Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

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jfc fumbling around with that while a dragon is opening its maw to spew whatever and *why would the answer be “no actually i’ve changed my mind*

also i think i’ve fucked the freyja ansbach quest by giving the scroll to ansbach at the wrong point. i’ve been avoiding spoilers and generally just following my nose but it’s reaching that stage where i feel i need to get my bearings in the story a bit.

I did that too, I think it messed up Freyja but Ansbach is still hanging around. Hey soooo should I do, like, the rest of the dlc before beating the last boss of Enir Ilim?

wondering the same but I think I'm going to try and beat him and leave the abyssal woods till after. I did not like the vibes in the abyssal woods

It's so horrible

Those... things

i hid from the things but got inexorably lost and decided to leave for the moment because of the bad vibe.

also wtf torrent you’re a *spirit* and you’re just going nope to an area i could really do with you.

add a preposition there somewhere.

I got caught by them a couple of times and then shot off. FOR NOW

There's something about the madness bar filling that gets me going shit shit shit even more than the death bar. I think it's because I see it so rarely.

On that theme, the biggest dread of any Souls game is hearing the winter lanterns singing in Bloodborne imo. You're going to die, because of line of sight, and it's going to be Eldritch. Killing them frenzied flame tower lads in Liurnia almost feels anticlimactically like battering some kids who interfered with your allotment and realising you've gone too far

If we've sorted the torrent potion issue can we finally make the switching weapons/equipped item a bit less clunky and pedantic, do you think

Abyssal Woods were a cool change of pace, shame they were so… empty. The boss in the Manor House there (which felt kind of Resident Evil almost - I think there was even a bit where you had to push a bookshelf to jump across a gap) is the last one I need to kill before going back to Radahn again.

And yeah it’s funny how different builds/play styles give such different experiences with the bosses. Messmer took me fucking forever but Gaius got wrecked second try and I no-hitted Jori first go (Jolan and Anna spirit ashes and me spamming r1 stun-locked him and he couldn’t move/hit back. Took about 10 seconds.

)

I think I've made a straight line to the end of the dlc, I haven't even glimpsed these other places you guys are talking about, haha.

I have so much left to do but I'm honestly looking forward to going through it again with my dex character.

xp

I went in search of the Cerulean Coast last night, and realized I was already on the cusp of it, I just hadn't gone through that last little tunnel near the furnace golem. Either I didn't notice (likely) or went back to the main path and forgot to return. Now we are once again going doooowwwwwn.

Feel like there are about five or six paths very close together in and around that bit. I missed all of them at first. One thing that didn't happen me in the main game but has happened here: I can't really be bothered fighting the final boss. I've heard it's really hard and tried it a few times, like twice maybe, and did okay, but just as the end of the game when I've done everything else it doesn't appeal that much. Other bosses I want to defeat them to continue exploring.

i get that tbh.

not that i’m anywhere near the final boss but i’m a bit “yeah ok we done now”

when i get to the final boss i mean. jesus. arduous posting. i’m wandering around periodically drinking a glass of wine and picking up my phone. not really elden ring behaviour.

is the only booze in fromsoft onion knight’s siegbrau? feels like people would need to drink *hard* in the lands between.

also “i am extremely hungover” energy to the various lords after the shattering.

extremely pissed off at minor irritations like a lowly tarnished and going absolutely ham.

rocking back and forth in pain etc

Ha. I for one will not be missing the opportunity fight Radahn in his youthful prime. Especially when I've done everything else and the alternative is either starting over with a different character or not playing Elden Ring.

I think it's having finished everything else. I don't find myself thinking after work "great now I want to sweat a lot and test myself against an incredibly hard boss" even though I enjoy that a lot after two hours of wandering around to get there, or knowing more wandering is the reward. Tho with the Elden Beast I was very determined to beat it.

Fair enough, although maybe it's a good opportunity to really get to know a boss without feeling like it's getting in the way of more exploration & progression!

Bosses are maybe my least favourite bit of these games. Like, I appreciate them as set pieces and the whole sturm and drang of a cool boss like Rykard (y u break heart fgti? Magma Mansion is one of my favourite lore areas of the base game). But yeah, I have little interest in gitting gud enough to really work these guys out. I'm always happy to get them out the way so I can carry on exploring and finding new stuff

Honestly I wasn't always a huge boss fight fan. But since the pvp doesn't captivate me like Dark Souls 3 did, I've found myself really enjoying these dlc bosses and getting into fighting them without too many bells & whistles.

