Elden Ring (DLC hype room)

[proven cloak]

||crazy lady!||

the other big "am I crazy" thing is definitely if the particle effects for much of the magic is supposed to be as evocative of stars as they are

(spoilers for final boss of dlc!)

like, some of these its 100% intentional - ||PMC Radahn's 'Golden Star' meteor, and Ranni's secondary face are almost certainly supposed to make you think of stars||

but the motes of light, especially clusters of them or twinkling ones, shows up a lot! ||And it all pretty much makes lore sense, given how important stars and the cosmos is for magic related to spirits and life!||

so idk

[signal harness]

Huh interesting

[proven cloak]

to be honest its got me feeling like Micolash

clever use of dev assets, or intentional motif?

¯_(ツ)_/¯

doesnt have to be one or the other I guess lmao

this is one I'm much less confident on, hard to figure out when its supposed to be space-y and when its just flair

[signal harness]

The stars are ambiguously really important in Elden ring

But I’m not totally sure how

[proven cloak]

they seem ||to be the origin of all terrestial life||, if ||Ymir + Hyetta's dialogues about the Greater Will (and its relationship to stars) + The Elden Beast's ambigious connection to the Crucible|| is anything

they also ||definitely have some connection with Fate- as the Erdtree, the Night-Sky-Stars, and even the Fingers are all literally star-beings or descended from stars||

Starlight Shards can restore FP, or be used to create puppets (stripping someone of their fate), and its rumored that Amber Starlight is related to the fates of gods

nearly every action attributed to the Greater Will in story relates to stars - and theres also... whatever's going on with the sun, I guess? If its even a star?

[signal harness]

Is there something specific with the sun?

[proven cloak]

it gets mentions, but nearly always in the sense of having been more important than it is now

[signal harness]

I honestly remember almost nothing talking about it except the weird eclipse stuff Miquella was doing

[proven cloak]

like, sunflowers face the Erdtree / Scadutree, theres a shield that mentions how the 'Seat of the Sun is long faded, and a ||Dragon Communion Heart in the dlc calls it a "tarnished thing from eternity" in a bit of poetry||

its basically weird how not talked about it is, in a game with so much about Stars + Gold + Golden Stars

oh and Goldmask / Dung Eater, with their sun gear

[signal harness]

Startlingly hard to pull quote

[proven cloak]

where its equated to guidance / the ring

yeah and whatevers going on with the eclipse

its possible all Mending Runes are supposed to be suns, if Fia's echoes the eclipse

[signal harness]

Interesting

[proven cloak]

which isn't too outlandish

[signal harness]

I was more thinking about that “soulless comrade” though I’m guessing that was probably Godwyn

[proven cloak]

oh yeah

pre-dlc most people thought it was Godwyn, others the Nameless Mausoleum Demigod

idk what to think about it post-dlc

[signal harness]

But there’s a… couple soulless people involved with Miquella

I think timeline wise it’s gotta be Godwyn

Since Miquella seems to be trying so many things to fix the “Godwyn Problem”

The perfect order mending rune also looks a lot like a sun or eye https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/eldenring/images/a/a7/ER_Icon_Key_Item_Mending_Rune_of_Perfect_Order.png/revision/latest?cb=20220411011614 yeah

[proven cloak]

mhm

or ||Metyr's Microcosm|| (dlc)

||Her tail-orb, afaik, is also called 'Sun' in files||

a lot of people pre-dlc put forward the Sun was the GW

which I think is maybe a harder thing to support, now

[proven cloak]

||note the scattered golden dots in Goldmasks rune - can those be taken as stars?||

it fits thematically, if ||his transcendental / all-encompassing understanding of Order is 'The laws of the universe'||

so yeah theres basically a whole ton of suns everywhere and very little mentioned about any of them

and it kind of ties back to what you said here

theres... something... with the sun

damn if I know what it is

is it something that Farum Azula is always lit by daylight? or ||Enir-Illm?||

What about ||how the divine gate is always lit from the back by the Sun?||

or how ||Miquella's phase 2 ascension causes sunrays to burst through an opening in the clouds around the gate?||

idk

[gray leaf]

ohhhh my god. I just figured out what that second image was evocative of. At first I thought ||it was a directed crucible current, but "broken" since Miquella's down an arm. Also, that shape is evocative of Marika's Great Rune. That said, however, in that very specific shot? It looks like a tree, with a second, smaller growth branching off of it.||

[proven cloak]

ahhhh, ||with the hair as the root system||

I had to look at it for a sec and then I saw it

[gray leaf]

Does anyone have a clear image of the Farum Azula Elden Ring? With all the scattered roots? Because that seems also relevent, given ||Miquella's cascading hair, and crossed arms.||

[proven cloak]

you know I keep that mf thang

ON me

[gray leaf]

...and, just as with the Erdtree and the Erdtree Burials, ||the great, shining tree enwraps with its roots an arguably-dead body.||

Is that why ||"the lord's soul requires a vessel"||?

[warm wharf]

Do any of you have any tips for ||Rellana||? I have now spent three hours on her today, more earlier this week, and despite getting to one hit left on her twice in a row earlier today I otherwise can't even touch her once she enters her second phase. Especially troublesome:

• ||She can follow up her flame burst slash immediately, but doesn't always?||
• ||She can't be staggered?||
• ||She pivots hard enough during almost all of her attacks that I've found circling right to be mostly useless? Should I go left, maybe?||
• ||Her moonveil-looking single-slash (not the combo, that's easy enough) kills instantly and comes out quick.||
• ||She will cut off most(?) of her combos if she doesn't hit, and can extend some further than normal sometimes, meaning her punish windows seem very inconsistent.||
• ||She can, and does, dodge melee attacks. I'm using the bolt of gransax (pierce and lightning, both good against people in armor), and at this point I've almost given up on heavy attacks.||

Someone please help I went back and beat Malenia earlier just to convince myself I wasn't useless at this game

[gray leaf]

...or am I "overfitting" and finding connections where there aren't any?

[proven cloak]

hmmm

I think single fits like that can be fun + insightful, just dont start chaining theories together

(is my take)

I had a fun analysis a while back where I talked about how Marika's Elden Ring, the one on the main menu

visually represents how different characters influence others

where like

Marika's rune is at the top, overshadowing the others - her children descend from it (like a family tree)

[gray leaf]

...there's also at minimum a visual parallel between ||Miquella and Serosh; it could be argued that Serosh is the reason Godfrey is an Elden Lord, rather than Hourah Loux, who is just a warrior. And it's noted Serosh actually affects and restrains Godfrey.||

[proven cloak]

and they're interlocked, seperating ||(and held together by Radagon's rune, trying to preserve order)||

while the entire family sits above the lands between, casting a legacy over the world

and idk if thats intended, but I like it, so its real to me

[proven cloak]

I beat her with hard aggro poise damage

very aggressive play, ||trying to stand where her combos miss and whaling on her to keep up pressure||

[warm wharf]

Is she staggerable?

[gray leaf]

Meanwhile, ||Miquella is in a more literal sense the one making Radahn into a Lord. Or, alternatively, making Mohg into the lord Radahn. Of course, Serosh isn't a god, so this all falls apart.|| But it feels like there's something there? Especially given the extremely clear visual parallels.

[proven cloak]

she's poise-breakable

her combos are aggressive enough that waiting for an opening means you deal with a lot of swings - but many of them are worse than they look in terms of tracking

so you want to find out where you can stand to get in there

[warm wharf]

I’ve got her first phase down, I’m just not sure how to hit her during the second

[proven cloak]

its also something that ||Radahn is very much a Godfrey fanboy||

[warm wharf]

I can dodge most of her attacks, but she just doesn’t stop. I’ve seen her chain the explosive slash into the six-ish part combo into the moonveil combo back into the slash

Yeah alright it is bonk time I will respec and just hit her until she stops moving

[gray leaf]

Here's a question I have still wondered: ||The secret rites scroll very clearly calls out three people as necessary for godhood: the god, the lord, and the vessel. We know who two of those are for Marika's ascension; who was the third? Or was Hourah Loux a vessel for Godfrey? That feels wrong, though; Godfrey isn't a different person than Hourah Loux, just a different identity.||

[proven cloak]

you could try Crimsonwhorl Bubbletear?

only lasts 15 seconds though

but converts non-physical damage into health

[outer flint]

question for this boss: ||it looks like one of the friendly npcs (and no way this isn't some kind of boss). there was a dialogue in Shadow Keep, and I think that was Freyja, but I never found her. will starting this fight fail whatever questline is associated with that?||

[proven cloak]

against her, I've heard its good

[warm wharf]

Hmm that’s a good shout

Especially if I end up anywhere but light load, I imagine the ranged slashes is hell to dodge at medium

[proven cloak]

yes

this is a big point of no-return for a lot of npc quests

[outer flint]

oh..

a lot???

