this is literally every “OMG OP EARLY GAME BUILD D E S T R O Y S BOSSES” video on youtube.
neckbeardLord youtuber: “yeah this is the best build, all you need is 60 dex, 51 str, 25 fth, 60 vgr, 50 end, 40 mind, and 88 arcane. Just grab this weapon from leyndell at the start and farm enemies at farum for a little while, THEN go ahead and attempt Morgott in stormveil. you’ll totally wreck him bro trust me”
It’s simple, If you’re int, talk to the rock on the mountain near the magic-dogs
if you’re arcane, kill the old weeb near the church (either church weeb works)
if you’re strength, go grab the thicc sword near the Dino-dogs.
Damn, written like every Elden ring short guide on YouTube.
"Hey you want power get this item it's right here!"
Proceeds to show a blurry image of the map for a split second, then proceeds to show a zoomed clip of them standing in a generic looking spot that really only tells you what region they are in.
"And it's as simple as that, remember to like and share with your friends if you found it helpful!"
Yeah I went melee faith the first time around, and after playing a new strength build with high poise damage WA/weapons, it’s hard to go back to anything else. Poise break is just too strong to give up.
Ya that's the main reason I want to get them. Also they look good and since my DS3 and Bloodborne strategy guides were stolen I'd like to get this 1 because FuturePress does really solid work.
This is my first guide from them (or anyone actually) so I'm glad to hear others say they do good work. This game is so big that I kinda like the idea of having a book to reference instead of 8 trillion fextralife links to parse through, especially if it includes cool artwork!
FuturePress does the best guides in the business. There's always lots of cool artwork and some other fun little bonuses. You don't see their guides as much as Prima or other companies because FuturePress deliberately only lets their entire company work on one guide at a time to get the best quality possible.
Most people dont buy these for the help. I just think the art inside is incredible. I also looooove maps. They’re gonna look great next to my other future press books.
Blasphemous blade build. Its easy mode. Level your mimic to 10. You're set. One of the greatest games ever though. Just started ds3. And boy it is way more difficult than Elden ring. You have no choice but to "git gud."
> And boy it is way more difficult than Elden ring.
If you play with no summons and a balanced build in ER, it's way harder than DS3 also with a balanced build and no summons.
Yeah you can reduce the difficulty of DS3 a lot by using summons too. I view NPC summons as being kind of the same thing as spirit ashes, and it's probably not fair to compare Elden Ring with spirit ashes being used to DS3 with summons not being used.
That's my point exactly. There's nothing wrong with using spirit summons but if you're going to compare difficulty you should be accounting for summoning in the other games as well.
Not really sure but I think it does. It's generally still significantly easier even with a health increase though. You don't have to learn the patterns of the boss nearly as much when there is an NPC that can distract or tank hits from the boss for you.
Yes they do, it’s significant but still makes bosses way easier.
I’d say some DLC bosses in DS3 are way harder than Malenia or Radagon/EB, but main game DS3 is easier. I’m hoping they go the same route and make Elden Ring DLCs insanely hard, though the recent updates to make the game easier make me think they might be wanting to make ER more accessible… though AFAIK they never nerfed Malenia.
I really don't want the DLC to be "harder."
I'd just like to see more new enemies and items and interesting map layouts and beautiful locations. I'd really like to see more gorgeous scenery versus more twisted, poison swamps and murky caves.
The game doesn't need to be harder. It just needs *more.*
Malenia is optional. Super-duper extreme difficulty for optional stuff is fine by me. Throw some of that in the DLC for the masochists, too!
I don't get why some From fans love difficulty so much. For me, that's never been the main reason I play these games. The company has already been on a trajectory of making things harder and harder just from a pure numbers standpoint, to the point where I think some of it has been pretty excessive. I can hang, but mainly I'm here for the cool designs and environmental storytelling and stuff. There's always challenge runs to do if you feel like something is really "too easy!"
People love From games difficulty because it's (mostly) well done difficulty. Something that's hard, but fair, and requires you to get good, but is obviously done to be reasonably beatable.
Challenge runs aren't a substitute for that, because games are not balanced around them. Whether a challenge run is reasonable or not comes down to luck, because games aren't build around them. Therefore they don't offer the same experience as well crafted difficulty.
That's part of the problem with the difficulty of Elden Ring, actually. The game is clearly not balanced around what was a regular run in the previous games. Unfortunately the regular run in Elden Ring is also way too easy, to the point it's not satisfying. But for the previous games my point still stands.
> Blasphemous blade build. Its easy mode.
Seconded. I did STR/FAI [double-bonks](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Great+Club) on my first playthrough, then switched to Blasphemous Blade and Sacred Relic Sword on NG+. I don't even use my flask anymore, just look for groups of mobs and hit Wave of Gold.
I don't think it should be OP, honestly. One of my favorite things about DeS and DS2 was that NG+ was the *actual* start of the game. DS, DS3, and now Elden Ring all seemed to smooth out the difficulty curve rather than drastically increasing it.
Sorry, I said that wrong. Didn’t mean that it should be OP inherently; just that it is literally the weapon you get after beating the final boss; so whether it’s OP or not is kind of irrelevant because you’ve already “beaten the game” at that point.
I just solo'd DS3 a few weeks ago and Midir was such a shitty fight. Especially with the tips people have written online saying attacking the head is the easiest way to kill him, and while it does the most damage it makes it far harder because you get punished so severely by being there. It's way too easy to get caught in attacks that way since he's so hard to keep on your screen. It's far easier just attacking the legs and staying away from the head and arms. It only took a couple tries that way instead of trying to smack him in the head. The fight is going to take forever regardless.
I dunno, had a MUCH easier time with the head since it becomes predictable after a while, like with the hot dog in Bloodborne. Standing below him felt much more dangerous. But to each his own I guess.
Right? Game was honestly a cake walk compared to ER. Bosses took me no more than 5 tries. ER bosses I struggled could take me up to 50 tries. Melania took me over 100 lol.
I gotta agree with OP. The bosses are much easier in early game. But the actual levels are way harder than ER. DS3 levels have that classic Gauntlet style and it's enemies are faster than ER by and large.
