Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

Well I'm finally here, at the last boss(es). Radagon is manageable, but by the time I get to Elden Beast--is this even still a spoiler? I'm all outta flasks. Time to git gud (or keep grinding), I reckon.

the wolves are good for rennala. if you can, i recommend calling them just before you hit her for the last time in phase 1. that way they carry over to phase 2 but you don’t have to waste time trying to call them before dodging the death ray.

also in phase 1 it’s best to not kill the minions throwing books at you. you just have to hit them once for it to count, and if you kill too many of them it gets hard to find the ones throwing books at you because they’re in the outer ring instead of in the middle.

you want to try and work quickly to avoid getting to the phase where she throws tombstones at you etc. find the three important minions, hit them once each, then pound away at her once she falls

in phase 2 she was the rare boss where my default strategy of just hacking away at her a bunch seemed to work. if you can keep whaling away at her she can’t get her spells going as much. for once it pays to be aggressive and impatient lol.

Haha yeah I have been clobbered with the tombstones a few times.

I'm using a katana - I cant use any heavy weapons due to low STR - but I'm wondering of light weapons if it makes any diff if I use a katana, broadsword or rapier? prob not as long as its + is high I assume?

I don't imagine it would--I know in some cases different types of weapons matter, eg, blunt/strike weapons being more effective against armor han slashing/piercing ones. But I think any type of physical damage suffices against Rennala.

I'll just keep chipping away then! It really doesnt seem like it should be hard. Its just ANNOYING :D

For once, I'm starting to feel a bit Elden Ringed out. I can't beat the Fire Giant. I'm having difficulty getting down below the sewers because of an impossible "fall off the tiny ledge onto an even tinier ledge" challenge. And I found the Consecrated Snowfield and a town where invisible assassins one-hit sneak attack you. It's all really really tough

Funnily enough, I was over at a friend's yesterday, and she was at the same point in the game. The difficulty curve spikes precipitously around Niall/Giant/Ninja Town, and the Snowfields/Mountaintops don't offer enough titillation to motivate one to be as fastidious in exploring/levelling as previous regions. idk what to say, it only spikes again with the final two regions and final few bosses!

DL, a tip about the invisible assassins--there's a torch you can buy in Altus that, when equipped, makes them visible.

also dog latin, if you light the torches in that town they don't go back out so it can be achieved through trial and erroring your way through paths that will let you get to one torch at a time and light it without being YOU DIED, then getting inevitably YOU DIED and then finding the path to the next torch that allows you to light it without getting YOU DIED

DL -- I always hate to recommend a specific build for a boss, but the Fire Giant might be a case where bleed is a massive help because of his huge health pool. I got him on the third try, mostly due to Bloodflame Blade on a katana:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Reys5mcB8d0

And that platforming bit in the sewers was incredibly frustrating at first, but it's totally optional (and can affect the ending, if you care about that). I came back later and had better luck dropping down right by the flute player.

It also helps to take off all your clothes (which reduces fall damage and is also kinda necessary for the next bit).

There are some good items around there, but I think you need to get the madness enemies to break the tents with the items. A madness flame spell, and the best shield in the game.

Yeah now that I know theres multiple endings, I'm not even gonna bother with the sewers or malenia.

I'm going for the Moon Victory on this run I think. I did fairly easily beat Renalla just after my last post. I just need to be less TENSE and PANICKY when I play this game.

Now, before I hit Leyendell, I want to sweep up some side quests. Ranni, Blaidd, Jarburg... not sure what else.

Rya is one of my favourite NPCs. Sadly I broke her quest slightly and didn't get to see what happened to her at the end

Thanks for the tips upthread all. I had to look up a guide about that random torch. How the hell would I have guessed that? The merchant is miles away and quite hard to find, and I would never have guessed to buy and equip that torch in a million years

Oh btw I have just found out about how you can (should!) duplicate each great rune rememberance at the walking mausoleums before cashing in. I wish I'd fcking known that. Ive already done 2 and didnt dup them :(

you can still duplicate them after using them, but you can't duplicate all of them - there are only 7 mausoleums and you can only use them once per playthrough.

oh ok thats good. I was just wanting to dup to sell, tbh. Most of the weapons and gear are usless to me. I thought the grafted dragon would be fun but its just a little spurty flame, seemed dumb.

Thanks for the tips upthread all. I had to look up a guide about that random torch. How the hell would I have guessed that? The merchant is miles away and quite hard to find, and I would never have guessed to buy and equip that torch in a million years

I wish I was the type of player who reads the description of every item and figured stuff out like this on my own. The description makes it pretty clear, but I totally missed that merchant when going through the capital outskirts.

And Trayce, I would advise against selling items! You don't get very much for them, and runes come easy. Once they're gone, they're gone, and you never know what you might want to use if you re-spec.

DL, if it makes you feel any better, I had to look up a guide to find out about the torch, too! And feel zero shame about it. IMO, it is clearly an intentional feature of these games that players must rely on one another to learn these things, whether via the in-game messaging, guides, or threads like this one.

