Elden Ring (DLC hype room)

[frozen olive]

just did an invasion and the people i invaded tried to bait me to a ledge and knock me off

i managed to dodge away and ju st

hit them with (boss item spoiler)||Messmer's Orb|| and knocked them off lmao

Seamless invasions are a bit more difficult huh

ok i can just summon Dung Eater for this

this is really funny

yeah summoning Dung Eater is really fucking funny

[outer flint]

speaking of summons, I used one at a grace checkpoint in one of the dungeons, and there were a surprising amount of signs

it was nice to have someone come beat up some annoying enemies with me

[stone cove]

It's explicitly a gag manga, do I'm doubtful it's canon

[covert schooner]

Idk I’m just saying what I’ve heard

[glossy delta]

Yeah game mechanics are directly discussed by the characters so I think you may have been misinformed 😔
It gets Quite Silly

[outer flint]

we love silly

[covert schooner]

okay alternatively its the most cann

canon

everyone in the lands between know about equip load

[atomic marsh]

Every playthrough in Elden Ring is canon and this is one of them

obv

[frail sky]

I forget, how did the godrick boss fight go in the manga again?

I know it was entirely unrelated to actual fighting

[glossy delta]

I believe a 'grafting competition'

[real shadow]

I'm firmly in the camp of "the manga is the most canon version of events"

[proven cloak]

manga is produced in-universe by Patches

its his "100% accurate as-it-happened" retelling of events

[real shadow]

Scholars a thousand years from now take it as fact.

[languid tiger]

fake, ranni would have assassinated him after issue 1

[outer flint]

i like seeing rykard before he uhh

combined

[proven cloak]

assuming Ranni can read

smh

give me ONE piece of evidence that any of the demigods learned how to read 😤 ||oh the Dark Moon Ring probably counts||

YOU CANT

"b-b-but what about the secret rite-"
'few can decipher it' because nobody knows how to read. ||Miquella needed to visit the shadow keep because he had no idea what it said and needed that one fire knight who worked out at the library to help||

[grave plinth]

Messmer might be able to read

He was the outlier among the demigods

[outer flint]

time for elden ring..

[gray leaf]

there's no way literacy is that rare, given the existence of recipe books everywhere.

[frozen olive]

literally everyone has cookbooks

fucking Igon has a cookbook and he's literally a penniless homeless guy living on a mountain screaming in agony all day long doing nothing else

[grave plinth]

Living the dream

[frozen olive]

my GOAT fr fr

him and Godfrey

[grave plinth]

What i wouldn’t give to be a one legged lunatic howling at a volcano

Do you think Bayle screams at Placidusax in Farum Azula like Igon screams at Bayle?

[outer flint]

explored a lil bit of one of my missing areas

[proven cloak]

and yet none of the demigods drop any 🤔

[median rock]

dlc final boss spoilers ||just finished fighting radahn on yet another close range weapon run Ivenomous claws). man, i wish his hitboxes were better when he's turned away from me and slouching. things like his post-grab (on whiff) ass just don't count as valid targets, you have to be at the side and attacking his leg. ditto for a bunch of other hunched over attacks, like the end of some of his combos||

||also, i STILL have not figured out how to dodge the three hit left -> right -> double slash center combo. i always roll the first, tank the second, roll the third & final (the only high damage one lol). i can semi consistently roll time the "rocks -> lightshow dash -> what if i nuked the arena" combo attack, but that stupid three hit combo in both phases hit me :(||

||i have not bothered to look up how to dodge it, and i'm aware i probably could/should have, but it actually never ended an attempt, just annoying||

[proven cloak]

maybe the reason each cookbook only teaches you how to craft 1/2 things is because its a picture book

[outer flint]

i was gonna say lmaooo

[proven cloak]

huh only on this playthrough did I really notice (final dlc boss) || all the Light of Miquella attacks come from the ground upwards, instead of from the sky||

even the player spell ||isn't really an orbital laser - its like the earth is erupting with holy energy. Fits with the spiral stuff IG.||

[outer flint]

[outer flint]

got the boss 😌

||it was an alright dragon fight, pretty readable but i still had trouble reaching the head (likely due to great katana's n2 thrust not accounting for vertical lock on)||

||maybe a thrust weapon will make hitting up easier next time||

[median rock]

||try the WA, if you're using the dragon killing one. charged WA is pretty good and has some vertical to it||

[outer flint]

||i might do a quality build with it next run when I go around and kill all the dragons||

I'm blessing level 12 now

[stone cove]

Spoilers for the DLC and final boss, but also, Guard Counter Deflecting Hard shennagins ||https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaFN_SNsxjg||

[real shadow]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljipXbBplW4

[proven cloak]

made the mistake of checking the reddits
everytime I see someone unironically defending the crusade I understand Leda a little bit more

they aren't making it out of the cycle of retributive violence

[kind garden]

People seem to have a hard time with understanding the difference between "I get why you would do this" and "this is morally correct" sometimes

[atomic plinth]

Gamers and fetishising the bad guys, name a more iconic duo

[kind garden]

it's fine to get why Marika would do a crusade - she's a product of her peoples' slaughter and has every single reason, ever, to go "yeah they deserve to be done like they did my people"

that doesn't make it right but it makes it understandable

[atomic plinth]

Aye

But given how many capital G Gamers think the Imperium are the good guys it was practically inevitable that they'd think Marika is 100% justified and committed no wrong

[kind garden]

I swear this has something to do with how villains are written nowadays or some kind of larger writing cultural zeitgeist where if you can understand a character or they're humanized, they're automatically absolved of all wrongdoing

bothers the hell out of me.

[proven cloak]

I was wondering if it was partially due to the timegap with the dlc

if people forgot how the GO is portrayed in the base game

Recency bias

[kind garden]

people love redemption arcs but don't really get what the point of a redemption arc is or what makes them, like, good or powerful

"Azula doesn't deserve a redemption arc" that's not the point, no one deserves a redemption arc until they actually do the redeeming themselves part

[proven cloak]

mhm

[obtuse halo]

yeah no kidding. Zuko didn't 'deserve' one either until he wanted to change. Which is kind of the point! He flubs it hard the first time

[proven cloak]

I think its just wild when the presentation of the game goes so out of its way to draw direct and unmissable parallels between the factions

like the Poisoned + Maddening hands, or the ||Greatsword of Damnation's description||

or the Greater Potentates / Omenkillers - or how horrendous furnance golems are

[proven cloak]

this is always the part I find hard to balance for redemption arcs

[vivid spire]

Marika doesn’t really want to change

[proven cloak]

how difficult it 'should' be

[vivid spire]

Neither do the Hornsent

[proven cloak]

its why I like Hornsent's (npc) writing

his quest literally ends with "hmm, the vengeance thing gives me purpose.... if Miquella would take that away from me, I'm good without him. I think I'll just kill my enemies."

I think its a feature, not a bug, that he's kind of unlikable towards you!

[atomic plinth]

Aye

Even as Tarnished, you're still Marika's lackey

[proven cloak]

it helps enhance Miquella's story too, imo, where ||it is heartbreaking to see people to continue running towards retribution and horror, and underlines why he sought an all-embracing Godhood.||

makes it more tragic

I understand why he'd be motivated to do what he did

[vivid spire]

One hundred thousand runes lost

To a death knight

How embarrassing

Blonkbolt axes gained

[outer flint]

that mf is tough

[old brook]

Yeah after the ||Grab|| those definitely earned some miniboss respect

[vivid spire]

Rellana defeated!

First try!

That feels great

[outer flint]

gonna go back to the boss i was stuck on with 12 blessing

but i think i should still get some more

[warped quest]

yeah you should

[outer flint]

i have maybe 1 more map to get? so maybe I'll check out some pois there

and i see 2 places on the maps i have

||some kind of church or castle, and a place with fingers (idk how to exit shadow keep to the north)||

[warped quest]

did you fight the boar

[outer flint]

boar.....

uhhh

boar...

i don't think so?

or maybe i forgot lmao

I'm not sure

is it a real boss

or a field boss

[warped quest]

real

yeah once you find the boar boss theres like 5 fragments behind them

[outer flint]

i see

[warped quest]

did you drain the keep

[proven cloak]

a lot of the side areas involve exploring around shadow keep, yeah

||4(?)|| bosses, most of which ||need you to drain the water||

actually boar doesnt? maybe

I forgoar 🐗

[obtuse halo]

technically I think only ||the avatar and the tree spirits|| do

||though boar can definitely only be accessed through Church District||

[proven cloak]

||yeah I was counting boar and fingers||

[outer flint]

https://tenor.com/view/gotg-what-chris-pratt-starlord-guardians-of-the-galaxy-gif-11287925

[warped quest]

yeah you need to come from the church side

[outer flint]

church? 😭

I'll send my map when i get home

[warped quest]

theres a bonfire called chuch distract

district

[outer flint]

hrmmm

idr, I'll take a look tho

5 fragments would make me level 14

[proven cloak]

if you didnt enter through the keep through the other entrance, you're not gonna have it

[outer flint]

dang....

