t enter your world when a boss encounter begins. And if they happen to be in your world they’re immediately sent home.

New players shouldn’t be afraid of summoning! It’s a core mechanic and it will make your life a lot easier for most bosses.

yeah, i’ve summoned a fair bit just to keep the game moving. i can’t have it swallow my *whole* life. like c1916 says, there’s no window for invasion on the big mist bound bosses.

rennala i found oddly easy, or maybe i was just a bit OP.

Continued the Ranni quest yesterday - after a good while of struggling with the main quest and other things in Liurnia, I felt surprisingly overleveled for Nokron and then VERY surprised to bet Radahn in just three or four tries! Now just moving through Nokstrella, which feels like much more of a challenge

My PS4 playthrough is now at a casual level 55, +9 +5 upgrades and I'm LOVING invasions. (Mostly because I'm enjoy to p*rry)

i had fun learning to parry a crucible knight in an evergaol a little while back. only took 11 successful parries to take him down lol. it's a fun mechanic in controlled situations.

Still need to wrap my head around parrying. If my shield has a skill on it, is it still the same mechanic as parrying but with fancy fireworks? Should I be using L1 and then R2 or is it L2 and R2?

I might be using the wrong vernacular - is parrying the same as a Guard Counter?

No, parrying is a perfectly timed block using L2 which causes an immediate stunned state for a riposte.

Guard counter is a sort of watered down version of that for for tanks with fat unwieldy shields, but it's so efficaceous I'm rarely tempted to risk a parry

One of the soldiers in the tutorial hole is set up for you to practice parries iirc

Only certain shields have the Parry skill too btw. Also can apply it to shields w/out that via the Parry Ash of War.

And yeah, it's a super risky move that is generally not advisable for everyday usage.

Fgti, I truly do love to see it! It's addictive.

I know invasions are a weird mechanic to people not used to From games, but that shouldn't discourage people from summoning help for boss fights. If you go through a whole level with summoned phantoms, then yes, you may get invaded. The idea is to balance out the difficulty, since the game is clearly easier when you have multiple people on your side. The worst that can happen is you'll die, which we should all be used to at this point. :)

Ummm, I did accidentally invade into someone's Fire Giant boss fight yesterday, but that's a rare glitch and I felt bad about it.

My big Elden Ring moment over the weekend was finally beating Mohg, after many many attempts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NguHB1fcf5M

Then the Fire Giant went down in a couple tries.

I also clipped the Niall fight, since apparently people have been having trouble with it. Speaking of parries, that was the key to taking out the shield knight for me, since otherwise I didn't have a great way of dealing with him quickly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T78ub0afbKw

Great short video on boss mechanics/enemy a.i.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAScBR7Lovo

@ dog latin, small and medium shields (and some daggers, some fists, some claws)) can all parry. With a parry ash of war equipped on your shield, (or just the buckler on its own), you press R2 some 10 frames before an attack is about to make contact and you deflect it and the enemy is immediately staggered, and you can perform a critical.

As far as I can recall there are three parry ashes (maybe more?) Basic parry, then Carian Retaliation (which can parry magic attacks and then gives a phalanx response, and the phalanx hits way harder than normal casts of it), then Golden Parry (which uses FP when you use it but has a very broad range).

Different shields, ashes, and whatever give you shorter or longer grace windows where a parry will work. For example, a buckler offers 12 viable parry-window frames whereas a Caestus offers only 6. (Don't quote me on those numbers, I watched the video a couple days ago).

If you want to experiment with it, try getting Carian Retaliation (my preferred) and put it on a medium shield (one with 100% physical damage reduction). You can still use L1 for guard counter, but L2 becomes your parry. Carian Retaliation doesn't use FP for normal parries (it only uses them when you parry magic attacks). Try it out and see if you like it.

