Elden Ring

This is where you can deliberate anything relating to videogames - past, present and future
User avatar
Jon Cheetham
Member
Posts: 524
Joined: October 29th, 2019, 12:49 pm
Location: Singapore
Contact:

Re: Elden Ring

Post by Jon Cheetham »

Yep it’s our old friends the basilisks. Was very happy/ mortified to see them again.

I agree Leyndell is absolutely astonishing. After Yharnam it’s the best chunk of city they’ve ever done, I think.
User avatar
Rhaegyr
Member
Posts: 258
Joined: July 29th, 2019, 2:47 pm

Re: Elden Ring

Post by Rhaegyr »

Hah, don't worry - it's the Basilisks I'm talking about.

The area is covered in them - I jumped on Torrent and darted through, sod that!
User avatar
Feirsteax
Member
Posts: 280
Joined: September 11th, 2013, 4:18 pm
Location: Belfast

Re: Elden Ring

Post by Feirsteax »

I can't imagine the mind melt it must be finding (Leyndell / lategame area spoilers below)
Spoiler: show
Deeproot Depths for the first time by going down to the Subterranean Shunning Grounds, through the hidden passage to Frenzied Flame Prescription, and then through two further illusory walls.
Must be like "does this place ever end!?" hahaha.

For me, I got down there via a totally different path,
Spoiler: show
I think a bunch of coffin journeys brought me there from Ainsel River. I was still amazed when I found the illusory wall to get there,
but I was slightly less blown away when I realised it was just an alternate path to a place I'd already been.
User avatar
Feirsteax
Member
Posts: 280
Joined: September 11th, 2013, 4:18 pm
Location: Belfast

Re: Elden Ring

Post by Feirsteax »

Past few nights I've been speeding through New Game+, I want to try and get an alternate ending. In the space of 10 hours ish I have got right up to the final boss. It's amazing how much quicker your second playthrough of a soulsborne game can be when you're familiar with the path you want to take / have all your gear / know what to expect from the bosses and things. It's been a lot of fun!
User avatar
Rhaegyr
Member
Posts: 258
Joined: July 29th, 2019, 2:47 pm

Re: Elden Ring

Post by Rhaegyr »

Feirsteax wrote: April 13th, 2022, 2:20 pm I can't imagine the mind melt it must be finding (Leyndell / lategame area spoilers below)
Spoiler: show
Deeproot Depths for the first time by going down to the Subterranean Shunning Grounds, through the hidden passage to Frenzied Flame Prescription, and then through two further illusory walls.
Must be like "does this place ever end!?" hahaha.

For me, I got down there via a totally different path,
Spoiler: show
I think a bunch of coffin journeys brought me there from Ainsel River. I was still amazed when I found the illusory wall to get there,
but I was slightly less blown away when I realised it was just an alternate path to a place I'd already been.
Honestly, after defeating
Spoiler: show
Mohg in the Shunning Grounds
I thought "yes, amazing area but I'm so glad to be done with it!".

Then when I got flamed up and saw the chest (with signs pointing to another illusory wall) and opened it up and saw the scale of it I thought "oh for fucks sake" in the best possible way. My nerves were shot by that point and when I saw the
Spoiler: show
flying ants
I just couldn't take it anymore. Or I thought I couldn't and then ended up doing the whole area!

Such a superb sequence of areas and enemies: it's really rekindled (sorry) my love of this game after getting a little burned out.
User avatar
Cornelius_Smiff
Member
Posts: 126
Joined: February 15th, 2018, 3:21 pm

Re: Elden Ring

Post by Cornelius_Smiff »

And with that 140hours later, I have "beaten" the game.

I feel very sad somehow that it's over, it has been probably the best gaming experience of my life (Mountaintop aside) and the journey taken has made it all the more satisfying. I stumbled, I raged, I swore to high heavens but it was always leading me to a point of very giddy satisfaction.

I will never have this first play through ever again, I will never see the game as a weary eyed noob again. Somehow that makes me sad. But as they say, don't cry because it's over but rather smile because it happened.

What a masterpiece! Thank you FromSoft.
User avatar
Alex79
Member
Posts: 8423
Joined: September 2nd, 2012, 12:36 pm
Location: Walsall, UK.
Contact:

Re: Elden Ring

Post by Alex79 »

General update...

I stopped playing so much a couple of weeks ago as I'd got stuck on Radahn and was getting frustrated, so I finally looked at a guide and saw he was weak to scarlet rot, so smothered that all over my sword and he went down first time!