[proven cloak]

have you been through Bonny Village yet?

[outer flint]

i only entered through the front cuz the golem was scary

no

[proven cloak]

yeah theres a bunch of other stuff around there, in that area, etc

[outer flint]

i will try to find it

[atomic plinth]

I love invaders doing bits

[outer flint]

wamly....

why are you me....

[atomic plinth]

Lmao are you running the same fashion?

[outer flint]

yes....

[spring marlin]

the drip inspectors are aplenty it seems

cant wait for one dressed like patches that just up and backstabs the host

[outer flint]

......

rennala's staff too...

that's honestly really funny lmaoo

[atomic plinth]

It's a pretty popular fit

[outer flint]

o

I'm so unoriginal...

[atomic plinth]

So am I

Originality is for chumps

[outer flint]

i was using loretta's set before

[signal harness]

https://x.com/NeitheYAGI/status/1824568733400174704

🄽🄴🄸 (ℂ𝕆𝕄𝕄𝕀𝕊𝕊𝕀𝕆ℕ𝕊 𝕆ℙ𝔼ℕ 𝟙/𝟝) (@NeitheYAGI) on X

Miquella the Employed

Twitter · Aug 16, 2024, 10:07 PM

[atomic plinth]

...uuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh I gotta fuckin parkour down a sewer to get to the Three Fingers so I can get the last achievement I need

[mighty warren]

Huh, dlc 'secret' weapon stuff ||Euporia fun i was cautious trying it out cause twinblade but turns out one handing it works just fine, still charges up quite fast||

[covert schooner]

It got a huge buff recently

[proven cloak]

I like its new lore, compared to the cut version

[mighty warren]

Aye, i just thought it would still be mandatory to two hand it

considering it's not... i'm more than happy to run it

[outer flint]

2H talisman acquired

||leda and co.|| boss beaten

[mighty warren]

Good job

[outer flint]

still need more fragments

exploration time..

[mighty warren]

Oh right other fun thing i've learned

Stacking dragonbolt blessing and || florissax's dragonbolt|| creates a really cool visual effect on the character

[vivid spire]

I’m considering using ||Thio’s Concoction|| to get the blessing, is it worth it?

[mighty warren]

Objectively no, golden vow is a better spell

BUT if you're a lightning build || florissax's ashes are the best support option||

[covert schooner]

Oh are they both the same category of buffs

[obtuse halo]

yeah unfortunately

[mighty warren]

Vow and the prior? yeah

I use it cause i like it, not cause they stack or anything

[obtuse halo]

there's a niche for the other spell if you're specifically a shield tank and are willing to forego the damage boost, but yeah 99% of the time golden vow is just better

[covert schooner]

It’s so fucked they made vow a consumable now

Why did they do that

[mighty warren]

|| note on this, you do get the weapon which is the main thing she uses that helps lightning builds if you don't slip her the concoction||

[vivid spire]

Wait they DID?

[proven cloak]

yup

[covert schooner]

Yeah there’s an item that does it in the dlc

[mighty warren]

|| but using the weapon requires some minor arcane investment so eh||

[covert schooner]

Like a craftable

[vivid spire]

;-;

I need it

[proven cloak]

its called "Golden Vow" too lmao

[covert schooner]

So beyond fucked

I’m sure it’s worse than the incant but still

[proven cloak]

looks like its worse by about 12% for defense, and 20% for attack

also its duration is almost halved

but still

[covert schooner]

I guess they saw that literally every serious build wanted the ash on a weapon and said fuck it

Since slapping it on a dagger if you didn’t have the faith for the infant was omnipresent lol

[outer flint]

i heavily dislike kindred of rot

[proven cloak]

its got Lore™️ implications too

Remains that turned into light after being blessed with an incantation of the Erdtree.

[proven cloak]

rip

[covert schooner]

Yeah they kinda suck to fight

[outer flint]

there's a spot with 5 of them

[covert schooner]

Except for specific builds that trivialize them lol

[obtuse halo]

The vow consumables are still rough though because they require blessed bone shards

These aren’t that common!

[warped quest]

fromsoft really wants conusmalbes to be both worse and harder to use than their counterparts

[median rock]

it's actually crazy they made so many good consumables in the dlc with infinitely purchaseable crafting materials

[warped quest]

most of them are limited arent they?

[obtuse halo]

Depends. Some are pretty easy

[median rock]

i'm pretty sure 90% of hte new things are infinitely purchaseable or easily farmable (from world pickups mostly)

[obtuse halo]

Hefty pots are based on infinitely purchaseable fly mold and most of the ingredients are easy respawning world pickups

[median rock]

there's a couple standouts, thouhg. ||hefty frenzy pots are crazy lol||

[obtuse halo]

real big deal for ||hefty rot pots|| in particular

[warped quest]

hmm neat

[median rock]

i think the only notable non-renewable (or easily, at least) craftables are ||frenzy n furnace pots||

||then the stupid sacred bloody flesh, the stronger dragonscale flesh one is 1/NG cycle, and then golden vow/festive grease are annoying as well.||

[warped quest]

why does festive grease exist

[median rock]

good question!

[obtuse halo]

For the bit

[warped quest]

i will say nioh has a talisman that does something simlar

and its actulyl really good cause that game has a bunch of stuff that can trigger off amrita gain

[covert schooner]

Usually because consumables don’t take up any build space

[warped quest]

but i don't think there is a single thing in the game that triggers off rune gain

but heres the thing thye are so much below the non conumsables in both ease of use and power

[covert schooner]

Anyone, even with 0 in every stat, can use a golden vow consumable without any real sacrifice

So they have to be worse

[median rock]

i just wish consumable golden vow was like, at least better than the skill to use

[covert schooner]

Or else they’d just be the obvious choice

[median rock]

considering as is its like sligthly better than the skill in effect but ungodly to farm

[warped quest]

but its also horrid to actully use even if its the nerfed state

[median rock]

i wish it had been more or less even w the skill but purchaseable or something

[warped quest]

even if it was the same exact stats it woud;nt be very useful because of the materials

[obtuse halo]

I would love to use the golden vow consumables on bow-only but I hard refuse to farm blessed bone shards lol

[warped quest]

think about how firepots used to work they were pretty good for builds that didnt use pyromancy

[atomic plinth]

God I wish blessed bone shards weren't so hard to find

[warped quest]

you could just buy them and toss them

[mighty warren]

Two seperate layers of lightning my beloved

[obtuse halo]

Spritestones are kind of incredible btw

for the right build

[warped quest]

they werent better than a fireball but you could buy them without investment of stats and just chuck them, no scvanging for hours just to use max like 20 in your inv at once

[atomic plinth]

I've heard them compared to Demoman's sticky bomb launcher, that true?

[obtuse halo]

yes

[covert schooner]

I do think the crafting system is bad yes

[obtuse halo]

that said spirit calculus is the tricky ingredient there, not sure what the spawn rate is there

[warped quest]

i honestly think it wouldnt be a bad idea to remove the base level pots entirely

[covert schooner]

But I was just saying that even if they’re hard to get they shouldn’t be better than building your character to use the real thing

[warped quest]

they arent and they never really have been unless you get one of the rarer types earlier then meant to

[covert schooner]

Right yes I’m just

Saying why they suck

Is because they don’t have a real cost other than effort

They’re good enough that I’ve seen a LOT of people use them

Over the ol vow knife

[warped quest]

thats not really a good reason for their weak, if anything thats an argument for them being stronger then their counterparts

[covert schooner]

Why does being costless justify them being stronger

[warped quest]

they arent costless

you need to find the book that makes them, farm up the ingridents per use, and in the pots case have the pot size you need which caps how many you can have

[covert schooner]

Right, I meant in the sense of like

How your character is built they are

[warped quest]

like with arrows there isnt a flask to auto refill them

[covert schooner]

I do think it should be on par with the skill but

That’s as far as I’ll go

I actually don’t think the skill nor the consumable should exist

Since Golden Vow is kinda…. One of the main big benefits of faith builds

[warped quest]

i do think reusable conusmable and crafted one are diffrent

[kind garden]

crafted golden vows are awful

aren't they?