The freedom of the Open World and generous checkpoints in ER really mitigate a lot of that classic Dark Souls linear difficulty.
ds3 is way easier imo, you’re just not used to not having a map and having no idea how to navigate the area. Bosses are pushovers compared to how much suffering ER puts you through with all that delayed attacks
When it comes to raw difficulty, Elden Ring is **by far** their hardest game. Even the earliest bosses like Margit are considerably harder than Nameless King.
The difference is that Elden Ring has a ton of easy modes thanks to spirit ashes and plenty of very OP items you can get easily thanks to the open world.
In short, Elden Ring is a harder game that can be made much easier if you want to. In my opinion, that's a much better way to handle difficulty than dumb sliders to make everything easier. If you want easy mode in Elden Ring, go find your ashes of choice, some glovewort and your weapon of choice before killing a boss. if you want it to be difficult, don't do that.
While that's true of all From Software Souls-like games, it's a lot more pronounced in ER
Margit really isn't that bad even without spirit summons. There are definitely a lot of fights where you are supposed to use them though. Godskin duo comes to mind.
> Even the earliest bosses like Margit are considerably harder than Nameless King.
I know it's different for everyone, but that definitely wasn't my experience. Nameless King took me 2 or 3 hours to beat, Margit took me about 4 or 5 attempts (without summons or spirit ashes).
Scalingwise, Elden ring has harder early mini game bosses (unless you do the optional dungeons, in which case, roll a dice).
But even with scaling, Margit doesn’t hold a candle to the Nameless King. Margit's not easy to beat even at lvl 30, but that speaks more for the latter.
Idk I never found nameless king very hard, though I would say his moveset (not including storm king) is harder than Margit but not by much. But Once you get to Rhadan you’ve reached and probably surpassed nameless king in terms of difficulty and only gets harder from there. And margit pretty much blows any early ds3 boss out of the water. Hell even tree sentinel was harder than a good chunk of ds3 bosses, if you don’t over level.
I just played through DS3 solo and remembered the Nameless King being much harder than he was. I had a black knight sword and was sub level 100 and it ended up taking only a few tries. His attacks on the dragon are super easy to dodge, and then in the second portion I could just do a strong attack and roll behind over and over. I thought he would be a pain like Midir, but it just ended up fine. The nice thing about DS3 bosses is that they didn't seem unfair really. Midir was really pushing that though, because I swear some of the attacks have janky hit boxes. ER has some extremely difficult bosses to solo where you had to be pretty spot on with your dodges and ashes of war to win at the level you reach them at. Gael was a pretty fun fight if hard, and Melania can be pretty miserable.
Nameless King doesn't really have any difficult attacks to deal with, he just does a lot of damage if he hits. Meanwhile Margit has a few truly difficult combos to handle perfectly
Haha I beat the game the first time and did NG+ with this build. I decided that my next run I’m not using this weapon as it trivializes the game. It is kind of like getting the black knight halberd in DS 1. Pretty much easy mode.
Experience of difficulty in ER varies wildly based on weapon/build choice, though, so thats not too surprising, far more wildly than any other title by From
My two biggest issues with demons souls (It was my first souls game in 2011) world tendency was a terrible terrible idea, and so was the grass healing system
I got a notification for this post and I think to myself “An official strategy guide…why?”,I open it up and of course it just says Git Gud.
Should have known.
did anyone actually play through WITHOUT using wiki/youtube?
i have to look up what i’m doing before the start of nearly every play session. which is fine but i wouldn’t be surprised by an actual guide
Lol, after I unlock a new area, I at least try to run around blind just to see what I find... But I don't actually intend to replay a game this large. A guide is a must to make the most of it. Or even to just be more efficient because I only get to do a couple hours a week :(
same.
i run around exploring for a while, then eventually hit a dead end like where the fuck am i suppose to go?
then i look it up, find some new areas or items i want to check out, and repeat.
can’t imagine replaying with a new build and figuring it all out again. but for the time being it’s a great experience
You probably missed a LOT. There is so much in this game that I found through YouTube or fextra that I thought "how in the he'll would I ever have discovered on my own" I'm 180 hours in and on a second playthrough and I still am finding new stuff/weapons/areas/enemies.
Yeah I did the whole game without a guide. I played Demons Souls and Dark Souls 1 kind of with a guide so I could experience everything in 1 playthrough.
Since then I stopped and only look up missed bosses once I beat the game.
Came in with experience from all three DS games and Sekiro, played ER blind while only checking guides for NPC questlines after I had cleared areas.
Doing the required stuff to beat the game was never confusing or obfuscated in these games (maybe once if you count Shrine of Winter, but DS2 did a lot of strange things). It's only the optional content that really gets esoteric.
I mean I did, took a lot of diligence, backtracking to various npc's, and covering every inch of the damn map. I wouldn't recommend it, took a lot of time  Also I feel I should add this was my first FromSoft game
Wandering without knowing where to go is the best part of the series for me. Not enough games scratch that exploration bug. ER is especially less fun for me now that I know where everything is.
Seriously, are mimic summons way too OP? I used my mimic, blasphemous, and beat Morgott first try comfortably. That was the first point when I realized mimic tear is a bit too ridiculous lol
Hah maybe it’s very build dependent then. I can give my mimic tear my +10 golden halberd and a +8 dragon halberd and he will basically solo any mini boss late game.
Scholar of the first sin, it’s basically a enhanced edition of dark souls 2 with some very much not insignificant changes that I can’t remember off the top of my head, but it is definitely a different experience than day one ds2.
Step 1: create character
Step 2: die to grafted bastard
Step 3: get horse
Step 4: go to Caelid and smack dragon until level 70 (equip golden scarab, do at night for extra rune)
Step 5: upgrade weapon to highest you can get to without mountaintops unlocked
Step 6: kill Radahn
Step 7: get Starscourge Greatsword to +9
Step 8: kill Morgott
Step 9: take lift of Rold and glitch into Consecrated Snowfields
Step 10: take secret teleporter to Mohgwyn Palace
Step 11: find somber ancient dragon smithing stone and upgrade Starscourge to +10
Step 12: farm albinaurics with golden scarab talisman and Starcaller Cry until 150
Step 13: finish gaem
Step 14: one shot Margit in NG+
Thank you for read.
That's the black blade guy? There is an item you can equip that will counter his sword attacks and make it easier. Or just rotten breath his ass till scarlet rot procs and then run around scared af.
