Elden Ring (DLC hype room)

[atomic plinth]

I'm not mad tbh, it was funny

Cause there was a message saying "secret ahead" and pointing at the wall

And my dumb ass goes "oooooooooooo a secret" and checks it out

[jaunty solar]

||Godwyn's soul has died||

[stone cove]

Bahahahahahaah.

So you know those obonxoious Horned Warriors?\

the ones who're big and armored and hurt like buggery?

[glossy delta]

||Radahn's whole ass everything died||
||Body, soul, all of it, we put him in the ground||
||Trust me this has been brought up before and I don't really buy it as an explanation||

[stone cove]

Savage Claws absoltoeuy annhilates them because the way it alters your moveset etc

you actually go so low most of their attacks go over you

[trail sail]

Lomao

[stone cove]

tvbh, i alrways read Godwyn as less: ||his soul has died and more it's flat out annhilated, it is gone he is not in Godwyn heaven||

[trail sail]

||Agree with this btw||

[jaunty solar]

||Dead things wind up in the shadow of the erdtree, Radahn didn't experience a destined death like Godwyn did||

[glossy delta]

The way I see it the three 'death states' we see are:
||Normal Death: What happens when you kill someone, they are 100% dead, RIP In Peace||
||Half Death (dead body, living soul): Ranni! She's a friendly little ghost that can inhabit dolls||
||Half Death (living body, dead soul): Those Who Live In Death, Godwyn included. They are undead, alive despite being 'dead'||
||The Destined Death Rune didn't Turbo Kill Godwyn's soul same as it didn't Turbo Kill Ranni's Body (its still up on the liurnia tower), its just what enabled Ranni and Godwyn to be 'half killed' in the first place||

[obtuse halo]

||to be fair, only half of the destined death rune was used on Ranni. It gets combined with the other half of the cursemark that Fia already possesses.||

[trail sail]

This raises an important question (DLC end spoilers) ||What the hell was Miquella doing? Do we actually get any information on the Divine Gate or how Miquella's divestment of their mortal components worked?||

[stone cove]

Not explcitly, but we can infer a lot by Marika and her journey.

the base game and the d lc have big dualism themes

Anywa,y i find a lot of the dlc makes sense when you take a watsonian view, not a doylist.

End dlc spoilers: ||Miquella is a child. Always has been. He has a child's mentality about things, including what are good decisions etc. Bringing Godwyn back may have been a smarter paly, but he had his heart set on Radahn, so Radahn iti s. etc. ||

[glossy delta]

Do we have proof of the claim that ||Miquella is locked in the mindset of a child||, also
That's something else I've seen thrown around enough that it makes me wonder that I've missed something

[jaunty solar]

He's certainly idealistic

[kind garden]

||Honestly, I don't buy him being eternally childish in mindset considering Malenia thinks he has the wisdom of a God. He's just as fallible as anyone else, and when push came to shove he was willing to compromise himself too much in the name of gaining the power he needed to save everyone, to the point that the actual content of that salvation was left by the wayside||

[jaunty solar]

I like the story of Elden Ring and it's expansion

[kind garden]

||As for choosing Radahn, I think it was probably a smart move! Radahn in his prime was fucking jacked as hell, what better choice for Lord Consort than someone who can make your claim to Godhood incontestible?||

[jaunty solar]

Dark souls always put us in after everything has already ended

[kind garden]

also yeah I'm so glad to actually get to see stuff happen instead of pick up the pieces for once

[jaunty solar]

We just had to mop up the already crumbling establishments

But in Elden Ring we're an active player in the story

We get to see all of Marika's old mistakes, but there's still people making plays, and still a world to win

[obtuse halo]

You're still kind of on the tail end of things happening in ER, but they definitely haven't completely settled yet, yeah

whereas in dark souls you're clearly uncovering things mostly buried

[jaunty solar]

And Elden Ring honestly asks you like, can it be recovered? Should you wreak vengeance for the nomads? Should you bring forward the silently suffering omens? If death is the way of the world will you make it a gentler place for the dead

Can you recover the ideals of the golden order and perfect them

[feral linden]

Clearly the next Soulslike has you in the midst of the chaos already happening, or starting said chaos

[jaunty solar]

And then whatever Ranni wanted

[feral linden]

Wait wasnt that Sekiro

[jaunty solar]

That's the fuck off with your wife ending

Honestly the ending that makes the most sense to me is the curse ending

[obtuse halo]

Ranni's ending is pretty much the game's Age of Dark tbh, it's very much "break the cycle, become the new god, then fuck right off and let events take their course, can it really be worse than the previous order?"

[jaunty solar]

It's not a good ending

But it feels fitting

It's the world you would inherit in a dark souls plot

Really Dung Eater is the dark souls protag

Messed up guy who appears out of nowhere and ends the world

At least that's his intent

Er not ends but just keeps it going but worse

[trail sail]

Is it? Frankly it seems like the Golden Order was fucked top to bottom, and the DLC only reinforces that - the Age of Stars is taking back true self determinism from a system designed for subservience

It's definitely the best one out of some not great options

[jaunty solar]

I weigh the curse ending and the frenzied flame ending as roughly equal levels of bad

One is equal suffering for everyone

[stone cove]

"melt everything vs eternal suffering"

[jaunty solar]

The other is burn it down and hope it goes better

[stone cove]

Ranni's is bassically "We're taking gods ball and going home"

Perfected Order and Duskborn seem both paostive, thoguh obviously not without flaws

[proven horizon]

The failing of the golden order can be blamed on the fickleness of gods no better than men. Fortunately, I have the solution.

tposes

[jaunty solar]

The best ending in my opinion is the returning of destined death

It's the original sin

[trail sail]

Perfected Order is, literally, fixing the flaw that allows for self determinism in the first place

[jaunty solar]

Marika thinking she could break a part of the Elden Ring with no repercussions

Death has the framework to be a gentle thing

The death birds are angry and feral because their purpose was taken from them

Their weapons talk about how they guided dead souls in the afterlife

[trail sail]

Are they?

It just seems like undeath is just as bad to me

[jaunty solar]

Well, we know Marika severed Destined Death

[obtuse halo]

I dunno if that's the only reason they're hostile but yeah they've definitely been pushed to the periphery

[jaunty solar]

The shaded tower says that all manner of death washes up in the shadow realm

[obtuse halo]

mhm, and that's generally where ||hex magic|| still thrives

[jaunty solar]

In the trailer for SotE we see Marika standing over the corpse of something that looks suspiciously like a godskin

[glossy delta]

My thought with the perfected order ending is more like
You are cutting 'gods' out of the equation
The Golden Order is Itself
The engine runs itself, it does not need a conductor that might fuck things up

[jaunty solar]

The godskins were employed by the gloam eyed queen

[glossy delta]

Still not like, perfect

[jaunty solar]

Who we know Marika and Maliketh defeated

[obtuse halo]

||lots of hornsent stuff references hex magic, where it's only referenced by the powers of the deathbirds and the ancient gelmir hexes in the base game||

[glossy delta]

But its at least An Option

[proven horizon]

Yeah, that's my view of it, too

[jaunty solar]

Maybe death was simply reincarnation in the land of shadow

[dusty kraken]

Look, clearly I can fix the system from within it Goes for default ending, gets slapped

😛

[stone cove]

I like someone's theory that Melina: ||Isn't the gloameyed queen, just has her sealed inside her||

[paper badge]

I mean probably not

like

they burned the dead in ghostflame

[obtuse halo]

It's still an Elden Lord ending so you're still reassembling marika and placing yourself as her consort, but otherwise yes

[paper badge]

reincarnation is the erdtree's shtick

[modest berry]

in its own way i assume, the death birds are all homeless grim reapers, and the shadowrealm is lousy with gravebirds

[obtuse halo]

it seems a bit more...figurehead-y?

[jaunty solar]

It's not reincarnation

[kind garden]

It's direct theocracy

[paper badge]

you mean Melina

[jaunty solar]

It's memory

Godfrey's entire body comes out of the erdtree as a shade

[kind garden]

? The Erdtree is known to reincarnate fallen heroes

[modest berry]

i mean that tracks if her brother was born with another entity subsequently sealed

[stone cove]

look there are a LOT of names begining with M okay.

[jaunty solar]

It doesn't bring you back new, it brings you back

Like just as you were

[paper badge]

you're splitting hairs, here

you died and now you're back

that's reincarnation

[jaunty solar]

What happens when you burn the erdtree and unleash the rune of destined death

[native burrow]

Constitutional monarchy? :p

[jaunty solar]

You break into the inside of the erdtree, and Marika falls from the crucifix and becomes Radagon

And when you kill Radagon he doesn't actually die

He gets made into a sword that the Elden Beast uses

Marika had a spear in her side, probably as people have theorized ||from Messmer, and the reason he's been seemingly scrubbed from history||

[stone cove]

That's what happens. You unleash destined death and now it's a constiuntional monahrcy.

