Elden Ring (DLC hype room)

[stone cove]

I'm just gonna put that down as fuck, i'm tired

[obtuse halo]

okay test of a thing

This attempt went very poorly but a single hefty rot pot is enough to proc the status in phase 1

and there's a good opening to do it right after dodging the most common opening attack

this is honestly a generic tip useful to any build tbh

[stone cove]

Oooh, good to know.

Sdie note, god but Beast Claws are so digusting

574 AR before any buffs ❤️

[obtuse halo]

solid

[stone cove]

(This is, admtiely, a quality build so like all my points are going striaght to making them hit as hard as possible)

relastically you'll have around 500 AR with a Heavy Beast Claw build, or a bit lower with Occult.

also, the running heavy when you have htem on both hands?

automatically procs the first couple of levels of the Mutli-attack talismans

[languid tiger]

574's a bit low, but i guess it's good for such a fast weapon

[stone cove]

It's very good for such a fast wepaon

rem,eber ,that's zero buffs

and it's still greaseable in this form.

[languid tiger]

i mean yeah, i was talking about with zero buffs

[stone cove]

Also pretty much every single move in it's moveset hits at least twice when dual wielded

so it really stacks up

(and it's got inherent bleed)

like things just pop

It did ugly things to ||Midra||

OIld man killed by rampaging bear D:

(plus, you can do all kinds of ufnny crap like duck attacks by charging your heavy pounce attack)

[golden pond]

I still find it funny that despite helphen's having better AR at the same stats in base game than DMGS
It's +1 more ar over dmgs in dlc

Pondering why

[modest berry]

i won!

[stone cove]

also to put Beast Claws in contexdt @languid tiger - Comparing other Claws/Fists at quality 80/80 (Obviously a bit silly, but w/e i'm too lazy to do something more sensible)

Venomous Fang wins at 581 ar. Beast claw is second at 574. Bloodhound Claws at 567, then Star Fists at 548 with spiked Cestus right behidn that at 544.

Raptor talons trailing in last place at 513, poor things.

Oh, techicnally Golem Fists win at 588 if you meet the int/faith requriemtns, lol.

[golden pond]

Rocket fisto

[languid tiger]

the veteran's prosthesis beats them all

on raw ar

[stone cove]

Yes, but then you're using Veteran's prothsies.

[golden pond]

What's wrong with veteran's prosthesis

[stone cove]

Well, split damage for one.

[golden pond]

Split issue

Ofc

[modest berry]

They should have patched it and put it on the leg like the commander now that they have kick weapons

That always bugged me

[golden pond]

No but deadass

Let me slam the floor and jump at someone

[languid tiger]

shockingly, the claws of night also beat everything else

[stone cove]

Lol, i was about to say

[languid tiger]

as a solo dex weapon, even at 60/60 or 80/80

[stone cove]

Yeah, claws of night actualyl get kinda crazy? apprently?

Oh, that's not right, that's why it's showing up

Claws of Night actually have int scaling

[languid tiger]

oh

huh

[stone cove]

they just... dont show iti n game properly

[languid tiger]

that makes more sense

[golden pond]

I'm still mad starlined sword is mostly dex

[stone cove]

Also i acutallyu forgot to put uniques in, so whoops

Red Bear Claw also comes in very high at 585 AR

but again, cant be buffed

and loosing the ability to be buffed is a huge blow given how brutally fast these weapons can go

Bloodflame Beast claws are legit terrifying.

[languid tiger]

hm

apparently the claws of night lost int scaling

and got changed to pure dex

[modest berry]

||in my winning run ansbach got double grabbed and hit the emote and i was like 1.5 health for you to do this 😭 it let me re-buff tho||

[languid tiger]

between patches

[stone cove]

Wait, what?

That's fucking bizzare

[languid tiger]

reddit is reddit and fextralife is fextralife

[stone cove]

Lemme go check mine

[languid tiger]

so i'm not 100% certain

but that's what i'm seeing

i've also booted up my game to check, though

[frozen olive]

(final boss spoilers)||https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgLQzg8vzmA||

the pure fucking AURA of walking up to ||Promised Consort Radahn with full heavy armor and an ironjar, ready to box him the fuck up||

[languid tiger]

yeah, just checked

scaling is pure dex

stargazer heirloom has no effect on it

[stone cove]

...What the fuck

that's insane.

Esp becuiase they have 416 AR in physical alone.

[languid tiger]

yeah, those stats are fucking obscene for a claw

and they even have 110% crit

[stone cove]

Ah

Okay, i tested them in game

[obtuse halo]

Aw, that’s disappointing

[stone cove]

they're actually much weaker than they look on paper

[languid tiger]

oh, really?

how so?

[stone cove]

Split damage.

It really hurts them

[obtuse halo]

Just tested ||Leda’s Armor|| with my bow

Absolutely no effect

[stone cove]

also their moveset is much weaker than Beastclaw

[languid tiger]

wait, the phys raw isn't enough?

[obtuse halo]

Must be melee only

Can’t have shit in bow detroit

[languid tiger]

also i kinda disagree here

the r2 being ranged is cracked

it's such a fast throw

[stone cove]

Not when best claw has nearly 200 more raw ar.

to give a comparsion - Running R1 from beast claw - 1.9k damage, close to 2k.

Running r1 from the night claws? 1.1k

Beast Claws seem to have really high MVs on most of their moves

[languid tiger]

what enemy is that on?

and is it in the dlc?

2k from an r1 dash seems ridiculous otherwise

[stone cove]

In the dlc, just on some random mooks

the hornsent ghost guys, in rauh ruins in this case

[languid tiger]

that makes sense, then

[stone cove]

weridly, R1 dash hits way harder than R2 dash?

Guess r2 dash does a lot more posture or something

[languid tiger]

it's also basically identical speed

[stone cove]

Claws of night have a much nicer 1 handed moveset tho

The good news is they're both light as hell

so you can just equip both, lol

[obtuse halo]

Final Boss Spoilers again

[languid tiger]

hm

[obtuse halo]

||Phase 2 requires two rot pots.|| Unfortunately I got stuck in a corner and died almost immediately after applying it

[languid tiger]

what all weapons have r2 cancels, by the way?

i know perfume bottles and beast claws do

but not sure what else

[old brook]

Great Katanas (barely)

[obtuse halo]

Thrusting Swords.

also curved swords iirc

[stone cove]

I think backhand blades do?

Anyway, i def think Beast Claws are a lot more my style than normal claws. Not that night claws are bad or anything, i just find beast claws a lot, lot punchier in practice

and i like the flexability of being able to buff up with w/e

even if most of the time it's just BLOODFLAAAAAAAAAME

(whjich can put up surpsingly silly # with the right seal)

[languid tiger]

oh, the throwing knife does as well

[obtuse halo]

throwing knife is something I dearly wish did more damage because it's super cool and I love the vibe of it

[stone cove]

I actually find they seem to do pretty good damage?

like they stack up shockingly fast if you're dual wielding them and going to town

and you can scriptsmith talisman them for another boost

Oh, interesting

Smithing Talisman works for Spectral Lance and also for Kurki, Dagger, Fan Daggers etc

[languid tiger]

oh nice

[stone cove]

Also i dont understand this? You cannot buff throwing blades

[languid tiger]

what

what do r2 cancels have to do with buffs

[stone cove]

...i dindt realzie yo uwere talkign about cancels

it was super unclear from context because it came right after me talking about weapon buffs

[languid tiger]

no, it was continuing from my previous series of posts

and your own response

[obtuse halo]

oh that is interesting

[stone cove]

It really idndt look liek that on my screen. shrug

[obtuse halo]

a lot of the dlc talismans work for things you wouldn't expect them to

[stone cove]

Anyway, it is time for me to goto bed

[obtuse halo]

it's very funny that the Talisman that boosts "Storms" applies to Stormwing Arrows

[stone cove]

Everyone, paly Beast Claws, they are incredibly satisying

You too can be an angry bear who eats people

[obtuse halo]

i'm excited to try them out! I even have a str/faith build sitting around that's probably easy to retool

[stone cove]

Actually, Str/Faith is a great pick for them if you want more verstaility

since you can just go heavy, and still get great AR

and then you can off hand a good seal and have a bunch of fun spells to unleash

and stuff like Crucible: Tail goes real well

[languid tiger]

does the smithing talisman increase final damage or just physical?