[warped quest]

i think theyt are basicly the skill

[covert schooner]

I swear I’ve seen people using them

[kind garden]

aren't they the really junk 10% boost one

[covert schooner]

It’s awful compared to the spell which is expected

[kind garden]

instead of the glorious 30% that Faith builds deserve

[warped quest]

ok

its slightly better than the skill

[covert schooner]

It’s more powerful than the skill

[warped quest]

the skill has 11.5 damage, and 7.5% defense
the tool is 12.5 and 8.8 defense

[covert schooner]

Which…. Is fair I suppose

[warped quest]

its more powerful but by an insanely slim margin

[covert schooner]

Since the skill is nearly actually costless since you can just

Put it on a knife

(But I also don’t like the design of the skill versions of some of the spells)

[warped quest]

i honestly think it would have bene fine to just make it reuseable and make it the same as the skill

since the vow dagger is a pretty common strat anyways

i feel one thing that could have been intresting is craftable reusable stuff

[covert schooner]

I do hope they keep crafting but make it less ubiquitous

In the next entry

[warped quest]

just make it easier to farm most of the stuff

[outer flint]

i need 1 more fragment for 13

idk where da boar is

[covert schooner]

Stuff like arrows, firebombs, that kinda stuff is fine

[warped quest]

and if something uses something rare it needs to be extremely powerful

[covert schooner]

Eh I mean

My point on that is that once something is farmable it

Kinda ceases to be “rare” in that sense

There’s some stuff that can never be farmed and that shit needs to go crazy

But I don’t want “do this excruciating farm and you can use an endgame spell with no faith investment”

[warped quest]

i think everything can be farmed but some the droprates are so bad that people didn't find out until i think people started datamining that it can be droped

[covert schooner]

Well not endgame in this case but

Still

Nah there’s some stuff that is genuinely limited I believe

[warped quest]

i thought centipiedes were

[covert schooner]

Mayhaps

I don’t quite remember

[warped quest]

and the rot butterflies were

but they arent

its just really horrid droprate on enmies you don't see often

1% on a kindred of rot

8% on lake of rot baslik

[covert schooner]

Weird

Yeah idk

I’m of two minds about it

I’m not sure how but I know crafting needs refinement

[warped quest]

droprates are also just strange in general they get worse each game

i did learn that ds2 has maybe the strangest hidden drop mechnic in the series

[covert schooner]

I refuse to grind anything ever on principle so I wouldn’t really know

For the drop rates I mean

[warped quest]

each enemy per ng can only drop each peice of equipment they carry once

in ds2

if say you farm enemy 1 and it drops itweapons you can no longer gets its weapons from it until bonfire asestic or ng+

but if enemy 2 is the same enemy as enemy 1 you can get it from it

[proven cloak]

learning that calculus was a term for "concretion of material that forms in the body" was wild

spiritual kidney stones

as an ingredient

[outer flint]

||final boss scary||

[proven cloak]

true!

[outer flint]

[covert schooner]

originating from the same root as calcium

[outer flint]

yeah I think I need some more fragments

[proven cloak]

huh, neat

[median rock]

||sunflower is not fun with claws :(||

[left willow]

Bricky's bit in the Shadow of the Erdtree of calling the Scadutree Fragments by any name except "shadowtree fragments" is so funny for some reason

[left willow]

Anyways, I'm currently watching his review and I have a few personal thoughts (spoilers specifically for the Jagged Peaks and more generally for some of the minor dungeons and field bosses):
||I also don't like the double-dragon fight.
I like the rest of the dragons in the jagged peaks. To be fair on this point: I'm a fan of the dragon fights in the base game as well and he is not, so that might be a reason for the difference.
I think that reuse of a lot of the minor bosses (i.e. Tibia Mariners and Grave Guardians) is a fun throughline and helps theme-link areas. Maybe they could have new move sets, but I'm unbothered if they don't.
I think that the dungeons (especially in erdtree but also in base) each have a generally distinct mechanic they play with and ones that use similar/the same mechanics are so very different, vibe-wise, to my brain that they remain distinct, rather than bricky's accusation of being a fairly homogenous lump with a few standouts.
I also love the fact that the scadu fragments make exploring probably the best way to power up in the DLC.||

Anyways, that's a bunch of thoughts I had.

Do people really hate the Fallingstar Beasts and the Tree Sentinels?

o.o

[languid tiger]

i wouldn't be surprised to hear a yes, but no, i've never really had trouble with them

[left willow]

I quite like the fights, hence my surprise

[languid tiger]

ye, people just uh

really don't like fights that check your ability to defend

and fallingstar beasts are "do you know how to dodge/manage block stamina"

[left willow]

And I get rocked by fights that check my ability to be aggressive XD

[languid tiger]

while tree sentinels are "do you know how to dodge and space"

and people especially on reddit complain a lot about fights like that

[past shard]

Fallingstar I think is due to really wide range attacks?

[left willow]

??

Ok, disclaimer: Caster over here

Fallingstar Beast's most dangerous attacks are (ime) the narrow ones with a CC effect on them. Yeah, the large spacer attacks can be annoying, but they're easy to predict/dodge and have incredibly clear hitboxes

[languid tiger]

the only attack i'd consider actively dangerous is the one it likes to do to start phase 2

and doesn't really do in p1

which is the antigravity slam

since it has a tight roll window and can't just be blocked like everything else

[left willow]

oh, yeah, fair

#neveractuallybeenhitbyitbecauseistandoverhereandthrowrocks

[languid tiger]

i'm someone who almost always starts a run by throwing bricks at twinks and then swiftly returns to beating things to death with my hands

magic usually ends up being almost entirely for mobs in exploration

[old brook]

Fallingstar Beasts just.. aren't.. fun fights. They bring nothing really interesting to the table, and just feel sort of "??????" compared to Astels and the like of other spacefolk

[dusty kraken]

They're brick shithouses they constantly make you fight in Tiny Areas.

Like I enjoy the rare times they give you real room to move but then it sorta reveals they're not really scary if you're not locked in a tiny room with them.

[steel scroll]

https://x.com/1280x720_/status/1822922801013195160/photo/1

말로 (@1280x720_) on X

과연 간만빼먹을지 궁금한 구미호듀오

Twitter · Aug 12, 2024, 9:07 AM

[kind garden]

Ran and Chen

[grave plinth]

Miquella giving off big Reiwa No Dara-san energy

[covert schooner]

I feel this way about the tree spirits

[stone cove]

There's a strong argument that ER hurts itself through copy pasted content, precisely bear of what you mention.

Also because imagine the impact Fallingstar beast would have had it the first and only one you encounter is the one on Mt gwlmir

[obtuse halo]

Oh yeah, the Gelmir fight is definitely the best one of them

[vestal night]

the one that really gets me for that is the second Astel in a random mine in Snowfields

also Godefroy
that one is just...

[obtuse halo]

yeah astel two: fuck you boogaloo is.

rude

copying remembrance bosses like that just feels wrong

[vestal night]

it retroactively kinda cheapens the previous fight

[warped quest]

i hated anything with a grab my first playthough due to the fact keyboard inputs don't reduce grab damage

mouse does

[signal harness]

whaaat

[warped quest]

in ds3 no keyboard or mouse inputs helped

[stone cove]

Said it before: Elden Ring is too big. I like it a lot, a whole lot, but it's just too much in a lot of respects

Turns out game design is hard!

[signal harness]

I liked the random spare astel but that's largely because I completely clowned on the "real" astel and the round 2 meant I got a real fight

[modest berry]

it would have been a ton of extra work but astel and godefroy being an altered missing link model between a character and a past version, a sort of astel half changing from a fallingstar, and a godefroy that kinda looks like goldfrey with maybe only 1 or two extra arms, would have been cool

[old brook]

sure would be hard if this happened in the DLC in a meaningful way

though that ||one fallingstar behind the castle|| did get a surprise laugh

'NO, NOT YOU-'

[dusty kraken]

My hot take on Elden Ring is too few bosses had minions.

[signal harness]

now that is a hot take haha

[modest berry]

catch this bewitching branch boy

[warped quest]

i think too many had minions

cause elden ring boss rooms are really boring

[obtuse halo]

...wait, inputs reduce grab damage?