[languid tiger]

all of them, yes

[proven cloak]

.... I'd say nearly all of them, yeah

[outer flint]

i haven't run into any others 😭

do i miss any bosses or cool stuff

[proven cloak]

hmmmm

[languid tiger]

it's the cutoff for ||ansbach, freyja, leda, moore, dane, and only not hornsent because the cutoff for hornsent is earlier||

[proven cloak]

I dont think you miss any bosses

[languid tiger]

you miss a lot of stuff, but no bosses

[outer flint]

dang :(

[proven cloak]

||Thollier, too|| I imagine

by design you're not gonna be able to do every npcs quest in a single run though

so don't worry too much

[outer flint]

hmm i don't remember too much about these names :(

yeahhh

but I've barely done anything except the main path and a couple of catacombs

it feels like

still missing some maps

[old brook]

Danny

[outer flint]

but i can do the quests on ng+

that's me

[old brook]

oh this wounds to hear

but yeah can NG+

[proven cloak]

I recomend doing them because imo they're some of froms best

[outer flint]

or go looking

[proven cloak]

but you're not missing critical items, tbh

[outer flint]

idk where to

[old brook]

y'might be locked out by burning the tree

[outer flint]

with millicent and alexander, i found them pretty naturally 😔 been feeling lonely here tho

[old brook]

there's a whole crew of em

[proven cloak]

whole squad pull up in the shadowlands

did you watch the story trailer?

[languid tiger]

er yes, i was forgetting eeby boy

[proven cloak]

its the goober gang

[outer flint]

oh yeah i did watch that

these names are familiar

but barely

[proven cloak]

yeah they all got quests, though some are more involved than others

[outer flint]

so i probably ran into them once

I'll worry about it tmrw

I'm hopping in bed

[glossy delta]

I've always called them the Miquella Maniacs

[frail sky]

Night Danny

[glossy stag]

Very very late reply but I was fully in - ||Miquella gotta go|| camp by the last part of the dlc

[covert schooner]

For what it’s worth I’m pretty sure you’re already past the point of no return
Burning the sealing tree ends most quests iirc

It’s the same as the erdtree in the base game

Imo fromsoft is continually leaning away from “idk just kinda do whatever you’ll run into everything eventually”

In the dlc especially you should really try to explore everything before doing plot stuff

[frozen olive]

Sealing tree is the cut off point yeah

[languid tiger]

yeah, since it activates enir-ilim

[frozen olive]

Since you burned it i wouldn't bother looking for quests

[languid tiger]

as an area

[frozen olive]

(SOTE final boss spoilers) ||https://youtu.be/jrJP7UZkdN0?si=6MdFZPORW9aW-iFt||

||this is a fucking sick ass concept ngl||

[covert schooner]

I saw a mod that added her ||as a cloak that was like radhan’s Miquella ghost cloak||

I despise the build they use for this but

||https://youtu.be/lzK_ZYGrIoA?si=PoapEoeHIpGB1H8n||

[obtuse halo]

What build are they using for this? it's all over the place lmao. I see Ranni's Dark Moon, ||Light of Miquella||, multiple dragonbreaths, and melee weapons with 34 str req and 15 dex req, which isn't much but means they didn't dump anything.

[covert schooner]

Yeah idk what it is but really dislike that it’s not Ranni themed lmao

[languid tiger]

it just looks to be a generic level 300 everything slopwich

[obtuse halo]

yeah that seems like what it must be at that point

[languid tiger]

70+ int, 70+ fth, 35+ str, 22+ dex

and they're midrolling with heavy armor and like five weapons equipped

[obtuse halo]

the hp and fp bars look chonky enough too so they clearly didn't skimp vig or mind

[languid tiger]

so like 60 end

and 60-80 vig yeah

oh, they also use the flowerstone gavel

they're probably just level 600

[obtuse halo]

set all their stats to 99

[languid tiger]

presumably

[frozen olive]

Spoiler this please

[covert schooner]

Theres no way to be spoiled by it unless you already know what to look for in fairness, or you watch the video all the through, but sure

[frozen olive]

It has spoilers in it so it gets a spoiler tag

[covert schooner]

okay

[frozen olive]

It literally showcases every boss in the DLC including the final boss

[trail sail]

Please don't backseat like this, Freyja, just ask politely

[covert schooner]

i literally said okay

[trail sail]

No need for it

It's been tagged now, all done

[frozen olive]

Right

[covert schooner]

https://twitter.com/itsiansu/status/1823410683586994421?s=46&t=pZ-JntVyrHGDD2v5E6cZTg

ian (@itsiansu) on X

age of stars fan art

Twitter · Aug 13, 2024, 5:25 PM

[outer flint]

oooooop

ty

i should've explored more lmao

but i kept going the right way at crossroads

instead of the side paths

[stone cove]

RIP

but also this just means you can do the dlc another time

[outer flint]

yeah!

light greatswords are a ton of fun

I should try malenia's great rune sometime

O good hunter...

[outer flint]

i wonder how bad you can make your flasks

with like
divine beast helm
malenia’s rune
black flame protection
and so on

[real shadow]

With those three your healing per flask would be...ugh god 41% as effective as it'd normally be.

[outer flint]

are there any more sources of that debuff?

[real shadow]

Not sure. There's too many items as it is.

[stone cove]

There Really are.

i like elden ring and all, but it's A Lot

often to it's own deteirment

I really think whatever they d o next they could stand to squiush the stats ,and just... do a big pass over everything

Like playing Lies of P now, throwables: actually good! in fact, really good!

i like the fact they're balanced out by being a tight amount you can carry, etc

and you can spec into this

there's just a lot more interesting decison points

[warped quest]

i do think consumables in er have issues of not being strong enough and being too hard to farm

for some of them

also bows too

why do many of them use fp for some reason?

[fleet bronze]

I feel like bows have always been a weird design space in the series

[warped quest]

that just kills the point of using them tbh

[fleet bronze]

Because they don't want to encourage people to just kite bosses and whittle them down with arrows

[warped quest]

why would you ever use a magic pot over pebble

[fleet bronze]

So they've never been really effective

[warped quest]

the problem with that is magic exists

and is several times stronger,

[fleet bronze]

Magic, conceptually, has the hurdle of needing to invest in int and also using your fp

But of course there are plenty of very good int weapons

And also fp is easier to get than arrows

[warped quest]

you can also refill fp pretty easily

[fleet bronze]

If bows could be str/dex spells effectively they might have more interesting design space

[warped quest]

and you honest'y dont even need investment in int, theres several ranged artes that scale i think only on weapon level

[fleet bronze]

Rock Ross with the Meteoric staff is way too easy to get

[warped quest]

bows were good in ds2

[fleet bronze]

And you even have fireballs with the clawmark seal if you really want

[fleet bronze]

Also true, and they didn't overtake anything

[frozen olive]

bow users need to curry favour with Michael Zaki

[fleet bronze]

I can't stand the fact that DS2 clearly has a weird pall over it even at fromsoft

Because despite its mistakes it also did a lot of things better than DS1-3

[warped quest]

2 is my favorite of the 3

[frozen olive]

i've only played 3

[fleet bronze]

I will admit I still prefer 1 because the ambience of 2 always felt like of off even if the gameplay is, on the whole, better

[vestal night]

same

[fleet bronze]

2 definitely had the best PvP

And by far even

[warped quest]

one of the things i think elden ring does poorly that ds2 did a lot better is make weapons in the same class diffrent

[fleet bronze]

In general I'm a Bloodborne man though, and to whit your point about having a smaller pool of more different and viable options is mostly why

Though the hunters tools as "spells" are a little sad

[frozen olive]

i'm a big fan os DS3 and Elden Ring but i don't have much to compare with tbf

mostly just Armored Core Which is a bit too different to be a proper comparison and Sekiro

[fleet bronze]

I mean the reality is they're all actually great games with merits of their own

[frozen olive]

yeah

comparing a selection of quite good games becomes mostly a matter of preference

[fleet bronze]

As much as I love DS1-2 it's also hard to go backwards on certain things too

Like item condition always annoys me now when I go back to play through them again

[frozen olive]

ds3 was my first From game so i have a soft spot for it

[stone cove]

tbh, Magic and items are in a really bad and hoenstly competing spot

I have Ideas on how i'd fix it, but the hyopethical Elden Ring Penguin Edition is a very differnet looking game

and a lot of what i'd be tackling is stuff like cleaning up the UI etc

One thing i'd probably do, and i think a lot of people would hate this, but i still think it;'s a good idea, is make equipping a casting focus much more ofa major choice (like think "You have weapon arts or you have spells, not both), and addtionally, make it so that casting focuses come with a set of spells pre-installed.