Playing Sekiro again probably helped too. In previous Souls games there were always a few bosses I got really into (Midir comes to mind as a memorable marathon, and Manus in DS1), but my appreciation for Elden Ring's boss fights has only grown with my second playthrough going into the dlc. They have a wide enough variety of moves that you're always on your toes, but it's not too many to learn. And what they do often depends on your position, so you have a degree of control and prediction. And they're obviously excellent at punishing heals, so you almost always have to dodge an attack and trade a counterattack opportunity in order to heal.

In general I also really like the boss fights. Think I'm just sad it's over besides the last one.

That said, I do not love fighting the dragons in this game, and now I find myself on Archdragon Peak.

It's a bit formulaic, tho I loved that area as a setting.

Apparently the only reward for slaying dragons is, you guessed it, more dragons.

Mm that ghost flame dragon fight in the village with all the Messmer soldiers helping (and then not helping at all) was really thrilling imo

lol it's such a funny fight, riding around, occasionally getting bored at their incompetence and horsing in, occasionally letting them at it, wondering why they don't think best to kill the dragon before killing you

I did like the first dragon mountain fight where the two of them were going at it...at first I figured I would just let them fight it out, but realized one was completely housing the other and taking no damage, so then I jumped in to try and keep the underdog alive and use it as a glorified spirit summon. They should have repeated the same thing but with Senessax and Bayle in the same arena, now that would have been sick.

I like fighting dragons in this game, generally. Crucible Knights and their variants the most. Giants and Titans least of all. Miranda flowers can fuck off entirely

i do not enjoy dragons. run in hit legs RUN AWAY run in hit legs RUN AWAY. none of the dancing you get with other bosses or strong foes (inc knights, which when you get their pattern are immense fun to fight - you get so brutally punished for mistiming a move. aaaaah, you say, i deserved that.

i had the same thought about the village dragon - why do they immediately start fighting *me* far more effectively than the MASSIVE FUCK OFF DRAGON terrorising the area. then i realised on reflection that i probably *was* the bigger threat all told.

though they wouldn’t think that if they’d seen me go down to messmer 5000 times.

If we give him the impression Radahn is somewhere nearby, maybe he’ll fuck off and play street fighter

lol.

yeah agree about the dragon fights, it really is just ride in and ride away again, over and over, slightly flailing for stamina with your sword for some reason moving more like a neolithic farming implement than at its usual speed.

also for some reason none of the dragons in the dlc are as hard or interesting as the later ones in the main game, not even close.

Radahn down. Not that bad in the end - just tried to soak up everything with absurd armour and defensive incantations and then poke and bleed and rot the bugger. Mimic throwing all sorts of hefty pots - cold! rot! flies!
We did him dirty, but for some reason, idk why, he needed killing.

I like the part where Bayle flies very high on his ghost wings, that gives dragon. Maybe I should be fighting these guys on horseback with a great lance for full immersion.

If I have some extra time this weekend I think I'll spend a while attempting to "learn Radahn". Considering that I "learned" every boss in the main game all the way up to (but not including) Malenia/Maliketh/Placidusax, it's the least I could do. It feels strange to think that I've just Fextra-strategied my way through all these late game guys on my first completion (Midra, Bayle, Gaius et al.)

Had a few attempts at Radahn tonight, just felt mostly random and too difficult. I do hate the way it makes you take a fucking age to do your summon and you get one shotted by many bosses trying to do it, but then every now and again they decide to tie their shoelace before one shotting you, leading you to attempt to summon again next time.

None of felt really learnable, not sure I will bother tbh.

I think I've got the (fextra check) opaline bubbletear in my flask, which lets you tank through summoning mimic + that first big Radahn hit if you neck it outside the fog wall

Took me about 20 runs over a few days - I ended up thinking 'I cannot learn and dodge the phase 2 bullshit - looks like a lot of holy, maybe magic, ok how do I push through that?'

Vengeance. Fextraed those Abyssal Woods things & found out you've got to parry them so I cranked my focus (mushroom armour), got out my carian retaliation shield and killed 5 or 6 of them last night. Enormously satisfying.

Knocked off Midra's manse after that and I think that's me done. Might look up minor dungeons I've missed, maybe try to take down a few more furnace golems but I can put it away for a while now.

I very much enjoyed Elden Ring's downloadable content.

What!!!! You can kill them?