[modest berry]

and the gurranq stuff thematically goes super well

[stone cove]

I have no idea man, test yourself i'm just looking at Fextralife.

but it just says "10% boost"

[obtuse halo]

Yes, that was why I thought of that build in particular 😛

[languid tiger]

i have no convenient test

[obtuse halo]

you want some faith for Bloodflame Blade or whatever anyway

[stone cove]

While true i dont find they combo too well, you really wanna be able to two-hand them

[languid tiger]

which is why i asked

[stone cove]

Ironically Messmer's Orb makes a great combo

since you can come in with the slam

and then instalty switch to beast mode and start eating the surivours

[obtuse halo]

For what it's worth I'm super into hotswapping 2hing weapons

I've gotten a lot of practice at that

[stone cove]

Oh, i've been doing it too, i'm just noting it's not the best

also rember that if you wanna be buffing, Beastclaw Seal sucks

[obtuse halo]

on the bow build alone, I keep Misericorde in the mainhand to whip out for the occasional crit

[stone cove]

(Seriously From: WHY.)

why do you make things diffuclt like this and non obvious

(for those unaware, weapon encahants only scale with either your Faith or INt dervvied encant scaling. So they're awful if you use Dragon COmmunion or Beast Claw or whatever)

[obtuse halo]

Incidentally, this helped a lot with the ||Miquella Gang War; hitting tarnished with archery is hard but sometimes you see freyja dancing with Nataan and you can get a cheapshot backstab on Freyja during her windup on lion's claw lol||

my archer might not be the most honorable character I've ever played

[stone cove]

Butg they are the most british character you've played, so it's fine\

because the british did not fight fair at all

[obtuse halo]

lol

[stone cove]

(No seriously, British longbowmen, terriying and also nearly responsible for the extinction of the yew tree)

Featuring such fun tactics as "Dont glue your arrowheads on, just use some spit, that way when they try and remove the arrow from teh wound, teh head falls off into the wound!"

"Also we stuck them in teh ground, so the wound is now covered in dirt and shit"

[obtuse halo]

one of my rules is that the dagger is used only for criticals, but I will definitely admit to clearing out segments of dungeons with stealth and backstabs whenever possible to conserve ammo

[modest berry]

||so i saw recently that you can get things from the sad/sleeping forager brood by hitting them with warming stones, i wonder if you get all of them if theres a moore related interaction ||

[obtuse halo]

||Yeah, if you gather all 6 forager brood cookbooks, moore will give you a seventh||

[modest berry]

||i didnt even know who nataan was before now woah||

[obtuse halo]

||Lmao yeah if Ansbach is dead you get a random sanguine noble as an alternate ally||

[stone cove]

You only need to collect 4 to trigger that!

[obtuse halo]

oh neat!

[languid tiger]

i thought you needed to specifically ||collect the one from the injured forager||

||unless you meant #4, which i think that one is||

[obtuse halo]

in other news I'm missing 3 scoobydoo fragments to max out the level and going crazy trying to figure out which 3

I found them all on my last playthrough, just don't remember where all exactly I've been with my archer

[vestal night]

Really do feel they should have put some extra around

[obtuse halo]

one more level probably isn't going to make or break the final boss but I'm making this hard enough on myself as is 😛

[modest berry]

||do u have the enir elim parkour one i almost forgot that one my time thru||

[obtuse halo]

I do

that's a fun little side path

though ngl that weapon irrationally annoys me because ||one minor thing I wanted out of the DLC and didn't get was a stick with the twinblade moveset. Perfectly good moveset, but you can't really do a quarterstaff user in the game at current||

||Wooden twinblade with strike damage. Not even hard. :P||

[modest berry]

||do you have all the pot guys? (im not gonna ask about each fragment these are just the most forgettable to me)||

peelers really the most staffy of them but it really still isnt

[obtuse halo]

yeah that seems like a reasonable thing to check

I think I got them but they're some of the more likely ones to be missed

[stone cove]

Genuinely shocked at never got that or a wooden katana with strike damage and no bleed

[golden pond]

wish we got dts hammer and shield with actual abliities

[modest berry]

thank you! cannot be infused- endure boowooomp

idk why they do this with some somber, carian thrusting sword got this treatment too, semi lame thing you cant remove

[obtuse halo]

yeah frozen needle has the same issue

carians love their cool thrusting swords stuck with impaling thrust apparently

[golden pond]

genuinely tho

i wish weapons liek that just went

"hey, you cna have this aow and it's somber, or you can put something else on it"

just leave it as a magic aow on it and let me infuse soemthing else on it

cause god knows i wanna use epitath

[obtuse halo]

though you can combine them with ||Main-Gauche to powerstance and override with a parry||

[golden pond]

draconic epitath from convergence is such a cool weapon adn i'm so mad there's so many cool models and you can't use them for other shit

[obtuse halo]

one of the wildest dlc sleeper options is that (remembrance) ||the Remembrance Reward Sword Lance comes with a unique ash of war...but it's an infusable weapon and you can remove the ash and put it on whatever you want||

[golden pond]

||Only one to do it right||

[obtuse halo]

I think so yeah

[stone cove]

Most of the new weapons come with aow you can transfer... To others in that class

Except light greatsword for reasons ?

[modest berry]

they even had it not originally on the milady which made me think id be able to but noooo

[golden pond]

||tbf it's paired so like||

[obtuse halo]

I am genuinely heartbroken that ||Leda's Armor effect doesn't work on bows. 10% more damage on my rolling shots would have been huge, but no.||

[tropic stream]

Oh are we dishing on dlc weapons?

I am once again begging From to put the Carian Sorcery Sword's ability to cast on the Carian Knight Sword

[golden pond]

i am once again begging for catalyst weapons

[raw coral]

That ||ancient dragon-man|| wasn’t lying

that Dragon Hunter’s great katana do hunt dragons

the extra height you get on the AoW combined with the overhead and length of the weapon is perfect for reaching a dragon’s head

and thats not even counting the charged projectile

[signal harness]

Huh I should try that AoW more

I swapped it for blood tax

[old brook]

Two hands, two katanas, it's perfect

( the power stance moveset is SO SLOW )

though the roll attack is real solid

[golden pond]

lightning madness character with 2 uchis

god i wish there was another madness weapon or a madness aow

[modest berry]

||https://youtu.be/yhbAr_s1Kzc?si=2Va9-byAenrJK8D_||

ongbal boss run^

i love the weapon and incantation hotswitches for mobility it feels so dynamic! their recent malenia one was so good

unalloyed malenia is so cool

[obtuse halo]

oh i'm approaching that boss to procrastinate the final one some more lol

I found my missing scoobydoo fragments, I forgot that I just flat skipped most of ||Rauh|| this run via spiritspring + margit's shackle

[modest berry]

we need a final synthesis fromsoft game where you fight a gransax sized dragon in a mech

[golden pond]

https://tenor.com/view/armored-core-mecha-science-fiction-machine-action-game-gif-17341694248436156388

[modest berry]

finally played this recently but sadly there are no dragons

it was peak™️ nonetheless

[golden pond]

i'm only just past the 1st boss

i wanna do a track ac but it seems like it's rough

[obtuse halo]

Okay ||Midra's|| got hands when you aren't just bulldozing them with a caster build

[golden pond]

yup yup yup

moon time

[median rock]

damn ||midra|| was super easy on my martial arts run

stancebreaks pretty quick

I can imagine bows would suck tho lol

[obtuse halo]

Yeah bows do not get stance breaks very often lol

Borderline never, even

If i get a stance break it’s usually because Ogha whipped out his sword and started using Lion’s Claw

[glossy delta]

I cant believe he's trying to discredit your bow run 😔

[obtuse halo]

He usually sticks to the greatbow, but every once in a while…

[golden pond]

get the albinauric lady

won't ever be cloes enough for melee

[obtuse halo]

Oh I absolutely use Latenna sometimes

Ogha can take a hit tho

[golden pond]

OH

that's why the vanishing spell felt familiar

convergence has Cosmic Tunnel which is an instant cast gravity spell that lets you tp forward

hwich acts as a caster dodge

it's so stylish too

man gravity magic is so cool in convergence

having them be actual gravity and not just "haha, rock"

[nova smelt]

can we agree that the dlc ||is full of Fist of the Northstar references||

[glossy delta]

What makes you say that?

[atomic marsh]

https://x.com/NSlacka/status/1809902332991488185

Naka_da_Slacka (@NSlacka) on X

Needle Knight Leda

Twitter · Jul 7, 2024, 10:48 AM

[golden pond]

what are some good unique lightning weapons

is there any good lightning swords?

or do i just have to grab a greatsword and slap lightning slash on it to be peak knight

[glossy delta]

Are you looking for faith lightning (rare) or dex/quality lightning (common)

[golden pond]

probably dex because god forbid faight lightning

oh, they're all fucking sad aren't they damn

[glossy delta]

For the latter, I really like the Dragon King's Cragblade and the Dragonscale Blade
Neither are very knightly alas but both are really cool
And if you keep the dragonscale blade's buff up its one of the more damaging katanas in the game

(The Dragonscale Blade is classified as a katana but really doesn't look much like one imo? Its more a gravel-y saber of some sort)

[golden pond]

same with one of the fucking dlc katanas

you are not a katana
shut pu

straightest sword i've ever seen

[glossy delta]

Yeah lol
One cutting edge? To katana jail with you (hyperbole)

[mellow silo]

Ok but. Straight Sword moveset is boring

I'm glad it's a katana

[golden pond]

ok but they don't have to make it boring cause they can give it a unique moveset

[glossy delta]

Make the handle longer and make it a light greatsword 😌

[mellow silo]

Yes

[golden pond]

just don't make it a katana so i cna use this magic weapon with int

[glossy delta]

Grab sword on both ends and stretchhhh

But yeah the Dragonscale Blade kicks ass and works surprisingly well with some of the more western armor despite its weapon class
I rec Blaidd's set

[golden pond]

i was thinking gargoyle's blade or sumtin

better yet, flamberge

[mellow silo]

Virgin Flamberge vs Chad FKGS

[glossy delta]

My only gripe is that it really shines most with the buff up but its on a weapon art thats pretty slow
If it had sword dance or double slash with frozen lightning instead it'd kick ass
I've never tried that, but I bet its good with a lightning infusion, yeah!