Contrary to what the "git gud" crowd says, these games are *not* about pulling yourself up by the straps of your cyber-boots.

there is so much shit in this game that i have no idea how people figure it out without googling it

Jord: yeah youre right. somehow I assumed I could take advantage of the 20k runes I passed up exchanging rems for weapons, but I cant, that ship's sailed. There's no way I'll ever be using a Great Axe, and much as I'd love to use the Lions greatbow, I dont have the stats (though yeah I could respec from INT into STR and become a late game sniper bandit haha)

BTW I'm at the point now where every level up is 30K+ apiece, how the fark do I get that many runes easily? I still farm up at Dragonbarrow, but that only nets 1k per guy, so its becoming diminishing returns. I dont have any of these fantastic AoE weapons I keep seeing people use.

Trayce, I respecked from an INT/Bleed build to a Str/Fth build a while ago. It's good fun to switch things up a bit so you can check out different weapons and spells. I followed the Blasphemous Beastmaster build on Fextralife. It's a different way to play but my god does that blade do a lot of damage

Also, have you been to the chicken farm? You have to do a bit of Varre's quest including getting portaled back to the very start of the game at the Chapel of Anticipation and the grafted Scion who kills you

i beat Rennala :)I haven’t! I shall look that up. I had a flu shot today for the first time and I foresee a sick day ahead as i feel really shite. Games times.

Oops where did that first sentence come from lol

Contentious opinion maybe but first phase aside Renalla is a spectacular boss. Souls games like never had good mage-y bosses (Butterfly, Crystal Sage?) but between Renalla and the Miriam NPC I felt very challenged and impressed

just beat the FINAL BOSS, am now deciding whether to start a new run or tidy up some loose ends (Haligtree for one). Turns out dual-wielding big bleed swords is a pretty good bet!

Congrats to Neil & Trayce on your accomplishments :)

BTW I'm at the point now where every level up is 30K+ apiece, how the fark do I get that many runes easily? I still farm up at Dragonbarrow, but that only nets 1k per guy, so its becoming diminishing returns. I dont have any of these fantastic AoE weapons I keep seeing people use.

At the same point & generally just been exploring/doing dungeons to about 20-25k and then doing a run or two of the warmaster shack giants to get me over the line - it's weapons testing as much as farming, like dual wield a run, switch hands & run again, change enchants and run again…

Slowing down a bit but there's a lot of stuff open to me right now - I'm in the volcano manor dungeon, just entered the royal capital, went down the post-radahn hole in Limgrave and have access to Moghwyn world. god help me I will be playing this thing forever.

I'm following one of those Fextralife builds (slowly leveling up to Blasphemous Herald). In the video, I can see he's dual-wielding swords, but occasionally uses the left hand weapon to buff using an Ash of War before going back to dual wielding. I didn't think this was possible - I thought AOW only worked on the righthand weapon, or am I wrong?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyUaT2g1mlg

Sorry, let's try that again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyUaT2g1mlg

(sorry, cut to 3:30 to see what I mean)

can't look at the video closely at the moment, but if you're dual-wielding and the left-hand weapon has an ash of war that buffs, you can two-hand that left-hand weapon, use the ash, then switch back to dual-wield. can get pretty fast at it with practice.

Oh cool. I'll give it a go when I'm next playing. Now I'm wondering how you dual-wield the left-hand weapon, but I need to give it a go

hold triangle (if you're on PlayStation) and press the L1 bumper to two-hand your left-hand weapon. repeat to go back.

can get a bit tangled up if you also have a staff/seal/bow/shield that you cycle to occasionally as a secondary offhand or mainhand and forget you have it equipped. definitely done that more than a few times.

i like the divine tower of caelid design. it's fun going up the outside and then carefully down the inside.

it feels pretty different because there aren't a ton of environmental challenges in this game (that i have experienced)

@ dog latin, after you spoke highly of this build, I tested it out, it is remarkably strong!

I'd recommend an adjustment to that build... I don't think using Flaming Strike as a buff for your LH weapon is all that necessary. I'd recommend using Bloodhound's Step; you can 2H your LH weapon and zip across a scarlet rot swamp with ease

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsfJ38mQKtM

Important lore update from the estimable Zullie

Yikes

Important lore update from Saint Riot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3Zjbj7Jwes

What the heck was that :|

I have had a satisfyingly succesful weekend of solid playtime, I've beat multiple large bosses for the main and Ranni questlines, including getting into Leyndell proper by cheesing the fucking draconic tree sentinel instead of fighting it, which would never have worked.

(the cheese involved sneaking up behind him and spamming him with the poison mist incantation. It took 10 damn minutes, but IT WORKED)

Haha I killed the Draconic Tree Sentinel the other day and thought "Cool, what's behind this door?" But it turned out it was just another way to get into the Capital. Can't remember how I got there originally, but it wasn't that way

Really!? I went that way cos thats where the walkthrough said to go. I couldnt figure out any other way in - I marched up the stairs to the main big gate thinking me greatrunes would open the door and nothing happened.

And once in, I was amazed to find new enemies I'd somehow never seen images or video of in all this time. Those marshmallow bois with the bubble-trumpets, what the hell! If I'm going to die, thats a way to go out. TOOT.

The other way into Leyndell interior (that is, not past the Draconic Tree Sentinel) is pretty convoluted. You have to progress through the meteorite -> Nokstella -> Valiant Gargoyles route, then pass through Deeproot Depths and dispatch Fia's Companions in order to get the warp into the interior.