Elden Ring: Breath of the From Software

I leveled enough doing other crap that the first storyline boss (Margit) fell today pretty easily to me.

Then I went to the dungeon beneath the initial graveyard section and really struggled. In addition to a janky camera the really big tall monstrous non-human enemies can be super hard to read. As is Souls tradition, my first attempt had him down to one hit (I had him staggered and couldn't get to his weak spot) and after that didn't even get close.

You taling about the place with that awful chariot trap thing? That boss is way too big for the room he's in

I’ve seen a trick to fell the chariot but I can’t figure out how to get to where it is to do the felling.

I made a big fuss about getting the Night Rider Flail since I’m a flail guy but it kind of sucks? I really want to dual wield flails…I pulled off a fun little heist where I crept up and snatched Guts’ buster sword off the back of a wagon in the middle of these awful mutant dogs. Then wound up running from those fire cultists LOL.

Found a turtle crypt today, that was neat. Especially because I have committed to carrying the turtle shell for the rest of the game. I’ve smithed it up and it’s the best shield I’ve found yet.

Thinking about questing out to get the Royal Remains tonight…I haven’t even really thought about pursuing Godrick yet. So much to do.

Re: illusory walls- I am still attacking every one of those I see,
100% have been troll messages.

Like my signature “Elden Ring Ahead” message…

I didn't even realize you could kill the chariot in that downward ramps area. I did kill the boss of that area. Never mind that it glitched and quit moving while my wolves and I chipped away at it.

hotseatgames wrote: eh... I think I'll just forgo that rather than having to click on messages knowing that 99% of them are bullshit.

You may or may not know this but on the off chance you don't. You can rate the messages you see with either an upvote or downvote. You can see the number of upvotes a message has in the corner which gives you a reasonable indication of the value of a message (or perhaps it indicates that it's a particularly funny troll). You can also keep moving when the message screen is up so it shouldn't really slow you down to read messages. In the menu you can also rate the last ten messages you read. If you leave a message, every time it gets praised or disparaged you will have a chunk of your healthbar refilled while you're online. This means it might be worth it to leave valuable messages of your own to make your own game a bit easier.

Question - if I am strong enough to use my two handed weapon without penalty, do I get any benefit from holding it two-handed vs. using a shield? Assuming I don't want the skill attached to the sword.

I believe that holding your weapon two handed adds to that weapon's damage by multiplying your strength by x1.5. So if you don't need your shield and are confident two handing then you'll do more damage that way assuming your weapon scales with Strength.

Thanks. I really suck at combat, to the point that actually holding a shield has probably never really helped me much. So I usually walk around two-handing a great sword. But if holding the shield wasn't hurting me at all, I would do that.

Holding a shield is still upping your equip load. So ditching that will still let you carry heavier armor without fat rolling. If you're barely using it, it is worthwhile to ditch it.

Find a 100% physical shield and use it, your life will get a lot better. The Godrick soldiers near the beginning can drop brass shields which are 100%. They will block all chip damage from physical attacks, which is huge. If you have enough stamina you can tank really big attacks from bosses etc. Shields are REALLY GOOD in this one. I do advise against parrying with them generally. Parrying seems wildly inconsistent in this game.

Outside of bosses it's also very useful to just block peon enemies and counterattack without having to worry about chip damage.

Once you find the None ash you can equip that to your shield and remove parry, that way you can still use your weapon art while holding a shield.

Gary Sax wrote: Holding a shield is still upping your equip load. So ditching that will still let you carry heavier armor without fat rolling. If you're barely using it, it is worthwhile to ditch it.

Staying under 70% of your equip load is pretty important yea. You want it to say Medium Load on your status screen. Putting points into endurance will up your equip load and also get you more stamina bar.

If you use a shield, don’t forget your guard counter (R2 - you’ll hear the sound when it’s triggerable).

I find a shield indispensable during minute to minute exploring, but against bosses it's highly contextual. I consider my build a shield build but against a number of the bosses there's no point so I two hand.

Frohike wrote: If you use a shield, don’t forget your guard counter (R2 - you’ll hear the sound when it’s triggerable).

I'm on xbox... is R2 the bumper or the trigger?

also, y'all have convinced me, I'll learn to use a shield. I have the turtle shell that Michael mentioned.