Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

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.

Love those little guys.

That video I posted is just a satirical riff about how 80% of the players you run into are using the Rivers of Blood katana, and he's trying to make a samurai build without using it. That's basically what I'm doing, although glintstone pebble is pretty ridiculous too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCxFIV0VAvk

Pvp has been really hit or miss, but I liked this invasion, where the person seemed appreciative that I let them kill the dragon, then wanted to duel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxaqVP2Rs3w

ou have to progress through the meteorite -> Nokstella -> Valiant Gargoyles route

Oh lord, I've been struggling with that area. But I'm in Nokstella for the Ranni questline. Fia straight up disappeared after she killed D and I dont think Ive seen her since?

I got pinned into a corner by those fucking giant marbles, literally couldnt duck/roll out of the way. Some desperate rock sling spamming got me out but that felt like quite a poor design that I could get stuck like that.

Ainsel river Ive only snuck around and fought the Dragonkin Soldier so far. Got to a cliff over the lake of rot and went "fuck this" and left haha.

But if I havent seen Fia should I even bother with it?

Wait, some googling shows me Fia isnt gonna show up again til I beat the valiant gargolyes. Ugh, I havent done that bit yet.

Fia's quest is pretty forgiving, I thought I had bungled it and then did it all in one go once I got to Deeproot Depths.

Those boulders are really silly, I used heavy attacks/charged R2s to keep them at bay. Not sure if it has to be a thrusting attack or not.

Yeah rock sling was the only thing I could stagger/stop them with. I heavily favour glintstone spells and theyre brutally efficient on most things, but not those damn boulders. Or those lava/rock dudes in Ainsel. Golems too I think? And my upclose fighting skill is shit.

Oh and: That's basically what I'm doing, although glintstone pebble is pretty ridiculous too

I use large glintstone shard, which is like a beefed-up glintstone pebble. With a demi-human queen staff +15, it slays. I can 1-2 hit a LOT of enemies.

You don’t need to deal with Gargoyles to complete Fia (provided you go deep in the sewers below Leyndell, cosplay as Shitty Mario, have your heart broken twice and find no less than four illusory walls)

Sitting on the couch talking about the game:
Me: Wolves just fall out of the sky on you, its like a Wolfnado.
Oh and there are goats that will roll away!
Barn: ...they got wheels?

BTW does that heartbreak involve Boc, I dont want to do his bit its too sad.

The rain of wolves is hilarious, I'm surprised that hasn't been the subject of more memes. Does any other enemy just drop from the sky instead of loading in?

Btw Salt & Sacrifice comes out tomorrow, the sequel to the best 2-D Soulslike I've played. I'm a bit burnt out on Elden Ring so I'm excited to switch to that for awhile.

Oh gosh, salt and sacrifice is coming out???


I can’t even think about that until I at least get through volcano manor

you know what's a trip is reading the gormenghast trilogy at the same time that you're playing elden ring. the whole part where steerpike is living on the gormenghast rooftops gave me flashbacks to running around on the roofs of raya lucaria.

Xp I’ve never played that first one but I have apparently downloaded it at some point. I need to dig into that.

suddenly, however, Titus encountered a low level rat. he swung his great claymore+8 and completely missed. he panicked and swung again, and missed by an even greater distance. Titus then reached for his trust clawmark seal, intending to light up the darkness with great swarms of fire breath. but instead he pulled out a bow and zoomed into an empty corner with great intensity. now there were 4 rats and an alerted guard, and Titus was out of stamina. He called for his horse, knowing that he was in town and it was impossible. and then Titus did run away as quickly as he could, with the auto-lock-on continually targeting new rats that had found him and completely messing up his attempts to see where he was running. it was just then that Titus realized he was carrying 84,233 runes and that he was about to die in a place he had never seen, again