After the fight Blaidd suggested visiting Nokron Eternal City so I made my way down the crater and have been exploring there. Not run in to Blaidd down there yet, though. Not sure where he's gone now. I have fought a couple of bosses down there though - the Mimic Tear was a fun surprise, and I took on the second giant stag boss too. Just making my way through Nokron now, and I'm looking for an item I need to give to Ranni I think.

I had a good look round Caelid before I left there, too. My least favourite area of the game so far, but that was quickly forgotten being down in the gorgeous underground area again (I'd already been down there once and cleared it out earlier in the game, but a slightly different part).

I was waning a little before last night but that session really pepped me up again and I'm keen to get back on tonight now!
User avatar
Feirsteax
Member
Posts: 280
Joined: September 11th, 2013, 4:18 pm
Location: Belfast

Re: Elden Ring

Post by Feirsteax »

I'm hitting 300 hours now, done two playthroughs on one character and I've just started a new one as well. Going to do a strength based character using the Wretch starting class.

I have lots of other games to play, but I keep coming back to play a bit of Elden Ring. When I first hit that secret boss that everyone is talking about (the extremely difficult one), I thought it was impossible. I did everything I could to beat it, summoning in two other players and respeccing my build to suit the fight. After it was finally done, I thought I'd never go back to it, but it's become one of my most replayed co-op fights now. I'm a bit addicted to plopping down my summon sign there and helping other players who are in that position I once was in.

I'm amazed now that this boss who seemed to me completely insurmountable many many hours ago, is now completely known to me. I know exactly what to do and how to counteract the attacks. I don't have it down perfectly, I don't think I ever will and the quick flurry attack will still occasionally murder me, but it's such a great feeling going into another players world who's struggling and showing them that the boss is manageable once you know what to do.

That's just one tiny part of why I'm loving this game. I've beat it twice and I still can't stop playing. Madness!
User avatar
markfm007
Member
Posts: 193
Joined: September 18th, 2016, 9:35 pm

Re: Elden Ring

Post by markfm007 »

Jumped back in recently and made some decent progress. I'm enjoying playing this game sort of hot and cold, off and on, where I'll dive into it for some extended play sessions, then take a break. I'm also trying to speed up my playthrough a bit, focusing on certain aspects of it rather than trying to find and do everything as I did in the first three areas. Just seems more enjoyable to leave things for future playthroughs rather than cramming it all into one.
Spoiler: show
- Made a whistle stop tour through Caelid to grab the lift medallion from Fort Faroth. Also came back later and beat Radahn with the summons. He's pretty easy if you do it this way, and it makes for a fun showdown. I would like to try and beat him solo at some point.
- Made it to Nokron and advanced Ranni's quest. I've really enjoyed following this quest line. Brilliant moment fighting the Mimic where I got him to low health, he attempted to use bleed damage and finished himself off.
- Had a nice good of Altus Plataeu, gorgeous area. Beat a couple small bosses and the Dragon Tree Sentinel guarding the castle. Might be the hardest boss I've fought yet, great fight though.
- I also made it to the Volcano Manor after being invited by an NPC I helped out, but I'm going to leave that area for now.
User avatar
Cornelius_Smiff
Member
Posts: 126
Joined: February 15th, 2018, 3:21 pm

Re: Elden Ring

Post by Cornelius_Smiff »

So 200 hours in and I am one achievement away from getting the platinum (frenzied flame ending). I finished my NG+ earlier today to get all the others and now doing a quick speed run through to finish one final time with the flame ending. I am amazing at how quickly you can burn through the main story. I dare say I am tempted to started non-glitch speed running this baby to see how fast I can get it down.

Weirdly still in love with this game even after all this time. Also came up with a brilliant Malenia strategy.
User avatar
Feirsteax
Member
Posts: 280
Joined: September 11th, 2013, 4:18 pm
Location: Belfast

Re: Elden Ring

Post by Feirsteax »

I too am just one achievement away from 100%ing it, frenzied flame as well.

I'm doing a strength build playthrough to get that, and also to see some quests through that I never got to first couple of times round, any ones I missed I'm looking up guides to make sure I'm getting them. Love the Patches questline, it's great how he's portrayed in this one.

My current runthrough I'm using the brick hammer for melee, occasionally switching to a lance infused with Ice Spear for mid-close range attacks. It's working extremely well. Brick hammer is a poise-breaking machine, even the biggest enemies go down so quickly.

