@nodima: Yeah, that R2 counter after a block is crazy good, it's a much lower-skill version of a parry. I use it all the time, I always sucked at parrying. Big shields for the win in this game.

The Golden Halberd is nice too, I used that for a while, but obviously does require a lot of STR.

FWIW I don't know how you feel about just going to the dark side and doing some grinding to get some of these stat prereqs for weapons. Personally I find grinding sort of relaxing since I can just do it while I watch a show or listen to a podcast. For relatively early game there's a good farming spot in Caelid (though the actual best farm spot in the game is this one, a little more involved to access it). If you can get Moonveil and then grind out the stats for it (or vice versa), it really makes a difference, it's nice to know that you're investing in one of the really good weapons.

@atheistpreacher: That rolling death machine thing in the underground tunnels is truly the biggest bastard I've encountered in Elden Ring so far. The summon you get though is totally worth it.

@atheistpreacher: This is how I played RPGs all the time as a kid so I'm not opposed to this at all...I'm just also a 33 year old dude that is far more cognizant of how limited time on Earth is and wants to constantly be making progress towards the end of something, lol.

While I've had a real solid past two days of big gains in terms of map exposure and whatnot, I finally noticed the door I was missing to go further into Stormveil, have made some decent progress there but now am really not enjoying the enemy layout or even the paths it seems I have to take to progress, they're all so weirdly specific and tight.

Actually my inspiration for upping this post was to just bop around goofing with all the weapons I've been ignoring and seeing how I feel about 'em but then I stumbled onto that door and off I went on another adventure!

@purpleshyguy: The summon is okay but more importantly in my view is that the Erdtrees Favor is down there which is the only talisman in the game I never swapped out until I got its +1 version much later.

So I have made a few posts on this site about how I was finding Elden Ring's combat, and specifically some of it bosses, to be a little much. And I don't necessarily want to go back on that, but I do want to post and say that I have found this game a lot more fun and more approachable when using faster weapons over stronger ones. This is in direct opposition to how I usually play Souls games and I think it definitely needs to be noted that this game seems specifically designed to fuck over people who spent their time in DS1/2/3 favoring slow, heavy weapons and shields (unless you only ever put time and points into those things), but hey, at least I have started to find the fun in this game. I spent a decent amount of time considering giving up on it and just going to play something else, anything else, but now I'm glad I decided to just try something else.

...I still might not finish it. I find myself riding past everything in the open world at this point to get to where I think the next dungeon is, but hey, at least I usually have fun when I'm in those dungeons. Maybe later on I'll decide to mop up the open world a lot more.

@justin258: This is interesting because this is the game that made me feel the exact opposite, it completely won me over to using Greatswords. Just Jump Heavy attacks over and over.

Agreed. I have typically used Dex builds to roll and poke quickly but in Elden Ring I'm rocking huge slow sword and pumping strength all the way and it has made fights a lot more manageable for me. Especially since those big strength weapons also stagger even larger enemies - like those those giants that pull those carriages? Two charge attacks on the legs and they fall over letting you get a "visceral attack" (I don't remember what they are called in Elden Ring). When I was using my starting Estoc I would be just poking and poking. Now with my curved greatsword I just jump and one hit almost everything.

Awkward attacks just means I gotta be more present and thoughtful in fights. I can't just react. Sometimes it's annoying, mostly when I just wanna get through the fight, but once I stop and look at the patterns and tells and work out a strategy, it's fine.

That Moonveil sword boss was my first real reminder of that. I just summoned players to help me with Margit and Godrick lol, which is its own kind of fun. Try summoning more! They made it super easy to do in this game, it's great.

Little bit of a necro, but I was watching Day[9] beating Margott yesterday and I felt like it was the perfect example of why I think a lot of people would enjoy these game more if they went for blocking rather than dodging.

@ajamafalous: It's interesting cause, as a Bloodborne fan, I felt UTTERLY railroaded in Dark Souls 3 because I WANTED to tank the hell up to try something different from Bloodborne, but anytime I had trouble with a boss, I'd go to a walkthrough and the FIRST THING it'd say would inevitably be: agility-build is practically a must or you're going to have a much harder time. So I always felt like: yes, you HAVE options, it's just that some of them are WRONG. Which is how I largely felt in DS1 and Demon's Souls, which is why I loved Bloodborne: dispense with the endless "technically viable" options in exchange for a few that are all excellent.