[jaunty solar]

||A betrayal happened at some point, and that spear is black and red, either like Messmer's fire or a shard of destined death||

[stone cove]

monarchy*

[jaunty solar]

But anyway you cut it, Marika dies in that moment and becomes Radagon

And that's a big thing built up in the history

Marika tells Radagon "You are yet to become me"

And it's likely this is why she severed destined death

Because she didn't want to become Radagon

[trail sail]

But she already became Radagon to marry Rennala?

[glossy delta]

The intro crawl of the game shows marika and radagon switching back and forth
And it's obvious they've had that situation going for a long time before that

And there's basically no reason to believe messmer impaled marika since she sent him to the land of shadows before the shattering

Which is what she got strung up for

[trail sail]

Yeah, Marika wanted to hide Messmer because of ||his freaky deaky serpent nature - which bears a striking resemblance to the whole God Devouring Serpent thing||

[atomic plinth]

||...Jesus fucking Christ I just watched someone melt a boss with a lightning perfume bottle||

[obtuse halo]

||yeah apparently the lightning perfume is cracked||

[glossy delta]

I had honestly always assumed Radagon did the whole divorce and remarry as consort thing because Marika assimilated him
And he was happily married as himself before that more or less

[trail sail]

This is something spelt out by ||his Remembrance examine text||

[trail sail]

Maybe, yeah, I'm honestly not sure

Convoluted game!

[jaunty solar]

I like how we get to see ||the golden order in action in the DLC. Perfumers fighting alongside soldiers, soldiers using war cries and lion claw techniques||

[obtuse halo]

So I kind of figured (DLC spoilers) ||Radagon was a cast-off part of Marika in the first place but also independent, in the same way St. Trina has become for Miquella. Marika just somehow reassimilated him later (?)||

[jaunty solar]

||Where before all this stuff was scattered to its own unique corner of the world||

[obtuse halo]

Presuming for a moment that ||Marika's process of becoming a God looked somewhat similar to Miquella's||

[signal harness]

I was always pretty sure ||the spear was from Malekith||

[jaunty solar]

That's entirely possible with how we know ||shadows work||

[glossy delta]

I figured it was just like
Something the Erdtree/Greater Will directly manifested
Since the two fingers describe the situation inside the tree as basically a punishment for the shattering

[signal harness]

||Messmer|| I think went back to ||persecute the Hornsent for their treatment of pre-god Marika||

[glossy delta]

Like the elden beast did it or so-

[dusty kraken]

||He's such a mumma's boy||

[glossy delta]

Wait
The elden beast has a grab where it literally does marika you right

[signal harness]

Yeah extremely haha

[signal harness]

Yep complete with a LOT of spear stabbing but they’re golden

[trail sail]

||On Marika's direct orders, yes - which serves a two fold purpose of vengeance on the Hornsent, and keeping Messmer there on indefinite standing orders (which he dutifully follows because of aforementioned mumma's boy)||

[dusty kraken]

||https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GJc4uqwbQAAU89H?format=jpg&name=large||

[trail sail]

Pffffttt

[obtuse halo]

nice

[modest berry]

the concept of radagon as a secondary trina-like aspect of marika is interesting because he seems to have a sort of fire giant heritage, many of his children being large and red of hair, at least 2 having firey powers, its interesting to conssider when he came about, if he wasnt already part of her before she became a lord

[signal harness]

I am kind of confused by Radagon but I got the sense that he used to be separate entirely and has been becoming one with Marika through a process I don’t really understand but the turtle talks about

[modest berry]

yeah i figure it might be opposite to trina potentially a synthesis rather than a splitting

[paper badge]

I think I prefer Radagon having been born seperate from Marika and merging with her later

but

[trail sail]

The whole "aspects" part of Elden Ring is really confusing

[paper badge]

one theory I saw that would fit more in line with the direction most people wanna go I think

is the idea that Radagon is Marika's Mimic Tear

[modest berry]

also, would messmer have been there during the assault on the mountantop of the giants many of them are impaled by giant spears of twisted black,

[paper badge]

possibly

Messmer is older than Radahn

[dusty kraken]

My read on the split is that Marika is the kindness without the order and Radagon is order without the kindness. As they often use that duality for the Golden Order. The Gold vs the Order.

[modest berry]

however i think its super cool, some sekhmet hathor or syncretism shit made literal, rebises and syntheses and such

[dusty kraken]

Marika has the warm emotions ||Including the trauma|| while Radagon is loyalty to the order.

[trail sail]

Yeah, I do agree, it's very neat

[stone cove]

So

Ya'll are sleepiong on The Poison Flower Stings Twice.

2-3 casts scarlet rots everything in the game, while doing massive damage.

Because it's a piercing jump kick

And it goes on any melee weapon, and can be Blood/poisoin/occult/heavy/keen/quality etc

[proven horizon]

It's also a piercing jump kick, which is super cool

[stone cove]

IUt's literally actually a RIDER KICK

https://tenor.com/view/shin-kamen-rider-kick-gif-15210369076962918546

Like if you look at the animation you're literally rider kicking people with it

[tropic stream]

wait it's a rot art?

[trail sail]

Also can we all agree Ansbach is the GOAT of the DLC

Love that guy

[stone cove]

It's a poison one by default, but it inflicts Rot with it's hits.

It's got an interesting pr operty of if the target is rotted/poisoined it consumes said rot/poisin for an extra boom of damage

I have it on a pair of Scriptsmith Circques atm, because they're light as hell, theyh ave like 130 poison at 80 arcane, and they poison things very , very fast as aresult (a couple of hits do it, or a couple of heavies, and yu ou have jumping homing heavies so...)

and even not using them for the poison just being able to quick swithc and then go RIDDDERRRR KICK wrecks stuff

[tropic stream]

lol nice

[stone cove]

Like i did it to divine beast just now, and it was pretty mean

3 rider kicks did a bunch of damage and rotted it

then i went back to ripping it apart with claws

[dusty kraken]

I'm kinda sad I can't put it on the Poison Bottle

It would be great if I could poison bottle into rider kick

[modest berry]

oh i wonder if my chicken leg armor increases the damage of poisonflower blooms twice if it counts as a kick

[stone cove]

It might do?

I will have to check

looks like yes?

Hang on, i need a better testing dummy

[obtuse halo]

I got the final boss down to 10%

Closer

Getting closer

[stone cove]

Defintely appears too - Testing by doing throwing knife to wake mobs up, then kick on ye olde Farming Frogmen of MOhg - It'll one shot them with the leg armor on, but wont without

[stone cove]

Okay, yep, boosted by Shattering STone AND the boots too

so you know, slap this on Dane's Footwork and live your rider dreams

[obtuse halo]

Beat the final boss!!!!

What pushed me over was…remembering i had fifty rune arcs sitting around

[kind garden]

lmao

yeah

[obtuse halo]

Popped one, got it first try

Zero waste

😛

[kind garden]

that Godrick's Great Rune be hitting different

[obtuse halo]

I used Radahn’s for the hp/fp/stam

So many attacks that need to be rolled like five times

[kind garden]

Fair, I used Godrick's because 40 virtual levels is a lot of value across the board

and I kinda needed the extra damage

[obtuse halo]

It’s good but loses value at high levels

Just because of softcaps

[obtuse halo]

||also irony||

[kind garden]

it do be like that

[old brook]

Wow. This final boss ain't fun at all.

[obtuse halo]

It’s rough!!!

[kind garden]

but also, Radahns' Great Rune kinda loses its luster when it adds like

10% extra to your resource gauges

[old brook]

It's also just not like. Cool? Or interesting

[kind garden]

damn seriously?

[obtuse halo]

It’s 15% each but yeah

[kind garden]

I thought it looked and played great for the most part I was just annoyed by the Big Ass Numbers

shits out too much damage in too wide an area for the too much HP the fucker has

[obtuse halo]

Still basically all three rgb amber talismans + at once

[kind garden]

like

the final boss is a brilliant visual spectacle

imo

lots of cool visual/kinetic storytelling

[obtuse halo]

I think the ||holy aoes with stagger on every melee attack|| is a bit much

Most of the other stuff is fine

[kind garden]

that was my breaking point too

specifically ||the wide-area combo finisher AoEs||

[obtuse halo]

Ugh tyeah

[kind garden]

that was when I was like "ayo? what you say fuck me for, I'm all the way over here tryna sip my sippy"

[obtuse halo]

My best tip for those is ||there’s a safespot inside the circle hugging him||

Good luck with remembering that in the moment though

[kind garden]

||yeah ironically you're safer closer to the boss in that scenario than if you're out in the middle of nowhere||

[old brook]

Half of my problem is ||WE'VE SEEN THIS BEFORE||, it could have been ||GODWYN, THE SAME SHIT HAPPENED TO HIM, BUT-.. SURE, THIS. AGAIN. WHY NOT.||

[kind garden]

alright see I have a very different opinion

||I actually really liked getting to see Radahn do all the moves that are attributed to him but never shown like actually doing Lion's Claw in a fight, plus all the cool notes like him using a bloodflame slash because he's in Mohg's body, etc.||

||like imo bringing Godwyn back would have been cheap considering how extra-super-dead he was killed||

[old brook]

||This is exactly as cheap his soul rotted away and we personally killed and ate his runes and rememberance||

lmao fuck the ||aoe pull||

[kind garden]

Look, don't really know what to say other than that I don't see it that way

[old brook]

I'm not trying to be like hey you're wrong I just also see it differently

good to know summons are pointless despite full investment

that's a canny prank

[kind garden]

Ash summons or player / Tarnished summons?

because ash summons are a solid play

[old brook]

My ashes instantly take 7k damage

they aren't making it out the door

[jaunty solar]

Do you have armor

[old brook]

it's not a mimic

[jaunty solar]

Hrm, Yosh survived for quite a while in my attempts

[kind garden]

Taylew held the line for a good long while for me

[jaunty solar]

He's a slippery little guy

[old brook]

I just watched him mulch Taylew idek

He can maybe make it to the start of phase 2

[jaunty solar]

Have you upgraded your revered spirit ashes

[old brook]

yup

scadutree too, but only 18/20 i guess on that one

[dusty kraken]

Iki: "Hahahah, man I love sowing with this fire bottle, nothing can stop me!"