Think like you hold your L2 button down, and now you can press L1, R1, R2 for 3 differnet spells repsectivley. So maybe you have the Carian Staff, and it's more in depth verisons of the Carian Slicer/Grandeur, etc.

But also i'd do way more with stances for weapon arts, because i think that's more interesting

Mind, i am also the sicko who'd do things like yeet arcane as a stat, or more ideally, yeet int and faith and keep arcane. cackles maniaclly

I like a lot of the game etc and it's systems, but i think it's also a fair criticsm to say there's too much and it could really stand to take ak nife to things and paire stuff down

and try and make choices bigger, more impactful

[old brook]

The inability to choose a bunch of stupid spells in one big pile would shatter me

[outer flint]

yeah, the hunter weapons are all very unique and feel great

I also do enjoy having a bunch of weapons in the same class with small deviations and gimmicks/different weapon skills (like length or skills), I do think Elden Ring has a lot of weapons that aren’t noticeably different or that I haven’t felt encouraged to use (most colossal swords feel kinda samey) but variety through weapon types is still really good

i’ve been branching out with weapon selection which has been a blast

[kind garden]

Haha hell yeah

[outer flint]

😌

I fall into the habit of using the same thing for 80% of the game, because when I try to switch, I get clobbered by lack of moveset knowledge or bad upgrades/builds; but then I go “dang I’m getting kinda bored even though I’m playing well”

then I switch to something else that looks cool and it’s a huge breath of fresh air

[warm wharf]

Agreed, the upgrade system is painful. Even with most of the bell bearings, it's a solid chunk of runes just to make another weapon useable, and then hunting for specific ones to get it to being actually good

[outer flint]

mhm.. that's my main deterrent in ER for trying new stuff

in ds3 I have 100+ of the normal upgrade mats from 2 game runs, just from normal enemies dropping them
even though I'm a hoarder, it's nice to have the mats to upgrade a bunch of weapons (I've upgraded maybe 5 normal weapons and 8-10 boss weapons)

for Elden Ring, I usually have ended up having to buy the stones, which hurts because I'm a rune hoarder too >.> it exacerbated the issue I had with trying new stuff, unless I was just emptying my rune pouch before tackling a boss

[warped quest]

i think shop prices are a bit silly

[outer flint]

and in ds3, there was definitely a point in ng where upgrades were still scarce, but even without farming or buying from the handmaid, I was fine to have 2-3 weapons throughout the base game

[outer flint]

yeah >.>

oof 129.6k just for the mats from +0 to +24 the later stones really get up there

[warm wharf]

Yeah, now that I'm in Shadow of the Erdtree it's like okay, I guess I can spend almost an actual hour farming runes and higher-level stones, and I've done that because trying to play a build reliant on parrying and dodging and shit was a serious error on my part and I am returning to bonk, but that's still a pain in the ass and it'd've been prohibitive at earlier levels

But hey maybe there's a better way to actually just farm runes somewhere

[stone cove]

Oh, it'd be divisive as hell, don't get me wrong

[old brook]

Just kind of makes spells into weapons iunno

[stone cove]

(honestly, I'd probably want to make it so you can at least switch out some spells on the thing)

[outer flint]

yeah I'm glad I can get dropped 5 [7]s

cursed 7 charge input....

[stone cove]

That, to be fair, is actually one of my intents behind the idea - unifying the spell & weapon system and making stuff more fluid

It's very much design I would like, but if you're not designing a game so you'd enjoy playing it, what are you even doing!?

Thankfully for all involved, Elden Ring exists as it does and no one's given me a budget yet 😄

[mighty warren]

My issues with it instantly sorta come down to scaling and like
what spells do you even put on some catalyst?
like where do you put black blade for instance?

If we keep it thematically some catalyst are also just Straight Up better too

[stone cove]

There's solutions that can be found.

[mighty warren]

It seems cool short term but long term it just feels incredibly tedious and could screw over folk who jive with specific spells

[stone cove]

Including being able to install spells onto a catalyst etc (and it's not like specific catalysts aren't already plain better)

I tend to view being asked to make choices as a good thing

[mighty warren]

This is correct but you're basically adding another layer that would further widen the gap

I dont dislike being asked to make a choice but like

you already are, you can only carry so many spells, and depending on whata catalyst you're using you're gonna explictly already be prioritzing specific spells

for instance i run gravel stone so of course im gonna lock in a lot of dragon cult incantations

and it runs back to my sentiment of, what spells are approriate for a catalyst? what makes it approriate for a catalyst in this location? do we just flood the game with more catalyst to make sure all the spells have a home?

Its cool on paper but the more long term application just gets messy and weird considering where you find some of those themed catalyst

[proven cloak]

I still wish a brave soul would add ||Shattered Marika as a great weapon to powerstance||

to complete the trio

[mighty warren]

For instance lets take the fire knight catalyst
thats just found off behind a statue and can be grabbed before you even fight messmer, not to mention theres only what? 3 fire knight spells? (granted considering the strength of atleast 2 of them, and the usability of ROF now i suppose that limit wouldnt be unjust) but does it just not have the orb because you can get it before you even fight the dunkmaster?

[stone cove]

Niles, with no offense meant: you're running a mile a minute with a very half sketched idea of mine

[mighty warren]

I just
wanted to talk about it?

[stone cove]

Yes, but you're making a ton of assumptions etc on how it would work, etc

[mighty warren]

Well you didnt exactly explain more of how it would work

Its not like im disinterested in the idea its why im even going off this hard

[stone cove]

Yes, it's five am and I like to let ideas mature more and roll stuff around in my head before I dig into it

[mighty warren]

its cool i just see a lot of conniptions

Forget it then.

Sorry i said anything.

[stone cove]

I'm just saying chill out on it a bit. It is also something that wouldn't exist in a vacuum - this is the sort of change id be making alongside squishing down the stats etc

[mighty warren]

And im saying forget anything i said, ill refrain from tagging in out of excitement next time.

[stone cove]

The hypothetical game this exists in ends up looking up very different to what's currently going

[proven cloak]

the people yearn for ds2

and its build diversity

[languid tiger]

ds2 my beloved

[stone cove]

You're allowed to be excited. At the same time, I'm allowed to ask someone to tone it down. Esp when you've lead that excitement off with "I see a bunch of problems".

Turning me asking you to tone it down into forget I said anything isn't cool. I'm not attacking you or anything, I'm just trying to express: this is more in depth than I care to or even can go right now.

[mighty warren]

Please dont ping me im trying to step away and just calm down.

I do not want to blow up on a friend

[stone cove]

My apologies then

[mighty warren]

Its fine, you didnt know

[stone cove]

I wish the moveset for hand to hand felt as good as bone fist did. It's fun, but it's just not the same

[languid tiger]

really? i love dane's footwork, at least

it feels incredible

not sure about dryleaf arts, i haven't played much with it

[outer flint]

I've only gotten the dryleaf ones so far, haven't tried them much yet

I remember seeing a really funny clip with the smithscript hammer 😩 but trying to find it would be hard

[vestal night]

Still find it very funny that DS2 has made FROM forever scared of infusions and buffs

[mighty warren]

Smithscript hammer my beloved

[outer flint]

what happened?

[stone cove]

Honestly, I'm low key willing to bet it's just that I can't throw spirit orbs at people and the Sprint R2 isn't a flying drop kick that's throwing me off. Just one of those 'in the scheme of things these were minor, but it turns out they were a bit part of the love I had for it"

[warped quest]

ds2 lets you buff on top of infusions

[languid tiger]

throwing spirit bombs is pretty funny

[warped quest]

which with how buffs work in ds2 buffs give a multiplier to current element damage

plus some flat

to the point its better to give a weapon a dark boost then a fire boost against an enemy resistant to dark if using a dark infusted dark weapo

[mighty warren]

Also hey question
does anyone know why smithscript hammer just seems to not work with spells that add elements to weapons? I have it infused on heavy so it shouldnt have one added (and i have double checked to make sure i can still apply buffs to stuff with heavy so either the messmer soldier spear is bugged or you can generally)

[stone cove]

None of the script smith weapons can be buffed

[mighty warren]

Pain.