I've always felt the variety of weapons/tactics in Souls games is one of their greatest strengths and one of their biggest weaknesses, because it seemingly encourages you to build and spec in one direction, but by limiting respecs and often obscuring them, ensures that you'll be unprepared for several bosses because several bosses' tactics simply hard-counter certain styles of play.

I loved Bloodborne for its focus: you HAD TO accept that you'd need to be dexterous and always on the move, and even armor became more cosmetic than anything else, but that meant the gameplay came to the fore in a way that I don't think the other games have done as well. Though the lore being based in cosmic horror coming at a 2nd act twist certainly didn't hurt, my favorite genre crashing into my favorite twist ("You thought this was one thing, but it's actually something else entirely") means I cannot take anything close to an objective view of Bloodborne, especially from someone else's perspective.

On the other hand, I get it about Elden Ring. There are a NUMBER of times when I try to use the guard-counter only to eat shit because the enemy's follow-up attack is EXACTLY faster than my guard counter animation by a matter of single-digit frames, and the devs seem to have been massively inspired by the mad chaos of Ludwig the Accursed's movements and attacks, but on the other hand: I get it. They want to keep players on their toes, and I just see this as an extension of when they added enemies that would try to crush you if you backstabbed them, because THE tactic in DS1 was: dodge roll behind-backstab.

I don't think the game has found a perfect balance between "aren't we clever?" and balanced play, unfortunately. I was never a big proponent on these games being "ultimately fair," I think that was a talking-point from elitists that got turned into "fact," the games have ALWAYS had impossible to predict ambushes or gimmicky bosses, it's NEVER been "fair." Elden Ring seems to want you to be paying attention all the time, and I respect that aspect of it. It doesn't want you to be able to just "turn your brain off" and do the thing by muscle memory.

Edit: To be clear: when I say I respect it, that doesn't mean I enjoy it. I think, more than wild animations or AOE attacks, more than delays and subverssive attacks: the fact that enemies have combos that don't always complete with NO visual indicator whether they'll continue or even start a new string is the least fair thing in the entire game, from my perspective. And it definitely crosses into "unfair" because it's something you can't react to/predict.

While I'm still very high on the game overall I will say that I have become increasingly annoyed at the delayed hit shenanigans. I accepted it at first with the reasoning of I know you've done this to mess with player expectations and I get it. But that has long faded to I know Why you've done this but that doesn't mean it isn't Shit.

Most of this is because I went back to play Sekiro after my first run of Elden Ring and that game is so thoroughly designed around combat having a precise rhythm and flow that it just puts a terrible spotlight on how most of what enemies do in this game doesn't make any goddamn sense.

That and I think having a giant crayfish raise a claw to attack me and follow through with it 15 seconds later really broke something. You are a goddamn swamp bug how do you go about pulling Mind Games.

The one like this that really grinds my gears is the large crow monster that can be found both in Caelid and (far more dangerously) in that underground blood swamp around Mohg. The thing is, that creature has an unblockable grab, the start of which triggers *seemingly the exact same sound* as when you've staggered an enemy and opened them up for a critical attack. So I hear the sound and sit there waiting for it to fall over so I can stab it in its stupid face, and instead roughly a full three seconds later it grabs and eats me. WTF? And in case it isn't clear, that sound from that enemy has tricked me that way more than once. Also that creature is harder than a lot of bosses.

@undeadpool: On the "ultimately fair", it's weird how completely different view elitists tend to have about the games vs. how the games really are. They think it's about gitting gud, when FromSoft really does love doing all sorts of traps and other shit to purposefully make you paranoid. Even here the discussions about nerfing got really heated and the pro-nerf argument tended to be that the game needs to balanced even for PvE.

Not trying to start shit or call people snobs. Heck, I don't even fault people playing them like that. It's just that FromSoft themselves don't really even try to make "fair games".

I think most of From's tricky bullshit is just purposefully rude but I wouldn't say it makes things unfair. You CAN avoid a lot of what they pull if you are methodical enough but playing like that is boring so you just roll with the punches. I think all of that is mostly fine.