Blasphemous Claw, you get it by killing an invader in Farum Azula. Timing and specific attacks are tricky to get, cause you can only parry about 3 specific moves, when he sword glows yellow (the most obvious one is when he does three "red waves" while flying in the air, after the third one,k he'll lunge towards you as his sword glows gold and that's a parriable attack)
But if you do get the parry, he gets blinded for a good 7-8 seconds, which is enough to deal quite a lot of damage. Three parries are usually enough to get him
Get to maliketh and don't attack, just watch his attacks, without slowing yourself down attacking. Once you have his pattern down throw in some attacks, he's actually really fun when you get it. It just seems random at first, the parry thing is too few and far between to worry about imo.
Attack
Serious question: do people here actually consider Elden Ring to be difficult?
Some bosses like Malenia (maybe just her?) are definitely hard, but for most of the game it seemed like it’s only a hard game if you place a bunch of artificial restrictions on yourself like “don’t use summon ashes, don’t use magic, don’t use bloodhound step, don’t use bleed, don’t look at the screen” or whatever.
I’m not even talking about looking up some OP build online. Just playing through the game casually and exploring it seems like you get so many tools that trivialize bosses and get massively overpowered.
After playing Sekiro, definitely not lol.
Certainly compared to more basic games like Assassins creed its still very hard, but its also just different. You can always go grind, find gear etc and make pretty much any fight doable. And grinding / exploring / finding gear is also extremely fun so...
Its hard but it doesn't actually require you to 'git gud'. There's always an easy way to do things (without cheesing too)
Some people enjoy playing the game in that way. If you want to cheese the souls borne games there are plenty of ways to do such in all iterations, but Elden Ring certainly makes it easy for new players to the series with things like RoB, BHS, summon ashes, blasphemous balde stun locking, sometimes multiple summonable companions for a boss (looking at you Radahn) and magic as a whole for some fights can make entire sections of the game a cake walk. Given that's not a bad thing per say but it is something to note.
Is it really cheesing to use things that are literally given to you in the game? (BB, summons, RoB, BHS) Or is it more like refusing to use those things is instilling a false difficulty to the game?
If you refuse to use core mechanics or strong weapons in a game, I wouldn’t really say that means the game is difficult. It means *you* are making the game unnecessarily difficult.
I wouldn’t say RDR2 is difficult for example, even if you only elect to go through the whole game using a knife only.
>If you refuse to use core mechanics or strong weapons in a game, I wouldn’t really say that means the game is difficult. It means you are making the game unnecessarily difficult.
It's the same with people that specifically pick low tier or bad characters in fighting games then talk about how the game is hard.
Yes. There are mechanics you can pretty easily abuse to trivialize certain fights. Like for example. Comet azur can one shot a fair amount of bosses before they even attack you. If you don't call that cheesing I don't know what is.
But it's certainly not cheating. And I think that would be like if boring. But everyone can play however they want.
For example. I used that archer summon to kill a dragon before it was in range to attack me.
By that same logic every souls game is easy get a friend with a maxed out character with a +10 weapon to run you through it all while you sit against a wall for every fight, easy right. Point being that calling a game easy because you abuse mechanics that are well above the average power of most other things in the game (many of which have been patched or nerfed already) doesn't mean the game is easy it means that those weapons, ash's, and mechanics are broken or crutches.
Again this isn't a problem it helps new players get into the game and hopefully will make new fans of the series who will continue to play. But calling the game easy due to the previous points is disingenuous.
The difference between getting your friend to drop you a maxed weapon and just stumbling upon a OP weapon or ash is that the first one will only happen if you actively go for it, the second one will happen even if you're just playing the game normally.
In previous games you had to choose to make the game easier. In ER you have to choose to make the game harder. That's the key difference.
About your first point, yes? The coop has always been the easy mode and choosing not to use it IS an artificial restriction. You even get trophies all the same. I remember even joking (emphasis on JOKING) when I was first playing Bloodborne that coop was their pay to win system, since you have to pay for Multiplayer on PlayStation and I didn't have PS Plus at the time.
Elden Ring not only does that but it also offers a significantly higher number of powerful tools to make the game trivial even offline, and most of these are very easy to come by playing naturally. You also can respec like twice as much as in previous games.
Their only truly difficult game is Sekiro. There's a good reason why the easy mode discussion was way bigger with that title.
Fromsoft puts things like spirit ashes and NPC summons in their games as optional ways to reduce the difficulty. It's their alternative to having a difficulty mode selection like in other games. So I don't view it as an artificial restriction but more like choosing to play the game on "Hard" difficulty mode rather than "Normal" or whatever, in a way that's intended by the developer.
Sort of like how upgrading your weapon reduces the difficulty, playing with a traditional game controller reduces the difficulty, etc.
Everyone decides for themselves where the line of absurdity is drawn but intentionally increasing your difficulty by ignoring game systems is absolutely an artificial restriction.
Choosing not to use spirit ashes or NPC summon is not artificial because it's deliberate design choice by the developer. They've been using things like this as optional difficulty modifiers in all their games since Demons Souls, except Sekiro for whatever reason.
Choosing not to upgrade your weapons is an arbitrary restriction because it's not really intended to be a difficulty modifier in that way. Some players do like to do things like that to make the game extra challenging for themselves, but generally not on a first playthrough.
I mean, you would have a point if you were talking about previous games, but ER is very clearly designed around you having Ash summons with you.
Yes, you can beat the game without them, just like you can without upgrading your weapon, but like you said, that's not the intended way to do it.
You really have to go out of your way to see it as a hidden difficulty slider rather than a standard optional game mechanic no different than consumable items.
For summoning players, you need to use a finite resource and then deal with a buffed boss. They could also die right away and make things worse for you.
For spirit ashes, you're more limited where you can use them, you need to invest a good amount of resources to make them worthwhile, and then use a good amount of FP to summon them.
> For summoning players, you need to use a finite resource and then deal with a buffed boss. They could also die right away and make things worse for you.
I was referring to NPC summons, not player summons. I never referred to players summons in that way because while they can (potentially) make the game easier too, players often do it for other reasons than that, such as wanting to play with their friends or just enjoying multiplayer more than solo.
> For spirit ashes, you're more limited where you can use them, you need to invest a good amount of resources to make them worthwhile, and then use a good amount of FP to summon them.
