Elden Ring (DLC hype room)

[covert schooner]

sorry no, it starts with

you will never understand

[frozen olive]

mostly cause i seem to remember the last part

[covert schooner]

which goes so hard

[frozen olive]

yeah

it does

||Weak as a kitten and thick as two planks huh||

[covert schooner]

||genuinely calling leda out as completely insane and completely incapable of understanding whats best for her god||

and obviously the goat

"my blade

watch closely"

[frozen olive]

?

[covert schooner]

||Ansbach's dialgue when you summon him for the npc fight||

[frozen olive]

ohhhh yeah

i mean

always based

||Ansbach winning 100% of the time||

||we do love weird blood worshipping murder uncle||

[covert schooner]

https://youtu.be/rpq2fUk56Mo?si=DWIbw7zX5B-Iq-m2

big spoilers within

but

hhghgh

[atomic marsh]

God I love this moment so much

[frozen olive]

it's in the top three for me i think

[atomic marsh]

Wait what the fuck ||Hornsent can be there?||

[covert schooner]

yeah if you ||don't summon him to kill messmer i think, it shatters his spirit and he continues following leda||

[atomic marsh]

Oh

||Moore is talking to Thollier||

||Well I'm glad I summoned him against Messmer then.||

[covert schooner]

yeah

[atomic marsh]

What if Igon just fucking showed up

[covert schooner]

That would be so fucking funny

[frozen olive]

||Moores dialogue makes me want to cry||

||Moore is so gentle, him saying "Sad, forever?" when he dies broke my heart||

[covert schooner]

Also I love everyone in that fight ||suddenly realized you are literally destined to become elden lord||

[frozen olive]

||Everyone having that "holy fuck we stand before a lord" moment is pretty cool||

[atomic marsh]

||Or that you ARE LITERALLY ALREADY that||

[covert schooner]

||I love the Leda literally calls you worthy of being the lord if she kills you in that fight||

[frozen olive]

it's cool

||It's like Godfrey says, thy strength befits a crown||

[covert schooner]

Also

Everyone goes crazy about bayle and igon for great reasons but imo it’s only the third best piece of dialogue in the dlc

[frozen olive]

i do love Igon tho

[languid tiger]

||BEHOOOOOLD. BAAAANEE OF BAYLE THE DREAD, AND A RIGHTFUL LORD! AND I, IGON, STAND AT THE READY||

[glossy delta]

||she also leads off the invasion by calling him 'worthy hornsent'||
||She's framing it all as necessary measures to protect miq||
All the NPCs are so cool

[covert schooner]

Number two is ||righteous tarnished. Become lord, a lord for men, not a lord for gods||

[frozen olive]

yeah that is a fucking dialogue for sure

fuck

[covert schooner]

And number one is, imo
||FOE OF MY BELOVED PEOPLE||

Just because of the way his VA delivers it

[languid tiger]

was that an ansbach line?

[frozen olive]

||Hornsent vs. Messmer?||

[covert schooner]

Yeah if he dies in the final fight

||yeah||

[frozen olive]

yeaaah

[languid tiger]

||i think he's the one that calls you righteous tarnished||

[frozen olive]

i kinda uh

killed him

so i didn't see that dialogue

[covert schooner]

Hornsent is just my favorite NPC personally

He’s so good

[frozen olive]

i'm a big Ansbach fan

and Igon

[atomic marsh]

Hornsent is just a bonnie lad from Ireland with a singular desire to kill the English allegory

[covert schooner]

Ansbach is really close

[atomic marsh]

how can I deny him that

[languid tiger]

||yeah unfortunately i kinda sussed out leda being a racist axe murdered and firmly sided against her||

[covert schooner]

But there’s this sense of finality for Hornsent

[frail sky]

||Hornsent's dialogue there is just amazing||

[languid tiger]

||and then she turned out to be a racist axe murderer||

[covert schooner]

Where he knows it’s over for him after this

And he has nothing left

[glossy delta]

||IN VENGEANCE FOR THE FLAMES, MY BLADE I WIELD||

[frozen olive]

trueeee

he's kinda

lost in the sauce

[atomic marsh]

That's because his entire civilization was literally sent to hell

[languid tiger]

i really loved the DLC's voice direction in general, though

it was stellar

[frozen olive]

yeah

[atomic marsh]

So y'know

[frozen olive]

which was why i sided against him

i figured

i would 100% get a chance to ||deal with Leda later||

since ||she is absolutely bonkers and i would absolutely have to fight her at some point||

[covert schooner]

Also

||if you invade Ansbach he has some baller lines||

[languid tiger]

yeah, i just skipped that for the messmer fight

[atomic marsh]

I actually didn't know Leda wanted to kill Hornsent I just missed that spot entirely

[covert schooner]

||you were right, Leda. I cannot let go of my doubts. And I will not lie down and die with them||

[atomic marsh]

And she was like ||"Ah well, as long as he's dead I guess"||

[frozen olive]

||Based Ansbach||

[covert schooner]

He’s so fucking cool

Genuinely makes me think that maybe Mohg was a cool guy before the change

[frozen olive]

Ansbach is so cool

he really is Mohgs main PR guy

[covert schooner]

I also love ||Tholliers heel face turn where he finds his resolve in the final act||

[frozen olive]

honestly i'm like 100% chill with Mohg purely cause Ansbach is so rad

[languid tiger]

ALLEGATIONS BEATEN

[covert schooner]

There’s so much story and meaning crammed into just seeing his summon sign wordlessly placed before the fight

[languid tiger]

yeah lmao

god i fucking love that image

it's so funny

[languid tiger]

that line plays whether you invade or not

[covert schooner]

https://tenor.com/view/kermit-gif-17172043193563962893

[languid tiger]

||the invasion-exclusive lines are these||

[covert schooner]

Me whenever anyone opens their fucking mouth

In this dlc

[frozen olive]

true

[covert schooner]

Oh okay

[frozen olive]

i think, hearing those dialogues you posted

[covert schooner]

Yeah I entirely missed that invasion tbh

[frozen olive]

i still prefer Igon

[languid tiger]

||and these are the assist lines||

[frozen olive]

just cause of the pure fucking hater energy he has

[languid tiger]

igon's are my favorite overall

[frozen olive]

he puts so much fucking emotion into the boss summon dialogue

[languid tiger]

but i really love ansbach

all of them are great, though

i am a freyja appreciator

and an eeby boy fan

[covert schooner]

igon's are really good but

the build up to the other two makes it for me

[frozen olive]

fair

[covert schooner]

im a sucker for "revenge for my people"

[frozen olive]

i just prefer the powerful performance

that's it

[covert schooner]

thats fair

man all consuming vengeance

sure is a theme of this dlc

[frozen olive]

mfw it was the cycle of vengeance the entire time

[languid tiger]

man...

the poleblade of the bud's been such a letdown

i was never a fan of the swordspear r1 unfortunately, but i know it's good in pvp

however, the r2 is just

the really slow, weak, and otherwise pretty underwhelming spin polearm r2

and the ash of war has terrible damage, is incredibly slow, has god-awful rot buildup, and to make matters worse, adds 0 posture

and your hitbox is completely grounded for the entire duration

so you get interrupted by like

[glossy delta]

The L2 is good against HUGE MFs but against any reasonably sized enemy you are just spiraling off into nowhere with your butterfly teirl

[languid tiger]

the first shitty 5 damage swing of some random fuck

or the microflinch of a floor effect (magma, frost, lingering flames, etc.)

it's such a bad weapon, i gave it so much of a fucking shot

[glossy delta]

Like I used it to decent effect against like
The ghost flame dragons
That's it
Alas

[languid tiger]

but...

just use a blood cross nagi

or an occult cross nagi

or a blood swordspear

or the other poleblade

or any other decent arcane weapon

[glossy delta]

I meant specifically the art
For applying rot

[languid tiger]

because they're all higher-performance

i'm super disappointed, because i loved the stinger-bud spear blade

[languid tiger]

i know, i was following up on my own thoughts

overall, extremely disappointing

if you need rot

use either other rot weapon

or the broken miracles

(not romina's, her miracle also sucks)

and if you need arc scaling, use another arc weapon

[glossy delta]

Ah
My bad
But yeah, really rot breath is the end all be sll

[languid tiger]

and that's a goddamn tragic analysis

yeah

ekzyke's decay is just borked

scarlet aeonia is also really strong now

[glossy delta]

They should have gone all in and made the rot scale with arcane

[languid tiger]

i think it just needed a better r2

[obtuse halo]

Romina's is unfortunately bad scarlet aeonia 😔

[languid tiger]

and buffs to the art

yeah purification sucks

which sucks to say

[obtuse halo]

what's worse is it's probably intentional, because it's bad in the ways that scarlet aeonia used to be bad before it got buffed and became good

[languid tiger]

pain-peko

[obtuse halo]

so it's budget scarlet aeonia for one slot

at the cost of being bad scarlet aeonia

😛

[languid tiger]

and you are not struggling for slots in ER

[obtuse halo]

not usually, there have been times where I wished I had more

but yeah that's the exception

[frozen olive]

TIL that ||Furious blades of ansbach somehow doesn't do bleed damage||

[frail sky]

what

[real shadow]

His gear doesn't boost those spells either.