Of course the other end of things where some folks are just like the games are NEVER unfair its all on you is bullshit too. Meticulously manufactured rudeness is a hell of a tightrope and sometimes you just fuck up and go too far.

My shield's definitely doing some of God's work in the fighting. I still felt like I beat Margit because his slot machine gave me the window to do so, mind.

It's why I wish they'd just give up on "invasions" and set up "dueling" systems. Which Elden Ring takes a single step toward, but, doesn't fully commit to. Invasions never struck me as fair or an integral part of the game even BEFORE people started speccing specifically for it.

@efesell: Depends on how you define fair. To be clear, the things about FromSoft games that are "non fair" (not unfair, per se) are not combat related. FromSoft really likes to do what can only be called Kaizo style traps in their games. Stuff that you really can't anticipate, just to fuck with you. Also stuff you can anticipate, like enemies waiting behind every corner and sometimes a one two punch of an enemy waiting behind the corner and then another enemy waiting for the first enemy to attack you and so on. And mimic treasures. FromSoft is pretty open about the fact that they're trying to replicate old school crpgs / dungeon crawlers, they don't give a shit about being fair or you cheesing shit, it's part of the experience. It's about rewarding "System Mastery".

As for combat, I think the main thing that's kinda not fair is the bosses doing an instakill attack when switching phases. At this point most people anticipate them, but the joke's gotten old and it's still cheap. I do agree with you about the constant feinting from every enemy. I get that it's to make the attacks less readable to make things harder, but being less readable is also less fun. I don't enjoy having to learn the attack patterns of every bigger enemy just because they've made it so you can't instinctively know them. It's just tedious.

Sekiro really was the game that felt like it was trying to be that game about gitting gud and just precise inputs and so on. Which is partially the reason why it was kind of divisive (at least in the circles I'm in).

The thing with the traps is you can anticipate them thanks to player messages.

I've just ran into a Runebear that appears to have gained an instakill charge. Chances are that was always in the moveset but I had the numbers to survive it. That's when player messages kind of flip. They tell you a big beast is coming but, hey, I fought Runebears before ....

Playing Stranger of Paradise really made me dislike Elden Ring combat all the more. Both games are centered around dodging and parrying, but one game makes you do a hokey pokey whenever you want to respec, has a ton of enemies that employ ridiculous attack patterns because they're mind gaming fans, and hides weapons and classes behind obscure side quests. The other game just... doesn't. The things each game asks you to master aren't that different, but one game wants to be 100+ hours long and kinda hates you for playing it and the other wants to be 20 hours long and wants you to have fun.

I think my biggest gripe with the combat is the slow but ridiculously powerful attacks that the game constantly resorts to. It makes for a lot of fights that feel surprisingly easy until you have that _one_ slip up that results in a one-shot kill. It’s ultimately more of an annoyance than anything else.

My other gripe with the game is that the enemy rune drop balance feels totally broken. There are some really tough enemies that drop peanuts and I find myself just rerunning through the same low level areas or going to Bestial Sanctum where those little enemies drop _too_ many runes if I’m being honest.

@big_denim: The rune drops have also annoyed me. I'm still only around 60 hours in. Radahn was the last major boss I fought. I'm level 70. I finally made my way over to the tower of liurnia and things in Liurnia proper were more than manageable at this point. Then I run into my first Godskin Noble on the bridge. I've seen this enemy in videos before of the godskin duo. I thought "hey a prep fight, cool." What the actual fuck? Dude has more health than any boss I've fought and I'm barely tickeling him, and he hits like a freight train. Now to bring this back around to your point I decided to look up the fextra wiki to see how many souls he drops. A whopping 3k. Excuse me? I'm outta here. Not only is the Godskin noble OP as fuck but that kinda paltry drop is just insulting considering the fodder you can kill in the fraction of the time that fight would take you and amass 3x that.

I still feel like this game has balance problems and the summons only solve some of that but also I haven't got near the satisfaction from my wins in Elden Ring as previous games.

@big_denim: Nothing in that region of Caelid where the sanctum is makes any sense regarding rune drops. There are bosses that drop like 90k and they’re tough enemies sure but they’re not Endgame strong.

