Elden Ring

[Noodle Lizard]

I got the Fire Giant down finally, but it probably took the most tries of any boss so far (except perhaps those fucking Valiant Gargoyles). Of course I immediately lost all the runes I earned by falling into the Forge and then falling off the chain bridge when trying to retrieve them. Fucksake.

I got to the dragon in Farum Azula. Too hard, it felt pretty clear the game was telling me to come back tougher. I found the Consecrated Snowfields via the secret lift (seriously, how many people would've just figured that out? You have no reason to go back to that lift after using it once), started to earn back some runes by clearing out the cave and then, stupidly, waltzed right into the boss without banking them. Very disappointed to see who the boss was, considering I just beat him in a "special area" the day before as part of Ranni's questline, but he's much harder and I got all my runes trapped in there.

It's starting to get annoying, and I'm not even at the notorious bullshit bosses yet! I won't be able to play for the next two days, probably a good thing.

[The Guppy]

Easy way to untrap your runes. Pick them up then immediately save and quit. When you reload you'll be outside the fog door, with all your lovely runes.

[Noodle Lizard]

Easy way to untrap your runes. Pick them up then immediately save and quit. When you reload you'll be outside the fog door, with all your lovely runes.

Well fuck.

[gmoney]

Of course I immediately lost all the runes I earned by falling into the Forge and then falling off the chain bridge when trying to retrieve them. Fucksake.

I also did exactly this.

Completed this the other day. I probably took most goes at the last boss, which is only right. I really loved it overall. I never stopped being impressed by the visuals and it felt just long enough.

[The Guppy]

That forge is a bit of a fuck up. You get up there and there's nowt immediately obvious, so you think, probably should just get in the fucking forge then eh. Doesn't look that far down.

[Chollis]

That forge is a bit of a fuck up. You get up there and there's nowt immediately obvious, so you think, probably should just get in the fucking forge then eh. Doesn't look that far down.

i did this

[The Guppy]

Even if you spot the grace, and run around to activate it, nowt happens. So... might as well just get in the fucking forge then right.

Especially as I've fallen much further without dying, and I've walked in molten lava without dying. Forge looks pretty safe.

[Sex Festival Organizer]

Christ, why couldn't they have placed a statue of Marika at Dragonlord Plexiglass? His is the only achievement I'm missing, and the run-up is doing my head in. Yeah, you can just run there, but it's almost a minute, every. single. time, and he is griefing me hard.

[Sex Festival Organizer]

And just now, an almost flawless fight where I got him down to 50% in less than a minute with nary a scratch, and then the batteries in my controller died. Serenity naaaaoooooooowwwww!

[Mobius]

Christ, why couldn't they have placed a statue of Marika at Dragonlord Plexiglass? His is the only achievement I'm missing, and the run-up is doing my head in. Yeah, you can just run there, but it's almost a minute, every. single. time, and he is griefing me hard.

Careful you don't die at the same time as him, or you won't be able to activate the grace and it's impossible to return to that area...

[Sex Festival Organizer]

Careful you don't die at the same time as him, or you won't be able to activate the grace and it's impossible to return to that area...

Figures, but as long as the achievement pops, I'll be grand. Just want to wake up in the morning and know that I've killed this multi-headed SOB, is all I'm saying :(

[Sex Festival Organizer]

And, dear readers, he's dead! I changed my tactics around a bit and went for spells, or rather, a spell, and after two or three test runs I melted him, as the kids of today say, so fast that he never even triggered his second phase. Result!

Of course, he's another one of those From bosses that are far from fighting fit. I mean, I can clearly see that there are two heads missing from the start, and some say that he's missing three, so god knows what he would be like in his full five-headed glory. I think I'd rather not find out.

[Noodle Lizard]

I've bodied Mohg (good) and have just arrived at the Godskin Duo (shite). I think it's fair to say this game is very uneven.

[Dickie_Anders]

I wouldn't call it "uneven" necessarily. I think almost all of the the main dungeons and catacombs are good. Almost all of the main bosses are good. They just re-used the mini-bosses too much.

Godskin Duo are shit though, yeah.