[frozen olive]

it does fire damage

watching Rusty's vid on all dlc spells and apparently it just ||doesn't do bleed damage, like at all||

[frail sky]

||It's bloodflame, why doesn't it do bleed!?||

[frozen olive]

||gods only fucking know, by all means it doesn't make a lick of sense||

[real shadow]

It's a very weird spell and that feels like an oversight.

[frozen olive]

it really does

[languid tiger]

the fact that it does no bleed and has no arc reqs is fucking bizarre

[frozen olive]

it's fucking weeeeeeeiiiiiiirrrrrrrddddd

[languid tiger]

also the fact that the scythe also doesn't have bloodflame is weird

[glossy delta]

Well, to be fair
All the blood oath weapons but Mohgs spear just do bleed and no bloodflame

Obsidian Lamina is basically just Scythe Bloody Helice down to the L2

[frozen olive]

||ansbachs furious blades explcitly does bloodflame and still only does fire damage which is fucking strange||

[glossy delta]

||THAT is weird yes, I feel its likely to get patched? But who knows||

[languid tiger]

fair

there's just also Rivers

and Eleanora's

[glossy delta]

Oh I guess those do do fire damage
But not actual bloodlfame as in 'continuous bleed buildup'
But thats reasonable to call bloodflame

[languid tiger]

yeah i was thinking of "bleed + fire damage"

even without the buildup of the spells

[frozen olive]

damn, Heal from afar huh...

Rusty put Knights Lightning Spear under impenetrable thorns but you know what

i can live with that

Impenetrable thorns just, stupid damage

[icy creek]

I just beat Gaius in three tries after losing to Messmer probably close to 100.

Feeling blessed.

[frozen olive]

damn

you are

everyone else i know hates Gaius

i hate Gaius too

[icy creek]

Beat him on the first time I got to his second phase too. Think I just lucked out.

[frail sky]

Wait how good is heal from afa- what the fuck

[frozen olive]

it's actually just better than flasks

when Rusty was showing it in the vid he had probably 60 vig and it healed him to full in one cast

[frail sky]

I mean tbf most healing incants do tend to be more efficient than flasks, they're just bogged down by a slow cast time

[frozen olive]

absolute fucking insanity

and it's uh

[frail sky]

Heal from afar doesn't seem to have that issue

[frozen olive]

almost instant

like it's genuinely like a second of cast time and you get the health in like half a second

it's insane

[frail sky]

Okay this is the same healing as lord's heal for a faster cast and a lower fp cost and it does more healing to your allies

[frozen olive]

you can heal yourself instantly, you can heal summons, you can heal mimic tear if you so please

it's ranged for gods sakes

fucking insane

[median rock]

i don't have game pulled up but wiki says it does have arc reqs, 19 faith n 27 arc

[languid tiger]

huh

[median rock]

that might be wrong though /shrug

[languid tiger]

i thought it was like 32 fth 0 arc

[median rock]

i think its definitely a bug, the vfx looks like normal bloodflame to me sooo

[atomic plinth]

||...why ARE we fighting Miquella, anyway?||

[kind garden]

||the world needs only one God and one Lord||

[atomic plinth]

||Maybe, but why aren't we rallying behind him? He's probably more qualified than we are.||

[kind garden]

||Too bad, you will be Lord or you will be nothing||

[atomic plinth]

||I mean in multiple endings we already forsake the status of Lord||

[frail sky]

||Same reason we fought Malenia, he happened to be in a place we were in||

[kind garden]

||No, you don't? In the Ranni ending you become Lord of Night, in the mending-rune and fracture endings you become Elden Lord, and in the Frenzy ending you become Lord of Frenzied Flame||

[frail sky]

||Also I just saw this spell in action for the first time and it is so cool||

[glossy delta]

I will admit this is something of a gripe for me too
You can intuit some solid reasons but none are quite spelled out, and while that vagueness is a From hallmark it feels not helpful here

[old brook]

also ||FOR ANSBACH||

[kind garden]

I mean, for me it's pretty simple: the story you're playing is one of becoming Lord, if you don't become Lord you're not the main character

[median rock]

||idk about u but i don't think a guy that just forsook all of the things that could have made him truly care about his subjects||

||like the crosses start with him casting off his flesh, ok, sure. but then he escalates to casting off his love, his fear, and his ability to doubt and therefore second-guess his decisions||

[glossy delta]

The best I've come up with is
||Miqs done tons of shady shit to get where he is, and by abandoning St. Trina he's very likely lost sight of his original vision||
||He may be working towards a good goal but it's likely he'll fail like Marika did||

[median rock]

||and then trina + a ghost (idr where unfortunately, possibly the one above st trina's hole?) implies that he's basically removed his ability to actually care entirely, and it would pretty much be a mercy to put him down - or at least, him pre-shedding-of-parts would have agreed with you||

[covert schooner]

Also his plan is to ||literally dominate everyone to make them work together harmoniously||

||presumably your character doesn’t want to be brain fucked||

[atomic plinth]

That's true

[kind garden]

oh yeah I mean there's a million good reasons to choose to fight Miquella

[median rock]

||its debatable how much he intends to mind whammy people vs lobotomize people, and who he intends to do that to. its unclear if he's actually planning on doing that to everybody or just the people who try to kill him / stop him from ascending||

[kind garden]

||but there's one reason why you must, which is that you have no other choice: you WILL fight Miquella for Lordship because it is the only path forward||

[glossy delta]

||his plan for what to do after entering the gate of divinity isn't really explicitly stated but yeah he'll probably keep charming folks||

[median rock]

||i think the issue is that he may intend to not abuse that, but by casting off his ability to care he's effectively cast off any ability to make good judgements on who is appropriate||

[covert schooner]

I mean he ||did it everyone who followed him, including Leda who was ride or die||

||he has an extremely bad track record of just doing it to everyone he meets||

[covert schooner]

Yeah - if your character doesnt want to be lord anymore your ending is to quit the game :3

[icy creek]

||Miquella brainwashed literally everyone to make them love him. Is it the worst thing in the world? No. But also not really a cool thing to do.||

[kind garden]

like if you want an argument

[covert schooner]

||I mean I personally consider it one of the worst fates for the lands between||

[kind garden]

||Choosing to cede to Miquella is the last choice you make, after that you make no more decisions, Miquella is in control permanently||

[glossy delta]

Though admittedly ||Miqs charming is maybe the mildest form of mind control ever presented in fiction||
||Pretty much everyone you see in the DLC is like||
||Nearly the same pre and post charming, they spiral off JUST enough for it all to come apart||

[obtuse halo]

Yeah I was trying it out on the final boss when ||Thiollier and Ansbach just kept dying on me|| and I was stunned by how effective it was

it heals for a LOT

[covert schooner]

||yeah, but they still lose their will. They HAVE to follow Miquella. Which I still consider to be a pretty horrific violation||

||he has shown no ability to be able to facilitate a thousand year voyage of compassion and kindness without forcing people to with mind control||

