Elden ring!

[MFB]

I think I'm over-leveled for Caelid, aside from red-eyed dogs, I've been fucking shit up on the reg and with ease. Dragon are down to a handful of attacks, mostly baiting out their aerial dive then just rolling back and doing a couple jump attacks w/ Clawmark Talisman. I cleared out Greyoll's Dragonbarrow, and got myself a couple levels, I'm just shy of 70 right now, sitting at like 38/27/39 for VIG/END/STR and my axe is at +12(?) and wolves are up to +5 so they've got good stagger damage on enemies.

 

[wankerness]

Caelid's easy as long as you stick to the low level regions. The "Dragonbarrow" is considered a different zone despite being on the Caelid map and everything's way, way higher level.

 

[MFB]

Caelid's easy as long as you stick to the low level regions. The "Dragonbarrow" is considered a different zone despite being on the Caelid map and everything's way, way higher level.

That's also what I noticed pretty quickly, the dragons around Greyoll were easy to kill - besides being half health - but then you leave that area and the dog's around the merchant shack are 50% red-eyed, that little fort by the point of grace is filled with those winged dames, that portion of it just sucks. I even got real cocky and though I was higher level than I am, and tried fighting Black Blade Kinsman outside Guerranq's shrine, and rightfully got my lunch packed for me with only two-three hits.

I felt it the first time too, but I figured I was just underleveled for the entirety of Caelid, but this time around it's that there's a clear line of separation for them

 

[MFB]

Killed Radahn, really biffed it the first few times as he'd one shot me on re-entry during phase 2, or then he'd one shot me with his meteor and follow up small on some later attempts. Finally got him around the 10th or so, went back and leveled up my grafted blade to +4 and some dex so I could use it, then voila. Felt dumb just bashing him with a colossal weapon but I am a strength build so it's what we do.

Opened up the lift to Altus Plateau as well, so that'll be my next venture after Nokron to get Mimic tear

 

[MFB]

Got mimic tear and cleared out the Twin Vultures on my 3rd try, their poison is FAR more aggressive than regular enemies' and also did the first two requests from Volcano Manor. I don't have the other half of the lift of Rold medallion for obvious reasons because that means I have to finish Leyndell, which I'll get to tonight or the next day or so. Been experimenting with different weapons, mainly Gargoyles Greatsword and Curved Axe; makes me regret upgrading my Highland Axe since you don't get that many Smithing Stone 6s.

 

[wankerness]

I started a new playthrough the other day. About 16 hours in, level 72 (only "cheesy" thing I did runewise was killing the giant dragon in caelid with a bleed weapon). Last thing I did was finish Nokron (getting the Mimic Tear and the fingerslayer knife). I started as a Samurai so I wouldn't have to get a longbow or search for a half-decent starting menu, and then just stacked vigor and strength for a while and have been cycling new weapons cause I bee-lined the smithing-stone bell bearings so I can just get any normal weapon to +12 immediately. Spent some time messing with the graveyard scythe and the guardian's swordspear, I like the first (the big overhead slashes are good against flying enemies in particular), didn't really like the second that much. I just got to 30 str/13/faith so now I'm using the golden halberd cause I never have and I've heard it's good. It's weird playing without frostbite or bleed, but it seems like a pretty good weapon.

I have been stockpiling my smithing stone 5 and ups since you can't get infinite ones of those till getting to mountaintop of the giants, so only having weapons at +12 is finally starting to become a liability. Radahn was still a joke with a +12 scythe, though. I mean, of course I still died once cause he could 2-shot me and I idiotically blocked one of those soulmass spells on phase 2 and then got jump attacked while I was stunned, but it really chunked through his health ridiculously fast. I haven't messed with the gargoyles yet because I hate them and don't want to mess with them until I either have a really good strike weapon or am massively overlevelled.

My ultimate goal on this playthrough is to get the iron ball cause apparently it's one of the only weapons that is super good and hasn't been destroyed by the nerfbat, and I've never used it. BUT, if I want to finish some questlines I can't just get it early in the game by killing blackguard, I have to get all the way to the point where he gets killed by dungeater, which I should be able to do shortly after getting into the capital. Speaking of the nerfbat, they massacred the Fallingstar Beast Jaw - now it is terrible. I discovered on my last playthrough they'd also neutered the Flame of the Redmanes into uselessness.

There are too many NPC quests in this game that are important not to screw up cause you get locked out of rare, important stuff. Latenna, Mileena, Nepheli/Kenneth, D, Hyetta and Thops are chief among them on this playthrough. I think maybe Sellen is one that's immune to screwing up by progressing things - same deal with Fia. I think only Boc is a waste of time. I might skip the goldmask stuff this go-round cause I'm not a faith build, but I doubt it, it's habit at this point.