[jaunty solar]

IMMUNE?

[kind garden]

i m m u n e

[jaunty solar]

When has an enemy ever been totally immune to a damage type that wasn't the ghosts in old londo

Guess you're gonna need to grab a backup lightning bottle

[dusty kraken]

Yep. Which is an issue as my lightning bolttle is only +6 XD

I need to level it up.

Off to the sealed tunnel to get more shiny stones

[jaunty solar]

God this discussion is making me want to pick the game back up

I want to do a holy spear run for what I figure is obvious reasons

Starting with the treespear and moving up to the obvious

Ooh powerstancing those two would be sick

But I also kinda want to wait for Elden Ring Reforged to catch up to the DLC

[obtuse halo]

oh. ||Thiollier and Ansbach don't make it. Of course. I should have seen that coming.||

[jaunty solar]

||They had good endings, all told||

[obtuse halo]

People told me ||Ansbach|| dropped a longbow. Is that...true? I didn't get it.

[old brook]

is there a way to avoid the followup if you get ||pulled in|| - final boss(?) shit

[jaunty solar]

||And they're probably not dead forever, tarnished rarely actually die||

[obtuse halo]

death is really inconsistent in elden ring tbh

you come back, but all the shardbearers and any named npc who dies because you killed them or for plot reasons sure don't

[jaunty solar]

I think that happens if ||he doesn't take your side in the Leda fight||

[obtuse halo]

it's not like they're all getting destined death to death

ah, so this is just something locked out on this save then

[jaunty solar]

Instead you get ||the coolest scythe in the game||

[obtuse halo]

not that it matters for this character but it'd be a big deal if it were my archer

since I'd presumably want that 😛

though god doing that fight with my archer sounds like misery

[jaunty solar]

||The weapon art is an L2 input, then it has a chain of two R2's||

I don't know why I put that in spoilers

It's one of the most useful ashes of war

[obtuse halo]

the catch of course being that getting to that point is almost definitely harder than beating radagon, my actual archery wall

😛

[old brook]

aright fuck this

coming back to it later but lmao what a letdown

[vale mountain]

hmmm I need to get 5 levels

what's a good summon farm in the DLC

[old brook]

Bayle is worth a boatload of souls but people love dying to him

[vale mountain]

yeah that's been my problem with doing co-op for basically all fights

I had resorted to invading at the ||second Divine Beast up in Rauh|| in order to collect rune arcs/some runes because at least I knew the host would die

(and if they look like they won't then I sure can help)

[tropic stream]

Anyone open to helping me mule some items back onto a character?

[old brook]

Lorethought, Final Boss adjacent || I assume Godwyn -was- Miq's first choice, but the Turbo Death kind of made him panic and shift plans||

[languid tiger]

||he gives it to you if you help him fend off leda||

[obtuse halo]

Ah i never saw that branch

[languid tiger]

||oh, did you just help leda murder everyone?||

[obtuse halo]

||no i sided with hornsent and she didn't reappear until the eleventh hour or attack ansbach||

[languid tiger]

huh

didn't realize that's how that part of the quest went

||i missed out on the hornsent bit because i stepped into messmer's arena without seeing the signs||

||and that moves hornsent to messmer, so i had to kill him and go straight to ansbach||

[stone cove]

The funny bit with bale is that they just give yo uteh "Solve this fight" weapon on the way to him

Lock onto the head, spam the WA, laugh in his face

[old brook]

Doesn't stop his grab distance bein hilarious

[stone cove]

Also, one trick with summons is if you're using mimic tear, put Marika's Grace into your hotbar. (In like slot 10 or something so you dont accdientally use it)

but your mimic sure can, and sure will

and it's extra hilarious watching your mimic go "I'mma chug this. boop, got my hp back"

Boss: rage.emoji

[potent perch]

the ||Hinterlands|| are so pretty...

[steel scroll]

i need to get back to elden ring after dawntrail so i can finish the game and then sit my tarnished down there forever.

[trail sail]

||You may not be thinking that after you explore that village thoroughly||

[steel scroll]

||the sadness only makes it better||

[trail sail]

||Agreed, that's one of the most important areas in the DLC imo - master class in environmental design/storytelling||

[stone cove]

Interesting. So, Occult Beast Claws actually out damage Heavy Beast Claws.

Not intially - at 80 STR/10 Arcane, Heavy are ahead by 20 ar. Which is not nothing with their attack speed. (499 vs 479 for 13 str/80 arcane).

However, Occult Beast Claws have D (.33) and E (.18) scaling in Str/Dex. HEavy Beast Claws only have A (1.4 str) scaling, and because they're a paired wweapon, they dont get the 50% str boost that normal str weapons do. So the moment you start putting any into str and dex, they start rapidly pulling ahead on Heavy Beast Claws.

...however, it starts getting fucky here, because Heavy Beast Claws can be Greased, or most notably, Bloodflame'd. Which adds 40 bleed over 2s on every single hit - and the beast claws can do a lot of hits, and bloodflame stacks.

Occult meanwhile just has 85 build bleed up native, and no bloodflame effect. So it's burst bleed is higher, and it doesnt need buffs, but it's effective bleed is potentially lower as it can't get a bloodflame effect (Which stops the bleed meter from draining).

...so techincally if you want to use BEast Claws as a bleed weapon, i think you're better off going a str route with them? which is wild.

There's other considerations though - STR gives you a pile of physical resistance for free. Big deal, given basically everything in the game deals physical damage.

otoh, Arcane supports casting a lot easier because of dragon commuion seal.

[trail sail]

Yeah, and Arcane spells go hard

[trail sail]

||:''') did you read the Golden Braid description||

[potent perch]

||yeah..||

[trail sail]

||aaaand now you get it||

[stone cove]

Honestly, i'm... iffy on arcane spells. There's some good one - i think Bloodboon and Bloodflame talons are pretty good. I find most of the dragon commuion ones too expensive for their results, and Bayles are just flatout letdowns. So's ansbach's unique one 😦

Bloodflame blade would be good, but you can't use it on occult weapons, meaning it's much better on a str/faith or a dex/faith build for claws in this case

[languid tiger]

i mean, the dragon communion incants are widely considered like

some of the best spells in the game

[stone cove]

I find them very epxnesive and awkard in practice

[languid tiger]

they're certainly expensive

[trail sail]

I think the rot dragon breath is worth the price of admission by itself ngl

[stone cove]

But i can just kick people twice and they rot >.>

But maybe i shoukld play with it more

[obtuse halo]

Dragonmaw rules tbh

yes hyperarmor, big damage

[stone cove]

Yeah, but you look so damn silly when it whiffs.

Side note, Crusade Insignia is kinda cracked as a general roaming around talisman

global 15% damage boost for anything dying for 20s.

and any kills refresh that

kills include wild animals. Go on crusade. Teach the bunnies to know fear.

[dusty kraken]

Just gotta keep the murder train rolling

[fleet bronze]

The arcane weapons added in SotE are also awesome, the Meteoric Ore Greatsword and the chickwing are my two favorite strength weapons in general

[stone cove]

Hoenstly, for general pve shennagins - Taker's CAmeo, Crusade Insingia and Blessed Blue Dew (50/50 on this being better than fp on kill)

[old brook]

Honestly I wish we could save talisman sets or something, there's so many great ones for roaming around but sitting down to fiddle through the menu every time is weh

( Also I'm Blessed Blue Dew supporter, it allows a bunch of nigh-free weapon arts in longer fights )

[stone cove]

Let's be real: Elden RIng's UI is in general, blah

like ten spell slots! Which youi can only scroll througfh 1 at a time, in one direction, unless you reset to start

[frozen olive]

If you have one in each hand you'll use them both when attacking

[stone cove]

Madman that i am, i'd make spell focuses actually have you bind spells to r1/r2. Or something. I'd have to workshop this a fair bit, but there has to be better ways to do the spell system

[fleet bronze]

Fighting the UI/optimizing working around it being part of soulsborne gameplay seems unfortunately ingrained

Though maybe if they move further away from the standard format down the line they can make it less painful on purpose

[obtuse halo]

oh god, yes

please let me hotkey spells or something, I am begging you

as a hybrid caster build flicking through spells mid-fight looking for my heal is dicey 😛

[frozen olive]

It is not

[obtuse halo]

and yeah being able to R2 a "signature" spell over the, uh, staff melee attack? that would be a strong improvement.