[golden pond]

C dex scaling

[glossy delta]

(See: The Dragonkin Halberd having the Ice Lightning buff on Spinning Slash and KICKING COMPLETE ASS)

[golden pond]

but it's got 55 bleed

man it's so cool

[glossy delta]

I've had many good times with an occult flamberge

[golden pond]

i've just never realy used lightning in er

i think my old old character was like pure lightning caues i was riding my ds3 high of being a lightning knight

[glossy delta]

Lightning indeed hit its peak in DS3

I loved rolling around with the talisman of sunlight
Hyperarmor staking people point blank with sunlight spear

[mellow silo]

Seems like it's kinda tough to activate the Wing Stance light attack on M/KB, anyone have any tips for that?

[golden pond]

man

[golden pond]

remember ringed knight straight sword?

with that dope af stance?

[glossy delta]

I never used it much but it was indeed cool!

My mainstay was the Millwood Battle Axe

[golden pond]

thank you discord

god i loved this move set

it was so cool to get a wide aoe on a shitty straight sword

[real shadow]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4xE5amx3aI

[mellow silo]

Ah, truest of dragons...

Waiting for Elden Ring 2 so we can get a dragon the "size of Limgrave"

[tropic stream]

You know

[real shadow]

Dungeon inside the dragon.

[tropic stream]

I bet the (dlc item spoilers) ||falxes look fucking great with the raptor set||

[real shadow]

Carved-out insides.

[tropic stream]

Okay but given the Souls' series albeit distant ties to old Zelda?

A Jabu-Jabu's Belly homage of all things sounds wildly interesting

[real shadow]

Jabu-Jabu style, yes.

That or a dragon so big it just swallowed a castle.

[gray leaf]

I have been thinking about Marika a lot. And Marika's Great Rune, and lore in general.

[golden pond]

ok radagon

[gray leaf]

Also? I'm starting to suspect that Margit is a part of Morgott in the exact same way as Radagon and St. Trina (although ||St. Trina is kind of a weird case, because it's made of the parts Miquella severed from himself, whereas Radagon and Marika still seem much more directly connected||).

[golden pond]

||aren't margit and morgott literally hte same guy?||

[gray leaf]

There's also a really recurring motif of ||Marika in the same pose as her Great Rune; in particular, all the headless statues of her across the Land of Shadow look like her Great Rune, and so does she when her head is bowed as she's crucified at the end of the base game. So it sort of implies that her head — possibly her mind, possibly her face — is what separates her from her great rune. I don't know what to do with this symbolism but it's there.||

[gray leaf]

||I mean... probably? Are Marika and Radagon the same person? It's not guaranteed by any means, but it's also not out of the question.||

[golden pond]

||Marika and Radagon iirc were separate people but got connected at some point, but margit is literally just morgott's alias/projection||

[vestal night]

Margit is just a projection from Morgott

[golden pond]

yeah cause like

[vestal night]

Same thing with sewer Mohg as well

[golden pond]

margit shackle wouldn't work otherwise

[gray leaf]

The only thing we know about that situation is "||Marika is Radagon||". It's not clear whether ||they were always the same person, or they were once separate and then combined||, at least as far as I'm aware.

[golden pond]

i mean they married at some point

[glossy delta]

Yeah Margitt is just an alias Morgott uses, not an 'alternate self' of some sort

[gray leaf]

Unless that was a sham, or ||they were one person with two bodies, or some sort of division of a single person||. It's profoundly unclear.

But "||Marika melded with Radagon, because shaman flesh melds harmoniously||" is also a possibility for sure.

[frail sky]

I don't think we need to spoil basegame stuff in this thread tbh

[frail sky]

Also,

In Marika's own words. O Radagon, leal hound of the Golden Order. Thou'rt yet to become me. Thou'rt yet to become a god. Let us be shattered, both. Mine other self.

[gray leaf]

Fair enough.

[glossy delta]

Morgott is known as the 'veiled monarch' because no one knows what he looks like, and people do not actually know he is an omen- he goes out as Margitt to fight dudes he doesn't like in public

[gray leaf]

Where's that from?

[golden pond]

`§When resting at the Queen's Bedchamber after defeating Morgott, the Omen King

Spoken echoes of Queen Marika linger here as well. Shall I share them with you?
In Marika's own words. O Radagon, leal hound of the Golden Order. Thou'rt yet to become me. Thou'rt yet to become a god. Let us be shattered, both. Mine other self.`

melina voicelines

[gray leaf]

The fact that she states "thou'rt yet to become me" and describes Radagon as her "other self"... doesn't exactly clarify the issue.

[frail sky]

"Thou'rt yet to become me" seems to me like it means they weren't always the same person

[gray leaf]

||Are Miquella and St. Trina the same person?|| Although, again, that situation is a bit different.

[atomic marsh]

Or it implies that Radagon wasn't the dominant persona

[atomic marsh]

Yes

||St. Trina's Miquella's love as a person||

[golden pond]

what probably happened is marika left something of her body and that became radagon

cause they're not of hte same will

marika wnated the ring shattered but radagon wanted to fix it

[atomic marsh]

Marika was bisexual and left her taste in women and it formed into Radagon

[golden pond]

shouldn't it be taste in men

since radagon is like a long haired buff dude

and honestly, i get her

[atomic marsh]

Rennala, The Divorced One, says differently

[gray leaf]

Radagon married Rennala, remember? I think that's what he meant.

[golden pond]

i feel like "taste in X" would be an example of x

[atomic marsh]

Radagon went on to poundtown a woman is the joek

[frail sky]

I wonder how ||Marika being from a group of people noted for being good at merging with other's flesh|| affects the "Radagon is Marika" thing

[golden pond]

||touched radagon adn absorbed him like she's a pillar man||

[frail sky]

||Honestly that is actually possible||

[golden pond]

i love the silly guard poses with the new weapons

truly makes me feel like a jojo

[gray leaf]

...I just find it interesting how often Marika keeps looking like her great rune. And how often it seems like the great rune looks like her without her head. (Is that spoilers to say, when we see her great rune on her Scarseal and Soreseal and both of those are vanilla items, and also one of the most notable examples is related to the base game final boss?)

On an unrelated note, the description of the spoiler-heavy ||Minor Erdtree|| invocation describes it as "||Only the kindness of gold, without Order||"... in other words, ||unalloyed gold||.

[golden pond]

wait till you see what happens when you put all the great runes togehter

also a thing tha'ts not onfimred but

[gray leaf]

That's been noted; has there been a version with Miquella's great rune composited in yet?

[golden pond]

all the great runes add up

||this one, yeah|||

[gray leaf]

People have also pointed out that the cross-hatching in the background matches Radagon's Scarseal/Soreseal.

[golden pond]

yeah

all the great runes and all the other cirlce line symbols add up to be a massive elden ring logo

[gray leaf]

Yeah, because the great runes are fragments of the elden ring, so that makes sense.