 

[MFB]

Hadn't been playing much, but put in some time this weekend, got myself to Mountaintop of the Giants, which is where I'm definitely running out of steam; at least now it's a little more clear why, as the game has a false ending of "become Elden Lord" and then after you kill Morgott, Melina shows up and is like, "JK, guess we can't do that; so let's start a new quest now that you've spent X hours already invested on this one!"

Finished Volcano Manor quest line, killed a bunch of dragons besides Borealis as he's coming up in MOTG, and unlocked Mohg's area so I'll kill him in the next few days since it's required for the DLC; I've also been smart and saved a mausoleum for cloning Rykard's rune so I could get Blasphemous Blade plus the 50K his rememberance is worth, so I'll use that for Malenia when the time comes, since I couldn't do it on my other saves that I biffed. STR is going better this time around than the last time, but I know I'll need to respec to beat her, no question, unless I go in with dual colossals on myself/mimic and just beat her down, and even that's not a guarantee.

 

[wankerness]

I got my character up to Haligtree and Horah Loux on my playthrough. One of the few things I feel good about is that I have gotten good at unlocking the Haligtree and killing fire giant on my first try, I don't think I've died to either more than once since my first playthrough of 6 or 7. Then Dragon's Dogma 2 came out and now I haven't played in a while. Where I was at when I stopped was 50 vigor, 60 strength and 24 faith, so I was using the Staff of the Avatar and it was a fun big bonk weapon with a buttslam weapon art. It would have been trash against Elden Beast/Radagon/Malenia, probably, so who knows what I'll have to do on them. Probably ice-infused greatsword with giant hunt or something.

Malenia as strength bonk build is supposedly easy, but all I know is when I did it it took like 25 tries. I am bad though.

I haven't done either Mogh yet, I utterly hate the underground dungeon in Leyndell and just haven't bothered with the main one despite having the fast travel points all unlocked to him, but I have the tear for resisting his super attack and probably have the stats to do it without much trouble.

 

[MFB]

Loaded up an old save today, and respec'd from MVK to dump all my points from INT into ARC, and cheesed Malenia with RoB; I have no idea why ROB scales with fucking arcane - and at a D rating at +10 mind you - but sure enough with me and mimic hitting her it was enough to just beat her ass down. Didn't feel good about it by any means, I mean it was just straight up cheese so hard you think I ordered a delivery pizza.

Then ran over and killed Placidusax too, his whole ordeal to get to him wasn't as tedious as I thought, but god damn if he doesn't have one of the coldest - if not THE - cutscenes when you face him. You literally reverse time to clown his ass.

Also made it into Heretics rise past the invisible bridge in the first for WHATEVER reason compared to previous attempts. I legitimately just ran to the end, took like 15-20 steps and saw the ramp leading to the window and was like, "oh fuck!"

So if I want to platinum, I just need to do the Frenzied Flame ending since my current STR playthru will get me the Elden Lord version.

 

[MFB]

Trying to finish my STR run, have a +25 warped axe so I got S rating for scaling (so it's +468 or something absurd) and stuck at Maliketh AGAIN! This is where I got in my very first playthrough and figured "fuck it, I'm never getting past here!" although I'm sure if I checked my stats, they were probably all over the place.

I've got him into P2 twice out of the maybe 7 or 8 tries, so not terrible but not great either, and that's without mimic - just solo. He really spams the beast claw attack that goes in all directions when you stay close on him, and that also means I usually can't do my jump/R2 when I land under him; need do keep enough distance that I don't trigger him spamming spells but close enough that lose my own ability to actually make contact.

 

[wankerness]

Trying to finish my STR run, have a +25 warped axe so I got S rating for scaling (so it's +468 or something absurd) and stuck at Maliketh AGAIN! This is where I got in my very first playthrough and figured "fuck it, I'm never getting past here!" although I'm sure if I checked my stats, they were probably all over the place.

I've got him into P2 twice out of the maybe 7 or 8 tries, so not terrible but not great either, and that's without mimic - just solo. He really spams the beast claw attack that goes in all directions when you stay close on him, and that also means I usually can't do my jump/R2 when I land under him; need do keep enough distance that I don't trigger him spamming spells but close enough that lose my own ability to actually make contact.

Maliketh is a joke until phase 2, at which point he just starts flipping all over the place and spamming the life draining beam that not only hits you for like 1/3 your health but then drains another 1/3 of it. I have seen videos of people beating him at level 1 with a level 1 weapon or whatever but it just seems impossible for me to even do phase 2 without the mimic.