[frozen olive]

Frenzyflame is not a start over again ending

Frenzyflame is burning everything and that's it

The Frenzied flame has no intention of cycling the world, it just wants to return everyrhing tonthe primordial monad

It explicitly thinks everything in existence was a mistake

The Frenzied flame does not want to burn and remake the world, it just wants to burn everything so the world stops being and everything returns to being one singular thing

[golden pond]

that sounds pretty based

[frozen olive]

If you think so sure, but it is not a remake the world thing

[languid tiger]

yeah everyone hates the flame of frenzy for a very good reason

[dusty kraken]

One thing I really wish Elden Ring had: Better sorting of my items. Like I've got a 100 or so weapons and I wanna find the 'good at dex' ones sometimes and i'ts just 'urg'

[languid tiger]

it is the total dissolution of reality forever

[modest berry]

on topic finally went back and fought rememberance bosss spoilers ||midra quite a fair fun fight i think but just,, am i low on vigor, is everything in the entire dlc supposed to be 2 shotting me? ||

[languid tiger]

All Things To One Thing

[frozen olive]

The Frenzyflame ending is bad for anyone who wants to keep existing

[feral linden]

there was cut content about the caravan guy and the flame of frenzy in the base game right?

[languid tiger]

Melina's earnest plea to turn against it is pretty fantastic too tbh

[frozen olive]

For the purposes of continued existence it is the worst ending of the game

[golden pond]

ye

[languid tiger]

yeah, and there are remnants of it

[golden pond]

he was gonna use the frenzy flame to burn everything down cause everyone is beign a dickhead

[frozen olive]

It is not some age of dark thing where you start something new, simply sum annihilation

[languid tiger]

the nomad clan was accused of consorting with the Flame (or possibly other generic dark powers)

and so were condemned to a lightless prison

and actually made contact with the Flame

ahhh, may Chaos take the world!

don't do frenzy, kids

[golden pond]

do frenzy

[frozen olive]

Making people suffer endlessly in elden ring generally seems like a poor idea

[golden pond]

it's fun

[languid tiger]

yeah there are a lot of powers

[frozen olive]

There are like, several different examples of people being tortured and finding some outer god

[languid tiger]

and a lot of them like to reach out to the disenfranchised

[frozen olive]

Frenzyflame, Red Star, The Formless Mother, etc

[languid tiger]

the formless mother, the flame of frenzy, the fucking greater will even (although it's unclear there)

wait, what's the red star?

must've missed or forgotten its tidbits

[golden pond]

https://tenor.com/view/coelho-comunista-gif-6872429085570706555

[frozen olive]

The thing that the prisoners who Created Thorn Sorcery found

[languid tiger]

ahhh

on uh

Albrecht's set?

I don't think that one's ever mentioned to be an Outer God

and considering the rest of the star stuff, it might not be

very vague on that I think

stars are just a different source of fucked up weird bullshit and power

[frozen olive]

When they wore crowns of thorns which made blood flow and cover their eyes, they became blind but eventually found the Red Star as a result iirc

Well

[languid tiger]

...although Metyr has information that could imply otherwise

[frozen olive]

The Red Star is as much an Outer God as the Dark Moon is presumably

[languid tiger]

yeah, which is to say "ambiguously but never explicitly mentioned"

[frozen olive]

Which is the entity that Ranni has contact with

[languid tiger]

unlike some of the other powers

[frozen olive]

Yeah

[languid tiger]

it's plausible

but I don't want to say it's the certain truth

[modest berry]

i personally think the red star might be the same thing as the formless mother

[languid tiger]

even if I think they probably are

hm, nah

[modest berry]

with mogh seeing it at least in part from left eye peirced by his own horns

[languid tiger]

there seems to be some broad thematic overlap between a few Outer Gods, but the thorns are pretty distinct from bloodflame

the Formless Mother doesn't need self-mutilation

[frozen olive]

The Formless Mother seems to be explicitly named wherever mentioned

[languid tiger]

she wants to be pierced herself

[frozen olive]

As the Mother of Truth or Formless Mother

[steel scroll]

my unhinged pet theory that will never be disproven cus fromsoft will NEVER answer is that the outer gods are all shadows of each other. ||greater will/formless mother, fire god/frenzy, crucible/rot||

[languid tiger]

Mohg just seemed to consider it a holy act to emulate her

[languid tiger]

also this yeah

she's never only alluded to

[frozen olive]

It would be very weird if the Red Star was the Formless Mother/Mother of Truth

They have different expressions of power and the way they are found is very different

Formless Mother is also related to cursed blood, which the Red Star is never mentioned as havkng anything to do with

The only thing that connects them is the blood connection

[languid tiger]

the other two thorn sorceries also have an affiliation with "rejection" of a sort

which is super opposition to the Formless Mother

her whole thing is acceptance of yourself and all things

the thorn sorceries we see are either rejection of the self (senses/perception) or rejection of others (hurt them all)

and also pain pain pain

the two dlc ones have that mantra

[frozen olive]

Also my take on this is that ||The Crucible is in fact NOT an Outer God but actually a native god of the Lands Between/Land of Shadows which as we know lster on is adapted to make the Erdtree||

[languid tiger]

||an Inner God, as it were||

[modest berry]

the crucible is basically if primordial soup was a god

[fleet bronze]

My impression is that the Crucible was more a thing or an event than a being in itself

[languid tiger]

||I'm also interested in the other mentions of gods in a non-Marika/Miquella and non-Outer God context||

||i.e. a couple of those spirit ashes||

[frozen olive]

||The Crucible is such an ancient force it's never mentioned as outside interference, it's been there forever, altering things and influencing living things||

[fleet bronze]

I do wish we got a little more elaboration on what the dragon god was/how dragons fit in to the cosmology in general

[languid tiger]

||Taylew and the named Divine Bird warrior are mentioned as being "gods" of a sort, which is interesting in the cultural connotation there||

[modest berry]

||and the divine beasts and such, though divinity is not inherently A god ||

[frozen olive]

||The tutelary deities for instance||

[languid tiger]

yeah, and I think those two I mentioned would be considered among those

also

what the fUCk is the procession of stars, from soft?

everything surrounding that fucking thing is baffling and deeply intriguing

[modest berry]

i think yall are right probably, the blood star could maybe be another aspect of the mother a reversed punisher to her gentle nurturing though theres just not a ton to connect it yeah

[frozen olive]

||The Divine Beast Dancing Lions do seem to channel the power of some kind of god worshipped by the Hornsent, unclear as to what though but presumably the crucible||

[modest berry]

what are you referring to specifically it doesnt ring a bell

[golden pond]

||nah it's just some cool gizmos in that suit||

[languid tiger]

there are a few demihuman items

Onze's apprentice (Yosh?)'s ashes

[frozen olive]

||I could not disagree more||

[languid tiger]

and then the star-lined sword

that mention a "procession of stars"

and that the demihuman queens and their champions are on a holy mission to find the end of the procession of stars

[steel scroll]

my guess is it's ||another facet of star-worship/scholarship, like carian astrology. its a mechanism for understanding fate and harnessing magical power. it fits in with the demihuman queens being able to cast spells despite existing outside carian orthodoxy||

[languid tiger]

and Onze fucking sealed himself in prison to stop the "ruin that lies at the end of the procession"

[frozen olive]

||The Diving Beast Dancing Lions are even explicitly iirc channeling divine wrath and through their dance become ACTUAL divine beasts and not just puppets. It's a little bit more than just some "gizmos" inside the suits||

[languid tiger]

how does that stop the ruin????

[steel scroll]

presumably ||he was running from his foretold fate||

[languid tiger]

maybe

but it's extremely minimal on information

and very open-ended atm

[modest berry]

maybe recusing for astral projecting like lusat or azur? theres not a ton that we know

[languid tiger]

desperately hope from decides to do a second dlc after all

although I think it's vanishingly unlikely

especially with their explicit statements

but god, I want to know more about this setting

and especially the fucking stars

and space

[modest berry]

maybe a tie in novelization or something

unlikely

[golden pond]

||yeah but that's cool and not dumb and funny like having a big fan so it can float and batteries to throw lightning||

[frozen olive]

||Sure? I don't really get your point but it doesn't fit with the lore either way||

[golden pond]

||I thought it was fairly obvious it was meant as a joke and not an actual lore addition||

[frozen olive]

||in lore mode thinking rn so i didn't think about it being joking||

[modest berry]

tbh what seals the deal actually for me on the bloodstar mother connection being weak is the incantation sorcery split and the no ARC scaling on the abberant sorceries

anyways ||midra|| was cool even if he did kill me instantly a few times, fun fair fight i think all i have is the final boss now

[frozen olive]

Yeah i just think the Red Star and Formless Mother are too different really

Formless Mother is about accepting yourself and your blood while the Red Star is more about turning your suffering onto others

[obtuse halo]

Why am I like this

First attempt at ||Rellana|| bow-only.

Almost there!