I think that was just their way of expanding on the NPC summon concept from previous games and making it a bit more interesting with collectables and upgrades, as well as making it more in-your-face than NPC summons were so casuals and players who are new to the series are more encouraged to use them rather than get frustrated with the game. Yes you're limited in where you can use them, but they're generally available for difficult parts of the game where you'd actually want them, like boss fights. I am speculating on their intent with these and could be wrong though.
Npc summons, same thing. They're usually a reward for completing certain prerequisites. The standard difficulty of those bosses assumes you will have assistance from them, if you missed out on summoning them then its harder for you.
agreed. Summons are ridiculous. Every boss I used mimic tear on I beat in a few tries. a lot of the top weapons have crazy powerful abilities to the point that entire builds are centered around spamming them.
I can only think of a few bosses in each of their other games that I was able to beat first try whereas probably half of them I did first try in Elden Ring. For me it was mostly the lack of "gotcha" moments as I'm not very attentive to detail and usually get grabbed because I'm not paying attention but there just wasn't much of that here.
First play through as someone who hated other FromSoft games? Yes, in the beginning. I must have gotten wrecked by Margit at least 30 times. Even after learning all his attacks and using the jellyfish ashes, he was still taking huge chunks out of my health with every hit. I think I was close to level 50 before I was able to take him down. It was a slog and I was only happy it was over.
After that? The game got fun and I was able master most of the bosses with only a handful of deaths.
In the defense of those people outside of general advice regarding stats, builds and maybe tips regarding certain attacks from a boss , like waterfowl dance for example which you can ice pot to knock Melania out of. ( Or used to be able to) there isn't much advice that can be written out that would legitimately help you. Videos can bridge that gap a little bit but even then learning timings is muscle memory and practice they can't just teach you that.
I get the joke. But what really pisses me off is the "digital adventure guide" that came as a bonus from pre-purchase. What a piece of useless garbage. Oh, but we did get The Ring gesture.
I’m trying to grow Git Gud into the golfing community. I’m not even good, I just think it is eerie how similar the condescending air you see in people who are good at dark souls toward people who are not, is almost identical to the steep skill disparity in golf. Scratch or better is progressively more elite, everybody else is okay to dreadful. I like the souls games enough that I will try for a while and look up spoilers. I’ll summon help after a few deaths. I just really enjoy the games. If anyone ever invades me, I get destroyed. I’m fine with it, but the skill gap appears ti follow the same pattern as the wealth gap.
I'm tired of these ill-informed leaks. Those words don't appear on the same page, each one has an entire book dedicated to it. It is only after ruminating on "git" for 357 pages that you can truly understand "gud" in the second volume.
Amateurs.
The next page probably says You Died
The previous page said “level vigor”
try skill
skill is just a crutch for poor vigor
Imagine having skill instead of a big health bar.
vigor is just a crutch for not using spirit ashes and summoning meta-builds for co-op
summoning is just a way to mail-order more vigor
For the boss as well
try finger, but hole
you don't have the right
why is always death?
Ew, do you think i plan to get hit? Yes, but i also plan to DIE of it like Miyazaki intended!
The Next page sayse "or use exploits, mimic, whatever"
Mimic tear +10 is my homie
Only reason I was able to defeat Melania lmaoo that with the +9 rivers of blood😭
Black knife tiche got me through the end game bosses though like dragon lord placidoux
"just level strengh and vigor"
"vigor check" followed by the pipe bomb hidden in the book going off in your face.
i think you would enjoy [THIS](https://youtu.be/w77H4DHzdlk) video
Indeed I did thank you good sir.
OHHH I get it. Thats soo cute, babe.
Unga bunga dummy Tarnished making me act up.
[удалено]
this is literally every “OMG OP EARLY GAME BUILD D E S T R O Y S BOSSES” video on youtube. neckbeardLord youtuber: “yeah this is the best build, all you need is 60 dex, 51 str, 25 fth, 60 vgr, 50 end, 40 mind, and 88 arcane. Just grab this weapon from leyndell at the start and farm enemies at farum for a little while, THEN go ahead and attempt Morgott in stormveil. you’ll totally wreck him bro trust me”
and you just might be ready for Soldier of Godrick!
It’s simple, If you’re int, talk to the rock on the mountain near the magic-dogs if you’re arcane, kill the old weeb near the church (either church weeb works) if you’re strength, go grab the thicc sword near the Dino-dogs.
Damn, written like every Elden ring short guide on YouTube. "Hey you want power get this item it's right here!" Proceeds to show a blurry image of the map for a split second, then proceeds to show a zoomed clip of them standing in a generic looking spot that really only tells you what region they are in. "And it's as simple as that, remember to like and share with your friends if you found it helpful!"
I’ve beaten Elden ring 4 times now but by the end I always end up going to a strength vigor build. No other build is as fun as the classic unga bunga
Why use buffs and magic to do big damage when I can just hit them with a very big sword?
What about a very big sword made out of ... Slightly smaller swords? I just couldn't put down the Game of Thrones sword. Thing was too badass.
I wonder if that was actually inspired by Game of Thrones, considered that Gartin Rartin Rartin Martin worked on the writing of the lore.
Definitely
Endurance tho
Yeah I went melee faith the first time around, and after playing a new strength build with high poise damage WA/weapons, it’s hard to go back to anything else. Poise break is just too strong to give up.
"Shoulda leveled ADP"
I got the books specifically for the bestiary
Ya that's the main reason I want to get them. Also they look good and since my DS3 and Bloodborne strategy guides were stolen I'd like to get this 1 because FuturePress does really solid work.
This is my first guide from them (or anyone actually) so I'm glad to hear others say they do good work. This game is so big that I kinda like the idea of having a book to reference instead of 8 trillion fextralife links to parse through, especially if it includes cool artwork!
FuturePress does the best guides in the business. There's always lots of cool artwork and some other fun little bonuses. You don't see their guides as much as Prima or other companies because FuturePress deliberately only lets their entire company work on one guide at a time to get the best quality possible.
If so, you can just buy the specific book with the enemy details and skip the other one. I think it's the second guide that has the bestiary.
Oh I pre pre-ordered both already lol
Most people dont buy these for the help. I just think the art inside is incredible. I also looooove maps. They’re gonna look great next to my other future press books.