Yeah, all the farming spots available to me at the moment are like, "You can get 6000 runes from this encounter."

I know this game gets compared to Dark Souls 2 but .... Dark Souls 2 fucking loved to give you souls.

Ah, that's what I was gonna say: Bosses on the overworld running you into more trouble with mobs and shit. If you're clever, you can get an extra flask charge out of them but it's not worth the risk of being killed, to me.

I ended up doing very little grinding. The curve seems pretty appropriate overall if you vaguely follow story or quest lines.

Wasn’t until very late game where I just used the bigger farm spots to equip random high stat things for the hell of it.

Bumping this thread because it's the most recent Elden Ring one where this sort of fits.

I don't imagine that many will care about such minutiae, but another patch just dropped (1.04) that fixed some bugs and makes a bunch of balance changes. Here's the full patch notes, but I thought I'd just mention a few highlights that caught my eye.

• One bug that has apparently been fixed is that when entering the fight against Rennala in multiplayer, it often became unbeatable, because the mechanic that allowed you to bring down her shield never appeared, so she was just invincible. Nor did the summoned player leaving help things. The host just had to wipe and hope it didn't happen again next time. I never would have known about this if I hadn't started playing through the whole game again with a friend on-mic. About two-thirds of the time it bugged out on us like this.

• I had pointed out previously that pairing a fully upgraded Fingerprint Stone Shield with the Greatshield Talisman meant that blocking cost zero stamina, which just seemed like it couldn't possibly have been intended behavior. And indeed, with this patch there is no more infinite block with that combination, though the FSS is still plenty good. A sensible nerf IMO. Seems like maybe they made the Greatshield Talisman percentage-based instead of a fixed value, or else put a cap on total possible Guard Boost.
  
  
• I am entertained by the fact that they have in general buffed a lot of sorceries, incantations, and weapon skills, usually by decreasing the FP cost, increasing the cast speed, and decreasing the recovery time. In the case of dedicated sorceries and incantations I think this was warranted; they often seemed to be eclipsed by weapon skills and not really worth the investment by comparison. On the other side, wow, some of these weapon skills did not need to be made better. Both the Bolt of Gransax (Ancient Lightning Spear) and Sacred Relic Sword (Wave of Gold) had skills that I was merrily abusing already, and now both of them cost less FP and have faster animations. Uhhh, sure. Why not?

One wonders if they are mostly done with the balance adjustments at this point. I guess we'll see. Personally I'd like to see them make status effects less effective in PvP so I see invaders with something other than a dual wield of Rivers of Blood and an ice katana.

A little surprised to not see any balancing towards Bleed.

I have started using some of the bleed builds that everyone hates and it's just bullying 90% of the game honestly.

I'm really not a big fan of the fact that certain bosses favour particular build or playstyle over all others. More so than any of the previous soulsborne games. I guess the intent is that players with different builds may hit different walls at different times, so that they can go wander around and explore the world in different order, until they're overleveled enough to power through the older encounters that used to give em trouble.

Anyway, after a couple of encounters that made me realize that the gear matters way more than skill, the magic is completely gone for me. There's a seed of doubt now whenever I run into a wall, it's because I chose the wrong build unluckily and blame the game for artificially gating me. There's absolutely no joy in beating the bosses anymore. I'm not sure if I'm going to get back to the game.

@goosemunch: I don’t think there’s a lot of content that specifically favors builds. There are just a few builds, namely bleed, that are universally good against most of the content. To a point that seems like a bit of an oversight.

But I have two runs now of big ultra greatsword jumping into everyone and tiny little guy trying to parry everyone with neither ever really seeming like I’ve hit a wall that demanded a different build.

@efesell: Hrmm, maybe you're just too good at this game. I mean, people do "soul level 1 run" of these games, so every build may be viable if you're good enough at it, but for people who suck like me, they might as well be an invisible wall.

In my experience, some bosses are either impossible or trivial depending on gear, but with limited re-spec opportunities, there's not much point to experimentation (which indeed forces me to go elsewhere and level up more until I can tank through with inefficient build and be grumpy about it). I remember one miniboss in particular I was stuck for 3 days, looked up tips online, which led to equipping a different shield, which allowed me to beat it on the very next try.