What was your Malenia strategy? So far I've done dual greatswords and night sorceries and another time I used dual curved swords with frost and bleed. Both strategies were great but I think I preferred curved swords because of the sheer amount of damage you can rack up in such a short space of time with the right talismans (rotten winged sword insignia).
User avatar
Cornelius_Smiff
Member
Posts: 126
Joined: February 15th, 2018, 3:21 pm

Re: Elden Ring

Post by Cornelius_Smiff »

Got the achievement this morning to 100%, which is something I've never done in a game really to be honest. Incredibly happy.

So for Malenia. In my playthroughs I have tried a few builds and reverted back to a faith scaling build for that particular run.

So she has a fire weakness and I went in with the following setup:
Blasphemous Blade my main weapon (with takes Flame skill which heals for a 10% of Max Hp + 150hp flat if it hits).
Elden Heal
Agheel's Flame (Dragon Incant)
Flame of the Fell God (This is crucial to the strategy)
Spirit Summon: Black Knife Tische

By happenstance as you summon Tische into the fight, she may or may not get a blood fire attack projectile off into Malenia's face as she advances towards you which takes a nice chunk off.. If you dont rush and kite her into the entrance area you can sort of get her bottlenecked here.

Malenia can be staggered pretty easily and her poise isnt the best, which is often ofset by her fantastic movement so you cannot always exploit it. In this case however you can negate it somewhat.

Let Tische get aggro, then pop off the Fell God Flame which slowly meanders towards the boss before exploding. Whilst you are waiting for the ball to explode you can get a few attempts in of the Blasphemous blade's weapon skill which sends a nice fire attack across the floor, sometimes she dodges sometimes not, but theres a chance it will stagger her. What's great here is that Tische may also stagger her prior to this and if the fell god attack hits properly it will almost certainly stagger her, so you can basically setup a chain of this spell along with the blade skill as well as Tische wailing on her. So always have a fell god flame up as often as you can and do the forementioned in between. Essentially, there's a very tiny window in which she can react between attacks.

Second phase is more interesting. She always starts with that flower attack, dodge this and get as far away as you can. In this you get a window of maybe around 3 seconds, to either cast agheel's flame or some of the Blasphemoous blade skill again (I have a wonderous physick that negates all FP usage as well which I pop here, but any that boost fire damage will be useful too).

Let Tische take the aggro mostly, but be prepared to top her off with some heals.. rinse and repeat once the flower attack comes in again and try and hit the blade skill as often as you can.
User avatar
Feirsteax
Member
Posts: 280
Joined: September 11th, 2013, 4:18 pm
Location: Belfast

Re: Elden Ring

Post by Feirsteax »

Nice! Sounds like a good plan. I've never tried any of the Faith or Dragon incantations but they look extremely cool. I think at this point my character is going full Strength so won't be able to do much, but potentially in a NG+ I can try them for fun when I have more levels to spare.
User avatar
Jon Cheetham
Member
Posts: 524
Joined: October 29th, 2019, 12:49 pm
Location: Singapore
Contact:

Re: Elden Ring

Post by Jon Cheetham »

I got the platinum for this back on the 8th of May.

What I love about it is the variety you have even within one build to have lots of different approaches and loadouts. So my first endgame character was built around the Blasphemous Blade and using a lot of Black Flame and Dragon Communion incants, kind of a pyroblade if such a variation on a spellblade exists.

Then NG+ I put some points in Arcane and went through as a sort of blood cleric with Mohg's sacred spear, the weapon art on which just absolutely ruins bosses including Malenia. Swarm of Flies and Bloodboon incants are crazy and Bloodboon clears out mobs so fast. Used a lot of Frenzied incants as well as I was RPing a bit on my way to the Frenzied Flame ending.

Went for the final trophy ending as a holy avenger, using Marika's hammer to slam down on everything like a Marvel superhero, then upgraded the Envoy's Longhorn and killed everything in the endgame with showers of bubbles. Fire Giant went down very quickly with this weapon, it's amazing.

That's all just as a faith build. The replay value and build variety on offer is just astonishing. I've yet to start a brand new character but when I come back round to the game I would love to mess around with Intelligence more.
User avatar
Feirsteax
Member
Posts: 280
Joined: September 11th, 2013, 4:18 pm
Location: Belfast

Re: Elden Ring

Post by Feirsteax »

Envoy's Longhorn looks really fun. And I agree with everything you said Jon, build variety is shockingly good.
User avatar
Jon Cheetham
Member
Posts: 524
Joined: October 29th, 2019, 12:49 pm
Location: Singapore
Contact:

Re: Elden Ring

Post by Jon Cheetham »

Feirsteax wrote: May 19th, 2022, 10:04 am Envoy's Longhorn looks really fun. And I agree with everything you said Jon, build variety is shockingly good.
So much fun. Going to go and get revenge on Placidusax with it next time I return to Elden Ring, apparently the bubbles wreck him!
User avatar
Cornelius_Smiff
Member
Posts: 126
Joined: February 15th, 2018, 3:21 pm

Re: Elden Ring

Post by Cornelius_Smiff »

Feirsteax wrote: May 18th, 2022, 12:18 pm Nice! Sounds like a good plan. I've never tried any of the Faith or Dragon incantations but they look extremely cool. I think at this point my character is going full Strength so won't be able to do much, but potentially in a NG+ I can try them for fun when I have more levels to spare.