[golden pond]

||it's here, we don't have a proper icon except for the crosses||

[gray leaf]

...more thoughts on the final boss of the base game, but this time with DLC spoiler implications: I think this has probably been speculated upon before the DLC even came out, but ||one of the mysteries of the game was why Marika had a spear in her side (besides the obvious allusion to the Lance of Longinus). Well, now we've met a guy who seems to know about Marika's plans, and who uses black spears, and who's named "the Impaler". It's still not entirely clear why he'd do that, though.||

[glossy delta]

It seems super clear to me that ||Messmer had nothing to do with that, considering the spear looks nothing like his and he's been textually stuck in the land of shadow since well before the shattering, and also seems like a huge mommas boy right up until you kill him||
The way I figure it ||the elden beast doled out that spear, considering it has a move where it, well||
||Hangs you up on a rune cross and impales you with spears||
||Its red coloration may just be because it has Marikas blood on it||

[golden pond]

||i thought it was a jesus reference cause elden ring is weirdly christian||

[gray leaf]

Okay, I may have misremembered some of those details about the final boss 😅

[mellow silo]

ER is indeed, weirdly Christian

Would be cool to get fromsoft games based on other religions heavily

Buddha Souls

[golden pond]

||that's a lot of blood||

honestly

[glossy delta]

It does look weird but, idk
I don't see that as a reason to suspect any weirdness about it
People have been saying all sorts of things because of thats spears color like 'oh maliketh did it' when that doesn't really make sense
The two fingers explicitly say shes been locked up for her mischief by the greater will so, assumedly the greater wills main man did the crucifying

[gray leaf]

...even more so if you look at snakes as betrayers, as was repeated alluded to in the base game. ||You could also probably drift into gnosticism and refer to the Elden Beast as a demiurge or something? There's strong imagery of light as related to revelation, and also, per Count Ymir, people aren't having the divine communication they think they're having.||

[golden pond]

||I believe this is also part of why Ranni and Goldmask weren't big fans of outer gods in general. They knew something was off so they both set off on quests to get rid of that in their own ways, Goldmask by making a rune that stops outer wills from intervening and Ranni by just becoming a god to slap the outer gods (i think, don't remmber exactly)||

||https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5LtLSHsuQE||

etiehr way

peak attack

[gray leaf]

||Shadow of the Erdtree gestures more towards Christianity as an institution beyond just the religious aspects, though. There's explicitly a crusade, but equally explicitly syncretic adaptation from other religious traditions. And read the description of the Festive Grease.||

[atomic marsh]

Elden Ring is ultimately about the cycles and progressions of society

I feel like

[golden pond]

Ultimately, elden ring is about the same shti dark souls is

cycles and how they affect the world
but we actually get a chance to end that cycle before it fucks everything up

[gray leaf]

It is. And it's about people doing horrible things for well-intentioned reasons, at least usually.

[atomic marsh]

Personally I don't actually think Elden Ring is about cycles

Because like

It's not a cycle at any point

[golden pond]

It's more just a case of

[atomic marsh]

The status quo is constantly changing

[golden pond]

Ideally, there will not be another Elden Lord

Greater will won't have a hold on humanity through the golden order, nor will any other outer god

Death rune is unsealed, no more undead, no more gods

unless you do frenzy ending, don't fix golden order ending or fia's ending

[gray leaf]

It's amazing how many characters agree that the Golden Order is doing things profoundly wrong, but nobody can agree on what the solution to that is.

[golden pond]

honeslty

it's realistic as fuck

shit's fucked but man, what the fuck do we do cause the thing taht's fucked is a literal god

[gray leaf]

And Fia's ending arguably also deals with the whole "undead are causing problems" thing; it's just that instead of getting rid of the undead, it simply incorpoates them into the natural order so that they stop being a problem.

Also... ||would Miquella's plan have worked, if we didn't stop it? Would it have made things better? Was it eternally doomed to wither upon the vine without reaching fruition? Would compassion devoid of love have stripped people of free will, or would compassion simply have been the blood of the world, as Grace is currently, and not shaped more than that? Miquella's plan is even more extreme than anything we can do, short of the Frenzied Flame ending; rather than modifying the Elden Ring, he's abandoning it entirely.||

I also want to state (regarding the final boss of the DLC) that ||whatever Radahn's opinion of Miquella's plan may be, he wasn't purely opposed to it. In the first phase, he fights against us, after all. And we know for a fact that Miquella's charm has been broken, and Miquella can't have re-charmed him since he hasn't come back through the Gate of Divinity yet.||

[real shadow]

||Miquella's plan wouldn't have worked in the same way Marika's didn't, in that eventually he'd make a mistake and it'd all come crashing down. Without compassion, without all the emotions he'd shed, he wouldn't have the humanity necessary to see said mistake, whatever that would've been.||

[atomic marsh]

||That Radahn we fight isn't really sentient. It's Radahn's soul in Mohg's body being controlled as a flesh-puppet||

[gray leaf]

||...why do you think Radahn's not sentient? Also, Miquella had compassion, just not love. It would be, I assume, a sort of... disaffected compassion, an academic care for others, without the ability to deeply personally connect with another.||

...that first part is a genuine question, by the way. I'd absolutely understand if I missed something important.

[real shadow]

||Compassion without love is no compassion at all, and I think St. Trina embodies both. Miquella may claim to have compassion but it's hollow and empty, same as the remnants of his rune.||

[tropic stream]

lmsh is helping people with ||Radahn|| now lmao

dlc boss spoilers

[real shadow]

||As for Radahn's sentience, I don't think there's much left there. His martial prowess is evident, as is the control of gravity and the stars--but he doesn't speak, and his face is blank and emotionless. By the time we kill him the first time around his wits are gone, driven mad by the rot, and I suspect there just wasn't a whole lot left of his spirit by the end. Likely, Miquella just shoved in whatever was left of Radah's spirit into a Radahn-shaped corpse and figured, well, good enough (or fooled himself into thinking this was the same person).||

[gray leaf]

||Honestly, I think the biggest argument for that is... well, the lack of Leonard. I don't think that it's entirely just mind control or treating Radahn as a puppet, though. It's probably a more complicated situation than that.||

[frail sky]

||“Who the fuck is Leonard” -Miquella, probably||

[real shadow]

||Probably. We don't know exactly how Miquella gets ahold of both Mohg's body (seriously who dragged that thing into the realm of shadow) or how he got Radahn's spirit. Probably through the Gate of Divinity, if I would hazard a guess to the latter.||

[tropic stream]

YO THE PERSON WHO SUMMONED HIM IS ACTUALLY DOING WORK TOO LMAO

[frail sky]

Violating the sacred rules

[tropic stream]

pfff lmsh died

Honestly I have faith in that host

It was fucking weird like seeing double on my screen

[atomic marsh]

I summoned a guy called "I can try to solo him" and he could not

[real shadow]

I like the one dude going around "Let Me Tank Him"

Just the heaviest boy.

[gray leaf]

||...honestly, I think the only characters in Elden Ring who don't seem to have at least good intentions are Godrick (who... I guess you could count "restore the Golden Order" as at least notionally good *at least in Godrick's mind, and he's just an idiot) and Dung Eater (who I guess is just lashing out at the world out of spite?) And basically every other named character wants to fix the situation, albeit in different and contradictory ways.||

[atomic marsh]

I've met a few of those yeah

Actually

I was streaming to a frriend

And helping people with the final boss

and they summoned "Let me tank him" who was naked with a jar and the biggest shield

we ran in after buffing

and Let Me Tank Him died in one hit less than 10 seconds into the fight

[frail sky]

This is why you wear armor

[gray leaf]

||I've also heard someone point out that the bit about shaman flesh "melding harmoniously" is probably how Godrick was able to graft, let alone stick his arm stump onto the head of a dragon and have it just... attach. It also draws some uncomfortable parallels between his practices of grafting (and making Grafted Scions in particular), and Bonny Village's jar-making, leading to a great sort of irony.||

[atomic marsh]

||https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_sg4x0aAkZt1v1ztij_720.mp4 || Fun animation but spoilers for NPC dialogue

[golden pond]

||https://fxtwitter.com/kitsurogue/status/1806367832386437381|| 🙏peak

||WITH A HAIL OF HARPOOOOOONS, WITH EVERY LAST DROP OF MY BEING||

[atomic marsh]

I'm trying to decide what to pick for a NG+ run

I've done Ultra Greatsword+Faith for basically the entire game

[glossy delta]

Thrusting shield
Sekiro Mode ON

[gray leaf]

If you want to respec: arcane builds are theoretically fun, though in practice they're pretty much bleed builds. Otherwise, most dex weapons are neat, and there's some fun sorceries in SotE.

Dex/Int could be a build.

[frail sky]

Consider: dragon communion

It’s impractical as hell and way too slow for most bosses, but it looks cool

[atomic marsh]

I already do Dragon Communion

[golden pond]

flame

do a frezny build

OH WAIT

[atomic marsh]

Because I cannot be stopped from killing a dragon on sight

[golden pond]

THERE'S ONLY 1 FRENZY WEAPON

AHAHAHAHHAA

2 i guess with dlc

[gray leaf]

Frenzy is mostly invocations, yeah.

I decided to run a random thing twice and got int both times, so uhhh go pure/primarily int, I guess?

[real shadow]

||https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSMNPYvv1Sw|| I love how everyone loves Igon.

[golden pond]

nothing more peak than a random british dude who got actual training for plays

will say tho

insane power move from miyazaki to make a franchise just so you can put Toes in games

[signal harness]

Why do people use those spiked punch gloves for rl1 runs?

[golden pond]

spike caestus?

[vestal night]

low stat requirements and bleed I assume

[golden pond]

yeah

[signal harness]

makes sense

[golden pond]

it's especially good due to charged r2

good damge and poise damage

cragblade spike caestus and bye bye

gets funny if you put cold on it

[frail sky]

…I’m starting to see why everyone hates the final boss

[glossy delta]

Yeah................................................................................................