[old brook]

Niall out here pushing definition of what counts as a minion

[signal harness]

Niall's minions generated probably 20% of Elden Ring tears

[old brook]

tbf I still don't know how to properly time the shield whirlwind dodge

[modest berry]

do you know you can get esgars dogs to kill him without even being in the room

[vestal night]

only sometimes

it's not consistent with all grabs
for some it does nothing, for some it can reduce the damage

[obtuse halo]

okay I was going to be shocked if that applied to Astel

[dusty kraken]

My favourite fight in all of Elden ring? The guys next to the grace where you first meet your maiden.

It's like 8 dudes and a knight and it's fantastic.

[old brook]

You can escape the Blob Ceiling Grab (??) where they just drop on your head and take like maybe 10 damage

[obtuse halo]

yeah that one I knew about

but afaik that's the only grab you can speed up with inputs

[old brook]

always makes me surprised how bloodstain laden those spots are

[dusty kraken]

I wish we got more really good minion groups. They mostly tend to be cakewalks or '20 ballista firing line'

[modest berry]

you can shoot the ground outside the arena with a through and through greatbow, it makes the dogs walk over, all curious. you can branch them through the fog wall and dumbass gets munched before the fight even starts

[dusty kraken]

I like the multi-crystalen boss fights a lot too.

[signal harness]

Once they tweaked the duo boss AI so they didn't just JJK you all the time they were really fun

[obtuse halo]

Yeah Crystaliens work pretty well as a combo enemy group

though the spear ones can get real annoying

[dusty kraken]

I was really hoping the DLC final boss would actually be a pair of individuals.

[obtuse halo]

throne watcher throne defender moment

[dusty kraken]

Instead of||a man and his god hat||

NG+ Garfield the Grafted should have had a regular stream of Lordsworn reinforcing the fight to help.

[old brook]

Tries to introduce one of those chained lions partway through and it just starts gouging the men apart

[dusty kraken]

But I'm not I think representative of most players.

Also: More enemies should be patrolling. There are some but they're super rare, while I love how patrolling enemies can wander into an ongoing fight.

[stone cove]

Him being a supposedly hard boss has always been one of those am I playing a different game? Things for me

It's just very interesting seems where the differences are for people

[signal harness]

Niall required me to change up my strats some (mostly in that he was a prime bewitching branch target) but I don't think he was that bad beyond the unusual challenge of those nasty nights backing him up

[stone cove]

Now magma wyrms, those runs I hate them so much

[obtuse halo]

If NG+ did more than just jack up the numbers I might actually bother trying it

[signal harness]

I didn't find him that easy but I was also prepared

[signal harness]

So real

I still have never killed the one at the bottom of the lava lake place

[obtuse halo]

I have, but it's not worth it

[signal harness]

I forget what its called but the lowest point in Gelmir

[obtuse halo]

you can cheese it with ranged though if you lure it out and go up the elevator

[languid tiger]

i think cyan is talking about the one at the gelmir fortress?

not volcano manor

there are two mt. gelmir lava lake magma wyrms though...

and both suck

[signal harness]

There's 2??

[obtuse halo]

oh the fort Laiedd one I kill basically every run

pretty hard to talk to alexander with that one alive

[signal harness]

Oh right yeah there's also one near the weird crossbow valley

[mighty warren]

Ironically magma wyrms are a boss i can style on really hard, everyone's got their own strengths

[stone cove]

I know how to beat them and can, they're just assanine boring fights

That basically boil down to have a multi hit capable spell to abuse

[obtuse halo]

magma wyrms aren't that bad, but depending on build they can be really obnoxious

especially the ones in certain arenas

if you're a fire user, better have a backup plan

also their charge attack has some really iffy hitboxes and tracks a bit too well imo

[atomic plinth]

I just wish they didn't spam the charge attack so much

[signal harness]

Yeah the one I really hate is on a narrow beach next to lava

[obtuse halo]

and yeah if they chain it sometimes you just die

or at least take a big chunk of damage and get to feel like an idiot until the ai decides to stop

[stone cove]

It's the spamming charge and otherwise limited moveset that does me in. They have a whole second phase that's cool (er. Just. Sort of) and you barely see it

[signal harness]

Oh yeah the phase 2 can be dope

For how long it lasts

[outer flint]

😌

[outer flint]

gonna go looking for a few fragments again

[lilac condor]

That consecrated snowfield magma worm was the first time I indulged in the “sit in the terra magica field and blast them to death” playstyle

I probably could have done it more conventionally but I had already died a half dozen times and was tired of kiting and accidentally rolling into a lava patch

[mighty warren]

yeah that's the only magma wyrm i hate

[obtuse halo]

oh, funny strat for Theodorix - you can bait her into fighting the land octopi and crabs nearby

who do pretty good damage to her and can take a hit, being scaled for the goddamn snowfield themselves

she'll still win but it'll soften her up a lot

[frail sky]

I did that accidentally on my first playthrough, just ran away from her because I had to do something then the exact moment I returned ENEMY FELLED appeared on screen

[outer flint]

yeah loll

found ||bonny village, i see a church up a path i guess||

[signal harness]

Likely place for one to be

[proven cloak]

I don't really mind him

Evergaols are already fight-boxes, throwing an early boss in one to show you 'how far you've come', its whatever

Godrick has enough oomph in his fight and dialogue that he's still cool

[vivid spire]

I like playing dungeons co op

But when an invader just pops in and whales on me making me lose all my progress on said dungeon

Well

[vivid spire]

Oh

I found my way into the Storehouse

By accident lmao

Lmao

Jumped into the water and didn’t instantly die

Lmao

[languid tiger]

||https://vxtwitter.com/NeitheYAGI/status/1817429351543296455||

[covert schooner]

They could never make me like your inclusion Godefroy

It would be fine as a “see how far you’ve come” AC6 helicopter moment IF

it wasn’t a game where that already happened constantly

There’s so much reuse and copy pasting in base game elden ring that there’s no magic to it like there is for like

Stray demon

[vivid spire]

Hmm

I’ve never really experienced that ngl

[covert schooner]

Experienced what part

Them reusing stuff?

[frozen olive]

they reuse a lot of stuff

personally i actually have no problem with that but i also do think it's valid if people do have a problem with it

[covert schooner]

I’m fine with the level of reuse that exists in the dlc

Where most to all of the reused stuff is in a new context that changes the circumstances

[outer flint]

dlc final boss spoilies ||got to scadutree 13 and got to p2, but yeah I'll probably need even more to survive p2 on top of learning the extra attacks ||

[covert schooner]

I’m not gonna bitch about the base game too much since I’ve already said my piece on the reuse of stuff in it before

[outer flint]

yeah! usually the enemies are enjoyable enough for me to bonk multiple times

but it's definitely valid to dislike it like you said

[covert schooner]

But I really like, like , ||the poison UTS, the urban arenas of the two in the flooded district, the ghost flame dragons, all that stuff is a twist on the existing format of their fights||

It’s one of the dlc’s biggest fuck yeah triumphs for me

Is finally figuring it out

I can’t think of a time I went “are you kidding me, another one” in the dlc

When that happened all the time in the base game

I think in the base game the omen twins are the example of reuse that I really like

Because I feel like it both: has story meaning
And each encounter ramps and builds on each other, with the finale’s being crazy

[frozen olive]

not a big fan of the Fallingstar Beasts?

[covert schooner]

Ehhh I can take them or leave them

[obtuse halo]

oh sure, those ones actually went to some effort to establish why it makes sense that they're there and indeed they ramp up and tell a story

[covert schooner]

They’re not the worst offenders

[obtuse halo]

they feel less like copy-pastes and more like recurring villains

[frozen olive]

Godefroy...

[covert schooner]

UTS, Erdtree Avatar, and FUCKING GODEFROY

Are the worst offenders

[frozen olive]

UTS?

[obtuse halo]

Ulcerated Tree spirit

[covert schooner]

Ulcerated Tree Spirit

[frozen olive]

ah

yeah

[covert schooner]

Jinx

[frozen olive]

not my favourite enemy

[covert schooner]

You owe me a

Hun

Yep sure discord

You owe me a hun

[obtuse halo]

i'm fresh out of Attila

[covert schooner]

Yknow I actually like most of the evergaols

Like

[obtuse halo]

yeah most of them are fine

[covert schooner]

The Zamor one is cool cause you don’t see that enemy for

A LOOOOONG time

And it builds mystery

[obtuse halo]

Yeah I think Zamor Ruins itself is the bigger offender for "reuse" than the Evergaol one

[covert schooner]

Crucible knights are cool in theory

I wish they had more like

Variation in infants between themselves?