I would advise anyone to have at least a few dragon incants. Rotten Breath and Ekzykes's Decay (just a stronger version of the former) being essential in my eyes. Scarlet Rot is easily one of the most OP debuffs you can get onto an enemy especially bosses. Either of these are beasts, a few blasts and it ticks for some heavy damage.

Weirdly I reverted back to Rotten breath because it has a slightly shorter animation time and you dont rise up of the ground to cast, which I found was a issue with the decay and I was getting hit with some very big attacks usually at the end of the cast.
User avatar
Alex79
Member
Posts: 8423
Joined: September 2nd, 2012, 12:36 pm
Location: Walsall, UK.
Contact:

Re: Elden Ring

Post by Alex79 »

I came back to this last night after at least a month away from it, and don't have a clue where I'm going. Is anyone able to give me a nudge in the right direction?

I seem to have two threads open at the moment.

1. Down in the Lake Of Rot. I've activated some switches and can see some raised platforms now - are they reachable somehow? Think I've done three of them. I did hoof it through the lake to a building on the other side, where eventually it led to an dead end where some shrimp people appeared to be worshipping something. But I couldn't find anything else down there, or a route through to anywhere else.

2. I'm making my way up the Ruin Strewn Precipice. I seem to be climbing up high and I'm guessing I'll end up at the Altus Plateau, but I'd thought there was a grand lift to get up there which I seem to have totally missed (I've got one half of the medallion, not sure where the other half is!)

So I'm not really sure where I should be heading now - carry on up to the Plateau, or...? The reason I ended up down in the Lake of Rot was I was trying to follow Blaidd's story and he said to meet up at some underground city but I couldn't find him when I got there.

I guess I ought to stop thinking and just carrying on exploring, but I don't like feeling as though I've missed something! I've totally rinsed Limgrave, Liurnia and Caelid by the way, so definitely need to be heading somewhere new.

EDIT: I've heard tales of a Volcano Manor too, but not found it yet. It's not anywhere I've been already and missed it, is it?
User avatar
Cornelius_Smiff
Member
Posts: 126
Joined: February 15th, 2018, 3:21 pm

Re: Elden Ring

Post by Cornelius_Smiff »

Alex, Hope this helps.

1: Yes you can get onto the raised platforms. After you cross the lake and get onto the main safe bit again, if you hug the wall and run left (youll have to run through the rot) you'll come across a sloped hill bit. However, there is an easier way. Near to where you were raising the platforms on the various mini islands, you should see a few mini other islands, one of them will also have a buton to stand on and the correct one should raise that platform up as you are standing on, which gives access.

2: Not sure which halves you have so here: One is in Fort Haight in Southeast Limgrave, just down past where the giant bears are and through the forest. The other is at Fort Faroth in Caelid just behind where that giant sleeping/immobile dragon is.

Are you doing Ranni's questline? I am guessing so since you are at the Lake of Rot. If he said he would meet you at a city and is not there, it's possibly Nokstella where you get the fingerslayer blade for Ranni, but again it sounds like you have done this already. Theres also part of his own quest where hes trapped in Forlorn Hound Evergaoll where you can release him. If you have released him already then you won't seem him again until after you complete Ranni's questline and return to her rise.

If you at are the place where the shrimps are worshipping just after the lake of rot, head left here and interact with the stone coffins, this will bring you to another area to face 'Astel, Naturalborn of the Void' who is required to progress Rann's questline further. You also get access to the Moonlight Altar from here which has some great stuff.

Altus Plateu is the next logical step if you are not clearing up questlines. Volcano Manor which is in Mount Gelmir is accessible from Altus, so fortunately you have not missed it and its really worth a visit.
User avatar
Alex79
Member
Posts: 8423
Joined: September 2nd, 2012, 12:36 pm
Location: Walsall, UK.
Contact:

Re: Elden Ring

Post by Alex79 »

Ah that's great thanks :) Hmm, I actually think I do have both halves of the lift medallion then as I've been to both those places! I'm going to head back down to the lake of rot and find that secret place. Thanks!
Post Reply