[real shadow]

He's. not a lot of fun.

[golden pond]

What if we made the most flashiest and most annoying moveset and then made it the same color as the arena becuase fuck you

[frail sky]

Phase 1: cool, fun to learn and satisfying to fight
Phase 2: ||no matter how much you dodge, one of these 50 consecutive attacks is going to kill you||

[frozen olive]

it's a hard ass fight

[frail sky]

||Why did Miquella have to ruin a fun fight||

[golden pond]

that whole fight has p3s energy to me

[real shadow]

p3s more like piss lmao gottem

[atomic marsh]

||What if we suddenly said "You need a shield"||

[frail sky]

P3s?

[glossy delta]

He really wants to win

[golden pond]

from ff14 raid, notorious for being orange
similar orange to attack indicators

[frozen olive]

they do NOT be handing out free wins

you are going to earn that shit

[golden pond]

like whta the fuck is this

[gray leaf]

I think, and I'm not certain, but I think that ||when the consecutive attacks happen, all but the last one are illusions and don't do any damage||. I might be very wrong, though.

[real shadow]

You're correct.

[frozen olive]

you are right

you can literally just walk around it

[real shadow]

The other ones do cause you to flinch so it's still best to not be in the way.

[gray leaf]

Didn't know that part, though.

||Can you just block them with whatever arbitrary weapon you happen to have, no matter how terrible it is at blocking, and then still be able to dodge the last one?||

[real shadow]

Probably but lmao good luck with that

[gray leaf]

Fair.

[glossy delta]

You largely want to ||strafe, at least for the series of overhead aerial chops, they'll just whiff||

[real shadow]

Tank and poke is how I got through it. Dirty and didn't feel like I was engaging with the boss as intended but I beat'em and that's all that matters.

[frozen olive]

i performed jolly co-operation

[golden pond]

i wasn't gonna bash my head against the wall, i got more important things to waste 4 hours on
||i ce'd ||

[glossy delta]

Me, me number 2, and the NPC summons overwhelmed em with status procs

HP doubling dont matter when all our damage is % based 🧠

[frozen olive]

true

very true

[frail sky]

||ce’s?||

[golden pond]

I cheated

[glossy delta]

I am in love with ||Thiollier|| for the rest of time because he ||had himself a lean break on the wrong side of the fog for the entire first phase of Radahn, so he came in fresh with all his flasks for phase 2 and clutched the win for us by doing poison procs and drawing aggro||

[golden pond]

i wasn't gonna sit there for 4 hours getting mad at a game just to get a mid cutscene so i removed my hitbox and slapped him with my sword

[frozen olive]

||too eepy||

[glossy delta]

||imbibing the velvet sizzurp||

[golden pond]

||god girl bath water||

[frozen olive]

(final boss spoiler)||https://youtube.com/shorts/xcC73qgb_gs?si=q2-zppcMSMZvqW-D||

||Miquella really said "it ain't over yet" to this man, picked him up so he could get an even more savage whopping from Radahn||

(post final boss spoilers)this is SUCH a funny comment

[frail sky]

…okay instead of suffering I’m just gonna start a new playthrough

[gray leaf]

||yeah Miquella was kind of pulling straight Ws||

[real shadow]

Is respeccing out of the question?

[frail sky]

It’s not but I’d prefer not to

Honestly outside of the final boss and the flame golems I love this dlc, it’s just so good

So many cool new weapons and bosses and a beautiful new land to explore 😌

[glossy delta]

Yeah I'm basically in the same boat
The furnace golems became really easy once I pumped Scadu but the height of the DLC for me is ||the Civil War||
Once you are finished with that and head up the stairs things take a sharp dive for me, story and gameplay wise

[mellow silo]

Wondering if I should run and get a second Milady to duel wield them

[glossy delta]

I've been thinking about that myself
The powerstance moveset is the same as ||Rellana's Twinblades|| so judge for yourself if a quality/bleed/cold/whatever version of that appeals to you

[mellow silo]

Alternately, putting them in the same slot to quick switch to different AoW

Wing Stance is nice, but we can get more

[glossy delta]

ALSO something I've considered
Storm Blade is an MVP

[atomic marsh]

can you find a video of what this looks like

because I'm suddenly interested

[glossy delta]

(Also considered it for the Beast Claws so I can do Savage Claws and Raging Beast at the same time)

Both are really cool but have vastly different use cases

[obtuse halo]

I think Raging Beast is just kind of bad though? it's a long animation without hyperarmor

though it does look cool as hell

[glossy delta]

The initial dash has i frames like a dodge

So just zoop through big attacks with it

In effect it lets you dodge punish some attacks with a heavy instead of rolling light, damage and stagger wise

[mellow silo]

I've decided to do it

Now just to pick a good ash

Milady Acquired

[tropic stream]

wait are you doing an ng+ playthrough?

That fast?

[mellow silo]

Nope I'm grabbing Milady on a different character to duel wield it

[tropic stream]

lmao

How're you muling it?

[mellow silo]

Imma ask here when I'm ready

Not ready just yet though, still need to upgrade it and give it a good ash

[atomic marsh]

I may use Rellanas stuff on my ng+

[mellow silo]

Alrighty I'm all set

Went with the classic Swords Dance

[tropic stream]

I need socialization it's good for me

I can help lmao

[mellow silo]

Yay!

[tropic stream]

I'll be in HORUS

[mellow silo]

I'll leave a Duelist Sign over at Church Of Elleh

Code HORUS?

[tropic stream]

Oh like

voice chat

if you wanna voice chat

the code is LANCER

[mellow silo]

Ok, code LANCER

(I don't really want to vc rn, sorry)

[tropic stream]

np

still launching lol

[mellow silo]

Sign down, right by the Grace

[tropic stream]

np

character name?

[mellow silo]

Should be Goldblade

Although that's a holdover from another character I did on this save lmao

I was just too lazy to change it

[tropic stream]

lolol

[mellow silo]

... Doesn't say I can leave it

You have +18 weapons on this char?

[tropic stream]

I do?

All my weapons are max

wait do you not?

[mellow silo]

Yeah

I have maxed weapons, and I was going to drop a +18 Milady

[tropic stream]

wack

[mellow silo]

But I can't for some reason

[tropic stream]

Maybe duelists can't leave items?

Let's reverse it

[mellow silo]

Ok

Also gonna drop Alex Shard

[tropic stream]

Sign down also by grace

[mellow silo]

Oh I'm stupid

It's because I had it equipped

[tropic stream]

I

vro

XD

lowkey wanna fight tbh lmao

[mellow silo]

That's all I think

Les go

[tropic stream]

gg

[mellow silo]

Gg

Lemme get on my other char

[tropic stream]

sign'll be in the same place

nice drip

Should be everything

[mellow silo]

Yup, that's all

Now to kill each other

ggs

[tropic stream]

lolol

[mellow silo]

That was fun

Now I am become master swordsman

[tropic stream]

I will also say

good fit

[mellow silo]

Ah, thanks

Same to you

[tropic stream]

Also this is half cope but I was lagging cuz I was listening to a vid lmao

Thanks

[mellow silo]

Yeah I could tell lol, you were rubberbanding around a bit

[tropic stream]

oh fugg lol

[paper badge]

fuck they should do this

[stone cove]

I tried it, but in practice your just locked in to long

[fleet bronze]

The Falxes might be my favorite weapon in the whole DLC, they're so slick

[stone cove]

Savage Claws can dodge a bunch of stuff just because your hit box is crazy

[glossy delta]

having used it extensively myself, I disagree 😛
The reason I went 'oh I should get two sets of claws for both ashes' is because I've used both tons and like them both lol

[stone cove]

Fair enough!

[glossy delta]

I do agree Savage Claws is Broadly Better
The stagger is nuts for the size of the weapon, you can lock down the various greatshield knight enemies and black knife assassins, most enemies that aren't Ultra Heavy

And obviously the rotten sword and status potential is crazy

But you know, sometimes an enemy has a bigass body explosion you can slip through with Ragin Beast and thats always fun

[stone cove]

It annoys the hell out of me that they're actually bad at occult, vs heavy with bloodflame.

