Elden Ring

[DisturbedSwan]

18 hours ago, Maf said:

 

😆 Yeah, doesn't sound like a great holiday destination

 

I got past this by just spamming the cure blood clot spell every 10 seconds. Like @radiofloyd I beat Astel without the ring of Oath. I've never heard of a Dark Moon Ring. That's news to me. 

 

From what I've read I didn't know you could even fight that boss without the Ring. 

Also, I'll put this in spoilers for those that don't want to know about the ring and it's origin:

Spoiler

Dark Moon Ring is the 'ring of oath', it's found in a chest next to Rennala in Raya Lucaria

 

[Maf]

Ah, I see. I can't open the chest, that's the problem 

[DisturbedSwan]

1 hour ago, Maf said:

Ah, I see. I can't open the chest, that's the problem 

 

If you want to know:

Spoiler

You need a key found on a mini-boss in the Nokstella Underground City to open it.

 

[OCH]

The Red Mage world tour continues...

 

Got through a couple of catacombs and finally made some progress with Death Mountain (I missed a very obvious ladder). Fought some Eel/Dragon/Thing where I expected a Tree Guardian. Which was surprisingly easier than a Tree Guardian. Ultimately ended the session at a village filled with happy, dancing women and ruled by Stretch Armstrong. Suffice to say, they're all dead now. Sleep + Ice is a lethal combination to most things in this game.

[OCH]

Draconic Tree Sentinel is DEAD!

 

Finally! Haven't had so much trouble with a boss since Marge. I tried to be clever with it. But the trick to the horse bosses is just to wail on them on their blind/shield side. Luckily my secondary Summon was a great distraction for his aggro. Next session, I'll see what the inner city has to offer.

[radiofloyd]

Progress update.

 

Spoiler

I explored Deeproot Depths up and down but couldn’t find anything of interest other than one boss fight which opened up a portal which led to Leyendell. Oh and one other simple mini-boss fight against a knight.
 

Anyway, not having the Ring of Oath, I think that’s me done with the underground for now. I decided to tackle Greyoll’s Dragonbarren next since I’ve done some of this area already.

 

I went to the Divine Tower of Caelid, activated Radahn’s rune at the top, then went down to the basement to fight a boss called the Godskin Apostle, he dropped a cool sword and a lot of souls. Brought me to level 101.

 

Currently using the Golden Halberd +9. I need a Somber Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone to upgrade it to +10. I also upgraded my Mimic Tear Ashes to +10.

 

[OCH]

A couple of minor boss fights today. They did the old Fromsoft trick with a surprise tree guardian, in the inner city. Except it didn't trigger a boss fight? These things being a regular enemy isn't a fun proposition. However, I was able to cheese this one through a doorway it couldn't fit through. A very satisfying amount of runes for my trouble too.

 

Back to Caelid, I found the Dragon on the bridge I recalled from before. That was the second easiest haul of runes I picked up today. These things melt with magic-based weapons. Continued to explore Caelid. Ran into one of these giant Crows that really pack a punch. It took a lot to kill one. For the rune reward, absolutely not worth the effort. Found a ruin on my wanderings with some of the pumpkin knights as a boss. They didn't last long. 

As an aside I found a portal in the Caelid underground river, that I didn't notice before. Which led to another Dragonkin boss and a very useful reward behind it. I think this area is clear now?

I'm told there is an Evergaol and Dragon church in Caelid. But this place is so miserable to explore, I think I'll just look it up and make a run directly there. Other than that, I'd say I'm done with Caelid. Curiosity sated. Back to the inner city next session. 

[radiofloyd]

Did a lot in Caelid and got my level up to 109 after 94 hours.

 

Spoiler

Beat a string of mini-bosses in Greyoll’s Dragonbarren. The gargoyle guarding the beast cleric, the dragon on the bridge, the Erdtree spirit, the Night Cavalry, the Evergaol boss. Cleared out a cave where a giant bear was guarding a talisman that boosts your poise by 20. Also beat the humongous dragon lying on the ground by whacking him for a few minutes. And probably a couple of other things I’ve forgotten. All these got me nearly 10 extra levels.

 

Also went back and beat the crystaline trio in Selia’s cave, they only dropped a sorcery though. I seemed to have reached the soft level cap for vigour, increasing vigour to 41 only gives 25 extra health, a 50% drop.

 

Also bought a bunch of dragon communion spells because why not, I have 10 dragon hearts and I haven’t used them for anything. I’m gonna have fun testing them out.

 

That seems to be Greyoll’s Dragonbarren done from what I can see. Time to head to the Altus Plateau.