[obtuse halo]

the Zamor Warriors are clearly bosses and deploying them as regular (if elite) enemies in pairs or trios is nuts

[covert schooner]

Other than the NPCs, The Bloodhound is probably my fav evergaol

Because it takes an elite enemy and makes it a solo boss ostensibly so you can learn to fight it

But also it works because you never fight another one as a boss again

[obtuse halo]

Honestly they'd probably work better in Zamor Ruins if they followed the duo boss AI update and toned down the aggro so that you'd have no more than one going all-out on you, with the other(s) supporting at range with frost breath only

[covert schooner]

See also, why I don’t care about the red wolf of radagon

And it’s copies

Is because they never make it a boss again

[obtuse halo]

not actually true, there's a Bloodhound Knight boss in Laskyar Cave, guarding Latenna

[covert schooner]

…… huh

Forgot about that

[obtuse halo]

that said I still think it works

[covert schooner]

Well, that’ll lower my ranking a little

[obtuse halo]

Not least because Darriwil has some actual story relevance

and it isn't just "lol here's a guy"

[covert schooner]

Honestly the genuinely repeatable boss I like is the black knives

Since there’s a canonical like

Set number of them

[obtuse halo]

Oh yeah the Black Knives rule

and they never stop being fun to fight

[covert schooner]

Maybe I’d be less upset about it if the various tree fuckers didn’t

Mostly suck?

[obtuse halo]

I actually really particularly love the first Black Knife encounter at Deathtouched Catacombs

Because she has a unique model and a tweaked moveset along with starting at like half health

[covert schooner]

It also helps that you ||get the last one as an ally||

[obtuse halo]

to represent that she's already wounded

[covert schooner]

[obtuse halo]

It feels like an out-of-depth encounter in limgrave, but you have a chance because she's not at her full strength

[covert schooner]

I guess I’m not against reuse as long as it like

Feels mindful

Which stuff like the knives do

[frozen olive]

Like Godefroy

[covert schooner]

But Godefroy feels there to - NO

[frozen olive]

he's the most mindful clearly

[covert schooner]

My big thing with him is just that reusing a big plot boss fucking sucks

For anything outside of a like
Big set up set piece

It’d be like if there was a second Smough just hanging around in the dark root basin or smth

[obtuse halo]

yeah, it works for Margit because he's clearly not dead at the end of the fight and he explicitly states he'll be hunting you

[covert schooner]

DS1 isn’t good to like

Compare this to

Because it shits the bed and does this one million times at the end

But you get my point

[obtuse halo]

and then you get an even more dramatic ramp-up with Morgott's duel before the Erdtree

[frozen olive]

you are very much not actually fighting him

he's got like, a guard version of himself there that you kinda beat up

[covert schooner]

Yeah Margits boss and Miniboss encounters are so good

[frozen olive]

but it's very clear that's not the real him

[covert schooner]

They set up a cool rivalry

[frozen olive]

yeah

[covert schooner]

That’s the ACTUAL “look how far you’ve come” moment in ER

[obtuse halo]

Incidentally he also sics the Night's Cavalry on you

they explicitly serve him as the Fell Omen!

[covert schooner]

Yep!

Also Sidenote

I will now point to Margit’s illusion powers as another point of proof that he is the greatest cleric of an age

Genuinely unmatched

[obtuse halo]

Night's Cavalry I also don't mind because the variety between the glaive and flail ones helps and also it's really funny that there are exactly nine of them.

[covert schooner]

He has 100 faith

[obtuse halo]

just for the Nazgul joke

[covert schooner]

No one can believe harder than him

Ever

[frozen olive]

yeah

for sure

Margit being the 100 faith guy is something i am 100% down for

[covert schooner]

Just the fact that we only ever see him do it, we see him do the illusion stuff like

4 times

[frozen olive]

he's literally gods greatest warrior ever

[covert schooner]

And NO ONE ELSE CAN DO IT

AT ALL

[frozen olive]

and god is not capitalizing on it because of horrific racism

[frozen olive]

potentially Mohg with the Mohg like enemy in the sewers but it's not really clear

[obtuse halo]

He might not even be doing it completely consciously - he doesn't believe his brother is a traitor, so he imagines him still there down in the sewers

though also that illusion persists even if he's dead, so...either it's so powerful he doesn't need to be alive, or it's not him.

[covert schooner]

Yeah I personally believe illusion Mohg is a Morgott creation

But it’s unclear

Even if it’s Mohg tho

[obtuse halo]

it makes more sense than being a Mohg creation I think, since Mohg has no established power over illusions

[covert schooner]

Yeah

[frozen olive]

i'll buy that

that's reasonable

[covert schooner]

I kinda love the idea that Morgott is mostly just lost in his illusions

[obtuse halo]

also killing the real Mogh doesn't banish sewer Mogh anyway

[frozen olive]

Morgott has some thing with Mohg

[covert schooner]

He’s in a fantasy world where his father and brother still love him and he can’t bear to look away from it

[frozen olive]

he doesn't mention him as a traitor for instance

[obtuse halo]

so the strongest evidence against it being Morgott's illusion also would apply to Mohg

[frozen olive]

true

[covert schooner]

Morgott 🤝 Messmer
Being Marika’s greatest victims

[obtuse halo]

yeah Morgott is a really good sympathetic antagonist

[frozen olive]

poor Morgott

[obtuse halo]

he's clearly your enemy and standing in your way, but like...if you read into him, you kinda get it

[frozen olive]

like genuinely just :(

[covert schooner]

Idk if it’s cut or in the base fight but the “you made me stain the thrones with my curse” line fucking hurts

He’s so full of self hate it’s insane

Yeah okay it’s his base game phase transition

[languid tiger]

i think my own rationale for it being a mohglusion is that there's a separate golden morgott barrier behind the mohg

[covert schooner]

Also someone pointed out
He calls Godrick “Godrick the Golden”
Not the grafted

Which is really interesting

[languid tiger]

and that feels like it would be redundant if morgott was doing both

[covert schooner]

Like he actually has some respect for him

[outer flint]

yeye i noticed that

[frozen olive]

which is crazy

cause Godrick is so not respectworthy

[covert schooner]

The only person whose name he says with real venom is Rykard

[frozen olive]

which is very fair

[covert schooner]

I think everyone else he’s just masking that he’s broken because they’re gone

And he’s alone again

I think Mohg making the illusion is also cool

In the sense of

Despite their very different outlooks

They both agree the frenzy flame must never see the light of day again

[frozen olive]

yeah

i do like it for that reason

[covert schooner]

Man if you’re the lord of frenzied flame it really paints the endgame in different light

Can very easily turn the read of the endgame into “we have to stop this motherfucker”

Because you’re going to burn it all

[languid tiger]

yeah that's another reason why i like it

adds extra complexity to mohg and his relationship with his twin

[covert schooner]

Ugh

Theoretical base game United in common cause fight

Where all of the NPCs that are still alive band together to fight a frenzied flame tarnished

Led by Melina

[languid tiger]

that would fucking ball ngl

give me like

the quintuple time and budget version of elden ring that's just on wizard crack

and is all as high-effort bullshit as shadow

but with the size of the base game

and all the experience and comfort of SotE

[covert schooner]

TUCC is ||maybe my favorite fromsoft boss ever, and honestly I kinda think it should have been the actual final fight||

Like it’s up there with SSI

[frozen olive]

SSI...

[languid tiger]

nah I love that it's not the finale

I think it and the finale are both great for different reasons and they impact each other positively

[covert schooner]

Sekiro Spoiler: ||Sword Saint Issin||

[frozen olive]

i would not have been satisfied if it was the final fight

tbh

[covert schooner]

Fair enough

[frozen olive]

i know

[proven cloak]

He also says "Praetor Rykard", so I think its more disdain for how they've turned their backs on their duties

[frozen olive]

it's the fight i'm currently on in Sekiro

[proven cloak]

its not sarcastic.... but I dont think its showing respect

[covert schooner]

Regardless of the final fights actual quality I also think it’s entirely redeemed by

||Become a lord…. Not for gods, but for men||

Which is one of the hardest lines in the game

[proven cloak]

"Heres their so-called titles - but all are of a piece. Traitors, cowards, raiders."