[proper vortex]

i'm in thge shadowland now

[obtuse halo]

archer builds are suffering at the best of times, but damn they really don't even give you any new arrow recipes like they do pots

pot builds are eating good, but you can't craft, like, super lightning arrows that do more damage with red fulgurblooms

you're just stuck with what you had in vanilla, basically 😛

well, there's the alluring pot arrows but...that really doesn't help with the core issue much 😛

[golden pond]

elden ring DLC half way through be like

[steel scroll]

https://x.com/han_tani/status/1807203092729037094

Melos han-tani (@han_tani) on X

I have one feedback on elden ring dlc for fromsoft. They should have made the 50 Scadutree Blessings into "5000 Scadutree Bananas" and placed them in lines and curves perfectly designed around your horse's double jump

Twitter · Jun 30, 2024, 12:02 AM

[golden pond]

unironically would enjoy looking for htem more

[tropic stream]

(Would anyone be willing to help me transfer some armor from one character to another?)

[mellow silo]

Yeah sure

I can get on within 15 minutes

[tropic stream]

Fuck yeah thank you

[mellow silo]

Computer problems

Don't worry we got this

Kay fixed

Getting in...

[mellow silo]

I'm ready, meet at Church Of Elleh, code LANCER, I'll drop a Duelist Sign so we don't get interrupted, character name is "Inquisitor Trila"

[tropic stream]

thanks!

[tropic stream]

Where's the sign in the church?

[mellow silo]

Right next to the grace point

[tropic stream]

nvm lol found it

just took a sec

switching characters

[mellow silo]

That's it?

[tropic stream]

If you like you can shank me lol

[mellow silo]

K

[tropic stream]

not even a backstab smh /j

XD

[mellow silo]

Shoulda Crucible Winged ya

Signs back down

[tropic stream]

grazie, will get to it rq

[mellow silo]

Just to be sure, Duelist Helm, and the Leather and Ronin sets other than the helmets?

[tropic stream]

aye

and the knight's greatsword

[mellow silo]

Knights Greatsword+4, got it

[tropic stream]

if you have multiple mine's the

yep the +4

Sorry just waiting for the sign to pop up

I also put a sign down, character is Yelandi in case you see it first

[mellow silo]

... Oh my game just crashed

One second

[tropic stream]

Pfff

No problem lol

[mellow silo]

Ok we should be back

Are you sure you're on the right code on this character?

[tropic stream]

God do they change per character?

[mellow silo]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[tropic stream]

Oh my fucking god they do

Pain

I am such a headass

[obtuse halo]

Bow-only ||Dancing Lion|| kill let's gooooo

[mellow silo]

Ok that should be all

[old brook]

I don't know if anyone has tried ||Pest Thread Spears|| but lordt, they eat giant enemies /incantation spoiler

[tropic stream]

Thank you ever so much

Commence shanking

[mellow silo]

o7

[old brook]

went in with a very 'well this looks silly-' >_>

[tropic stream]

You’re a lifesaver dude, thanks

I can finally make my Dex drips

[tropic stream]

I cannot imagine how only anything

[obtuse halo]

I couldn't either until someone challenged me to do it and I couldn't back down

[old brook]

do crossbows count

[mellow silo]

And now onward on my quest for Laser Mage

[obtuse halo]

since then I have beaten most every major boss in the base game, besides Radagon (who as it turns out is very hard to hurt with a bow) and Placidusax (which I haven't even attempted)

yes, this includes Malenia

[obtuse halo]

My instinct is yes but I didn't use them for the run

[mellow silo]

... Which of course means I have to kill Placidusax and the Final DLC Boss

[obtuse halo]

it took a few attempts, to be sure

also before you ask, while this is a challenge run, I set my own rules and made allowances for:

• A dagger specifically only for crits
• Spirit Ashes, but only if they're specifically archers.

secret malenia tech: use shabriri's woe to be able to actually pull aggro and she probably won't eat your summon for heals

[tropic stream]

lmao

[vivid spire]

Yep

[tropic stream]

Now to post the drips mouse has just made possible

[obtuse halo]

Yeah I used them to get through ||furnace golems|| way faster lol. Also to devour ||Metyr||

[tropic stream]

Both have dlc spoilers

[mellow silo]

anyone willing to share a Light Of Miquella or a Placidusax's Ruin?

[mellow silo]

Hell yeah

[old brook]

||Metyr|| made the foolish decision to ... 'stand?' in water so Ancient Dragon Lightning it t'was. Also found out it could rot

[tropic stream]

Still debating between confessor hood or skeletal mask for the former

Which is gonna be a pure dex

The latter is what made me wanna transfer items the most, because like

look at it

zany katana spellsword

okay skeletal mask is just better

[old brook]

ogh that is better

[obtuse halo]

❤️ leather set

[golden pond]

Seeing is overrated anyways

[obtuse halo]

shame you have to murder patches for it

unless it drops now? idk

I don't know the current state of Patches' quest

[mellow silo]

Yeah you have to gank patches "unfortunately"

[golden pond]

kill 'em

[mellow silo]

I've been trying a fit with Leather Armor with the Verdigris legs and gloves, or actually works pretty well

[obtuse halo]

I dunno about the verdigris, but mixing with shadow militia does look good

[mellow silo]

Mostly it works because it's the same green shade

[tropic stream]

I killed patches on the save mouse helped me port items with cuz I'm deleting that save anyways lol

[tropic stream]

Honestly I have a thing for not showing my character's face

My current set is a weirdly notable exception

[mellow silo]

Anyone around here who is post game?

[golden pond]

you mean like post eldie and final dlc boss?

[mellow silo]

Post DLC

[golden pond]

ye he ded

[mellow silo]

Oh, could you do me a massive favor then?

[golden pond]

what sup

[mellow silo]

Really wanting ||light of Miquella|| from the remembrance, would be willing to trade pretty much anything else for it

[golden pond]

you can just have it tbh

[mellow silo]

Oh really? That's wonderful

Could we meet at Church Of Elleh?

[golden pond]

i don't like it at all lmao

[mellow silo]

Code LANCER

[obtuse halo]

I have finished the DLC

oh i'm late

lol

[golden pond]

🐌

[obtuse halo]

it's for the best, I dunno if I'd want to trade that item on that file

[mellow silo]

Put down a Duelist Sign so we don't get interrupted

[golden pond]

which one is that again lmao

[mellow silo]

Which church?

[golden pond]

no which sign item

[mellow silo]

Duelist's Furled Finger

[golden pond]

oh i don't have it

[mellow silo]

I'll put down a sign then

Sign down

[golden pond]

Trila?

[mellow silo]

Yup

[golden pond]

it's "leave",, right? or am i being dum

[mellow silo]

Leave, yes

[golden pond]

blacked out

[mellow silo]

Do Not Click Discard

[golden pond]

leave selected number just blanks them all out

[mellow silo]

Uh...

You're trying to leave the spell, yes? Not the remembrance?

[golden pond]

ah, you can't drop spells

yeah, can't drop any spell

that sucks

[mellow silo]

That indeed, sucks

Alright you can kill me now ig

Guess I'll have to do this the hard way

[golden pond]

ce

i really like the katana i used on you

i really wish it's weapon art wasn't stuck on it

[mellow silo]

The next step I suppose is to kill Placidusax, then I'll have a good few spells for my laser mage

[old brook]

Worst part about getting to those bosses is making the Firelink Shrine all sad v-v

at least when Bloodborne set on fire there weren't many around to solemnly stand vigil

[golden pond]

wrong universe

[old brook]

they're all Firelink to me

[golden pond]

it's all The nexus to me

all the hubs wish they were peak

nexus is peak

[tropic stream]

Is your build just a very specific flavor of int/fth xD

[mellow silo]

Specifically going for Maximum Laser

I've got Frenzy Burst, Crucible Bloom, the Light Sword, and I'm going after Placidusax's Ruin, and eventually the spell that drops from the final boss

I am the Sherman of Elden Ring

[mellow silo]

Placi down

I am become laser

[mellow silo]

The Priest Of Laser uh, isn't very good lmao

Probably me playing Caster wrong or something

[golden pond]

Comet azur, terra magic, inf fp physick and beam

That's how you lazor

[frail sky]

Placidusax’s Ruin is admittedly not very good

[golden pond]

But for the most part, make sure you buff your spells somehow

Also yeah, make sure the spell is actually good

[frail sky]

It’s cool as hell but it’s soooooooo slow

[golden pond]

Tbf

You can make ruin hit the same spot

[mellow silo]

I'm using Sword Of Light, Frenzy Burst, Crucible Bloom, and Placi's Ruin

[golden pond]

You keep control and can cast mid jump

[frail sky]

Frenzy burst is admittedly really good, but that’s mostly because of its range. It’s a bit of a slow cast
Trying to hit a boss with it is not the best idea

The other two I literally do not know anything about

[modest trellis]

Crucible bloom is only good under two conditions. The enemy is big and they stay mostly still

[mellow silo]

Crucible Bloom is that light rain thing the giant Miranda flowers do

[old brook]

Crucible Bloom loves to miss

[modest trellis]

It's my favorite spell in the dlc but it's so sad

[mellow silo]

Delayed as hell

Sword Of Light has a cool ash of war that spreads a bunch of lasers in front of you, but you're locked in the animation and it's quite close ranged

So everything I have is slow and cumbersome lmao

Except for actually using the sword as a sword

[obtuse halo]

Bow-only ||Rellana||! By the skin of my teeth, but a win is a win.