Okay, I'm at my wits end. I currently have three bosses I can face:

• One is in a small room and he has a lot of reach.
• One is a boss that has attack strings that regularly hit past half a dozen strikes.
• One boss has a run back which really should have a Stake of Marika nearby, at the very least.

I genuinely hate the second one because I can't seem to find a safe window. Well, I've found a couple but that means I have to survive the slot machine long enough for it to hand me a shot.

The tiny room boss just rules me out of getting anywhere. Y'know the ball bearing blokes? How about a bigger one without the open world to get your distance? How does a company double-back on the 'Okay, we can't do Capra Demon again' and pull it at least twice in Elden Ring?

Maybe magic was the way to go? My FP's so low I can't even summon and I'll get more damage from spamming my L2 art.

Maybe I'm just way too early for these fights but the damage seems alright.

@shindig: A good low investment summon for situations like that is the humble Jellyfish. It's surprisingly tanky and great at drawing attention so you can get a lot of openings while the boss takes a few moments to kill it.

I do think that there was broad consensus not just that bleed is fairly OP, but that the large weapons--apart from jump attacks--just weren't very good, too slow and unsafe. Which is why I was happy to see these notes for this patch that I didn't mention:

• Increased Colossal Swords/Colossal weapons attack speed and lowered their recovery time. Jump attack not included.
• Increased the two-handed attack damage of Colossal Swords/Colossal Weapons. Jump attack not included.

But yeah, I would tend to agree that some builds are easier than others. Though one could argue that it's good for the game to have bosses that are challenging for different types of builds and push the player to make adjustments. Not a big problem if you're like me and don't mind just spending a goodly amount of time grinding out runes, but a bummer if you find grinding tedious.

I consider myself a medium-skill player and I relied heavily on Spirit Ashes to help draw aggro. They can truly make all the difference between winning and losing. Even the starting wolves aren't terrible if you've leveled them sufficiently. You may do more damage with your L2 art, but I can promise you you'll be better off by starting with the summon, then replenishing your FP with a flask, and then going to town. For the "small room" boss with a lot of reach it's probably particularly important to have something else in there for the boss to target so you have a chance to heal when needed.

I have no idea how far you are, and they're a somewhat late-game (or at least mid-game) acquisition, but I will continue to preach the gospel of the Greatshield Soldier ashes, they are amazing, the best spirit ashes for drawing aggro in the whole game. You get them at the beginning of an area that's only accessible after beating Radahn.

After upgrading a summon, my shield and changing up the Wondrous flask, I've got past the Capital. That agro makes it almost too easy but I'm not complaining.

@shindig: Very curious to see how you react to the rest of this game because you're reaching the point where I thought "they've both ran out of fun ideas and decided I've got 40 more hours to spend in this world". I've had some fun using a guide to double back on quests I forgot I was making progress in during this part of the game but I'm still really, really disinterested in progressing further and the big fight sets have been a major reason why. I said this somewhere else in one of the many Elden Ring threads but I really felt like the capital was a logical end point. I even look at it fondly when I load the game and scan the map looking for things I might not have done yet.

Yeah, I'm in the home stretch now and feel the same way. Much like how Dark Souls kind of sputters out after getting the Lordvessel. There is probably a way players could pace themselves through The Lands Between and make it flow better but it's very 'The ending isn't home right now. Come back later' in the latter third.

@shindig: it’s a weird progression for sure. The way the late game is obviously imbalanced doesn’t help ease you through it either. If you take your time and do every cave and explore every area thoroughly like I did then you end up being extremely over leveled by the time you reach the capitol. So then the stark contrast of how hard things hit after you move beyond it is staggering - quite literally most of the time. After beating the game I decided to try and help some people beat the final boss and out of nearly 30 attempts not once was I successful. With two summoned players the boss health bars get so incredibly bloated that it seems like the game is actively forcing you to beat it solo.

I kind of enjoy how much damage gets thrown at you after the capital because a lot of it (though not all) is hitting people who are like 20 vigor and 80 in a damage stat and are clearly not actually prepared to live that life.

