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Elden Ring: Breath of the From Software

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07 May 2022 00:27 #332874 by Disgustipater

Gary Sax wrote: I ended up beating him by summoning a guy who had that laser beam spell (comet azur?). We actually dropped so much DPS on him during his super bleed spell at the halfway point he died before he could even grow wings or start his second phase. That spell is fucking sick.

The exact same thing just happened to me. I was chugging my physik flask to get rid of the blood spell, not paying too close attention, and all of a sudden I see his health bar is almost empty and dropping fast. Thank you mysterious sorcerer.
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16 May 2022 03:02 - 16 May 2022 03:21 #333067 by Frohike
After the gimmick Rykard fight (funny and spectacular), the game really started testing me but I’m stubborn! I beat Niall after taking a detour to get the recipe for the Bewitching Branch, which was a game changer for this fight. Using this on his minions along with the Mimic made things *much* more straightforward.

Astel version 2 was a tougher solo fight than expected but a few tries eventually did it. I can’t use his cool meteor spell for this playthrough, but… maybe something for NG+?

The Liturgical town of annoying archers & invisible assassins is a place I hope to never visit again, but I got through it.

In making my way to Mohgwyn Palace I found that rune farming spot on the outskirts, with the sleeping Albinaurics. I hope they never patch the 2k runes per kill here. It feels earned at this point in the game, and spec’ing a bit into Rahdan’s blades made this extremely lucrative (40-45k per 3 minute run). It’s a nice fallback when runes are light but weapons/summons need grinding. It also makes the occasional 50-70k rune loss feel like less of a gut punch.

The Mohg fight was pretty exasperating, even with the Purifying Crystal Tear, so I summoned a couple of helpers, one of whom had the shackles that I’d somehow missed while running in a panic from the lobsters in the capital sewers. They also had a full bleed build, and we made short work of Mohg. He barely made it into his second phase.

I’d been doing all of this to delay the inevitable… the damn Godskin Duo fight. So many different approaches, summons, weapons, attempts at rot, etc. I finally (after roughly 2 hours of failed attempts) settled on getting my dual Halos to +9, equipping a Holy buff in my Physick, capping out the Mimic, and using an incantation buff talisman for my dragon rot. I kept enough distance to spam the weapon art (Miquella’s Ring of Light) as much as possible while keeping rot on them and moving in for the Jump+L1 dual weapon attack I’ve been using for a huge chunk of the game now. They finally went down… sweet relief.

My son has been coaching me through a lot of this, which I’m appreciating more keenly as he’s readying to leave for Japan for the next 4 years.

The past couple of years were a major challenge for him, and for the family as we supported him through a disturbing onset of clinical depression (it had been building for awhile and the pandemic finally lit the fuse). This had shut down a lot of our chances at staying connected as he drifted into weird sleep patterns and closed himself off in different ways. As someone in perpetual recovery from depression, it’s been difficult for me to abstain from blaming myself in myriad ways, a battle I’ll probably be fighting for awhile. Finding some means of connection as he’s emerged from the depths has been a blessing. Games are our most common conversation topic during our day walks, and part of this “toughing it out” approach to this particular game has felt therapeutic in a way, for both of us.

I know he’s ready to move on, though. I felt the same restless need for a change of scene at this age, and part of me had probably also hoped to escape some of the (as of then undiagnosed) problems that would follow me through my adult life. I have a few more months with him before he ventures out, and I’m happy to spend part of this time in this peculiar shared space, Sisyphean and obscure to the rest of the family, and bittersweet as I approach its ending. The Erdtree is burning brightly.
Last edit: 16 May 2022 03:21 by Frohike.
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16 May 2022 07:17 #333068 by Gary Sax
I feel you, games can do that so well. My dad is fine, just very old, and I miss talking to him about PC strategy games. Now the only thing he wants to talk about with me if he has a choice is the past, cycling and recycling his memories over and over. I miss talking about shared interests and games did that for us.
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28 May 2022 02:47 - 30 May 2022 17:16 #333325 by Frohike
Hmm… Malenia was a thing. I respec’ed a couple of times but nothing felt quite right, even with Moonveil, Rivers of Blood, etc, so I summoned help and, predictably, the fight was over within a few seconds of her second phase. I actually didn’t enjoy that, nor the two failed attempts with other helpers.

I finished Millicent’s questline since it was genuinely interesting, though I didn’t really need the needle since I didn’t go for the Frenzied flame quest. That 4-person invasion at the end was nasty and required some Reddit searches to find the right approach.

After that business, I decided to solo or mimic-duo the rest of the fights.

Dragonlord was genuinely difficult in a way that didn’t feel cheap, so I persisted and eventually beat him.

The Hoarah Loux fight was another tough but fair one, though I did lean on the Mimic to tank a bit in the second phase. Also had to hotkey the Flask to give myself one free damageless hit if Hoarah grappled me, which is quite common at the very beginning of phase 2. Using this requires a last-second consumption right before the end of phase one and frequently saved my ass when I was unable to dodge Hoarah’s sprint right at the beginning of his second phase.

The final Elden Lord battle took some adjustment of my equipment to use a dual wield of Blasphemous sword and the Executioner sword from the bearing Hunter guy (this took a few trips to the Albinauric murder farm to max out the weapons). It was another Melania-esque battle that expected precision combat in the first phase and RNG luck in the second phase but I really didn’t want multiplayer assistance with this one and eventually beat it, leaving 300k runes on the floor in my excitement from the Hoarah Loux battle (oops).

I somehow missed the blue summon sign so… no Ranni marriage for me until NG+

So I’m on NG+ now with an overleveled 170 character and a main sword that regens health with each kill. It’s… kind of a joke, to the point that I beat Margit and Godrick roughly 20-30 minutes into the game, with no deaths. This run is mostly going to be for quests and absorbing the lore, and I’m considering a fresh game for a zanier (and more difficult) Arcane heavy build.
Last edit: 30 May 2022 17:16 by Frohike. Reason: I misspelled Malenia, bLADe of MiQuElLa, because I’m still maidenless
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02 Jul 2022 22:37 #333996 by Frohike
100%’d the game a few minutes ago with a Frenzied Flame speedrun on NG+2. I’ve had a blast with this game and can’t wait for the DLC. In the meantime, I think I’ll dig into Dark Souls 3. If anyone here is still curious about the sidequests, I highly recommend this series:

youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5octn-l9KEX31HGPCZRqUt_a0mJcYN-a
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02 Jul 2022 23:01 #333997 by Gary Sax
Favorite ending? I liked Ranni's.

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02 Jul 2022 23:47 #333998 by Frohike
I enjoyed Ranni’s the most. That entire questline did the best job at tying most of the lore together and injecting some emotion into it. I generally favored any parts of the world/story that operated against or outside of the Greater Will or Outer Gods. She and Millicent were the most interesting characters in the game in this regard, the latter because hers felt like the Malenia sidequest that never was. It almost seems like she’d been intended to become Malenia at some point, but was split off into a pure NPC quest.
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