[modest trellis]

Multilayered disc of light is goated if you're looking for good incantations

[obtuse halo]

I didn't check my remaining hp but it was probably single digit lol

[modest trellis]

Great damage, surprisingly fast, and long range

[mellow silo]

I'm looking for Laser and only Laser

[obtuse halo]

I was surprised to not be dead after fucking up the last dodge on ||twin moons||

[mellow silo]

Need to learn to master Placidusax's Ruin

[obtuse halo]

and just barely managed to squeak it out

[frail sky]

Is that literally one hp?

[atomic plinth]

||...did anyone else notice that during Metyr's second phase, there's that one sound of a black hole that plays in the background of her music||

[obtuse halo]

I foolishly did not check before resting at the grace

but I wouldn't be surprised if it were single-digit

[atomic plinth]

||This one specifically I believe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWBkZ3bMSV0||

||You can hear it most clearly around hereish https://youtu.be/nxRypDWdEMU?t=164||

[paper badge]

so you can poison them, then kick 'em until they're rotted for bonus damage but also leaving the rot on them

[stone cove]

Pretty much

[obtuse halo]

I really want that Ash for my Snake-themed invader pc, but getting it at level 50 with a gimmick snake build sounds...troublesome 😛

She has poison moth flight on the Serpent-God's Curved Sword, which is...functional, but this is probably better and also cool as hell lol

[nova smelt]

honestly after doing both goldmask and ansbachs quests, I think Age of Order is my favorite ending

[native burrow]

Age of order vs age of stars to me is the dichotomy between age of light and age of darkness for me

From dark souls, except there’s no need to sacrifice yourself in the age of order and you actually get to enjoy the fruits of the new golden age

As always I kinda felt like it’s up to the player to decide whether further continuing the Order of the gods is a worthy price to pay for a new golden age where all can live good lives

[old brook]

Age of Duskborn is the true path, free skeletons

[mellow silo]

Very underrated ending

[nova smelt]

my personal interpretation is that Goldmask does not have blind faith, over his questline he discovers the weakness and fickleness of the gods and wants to create a new order. And its an order that will be led by mankind

fitting with ansbach telling you to become a lord of men

[golden pond]

Moon time

[nova smelt]

Ranni's is pretty similar, just in a different way

ultimately both want to create a world free of the control of the gods

[native burrow]

Yeah that’s my interpretation of the Age of Light in dark souls too

[nova smelt]

hell yeah

i think the difference here though is that continuing the age of fire in dark souls is destined to prolong the cycle while the Age of Order doesn't really imply anything cycler

[native burrow]

You kill the gods and create a new order, new sets of Meaning to define the new light

[vivid spire]

I thought gold mask was just a fundamentalist?

[native burrow]

Eh while it is true, you have to keep in mind that nothing lasts forever

[nova smelt]

gold mask becomes a "heretic"

[grave plinth]

I just realized that the Oracle Horn weapons from the base games feature heavy spiral motifs

[obtuse halo]

so the thing is, golden order fundamentalism is not actually religious fundamentalism in the way most english-speakers would understand the term

[nova smelt]

He was a fundamentalist but he discovers the truth behind radagon and marika and he doubts the gods

[native burrow]

He’s a fundamentalist to the Rule

[obtuse halo]

it's a blend of faith and critical analysis - golden order fundamentalism requires both high faith and high int

[native burrow]

Not fundamentalist to the gods

[vestal night]

Golden Order Fundamentalism is more like philosophy and science

also math

[obtuse halo]

because it's more about understanding how the faith interacts with the world, yeah

[native burrow]

The perfected golden order is the product of reason, theology, and science rather than obedience to the gods

[obtuse halo]

it's less bible-thumping and more Enlightenment natural science in a 17th century sort of way

[native burrow]

Yeah

[frail sky]

Hmm… I’m beginning to think that either ||Messmer|| can’t be partied or the timings are really hard

[nova smelt]

Goldmask reads like Hermes trismegistus to me

[native burrow]

Or I guess more like if theologians like Thomas aquinas took over the Catholic Church

[nova smelt]

since there is SO much hermeticism in elden ring

[obtuse halo]

He's absolutely drawing on emerald tablet energy, yeah

[nova smelt]

he can be parried

[grave plinth]

its Fundamentalism in the original scholastic sense of the word, and it probably retains that leaning more heavily than IRL fundamentalist movements because the Golden Order is more conducive to scholarly analysis than most religions

[native burrow]

Faith to these people is not just a matter of belief but matter of science and reason

[obtuse halo]

I'm a Ranni simp but you could make a sensible reasoned argument that the Golden Order ending is the Golden ending and not be a complete tool

[vestal night]

I do love how Gold Masks solution is just "alright, I thought about this for a while, and I have now mathematically proven the perfect order for things to be"

[nova smelt]

the int/faith build will lead us to a paradise of reason

[native burrow]

I still believe ranni’s plan is for the best

But have no real objection to the golden order either if that makes sense

It’s very much two entirely different but valid reaction to crisis of faith

[vestal night]

it also makes Corhyn's refusal to actually engage with his own religion kinda funny

[native burrow]

Or more precisely I guess the crisis of Meaning

[obtuse halo]

Corhyn is an interesting loser

[native burrow]

The Erdtree and Marika is an utterly dominating force in the Land between

Its presence puts into order everything else

[vestal night]

because he actually is a fundamentalist in the more modern sense now
and the steadfastly refuses the idea that there could be any issues

[obtuse halo]

He admires Goldmask's vision but ultimately is unwilling to, let's say, think outside the box

[native burrow]

And everything shines brighter thanks to the Erdtree’s light

[vestal night]

from what I remember
he admires him, until he actually meets Gold Mask
and then he gets more and more doubtful each time

[native burrow]

So what do you do when it turns out this grand organizing force that makes everything make sense turns out to be, well, not as fundamentally true as you believe it was?

[junior spade]

Corhyn respects Goldmask until Goldmask pulls out the blunt

[steel scroll]

that carian sorcerer kush

[junior spade]

smoking that shit that made lusat

[glossy delta]

He relied on his faith to survive great hardship (being driven out as a heretic prophet)
So he's not going to abandon that faith, its a survival mechanism as much as it is a philosophy
So when the other thing he's staked his existence on, Goldmask, says that his faith is flawed, he kind of uhhhhh
Snaps

[obtuse halo]

At the end of the day, Corhyn wants to be a follower. He wants understanding granted to him by outside authority.

He doesn't really want to question any of his preconceived notions.

[native burrow]

Your long term options are either

1. Replace the old order with a new order and a new light that will put everything back into perspective (real life example would be replacement of Christian theological maxims with, say, Marxist historical materialism or some other similar philosophies)
2. Try to find a new ideological system which doesn’t rely on the presence of a grand organizing canon

So that’s kinda how I view perfected order vs age of stars ending

[nova smelt]

its why he has a blindfold on all the time

[junior spade]

contrast with Mirial, who probably would be chill with Goldmask revelations

[grave plinth]

3. LET CHAOS! TAKE! THE WORLD!

[native burrow]

Or that yeah, nihilistic abandonment

[mellow silo]

Honestly I like Duskborn

It's neat

[grave plinth]

Duskborn is neat but functionally I all can see it doing is making Holy not hurt Those Who Live in Death

[mellow silo]

You give the dead rights and turn the sky orange

[native burrow]

All the regular endings are some variety of a new order rising to replace the old one

[grave plinth]

it doesn't actually address the structural elements of the Golden Order so much as carve out a new niche in the flawed system

[native burrow]

Even dungeaters

[grave plinth]

Fia's got charisma but she doesn't really go hard enough for Duskborn to be a real fix to anybody's problems but the Undead's

Dungeater's is like, legitimately insane in that he's stapled together an entire mythos from what seems to be nothing more than his own insanity

[vestal night]

Dung Eater makes no sense
He just wants people to suffer for no reason

[grave plinth]

He's not Hornsent, he's not an Omen, and as far as we can tell his solar influences are more motivational than substantial

[junior spade]

Dungeater is evil (personal) and Frenzied Flame is evil (big space god backing this madness up)

[grave plinth]

We know shockingly little about the solar god or gods in Elden Ring and that's probably by design after three games of Gwyn's legacy refusing to die

[wild sierra]

dung eater wants a form of "everyone is equal now and it sucks" which involves less nonexistence than the frenzied flame

[obtuse halo]

yeah the sun is largely washed out by the Erdtree

it exists, but it's oddly gray

[vestal night]

I'm not even sure if the equality angle is intentional on his part or just incidental

[opaque canopy]

Dung Eater's kind of makes sense for a guy whose entire thing is that he has nothing except making people suffer.