 

[OCH]

I did a couple things I forgot in Caelid.

The rot tree guardian and rot dragon I fought (and died to) earlier. Also found the dragon church myself and got a spell that is SUPER helpful as a result. With that finally done (although I will return to the Crystal mine at some point) I headed back to test out my new spell on a dual equine boss. It was a success. 

 

However, most of you here have a boss over on me. One I simply can't kill no matter what I've tried. 

Spoiler

The dual gargoyles in the underground river.

Nothing I do seems to make a dent in them and I'm at a loss? Tried various weapons, summons etc and nowt. Ventured back to the inner city and continued progressing the narrative. I'm sure there was one more path I am forgetting though? Likely I'll remember it later. 

Oh and through my current efforts, I'm now level 80. Vigor is now 23 AKA 739hp. It helps! 

 

Lastly, speaking of memory. You know what really annoys me? The fact that the caves and catacombs you clear aren't marked off, in some way? Greying out the name, anything would be helpful.

[radiofloyd]

My advice, for what it’s worth:

 

Spoiler

If you only have 23 vigor then I definitely recommend using a rune arc (Godrick or Radahn’s great rune) to boost your stats.

 

I would fight the first gargoyle until he summons the second, then summon your mimic tear. Try to the pull the axe guy who is already half-dead towards yourself while the twinblade guy fights your mimic. I have no idea what build you are playing (I always had heavy armour and high vigor), but if your mimic dies easily then try the most resilient summon you have instead. 
 

 

[OCH]

Spoiler

I have actually levelled up Mimic Tear now. To see what all the fuss is about. He's good. Even post-whatever this patch was, he is still physically stronger than most of the other summons I've been using so far. He even outlived me on a few attempts😄

I'll bear that in mind. Last session I experimented with all my active summons. Even boosting them with Golden Vow and Blessing's Boon. The main issue for summons seems to be with their poison attack. Plus they both seem to aggro on the same target. So separating them with a summon seems a good idea. Thanks.

 

[OCH]

A shorter session today.

 

Continued exploring Death Mountain. It is weird how non-lethal lava is, in this game, compared to all other Souls. Fought a boss I previously found on a bridge. But indoors, with pillars, he was a lot more manageable. I think I've completely looted the "lower" town. Took part in one of the hunts too. I got a nice spell out of it. But making invasions a semi-mandatory thing doesn't sit well with me as I'm more than content playing this offline to remove such things.

 

I'm also level 84 now. Vigor is 25 aka 800hp. That should be enough for a while.

 

Meanwhile, I noted a ruin on the plateau that I didn't highlight on the map before. So had a nice surprise dragon fight en route. Who chickened out, like the one near Ranni. The ruin was more of the little demi-humans and a queen boss fight. Nothing spectacular. My playstyle is to chip away at points of interest. No rhyme or reason. To be honest, the game is starting to bore me. So my sessions contain a lot of variety and are brief.

[DisturbedSwan]

Lots more progress on this again over the weekend. I'm now Level 113. 

 

Exploring the Western side of the Altus Plateau eventually led me to Mt. Gelmir. I tentatively made my way up here and fought a mini-boss towards the top then entered the notorious Volcano Manor I'd heard a lot about. 

 

Things didn't really go the way I expected really, I thought initially it would be this huge dungeon but the only thing I had to explore was a few hallways and rooms and a couple of NPCs to talk to who wanted me to carry out a quest for them? So I set about going to these markers on the map and it turned out to be an invasion which ended up in them getting unalived, which was different, after a couple of these though, the third marker was asking me to go to a region I'd not reached yet to the North West of the Capital which I didn't want to go to yet, so I was a bit stuck for awhile. 

 

Went round and round in circles at the Volcano Manor foyer bit hitting a load of walls I thought could be sus, tearing my hair out a bit before finally finally giving in to the temptation to look up where to go, and sure enough it was a room which I'd hit pretty much all the walls of except the one where the hidden passageway was. Typical.

 

Once into the dungeon proper I really enjoyed it, the first area you come to has all kinds of makeshift boards and pathways which was reminiscent of Blighttown with a touch of Bloodborne in the enemy design and ground floor of the ramparts. After that the similarities dissipated though and you had another ornate Castle-like area to explore, what made this special is the little shortcuts, verticality and how it looped round on itself in that satisfying 'ah I'm back here, but on the other side!' kind of way. It really was a spectacle as well with all the lava surrounding the Manor itself and you having to navigate and platform around little dried lava flows on the ground floor. 