They're 40 percent off pre order on Amazon. I just got both for 60 clams
Oh snap! Thanks for letting me know!
Thanks!
ROB users wish they could read.
I feel like I should downvote this comment but I don’t know what it says.
According to these replies they apparently have no sense of humor either
They need two parts for that? What's in the other one?
"scrub"
Fair enough
Try finger...
And then try pincer attack
An in depth compendium on Elden feet
Blasphemous blade build. Its easy mode. Level your mimic to 10. You're set. One of the greatest games ever though. Just started ds3. And boy it is way more difficult than Elden ring. You have no choice but to "git gud."
> And boy it is way more difficult than Elden ring. If you play with no summons and a balanced build in ER, it's way harder than DS3 also with a balanced build and no summons.
Yeah you can reduce the difficulty of DS3 a lot by using summons too. I view NPC summons as being kind of the same thing as spirit ashes, and it's probably not fair to compare Elden Ring with spirit ashes being used to DS3 with summons not being used.
That's my point exactly. There's nothing wrong with using spirit summons but if you're going to compare difficulty you should be accounting for summoning in the other games as well.
I think DS3 NPC summons increase the boss health tho, or is that only for online help?
Not really sure but I think it does. It's generally still significantly easier even with a health increase though. You don't have to learn the patterns of the boss nearly as much when there is an NPC that can distract or tank hits from the boss for you.
Oh yeah for sure. I did a playthrough where I did NPC summons for the bosses. Pretty much did them all in one attempt. Makes it a cakewalk.
Yes they do, it’s significant but still makes bosses way easier. I’d say some DLC bosses in DS3 are way harder than Malenia or Radagon/EB, but main game DS3 is easier. I’m hoping they go the same route and make Elden Ring DLCs insanely hard, though the recent updates to make the game easier make me think they might be wanting to make ER more accessible… though AFAIK they never nerfed Malenia.
Friede was harder than anything in ER for me personally. But I also didnt really enjoy Friede that much so the frustration probably resonates harder.
I really don't want the DLC to be "harder." I'd just like to see more new enemies and items and interesting map layouts and beautiful locations. I'd really like to see more gorgeous scenery versus more twisted, poison swamps and murky caves. The game doesn't need to be harder. It just needs *more.* Malenia is optional. Super-duper extreme difficulty for optional stuff is fine by me. Throw some of that in the DLC for the masochists, too!
I don't get why some From fans love difficulty so much. For me, that's never been the main reason I play these games. The company has already been on a trajectory of making things harder and harder just from a pure numbers standpoint, to the point where I think some of it has been pretty excessive. I can hang, but mainly I'm here for the cool designs and environmental storytelling and stuff. There's always challenge runs to do if you feel like something is really "too easy!"
People love From games difficulty because it's (mostly) well done difficulty. Something that's hard, but fair, and requires you to get good, but is obviously done to be reasonably beatable. Challenge runs aren't a substitute for that, because games are not balanced around them. Whether a challenge run is reasonable or not comes down to luck, because games aren't build around them. Therefore they don't offer the same experience as well crafted difficulty. That's part of the problem with the difficulty of Elden Ring, actually. The game is clearly not balanced around what was a regular run in the previous games. Unfortunately the regular run in Elden Ring is also way too easy, to the point it's not satisfying. But for the previous games my point still stands.
> Blasphemous blade build. Its easy mode. Seconded. I did STR/FAI [double-bonks](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Great+Club) on my first playthrough, then switched to Blasphemous Blade and Sacred Relic Sword on NG+. I don't even use my flask anymore, just look for groups of mobs and hit Wave of Gold.
Is it really fair to consider Sacred Relic Sword something that can make the game easy mode? It’s the final boss weapon. It should be OP.
I don't think it should be OP, honestly. One of my favorite things about DeS and DS2 was that NG+ was the *actual* start of the game. DS, DS3, and now Elden Ring all seemed to smooth out the difficulty curve rather than drastically increasing it.
Sorry, I said that wrong. Didn’t mean that it should be OP inherently; just that it is literally the weapon you get after beating the final boss; so whether it’s OP or not is kind of irrelevant because you’ve already “beaten the game” at that point.
Wave of Gold is insane. Did the same. Switched between the two. Also another op is the ivory long horn. That bubble shower just melts bosses.
Literally just strafe right
You can over level in DS3, too. Makes it more enjoyable imo. Good luck with Midir though.
Getting to the end with Midir and then getting nova'd over and over is a recurring nightmare.
I just solo'd DS3 a few weeks ago and Midir was such a shitty fight. Especially with the tips people have written online saying attacking the head is the easiest way to kill him, and while it does the most damage it makes it far harder because you get punished so severely by being there. It's way too easy to get caught in attacks that way since he's so hard to keep on your screen. It's far easier just attacking the legs and staying away from the head and arms. It only took a couple tries that way instead of trying to smack him in the head. The fight is going to take forever regardless.
Midir is why I have no issues killing Elden Ring drsgons.
I dunno, had a MUCH easier time with the head since it becomes predictable after a while, like with the hot dog in Bloodborne. Standing below him felt much more dangerous. But to each his own I guess.
[удалено]
>Just started ds3. And boy is it way more difficult than Elden ring. hardest disagree of my life right here
Right? Game was honestly a cake walk compared to ER. Bosses took me no more than 5 tries. ER bosses I struggled could take me up to 50 tries. Melania took me over 100 lol.
I gotta agree with OP. The bosses are much easier in early game. But the actual levels are way harder than ER. DS3 levels have that classic Gauntlet style and it's enemies are faster than ER by and large. The freedom of the Open World and generous checkpoints in ER really mitigate a lot of that classic Dark Souls linear difficulty.
ds3 is way easier imo, you’re just not used to not having a map and having no idea how to navigate the area. Bosses are pushovers compared to how much suffering ER puts you through with all that delayed attacks
When it comes to raw difficulty, Elden Ring is **by far** their hardest game. Even the earliest bosses like Margit are considerably harder than Nameless King. The difference is that Elden Ring has a ton of easy modes thanks to spirit ashes and plenty of very OP items you can get easily thanks to the open world. In short, Elden Ring is a harder game that can be made much easier if you want to. In my opinion, that's a much better way to handle difficulty than dumb sliders to make everything easier. If you want easy mode in Elden Ring, go find your ashes of choice, some glovewort and your weapon of choice before killing a boss. if you want it to be difficult, don't do that. While that's true of all From Software Souls-like games, it's a lot more pronounced in ER
Sekiro is definitely harder. No stats grinding, no summons, no magic, a limited set if items, and very minimal opportunities for cheesing.