[outer flint]

o

[warped quest]

i had this happen on a hexes run

i used a spear that inately has dark

i infused it with dark

[languid tiger]

SILVERBLACK WEAPONS MY BELOVED

[mighty warren]

its
probably fair on some level or something

[warped quest]

then against veldstat who is reistance ot dark

it was better to infuse more dark

[stone cove]

I think the other thing is that bone fist had 3 movesets in Ds2 - power stance, one handed, and two handed. And the two handed moveset really leaned into doing counter attacks, with big multipliers to hitting people in their animation.

It had this great r2 where you dropped and did a very fast spin kick that did get like damage, but immense flinch... Into a massive uppercut

[languid tiger]

god i love the silverblack spear and sickle

[stone cove]

Re: weapon buffs, honestly I wish a: Blackflame blade was better, and b: more weapon buffs (and buffs in general) worked like that, where it's a short bit dramatic power spike.

Flame Grant Me z strength is almost there, but it's animation is so slow ;.;

[languid tiger]

i also loved the black knight weapons in ds2 having innate fire

i wish they were better weapons in that game

(other than the greatsword, which was pretty strong, their mvs were pretty slow for their animation speed)

[stone cove]

Ds2 is such a land of contrasts

There's a bunch of really good, interesting decisions, and then there's soul memory. Or adaptability

[outer flint]

yeah 😔

[proven cloak]

one of its most underrated features is definitely the crit animations

[frozen olive]

I need Onyx Blade to save me

[outer flint]

i tried godslayer but i just got slapped around during the skill

[frozen olive]

I guess we do have Helphens

[languid tiger]

hhmgunnfgghff

god

the spear crits

[warped quest]

soul memory gets way to much hate as does adablity

[languid tiger]

and greataxe crits

were so goddamn good

[frozen olive]

Onyx Blade is so based

Helphens gets clout for sharing an animation with it

[proven cloak]

I miss the hammer backstab

[outer flint]

I like the idea of soul memory (no opinion on the gates/pvp as I haven't played ds2 yet)

[proven cloak]

just a sweep and a big two handed bonk

[outer flint]

seeing how many souls I've accumulated would just be cool

I guess I should play ds1 and ds2 sometime, maybe next year when there's a sale :3

[stone cove]

If it was just tracking that it'd be fine, but using it for match making etc was an awful decision

[outer flint]

mhm that seems... interesting

[warped quest]

all of the games have numrious matchmaking issues i don't really think memory is that bad when compared

[outer flint]

i see the vision, again idk how well it was executeed

[warped quest]

its still better than remake's wierd system

[stone cove]

I feel like ER's system works fine? There's a +/- band that accounts for weapon level, works out pretty well

[warped quest]

ER is the only one that i feel isnt busted beyond all use

[stone cove]

Other than vigor checking people, but hey, that's folks fault for not leveling vigor

[proven cloak]

ime a lot of ds2 complaints are as or more applicable to ds1 or its remake

[outer flint]

yeah it's felt pretty balanced in my experience!

[warped quest]

or even 3

[proven cloak]

after actually playing the game, I wasn't sure why it specifically got all the hate

[warped quest]

most of 3's snow dlc is just ambushes by a bunches of enemies something people complain about in2 that actully doesnt happen that often

[languid tiger]

one of the most based things about ds2: it's by far the game with the most scythes

ER has 4

5 with the dlc

ds3 has 4

including the dlc

[warped quest]

at least er lacks the sweet spot

[languid tiger]

ds1 has 2

ds2 has 9

[proven cloak]

our noble Farron -> Carthus -> Irithyll versus their barbaric Earthern Peak -> Iron Keep

[languid tiger]

as many as ds3 and ER put together

[outer flint]

oooh scythes!

that's something to look forward to

[warped quest]

abnd the thing about ds2 weapons alot of them even in the same class are diffrent in some way

[outer flint]

that's very exciting to hear

[warped quest]

for example the shortsword has a stabheavy

the long sword does a slash heavy

[languid tiger]

the only problem with ds2's reaper selection is that there aren't any innate fire or lightning weapons

and there are 3 dark reapers

[warped quest]

even the broken stright sword has a niche

it has the lowest stamina cost in the game for a weapon

[languid tiger]

but they all play extraordinarily differently

[outer flint]

sick

[languid tiger]

and infusion be infusing

[outer flint]

I haven't tried scythes in ER yet..

[languid tiger]

and the 5 phys reapers are all quite distinct as well

[outer flint]

I liked friede's a decent amount, it was cool and knowledge checked an invader once

[vestal night]

ADP is honestly not a problem, beyond how terrible it is explained in games

Its just kinda a tax you pay, and then you don't have to think about it anymore

[outer flint]

i've only really seen one ds2 clip

https://fxtwitter.com/39daph/status/1813664973459005711

it cracks me up every time

[vestal night]

Yeah they rolled too early

[outer flint]

but yeah I'm excited to hear all of these things!

souls...

[warped quest]

i dothink that attack speicifcly is the one of tow attacks i think is a bit funky

the other is a simlar attack by alonne

[vestal night]

Pursuer stab does have wonky hitboxes

[frail sky]

That attack has the jankiest hitbox in the entire franchise

[outer flint]

it looks like it 😭

[warped quest]

its actully not that would go to nameless king

[vestal night]

But they did also roll too early

[outer flint]

the problem I can see coming once I beat all of the games is which ones I want to play ng+ cycles on the most

[warped quest]

https://youtu.be/QeMJc_K8bJQ?feature=shared

[vestal night]

And their Agility might be too low for good roll frames

[frail sky]

Tax evasion!?

[languid tiger]

or alternatively you could overpay

and get better i-frames than the DWGS

[outer flint]

HUH

[warped quest]

ds2 does let you go all the way to ninja flip

[proven cloak]

absolutely

[frozen olive]

NK huh

[languid tiger]

it's even more than that

[frozen olive]

Sure is a boss

[proven cloak]

thats what I mean!

ds3's got some wacky hitboxes too!

[languid tiger]

if you max out your agility you can do better than ds1 havel flipping

[warped quest]

oh wow i forgot high high it goes

31 at max

[outer flint]

31 frames?

[vestal night]

I get myself to 99 Agility, and then i don't care anymore

[outer flint]

[warped quest]

yeah thats a little less than ds3's quickstep

[languid tiger]

it's over half a second of immunity

ds1 flipping gets you to just under half a second

[proven cloak]

this ones cause of how it staggers the animations, tbh

the left looks wonky

[languid tiger]

at 14/30 frames

[proven cloak]

but its cause the game counted the right as a stab

and delayed the grab until the roll ended

its got some of the wackiest feeling hitboxes, which matters a lot more for perception

[vestal night]

Which, 99 Agi gets you to 12 roll frames I think

[outer flint]

aw there's a cool scythe in the ER dlc but I'm not sure if I can get it

[vestal night]

Which is more than enough

[languid tiger]

23/60 fps

100 is also a breakpoint

specifically, backsteps in ds2 also have i-frames

and key off of different breakpoints than rolls

[vestal night]

I don't use backsteps tbh

[languid tiger]

96 gets you 12 backstep frames

100 hits 14

116 is the hardcap on both, and nets 31 on rolls and 20 on backsteps

which is fucking absurd for a backstep

but nowhere near the SotE numbers

[atomic plinth]

...apparently those ghostflame dragons have stupid high magic resistance

No wonder fighting them feels like a slog

[outer flint]

oh

that explains it

[warped quest]

i usally just spam the dragon katana

[outer flint]

I guess I should have a pure phys weapon, most of my stuff is split by default or magic/cold infused

[mighty warren]

Huh
finally got around to trying the sword of light, quite like it actually

[atomic plinth]

...that and they just kind of suck in general, but at least now I know where a good chunk of my problem is

Thank god for the relic sword

[proven cloak]

one thing this dlc 100% did right

was doin' good by holy damage

its good against so many of the dlc bosses

even the Big One! The Final One!

worse holy resist than any other elemental type

[atomic plinth]

Holy smokes it's Spider Man

[outer flint]

holy crap

[real shadow]

https://tenor.com/view/spiderman-tokusatsu-hell-gif-19199096

[median rock]

wtf weapon did they use?

[atomic plinth]

Dryleaf Arts and Pest Spears

[obtuse halo]

Lmao awesome

[mighty warren]

Despite everything i find myself coming right back to the longhaft axe for some reason

[warped quest]

its really good

[mighty warren]

it also just REALLY fits my outfit

[real shadow]

Hard not to like its AoW either.

Electric dash + jump-smash looks cool as fuck.