[covert schooner]

Fair enough

[proven cloak]

I think SotE's final fight being disappointing to people was 100% in how it was presented, over what it is

[frozen olive]

wish i loved SSI half as much as everyone who talks about it

[proven cloak]

(which includes it being 'out of left field')

[frozen olive]

people saying it's out of left field always makes me just sigh

[proven cloak]

like if the ||build up in the dlc was better than "hmm yes this scroll says radahn and mohg are coming back"|| I think 40% of the lore complaints would stop

its pretty thematically resonant

Early on a lot of people compared it to Gael's lore, but imo they aren't too different

[vestal night]

Gael being a bit out of nowhere is also the point for him though

[frozen olive]

yeah

[proven cloak]

||You're two lord-aspirants fighting for the dawning of your age at a forbidden place that births gods||

yeah I dont mean in terms of being out of nowhere

but people like Gael because "oooohhh the themes"

[frozen olive]

him being there is supposed to be a what the fuck kind of thng

cause like

[proven cloak]

which are also present in SotE's final

[frozen olive]

holy shit how the fuck did he make it here

[vestal night]

I think Gael is a much more direct mirror to the PC than the boss in SOTE is

[proven cloak]

for sure

but SotE's final boss is a mirror

in the same way Godfrey in the base game fought you as a fellow Tarnished

my biggest issue is ||Radahn has like no extra character in the dlc, and didn't have too much to start with||

so even though I like the overall narrative, I'm very ehhhhhh on the actual guy

[languid tiger]

||I'm sad that they seemed to go with The Lights Are One But No One's Home, yeah||

[frozen olive]

||bro was mindless in the Starscourge fight and Mind Whammied by Miq in the Consort fight||

[languid tiger]

but that's my sole complaint

[frozen olive]

same

it would have been nice to see more

[proven cloak]

also this part is too vague imo (I got the opposite read, for example)

[languid tiger]

I adored the finale

[frozen olive]

but i also think the fight is great

[proven cloak]

I think some parts of the finale are a little too fromsoft-lore

[languid tiger]

the fight was peak cinema, at least

[proven cloak]

||the takeaway is very different if you assume Radahn is mind controlled, or if you assume he's at his best.||

[frozen olive]

||well he literally has had his mind eaten away by the rot for Starscourge and in Consort, with the knowledge that Miquella seems to have sent Malenia to kill Radahn, Miquella is clearly charming him out the ass to get him to do what he needs him to||

[proven cloak]

and for such a big, bombastic finale? Being unclear there is gonna get people focusing on the wrong things

[languid tiger]

||I think he's "the best he could ever be, while fighting for something that he is not and does not believe in"||

[frozen olive]

||i don't think Consort Radahn being mind controlled precludes him fighting at his peak capacity||

[proven cloak]

||I dont think Radahn is charmed in his fight against us, and that he did actually promise to be miquellas lord prior to the shattering||

[frozen olive]

||I strongly disagree mostly because his armor heavily implies that Miquella sent Malenia to kill him for the purposes of using the divine ritual and making him be his Consort||

||if Radahn was going to do it anyway then that doesn't make any sense imo||

[proven cloak]

||"what Radahn believes in" is an area I wish he had more characterization, yeah. Under the "I want to be just like Godfrey!" lens, he is 100% acting for what he wants - to be a lord, to a god.||

[proven cloak]

||I think by the Shattering they were at odds - Caelid happened - but the cutscene, introductions and mentions of a 'vow', Radahns idolization of lordship, etc all point to him having made an actual promise at once point.||

I think there might be a bit of horror in there

[frozen olive]

||Miquella sending Malenia to kill him for compliance in the ritual imo is mutually exclusive to the idea that Radahn actually consented to fulfilling his promise|||

[proven cloak]

Should people be held to promises forever?

[obtuse halo]

Honestly, my thought on the matter: ||He might have made that promise when he was young, but doesn't want it now. He was holding fate at bay by holding back the stars, but was it really Ranni's fate he wanted to Stave Off?||

[proven cloak]

^ basically my read

[frozen olive]

||IAgreed, i think he definitely did make a promise, but the Radahn we see in the Consort fight is CLEARLY coerced by Miquella, most likely with charm, to participate||

[proven cloak]

||but I think its much harder to argue that Miq chose him as part of a crush than them having interacted + made plans beforehand, however they changed later||

[frozen olive]

||Radahn did not have a choice in being revived to be used for the ritual so that Miquella could attain godhood||

[proven cloak]

true

though ||I dont think he'd fight it, once brought back||

||what does he have to gain? to lose?||

[frozen olive]

||And i don't know what else the description of his armor could be implying other than the fact that Miquella definitely had Malenia go to Caelid for the purpose of killing Radahn so he could become part of the divine ritual later||

[proven cloak]

||The shattering 'ended' a long time ago, Selia's gone - the Redmanes are fringes, Caelids rotting. Does he hold the battles against anybody? Does he hold grudges?||

🤷‍♂️

hes like a wall to me

[frozen olive]

||especially cause he ALSO charmed Mohg and had him on standby for the ritual||

[obtuse halo]

I also like this one because it adds a giant extra layer of tragedy to ||Jerren's loyalty, in wanting his lord to have the glorious death in battle he'd "always wanted"||

[frozen olive]

yeahhhhh

tragedy all the way down

[obtuse halo]

It makes you wonder if ||those were his last conscious thoughts after Malenia spoke to him and bloomed: Oh god, oh fuck, please, just focus on holding back the stars, even if everything else goes, don't let go||

[frozen olive]

||would be pretty fucked up, he certainly managed to stop the stars at least||

[proven cloak]

I do think Malenia's gear in the base game ||hints towards a specific vow||

the whole ||"My brother will keep his promise. He possesses the wisdom, the allure, of a god – he is the most fearsome Empyrean of all.”||

[obtuse halo]

yeah that tracks

[proven cloak]

||theres like 5-6 mentions of a promise around Miquella and Malenia specifically. The game basically slaps you over the head that Radahn did make some sort of agreement at one point, regardless of if he stuck to it or not (or is fighting on his own behalf now)||

I dont think the last bit is clear in the dlc, which I think is a writing flaw

In the same way I considered Marika to be a bit too vague in the base game

I could roll with either interpretation, but for that detail? It shouldn't be up to interpretation

[grave plinth]

||it sounds a lot like a promise you make to a kid without really meaning it||

[old brook]

||Plus all we know of Radahn is that he was popular and way, way into the Status Quo||

[gray leaf]

||Was Miquella even a child when this promise was made? His wording in the flashback seemed childish, but not incredibly so. It's also not clear whether or not other characters even treated him like a chld.||

[proven cloak]

well, always ||more a fan of Godfrey and Radagon than the Golden Order, tbh||

||its also why theres so many reads that he was pro- or anti- Carian, its just not something mentioned in his story||

||so people go in whatever direction they want with him||

[proven cloak]

idk, ||Miquella's wording is fairly serious - its not "Oh I look up to you big bro - lets get married!", its "I'll be a god someday: So, if my sister and I do our part, you'll be my lord...?"||

||It could've even been a promise made before Miquella left GO Fundementalism behind to pursue his own vision - Ranni's quest (and the Empyreans in general) show that Marika's succession was something being planned pre-shattering. If your read of Radahn is that he's very pro Status Quo, that'd be a good reason for him to oppose Miquella in the Shattering - he expected Miquella to take the Elden Ring, not seek to transcend all that came before.||

[grave plinth]

||See my read is that Radahn isn't pro-status quo. If he was he'd be signed on with Morgott.||

||Radahn is not only a sorcerer, but an unorthodox sorcerer who idolizes a figure who fell out of divine favor centuries ago and decided to set up shop in what was, at the time, the backwoods of the lands between surrounding himself with scholar-assassins and misfit dogs of war||

[median rock]

||radahn is pro "I have an army and I shall take over the normal way: right of conquest with a decent claim to the throne already". unfortunately the brain rot didnt help||

[grave plinth]

||His two confirmed close friends are an albinauric and a weirdo like Jerren||

||That's not Status Quo, that's 'the values system is what i say it will be and if you have a problem with it you can talk to the meteor i'm pulling out of the firmament with my brain alone'||

[proven cloak]

I see him as ||a warrior with more of a heroic streak than someone like Godfrey||

[languid tiger]

||also an alabaster lord||

[proven cloak]

||while the latter is pure violence, Radahn seems to have been pretty chill with albinaurics like you mention, and most characters act like he was honorable as an individual||

[languid tiger]

||his mentor||

||so another weirdo, according to the human-centric golden order||

[grave plinth]

||yeah Radahn was a counterculture nerd with the physique of a jock||

[proven cloak]

||the mark of a true lord....||

he's just like us, fr!