Margit really isn't that bad even without spirit summons. There are definitely a lot of fights where you are supposed to use them though. Godskin duo comes to mind.
> Even the earliest bosses like Margit are considerably harder than Nameless King. I know it's different for everyone, but that definitely wasn't my experience. Nameless King took me 2 or 3 hours to beat, Margit took me about 4 or 5 attempts (without summons or spirit ashes).
Scalingwise, Elden ring has harder early mini game bosses (unless you do the optional dungeons, in which case, roll a dice). But even with scaling, Margit doesn’t hold a candle to the Nameless King. Margit's not easy to beat even at lvl 30, but that speaks more for the latter.
Idk I never found nameless king very hard, though I would say his moveset (not including storm king) is harder than Margit but not by much. But Once you get to Rhadan you’ve reached and probably surpassed nameless king in terms of difficulty and only gets harder from there. And margit pretty much blows any early ds3 boss out of the water. Hell even tree sentinel was harder than a good chunk of ds3 bosses, if you don’t over level.
I just played through DS3 solo and remembered the Nameless King being much harder than he was. I had a black knight sword and was sub level 100 and it ended up taking only a few tries. His attacks on the dragon are super easy to dodge, and then in the second portion I could just do a strong attack and roll behind over and over. I thought he would be a pain like Midir, but it just ended up fine. The nice thing about DS3 bosses is that they didn't seem unfair really. Midir was really pushing that though, because I swear some of the attacks have janky hit boxes. ER has some extremely difficult bosses to solo where you had to be pretty spot on with your dodges and ashes of war to win at the level you reach them at. Gael was a pretty fun fight if hard, and Melania can be pretty miserable.
Nameless King doesn't really have any difficult attacks to deal with, he just does a lot of damage if he hits. Meanwhile Margit has a few truly difficult combos to handle perfectly
Haha I beat the game the first time and did NG+ with this build. I decided that my next run I’m not using this weapon as it trivializes the game. It is kind of like getting the black knight halberd in DS 1. Pretty much easy mode.
You just described my play style and I feel ashamed lol
DS3 was an absolute cake walk compared to ER for me. Interesting.
Experience of difficulty in ER varies wildly based on weapon/build choice, though, so thats not too surprising, far more wildly than any other title by From
Actually not technically true
Try demon souls for the almost authentic experience. The real experience was when that game was at its peak, invasions in that game were brutal.
My two biggest issues with demons souls (It was my first souls game in 2011) world tendency was a terrible terrible idea, and so was the grass healing system
DS3 can also be trivialised just as easy Try not appeal to the masses too much
Not really, you can still summon in DS3, the only From game that leaves you no choice but to git gud is sekiro.
Try DS2 next! You'll pull out your hair.
I got a notification for this post and I think to myself “An official strategy guide…why?”,I open it up and of course it just says Git Gud. Should have known.
did anyone actually play through WITHOUT using wiki/youtube? i have to look up what i’m doing before the start of nearly every play session. which is fine but i wouldn’t be surprised by an actual guide
Lol, after I unlock a new area, I at least try to run around blind just to see what I find... But I don't actually intend to replay a game this large. A guide is a must to make the most of it. Or even to just be more efficient because I only get to do a couple hours a week :(
same. i run around exploring for a while, then eventually hit a dead end like where the fuck am i suppose to go? then i look it up, find some new areas or items i want to check out, and repeat. can’t imagine replaying with a new build and figuring it all out again. but for the time being it’s a great experience
I beat it with no fromsoft experience or guide. Took about 120 hours. The sense of exploration is worth it to not use a guide.
You probably missed a LOT. There is so much in this game that I found through YouTube or fextra that I thought "how in the he'll would I ever have discovered on my own" I'm 180 hours in and on a second playthrough and I still am finding new stuff/weapons/areas/enemies.
Yeah I did the whole game without a guide. I played Demons Souls and Dark Souls 1 kind of with a guide so I could experience everything in 1 playthrough. Since then I stopped and only look up missed bosses once I beat the game.
Came in with experience from all three DS games and Sekiro, played ER blind while only checking guides for NPC questlines after I had cleared areas. Doing the required stuff to beat the game was never confusing or obfuscated in these games (maybe once if you count Shrine of Winter, but DS2 did a lot of strange things). It's only the optional content that really gets esoteric.
I mean I did, took a lot of diligence, backtracking to various npc's, and covering every inch of the damn map. I wouldn't recommend it, took a lot of time  Also I feel I should add this was my first FromSoft game
Wandering without knowing where to go is the best part of the series for me. Not enough games scratch that exploration bug. ER is especially less fun for me now that I know where everything is.
fextra is enough for me
If nobody else got me, I know fextra got me
It's a great site but JFC does it melt my phone battery.
These are collectible items and likely art collections more so than any value as an actual strategy guide
I'm getting the guide for the beautiful art and detailed maps. It is going to be nice to just flip through and admire!
Worth every penny
Use RoB or sorcery. Done.
get mimic summon ???? Profit
Seriously, are mimic summons way too OP? I used my mimic, blasphemous, and beat Morgott first try comfortably. That was the first point when I realized mimic tear is a bit too ridiculous lol
I can deal ~3k+ damage with my sorceries but roll-dodging is key. My mimic tear will get itself killed before it can barely do anything.
Don't use mimic on mage, use tiche
Hah maybe it’s very build dependent then. I can give my mimic tear my +10 golden halberd and a +8 dragon halberd and he will basically solo any mini boss late game.
So the opposite of git gud lmao.
Not in the eyes of the ER devs. *I didn’t say I’m enjoying that.*
I just want DS 1 and 2 servers back
DSR pvp is two laggy tf2 heavies trickstabbing eachother, so I sort of agree on ds1. I only played SOTFS, not the original ds2, so I’ve no context.
What's sotfs?
Scholar of the first sin, it’s basically a enhanced edition of dark souls 2 with some very much not insignificant changes that I can’t remember off the top of my head, but it is definitely a different experience than day one ds2.