[glossy delta]

I like them as general purpose weapons on an occult build, but yeah if you are looking to maximize bleed output bloodflame is better
But one use of Savage Claws will proc bleed on most enemies even with just Occult in my experience

[stone cove]

It depends. The problem is that occult gets screwed over by motion values on Savage Claws

[nova smelt]

DLC FINAL BOSS SPOILERS: Chat am I insane

like

[paper badge]

i sees it

[glossy delta]

||Big man with cape, I apologize but I am unsure if you are cooking 😭||

[nova smelt]

||Gold armor engraved, horned helmet, red cape, rides a horse, overall similar color pallette, both have R names, both are conquerors...||

||feels like a reference||

[paper badge]

||for me it's the horns that sell me on the theory||

[glossy delta]

||I see the horns sort of but with Radahn they seem more like tusks||

[gray leaf]

||Yeah, Radahn's definitely feel evocative of tusks. Which is, perhaps, a bit odd... but at the same time, horns have very specific symbolism in the Lands Between which Radahn wouldn't want to touch with a ten-foot pole, and tusks are thematically similar but lack those implications.||

[modest berry]

||they might be an homage to his pigriding childhood friend too now that i think about it||

[left willow]

Do golden seeds have any value (other than selling) once you've maxed your flask charges?

[vestal night]

Nope

Not that I know at least

[obtuse halo]

no, the game just gives you more than you need

in case you missed some

[left willow]

neat

[vestal night]

There's quite a few too
I think I have like 10 leftover

[left willow]

I'm already at +3, so yeah

Holy hecks

[Base Gaol Spoilers]: ||Black Knife Ringleader hits like a fucking truck, damn||

[languid tiger]

alecto?

yeah

[left willow]

||The DoT they apply fucking hurts||

Frost works pretty well, but she's damn mobile which is a natural counter to my mage playstyle

[languid tiger]

she

the black knives were all women

[left willow]

oh, that's really interesting

til

We love women in STEM (Stabbing, Torture, Ellimination, and Murder)

[golden pond]

God forbid women have hobbies 🙄

[left willow]

I think god forbid it cause they killed him XD

[golden pond]

her

[left willow]

Godfrey?

[golden pond]

you mean godwyn?

[left willow]

Yes

[golden pond]

[left willow]

I did mean Godwin

I thought Godwin was he/him?

[modest berry]

he is

[golden pond]

yeha

he was a silly golden boy who got shanked by beautiful girls

what a way to go, man

[left willow]

God, I wish some beautiful girls would shank me (iykwim)

[golden pond]

[left willow]

I support women's rights and women's wrongs. They should get to commit a little deicide if they want

[golden pond]

Women can do no wrong in my eyes

shatter the elden ring? kill the gods? whatever you say beautiful

[gray leaf]

...I mean. Most named characters in Elden Ring have done pretty significant amounts of wrong. Frequently for good, or at least arguably good, or at minimum understandable reasons.

[golden pond]

ranni did nothing wrong

[left willow]

I just finished the Ranni questline :)

She's a doll

<3

[golden pond]

c:

she's wife now

[left willow]

:3

[golden pond]

i like that not only do you get to marry ranni, get a banger sword and save the lands between

you also get a tiny ranni you can annoy whenver you want

[gray leaf]

Ranni did kill her own kin(?) and in so doing start a massive civil war. I mean, it's understandable why...

[golden pond]

cause elden ring was cringe and we don't need no gods

[gray leaf]

Did Godwyn participate in the wars against the fire giants? Because if not, I think he's the demigod who did the fewest evil things (as in, none that immediately spring to mind).

[left willow]

Fashion souls advice: Are there any heavier armors that look good with Ranni's hat?

[median rock]

he was an active & decisive participant in the wars against the old dragons, allied with placidusax. your guess whether that counts as 'evil things' (i think the war against the fire giants is in a similar place though, tbh)

[golden pond]

wasn't it fortisax

yeah, he befriended fortissax after he smacked his ass

[median rock]

he was directly allied with both lansseax and fortissax

but i mistyped anyway

i meant allied AGAINST placidusax

[gray leaf]

The war against the fire giants was, as I understand it, preemptive, since they worshipped a god of fire which could burn the Erdtree. For some reason, I thought the dragons attacked Leyndell? Or that there was some more interesting connection?

[median rock]

the flame of ruin generally speaking isn't a very good thing

[golden pond]

A great ancient dragon, Gransax once rained calamity upon the Royal Capital - the only time in historical record that Leyndell's walls have fallen. This marked the dawn of the war against the ancient dragons.

[median rock]

like yes, it was preemptive - but the flame of ruin the giants have is also probably one of the most directly "destructive" forces and possibly one of the only ones that can qualify as "bad" at the time (along with frenzy but idk how well known that was at the time)

[gray leaf]

It could destroy stuff; I was unsure if it actually did or not.

[median rock]

it exists basically to destroy and that's it, afaik

the only reason it still exists is because marika realized it couldn't be destroyed at all, because of its nature, and thats why fire giant the dude is still there

don't get me wrong, its definitely highly questionable whether genocide was the correct solution here, but it's also not like the fire wasn't a very real threat

[gray leaf]

Fair. If the flame of destruction was just a force of destruction, that would be one thing, but given that by all indications it is itself a sentient destructive threat, that complicates matters greatly.

[median rock]

i'm also not 100% on the sides involved in the dragon issues

i think placidusax is one side, the dragons who betrayed placidusax to side with the golden order are another side, and then there's the ancient dragons who sided with (dlc) ||bayle||

but i'm also not entirely sure that bayle vs the ancient dragons who betrayed placidusax are different sides, technically

(dlc) the vibe seems to be that ||ancient dragons are mostly on placidusax's side, EXCEPT the ones on the golden order's side. the rest of the 'dragons' (everything that drops a dragon heart?) is on bayle's side?||

[gray leaf]

||Bayle is the progenitor of the debased drakes we see today as opposed to the four-winged ancient dragons, I think. As opposed to Placidusax, who's the progenitor of the four-winged dragons. Then some of the ancient dragons partnered up with Leyndell, and a very small number partnered up with Bayle and in doing so got red lightning.||

[median rock]

||it seems like the communion stuff is stuff funded by placidusax as anti-drake stuff, and the dragon cult is only the golden-order aligned/backed dragons. this is more or less backed up by the fact that placidusax's ruin is NOT a dragon communion incantation||

[median rock]

||i don't think placidusax actually is the progenitor of all of the four winged dragons, since he ruled over something before that. also, the red lightning doesn't seem specific to bayle - the leyndell ones use red lightning too, in fact i think all ancient dragons do||

||i personally think bayle is just a freaky malformed/built different/lowly ancient dragon who kicked off, maybe because he was freaky & malformed & mistrusted or something because of that (doesn't make him a good dude though)||

[gray leaf]

||You're right; I'm misremembering something about the dragons who followed Bayle getting lightning that spread across the ground. And describing the dragon communions as "funded by" Placidusax is odd, but I get what you mean, and that makes a good amount of sense.||

[golden pond]

||Red lightning is something ancient dragons did not teach to regular people, except select few in secret||

[median rock]

||the odd part is like. florissax, who is explicitly on placi's side, is explicitly telling you to eat more dragon hearts and all that jazz. but if you eat too many, other things imply you turn into a drake, which is the exact opposite side. is that a known thing for placi's squad? is the intent that humans will be killed when they transform, or is it a side effect that's unintentional/unknown when the practice started?||

[golden pond]

||They taught them basic lightning bitch spells but didn't want them to have the power of red lightning and honestly that seems fair||

[median rock]

||bayle's heart implies that bayle himself will take over your body in particular from his, rather than just you becoming a magma wyrm cuz u ate too much, but the two things might be related - too much magma wyrm and their souls or w/e start to take over directly, rather than physical metamorphosis or general chakra alignment or w/e||

[fleet bronze]

||With the stone heart implying that it's possible to turn more perfectly in to a dragon, I think the magma drakes are essentially what happens when those without good discipline/teaching on the path of communion rather than the necessary end point.||

[golden pond]

||Even after being consumed, the throbbing heart of Bayle continues to resist its subjugation, never weakening. One day, the fire within will consume the very body and soul of its Communion devourer. One day. ||

[gray leaf]

||Yeah, I think magma wyrms are a failure of Dragon Communion, not an inherently necessary endpoint. Bayle is a special case.||

[median rock]

||hm. so it's a discipline thing or focus thing or something, where only the strong or wise make it? that would explain that discrepancy||

[fleet bronze]

||actually, the stone heart says this Heart consumed in the ancient, original form of Dragon Communion.||

[golden pond]

||i think magma wyrms is a power greed thing. Yo uwanted power? here you go, have a temper tantrum||

[median rock]

it's also interesting that ||florissax drops the dragon CULT heart, NOT communion||

[fleet bronze]

||I think the implication with the stone heart is that this is actually the heart of an ancient dragon, and therefore you turn in to an ancient dragon rather than a Drake from eating drake hearts||

[golden pond]

wat

[gray leaf]

I'm trying to remember if it was canon or a fanfic where they were discribed as ||the ferocity of dragons and the greed of humans, with the nobility of neither.||

[median rock]

||which is only (AFAIK) related to the leyndell dragons, instead of placi's||

[golden pond]

oh yeah, incants boost not breath boost

[fleet bronze]

||so is it possible that turning in to a magma drake isn't really a failure, necessarily, it's just a matter of perception because the communion was founded by ancient dragon worshipped who demonized drakes? ||

[gray leaf]

Also, ||the failed transformation is a wyrm. Drakes are just the debased dragons, I think.||

...or am I completely wrong?