[languid tiger]

||yeah, it's interesting that all three of rennala's kids had very weird relationships with sorcery||

||radahn was like...the most haima sorcerer to ever haima, but did it in his own extremely straight-from-the-tap way||

||rykard dicked around with hexes, and despite his campaign against the erdtree has an emphasis on faith||

[proven cloak]

its weird that ||Radahn is actually the odd one out, having never been entranced by a divine force in his studies. Even compared to his mother, and her bewitching moon.||

[languid tiger]

||and ranni's the 100 int character, but in a super weird and esoteric way||

[grave plinth]

||Same reason he rides around a frail steed like Leonard and proudly advertises a hair color that his dad hates. Radahn does not care about projecting an air of orthodoxy. He is Radahn, he doesn't need the approval of others to justify his own image||

[obtuse halo]

TBH it seems likely ||he wanted to stay near Sellia||

[languid tiger]

||i do wish that ranni was int/arc so they all had Weird Secondary Stats||

[grave plinth]

||Yeah and Sellia is full of weirdos||

[languid tiger]

||and that the gravity spells had strength reqs||

||that would've been fucking sick ngl||

||dedicated str/int magic, cold as actual int/arc magic, and rykard playing ds2||

[proven cloak]

what you dont like bubbles?

[languid tiger]

i do, but three bubbles aren't enough :(

[obtuse halo]

I love the bubble spells, but I wish there were more int/arc spells lmao

to be fair there are some pretty cool int/arc items

in the consumables zone

[languid tiger]

yeah...

[obtuse halo]

the spritestones kind of kick ass

[proven cloak]

I was expecting int / arc St. Trina spells in the dlc

rip

[languid tiger]

i really think that all the cold sorceries should've been int/arc

because arc is the status stat

[old brook]

I feel like worshipping the two lords of the Golden Order puts a weird spin on Radahns whole kindness thing

[grave plinth]

Like, you can even interpret Radahn choosing to imitate Godfrey over Radagon as a subtle insult to the Status Quo

[languid tiger]

and it fits with the Weird Personal Esoterica ranni's got going on

[grave plinth]

because he's basically saying "i prefer the old guy over my actual dad"

[proven cloak]

Radagon himself has a weird relationship with 'kindness', or at least violence

[old brook]

"What do you like about him?" "The way he conquered all the lands with violence."

[proven cloak]

ended a war through marriage, caused Arena combat to fall out of favor, legitimacy is built less on physical power than study

[languid tiger]

i mean, the items that talk about it say that he admired godfrey's presentation as a hero

and radagon's

[proven cloak]

has the best relationship with Miquella, and better relationships with his kids than Marika

yeah, I read Radahn as idolizing heroism more than power

[grave plinth]

Radagon seems to have mainly been close with Miquella

[old brook]

There wasn't any heroism in it though

He's worshipping a false idol

And doing.. what

[languid tiger]

he wasn't "worshipping" anything

[old brook]

He dressed like the dang guy

[grave plinth]

the best any of Radagon's kids with Rennala has to say about him is that Radahn likes his hair. And Radagon hates his hair

[languid tiger]

he dressed like a combination of the guy and his dad

[obtuse halo]

I don't really think this is true - his helmet kind of includes a shoutout to his dad and his heroic, dashing red hair

[proven cloak]

he does call Radagon a champion, yeah

[obtuse halo]

I think he just respects them both intensely, even if he models himself more after Godfrey

[grave plinth]

Godfrey can put on a heroic act, and probably did do heroic deeds once upon a time

Just, Godfrey is a classical hero, which means he also does fucked up stuff like in the Iliad

[obtuse halo]

I'm partial to the idea that Radagon has Leonine origins and themes too

[proven cloak]

but this is also miles better than any of Marika's relationships with her kids, except maybe Godwyn

[obtuse halo]

May even have been, at one point, a Lion before transforming himself with the Amber Egg

[proven cloak]

(who people still debate if she killed)

||I dont think she did||

[obtuse halo]

The Leonine Misbegotten represent Radagon whenever they appear, after all.

[proven cloak]

Lords are kinda lion-y

[old brook]

And so respectful to them with the chains and embedded weaponry

[grave plinth]

Radahn seems to view Radagon as like, something he grew out of. He says he was the "Champions Cub" but now he's "The Lion of the Battlefield"

[proven cloak]

I'm partial to Radagon being to Marika whatever St. Trina is to Miquella

||so I think he did originate in her, not outside||

[obtuse halo]

I mean, I kinda buy into that too. I think both things can be true

[grave plinth]

||I think Radagon is one of the Zamor people, which is why Marika decided to genocide the Fire Giants||

||Because that was Radagon's asking price for joining her||

[languid tiger]

||huh, what connects him to zamor?||

[proven cloak]

yoooo, like he was a piece of Marika that was a lion when removed, like ||how Saint Trina was predominantly a flower when we find her?||

I can dig that one

[languid tiger]

||i'm unaware of anything that points to that||

[grave plinth]

||you find his Scarseal on a Zamor Warrior||

[languid tiger]

||just his connection to giants||

mmm

i don't think those four are a great indicator of lore honestly

[grave plinth]

||Plus his aptitude for sorcery||

[languid tiger]

they're all in kinda wacky places

but that's fair

[grave plinth]

and the indication that at one point the Zamor and Giants weren't at war, the Sword of Night and Flame

which would be where Radagon got his hair from

[proven cloak]

they're called 'mortal enemies' iirc

[grave plinth]

a holdover from that period

[proven cloak]

so I dont think the sword represents any alliance between those groups

[grave plinth]

yeah but mortal enemies rarely hate each other on sight

[languid tiger]

Astrologers, who preceded the sorcerers, established themselves in mountaintops that nearly touched the sky, and considered the Fire Giants their neighbors.

"considered the fire giants their neighbors" isn't exactly

[proven cloak]

yeah, which isnt the Zamorians

[obtuse halo]

Astrologers are not the Zamor though?

[grave plinth]

I think the very early Zamor had friendly or neutral relationships with the Giants

[languid tiger]

"mortal enemies"

[proven cloak]

for them, you see

Cloaked in icy tempests, the knights of Zamor have challenged the Fire Giants since ancient times.

[languid tiger]

i think that the astrologers have a reasonable connection to zamor

[proven cloak]

and

These long-lived warriors, clad in biting, freezing winds, are said to have been the mortal enemies of the Fire Giants since time immemorial.

[languid tiger]

mm

[grave plinth]

then something happened and the grudge match started

[proven cloak]

I mean maybe the astrologers and the fire giants were beefing since time immemorial

I think Radagon's red hair comes from Marika's own perception towards things that were impure

[languid tiger]

hmmmmmm

[proven cloak]

To me, he's a divested part of Marika which represents his desire to bring everything together and her desire to seal away and control what she fears

[grave plinth]

Messmer is said to be 'born of an affair' so i think he was originally independent

[proven cloak]

his icon talks about how he seeks completeness, and fundementalism + his study of Carian magic seems to set him up as someone whos willing to change, and seeks change

[proven cloak]

Is this the trailer quote?

imo that refers more to the birth of the Erdtree and Scadutree, with affair being "sequence of events" more than literal tryst

[old brook]

Tbf it does also mention a seduction

The hornsent call her a strumpet

[proven cloak]

yeah, I've seen people run with that

[old brook]

She did somethin tricky with whoever was in charge

I'm assuming it was more ||Sort of.. Faking Jar Sainthood? Or just allegiance to their methods||

[proven cloak]

Theres pretty reasonable evidence the hornsent were allied to Leyndell early on

[grave plinth]

or at least neutral

[proven cloak]

||They don't seem to have liked the fire giants, you can find a ton of Erdtree Worship items in Enir-Illm, the crusade and its purge didn't occur until much later in the timeline, mentions of a betrayal||

[grave plinth]

she had to get to the ||Gate of Divinity|| somehow

[proven cloak]

Godfrey seems to have been from the Shadowland's Highlands as well

[old brook]

Maybe they worked together to take out the ||Giants||, leading to ||Messmer taking their whole 'ritual impalement' thing and turning it on them, knowing to use the Fell God Symbol..||

[proven cloak]

and it'd also be a reason ||for the war to be much more dishonorable or hidden than the ones against Liurnia or the Giants, if they were turning against a close-knit cultural group without a strong reason||

but who knows

[old brook]

I'm wondering how Marika like

[proven cloak]

I've seen "Marika fucked Serosh", I've seen "Marika fucked Eiglay", I've seen "Radagon fucked the gloam-eyed Queen"

🤷‍♂️

[old brook]

Kept this whole thing under wraps

Like this was an extensive plot

[old brook]

also they are cowards for not realizing the toxic yuri potential of Marika and the Queen smh

Snakeskin does remain a big "???????"