Basically just keep trying with mimic until you get an attempt where the stars align and he doesn't do the spammy bullshit moves. I think he took me like 3 or 4 tries on this latest strength playthrough, and they were all like "get two hits on him in phase 2 before he kills me" until the kill shot, where I healed like twice and the mimic had full health at the end. It is VERY rng dependent how fast you can beat him down in phase 2. He has almost no health, he just has tons of idiotic evasion moves and tons of incredibly damaging ranged moves. He's the boss I hate the most, Malenia's way easier mechanically, she just has so much more health.

 

[MFB]

Yeah, I don't want to pop mimic too early and waste his health in P1, but I'm noticing it's like, impossible to wait until P2 to bring him out as then I'm at immediate risk of being one-shot while summoning/healing after; which did in fact happen a few more times after I made that post. I can get the timing pretty good on the majority of his attacks, he's just got some weird ones that I hadn't seen in previous playthroughs, like where if I'm SO close, he jumps up and sort twist in mid-air, I was expecting it to be some grand attack and it just ...wasn't.

 

[wankerness]

I remember reading that no damage taken runs often end on maliketh phase 1, i guess it's really hard to predict/react to compared to any other boss. I just never have had a problem cause his damage is so pitiful compared to phase 2 and he has so little health. You can basically face tank his phase 1 and still end up with half your flasks left in my experience.

 

[MFB]

Ended up beating him earlier tonight, he had a couple really good attempts where he just ripped right thru me, one where he even just straight up pushed me off the arena; but I got a banger in against him and managed to hit him for a critical + parry him with Blasphemous Claw and bing bang boom, he's dead.

So now I just have the trio of Horah Loux, Radagon/EB to finally be done

 

[MFB]

Jesus Fuck, did I make a mistake by not just immediately nuking Gideon into the ground or what; this did sucks ASS to go against as STR. I seem to have ZERO magic defense for whatever reason, and he has the quickest cast time, and the biggest AOE of anyone I can recall.

Fucking, black flame ring, destructo discs, mohgs blood flame, glintstone comet in volleys of 3, I mean Jesus it never ends.

Edit: nevermind, just beat him into the fucking ground.

 

[wankerness]

Gideon's funny, I annihilated him on all but one playthrough, but that one playthrough it was just like WOW, WHAT IS GOING ON?!?! and I died repeatedly. He's actually a cool fight, but they gave him no health and no poise AND gave him a big monologue so you can beat him up for a while the first time you try him with no fear of reprisal, so it's very easy to just destroy him before you see any of the mechanics.

He has a bunch of the game's "mega spells" including the ones you get from Maliketh and Mogh, and he has access to more and more of them as his health decreases. But yeah, on many playthroughs you only see the most basic spells before he's dead so you don't even realize his gimmick.

 

[CTID]

His spell pool is also changed depending on what bosses you've fought, so he can have Malenia's scarlet aeonia or mogh's blood flame, but if you avoid both of them prior to fighting him, he doesn't have shit and is a complete joke.

As far as Beast Clergyman goes, yeah his damage isn't necessarily super high on all of his attacks, but the windows to react to his spike throws are something below 15 frames (ie, 1/4 second) between the start of the animation and being damaged, unless you instinctively dodge roll as soon as he even twitches. He's super difficult to beat without being hit

 

[wankerness]

Oh, THAT'S the gimmick?? I guess the time he was hitting me with that stuff was probably the one time I bothered actually completing his quest before fighting him (doing Malenia/Mogh early). Makes sense.

 

[MFB]

Ended up beating it last night, managed to get Godfrey and Radagon down to half-health solo, but the ability to summon mimic after that becomes infinitely smaller so I just said fuck it and immediately popped him to melt everyone. Elden Beast as a STR build fucking sucks, I switched to my +10 Grafted Greatsword just for the extra ~250 per jump attack to speed up killing him; he also got the short end of the stick as EB would always go for him and never really aggro'd for me, so after the Radagon fight he'd start at half-health and no way to increase that.

At some point I'll respec my original build for bleed and max out ROB just to melt the same last ...four bosses I just beat, but I'll have to go back to align with the Three Fingers so I can get the last ending, but that's a ways off. I'll probably bring this guy with me into the DLC as my original build was STR, and this one felt like I got it right.

 

[p0ke]

Oh, THAT'S the gimmick?? I guess the time he was hitting me with that stuff was probably the one time I bothered actually completing his quest before fighting him (doing Malenia/Mogh early). Makes sense.

I also didn't know that! No wonder he was kinda easy for me (took 3-4 attempt, I think), I hadn't beaten Mohg and Malenia before him.