[grave plinth]

The ||Hornsent|| have a solar deity of some sort but ||Messmer largely just uses it to mock them||

[native burrow]

Yeah erdtree is so dominating that it blots out even the sun

[junior spade]

then we shall fight in the shade

[obtuse halo]

iirc it's explicitly a depiction of ||the fell god||

[grave plinth]

The Sun might have something to do with Godwyn

[obtuse halo]

a term also used for the ||God of the Giants||

[native burrow]

Too bad there is no shade under the light of the erdtree

Ignore the land of shadows

[junior spade]

it would be very funny if that god turned out to just be The Sun

[opaque canopy]

THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SU-

[obtuse halo]

I mean, Castle Sol is right there

[junior spade]

the ghost in castle sol does always intrigue me

[grave plinth]

Yeah Castle Sol makes me think that ||Earlier in the game's development Godwyn was the brother that Miquella was crushing on, only to be switched to Radahn as the DLC got further developed||

[grave plinth]

||and they're antagonistic to it, or at least afraid of it. Given that it "haunts" the sagas it doesn't seem to be super major in their mythology though, its like a bogeyman that shows up every once in a while||

[frail sky]

Shadow Keep boss: ||killed Messmer and let the Hornsent get the last hit in, feels good||

||I don't think that's supposed to be there||

[old brook]

||The spirits got their vengeance, now they're chillin||

[frail sky]

||Oh because I missed the summon/invasion sign thing Leda no longer wants to kill the Hornsent, neat||

[glossy delta]

I wonder if (npc quest and main quest spoilers) ||theres a way to get the Hornsent on your side or at least get him to abstain come the Civil War||
||If you let him kill Messmer it seems like he's no longer interested in Miquella's plan so||
||I know you can just have Leda kill him before that point but||

||I guess the minimum number of allies Leda can have is two, Dane and Freyja?||
||You can get her to kill the hornsent and (VERY CRUELLY) make Moore lose the will to live before that point||

[frail sky]

Ansbach/Freyja NPC quest: ||Looked up how to do Ansbach’s quest and gave him the scroll, from the sounds of it Miquella was just using Mohg to get to the land of shadow and the whole kidnapping thing might’ve been his idea||

||…oh god he’s bringing back Radahn using Mohg’s corpse||

[glossy delta]

||Beating the allegations||

[frail sky]

||In less shocking news, Freyja just gave me half of Valorheart I guess||

[mellow silo]

||I had literally just Leda and Dane, Freyja doesn't show up if you don't give her the letter (I forgot 😭). At that point I had already killed Hornsent and Moore sadly||

There's probably a way to cancel ||Dane|| as well, but idk how

[frail sky]

||Oh shit Ansbach’s bow looks cool as hell 👀||

[steep wing]

Love it, at the point where I really don't know where to go next and finding dead end after dead end, really feels like first timing Elden Ring again

[frozen olive]

yeah honestly they got the experience down incredibly well

i felt like a first time play er again

[atomic plinth]

How do I get to all this here?

[limpid peak]

it's called the ||Abyssal Woods||

there's a ladder in ||Shadow Keep, and an illusory wall||

[atomic plinth]

Ah, thanks Gatts

[junior spade]

exploration in the DLC feels so, so rewarding

even after beating the bosses im still finding stuff

[atomic plinth]

Fr

...how do you counter the furnace golem's massive jump AoE

I can't roll through it, can't run away in time, can't jump it

[vestal night]

The one where it jumps with both legs?

Move a bit away, then jump over it

[paper badge]

unironically want a world the size of the base game but designed more like the DLC

[old brook]

I'm kind of bummed that I have no motivation to go after the final boss, it's not even a difficulty thing, I loved all the knock you on your ass type bosses over the years just.. feel nothing about this

||Sure, Godwyn has no soul. But wouldn't it be nifty to see what would happen if you tried to give life to the utterly lifeless? But nawh, check out this large man, and his sword, and his rocks||

||Why did it have to be Radahn? He's the strongest? How did he plan on beating him, then? Why is Mohg's body just as powerful? Why -is- Radahn the strongest? Just Built Different, So Huge and Cool||

[steel scroll]

||it had to be radahn because godwyn was dead. yes he's the strongest. they literally did beat him, even if it cost nuking caelid. magic. because he hit the gym and the library.||

[old brook]

||They didn't beat him though. We do. The only reason Radahn's soul shows up is because we complete the festival personally.||

idk i'm sorry it's just left me sour, i won't gripe about it x-x

[kind garden]

||Idk, inflicting him with a crippling double-cancer disease that essentially left him incapacitated seems like a W||

[steel scroll]

Our plans are measured in centuries.

[old brook]

||'I will bring about a kind and gentle future. Except fuck this continent.'||

[kind garden]

||We fight a massively reduced Radahn during the Festival and he's still insanely strong||

[old brook]

||That makes the fight quite cool||

||And this one quite lame||

[glossy delta]

I feel you
It definitely felt flat to me
||The civil war was def the height of the DLC for me, what comes after is a lil meh||

[old brook]

||'That's right! He swung his swords even faster!'||

[kind garden]

||It wasn't the best conclusion, but idk, it felt like we at least had a connection to Radahn as a character and a lore figure compared to Godwyn being Literally Who||

[old brook]

||Fuck, have the Divine Gate just explode into a cloud of tormented sacrifices that form Some New Thing||

[kind garden]

||I would not have been particularly satisfied with a battle with Sir Not Appearing In This Story either, frankly||

[old brook]

||The only lore about Radahn is How Cool Radahn is, the festival is cool, but the guy is plain baked potato||

[paper badge]

I enjoyed the final boss

maybe that makes me some kind of idiot brainlet but idc

[kind garden]

||Now that just ain't true, we know that he was a compassionate man who loved his horse so much that he learned gravity magic just to keep chilling with Leonard||

[glossy delta]

The thing is for me that like
||Yes we know Radahn, no we don't know pre-deathroot Godwyn||
||How about we learn about pre-deathroot odwyn by....... fighting him as the conclusion to a DLC that is largely dedicated to revealing big mysteries about the setting||

[old brook]

||We don't even meet Radahn though. He says nothing. He does the same poses from the trailer. He's also Mohg.||

[paper badge]

I'm a sucker specifically for ||'prime' versions of fucked up, hollowed-out characters|| and you never really get that in any of the souls games

besides like

once I can think of in Sekiro

[old brook]

Sword Saint Isshin is about as far from this as possible

[tropic stream]

crucible bloom is also fantastically awful

[old brook]

Perhaps one of the best bosses they've ever done

[paper badge]

I was actually more thinking ||Father Owl||

[kind garden]

||Like, my feeling about is that I wouldn't have been satisfied with a Godwyn fight either, and I was only kinda satisfied with the Radahn fight because we got to see him do all the Cool Stuff we were told he was capable of in his prime. Ultimately it felt like we built up to this huge climax... and then we apparently needed Some Random Guy to act as an intermediate between us and Miquella, the actually important character?||

[old brook]

||*but the only 'new' 'prime' thing he does is fuckin Lion's Claw||

I just keep thinking about Gael

[paper badge]

tbf I do feel that ||having someone else be the physical component of the fight is very in-character for Miquella. He doesn't wield weapons, he wields his holy light, and he wields love to shrive clean the hearts of men||

[paper badge]

well, visually, he's also ||standing on his (mohg's?) own two feet instead of crawling and/or levitating above his horse||

[kind garden]

||Sure, I get that, but like... in terms of how much hype the game is building up to and what the final boss actually is, fighting Radahn but cooler is an anticlimax, I agree with that much.||

[paper badge]

I feel like presentation and visuals matter

[old brook]

The presentations and visuals do not change enough for me to be moved I'm sorry

[paper badge]

again maybe I'm just a brainlet for it working on me but 🤷

[kind garden]

nah I was also impressed by the visuals and the animation

that part was pretty good, imo

storywise I definitely feel like it didn't hit the high it needed to, yet I wonder if that's in part because there's so much buildup that it was in fact very fucking hard to hit that high note

[rich lintel]

idk what the final boss would be instead tho

[limpid peak]

it was definitely an "oh shit" moment for me when I talked to Freyja about the secret rite scroll

[kind garden]

like what were they gonna show us that would've cashed out on all the buildup, you know?

[mellow silo]

😭

[limpid peak]

in a way it wouldn't have been with anyone else

[mellow silo]

Why are all the cool lasers so weak...