Yeah, it's why I graduated more towards summons after the Capitol. My build looks fine on paper. I've got 50 in 40-odd in Dex and 30 something in strength. All my flasks are maxed. I'm wearing heavy armour and poised right up. It should be enough but the sheer size of the final boss' bar means I'm using a mimic tear to speed that process up. Plus, being the sole focus of a boss' attention means you're in for those long hit strings that From really loves.

Now reached an awesome point in the game where people are leaving useless messages in the exact spot where i cant get the "use" prompt to appear on the level i need to pull to get down in the Capital from the great bridge SoG. And im never going to remember to turn off online before booting into the game. So i might have seen all im going to see

@cornfed40: You should be able to just toggle the game to play offline, and it'll stay that way.

I'm just into the late game now and holy(heh) hell do I feel punished for running a faith/arcane build. Every boss is resistant to holy and bleed, my 2 main sources of damage--minus the split damage of the winged scythe. I can rely on some spells but now everything I've consulted says "just use blasphemous blade." Kinda seems like From was intent on folks having to rebuild if they went my route. Here I am trying to get away from my normal melee build and now I'm not certain I have any other choice than to upgrade one weapon for shitty reasons or completely overhaul my character for the remainder of the bosses, most of which are all resistant to a single type of build. Not very good design imo. Why not mix it up a bit and trip up more builds? I'm guessing these builds we're popular in previous games.

There's an option in the menu for starting the game in offline mode so you don't have to remember it.

I've seen posts from you talking about having great success with greatswords and I have to ask exactly what your build is and how you're approaching bosses? Because I'm level 117, I have 44 Vigor, 43 Endurance, 43 Strength, and a little bit in some other things. In Dark Souls 1, 2, or 3, that would be a nearly broken endgame strength build, but instead I met some kind of death bird in the Mountaintops of the Giants that could just absolutely wreck my health bar if my dodges weren't damn near perfect. Opportunities to hit felt very slim and I felt like I wasn't doing anywhere near appropriate damage with +9 Starscourge Greatswords. This has largely been the story in this whole area and, frankly, I'm fucking tired of dumping points into Vigor when I'd really like to put more points into Faith or something other than strength.

This isn't to say that I dislike Elden Ring, but I have long since given up on getting the challenge out of it that I wanted. The majority of bosses in this game have either felt near impossible or stupidly easy depending on if I'm trying to play the way I usually played DS1, 2, and 3 (usually melee focused, offline all the time, rarely if ever using items) or if I'm casting a handful of faith-based buffs and summoning a mimic tear. If the former, the game seems designed around severely punishing me for the way I've always played these games; if the latter, every boss becomes a complete joke.

@justin258: My greatsword build was like 50 vigor, enough of whatever sub stats are needed to use the Dark Moon Greatsword and everything after that going into INT for damage. I rarely level Endurance because it seems to me that's a stat for long attack combos and I'm just Jump Attacking 90% of the time. For what it's worth I used the Mimic Tear a lot with this build and it was pre-patch when it was a little bit more powerful than it is now.

My second character has been Raw Arcane with dual Blood twinblades and that build just styles on 90% of the whole game. Although I am going to have to get creative when I get back to it for the final bosses..

I've been taking my sweet time with Elden Ring. I just hit Malenia for the first time this week. What an unfun boss fight, that could actually be excellent if she wasn't straight out of Sekiro(ironically my fav From game). Hits like a truck, gets health back even when you block, has multiple "I win" moves, and it gets significantly worse in phase 2. Even with my Mimic I get stomped all over. And what's funny is that when I look up strategies its all things that have been nerfed at this point and people going "glad I beat her before the patch" or very specific builds that cheese the fuck out of her. Then you're left with the git gud crowd that will spend hours on hours learning that moveset to solo her in a no hit run. There is hardly a middle ground. Not to mention the RNG of "will she just spam the I win moves?". If she only had the Waterfowl dance in phase 1 maybe I could forgive it. I'll probably just cheese this fight in the end because I feel no satisfaction from her design.

I was also excited about getting to the Haligtree. And now I hate that place. Its just mobs of superpowered enemies you've fought before. Like that whole alleyway consisting of several Grafted Scions. Get me dafuq outta here.