 

After a lot of exploring, getting a bit lost, opening up a lot of shortcuts which made life easier, I first defeated the Manor's halfway boss

Spoiler

(Godskin Noble)

- as seems to be tradition now with this game - on my first try, and then after a lot more exploring I eventually found a teleporter which led me to a random cave and a fog door. 

Ventured into the fog door and was met with a

Spoiler

huge multi-headed Serpent of a boss titled 'God-devouring Serpent'. The boss itself was absolutely humungous in scale and hit super hard, the arena was incredibly epic a long with the music, it really felt like one of those huge spectacle fights From games are known for and I loved every second of it. Managed to defeat it on my first try with a bit of a struggle, but ended up being a bit underwhelmed. Thankfully that was just the first phase and a resurrected Serpent now revealing the true face of Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy arose with a new health bar to chip away at.

 

Tried time and time again, regularly getting to this second phase but just couldn't crack it. My Mimic Tear wouldn't last long enough into the second phase to make much use of really, once all of Rykard's aggro drew upon me it was lights out within a matter of seconds really thanks to strong AOE attacks which could one-shot me with relative ease.

 

I must've been at this hours, making no real progress and bashing my head up against the wall. Had a bit of a break and a think and I remember picking up a weapon at the beginning of the first phase of the fight that I'd overlooked. I tried finding this weapon in my inventory and couldn't find it though, on my third or fourth try of checking to see if I'd got it ok I found it and surprisingly (with my low strength) could equip it alright. So I went into the battle armed now with this weapon and it made quite a bit of difference, it takes a lot of health away from the boss and when combined with the Mimic also wielding it the 1st phase went by super quickly. 

 

The second phase I still couldn't crack though, I'd get Rykard's health down to about half way or just under, my Mimic would die and it isn't as easy to get to the boss when he's stunned as it is in the first phase of the fight so I was back to being stumped. Had a look at some videos on youtube and saw someone using the Sword I was using in a way completely different to the way i'd been using it, this led to looking up some more stuff related to the sword, its weapon art and how to two  (lol - hadn't done it in a fair few years 🙈).

 

Once I'd practiced this a bit in the cave preceding the boss door I then put it into practice on the first phase and the Serpent went down incredibly quickly. With my Mimic now having a ton of health left for the second phase and me now completely ditching magic and two handing - for the time being - I felt like Rykard's demise was close. A couple more tries and Rykard was unalived. Great success!

 

Did a bit more exploring of Mt. Gelmir after this, trying to find any areas I'd missed on my first look around and sure enough there were a couple of places I'd completely missed. After exhausting all possible routes here I warped back to the Capital outskirts bonfire and begin to explore the area between the inner and outer walls. 

 

Explored around here, fought another mini-boss - that is now just a regular enemy knocking about the place, - had a little explore of the nearby mine which led down through some catacombs to another divine tower which meant I can charge up Rykard's rune. After this I kind of stumbled back into the Western reaches of the Altus Plateau and discovered a whole section I'd completely neglected to explore, so set about discovering this area along with an ominous looking tomb I found - which led to a dungeon - and that's pretty much it. 

 

So yeah, lots more progress made, edging my way ever so slightly to the finish line, I think after I've done the Capital I'm into 'Act 3' and on the home stretch hopefully. Volcano Manor and Mt. Gelmir were fun places to explore, especially the former, I wish it could've lasted a bit longer but yeah it was a great place to explore and gave me that interwoven level design satisfaction that From are known for. 

 

Onto the Capital next after a little bit more exploring in the Eastern reaches of the Altus Plateau. 

 

Pics: 

 

Spoiler

 

[radiofloyd]

Now up to level 116 after about 102 hours. I’ve started increasing other stats like Intelligence and Arcane just to have a bit of fun, my core stats seem sufficiently high enough. Over the last couple of days, I wandered into the Mt Gelmir area and have pretty much done everything there, aside from Volcano Manor itself. I also finally figured out after 100 hours what the statues that shine a blue light are for and why they disappear from the map. 
 

Right now I’m:

 

Spoiler

Back exploring Castle Redmane. It’s been repopulated by enemies. There was also a new boss fight that dropped a cool colossal sword. 

 

[radiofloyd]

Spoiler

Beat Rykard which was possibly the easiest boss fight in the whole game? I think from start to finish including the cut-scene the fight was over in about 30 seconds. I picked up the weapon which says it reveals its true power when fighting a great serpent, went back to the Roundtable Hold, powered that up as high as I could (+7), and then went back and fought him with that. He went down like a sack of spuds. No idea how the fight would have gone if I had fought him with my normal weapon.

