Topic: Elden Ring Hype Thread

@LN78 ah sorry mate, totally misread the boss name! Radagan sounds intense also, a friend of mine is currently banging his head against a wall regarding this boss.

Good luck Tarnished 👍!

Well, I took a day yesterday and battered Elden Ring. I'm now at the point where I've beaten every trophy boss and plenty you don't get trophies for. The only thing I have left to do is collect all of the things - the legendary arms etc. - and then finish the game and I got the platinum in this bad boy.

@CJD87 What, you can re-summons? I didn't know you could do that having tried before but it just didn't work for me so just assumed it wasn't possible. What's the trick?

@LN78 @johncalmc Well done to you guys for getting to the end 👍

@render Yeh i re-summoned by accident, but it definitely was a trick that helped level the playing field!

A tip I wrote up earlier for another - "One piece of advice - I actually think it is better to 'drag out' phase 1 so he can kill most of your NPC summons when he is approaching half-health. Then in his last stages of phase 1, I'd advise you try and re-summon all/most of the NPCs so that they return at full health for his return phase 2. A team of full-health NPCs at the start of phase 2 is great, as they can take the aggro and allow you to melt him!"

Good luck man!

Managed to get a few hours in on this last night. Worked my way through a devious dungeon, with skeletons and traps galore. Classic Souls.

@Gremio108 Ah yes, i did my first one of those the other day. There were a couple of necromancers who kept reanimating the skeletons, which I didn't realise at first. Took me a few goes of pummelling them to figure out what the fudge was going on. There were also two boss rooms, which I've never come across before.

Stumbling upon Roundtable Hold while exploring the Capital yesterday was a great Holy **** moment.

@velio84 well I missed that one. It is a ‘changed’ location from when the player goes back and forth there to use the facilities and speak to the npc’s etc. Is that the case when accessing it from Stormveil too?

Seems like some inter-dimensional/time-displacement goings on here. 🤔

@colonelkilgore @velio84 I got access to it from Stormveil quite early on so sounds like you can access it from multiple locations then if you missed it the first time? Or is this actually a physical entrance?

Well, I'm nearly, nearly done. Just over a hundred hours played and I've got every trophy barring the ending ones and I'm at the last boss. I tried the last boss a couple of times last night and it did not take my attempts to murder it lightly so a bit of practice may be required on this one. Still, I should be done tonight, with the platinum to boot. What an experience this game has been. It truly has.

@render yeah it’s a physical entrance and location in the Capital.

@velio84 no worries at all

@johncalmc I’m not as far as you, just nearing the end of the haligtree zone, then off to the start of the end I think. Then I can start my next character, which will absolutely be a mad monk using the dragon seal so I can spec arcane and use the madness/frenzy incants and a bleed weapon.

Either way, 11/10.

@Mega-Gazz I was honestly considering starting again so I could get a second version of my weapon and duel wield them. I used that sword from the bloodhound man in the limgrave gaol for like the entire game but there's only one you can get.

@johncalmc I also used the Bloodhound Fang the whole game. Why use anything else! I think when I go for NG+ I’m just going to run around naked dual wielding them. The bleed effect is just so useful.

@velio84 Bloodhound Fang - I couldn't remember what it was called until @nessisonett just said it.

The thing with the Bloodhound Fang is that once I started levelling up the Dex scaling was so nuts that I was gaining 5 points in damage with every level at one point. Plus the strength scaling too for bonus fun. I'm at the end and my attack power is like 800 or something, and it's got bleed, and it's got a sweet FP move for extra charm.

So about weapons, I’d been using the Lordsworn Greatsword as my ‘makeshift’ weapon during the first half of my playthrough… while keeping an eye out for any Colossal swords that caught my eye as I picked them up. I almost went with the actual Greatsword (which ironically isn’t a great sword in terms of classification but is a colossal sword) but just before I committed to it I picked up the Royal Greatsword and it’s amazing. It’s not even fully upgraded yet (I’ve gotten it to +8) and it’s already well over 700 dmg (split between pure and magic). It’s as slow as Drax when he’s eating zargnuts but inflicts big-time damage.

Spoiler free...just took out a miniboss in red invader style. I was able to circle some open stone caskets keeping them between me and them for the most part. Worked great. Got a key, Lake of rot to contend with now.

Thinking about it, is Caelid even required? I think I did about 2 dungeons in that entire area and I accidentally skipped the castle after my initial exploration by finding a teleporter and then there were no enemies. You could theoretically go from Limgrave to Radahn while exploring Caelid for 5 minutes.

@velio84 I assumed that you had to beat Radahn to complete the game. Since you need a couple of Great Runes to get through the capital gate. Although I guess technically you could do Volcano Manor instead. But then you need to either beat the Magma Wyrm or go to Caelid for the medallion half!

@nessisonett You can skip all of Caelid and still beat the game, I believe. And as tempting as that is because Caelid really sucks, I used that place to basically level up more and get better items, gear, etc. while I was preparing for the next mandatory place. So my personal recommendation would be to leave Caelid until as late as you can and then do it so you're higher level and better prepared so the two annoying boss fights you do there are less less annoying.