It's interesting reading some of the criticism for the Elden Beast online. I think I fought him after a patch that stopped him moving around so much. I think as a final boss it works really well. Visually brilliant. He has one move that is horrific though and I think everyone knows which one

[The Guppy]

Of course, he's another one of those From bosses that are far from fighting fit. I mean, I can clearly see that there are two heads missing from the start, and some say that he's missing three, so god knows what he would be like in his full five-headed glory. I think I'd rather not find out.

There's a good look at the model here (and they paste his heads back on at one point, looks pretty nice).

He has three severed necks. The Old Lord's Talisman only has four heads though. Maybe he tucks one up his arse?

[Noodle Lizard]

So either I got extremely lucky, or the Mimic Tear is still way overpowered, or both but - I beat Maliketh on my first try and Malenia on my sixth try. Meanwhile, the secret dragon boss in Farum Azula took me at least 10 goes and a build change.

My Soulshead friend is raging - Malenia took him over 100 attempts, he says (without a Mimic, granted). I don't really know what to tell him. Obviously the Mimic helped, but I think I also got lucky in that I only saw that infamous "waterfowl dance" a handful of times and she was otherwise fairly easily staggered and could be stance broken by spamming the Blasphemous Blade's special attack. I almost feel guilty though, like I've cheated, but I'd heard it was basically impossible to "cheese" her so I didn't think my normal weapon and a Mimic would trivialise the fight. A somewhat hollow victory nevertheless.

[chutnut]

yeah it does all depend on that waterfowl dance, the times I've beat her have been when she's only done it once (although I'm not too bad at dodging it now!)
6 tries still pretty impressive though!

[Noodle Lizard]

yeah it does all depend on that waterfowl dance, the times I've beat her have been when she's only done it once (although I'm not too bad at dodging it now!)
6 tries still pretty impressive though!

Yeah, I reckon it was just a mad bit of luck. Of course my friend is now going on about how the Mimic Tear is "easy mode" and "of course you beat her easily with that" etc. I'll tell you what though, my Mimic didn't do much to help against several other bosses, to the point where I didn't waste the HP on him after a few tries, and I doubt Malenia would have the reputation she has if such a common mechanic could trivialise the fight.

So I'm putting it down to lucky RNG and her being easily staggered by the Blasphemous Blade, as well as the Mimic doing his fair share/drawing aggro away. I'm still generally a pretty poor-quality player who can easily be wiped out by some of these late-game mobs, so I honestly feel a bit apologetic and embarrassed for Malenia, poor thing.

[Crenners]

Lickle ol me

[Noodle Lizard]

Late to the party, but I finally finished it last night! I didn't use summons for the remaining bosses, but I'm not sure they would have helped all that much in the final double battle anyway.

Radagon was a great fight in and of itself, I managed to get him on the first try, but Elden Beast was a proper slog. Not especially difficult, just very tedious running after it constantly and barely chipping away at its massive health pool for ages before inevitably getting mashed by an attack that started off-camera. Having to repeat Radagon every time really devalued his fight and made me dislike Elden Beast even more. Combined, it probably took me close to 20 tries.

Then the ending itself was a bit of a damp squib after 100+ hours invested - I got a 30 second cutscene of Ranni talking about the moon, and that was it. On the plus side, Godfrey was one of my favourite fights in the game - one of the better combinations of spectacle and challenge, whilst also feeling completely fair and learnable.

Overall I've had a great time with it, which I wasn't sure I would. Looking forward to the presumed DLC at some point down the line, but for now I'll be happy to play something pleasantly mindless. Cheers for all your advice and chatter!

[Schrodingers Cat]

After planning on waiting to see if this would go on sale this summer, I finally relented a week or so ago and bought this.
Have been loving it so far, up until Rennala. By god do I hate this fight. It's not even the difficulty, I just find it utterly tedious - I've had harder fights which I still enjoyed, whereas I've hated every moment of this one. Honestly feel like this might be where I stop playing it. Simply not enjoying it anymore. Easily my least favourite boss fight in a FromSoft game. Don't think I'll even enjoy beating her

[Crenners]

Can't actually remember that fight.