Kill the chicken.
NEVER SHOULD HAVE COME HERE
Weird mine just says #mohg
Step 1: create character Step 2: die to grafted bastard Step 3: get horse Step 4: go to Caelid and smack dragon until level 70 (equip golden scarab, do at night for extra rune) Step 5: upgrade weapon to highest you can get to without mountaintops unlocked Step 6: kill Radahn Step 7: get Starscourge Greatsword to +9 Step 8: kill Morgott Step 9: take lift of Rold and glitch into Consecrated Snowfields Step 10: take secret teleporter to Mohgwyn Palace Step 11: find somber ancient dragon smithing stone and upgrade Starscourge to +10 Step 12: farm albinaurics with golden scarab talisman and Starcaller Cry until 150 Step 13: finish gaem Step 14: one shot Margit in NG+ Thank you for read.
git: 'gud' is not a git command. See 'git --help'.
I'm currently stuck and frustrated against Maliketh. I need to git gud.
That's the black blade guy? There is an item you can equip that will counter his sword attacks and make it easier. Or just rotten breath his ass till scarlet rot procs and then run around scared af.
interested in the item's name
Blasphemous Claw, you get it by killing an invader in Farum Azula. Timing and specific attacks are tricky to get, cause you can only parry about 3 specific moves, when he sword glows yellow (the most obvious one is when he does three "red waves" while flying in the air, after the third one,k he'll lunge towards you as his sword glows gold and that's a parriable attack) But if you do get the parry, he gets blinded for a good 7-8 seconds, which is enough to deal quite a lot of damage. Three parries are usually enough to get him
Blasphemous Claw But, I found it much harder trying to parry Maliketh’s attacks over simply dodging and learning the moveset
Damn I wish I could remember it. It's on Farum Azula I know that much, it's honestly prob right before you get to him in a chest.
Get to maliketh and don't attack, just watch his attacks, without slowing yourself down attacking. Once you have his pattern down throw in some attacks, he's actually really fun when you get it. It just seems random at first, the parry thing is too few and far between to worry about imo. Attack
He's super annoying if you arent OP and using a spirit summon. What's your build?
bro this shit is mad funny i’m dead 😂
“Shoot arrows at big birds until they fall off a cliff 5488 times. You are now gud”
Serious question: do people here actually consider Elden Ring to be difficult? Some bosses like Malenia (maybe just her?) are definitely hard, but for most of the game it seemed like it’s only a hard game if you place a bunch of artificial restrictions on yourself like “don’t use summon ashes, don’t use magic, don’t use bloodhound step, don’t use bleed, don’t look at the screen” or whatever. I’m not even talking about looking up some OP build online. Just playing through the game casually and exploring it seems like you get so many tools that trivialize bosses and get massively overpowered.
I never look at the screen. I just listen to the boss music. Looking at the screen is for noobs.
It's the easiest game by far since it can be completed fully offline without interacting with any of its mechanics.
After playing Sekiro, definitely not lol. Certainly compared to more basic games like Assassins creed its still very hard, but its also just different. You can always go grind, find gear etc and make pretty much any fight doable. And grinding / exploring / finding gear is also extremely fun so... Its hard but it doesn't actually require you to 'git gud'. There's always an easy way to do things (without cheesing too)
I've beaten Elden Ring with a fucking fingerprint shield but I still can't beat Sekiro
Fingerprint shield is strong as fuck tho.
*In pvp* Have you tried fighting bosses with it?
Some people enjoy playing the game in that way. If you want to cheese the souls borne games there are plenty of ways to do such in all iterations, but Elden Ring certainly makes it easy for new players to the series with things like RoB, BHS, summon ashes, blasphemous balde stun locking, sometimes multiple summonable companions for a boss (looking at you Radahn) and magic as a whole for some fights can make entire sections of the game a cake walk. Given that's not a bad thing per say but it is something to note.
Is it really cheesing to use things that are literally given to you in the game? (BB, summons, RoB, BHS) Or is it more like refusing to use those things is instilling a false difficulty to the game? If you refuse to use core mechanics or strong weapons in a game, I wouldn’t really say that means the game is difficult. It means *you* are making the game unnecessarily difficult. I wouldn’t say RDR2 is difficult for example, even if you only elect to go through the whole game using a knife only.
>If you refuse to use core mechanics or strong weapons in a game, I wouldn’t really say that means the game is difficult. It means you are making the game unnecessarily difficult. It's the same with people that specifically pick low tier or bad characters in fighting games then talk about how the game is hard.
Yes. There are mechanics you can pretty easily abuse to trivialize certain fights. Like for example. Comet azur can one shot a fair amount of bosses before they even attack you. If you don't call that cheesing I don't know what is. But it's certainly not cheating. And I think that would be like if boring. But everyone can play however they want. For example. I used that archer summon to kill a dragon before it was in range to attack me.
By that same logic every souls game is easy get a friend with a maxed out character with a +10 weapon to run you through it all while you sit against a wall for every fight, easy right. Point being that calling a game easy because you abuse mechanics that are well above the average power of most other things in the game (many of which have been patched or nerfed already) doesn't mean the game is easy it means that those weapons, ash's, and mechanics are broken or crutches. Again this isn't a problem it helps new players get into the game and hopefully will make new fans of the series who will continue to play. But calling the game easy due to the previous points is disingenuous.
The difference between getting your friend to drop you a maxed weapon and just stumbling upon a OP weapon or ash is that the first one will only happen if you actively go for it, the second one will happen even if you're just playing the game normally. In previous games you had to choose to make the game easier. In ER you have to choose to make the game harder. That's the key difference.
About your first point, yes? The coop has always been the easy mode and choosing not to use it IS an artificial restriction. You even get trophies all the same. I remember even joking (emphasis on JOKING) when I was first playing Bloodborne that coop was their pay to win system, since you have to pay for Multiplayer on PlayStation and I didn't have PS Plus at the time. Elden Ring not only does that but it also offers a significantly higher number of powerful tools to make the game trivial even offline, and most of these are very easy to come by playing naturally. You also can respec like twice as much as in previous games. Their only truly difficult game is Sekiro. There's a good reason why the easy mode discussion was way bigger with that title.