[atomic plinth]

I saw a video saying you could cast it at your feet and the cast time could be rendered so fast it was basically like drinking a flask but better

I'm gonna test it out later

[covert schooner]

||and I especially don’t trust his ass after casting off his love||

But yeah idk

I think the reason why you can’t side with him is just

There wouldn’t be a dlc if you did

[obtuse halo]

This is basically true

[covert schooner]

And also, siding with him would also end the main game

[glossy delta]

I don't mind ||not being able to side with him||
||The core conflict is just barely vague enough to frustrate me though||

[covert schooner]

||you aren’t his lord, his ending would be you going home while he finishes the plot||

That’s….. fair I guess

Idk, I think it’s vague in the same way most fromsoft stuff is

||Where you have to oppose him but your motives for doing so are kinda left up to you||

[frozen olive]

If you really need a reason, (Massive story spoilers)||Miquellas plan is to Mind Control literally everyone||

[covert schooner]

I think Miquella is also kinda destined to make an awful empire

[obtuse halo]

tbh if you don't want to oppose miquella, you could also just...leave

[covert schooner]

||he’s already known for forcing people to comply for the greater good||

[frozen olive]

Miquella threw away everything including the ability to ||Love||

[covert schooner]

Yeah that one is absolutely the most damning thing he does

[frozen olive]

I have negative confidence in his ability to do anything good

[glossy delta]

Yeah, you can just ||not do the fight||
Which has the key advantage of ||not doing the fight!||

[frozen olive]

Me personally

I want to be lord

[obtuse halo]

do the fight, get the ||heart taken|| L, just stop playing

😛

[frozen olive]

So like

[covert schooner]

It is really funny that the implication is that if you don’t do the dlc ||Miquella will show up and challenge you for lordship one day||

[frozen olive]

rip to ||Miquellas age of compassion||

It's time for wife

[obtuse halo]

still more hopeful than the Frenzied Flame ending

[covert schooner]

|| I just think he’s a tyrant god||

[obtuse halo]

actually most awkward in the age of stars ending since you're just gone

[frozen olive]

||Ranni's ending is literally the less evil and fucked up version of what Miquella wants||

[kind garden]

looking down angrily upon the Lands Between and just going "nah, fuck that guy"

in the name of the moon I will punish you

[frozen olive]

Unironically ||Ranni is just better, Miq was cooking nothing||

[glossy delta]

I always approached things from the angle of
'the worlds in a bad place and becoming lord is how things get better'
So that view of things, which Luna also espoused earlier, doesnt really work for me
Cuz becoming Lord is secondary to Unfucking Things

[obtuse halo]

oh man, I want Ranni's Sailor Transformation sequence now

[kind garden]

oh sure I'm not trying to espouse like

"here's why you should or shouldn't do anything"

it's narrative principle

[frozen olive]

Becoming Lord is the path to unfucking things

[glossy delta]

It seems to me as if ||Ranni wants to literally remove divine influence wholly from the world, while Miq wants to use divine influence to fix the world||

[frozen olive]

The world is permanently fucked until someone actually goes and takes the reigns and does SOMETHING

[covert schooner]

Also ‘lord’ is kinda a vague term like
In the age of stars ending you kinda abandon your ‘duty’

[obtuse halo]

tbh you've already kind of set some unfucking in motion before finishing the game, albeit in a "probably gets worse before it gets better" way

[covert schooner]

Only taking it so that no one else can

[obtuse halo]

you do set the erdtree aflame and release Destined Death.

[frozen olive]

||Miquella wants to remove the influence of thr golden order and Marikas Lineage, and create an Age of Compassion||

||Being Marika's child is literally speaking the Original Sin as far as Miquella is concerned||

[covert schooner]

Anyway I think the answer to why you can’t in game is that there wouldn’t be a rest of the game
And there are plenty of in universe reasons to

As for why you come here to begin with

It’s the same with as Ashes of Ariandel

[frozen olive]

||It's the whole reason Miquella divests themselves of everything they are, to distance themselves from Marikas blood||

[covert schooner]

You come here because you are an insatiable beast of curiosity

It’s kinda one of the underlying weird themes of the entire franchise

[frozen olive]

||Unfortunately Miq did a dumb thing and divested even the ability to actually create an Age of Compassion by cutting out St.Trina and their ability to feel love||

[median rock]

me when i am violently liberated from my wild curiosity

[covert schooner]

I love AoA as a like

Commentary on why you do things

In these games

[kind garden]

there's something about Souls Protags and their inability to leave things alone that's both heroic and disastrous in equal measure

[covert schooner]

Why do you fight people? Idk, it’s as much on you as them

[frozen olive]

But yeah the whole thing with ||not being able to side with Miquella is that||

You will be Lord

[covert schooner]

You have the ability to use the curse mark and return to a bonfire

And yet

[frozen olive]

Thus you have to overcome all obstacles

No matter what they may be

||Miquella is such an obstacle, and so coexistence is impossible||

||Siding with Miquella is impossible||

[covert schooner]

I’ve always liked the kinda

Ability to decide what your own motivation is

In these games

[glossy delta]

Well, Gael also asks you too
And you go through the entire DLC chain afterwards to get the blood of the dark soul out of him for his ultimate mission of making another painting
Which is sort of implied to maybe be a safe haven in the coming age of dark
There's a purpose to it but someone's shepherding you to it with a little carrot on a string

[covert schooner]

Yeah

That’s fair

AoA is more about why YOU the player are there

Not your character per say

I kinda get what you mean overall but

Idk I was never struck with a feeling of purposelessness myself

[frozen olive]

same

[glossy delta]

Thats fair
Obviously a lot of people got something different out of it
I was hooting and hollering the whole DLC until ||after you talk to Ansbach after the civil war and go up the stairs||
||Where it all kind of stops being good for me, but thats just me and I still like the DLC as a whole||

[covert schooner]

See meanwhile that shit was hype as fuck for me

[frozen olive]

fight of the fucking century

[covert schooner]

Admittedly I think that the final fight is also really good

And people are mostly salty that it’s hard

[obtuse halo]

as I mentioned last time it came up, I think phase 1 of the final fight is really good

[covert schooner]

Not counting people who get overwhelmed by the visuals which is fair but also not the games fault

[frozen olive]

the visuals are a lot

[glossy delta]

Fightwise its about what I expected
The Hardest Thing Yet

[covert schooner]

At least personally I don’t find them any worse than like… Elden beast

[obtuse halo]

Phase 2 I very much don't like, because the visuals are a lot and it's the same fight except fuck you everything rollcatches harder now

[covert schooner]

I’m glad shields are a better Strat than rolling for literally a single fight

Lmao

[old brook]

I groaned "nnnoooo" out loud walking through the boss door

[covert schooner]

Given that rolling is just objectively better for most of the time

[obtuse halo]

yeah as a not-a-shield user I was suffering through that entire experience

[covert schooner]

Get better taste :p

[old brook]

But we all have opinions

[glossy delta]

I do wanna give it a try with carian shield dude

The active blocks may be fun

[obtuse halo]

I used to be a shield person but realized I had just kind of stopped using them

[old brook]

Is dual duel shields a real thing

[covert schooner]

Oh yeah guard countering and active blocking is fun

[obtuse halo]

by my fourth playthrough-ish

[glossy delta]

(Not the deflecting hardtear but the guard frames thrusting shields get, to be clear)

[covert schooner]

Oh

[mellow silo]

NEED to get that tear

[covert schooner]

I’ve never used a thrusting shield tbh

[mellow silo]

But fire golem scawy...