[proven cloak]

person who believes "Radagon fucked the GEQ" theory but also "Marika is the GEQ" so they just kind of end up back at square one

[gray leaf]

One thing which I feel has to be mentioned: ||In the original Japanese, when the item descriptions talk about those in jars being reborn into saints, the wording used seems to imply metaphorical saints (as in, highly virtuous people) rather than something truly supernatural or blessed)||.

[proven cloak]

thats always how I read it tbh

Leda even uses the word in the same way

[old brook]

That makes the plan more confusing honestly

[proven cloak]

||the ghost who claims he'll be a 'living saint' to avoid the jar is what really sells it as a good-person term rather than a type-of-being, imo||

[old brook]

The other definition has some 'yeah sure, what is the Crucible but a bunch of stuff blended together'

Just assuming it will make them nicer people is.. sure

[proven cloak]

the jars are pretty nice!

[gray leaf]

It's reincarnation and karma. Just, as mentioned, taken into human hands.

[proven cloak]

they love doing yoga or w/e it is they do on those corpse piles

#wholesome

I think theres a strong element of purification to the Hornsent

they've got a lot of rituals that seem wrapped around the concept of shunning impure elements

[gray leaf]

I think purification is the opposite of what's going on, in some ways.

[old brook]

It's more a "blend until smooth" type of purity

[gray leaf]

They have rituals about shunning the impure, like the potentate masks... but they also have a lot of rituals and beliefs focused on a sort of... maximalism? More traits from the Crucible, more life, more horns, more blessings.

I suppose that with enough, all life becomes one and it's pure that way?

[proven cloak]

curseblades flagellate themselves, revered spirits have mummified, the crucible is worshipped for its evolutionary gifts - the spiral has a direction to it, their inquisitors wrap their faces while leaving horns exposed, their warriors embody and become sacred spirits from 'higher' spheres

cause they did not like the Lamenter

[gray leaf]

True.

[proven cloak]

despite his huge horns + mix of body parts

[old brook]

I'll admit to not knowing Lamenter lore

[proven cloak]

I dont think anythings jumped out as the answer

the game just kinda comes in and says

but the people of the tower denied and hid it from the world. In their foolishness, they viewed true bliss with deep fear.```

and then dips

so who knows

bloodbourne ahh description

but the Hornsent have a lot of focus on becoming vessels for spirits

which they think come from a more divine place

despite worship of the crucible, they almost seem to see the body as lesser in the relationship

[grave plinth]

they seem to fear and hate the Lamenter because this divine being isn't what they imagined it to be

[proven cloak]

they take people and shape them into "more divine" forms

its like, compared to the Erdtree faith looking for grace as a sign of being blessed

the Hornsent seem to have revered connection to the spiritual, through horns (which naturally attune to spirits)

and then also had a society where the most blessed were expected to hone themselves to not just be attuned to the divine, but lose themselves in the invocation of it

or turn into mummified corpses with no sense of self remaining

its much more ascetic than the Erdtree

they seem to have a hierarchy of being

[gray leaf]

I found a thing about mistranslation, which pointed me to the Companion Jar talisman from base game:

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.
Apparently ||the phrasing for "rather kindly folk" is either similar to, or the exact same as, the "saints" which the jars were intended to create (and, evidentally, successfully did).||

Also of note, on the Great Jar helmet, apparently ||the references to "shamans" praying towards them or being involved in rituals is a complete mistranslation.||

https://medium.com/@Mirko_LaMi/shadow-of-the-erdtree-lost-in-translation-eng-0e7701104786 I found this on here originally but I'm reposting it whle I'm looking back through it.

[old brook]

I'm sure it was another knife in the heart for Marika ||to see that the jars function as intended and in fact better when not fused with a still-living shaman||

[gray leaf]

||... I mean, define "still-living shaman".||

[languid tiger]

exactly what it sounds like

[gray leaf]

The issue at hand is ||the Ship of Theseus paradox||.

[languid tiger]

no it really isn't

||part of the fusion is a shaman||

||the fusion is alive||

||the shaman is a main part of the fusion||

||still-living shaman||

||arguing phrasing there is bad semantics||

[gray leaf]

||What if you take part of that fusion and put it into another jar?||

[languid tiger]

||they didn't seem to do that, so the point is moot||

[gray leaf]

The jars contain dregs inherited from those who came before.
Thus are warriors passed from jar to jar, carrying dreams of greatness.

(from the base game, but not totally unrelated conceptually.)

[languid tiger]

warrior jars, yeah, the related-but-distinctly-and-explicitly-different concept

[proven cloak]

I think its hard to argue against - whatever it is - that the jar innards are suffering

||and made of Shaman in the middle||

[languid tiger]

aye

[gray leaf]

Yeah, I agree with both of those.

Or, at bare minimum, that the creation of the jars requires a lot of suffering, and the jar innards may or may not be just entirely different people.

I actually kind of like the idea of them being new people, because, by all indications, they are. And then we have yet another example of ||a hubristic religion inflicting tremendous amounts of suffering, mostly but not exclusively on bad people, and victimizing them, in the aims of creating a better, kinder world||.

[languid tiger]

||pardon? i don't think the miko were ever framed as bad people||

||the name itself kind of innately suggests otherwise||

[gray leaf]

||No, but all the other criminals tossed in the jars were.||

[languid tiger]

||mm, bad to the hornsent, fair, but i think the presentation there was that a lot of them were just deemed "impure"?||

[obtuse halo]

||they were mostly criminals, at any rate - it's possible the hornsent laws were draconian and unjust and they threw many innocent people in prison or something, but there isn't a lot of textual support for that outside of the Shamans||

[gray leaf]

||Yeah. I think some were 'impure", and some were criminals who didn't deserve such harsh treatment, and some were just genuinely awful people.||

[proven cloak]

yeah I see it as ||a mirror to the way Albinaurics, Omen, Misbegotten, etc are treated by the GO||

[languid tiger]

aye

[proven cloak]

||combined with the criminal element. though I wouldn't expect most criminals to deserve getting meatgrindered and shoved into a jar||

[old brook]

Tbf the Carians started the Albinauric business

Or at least brought it up

[gray leaf]

Also FWIW this basically says ||"miko" isn't 100% correct, and the word used was "itako" which is usually used to refer to a different category of Shinto priestesses who are blind from birth and said to call forth kami and the spirits of the dead||.

[proven cloak]

to be quite honest I wouldn't even do that to Dung Eater

[old brook]

Everyone in Power Sucks

[gray leaf]

The read I got was ||they were putting thieves in the jars, and they weren't totally innocent, but they weren't that guilty either||.

[gray leaf]

I would phrase it more as "Violence cannot be used to create kindness".

[languid tiger]

||that's not a huge difference though||

[gray leaf]

Or possibly just "shouldn't".

[proven cloak]

does add another little bit to Marika as Torrents former owner, though, imo

[gray leaf]

True, but it's sort of making me think that ||"miko" isn't really inherently any more accurate than "shaman" is||.

[languid tiger]

good point

[languid tiger]

no but the word used still carries a connotative holiness and respect

[gray leaf]

I suppose.

[proven cloak]

relatedly, given how much the hornsent focus on spirits and calling them forward

wouldn't be surprised if the Divine Gate was some sort of big spirit tuning-fork

[gray leaf]

Definitely possible! Although I don't think it's being currently used like that. Spirits are, in the world of Elden Ring, more earthly than they are divine.

[proven cloak]

yeah, its also got something going on with the sun

[proven cloak]

though I'm not sure I see a hardline difference here, much of the divinities seem earthly in the ways they interact and grow

like the Erdtree itself

personally I'm ??? about where Fire fits into the cosmology

[languid tiger]

everywhere, it seems

fire's all the fuck over the place

[proven cloak]

Glintstone and Holy magic seem to relate to the stars and their vital forces, different god patrons pull their powers from different sources, but most seem to be related to living

fire is a weird spot

[languid tiger]

but in weird ways

[proven cloak]

yeah but its everywhere

it doesnt(?) seem related to the stars, but also isn't intrinsically tied to life like Necromancy or Rot or Blood magic is

so its just kinda

its there

[gray leaf]

...I think fire is tied to death.

[languid tiger]

you've got the gloam-eyes' black flame, the Fell God and Forge's giantsflame, you've got the flame of chaos, of frenzy, of all-things-returned-to-One-Thing, you've got ghostflame

you've got dragonfire, which doesn't seem cosmic at all

[proven cloak]

and frenzy especially is interesting given it can burn even otherwise immortal spirits

[languid tiger]

you've got rykard's blasphemous flame

[gray leaf]

Dragonfire is... weird. It's a twist on bayle's flame lightning, which is in turn a twist on draconic lightning.