Ironically, certain Tank enemies become rather easy when you're parrying (Crucible Knight isn't "easy" but is much more manageable, and every other big area knight is a pushover). But random flailing soldiers, with their inconsistent attack patterns, they're the ones who start landing hits ha

Considering how frequently invaders/invadees rely upon magic attacks, and how insanely powerful a successful Carian Retaliation phalanx response is, I've upped my success rate on invasions, from "I die 4 out of 5 times" to "I die 3 out of 5 times"

Dumn question - does parrying deflect the attacker's spell/hit back on them or just stun them? I'm thinking a la guardian laser parrying in botw.

If you use carian retaliation on a spell, it effectively sends their spell at them and does damage.

If you use the shield to parry a physical attack, it stuns them and you can do a critical attack with a weapon.

They really need to fix carian retaliation btw - it's so fun and useful, but aside from doing crazy damage (based on how high your shield is upgraded), sometimes the other player can't actually see the blades fire. So they get hit and probably die, but the blades are still hovering over the head of the person who did the spell parry.

Thanks for explaining, fgti

Sounds like Carian Retaliation on my Beast Heater shield is The Way.

I have found that parrying is kinda situational, lots of enemies (Crystallians, i.e.) are easier to stagger with guard-riposte than parry-riposte in PVE, but it's a fun play style, very satisfying when it succeeds

Looking forward to a rematch with Malenia, determined to parry her into dust

You make it sound so easy :P

Me trying to parry: you died (to low level skeleton, ya dweeb!)

My current attributes:

Vigor: 10
Mind: 10
Endurance: 10
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 10
Intelligence: 71
Faith: 10
Arcane: 10

There is nothing scarier to me than a rat or a wolf.

Ha, like fgti said, skeletons are notoriously squirrelly with their attacks and hard to parry. It's actually easiest to practice against a knight type enemy with a big sword (though note that they'll try to shield bash you to mess you up).

The other nice thing about Carian Retaliation is that it has a flashy animation that makes the parry frames easier to visualize.

etaeoe, are you doing a challenge run, why would you do that to yourself

And what does it look like! lots of spells and running away? Can you summon much, with that FP?

My current attributes:

Vigor: 10
Mind: 10
Endurance: 10
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 10
Intelligence: 71
Faith: 10
Arcane: 10

― Allen (etaeoe), Tuesday, 12 April 2022 15:02 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've been doing this build too but irl

my stats:

vigor 11
mind 13
endurance 7
strength 2
dexterity 25
intelligence 8
faith 2
arcane 35

also irl, and crossing into D&D, my LCK is either 20 or -204. every time i wake up, a mysterious figure i'm trying to find casts lots to determine which one it will be for me that day

(those are joke stats, right? I was going to chide you about low vigor but the strength and faith are the giveaway.)

those are my irl stats. here are my elden stats:

LVL58

vigor 22
mind 17
endurance 15
strength 21
dexterity 14
intelligence 15
faith 22
arcane 13

Haha. I don't even want to consider my irl stats.

(you should still pump vigor for awhile btw)

i left a comedy message on the stairwell leading up to Rennala, where you have to dodge the giant bowling ball

RENALLA IS FINALLY FELLED FINALLY!

*an elden ring sighs in exhaustion*

Vigor + 2 :)

what should we be pumping vig to?

my long term goal is to keep pumping til it hits 40

right now i'm pumping INT because the moonveil/cold uchigatana combo does stupid hilarious damage, after that's fully pumped ima pump some VIG, maybe pump some MND

I got it to 40 as soon as I could and then focused on damage stats for awhile. Now I'm at level 120-something and I have vigor over 60, and it's finally hit the soft cap where it seems like it's not worth going higher.

yeah I'm up to 115 or so and VIG is definitely suffering from diminishing returns now

I don't feel like I have a good strategy for leveling, I've mostly been alternating boosting Vigor, Mind, Endurance, Strength, and Dexterity. I have some Faith because I am a Confessor but haven't been adding much to it.