[covert schooner]

Them not having 100 physical was

Uh

[glossy delta]

Its really cool! Plays way different from most weapons

[covert schooner]

Not for me

[old brook]

The animations a bit silly for me

[mellow silo]

I know theres a way to kill em, but I could never get it to really work

[glossy delta]

The CTS has 94% phys so that was good enough for me

[frozen olive]

loved pulling out Haligtree Crest Greatshield with sacred infusion and just not taking damage

[stone cove]

Re: why our tarnished fights things, sometimes I think they're just a bit of a drunk explorer

They're just chilling, wandering into areas and the locals are all HEY FUCK YOU BUDDY

[old brook]

A nice lady asked me to turn runes into strength

[glossy delta]

The CTS's 30% holy resist would likely be a ballbuster for ||Phase 2, now that I think about it 😔||

[old brook]

Got runes? That's a problem

[covert schooner]

Also everyone just canonically hates the tarnished

[obtuse halo]

I hate those stupid things

they're my least favorite new DLC boss

[covert schooner]

So they attack you on sight because you’re a pariah

[old brook]

Honestly I'd like them more if they had no reward and were just big scary obstacles lmao

[covert schooner]

Doesn’t make sense in a lot of circumstances but

[stone cove]

||leda is especially funny, she just flat out decided to murder you with no other choices and jumps you||

[covert schooner]

Uhhhhh

[stone cove]

Nah, it's fine

[covert schooner]

Pest threads

5 casts of pest threads staggers them, repeat that until they fall over

[obtuse halo]

on paper it sounds the same as the regular golems where you smack them in the legs until they fall over but instead of being two charged attacks it takes like two minutes of slapping

[covert schooner]

Is my strat

For the golems

[glossy delta]

I leaned on Savage Lions Claw heavily

[stone cove]

I utterly trounced the final boss with CTS, most of phase 2 if still physical damage

[obtuse halo]

Oh sure, Pest Threads works great

I used it myself

[covert schooner]

I do think they kinda suck tho

[obtuse halo]

even so they suck to fight

[covert schooner]

But in some ways like

[glossy delta]

What a fucked up nefarious move btw
Three hits with infinite stagger
Slapped that on a great katana and that shit procs bleed on the third hit 💀

[covert schooner]

Thheyre hardly the worst thing in the game

I would rather fight a furnace than a Royal rev

Every time

[obtuse halo]

oh god no

Revenants are pain but they're vastly less pain than that fight

I've turned around on revenants though

[old brook]

They at least have hard counters

[obtuse halo]

I used to think they were one of the most bullshit unfair fights but I actually kind of like dancing with them these days

[stone cove]

Wait, sorry, which enemy are we talking here? furnace Golems?

The humble club does a mischief to them, and stance breaks them very easily, even from the front

[old brook]

Nawh the giant ones not the smithing golems

[glossy delta]

I think the only bit that I REALLY hate about revenants is that one specific move where they just freak out and combo horizontal swipes for a solid 3 seconds and if you get caught in it you just die
If they elect to not use that I can handle the rest, and its pretty rare

[covert schooner]

Furnace Golems also aren’t a real fight

[old brook]

Goddamn Sekiro Centipede combo

[covert schooner]

In the sense that they’re really easy

[obtuse halo]

yeah that move is some nonsense

[covert schooner]

To not get hit by

It’s kinda just a waiting game

[obtuse halo]

Furnace Golems are easy to dodge but if you screw up a dodge they tend to melt you

which just makes the fight feel like a shitty rhythm game

[old brook]

For some reason Torrent doesn't like being in a sea of fire

[obtuse halo]

also the hitboxes are really deceptive

[old brook]

also why does Dex control how well you stay seated

[obtuse halo]

all of their attacks look really huge but only the front of the wave does damage

and it lingers visually far longer than it can actually hurt you

[old brook]

I'm always got by 'surely that's far enough away from the fireballs'

(It's not)

[obtuse halo]

"I have elected to begin E. Honda's Hundred Hand Slap"

[glossy delta]

Yeah they kind of cemented my loathing for Elden Ring deciding to make jumping a defensive mechanic
Because you jump those fire bursts when they first come out
But then you fucking land in a giant sea of lingering fire and take no damage
Every 'hey jump this!' attack is so unintuitive
With the exception of godfrey and godrick's ground bursts

[covert schooner]

The putrescent knights fight had probably some of the better implementation

[glossy delta]

Good, honest godfrey 😌

[frozen olive]

Godfrey just got the most respectable hands

[obtuse halo]

Yeah, PK and Rellana's big jumpable moves are fine

[covert schooner]

I think the next fromsoft game is gonna have a total movement overhaul 1000%

You can tell they’re chafing against the constraints of what is functionally just the dark souls 1 movement system with bells and whistles and speed

[glossy delta]

I used Vow Of The Indomitable for PK because they didn't look jumpable at all 😭
Again, Vast Swathe Of Fire Syndrome

[old brook]

Jump is back on "press dodge while holding dodge to sprint"

[covert schooner]

PK fire has no lingering hit box

IME

[glossy delta]

It doesnt have one, no!
But it does not
look
like that

Its an attack you look at and go 'if I jump I'm going to land in fire and die'

[covert schooner]

I guess I’m just more willing to test it and die lol

[glossy delta]

I didn't see a reason to attempt it
Because I could look and see the vast swathe of lingering fire
As I said, my main issue with jump as a defensive mechanic is that so many of the jumpable attacks are not presented intuitively

[covert schooner]

I genuinely think Sekiro had it right

With gigantic floating symbols Lmao

[frozen olive]

yeah the unblockables would have been unbearably obnoxious without the symbols in Sekiro

[covert schooner]

My real problem is stuff like uh

The final bosses big nuke

Which is basically just unavoidable

You legally have to block it

[glossy delta]

Or bust out the Vow or other weird defensive arts
I bet Mist Raven might also beat it? Dunno
I know Mist Raven beats Placidusax's crazy ass charged lightning stake nuke thing that covers like a third of his arena

[frozen olive]

Miriams vanishing time

[covert schooner]

The nuke is the only part of that fight I think is like

Genuinely unfair

In that it does insane damage and there’s like…. No guidance on how to deal with it

[glossy delta]

||The phase start 'raise up with spread arms' nuke or the 'OG Radahn Phase transition: Redux' nuke||

[covert schooner]

the former

[frozen olive]

||you can just run away from the spread arms nuke||

[glossy delta]

I'm told if your on top of it you can sprint forward towards the boss
Cuz they kind of set it out in front of them instead of it being on them

[covert schooner]

yeah but thats been really inconsistent for me

unless i realize hes doing it literally frame one of the start up

[frozen olive]

||the T-pose nuke is absolutely possible to just run away from||

[covert schooner]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

i also think thats a bad defensive option to make people do

imo

its not well suited to the flow of combat

idk

i think you should be able to roll through it personally

if you time it well

[frozen olive]

you can raptor of the mists it also

you can thank Ongbal for that tidbit

[covert schooner]

ongbal doing it like dy 2 of the dlc being out was crazy

like

[frozen olive]

Ongbal just different

[glossy delta]

Raptor of the Mist 😌
Fuckin fight defining ash

[frozen olive]

the first no damage vid Ongbal did came out 4 days asfter the DLC

[glossy delta]

Radagon is a whole different game with that thing

[frozen olive]

he's also done no hit, RL1, no blessing

also bow version, no damage, with the powerful limiter of no backstep

[obtuse halo]

the bow version was not RL1 I think

[frozen olive]

it was not

[obtuse halo]

because I would have been absolutely humiliated to be flexed on that hard and checked 😛

[frozen olive]

i kneel to a true Elden Lord 👑

[frail sky]

I really need to get around to beating that boss don’t I

[golden pond]

Eh

It really just seems like a tough fight for the sake of being a tough fight

[frozen olive]

i still need to beat the boss solo

[golden pond]

The drops are wack imo

[frozen olive]

i could not disagree more personally

considering trying to learn it with my main character

whenever i get the energy to play through the DLC with that character

[frail sky]

Yes but consider: ||pretty flower from Trina (‘s corpse)||

[covert schooner]

that is most final bosses

[frozen olive]

the reward i was waiting for

[golden pond]

Yeah but consider
||I don't like getting eye tumors because he decided to engage PowerPoint screen transitions||

[covert schooner]

the reward is finish the dlc

i mean

[frozen olive]

sure

i don't think that makes the actual fight needlessly hard

[covert schooner]

ive not had any problems with frame drops

personally

[golden pond]