 

That’s me done with Mt. Gelmir and the Volcano Manor, back exploring the Altus Plateau now. Although the Tarnished that the lady at the Volcano Manor asked me to hunt down is still marked on my map. She told she would be leaving the Volcano Manor after I went back and talked to her though.

 

[OCH]

3 minutes ago, radiofloyd said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Beat Rykard which was possibly the easiest boss fight in the whole game? I think from start to finish including the cut-scene the fight was over in about 30 seconds. I picked up the weapon which says it reveals its true power when fighting a great serpent, went back to the Roundtable Hold, powered that up as high as I could (+7), and then went back and fought him with that. He went down like a sack of spuds. No idea how the fight would have gone if I had fought him with my normal weapon.

 

That’s me done with Mt. Gelmir and the Volcano Manor, back exploring the Altus Plateau now. Although the Tarnished that the lady at the Volcano Manor asked me to hunt down is still marked on my map. She told she would be leaving the Volcano Manor after I went back and talked to her though.

 

Spoiler

I only did the first of these hunts. As you get a unique spell out of it. I've never liked the invasions thing, since DeS. Making them somewhat mandatory here, bugged me.

 

[one-armed dwarf]

When you beat that boss it basically cancels the rest of the questline at short notice

 

Tho you should check out the boss arena again in case you missed something

[OCH]

Slowly getting back into it

 

Gaming, that is. With my +9 Crystal Sword, I decided to take care of some overdue world boss rematches. The two loose Red Wolves (Underground and overground, respectively). Plus a Magma Wyrm on the ground level of Volcano Manor. Finished two caves and found a secret teleporter on Death Mountain. Which led to the boss fog, as I'm tired of the whole invasion side quest. But...

 

Spoiler

As I grabbed the spear and teleported out, to level it up. I forgot to tap the bonfire immediately behind where you appear before the boss fog😅

More than anything, I want to finish this area. So from there, I only have the Capital and beyond left. I did find a sunken castle. But there is no Rune boss there, so I'll ignore it for now. Next session is the Boss of Death Mountain. EDIT: DEAD

Now: Level 90, 110 hours

Back to the Capital next session. I assume, towards end game.

[DisturbedSwan]

Yeah @radiofloyd Rykard is super easy once you know what that item does and what the fight 'is' if that makes sense, I could've made life a lot easier for myself if I just read weapon descriptions lol.

 

I've always loved being invaded and invaded others myself, playing offline you miss out on a whole 1/3 (maybe 1/2) of what the Souls experience is really, in my view at least.

 

Anyhoo, back to my own progress. Spent the last number of hours in the Capital exploring and goddamn this place is humungous! I got decision anxiety on which path to take almost right at the beginning of this mammoth dungeon, so many different paths to take, nooks and crannies with possible strong enemies behind that may also hold some sort of trinket or treasure that would be worth your while. Do I go down this path to the left? Do I go down this path in front of me? Do I jump off this ledge and go over the rooftops? Do I go down this lift to the right? 

 

Pretty damn crazy, I just felt so lost, hopeless and bewildered being here. Everything just towers above you in the Capital which doesn't help either, huge ornate buildings litter the entire area and make you feel very small and meaningless, a foul tarnished. 

 

After a lot of trial and error, forcing myself to stick with a certain route I eventually found my way to the end of the main thoroughfare, fought a mini boss here and discovered a bonfire (which for this game are quite hard to come by in the Capital). Gradually made my way upwards, using some tree roots and a dragons wing as a staircase, eventually leading to the first boss of the dungeon, Morgott, who went down on my first try (with Mimic Tear) and then a bit more exploring afterwards before getting to Godfrey, who also went down like a sack of spuds with the help of the Mimic Tear and an NPC summon. 

 

That's pretty much that really, now I've been given an item which I presume I can use to enter a new region (as the path behind Godfrey is blocked off), so will pick up from there next time round. I think there's probably tons of the Capital I've not explored yet still though.

 

Pics:

 

Spoiler

 

[radiofloyd]

Spoiler

Cleared out The Shaded Castle, that was pretty straightforward at this stage in the game. I’ve a little bit left to explore in the Altus Plateau, then it’s on to the capital.

 

I forwarded some NPCs quests a little, not much. I reunited the incantation guy with Goldmask. Millicent visited that sorcerer’s hut in Selia but he wasn’t there. When I went back again he had come back, but she has gone somewhere else. Also, the lady from Volcano Manor is now eating  Rykard’s corpse, so that will lead to something I guess.