[Inspector Norse]

That was the one where you had to smash all the decoys in the library and then take her down in some lake while she pulled spirit summons on you.
I enjoyed that one as I remember. Much more so than shit like the Fire Giant, who was too big for the camera to follow so you ended up stuck in his crotch spinning around whenever you tried to hit him.

[Crenners]

I totally forgot about the second one phase. Wow, can't believe that was the same boss but I do remember now.

Fire Giant is classic FROM camera boss fight so that didn't bother me especially. The bullshit unreadable AOE did, though.

As ever, basically perfected when I finally got past him.

[Theremin]

I've been running a Sorcery/Frost build up to around level 120, and decided to restart on a pure strength character.

Fuck me, I suck now!

Constantly getting ganked on PVP from being so slow.

Anyone have any recommendations for this direction?

I feel like I've missed out on some skills by learning the game from a position where I always had a variety of spells to harass people with.

[Noodle Lizard]

After planning on waiting to see if this would go on sale this summer, I finally relented a week or so ago and bought this.
Have been loving it so far, up until Rennala. By god do I hate this fight. It's not even the difficulty, I just find it utterly tedious - I've had harder fights which I still enjoyed, whereas I've hated every moment of this one. Honestly feel like this might be where I stop playing it. Simply not enjoying it anymore. Easily my least favourite boss fight in a FromSoft game. Don't think I'll even enjoy beating her

That one can suck, depending on your vigor and damage output. I don't know your stats, but I'd say just come back to her later leveled up with stronger weapons. You don't have to do her anytime soon (actually she might be entirely optional, but you'll want to beat her eventually for the respec option), and the run-up/first phase gets very annoying if you have to keep repeating it.

Plenty of other bosses and stuff to do. In that area, I'd look into Caria Manor and starting Ranni's questline. That'll keep you busy for a while, and should lead you to another difficult (but far better) boss pretty quickly.

[Noodle Lizard]

I've been running a Sorcery/Frost build up to around level 120, and decided to restart on a pure strength character.

Fuck me, I suck now!

Constantly getting ganked on PVP from being so slow.

Anyone have any recommendations for this direction?

I feel like I've missed out on some skills by learning the game from a position where I always had a variety of spells to harass people with.

I don't mess with PVP, but I ended up with a Strength build for my first run since the whole sword & shield set-up seemed simplest for a newbie. Turns out I probably made life a bit difficult for myself. Some parts of the game are definitely designed with ranged attacks in mind, but there's always a way. Getting a good shield and the Bloodhound Fang was my first breakthrough (you'll need a few points in Dexterity for the latter), and the Blasphemous Blade from Rykard carried me through to the end.

I also pumped a lot of levels into Endurance and used the various equipment load talismans (you can get the Great Arsenal Charm in Caelid fairly early on) so I could wear tankier armour. That helped me stay in the game for sure.

[Theremin]

Thanks for the advice!

I was trying to avoid doing too much searching-out of specific charms and items, but sounds like it may just be a big quality of life increase.

[Noodle Lizard]

Thanks for the advice!

I was trying to avoid doing too much searching-out of specific charms and items, but sounds like it may just be a big quality of life increase.

Yeah, I didn't really figure them out until later on, but it was nice to be able to wear Radahn's armour without having to worry about becoming Fat.

It's a bit annoying that so many weapons have multiple high stat requirements, as it really limits the amount you can try out on any one build. The two I mentioned are at least fairly forgiving in that regard.

[druss]

I know I'm quite late to the party on this one but had a break for a while to play the shit out of Bloodborne and get the platinum on DS3.

Having the strangest time on Malenia, absolutely annihilated her first phase on my first attempt and was thinking that there must be a second phase because there is no way anyone could get stuck on that first phase. Sure enough, second phase came along and I did quite okay getting her to half health. Thought to myself I'll have her down in 3 or 4 attempts. Got to phase 2 on two subsequent attempts, on both times had plenty of flasks but just made two silly mistakes so thought I'd have her on the 4th.

I've now lost count but am probably on around 30-40 attempts and haven't got past her first phase since. Never encountered a boss that actually gets harder the more I attempt it! That spin attack insta kills me every time.