Less that

More just

||I'm going to do a screen wipe left to right, transition to white||

[frail sky]

||Mmm true, that miquella's light attack does tank the frame rate||

[golden pond]

I like seeing in fights
I do not like not being able to see 70% of the moves

[covert schooner]

idk i

[old brook]

We don't even get to ||smack Miquella we just beat up his horse||

[frozen olive]

i think it could and possibly should be toned down visually but otherwise i have no problems with it

[covert schooner]

think thats mostly a personal issue, no offense
in the sense it's valid but also necessarily against the game
the only attack thats really ultra blinding is the nuke where nothing else is happening during it

[frozen olive]

||i mean, Miquella is sorta implied to be piloting Radahn at that point so it's kind of a Ratatouille situation||

[golden pond]

maybe it's just my bias as a caster, having to sit a tiny bit back so i actually have time to cast, meaning i'm just far enough away to get blinded

either way

meh

[covert schooner]

||his flash steps are essentially projectiles necessarily||

[golden pond]

twink was more fun

[obtuse halo]

yeah any strategy that asks you to create distance makes the fight harder

[covert schooner]

yeah it might just be a thing where you needed to be slightly differently ranged

[obtuse halo]

which is miserable if you're more of a ranged character

[golden pond]

explains a lot

oh well

[glossy delta]

I do find it funny that the final boss is ||Radahn in his prime||
||And he's STILL a voiceless so and so implied to be on autopilot||

[old brook]

I mean melee is dodging swings for eight minutes and getting one roll attack in

There's no winning

[frozen olive]

i have a feeling that i'm not actually going to be able to cast many of my carian sorceries during the fight

sword it is

[golden pond]

dead in my savefile and i'm not gonna bother fighting it legit ever because none of it is even worth it in my book

[frozen olive]

that is quite amusing

idk i don't mind the difficulty

like

[obtuse halo]

yeah but the thing is the light followups are perfect for rollcatching you when trying to create distance so you pretty much need to double roll everything, which means you're chewing through stam twice as fast

[frozen olive]

||The combination of Radahn and Miquella is inarguably the single most powerful fight that happens in the game||

||even Radagon and the Elden Beast is like, one half of the equation, and they don't fight together||

[obtuse halo]

that said I quite like fighting ||just Radahn|| a lot

[old brook]

||and yet it's still so powerfully boring, what a feat||

[covert schooner]

very insightful :p

[obtuse halo]

||Actually feels like a fight that could reasonably go toe to toe with Malenia without completely overshadowing her or getting trashed||

[frozen olive]

||the equivalence for that would be fighting Marika at the peak of her power as well as just full healthbar Hoarah Loux at the same time||

[golden pond]

I really would like to know what actually makes that fight powerful

other tahn just making your eyes experience cancer for a second on each swing

None of the hits feel like they have any weight behind them

[old brook]

Can't you feel his compassion

[covert schooner]

alright

[glossy delta]

Yall are being a lil rude

[frozen olive]

honestly i'm just going to dip

[covert schooner]

im not gonna answer that because yourwe not gonna agree regardless

[glossy delta]

I dont like the fight either but no need to be catty

[frozen olive]

you clearly have no interest in actually discussing the boss aside from complaining

[covert schooner]

no offense but maybe yall should just stop engaging with conversations about the fight

if all you can do is call it garbage

[real shadow]

||Radagon's spine would say otherwise!||

[covert schooner]

like youve made your opinion clear at every available opportunity

[frozen olive]

||ok but like, he's not really participating is he||

[real shadow]

||He's being swung at you I think I'd call that participation.||

[frozen olive]

||and he's HARDLY at the peak of his power with what with getting folded ass backwards by you a moment earlier and having a literally crumbling body||

[old brook]

There's argument that's about as much as he participates in the Order

Leal Hound

And he moves so almost.. inorganically

[obtuse halo]

tbh I think Radagon is still one of my favorite fights in the entire game

DLC did not really displace him

[old brook]

The first time he smacked a projectile away

ohno

[obtuse halo]

yeah beating Radagon with a bow is...challenging.

[frozen olive]

||Radagon also is not fighting on the level of "A GOD AND A LORD" like Radahn and Miquella are||

[obtuse halo]

Radagon is fun, which is very important 😌

[old brook]

And the arenas are so cool

Radagon's smacking us around with half a body and someone elses' weapon

[frail sky]

I wish radagon and elden beast were separate bosses so radagon could get a bigger health bar without making elden beast more of a pain, he's definitely the most fun part of that fight

[frozen olive]

||Ostensibly Radagon is weakened lord channeling the diminished strength of a god in the form of Marika, whereas Radahn is incarnated at what seems to be the peak of his power, with a little boost from being in Mohgs body, as well as having a fully powered god at the zenith of their power buffing him while cosplaying a cape.||

[old brook]

I haven't tried Elden Horse, that seems more fun

[frozen olive]

this is true

Torrent a real one for helping us fight the manifestation of an outer gods will

[old brook]

||See I don't know why Mogh's body would give him a boost over his original body, if he was the mightiest of the demigods, that wasn't all just his Soul||

||He seems like. Smaller? But that might just be trailer magic||

[frozen olive]

nope

||Comparing models, he's about half size of the rotted Radahn we see||

[old brook]

so not nope in fact yes

[frozen olive]

i meant for the ||trailer magic||

||https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuEcVKN9A3k||

[covert schooner]

I mean bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better

He’s in a ||not walking corpse so it’s objectively better than his post aeonia body||

[frozen olive]

||big Radahn is a crippled mindless zombie just fucking killing everything he can with weak approximations of his true skills of war||

[old brook]

||god he's truly the most busted looking of the Carian kids||

[frozen olive]

||big Radahn literally does not have feet||

[old brook]

and this is why the fight was so cool v-v

[frozen olive]

i don't disagree

[frozen olive]

||the cursed blood boost, bloodflame and shit you know||

||i'm not saying it did much but he absolutely got something out of it||

[grave plinth]

Mohg might actually have been one of the most naturally physically strong demigods if you look at the language of his animations

[old brook]

Sure swings the damn spear better than we do

[grave plinth]

The way he barrels through the stage objects too

[old brook]

They are Godfrey's sons it does make sense

[frozen olive]

yup

Godfrey certainly was one mighty motherfucker

[covert schooner]

also mohg was like

the fully and exclusive champion of the formless mother

[grave plinth]

Radahn might have naturally been huge or bootstrapped himself there with magic

[frozen olive]

the man was so fucking cracked at fighting and killing with his incredible strength he straight up just killed anything in the lands between that could pose a challenge to him

[covert schooner]

so im sre that does

something

for him

[old brook]

I do wonder why he tooled around with the Crucible Knights

just a buncha tough folks doing tough stuff

[frozen olive]

lore accurately just fucking killed everything that stood in his way by just beating it to death

[old brook]

Still weird that it looks more like Blood Magic/Messmer might have gotten the Giants

honestly the Fire Monks are a lot of "????" for me

they just seem to be a fan of the concept

[frozen olive]

i think we can fairly say that he was probably uber jacked to begin with and made it that much worse for everyone else by using gravity sorcery

[grave plinth]

Honestly I get the impression that the formless mother took an interest in him because he was already somewhat unique

Like the fact that he lost an eye to one of his horns might actually increase his Arcane, if we look at the Lamenters

[frozen olive]

the formless mother is implied to have been interested in his cursed blood iirc

[old brook]

See, that's so Blood Star coded, and yet they're different

[frozen olive]

the description of Bloodboone specifically mentions that his bloodflame was ignited when he stood before her

[grave plinth]

Like it's clear that Mohg is actually pretty gifted on his own ,||brainwashing notwithstanding ||

[frozen olive]

yeah

not surprising

[obtuse halo]

Mogh is also just an omen, who seem to be pretty strong by default

on top of being Godfrey's son and apparently jacked

[grave plinth]

He's charismatic, he's stealthy, he's erudite, and he's kept his forces growing throughout the entire shattering

[frozen olive]

yeah Omens seem to be just physically bigger generally

[obtuse halo]

if anything it's more surprising that Morgott is more of a dex character

[old brook]

Morgott seems Quality, got that magic Hammer

[obtuse halo]

I mean, it's faith, I assume it's about as much of a strength weapon as Gavel of Haima

[old brook]

>:|a tru

[kind garden]

Morgott is a Faith build

[grave plinth]

Morgott prioritizes Faith, strength, dex, and arcane are secondary

[old brook]

Just also think about this'n

He's got the Old Guy Strength

[covert schooner]

Currently deseperately trying to figure out beating this final boss

[obtuse halo]

what's really impressive is Morgott won that battle, narratively - at least enough to hold Leyndell

[frozen olive]

Morgott is fucking cracked in the lore

[obtuse halo]

He's probably not "really" mightier than Radahn, but he held Leyndell against all comers

Morgott is, on paper, the closest thing the Shattering-as-presented had to a victor.