[mighty warren]

Indeed, and plays into my build rather well since i use
so much dragon cult

Only two that arent dragon cult, and one of those is just for healing

[real shadow]

I mostly mained crescent moon axe + flaming strike but the longhaft was my back-up if something had high fire resist.

[mighty warren]

I do wonder if i should change up my look
just dunno where specifically

[proven cloak]

its a fake

everyone knows the real one

[atomic plinth]

Waow... Spider Man... real........

[proven cloak]

reading other peoples takes is always interesting because

you run into stuff

that you wouldn't anywhere else

what are they cooking here...... are they cooking...?

what do they mean by this......

[obtuse halo]

[citation needed]

[proven cloak]

theres some wild reads of this media out there

I had a collection of ||"Miquella is [insert religious figure]"|| posts saved up for a bit

[frail sky]

||...Bayle has motivations?||

[obtuse halo]

||Bayle tried to topple Placidusax, but the motivation isn't very clear, no; it may have been as simple as "wanted to be top dog"||

[proven cloak]

smh you missed the ||30 minute indie-film detailing his motivations you get as a reward for summong Igon during Placidusax's second phase||

I remember pre-dlc "Miquella is X" takes were everywhere

I think my favorite was either "Miquella is the GW after time-travelling" or "You are Miquella"

I just dont even know how people get there

[obtuse halo]

honestly the most we get is that ||Bayle|| is referred to as a "Tyrant"

and specifically ||Betrayed Placidusax, as opposed to being some foreign challenger||

[proven cloak]

I think he was probably ||treated worse than the other(?) Ancient Dragons||, just to fit the themes of the game

||seems like, for whatever reason, he was mutated||

||Easy to imagine him as something that fit outside Placidusax's Order, or 'should' be lesser than the Ancient Dragons||

[obtuse halo]

So my thought on this is ||his current form might not be his original one - he's the progenitor of the non-ancient dragons, but since then he's performed quite a lot of dragon communion, an art devised by the Ancient Dragons to punish Bayle's Line so it doesn't predate his betrayal. And those who partake in lots of dragon communion eventually grow to become Magma Wyrms. It might not be a coincidence that Bayle himself resembles a Magma Wyrm at this point...||

[proven cloak]

whats odd is the Rock Heart - ||which mentions an even more Ancient Form of Dragon Communion - an 'original' form||

[obtuse halo]

wait, i might have missed that

[proven cloak]

||Which seems like an Ancient Dragon heart?||

its a painting reward, I missed it first time too tbf

||```

Heart consumed in the ancient, original form of Dragon
Communion.
Use while disrobed to turn one's human flesh into an ancient
dragon.

The change cannot be undone except by death.
Using this heart while already transformed temporarily boosts
Dragon Communion incantations.

The last thing the partaker saw with human eyes was a sunset, its
colors faded and tarnished—a remote thing from eternity.

[frozen olive]

have you seen ||Bayle with his leg fully extended? looks funny as hell||

[proven cloak]

it ||makes you into an Ancient Dragon Man||

yeah lol

[frozen olive]

||his body is so short compared to the length of his limbs||

||we know that he has like, a third of his wings left basicallly so with them he would look even stupider||

[obtuse halo]

No I found the item, I mean, I just didn't read its fluff before lol

[frozen olive]

||long ass wings, super long legs and a stumpy ass body||

[proven cloak]

so ||I'd assume the Magma Wyrm thing is because eating the heart makes you more like Bayle, instead of transforming you into a Magma Wyrm for another reason||

[obtuse halo]

yeah okay that tracks

[frozen olive]

that would make sense

[proven cloak]

||Symbolically, magma fits as an in between of Rock and Fire - the Ancient Dragons -> Modern Dragons||

[frozen olive]

at least to some extent

||i see the magma drakes as a failure of dragon communion of sorts, so them becoming like Bayle would make sense imo||

[proven cloak]

||which is also why his heart is powerful and angry enough to make you a 'dragon true' - to rebirth Bayle. One Day.||

[frozen olive]

||Bayle is such a fucker that even killing him and literally eating his fucking heart does not stop him from raging||

[proven cloak]

100% hater lifestyle

[frozen olive]

||Placidusax WISHES he could be that cool||

[obtuse halo]

||yeah its description seems to suggest he's still in there with you, and fighting you actively||

[frozen olive]

||can you imagine being god consort and getting owned so hard by some random hater that you had to hide beyond time so you don't die, and said hater is so fucking angry that when someone literally kills them and eats their heart it just makes them angrier||

[proven cloak]

curious what the japanese is for this item, if ||it uses the term for the player character for the sun there too - calling it 'Tarnished'||

[frozen olive]

||i don't care what anyone says, Bayle won that fight||

[proven cloak]

I gotta admit though, ||They both tore each other apart but Placi made it out better||

[proven cloak]

uh oh

[frozen olive]

||he stepped to basically god and fucked him up so bad he's on eternal life support||

[obtuse halo]

||I don't think either of them really won that fight...though of the two, Bayle is the one who didn't need a time-sealed room to not bleed to death||

[frozen olive]

||neither of them came out even remotely ok but one of them is hiding in a time-locked zone and the other one is actively murdering thousands of warriors who come to kill them and is actively just being a hater||

[outer flint]

walls of grey….

[proven cloak]

||Bayle lost way more of his body mass and fighting capabilities - he's running on pure spite. Placi's still got enough juice to keep up Farum's eternal storm and levitate in midair, 'only' losing 2(3?) heads.||

[frozen olive]

||3 heads||

[obtuse halo]

it's probably safe to click for this convo if you've explored Jagged Peak, otherwise maybe stay away

[proven cloak]

visions of dark...
so to speak you don't have the right

[frozen olive]

||also you know, Bayles arena has hundreds if not thousands of Dragon Calorblooms||

[outer flint]

what’s Jagged Peak 😭 😭

[frozen olive]

💀

damn

[proven cloak]

I think they went right for the main route lol

side area

[obtuse halo]

a place you haven't been to yet, apparently! go explore!

[frozen olive]

Danny you really need to explore

[warped quest]

whats your blessing level danny

[frozen olive]

||notably being the flower that only blooms once and only blooms from the hearts of dead dragon communion warriors||

[proven cloak]

||smokes pipe "Five Elden Rings"||

[frozen olive]

||Bayle has been fucking massacring anyone who came to step to him||

[proven cloak]

that is a metal detail

whole area is metal as fuck tbh

[frozen olive]

||and a LÖT of people seem to have tried||

||Flower with an uncanny shape, coursing with hot blood. Material used for crafting items. Exceedingly rare to find. A single flower is said to blossom—only once—from the hearts of dead warriors who oft partook of the Dragon Communion||

the description of it btw

[obtuse halo]

Not to mention ||the dragon corpses littering the mountain - he's been slaying his own kin-drakes and devouring their hearts too||

[proven cloak]

alright I've used the Storm Outside of Time to get live footage of how the fight went down

observe:

||https://x.com/DNuatun/status/1811481752281710719||

[obtuse halo]

fuck, I laughed

[frozen olive]

||Bayle has not just been like, slowly dying on top of the mountain, he's actively continuing the slaughter and getting stronger||

[frozen olive]

LMAO

[outer flint]

ik, ik 😭

i kept doing things then going “ooh, shiny” and following the main path

a couple of times, I did that thing where you try to explore the side path first, but it ended up being the main path

[outer flint]

10?

i’m pretty sure

[proven cloak]

oh absolutely explore a bit before continuing where you're going

[outer flint]

i have been told that’s low

for where i am

oh dear

alright

[frozen olive]

||But yeah these are almost certainly Dragon Calorblooms or some other dragon related flower, since they grow at the grand altar of dragon communion as well||

yeah i would uh

explore a bit

that is

very low

[proven cloak]

the blessings are front loaded but you'll still want everything you can get

[outer flint]

i’ve gotten all but 1 or 2 crosses, and am missing 2+ map sections

so i guess i’ll hit those up

[warped quest]

that is very low for how far your in

[outer flint]

😟

[warped quest]

i had 18 by the time i got where you are

[outer flint]

HUH

damn..

[frozen olive]

||here is the grand altar flowers||

[warped quest]

remember to go after the pot enemies

they have somefo the blessigns

[proven cloak]

I was 16, I think?

but I had explored all over I'm just bad at finding fragments

[outer flint]

is there a way you can tell? someone mentioned that they shine or smth but i can’t really tell

they do drop gold tenders

[frozen olive]

||whatever they are, they are almost certainly related to bloodshed in some capacity, since they are seen growing by the corpse of a giant drake and in Bayles Arena which is full of corpses and skeletal remains||

[proven cloak]

not really

I think they have the rare item sheen?