[median rock]

yeah. ||dragon communion boosting transformation is the rock heart, from a painting puzzle. killing bayle without doing the weird stuff to get florissax as spirit ashes will give you the priestess heart', which buffs cult incantations instead.||

[fleet bronze]

No that's right, I misremembered Magma Wyrm as Magma Drake

[languid tiger]

||drakes aren't "debased" dragons, they're just bayle's lineage||

[gray leaf]

That's fair. My language was... not great.

[languid tiger]

||which i think are described derogatorily by the priestess, yeah, but they're not natively inferior||

[median rock]

||i think a lot of it is - i don't think you can become an ancient dragon by eating drake hearts. like i dont think the goal was transformation into anything, from placi's side, it was gaining their powers instead. but the drake transformation is a side effect||

[fleet bronze]

||Yeah, the perception of Drakes as evil or degenerate by the ancient dragons seems strangely similar to the perception of omens by the Golden Order under Marika||

[languid tiger]

||they're just targets for dragon communion due to their treason, and dragon communion being taught to people to eat bayle's kin||

[golden pond]

||I mean it makes sense i guess? ||

[languid tiger]

||i'm fairly certain they're perceived as evil and degenerate exclusively because they followed their boss/dad and betrayed the draconic Order||

but i could be wrong there

[median rock]

idk not really imo

[gray leaf]

...okay I had no idea of any of that. But it makes total sense (and may or may not have been outright stated, actually?)

[fleet bronze]

I mean they don't have hands which seems like a downgrade but besides that I agree

[languid tiger]

i wasn't taking moral issue with your language or anything, i just think it was using the language of a biased faction

[median rock]

maybe if dragon cult === ancient dragon spells in general, rather than golden order aligned dragon spells. but placidusax's ruin isnt' a dragon cult spell, for example

[languid tiger]

as opposed to an objective fact

[golden pond]

||becaues for placi ruijn you channel the drake itself as opposed to throwing a lightning bolt||

[gray leaf]

I'm used to soulslikes featuring "devolved" versions of ancient powers, so I guess I just jumpted to that.

[languid tiger]

most of this is stated by ||florissax or the surrounding item descriptions||

[median rock]

||theres no drake involved in placi's ruin. its straight 100% ancient dragon gas, placi is a full ancient dragon||

[golden pond]

||either way, it's nto something that was taught to people in the dragon cult by the ancient dragons so like||

||while lightning spear was||

[median rock]

its also worth noting that the category of 'dragon cult' includes spells from farum azula ancient dragons, golden-order aligned ancient dragons, and also... dragonkin, who are NOT ancient dragons but seem pretty clearly related in some way

the dragonkin lore says

The Dragonkin were born in the Eternal City, where they knew no true sky, nor true lightning. Instead, ice lightning was their weapon.
Alas, the Dragonkin Soldiers never attained immortality, and perished as decrepit, pale imitations of their skyborn kin.

but they are confirmed to have gravel stone scales like ancient dragons (and unlike drakes iirc) according to the dragonscale blade description, which has

A weapon made by sharpening a Gravel Stone scale, thought to be the source of ancient dragon immortality, into an unclouded blade.

(unless the scale was from somewhere else, but considering i don't see any other ancient dragons in the lake of rot i think its implied to be from a dragonkin)

[golden pond]

i figured they'd have some scales

just not enough to make them immortal or sumtin

or that's just not how they becoem immortal

[median rock]

yeah but the drakes don't have stone scales, iirc

||bayle|| has some, but the descendant drakes don't

[golden pond]

could be a fucked up breed of dragon

like pugs

[median rock]

that one iirc u can just see by looking at the models but its also stated somewhere i think

[golden pond]

on the drop

||says the heart has horn-like gravel stones||

||I think ti's just a case of dragon communion requiring you to eat the heart to gain the power of the heart's owner, while dragon cult is just dragon spells||

also

||Prayerbook of the capital's ancient dragon cult.
A lost tome that never reached the Lands Between.
Contains red lightning incantations.||

||Ancient Dragon Prayerbook||

[gray leaf]

||Bayle as an intermediary between ancient dragons and drakes also makes sense in that he has orange flame lightning, while the ancient dragons use red lightning, and the regular dragons use flames of various kinds (which are sometimes ice, but are still flame-like, and I think something about the ghostflame breath incantation associates them with flame specifically?)||

[golden pond]

||Placidusax kinda explicitly has a breath attack, which is bsaicalyl golden flame with lasors||

[languid tiger]

nah, just this ||One of the incantations of Dragon Communion. Transforms caster into a dragon to spew ghostflame breath. Charging extends duration. The land of spiritgraves is home to all manner of dead, and even the corpses of fallen dragons found their way there. Several of them were endowed with such vivacity that even in death, they could not fully die.||

[gray leaf]

...how did I not remember that???

[golden pond]

because it fucking sucks

😭

[gray leaf]

and completely misremember this?

[golden pond]

Vyke's Dragonbolt is a spell of all time

[median rock]

im also super surprised theres no ||upgraded ghostframe dragon communion spell||

||there was like 3 ghostflame dragons i really expected 1 to be named||

[languid tiger]

it is the upgraded version

[golden pond]

it's an upgraded version of borealis' mist

[languid tiger]

||it's borealis's freezing fog but better||

[golden pond]

Does slightly more damage than Borealis's Mist, while also applying Frostbite Build Up and being cheaper to cast (36 vs 48)

[median rock]

||i mean sure, but that's an upgraded versoin of freezing breath||

[gray leaf]

It's mechanically superior, but not narratively?

[median rock]

^

[languid tiger]

fair

[golden pond]

i mean

[median rock]

also iirc its not superior

because it does substantially less frost

[languid tiger]

no it does more frost

i think it's like 125 vs 110

[median rock]

i'm pretty sure that's not true, i tried it on something, where freezing breath procs instantly ghostflame didnt proc

[languid tiger]

oh, hm

[golden pond]

Idk if i was missing something, but the data seems to suggest that this one only inflict 55 frostbite buildup per tick, while only having a slight bit higher damage than Borealis' Mist. And also only the initial cost is the same as Dragonice, the continuous cost afterward is still the same as Borealis.

[gray leaf]

...I think the repreated things I'm saying are a sign I need to go to bed.

[golden pond]

man that sucks

[median rock]

fextra comments are also noting it seems to deal less frostbite buildup

[languid tiger]

still kinda fucked up to me that faith has the best ice spells

[median rock]

which makes sense

[golden pond]

mfw flavor only

[median rock]

since ghostflame in general has frost buildup, but not that much

(compared to the direct ice effects there are)

[golden pond]

well there goes my idea of using helphen's with it

[median rock]

i mean helphens is goated for other reasons than frostbite

and frost is the kind of thing ur ok with just getting 1-2 procs on, once it's applied you don't really need to keep re-doing it

[golden pond]

yeah but flavor, man

idc about meta

also helphens' si fucking sad in the dlc 😭

[median rock]

rip lol

[golden pond]

at my current blessing like 13

it has 1 more AR over DMGS

[median rock]

but yeah i wish there was a named one + a corresponding better spell

[golden pond]

despite the fact that it should have more

cause the diff is a lot more in base

[median rock]

even when buffed?

[golden pond]

when buffed

i didn't bothe rchecking not buffed

casue why would yo uuse either unbuffed

free damgae

by all means helphens' should be more ahead but man

[median rock]

they should both be flat buffs and ghostflame should have higher buff dmg than dmgs

[golden pond]

i think AR calcs in the dlc are just fucked

[median rock]

like, the buff grants 2x as much damage + more frostbite than dmgs's buff

[golden pond]

or there's some compensation going

[median rock]

pre dlc this was more or less evened out by hte fact that you could doublehit anything with both the moonlight projectile + the actual r2 but you can't do it very easily anymore so i think its more balanced

[golden pond]

you can still do it easily

[median rock]

only on larger enemies

try it on like, the wickerman legs and you can see the projectile just passes right through or vanishes or something and doesnt apply

cuz the damage doesnt line up

(which you'd think would qualify as larger enemies but no dice)

there might be a sweet spot where it works still, idk. but i was using dmgs on my martial arts run as my wickerman leg destroyers because charged r2 poise dmg was way higher

[golden pond]

ok well, i must've been too high

[median rock]

oh so pre buff theyre the same but post buff helphen's is better?