[frozen olive]

i don't imagine he literally just beat the tar out of Radahn in a pure 1v1 but like, he still fought off Radahn and the Redmanes

which is indisputible, and fucking impressive

[obtuse halo]

nobody could win the shattering-as-presented though, because it was a rigged game

[frozen olive]

yup

it was rigged from the start

[grave plinth]

Radahn was unfamiliar with Morgott's bullshit timing delays

[covert schooner]

I think it’s pretty obvious that Radhan uh

Probably would have gone the farthest

[frozen olive]

yeah

[covert schooner]

Without Malenia’s fucking nuclear weapon

[frozen olive]

Radahn was the mightiest of the demigods as just like, pure strength

Malenia would not have stalemated him without the Nuke

[grave plinth]

Arguably probably the second smartest too

[frozen olive]

in fact with the way he's portrayed it feels like that was sort of the only thing capable of actually stopping him with how fucking strong he was

[obtuse halo]

It's worth noting that at least until the DLC the Redmanes are absolutely the most functional army remaining even decapitated, with clear organization and operations occurring.

[frozen olive]

yeah

[grave plinth]

Even with colossal depletion yeah

[frozen olive]

Radahn was a master of gravity magic after all

[covert schooner]

I think if Radahn had been able to regroup and try again

He could have taken leydell

[obtuse halo]

it's very possible, yes

[frozen olive]

it's funny to think about but he was like, actually a master wizard

[grave plinth]

Morgott's army can't do much other than "hold this position"

[covert schooner]

But Malenia essentially kicked him whiles down lmao

[obtuse halo]

Leyndell's army is formidable but they're not really...doing anything

just kind of digging in

[grave plinth]

While they slowly starve yeah

[covert schooner]

And they’re like

Gone

By the time of the game

[obtuse halo]

The Redmanes are actively quelling the Scarlet Rot, though that's an interminable fight

[grave plinth]

Though the Redmanes have clearly had a lot of internal purges

[old brook]

I don't know how actively they're managing

[kind garden]

Radahn got his ass beat by Morgott last time they went at it

[old brook]

What with it fully taking dragonbarrow

[obtuse halo]

the worst of the scarlet rot hasn't hit Dragonbarrow

[old brook]

Not a lot seems to stop Rot

[grave plinth]

There's a lot of hanged footsoldier corpses in their fortifications

[old brook]

How'd you do it, Dancing Stranger

[frozen olive]

the dancing guy was just different clearly

[grave plinth]

He did lose an arm

[frozen olive]

literally sealed the Rot god

crazy stuff

[obtuse halo]

there's definitely some rot there and it's a doomed effort, but the dragons there are normal, unlike Ezykes, and there are very few kindred of rot or nightmare dogs/crows

[covert schooner]

Gonna try

Sword Lance and fingerprint shield

For this fight

[grave plinth]

Honestly my read was that Dragonbarrow is actually slowly recovering

Whatever hit Dragonbarrow was still enough to body Greyoll

[covert schooner]

Yeah it’s kinda unclear what

Actually happened

To dragonbarrow

But tbh I don’t really think the Redmanes tried to stem the tide there because lik

No one lives in dragonbarrow

[old brook]

It's just past their firewall is what I mean

Like they're trying

But success is.. ehhHH

[grave plinth]

The redmanes did deploy to the divine tower

[old brook]

That must be such a shit deployment

The wind alone

[grave plinth]

And used to hold a fort there

[covert schooner]

||also if you kill promised consort you become probably the canonically greatest warrior of all time. You do what Malenia could not||

[obtuse halo]

Thy Strength does Befit a Crown

[frozen olive]

GODFREEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYY

MY GOAT 😭

[grave plinth]

HOARAH LOUX, WARRIOR!

[obtuse halo]

man, you know he was excited in that fight too

[frozen olive]

I'VE GIVEN THEE COURTESY ENOUGH

[obtuse halo]

"hell yeah, an enemy that's actually worth my time"

[frozen olive]

Godrey is such a baller

kind of problematic of course but you know

who wasn't in that family

also he was kinda just doing his thing as a feral barbarian warrior guy

[covert schooner]

There’s

Something to be said about what I’m about to do

||fight radhaan with the weapon of his childhood rival||

[frozen olive]

lmaooooo

yeah

you can do some fucked up shit

it's funny

[obtuse halo]

Scarlet Aeonia
"Aw fuck"

[frozen olive]

yeah lmao

[tropic stream]

I wonder what Miquella's reaction to you doing that would be

[obtuse halo]

Before the DLC dropped, I'd say some level of distress at having killed his sister and crafted a spell out of her soul

||Having abandoned his love though, he might just consider it a curiosity worth noting but not having a strong reaction to||

[old brook]

To me it seems like Rememberances are like.. Charcoal Etchings of their soul, just a copy of their pattern in the Elden Runework

[grave plinth]

Tbf Malenia might not actually be dead

There’s still an Aeonia bud right?

[real shadow]

Technically dead, but will be revived at some point via the Erdtree.

Well, depending on which ending you get.

In Malenia's case she'll probably revive via the Rot God as she's a bit special, but everyone else used to revive through the Erdtree.

[frozen olive]

you telling me i gotta come back from my Thousand Year voyage midway through to send her ass back? 😔

[real shadow]

All honeymoons have to end, sadly.

[frozen olive]

i am not ending my Honeymoon early because Malenia decided to revive and i needed to kill her again

[real shadow]

Look without Miquella around maybe she's chilled out since then.

[frozen olive]

i mean

that's not what it's about

i was moreso worried about the horrific influence of the outer god of rot working through her

and you know, payback for Radahn

[atomic marsh]

Radahn knew what he was getting into

[frozen olive]

i'm not sure he was ready for her to drop a nuclear bomb on him

[atomic plinth]

Wish the Dismounter was better

[frozen olive]

also the general Caelid area is included in the payback for Radahn

[atomic plinth]

It's my favorite CGS design-wise but the scaling on it is never really that great, nor is the base damage

[atomic marsh]

Idk if I'm in a sword fight with my sister, Atomicbombia

I'm not gonna be surprised when she turns into an atomic bomb

[kind garden]

just drop a rock on her

a big one

[grave plinth]

Hey remember now that was the first time Malenia atomic bombed

[kind garden]

ain't gotta get out of bed for this

[atomic marsh]

She's still The Rot Lady!

[grave plinth]

The Rot lady who never used Rot!

Like specifically that was her big thing

That she was so dignified and disciplined that she never let the Rot leak out!

[frozen olive]

yeah that was really sort of a fucking left field thing

[grave plinth]

Its like the kid sister who you’ve known and who looked up to you from childhood suddenly deciding to throw away a core personality trait for reasons you don’t understand!