[outer flint]

ok

i will just murder pot holders

[proven cloak]

and they tend to 'make sense' for where you find them

||Hippos also drop one, too||

[outer flint]

i see

[proven cloak]

you should already have one of those

but theres a few others

[outer flint]

yeah i found one

[proven cloak]

theres ~4 you get ||in Enir-Illm, it seems||

lots of the side areas seem to give 2 or 3

only 3 drop from the pot holders

so exploring is your best bet

[outer flint]

okiiii

ty

[frozen olive]

if you are missing some areas you're probably missing some real shit

[proven cloak]

yeah its a big difference - going from 10 -> 18/20 is a 25% boost to damage resist, and a 25% boost to damage

[outer flint]

holy moly

i might try the fight right in front of me first, if it's too tough I'll go check some places out

[proven cloak]

there is a real narrative neatness between ||The Law of Causality's effects|| and ||Miquella wanting to upend the 'Causality' of the world||

||The spell's effect being "If you harm me, there is a retaliation"||

||expression of the cycles of violence that keep playing out||

||Persecution and exclusion leads those afflicted to turn to darker arts: people die, and you end up in the same place anyways||

thats a good way to connect ||Midra and Bayle's stories to Miquella's||

||Bayle swung for Placidusax, Igon swung for Bayle, and someone eating Bayle's hearts just ensures they'll be another raging magma dragon in the future||

[proven cloak]

I was thinking about this ever since I saw someone say that ||Inga, the word used in Law of Causality and Miquella's "Original Sin", is also used by Gostoc (in japanese) when he says the idiom "[Godrick] got what he bloody deserved, thanks to you. I tell you though, what goes around comes around."||

||Thats the original sin Miquella is trying to bury.||

||The nature of the world to keep playing out in horror, instead of kindness.||

I guess I'm starting to see his story more about ||the inescapibility of fate||

||(which is what people really mean when they say his goals were 'too naive'. That he's 'fated' to end up like Marika in his age, regardless of his efforts not to be.)||

[vivid spire]

They weren't ||too naive it's just hard to shape the world like that and retain your humanity||

[proven cloak]

I agree, I think

or actually that ||their story goes beyond saying its just hard and underlines it as impossible||

||Miquella wanted to go beyond the cycles of violence the world has been trapped within - Most readings seem to think he'd fail, should his Age have come to pass||

Is Fate - is karma, causality, Original Sin - impossible to escape, then?

idk

but its a lens I want to use ||on Ranni's quest in the future, to contrast and compare how both of them try and escape 'fate'||

and what the takeaway would be

[outer flint]

I am home....
therefore Elden Ring!

(after some administrative stuff 😔 )

[mighty warren]

I should randomly go help other players again

can't wait to be summoned for 50 more bayles

[gray leaf]

Hm. I'm having a random thought about consecration and desecration of the dead as recurring themes.

Also something about how both the Goddess of Rot and the Formless Mother are very strongly associated with life, versus ancestor worship as the worship of the dead, or ghostflame worship. And the Erdtree's weird and unclear in all this.

[proven cloak]

Elden Ring as a game is very much about life and death

like the Elden Ring is said to be "Order" and often gets explained as "what controls the rules of reality"

but like 95% of what it does is related to life

[gray leaf]

not just life and death, but bodies specifically.

[proven cloak]

ohhh I see what you mean

I see a lot of focus on life as tied into the metaphor about ideology / religion, or ambitions

its like a stealth statement that what matters most - the thing thats most important - is how living creatures act

becoming the rule decides what the purpose of life is, and what type of life (or lives) are more worthwhile

[outer flint]

||don't you daaaaaare ...||

[covert schooner]

?

[outer flint]

just a voice line that's stuck in my head

i guess it is a boss line

||leda and co. are hard, maybe i should go exploring||

[warped quest]

yeah being at 10 blessing probally isnt help

[outer flint]

oops

😭

time to start poking around

[covert schooner]

Oh wow yeah that’s

A lot

[proven cloak]

ooooh wow you didn't even find ||Bonny Village||

yeah its prob important you do

[kind garden]

lmfao

danny

did you rush the endgame without exploring the Lands of Shadow

[outer flint]

i didn't really mean to 😭

[vivid spire]

Same as i did lol

[outer flint]

it just kinda happened

[obtuse halo]

That fight took like 20 tries on bow-only lmao. It's not generally considered one of the hardest fights in the DLC if you're at appropriate ScoobyDoo Blessing, but with a bow I found it to be particularly challenging

[vivid spire]

Beat ||divine lion before rellana||

Through raw luck

[outer flint]

hey it's ||the guy who is mentioned in the funny voiceline||

||i don't see a way to get there 😔 except maybe 1 piece of unfriendly looking land ||

||ah wait maybe it's just hidden by fog||

[obtuse halo]

||CURSE YOU BAYLE||

[outer flint]

i just went in a huge circle

uh

do you guys have any tips on how to find the stacked stone piles for the sealed springs? i'm really not sure how far to look

blessing level 11

[median rock]

theyre not that far. not more than like 50m or so at max, i think

and even that's pushing it - i think they're more like 30m-ish

[outer flint]

tyty

i'll try again

[obtuse halo]

if you're struggling, try Morgott's Shackle. It'll blow them up in a massive radius, similar to how it'll clear illusory walls and toggle the pillar traps in catacombs

You can actually use this to skip a chunk of ||Rauh because one of the sealed spiritsprings there is a shortcut and the seal is within shackle range||

[vivid spire]

I’m guessing that wasn’t as intended lol

[obtuse halo]

no lol

it's useful tho

[outer flint]

does mohg's work too

i don't think i have margit's

[obtuse halo]

Mohg's also works but has a smaller radius than Margit's for whatever reason

[covert schooner]

It’s really funny that iirc because of the way it’s all coded there’s no way to patch that interaction unless they just remove the shackles or recode them entirely

[obtuse halo]

yeah the shackles are basically a giant invisible 0 damage explosion

as a sidenote, it'd be super funny if (spoiler) ||Mohg's Shackle were able to briefly disable the final boss in phase 1||

[covert schooner]

Can it flip levers out of curiosity

Tbh I tried it

Just to see

[outer flint]

guess i'll try to figure out how to get over here

so many places

i am both 😌 and 😩

npc!

[real shadow]

Ah, you're entering the highlight of the DLC.

[outer flint]

exhausted dialogue

hrmm

confused

[frail sky]

He's an odd one

[outer flint]

dragon hunter's great katana has about 500 AR 😔

idk if it would even be worth it against dragons compared to a cold great katana

[warped quest]

it has bonus damage

and a good spamable ranged art

well not spamable

but its a good art

30% more damage against dragon type enemies and 15% for ancient draogn type

[outer flint]

i see

my cold great katana has 361 phys 342 magic and 125 frost

it may be more worth anyways

[outer flint]

but i will try it

[real shadow]

It's a very big "use this for this area" sign, more or less.

[outer flint]

that's for tmrw

sleeby

[proven cloak]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAl3e6S2RCI

oh my goodness gracious

lore implications?!?!?

ok ||Divine Beast|| is funny

[signal harness]

Which one are you thinking of?

[proven cloak]

oh its just a shitpost about what would be the implications if every shardbearer fought us naked

ugh I've never looked at Godricks build that close

they really nailed the grafting design

[signal harness]

Oh haha

[vivid spire]

Yaoi proportions

[covert schooner]

https://twitter.com/chosenundeadone/status/1823714976101802418?s=46&t=pZ-JntVyrHGDD2v5E6cZTg

chosen undead (@chosenundeadone) on X

radahn festival

Twitter · Aug 14, 2024, 1:35 PM

[obtuse halo]

Okay I never realized ||the snakes were sprouting from his chest||

or maybe piercing it?