[golden pond]

only for non-r2 butyea

[median rock]

ok that makes more sense re the buff calcs at least

[median rock]

fextra says its 65 vs 110 magic damage (and 80 vs 15 frostbite lol)

[golden pond]

it's cause dmgs also applies frostbite with wave

[median rock]

the wave frostbite is really small

hm, actually, probably not when its factoring in the base frosbite

fextra says its 120% base frostbite so thats like 84 frostbite when buffed ((55+15)*1.2)

[golden pond]

ugh

all the ones i have alive have braces on legs

[median rock]

should be even w helphen's steeple tho

i guess they just need to re-fix the projectile doublehitting or smth

[golden pond]

yeah, helphen is 80

but eyah, i'm probably gonna rush gargoyle to ge tthe gargoyle greatsword

and slap lightning slash on it

watching nameless king rip through elden ring

god, i miss his drip

peak

god he was so cool

[fleet bronze]

I do feel like the nameless king kind of set the mold for the boss fights in SotE

[golden pond]

gael*

[fleet bronze]

With his long comboese and short openings

See I always felt Gael was much easier, and more interesting, than the Nameless King

Nameless had a lot of dodging around waiting for him to let you get a hit in

[golden pond]

like i' mwtching a gael fight rn

[obtuse halo]

I'm going to be honest, only phase 1 of the nameless king gave me any trouble and it wasn't fun trouble, it was just hard to hit the stupid dragon with my sword from the ground

[golden pond]

oen of the first move

2 quick swingsi nto a jump up that hangs there for a bit

that's peak elden ring

[golden pond]

he has a pretty big recovery time from his big combos

and he usually chains a small combo into a big one

either way, peak fight

enjoyable as fuck

[median rock]

nameless king is a fun fight

king of the storm is an unfun fight

cmv

[golden pond]

i have no reason to do that

chicken is terrible

Nameless king - Thunder wave + a slam - 700 damage

Beast Clergyman - Cast Rock - 750

Truly a numbers game

[golden pond]

o, seamless coop now has invasions

you can do torrent pvp

[languid tiger]

||https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBYKniY1XDs|| hmmnnngg

god the vibes are imacculate

i have fucking

racked up like 10+ hours by this point just afking here and listening to the ambience

in game

(dlc map spoilers)

[golden pond]

yeah, insane vibes

[modest berry]

hes so cool, though i think the boss from DS or bloodborne fights elden ring boss vid type thing are cool they often dont balance it right so the elden ring guys just get insta infinite poisebroke

[median rock]

poise is hard to reconcile tbf

the system is a little different re poise expectations

I wonder what would happen if they just disabled poise entirely. like no stancebreaking

[golden pond]

they deserve it 😌

[proven horizon]

King of the storm finally nets you a feeling of power as a faith build. It was so satisfying ripping big chunks out of his health with sunlight spears. Then phase 2 started and he had resistance to lightning

[golden pond]

dorhy's gnawing c:

finally raaah

[real shadow]

https://x.com/NSlacka/status/1809902332991488185?t=dCTEAdtp3tXUGWu1cnXNnw&s=19

Naka_da_Slacka (@NSlacka) on X

Needle Knight Leda

Twitter · Jul 7, 2024, 10:48 AM

[languid tiger]

it saber

[golden pond]

i hate that that artstyle got ruined by AI

it's such a god artstyle but i gotta squint like 50 times to make sure

[atomic marsh]

If it's Naka you don't have to squint

that's just The Guy Who Does It

[stone cove]

The proportions of that piece are weird, and I think it's the way the cloak is done up high that's fucking with my brains ability to parse

Though also I think he did goof on the waist and legs a bit

[golden pond]

I don't know the guy

[golden pond]

It's specifically the weird dreamy linework and compositipn

AI bros love that shit

[atomic marsh]

He's an artist for Magic the Gathering

I have followed him since before generative AI was a thing

[golden pond]

This still doesn't mean anything cause they got caught accepting AI art 😭

[atomic marsh]

not everything is AI!!!!!

[golden pond]

Not my fault AI bros are taking that style of art 😭

[real shadow]

It's an absolute masterclass in storytelling how a small area consisting of single spell with one line of lore in it has done so much to contextualize Marika.

[languid tiger]

also one talisman!

[real shadow]

That too, but the spell in question does a whole hell of a lot of lifting.

[languid tiger]

aye

[stone cove]

I genuinely hate the way wee have to double check because of ai artists. a poor lady artist got caught upr ecently because soem chuds decided to come after her piece - i think for having a cat with a cool mechnical leg or something? it fucking SUCKED

[atomic marsh]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/456209913438273538/1259853245019459594/madness.mp4?ex=668d3144&is=668bdfc4&hm=cd549fd4158c0503bee0cbcdebdfb716a45c953c4c517db5b4cfa15c8213641f&

[mellow silo]

Wing Stance is so fuckin cool

Wish it wasn't locked on just Milady though

Wing Stance applying to Katana could be cool

[golden pond]

i wish we got more light greatswrods

[obtuse halo]

yeah I'm not sure why it's an ash of war

it's basically just Milady's default skill, I've never seen anyone use milady and not use it 😛

[stone cove]

It's really bizzare

[obtuse halo]

and you can't apply it to anything else, so....

[stone cove]

The irony is it's far from the perfect choice for Milady, like there are pletny of good AoW on it that do good stuff

[obtuse halo]

I guess making it an ash does mean you can infuse Milady however you want tho and still use it

[stone cove]

but also have you considered jumping attacks and stabbing someone in the face

[golden pond]

no, you can

to other light greatswords

c:

[stone cove]

Well, they coulda done what they did for Backhand Blades etc - it's the defualt, but it also comes equipped on the weapon so you ahve a copy

[obtuse halo]

all those other infusable lgs 😛

[golden pond]

yup

[vivid spire]

Sigh

Time to return to radman

[obtuse halo]

I watched my friend stream Castle Ensis last night and he briefly got really excited by Milady before realizing it was a dex weapon

(he's running a str build)

[frozen olive]

me finding literally any weapon in the dlc and realizing it's all dex

[languid tiger]

that's exactly why

[frozen olive]

also i saw someone talking about ||Midra's weapon not being madness|| which is really funny because it's a ||hornsent weapon literally used to torture him so ofc it's a holy weapon||

[languid tiger]

nah there are also like 10 str/fth weapons

it's dex or str/fth

also euporia the fucking goat

coolest weapon

[stone cove]

Also like a lot of the dlc weapons actually do really well quality?

[frozen olive]

i'm a greatsword enjoyer

[stone cove]

Beast Claws, Milady etc are quality specced

Greatsword of Solitude is a STR weapon

[languid tiger]

beast claw is a str weapon, not really quality

[old brook]

Dryleafs are Quality

[stone cove]

and has the cool feature of really high guard and guard boost (89 phys, boost 54)

[languid tiger]

infusions are sorcery, but its default numbers heavily skew str

[old brook]

And I think might even lean str

[stone cove]

I guess! i find it does well enough as quality that like, i'm happy calling it quality. It does lean str by default

[languid tiger]

both dryleafs have identical mixed scaling

[golden pond]

||i just kinda wish it was madness because of how long it spend in the mad man, corrupted by hte sudden outburst of frenzy||

||BECAUES WE ONLY HAVE VYKE'S SPEAR AS HTE OTHE RMADNESS WEAPON||

[frozen olive]

||Vykes spear is at least cool||

[golden pond]

||and perfumes but they're so icky||

[stone cove]

Side note, i fiddled with my Beastclaws character more, got it to have 70 dex and 70 faith ontop of enough strength to still make quality the way to go

and gods, Messmer's orb is so snappy with max casting speed

[languid tiger]

i mean yeah, but everything does

at least for infusables

weapons are extremely receptive to infusions in ER

[real shadow]

A thing I noticed about Midra is ||the way the model is made, it looks as if his giant flaming head is always facing you.||

[golden pond]

||99% sure it literally is||

[old brook]

Delightful

[frozen olive]

||also i don't think this works because for all of that time it spent lodged inside him, it was actively torturing him the entire time. The sword was in the position of power in a metaphorical sense so it would not make sense for Midra, who is even a failure of a frenzy lord, to corrupt it||

[kind garden]

The eye falls upon you

[golden pond]

||dommed by a sword, sucks||

[languid tiger]

if anything, i would relegate ||one of the weapons of the inquisitors in the abyssal woods to madness||

[real shadow]

||Yeah and I think the way they did it (or I would do it anyway) is that the black hole-looking center is just a flat image ala old N64/PS1 games.||

[languid tiger]

||because they're extremely obviously corrupted||

[frozen olive]

||Like, you could MAYBE argue that his transformation into a true Lord of Frenzy at the end might have done it, but even that's kinda sketch imo||

[golden pond]

||it is too ||

[languid tiger]

||so the madness could easily have leached into them||

[kind garden]

||The Sword of Execution shouldn’t be corrupted considering that it continued to hold Midra back indefinitely||

[frozen olive]

||that would be fair i think||

[kind garden]

Also

[old brook]

||Holy damage that causes frenzy, why not, it's literally what the torture did||

[kind garden]

We got Madding Hand