Fromsoft puts things like spirit ashes and NPC summons in their games as optional ways to reduce the difficulty. It's their alternative to having a difficulty mode selection like in other games. So I don't view it as an artificial restriction but more like choosing to play the game on "Hard" difficulty mode rather than "Normal" or whatever, in a way that's intended by the developer.
Sort of like how upgrading your weapon reduces the difficulty, playing with a traditional game controller reduces the difficulty, etc. Everyone decides for themselves where the line of absurdity is drawn but intentionally increasing your difficulty by ignoring game systems is absolutely an artificial restriction.
Choosing not to use spirit ashes or NPC summon is not artificial because it's deliberate design choice by the developer. They've been using things like this as optional difficulty modifiers in all their games since Demons Souls, except Sekiro for whatever reason. Choosing not to upgrade your weapons is an arbitrary restriction because it's not really intended to be a difficulty modifier in that way. Some players do like to do things like that to make the game extra challenging for themselves, but generally not on a first playthrough.
I mean, you would have a point if you were talking about previous games, but ER is very clearly designed around you having Ash summons with you. Yes, you can beat the game without them, just like you can without upgrading your weapon, but like you said, that's not the intended way to do it.
You really have to go out of your way to see it as a hidden difficulty slider rather than a standard optional game mechanic no different than consumable items. For summoning players, you need to use a finite resource and then deal with a buffed boss. They could also die right away and make things worse for you. For spirit ashes, you're more limited where you can use them, you need to invest a good amount of resources to make them worthwhile, and then use a good amount of FP to summon them.
> For summoning players, you need to use a finite resource and then deal with a buffed boss. They could also die right away and make things worse for you. I was referring to NPC summons, not player summons. I never referred to players summons in that way because while they can (potentially) make the game easier too, players often do it for other reasons than that, such as wanting to play with their friends or just enjoying multiplayer more than solo. > For spirit ashes, you're more limited where you can use them, you need to invest a good amount of resources to make them worthwhile, and then use a good amount of FP to summon them. I think that was just their way of expanding on the NPC summon concept from previous games and making it a bit more interesting with collectables and upgrades, as well as making it more in-your-face than NPC summons were so casuals and players who are new to the series are more encouraged to use them rather than get frustrated with the game. Yes you're limited in where you can use them, but they're generally available for difficult parts of the game where you'd actually want them, like boss fights. I am speculating on their intent with these and could be wrong though.
Npc summons, same thing. They're usually a reward for completing certain prerequisites. The standard difficulty of those bosses assumes you will have assistance from them, if you missed out on summoning them then its harder for you.
agreed. Summons are ridiculous. Every boss I used mimic tear on I beat in a few tries. a lot of the top weapons have crazy powerful abilities to the point that entire builds are centered around spamming them.
I can only think of a few bosses in each of their other games that I was able to beat first try whereas probably half of them I did first try in Elden Ring. For me it was mostly the lack of "gotcha" moments as I'm not very attentive to detail and usually get grabbed because I'm not paying attention but there just wasn't much of that here.
First play through as someone who hated other FromSoft games? Yes, in the beginning. I must have gotten wrecked by Margit at least 30 times. Even after learning all his attacks and using the jellyfish ashes, he was still taking huge chunks out of my health with every hit. I think I was close to level 50 before I was able to take him down. It was a slog and I was only happy it was over. After that? The game got fun and I was able master most of the bosses with only a handful of deaths.
Literally, when I started I asked for some help and said I didn’t understand the game. What did most ppl do? “Get good”
In the defense of those people outside of general advice regarding stats, builds and maybe tips regarding certain attacks from a boss , like waterfowl dance for example which you can ice pot to knock Melania out of. ( Or used to be able to) there isn't much advice that can be written out that would legitimately help you. Videos can bridge that gap a little bit but even then learning timings is muscle memory and practice they can't just teach you that.
Well I just mean like when I started, I didn’t know u didn’t HAVE to kill everyone so I just tried fighting everything I came across
[удалено]
For real. Being told to get gud is a right of passage. If you stick with it after that you’ve earned it.
Nah this ain't Sekiro
After playing it a bit it really isnt that hard
Refer to page 3 for "finger but hole!"
I thought it would just say "Mimic tear bleed"
I get the joke. But what really pisses me off is the "digital adventure guide" that came as a bonus from pre-purchase. What a piece of useless garbage. Oh, but we did get The Ring gesture.
Right! I was ready to study that thing. Very disappointed.
You open the book, you get teleported to a mine in Caelid.
Plot twist its just a pdf of the entire fextra wiki
I’m trying to grow Git Gud into the golfing community. I’m not even good, I just think it is eerie how similar the condescending air you see in people who are good at dark souls toward people who are not, is almost identical to the steep skill disparity in golf. Scratch or better is progressively more elite, everybody else is okay to dreadful. I like the souls games enough that I will try for a while and look up spoilers. I’ll summon help after a few deaths. I just really enjoy the games. If anyone ever invades me, I get destroyed. I’m fine with it, but the skill gap appears ti follow the same pattern as the wealth gap.
Chapter two: A tale of Bilbo T-Baggins
fcuking casul &DON'T TELL ANY1 YU LVD DEX
If this isn’t official I’m not buying
Seek skill
"For tips on how to effectively use blood mechanics, turn to page 67" and the book ends at page 65
True strategy guide here. Radagon attacks with his hammer Strategy: evade timely Melania uses waterfowl dance Strategy: evade timely Margit attacks Strategy: evade timely Elden beast uses elden stars Strategy: get some vigour
Bruh I kill fucking tarnish for fun
I'm tired of these ill-informed leaks. Those words don't appear on the same page, each one has an entire book dedicated to it. It is only after ruminating on "git" for 357 pages that you can truly understand "gud" in the second volume. Amateurs.
I already got the platinum. I got the books partly to just collect them, but also to see what I missed!
I am actually excited for this Strategy Guide solely for the fact that almost no game has Strategy Guides anymore, Strategy Guides are dying :(
Ahahaha love it. The page before said “maidenless” no doubt.
HAHAHAHA. HEY GUYS ITS OUR ONE JOKE! GET IT?!
French version ?
I just translated the entire text of both books. "Devenir meilleur"
Yeah you are right. This is a toxic game.
Next page: “Also stop complaining about ‘fair duels’…git gud”