[frozen olive]

||They seem to be literally growing out of him||

||In his Base Serpent form it looks like he has a bunch of snakes writhing underneath his skin||

[covert schooner]

||yeah he might basically just be a bunch of snakes in a skin suit it seems like||

Why is that the case? Ihhhhuhhhh who fucking knows

[proven cloak]

its interesting that Hornsent says ||"Upon his end, did you see Messmer's face? Twas sublime - a very tangle of snakes! To think he dared to call us savages. When he himself was most base of all. Ha ha ha ha!"|| about it

||It looks like the idea of snakes as lesser, untrustworthy, or traitors is older than Messmer's crusade?||

||and crosses the Erdtree / Hornsent culture gap||

I mean it makes sense ||if there was an ancient serpent cult - or wherever the godskin would fit into things, timeline wise||

[fleet bronze]

Yeah the great serpent Rykard worships seems to have been a much older monster than the hornsent/golden order conflict then

[obtuse halo]

there was really already some evidence of that - the gelmir serpent cult is explicitly "ancient" and so were the Gelmir hexes Rykard unearthed and reinterpreted as modern sorcery

[covert schooner]

Rykard fucking took hexes from us

The bastard

[languid tiger]

rykard gave us hexes tbh

[obtuse halo]

Yeah the Gelmir Magma Sorceries even require Int + Faith

there are also some other hexes in the game like most of the Death Spells

[covert schooner]

Oh no I was just joking that he turned them into sorceress

*sorceries

[covert schooner]

Which they weren’t in ds2

[vivid spire]

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-first-dark-souls-manga-releases-this-month-preorder-for-15-at-amazon/1100-6525548/

[warped quest]

funfact a lot dont know

but darksouls 2 came with a small illistrated thing

https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/max_1200/e3d87413500185.562748aa4b128.jpg

[vivid spire]

All American authors? That’s kinda surprising

I’d assume any dark souls promotional material would be handled fully by fromsoft

[stone cove]

It seems to be a spin off thing. The dark souls comics are honestly pretty bad. Very much one of those why does this exist? Because money type things

[vivid spire]

The Elden Ring manga is funny as hell

[warped quest]

the ds2 was free with the game

[covert schooner]

And iirc have been said to be canon

[vivid spire]

REALLY that’s amazing

[covert schooner]

I don’t have a source for that but it’s what I’ve overwhelmingly heard

[warm wharf]

Can't believe my homeboy ||Alexander|| is actually ||the product of a campaign of genocide||

Or maybe he's ||made from more willing corpses since he's a chill dude idk||

[frozen olive]

i think the ||jar people in the lands between are mostly made from actual corpses, not still living but horribly fucking tortured people||

||It's noted also that he is full of remains of dead warriors, and indeed we see him even grabbing more warrior remains from the corpse piles in Radahns section of Caelid after we kill Radahn||

though ||on a meta level he is still probably a more indirect result of awful bloody genocide as that definitely seems to be the origins of Jar people||

[grave plinth]

||he has an erdtree seal on his stopper instead of a hornsent one||

[warm wharf]

Aye, agreed. ||Are the jar mothers alive? I thought they were trapped in the state of psuedo-undeath that seems to be common for most things in the lands between. I guess they are a good bit fleshier than normal.||

[warm wharf]

Oh, good point!

[proven cloak]

probably

imo ||the end state of the jar-innards is a pot warrior, like you find in the gaols underneath. All the ‘mothers’ you find are half-baked.||

not the same process as the Erdtree ones though

[grave plinth]

||TBF the "mothers" all have an apparently still living numen as a core||

Given that we find a numen's rune on Diallos' corpse and the jar-bairn stuffed himself with Diallos' remains, that has interesting implications for the conclusion of the jarburg questline

[covert schooner]

It seems like jars are still being made, so I struggle to believe Marika would allow the practice to continue

[warped quest]

maybe the mainland jars are diffrent

like the shadow ones are people while the ones in the mainland are more like golems

[proven cloak]

I just assume the mainland ones experience the rebirth through a sort of Erdtree magic on dead remains

[frozen olive]

it just wouldn't ||make any fucking sense that the Land of Shadows Jars and the Lands Between Jars being made in the same way, both because again the Numen/Shaman/Miko were fucking genocided, and also because Marika would never fucking allow it||

[warm wharf]

It does seem like the mainland jars have a different purpose than the shadowland ones, with the mainland jars consuming flesh and then bringing it to the roots of the minor erdtrees (where you find lots of broken jars).

[proven cloak]

while the shadow ones are about the sacrifice, life and death together

[frozen olive]

they seem to be related to the process of death and rebirth actually

related to Erdtree Burial

specifically

[warm wharf]

Yeah, agreed

[median rock]

interesting. ||jar-bairn might be the closest (non-land-of-shadow) new jar to the originals, but out of a noble sacrifice rather than horrific atrocities, if diallos was of numen descent||

[warm wharf]

They get corpses and bring them to the trees, probably dying in the process, and then the bodies/souls are taken by the tree to be reborn (is my current take on it)

[frozen olive]

which is notably a thing where respected and accomplished warriors have their remains interred by the roots of the erdtree for revival

and you know

Jar people have warrior remains in them in the lands between

[warm wharf]

This of course does not work in the Shadowlands, since (spoilers for something near the tree) ||they only have one tree and it's guarded by some dick with three goddamn phases||

[wild sierra]

yeah that was what I thought before and also after the DLC
the DLC ones are done differently for some other purpose

[grave plinth]

the presence of really big jar fragments at minor erdtrees implies that Marika used them as "seeds" or "fertilizer" for the minor erdtrees

interestingly we don't see this happen with ||the minor erdtrees in the Land of Shadow||

[frozen olive]

||for the purpose of creating "Saint's"||

[warm wharf]

I'm also sure that there are a lot of jar-related things that I haven't seen in the DLC, I only just found the ||gaol|| the other day

[frozen olive]

||we don't entirely know what the fuck that actually means, but it is used on both the Numen/Shamans/Miko as well as prisoners as some twisted ritual to uplift them into a better form||

[proven cloak]

the timeline ||for minor erdtrees has always been odd||

Golden Seed implies Erdtree Seeds are post shattering

[languid tiger]

aiui that's just "a good person"

[warm wharf]

Also, in slightly unrelated news, does anyone know what's up with the damage resistance of ||the fire knights in the specimen area?|| I've dropped from doing ~1,000 damage with a heavy weapon at +20, 60 in its main stat, and a full charged heavy, to doing less than 200.

[frozen olive]

well, something to that effect anyway

[proven cloak]

but the church of the minor erdtree, the shadowkeep one, the jars - they imply its older

(or the jars main purpose wasnt related to the minor erdtrees. Or they’re pretty young.)

[grave plinth]

the Shadowkeep one might be artificial actually now that i think on it

[languid tiger]

nothing's different between them, afaik

[frozen olive]

it's sort of implied that the ||Hornsent think this is a very good thing, but it's also equally implied that they seem to have some understanding of the fucking horrors they are perpetuating||

[languid tiger]

did you respec?

[warm wharf]

Damn they just are that tough?

[languid tiger]

and miss on a point of str?

[median rock]

only 200 sounds lke you're not hitting weapon reqs

[languid tiger]

or using something with mental reqs

[median rock]

is this a weapon that you need to 2hand for str reqs that you're not two-handing?

[grave plinth]

there's your problem, specimen storage is +21 at the very least

[median rock]

lol

[warm wharf]

Let me check, I'm pretty sure I got everything

[warm wharf]

Yeah that's probably also it, blagh stone farming

[frozen olive]

||specifically mentioned in the Caterpillar Mask: A ritual implement of the greater potentates of Bonny Village. Used to ward off thoughts of impurity, doubt, temptation, and other wickednesses one is vulnerable to while absorbed in divine ritual.||

[median rock]

mental reqsshould account for 800 dmg of diff but

[proven cloak]

I still think this is just jar-folk, theyve got a good person connotation in the base game too:

“Though the jars are brought to life by human flesh and blood, they are all rather kindly folk. Perhaps they were made to be better than their innards.”

[covert schooner]

So here’s the thing

I think it’s the same thing as pagan traditions repurposed under Christianity

[proven cloak]

||turn undesirable members of society into ‘nice’ jars, fitting into the hornsent purification rituals||

[covert schooner]

Which elden ring has HEAVY themes of

||Marika couldn’t get people to stop making jars in their entirety, the culture was already there. But she could change the means and context of them||

[frozen olive]

||the Potentates of Bonny villages use of the Caterpillar Masks very much relates them to the Omenkiller also imo, as well as to some extent the Perfumers||

[warm wharf]

Unfortunately nope, the reqs are 22 strength and 12 dexterity, I have 60 strength and 15 dexterity

They may just be tanky like that

[median rock]

i mean you shouldn't be dropping 80% of your damage though

[grave plinth]

||the Jars were also a component of the Gate of Divinity IIRC, it may be that Marika can't entirely suppress the practice because she draws power from it||

[languid tiger]

there aren't any mental requirements?