[frozen olive]

yeah

[kind garden]

I don't know if going from having a barely contained nuclear bomb inside you to going "oh shit whoops-" and nuking is strictly an out-of-left-field core personality change as much as it is the dread outcome of having a ticking timebomb in your soul

[frozen olive]

i mean i'm not sure that the nuclear bomb thing was something people knew would happen

her doing a flower cosplay and blowing up a whole region was kind of uh

unprecedented should we say

well presumably anyway

i feel like we would know if she exploded like a nuclear bomb before Caelid

[languid tiger]

yeah malenia was like

"tragic cursed lady who spams waterfowl dance at you"

and then she nuked detroit

[frozen olive]

there is also a big difference between person who has a terminal sickness since birth coming to fight you and it turning out that the person could suddenly turn that terminal illness into a nuclear fucking bomb by cosplaying a flower

[languid tiger]

"i turned my leukemia into a bioweapon that took out half of france"

[frozen olive]

especially since that person was also sort of specifically known for hating said illness and wanting nothing to do with it

[grave plinth]

Yeah, before Malenia was like, the inspirational figure who mastered the blade while missing three limbs and her eyes

That was the big charisma factor

[frozen olive]

inspiring terminal cancer patient suddenly turns cancer into a megaton warhead and blows up a region of your homeland is a surprising turn of events

[old brook]

Yeah but also grabbing her armblade as it's chopped off was cool and hot so who's really in the wrong here

[frozen olive]

||Miquella||

clearly

[languid tiger]

'scuse you, we are proud victim-blamers in this house

it's radahn, obviously

[old brook]

Maybe ||Metyr if you scale back scope||

Though honestly the whole royal family can be thrown out for being unkind to lions

[frozen olive]

we keep Godfrey

he has the king of Lions on his back :)

[atomic plinth]

I think I'm done trying to figure out ||the Promised Consort||

I'm upgrading this lightning perfume bottle and nuking him

This is such a dogshit fight

[frozen olive]

perfume nuke got nerfed

just shield and poke

get the Bloodfiends Sacred spear and do a arcane build for the bleed kill

[atomic plinth]

Already?

I knew it would, I just didn't expect it to get nerfed this soon

[frozen olive]

yes

[gray leaf]

Well, most of perfumes' strength was due to bugs.

[frozen olive]

it got nerfed very quickly

[frozen olive]

that yeah

[languid tiger]

squimsh

[frozen olive]

"thou didst me good service, Serosh" moment

[old brook]

Wow the second ||Beast Claw|| AoW is uh. It's kind of bullying in PVP

[frozen olive]

ya

[old brook]

but tragically it's also very cool so i shall keep using it

[mellow silo]

Anyone have a spare Ansbach set lying around? Particularly the chest armor

[frozen olive]

if you don't get it by tomorrow

i can give you one

i should have like

5-6 sets lying around

i really don't need all of them

[mellow silo]

Sounds good, should I ping you tomorrow or do you want to ping me?

[frozen olive]

ping me

i have the memory of a goldfish

[mellow silo]

Alright

[frozen olive]

it's 4 in the morning for me rn so like, tomorrow for me will be in 6-10 hours or so

hopefully that works for your timescale

[mellow silo]

I mean... Summer vacation, I am free for Yes

[frozen olive]

👍

[raw coral]

Did anyone else not have that hard of a time with Senessax? I think Sekiro being my first fromsoft game gave me an edge

[atomic plinth]

He IS just an ancient dragon at the end of the day

[languid tiger]

I definitely found them wretched, but I'm not shocked that someone wouldn't have that experience

[median rock]

if u don't have high skadoosh he can oneshot you

[languid tiger]

the lightning just enraged me

[median rock]

and on my first run through i was using martial arts against a dragon with no lock on points in his legs, which sucks

[languid tiger]

fucked up bastard rat lizard

[raw coral]

I basically heard this every time I saw a lightning attack

https://youtu.be/5YzN2bPgjB0?si=B0E7AzxF-nuXn7iR

[atomic plinth]

||...I really hope Promised Consort gets a nerf like how Radahn did||

||The fact that ONE sword-swing immediately removes half my HP bar is fucking ridiculous||

[languid tiger]

have you considered getting scadutree blessings

[atomic plinth]

||And like every other dual wielding enemy FromSoft has ever made he never fucking quits attacking||

[atomic plinth]

I'm at blessing level 17

[glossy delta]

First time I encountered Sen I lamed him out pretty handily with incantations
But in melee he seems Unpleasant

[median rock]

i think he threeshot me with sword swings at scadu 19 & 60 vigor w some mediocre armor

[languid tiger]

15% extra absorptions for 20, but that's plenty

[raw coral]

thats just ancient dragons in general tbh (the melee part)

[languid tiger]

vigor check

[median rock]

so i believe twoshot w shitty armor or things like soreseals etc

[atomic plinth]

I wear the Armor of Solitude with a Dragoncrest Greatshield talisman and nothing that would lower my stats

[kind garden]

use the parrying ash...

uuuuuuuseeee iiiiiiit

[languid tiger]

i'd be fucking shocked if it's 50% then, unless you're at like 30-40 vig

[atomic plinth]

I can't parry

[atomic plinth]

59

[languid tiger]

at 50 with pretty lightweight armor, his attacks were dealing like

[atomic plinth]

I'm in NG+ so that probably explains it

[languid tiger]

40%

ah

NG+ like doubles stats

that would definitely do it

[atomic plinth]

At this point I might need to just start a new character so I can have a chance at beating this fucker

[languid tiger]

well, except hp

it's a pretty low hp increase

[frail sky]

||Base game Radahn wasn't a nerf, it was a bug fix. Outside of tanking frame rate with some attacks and some janky hitboxes, I don't think there are any bugs with Consort that cause its difficulty (and hitboxes usually don't get changed so)||

[glossy delta]

Malenia DID see some outright nerfs no

[frail sky]

I don't believe so?

[atomic plinth]

Why is every dual wielding enemy in From Soft games the fucking WORST to fight

[kind garden]

it is time to learn to parry

[languid tiger]

or grab the backstep talisman

and do that

[atomic plinth]

Is the Executioner Greataxe better for criticals or the Misericorde?

[kind garden]

Executioner

[atomic plinth]

What I figured, given the axe has much better base damage

[kind garden]

1.5 x small < 1.2 x biiiig

[atomic plinth]

...he does not seem to be riposteable

[kind garden]

no it just takes 3 parries

[atomic plinth]

That's fucking stupid, but whatever

[kind garden]

lots of bosses take more than one parry to get a riposte?

[atomic plinth]

I don't ever parry so I wouldn't know, so that's fair

...also how do I learn the timing

[kind garden]

you're waiting for the hand of the enemy swinging at you to extend closest to you as your shield swings away

use Carian Retaliation or Golden Parry to get better active frames, and in Golden Parry's case, a giant fucking parry zone

[atomic plinth]

Do the parry ashes have better frames on bucklers?

[kind garden]

no

[languid tiger]

buckler has a better native parry than any other shield

but the special parry ashes are even better

and overwrite the base entirely

[kind garden]

they're the best-est parries

[languid tiger]

i just prefer the buckler because uh

naked fuck with a stick

beating people to death and buckler parrying since 2011

[kind garden]

man in rags with giant weapon and tiny buckler is the most powerful energy

[languid tiger]

yeah i've been playing from games since like

(AC4, which doesn't really count because i was 8 and didn't even halfway finish it)

dark souls 1 in 2012

and there is something sublime about being a naked fuck with a stick

having the buckler and a huge weapon

[atomic plinth]

Guess it's time to farm for a spear that can inflict rot

I'm just turtling this fight, I'm fucking tired of this

[left willow]

Corrupted Crystal Spear, I believe, but it requires killing Crystallians....

[atomic plinth]

You say that like it's a bad thing, crystallians are chumps

[left willow]

I don't like fighting them

They're easy enough to kill

But you have to slam them with a TON of Strike Damage until they cracked and then just spam jump heavies until they stagger and then crit them

It's just not fast nor interesting to kill a bunch of them, ya know?

[atomic plinth]

Fair

[left willow]

And the drop rate is egregious

8% at 100 discovery actually isn't terrible? But it's still bad

There is a Rot Halberd in the dlc, if you have reached a certain boss and want that

Has anyone tried out the Ripple Cresent Halberd?

[atomic plinth]

Oh I have the halberd, I don't think I can shield poke with it though

[left willow]

Oh, yeah, fair enough

Is there a reason you aren't going for a rot Rapier?