[kind garden]

Hey, Crucible Bloom has its moments

as does the divine low-orbit ion cannon

[old brook]

Idk, all the powers of ||A GOD|| amounting to ||Radahn's Cape, Twin Princes Version 2||, just-.. it didn't.. it didn't do anything. I know it's because the DLC ends before the main game but christ

Do the whole thing with ||St. Trina|| talking about how we should ||Stop Miq|| and then we ||Don't? And then just kill them as a God, anyway||

[rich lintel]

i just struggle to imagine how from would pull it off any differently

[kind garden]

I don't, they could've absolutely thrown a Giant Radiant Fucked Up Thing at us

[paper badge]

true

[rich lintel]

giant evil moonlight butterfly

[old brook]

First phase being ||Full Strength Godhood|| second phase being ||Things Breaking Apart, the Crucible Flow was left to waste too long||

[kind garden]

that's my beef with it, just give us the giant fucked up design instead of Literally Some Dude

[old brook]

||'That's Mohg's body' which fuckin part||

[kind garden]

I don't think any particular dude would've been better than the one we got

[rich lintel]

personally i love the Some Dude fights in souls games, the big evil monster fights never feel as fun

[rich lintel]

||all the horns prolly||

[kind garden]

Some Dude works when it's a well-established, built-up-to Dude that you already know all about when you get to the arena and the name comes up and you go AWW FUCK

It's THIS GUY, that I know about from the item descriptions

Like, uhh, fuckin' Artorias

[rich lintel]

this would go hard if the DLC wasn't supposed to be done before the base game is over, i feel like it'd be too grand for what's ultimately a side-story

[kind garden]

Artorias hits different specifically because you already know enough about him that when you get to the arena and the name Knight Artorias comes up you go Oh shit! It's Artorias, that guy I heard about so much

[rich lintel]

tbh i kinda felt that after freyja/ansbach, but i see what u mean

[kind garden]

I mean, I do feel like we got some buildup

but also

[old brook]

a side story that brings about ||a new god, and for a few seconds, a lord of frenzied flame||

[mellow silo]

We needed the final boss to let us have help during the second phase, depending on the ending you were going to get

[kind garden]

a lot of it is just kinda generally "whatever's behind this door is going to be fucking wild"

[old brook]

They should have ||made Old Radahn WAY MORE FUCKING FERAL if they were goin' to do this. They're too similar.||

[kind garden]

which is great when the answer to whatever's behind that door is a Huge Fucked Up Thing that doesn't need context because it's in your face 24/7 with the design beats

[glossy delta]

For me ||literally the exact same buildup and payoff but replace every instance of the word 'Radahn' with 'Godwyn' would have worked way better||
||Not least cuz then we would have seen a funny new moveset and gotten an actual new weapon instead of THREE VERSIONS OF STARSCOURGE GREATSWORDSSSSSS||

[kind garden]

that part rankled.

[old brook]

||The swords are fucking unconscionable.||

[rich lintel]

but consider || you can now have four swords which is very funny ||

[glossy delta]

||FROM I DONT WANT TO USE DUAL COLOSSAL WEAPONS IT LOOKS DUUUUUUMB||

[kind garden]

||cmon dog your big payoff boss weapon is.. two identical but slightly different versions of a weapon that already exists?||

[rich lintel]

|| just needed a diff moveset tbh||

[limpid peak]

||I am so glad it wasn't Godwyn, but the swords thing is dumb. We should have gotten some Miquella thing||

[kind garden]

the spell is absolutely hilarious though

they were cooking w/ that one

[mellow silo]

NEED that spell tbh

[old brook]

I wish we'd gotten ||Not Godwyn. I wanted him to try for Godwyn. And fail. And then we see what the fuck comes back.||

[glossy delta]

I would have actually liked them a lot if ||they were curved swords this time instead of greatswords||
||Cuz thats what they actually are in Radahn's hands||

[limpid peak]

||Maybe Radahn should have gotten some cool as hell Miquella weapon in the second phase||

[kind garden]

||That would kinda slap, yeah.||

[rich lintel]

|| instead of two big swords, one really fuck-off big sword!||

[languid tiger]

||giant needle spear||

[modest berry]

||so true im now on team whatever this would have been, a moghdahn not godwyn mess ||

[kind garden]

||Also, like... we kinda never cashed out on the whole Scadutree thing or the Avatar, huh? Fuck was that about?||

[rich lintel]

|| h a m m e r ||

[kind garden]

||I mean, I appreciate the sunflower, it's a fuckin' fantastic weapon, but where were we going with all that exactly||

[old brook]

||The marika lore i wanted more of more than anything orz we got GREAT STUFF but that trailer made me insane||

||what did you DO, how did you DO THIS||

[kind garden]

From Software truly is a scourge for leaving you wanting more and then moving on to the next project

[modest berry]

||i think that was just a quite powerful avatar because miquella discarded his great rune there, it had the broken power of a demigod||

[kind garden]

see you all when Armored Core Six Answer drops in 2026!

that or when the DLC update patch drops in a month and patches in a bunch of quests that got left out in the initial release

remember when that happened?

[modest berry]

lets gooooo

[kind garden]

that was fuckin' crazy

[old brook]

I don't know if they could introduce another charming Jar

the vibe is different

[rich lintel]

gives me one more reason to play through the game again wooooooo

[kind garden]

no this time it'll be the most charming Hornsent ever

[old brook]

But grandma already gives soup

[kind garden]

s o u p

[old brook]

like Windwaker..

[mellow silo]

I really wish the endings payed off in the final boss

That would be cool as hell

[old brook]

If he'd at least mention something based on like what Great Rune you carried

[kind garden]

this is a fromsoft dlc campaign moment

to be fair

[mellow silo]

Like second phase starts and Ranni shows up to assist you

[kind garden]

it's always like this

[old brook]

Calling us a ||Golden Order Lackey|| so rude

[golden pond]

I wish it wasn't just a sudden "congrats, haha! Goodbye until next release" but hey

[mellow silo]

Or your head cracks open into a frenzy flame or something

Tarnished needs a Phase Two

[rich lintel]

|| wish midra had frenzyflame dialogue :{||

[old brook]

Also why the hell can Miquella oust Outer Gods

What is unalloyed gold, still

[kind garden]

built different

[modest berry]

you cant even do that with embers anymore 😔

[tropic stream]

Because otherwise they'd be meta-defining xD

[frail sky]

Darklight catacombs: ||well fuck, guess I'm not getting whatever that is||

[golden pond]

sit at a grace then come back

[mellow silo]

Oh you're in darklight

Have fun with what's ahead of you lol

[languid tiger]

||big ghostwort||

[frozen olive]

||All of it||

||the ritual took mohgs body and reshaped it to be Radahns so his spirit could inhabit it||

[old brook]

I think that's ||very boring from a visual/lore standpoint||

[frozen olive]

||it's mentioned in the secret rite scroll:A lord will usher in a god's return, and the lord's soul will require a vessel.||

(final boss spoilers)||The god is Miquella the Kind, the Lord is Starscourge Radahn and the vessel is the corpse of Mohg, Lord of Blood||

[frail sky]

Oh I don't care about that, that's good then

[frail sky]

||This is like if they made pinwheel actually dangerous. Also that description on the staff seems redundant, you can already tell it scales with faith||

[opaque canopy]

I was feeling a little burned out after hitting a wall with ||Messmer|| and not feeling like I had much to do till I got past him. But then I stumbled ontop ||Rauh|| and now I'm like yaaaaaaaaaaay again.

[frozen olive]

fr

||Rauh is so incredibly pretty||

[frail sky]

||whoa||

[opaque canopy]

It's gorgeous, yeah

like

[frozen olive]

||easily the prettiest place in the game, and there is only one area which i like more than it in the dlc||

[opaque canopy]

It gives me the same kind of breathtaking wonder feeling that Siofra did the first time, but a completely different biome

[frozen olive]

yeah

there is one area i rate higher for vibes

but it's later

[opaque canopy]

nice nice nice

[frail sky]

||The spectral steed is fightened and cannot be summoned||
What

[vestal night]

:)

[junior spade]

:)

[frail sky]

||Turn back, while you are yet able||
What

[frozen olive]

:)

[opaque canopy]

unrelated question to the Everything Is Fine going on

The ||Dancing Lion remembrance||, are either of the choices very good?

[frail sky]

||Don't let it see you. Once you are seen, there is no escape. It cannot even be touched||
...fuck I shouldn't be here. But map fragment

[opaque canopy]

I can't decide if it's worth duplicating it

[frozen olive]

||i'd go look at them first, but not really unless you plan on doing a Dancing Lion build i don't think||

[real shadow]

https://tenor.com/view/king-of-the-hell-laughing-smile-eyeglasses-fire-gif-15775813

[opaque canopy]

i have. no idea what that build is honestly

[frozen olive]

||as in using items related to the dancing lion||

[opaque canopy]

but the ||frost stomp ||seemed decent so I may just pick that

[frozen olive]

||frost stomp is cool, good pick||

[opaque canopy]

the abundance of dex weapons makes me consider respeccing to play with twinblades and such though.

cause I can get ||Rellana's ||if I want

also great katanas seem sick?

[frozen olive]

they are cool

[old brook]

I love the great katana moveset, great damage, great crowd management, ton'a Ash options

dual wielding could do a little more poise maybe

[opaque canopy]

okay yeah this is.. interesting.

I was not expecting the pokes, for some reason.

oooo, I love that 1H and 2H feel like they serve meaningfully different purposes

[tropic stream]

Ohohohohohohohohoho

Heeeeeehehehehehehehehehehe

Hey Rose

You ever played

Bloodborne?

[real shadow]

Shhhhh

Let'em figure it out.

[frail sky]

||Ah I see, if any of the frenzied animals see you they inflict frenzy madness on you||
||Thank god for unseen form||

||Not even in elden ring can I escape the winter lanterns||

[frozen olive]

:)

[opaque canopy]

Jesus fuckin' christ the ||Beast Claw|| makes me tempted to respec to a dex bleed build