[frozen olive]

||who dull their emotions to do their work, since they are tasked to perform such fucking awful tasks||

[proven cloak]

yeah its another good parallel between the factions

[median rock]

what weapon is it

[warm wharf]

Also to be clear this is 80% of my damage down from it against nearly any other enemy

[proven cloak]

that a lot of people seem to miss to say ‘hornsent bad’

[warm wharf]

I'm using great stars

[covert schooner]

||Maybe for Marika there is also an additional desire to redeem the practice and by extension her people?||

[languid tiger]

because yeah, the storehouse knights do not gain 80% damage resistance

versus the one outside of it

I can guarantee that they're identical

[warm wharf]

I'm gonna check this real quick, make sure I am not dumb

[languid tiger]

by my farming

[median rock]

oh

was it blocking

[languid tiger]

I would assume they'd notice that, but it seems to be the only solution

[median rock]

60 str great stars should not be hitting 200 on really anything i think

[covert schooner]

Is it infused or something? Maybe they heavily resist a damage type

[median rock]

not to that extreme. they do resist fire and slash, but great stars at flame should be evenly split between strike/fire even

[warm wharf]

Aye, I'm pretty sure that I was using the wrong infusion, my damage is back to 400 for a light. Which is still down 150 points against a random wolf, but armor can probably compensate for that.

However, that still seems like terrible damage that I wasn't noticing because it doesn't really matter when you can stagger most things? Idk, I'm not usually on that bonk grindset

_ _
Ah well, I'll sally fourth and find some more stones, and/or maybe a different weapon (I have no idea what heavy weapons are good).

[median rock]

there's a fun greatsword in the starting area

[outer flint]

grafted blade greatsword is solid, not the nicest looking bonker but you can make it work with some outfit I'm sure

[median rock]

hug the east wall from where you enter

the forge weapons are pretty cool too, and i think most of them are str or good with str

[warm wharf]

Nevermind great stars just do bad damage lmao, I just swapped on some +19 star fists and I do almost 800 damage on a standard light two-hit (which takes less time than one attack with the stars) 💀

[outer flint]

dang really 😭

[median rock]

lmao tbf both iron balls n star fist are insane

[outer flint]

i was hoping to use great stars for some hp restoration shenanigans

[warm wharf]

I've got a nifty meteoric sword that I might try out, it takes some arcane but I could do that

[outer flint]

but i respecced before then

[warm wharf]

I am also honestly unsure if it restores any HP

[outer flint]

[frozen olive]

the Meteoric Ore Greatsword fucks

[warm wharf]

It doesn't even do the red heal visual from what I've seen

[frozen olive]

also the item description is fucking nuts

[warm wharf]

On a scale of bodacious to righteous how much does it fuck (should I respec some arcane for it)

Oh wait it's somber stones to upgrade it yeah I'll give it a spin then

[median rock]

meteoric ore greatsword has arc reqs but not huge scaling for arc

it's better than D might sound, but it's worse than str

[frozen olive]

One of the treasures of the ruined forges.
Greatsword of ancient meteoric ore, ending in a sharp point.

Fashioned from an excavated shard of an arrowhead that once was a part of the old gods' arsenal. A capable piercing weapon that excels at thrusting attacks.

the description goes crazy

[median rock]

the scaling is 0.9 scaling for str, 0.09 for dex, and 0.47 for arc (so around half as effective in arc as in str)

this is also at +10, i believe the scaling is mostly linear from +0 to +25 so it shoudl be roughly the same at +8 or 9 or something

[outer flint]

aw it's a str weapon 😔

[warm wharf]

Alright, so like 40 strength for the 60 soft cap with two hands, no more dex allocation because I started as samurai, and then some arcane as affordable with standard 60 vig and some endurance

[outer flint]

i guess I can use it when i do quality arcane or something

[median rock]

what level are you?

[warm wharf]

I'm at 128 and still fighting for my life (I am not very good at the game, and I'm also not using any summons)

[median rock]

fair enough!

[frozen olive]

yeah i started at like, 150 going into the DLC i think?

[warm wharf]

How good is the weapon art/is the weapon art the kind that you use enough to want a little bit of mind investment (up from 11 base)?

[warm wharf]

Oh that might explain it 💀

[warped quest]

yeah i started at 150 as well

[warm wharf]

It is extremely difficult

[median rock]

nah just jack up your scadutree blessing

[frozen olive]

i ended up at 250 at the end

[median rock]

level isnt as big as of a deal as base game

[warm wharf]

I have spent twelve hours on Rellana and I have not beaten her yet

[median rock]

by a longshot

[frozen olive]

also yeah you really want to get the blessings

[median rock]

but each blsesing is huge

each blessing is +5% damage (additive scaling)

so from 1-11 is just 50% extra damage

damage taken isnt exactly the same, fextra has a table, but its still better by a good bit at each step

[frozen olive]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_up1OZjOEnE

[median rock]

60 vig, 25 end, 40 str, 40 arcane is level 129 (samurai starting)

128 via 20 minor & 30 arcane

[outer flint]

are you using the arcane for something specific?

[median rock]

ancient meteoric ore greatsword scales with it, if thats the weapon they want to use

[outer flint]

oh wait this is a different person 😭

[warm wharf]

It scales off arcane, not quite as much as strength but because of two-handing I can hit the cap without too much trouble

[outer flint]

mb

[frozen olive]

there is some funny things you can get in the dlc that has big Arcane reqs

[median rock]

this is just me doing fun numbers because i can

[warm wharf]

Thank you for the numbers, I trust them

[frozen olive]

if you wanna run Arcane there are some good things in store

[warm wharf]

They are nice and even

[warm wharf]

Also yeah I've seen lots of knives and stuff that use arcane

[median rock]

the damage drop from 40->30 arcane at +10 is only 30 damage

like, it goes from 876 at +10 to 846

so its really not that big of a deal out of the total damage lol, if you want to use the WA (which is sick)

[warm wharf]

lmao alright I won't go past there

[frozen olive]

item spoilers but ||there are some sick fucking incantations you can get later in the DLC that need a very high arcane stat||

however

[median rock]

ironically str is actually still better than arc for it at 40->50 str

when twohanding, so at 60->75 effective str

[frozen olive]

unless you are going to level it up higher, i wouldn't req putting too much into Arcane

[median rock]

having 2x scaling compared to arc means even past the softcap... it takes a bit for arc to start being better

[warm wharf]

Somber smithing 7 my beloathed

I'm always out of those

[outer flint]

😩

[median rock]

i think from min reqs you're actually better investing into str than arc for pure damage up until 99 str

but its also like, not by much more than 30 AR at any point until 90+ in a stat

so from 40/30 ish its your call what to put points into for flex components

[proven cloak]

stuff like this makes me think ER nailed the Ozymandius vibes better than any of their other works (except maybe ds2)

theres just so much history, so many cultures and divine forces, and for what?

[frozen olive]

yeah

[proven cloak]

its cause its so exuberant in its presentation

DS had that vibe where everyone kinda knows things are fading

Elden Ring is full of groups full-throatedly declaring they’ve got it, its solved

Ive been thinking about Miquella and Ranni’s stories recently, and how - for how popular the age of stars is + what ranni does in it - Elden Ring seems very much about the inescapability of fate

fate as bonds, how its impossible to interact with the world without it interacting with you in turn

cause ||both of them divest, the difference is in how active they’re trying to be||

||the only way to dodge karma is to embrace death, remain inactive on the world, touch and be bonded to nothing||

kind of reminds me of GoW ragnarok’s norns

lots of people running into their fates by trying to dodge them

the Erdtree itself only burns because Radagon wanted to keep the Golden Order

[mighty warren]

i am fascinated by the fact i can put lightning slash on my blacksteel greathammer

[vivid spire]

NO

I put keen piercing fang on milady

I can’t reset it back to Wing Stance

Fuck

I ruined my build

[frozen olive]

wow

[vivid spire]

How do I reset this somehow

Wing stance is the best aow for shadow of the erdtree nothing else comes close

[frozen olive]

invaded and two guys with bleed greatswords pop up, try to fight them, they do jump attacks only then t-pose on me as i die as if they accomplished something

incredible

[warped quest]

you can just remove ashes

[vivid spire]

Impaling thrust is still there

I did undo enchantment

It didn’t do anything

[warped quest]

also you should be able to just replace it

wing isnt the default for milady

[vivid spire]

Oh

[outer flint]

wing stance is pretty cool

it does have a lot more startup than I think it does

[vivid spire]

It got me through the dlc

[outer flint]

which gets my ass beat a fair bit

but I just need to adapt

[warm wharf]

Thanks y'all, this weapon does almost 800 damage on a light, up from just over 400 lmao

I am now Gaming

[vivid spire]

Ohh

I completely forgot you find the ash separately

My apologies

I kinda ran through Ensis the first time

[outer flint]

o7

[frozen olive]

lmao