(Notably the Antspur Rapier goes hard, iirc scaling tables right)

They get both shield-poke and feint which is great, imo

[signal harness]

antspur is really funny

its great for bosses with huge HP bars since it can inflict both bleed and scarlet rot

[atomic plinth]

I'll go for Antspur then, thanks for letting me know

[frail sky]

Only pre nerf sadly

[left willow]

I wish they would have given us a few "Mimic Blades" (or something) that could be used to create a duplicate of any non-remembrance weapon

[obtuse halo]

Yeah they changed her moveset in like the first patch

[left willow]

It would be really nice to not have to NG+ to powerstance some weapons

Malenia still kicks my ass though

Notably her Waterfowl Dance thing just shreds me (health and stamina) and I panic-roll and just die

[obtuse halo]

Lost Ashes of War exist but not this 😔

[atomic plinth]

Seconded

[left willow]

I think I need to level further

Get about 10 or 15 more endurance

[atomic plinth]

I would, but I already have 59 END

[left willow]

Dang!

[atomic plinth]

...fuck I wish I hadn't gone NG+

Probably wouldn't be having so shit of a time of it if I hadn't

[left willow]

I'm still just in NG and Mel is still an asshat with that move

[atomic plinth]

Tbh I probably just need to take a long break and play like

Idk, Stardew Valley or something relaxing

Or Deep Rock

Which isn't relaxing but it's at least easier

[left willow]

[Shortly post-Shadowkeep Boss]
I'll probably pop back over to the DLC, get my ass kicked by ||Gay Bus and Pig||, poke around in the DLC, grab a few levels, and then orient myself back at Mel

[atomic plinth]

...who am I kidding, low hazard soloes in Azure Weald are the most serene missions I've had

[atomic plinth]

https://tenor.com/view/hog-rider-pig-rider-coc-gif-23937747

[left willow]

Stardew is somehow more stressful for me than Elden Ring

[atomic plinth]

It used to be for me, then I got a time extension mod and now it's nice and relaxing as it should be

[left willow]

(that's mostly on me wanting to min/max my farm)

[atomic plinth]

No more "okay time to water the plants, what the fuck how is it already 2PM"

[left willow]

Oh, that would help, yeah

[atomic plinth]

It's REALLY good

You can customize the amount of time each in-game minute translates to in real time on an individual level

[left willow]

That's really cool

[atomic plinth]

But yeah, I'm just gonna do something else and cool off

Fuck I can't wait until this boss is done and over with

...maybe I should try using crucible feather talisman

[left willow]

Anyways, I'm at work, so time for me to go continue stating Elden Ring baddies in a TTRPG and dream about playing more Elden Ring

[atomic plinth]

I'm already taking massive damage even with full Solitude armor, what's a little more on top of it

[slender loom]

Alright ||Bayle|| down. Final attempt saw me getting extremely carried by my helpers but it’s fine, the fight I felt I most contributed to was one I only lost by a hair of health bar left on the boss’ part

I think I just have ||the mounted commander and Messmer|| left before it’s time to move on to the end game

[atomic plinth]

Y'all know any good spots to farm rune arcs?

I'm currently at Morne Castle farming that one room full of rats, it's not bad but I feel there's a better way

[left willow]

According to the webs, that's the best way. Using Silver Scarab and Silver Tender Bud, yeah?

[raw coral]

there’s that one room right next to a grace in ||midra’s manse|| with a buncha frenzy ones that can also drop a rare crafting item

though I haven’t confirmed if they still drop rune arcs

[atomic plinth]

Prolly do

Which grace?

[raw coral]

other than that, there’s earthbore cave with 7 rats and one extra large

[raw coral]

Library I think

turn around to the hallway with the broken floor

and the rats are in the side room

they are gonna tougher than your average rat, but I doubt you’ll have trouble decimating them with the right AoW or spell

though if they take too long to kill on ng+ i’d just give earthbore a shot and see if you like it more than castle morne

[atomic plinth]

...oh goddammit I sold my Ghostflame Ignition Ash of War on accident

If I give someone a Lost Ash could they dupe theirs and give it to me?

...wait, no, I found it, was on a weapon I stuck in my storage box, nevermind

[signal harness]

I don't think angrily livetweeting into this thread is a great use of it

[stable cedar]

||leda I love that you want to help me with rellana but holy fuck why do so many of your attacks act as a fucking smokescreen for her to charge up some bullshit where she jumps across the arena and chops me in half a billion goddamn times||

ironic message to send given the above, but dammit I think I've earned a little bitching

[gray leaf]

I feel like there should be more light greatswords. Also I understand why the Carian Sorcery Sword or whatever it's called isn't one; light greatswords are all about smoothly comboing together light and heavy attacks, and they had to bind heavy attacks to spellcasting.. but still. It just annoys me that there's multiple ashes of war which can only be used on singular weapons.

[left willow]

Quick tip: Doen't summon her. It literally doubles the boss's health bar and she almost certainly can't do as much damage as you.

[left willow]

It's why I want "Mimic Blades" or something that can be turned into any non-remembrance weapons

[gray leaf]

I think there's progression or maybe just dialogue attached to that maybe? Which is unfortunate.

[stable cedar]

I do like that she occasionally distracts her for a second

[gray leaf]

Oh that would be good. But even besides the single instance, I also mean that there's only one weapon Wing Stance can go on, for example (no matter how many copies of that one weapon you have).

[left willow]

according to the wiki, she isn't needed

[left willow]

Are you using an Ash summon as well?

[stable cedar]

bloodhound knight floh, old reliable

[left willow]

And he isn't holding aggro enough for you?

[atomic plinth]

Is the Urumi any good? Kinda wanna start using it, looks fun.

...speaking of shit that's good, that Crimson Seed +1 talisman slaps, oh my god

I can restore like half of my HP bar with one sip and I have 59 vigor

[left willow]

Are your pots not +12?

[atomic plinth]

Fuckin MASSIVE boost, goddamn

[atomic plinth]

They are, they just healed... 1/3ish before?

[left willow]

I restore.... just less than half

Wild

[atomic plinth]

Still a lot, but I mean now they restore significantly more

Like I was genuinely shocked when I saw how much I was getting

[left willow]

I might have to try it out, ig

[gray leaf]

I'm not sure if having multiple light greatswords would actually be necessary, now that I think of it... people tend to like more unique weapons, and it's not like you're expected to be progressing (and thus having weapons which are boring so that they hurt less to replace), so having excessive reduplicative weapons for all of this stuff isn't necessarily strictly necessary? At the same time, it feels... wrong. Especially for stuff like the Smithscript Dagger, which is the literal only throwing blade (except for a pair of claws which kind of count) and yet has multiple Throwing Blade ashes of war. ...I guess if there was only one, you couldn't infuse it, and that'd be silly in its own way?

[atomic plinth]

It's not thrilling but damn is it ever useful

[atomic plinth]

It's pretty odd that they added all of one singular throwing dagger but multiple Ashes for it, yeah

It's not even particularly good for anything besides building status, and even then you have better options

Sure is stylish though

[gray leaf]

You know what'd be neat, and which I genuinely am unsure of the existence of? Just like how power stancing weapons changes their moveset, it'd be neat if certain pairs of weapons changed moveset. Which I think shield + spear kind of already does?

[atomic plinth]

That would be neat, yeah

We already have it to an extent with the wakizashi being power stance-able with katanas

[left willow]

You mean Rapier and Main-Gauche?

[gray leaf]

Yeah, and there's also a dagger which power stances like a rapier.

Rapier and Main-Gauche just has the power stance rapier moveset, doesn't it?

[atomic plinth]

...on the topic of light greatswords, why didn't FromSoft just make Wing Stance the default for Milady?

You're 100% gonna swap over to it anyway

[gray leaf]

I mean something like... what if holding a dagger in the main hand and a hand-to-hand weapon in the off-hand (terrible example, since both of those have different movesets from each other) gave you a unique moveset that wasn't the same as power stancing either of those two things? (Not sure why that was the example I came up with.)

[atomic plinth]

I get what you mean

Spear + heavy thrusting sword could be interesting