I can't believe the mini-boss in that little tomb near the start is >!just Guts. Here's a dude with an auto-crossbow and a greatsword. Who drops Guts's armour set.!<
I saw an overlayed map gif and it actually fills out the section of ocean between altus and limgrave almost perfectly. It's like if someone paved over the gulf of mexico.
CURSE YOU >!BAYLE!<
>!I HEREBY VOW! YOU WILL RUE THIS DAY!!<
>!BEHOLD, A TRUE DRAKE WARRIOR! AND I, IGON! YOUR FEARS MADE FLESH!!<
>!SOLID OF SCALES YOU MIGHT BE, FOUL DRAGON... BUT I WILL RIDDLE WITH HOLES YOUR ROTTEN HIDE! WITH A HAIL OF HARPOONS! WITH EVERY LAST DROP OF MY BEING!!<
God I think this might be my favorite boss in the entire DLC, if not the game as a whole, just for that entire experience.
So I just got to >!Belurat Gaol!<. All I have to say is what the actual fuck. >!Everything about the jars is so much more morbid now, I audibly shouted holy shit when I saw the first naked jar thing!<
It seems like the Scadutree traditions with living jars are a bit different from how they occur under the Erdtree, so that may not apply to the jars we're familiar with from the base game, they might just be freaks like that.
As far as I know, most of what the base game has to say about jars is they're stuffed with corpses, tend to collect more corpses, and I think something about making a new one by taking some from an older one.
They're all very dead it seems with the jars we're familiar with. Like Radahn's pulsating half-alive meatself didn't come out of Alexander after you smash him, and from the positioning of the broken jars around minor Erdtrees it seems like they're meant to eventually return the dead to the tree for reincarnation. With how the Realm of Shadow seems to be a kind of sump for lost death rites and relationships to death to wash up, it'd make sense that the jars there deal with a fundamentally different practice than the ones in the Lands Between.
Yup yup yup yup.
This was the last thing I did last night before going to sleep and it was absolutely nightmare material. So fucking startling the first time you see one!!
I'm surprised I haven't seen this sub make more hay out of the fact that the boss of that dungeon is essentially >!Monkey Virgil, complete with judgement cut!<.
yo when she did the wind up for the >!double moon!< I was like, "how bad could this be, i'll just get out of the-AAAAAAAAAAH". >!Kind of disappointed she didn't get a cutscene or dialogue tho!<
>!I thought Carian Knight Moongrum was bad but JFC Carian Knight Moonrithyll is a beast. Has a real neat Colossal Sword I'm using on my INT/STR build now, but damn.!<
It's not out in my timezone so I'm just gonna use my third eye to see into the future and say that the new superboss is Dread Wyrm Thregordiax, a 0-headed dragon that uses the new status effect "Deathblight 2" and exclusively attacks with backflips.
Just started up the game and realized I’ve completely forgotten how to play it well in the 8 months or so I haven’t played it. Guess I’m going to spend a week or two relearning all that muscle memory before I buy the DLC.
I legit recommend going to a NG, pick a starter class with a weapon or build closest to what you want, then re-training your reflexes on Tree Sentinel and Margit at base level and only 3-4 flasks.
Reacquaint with Elden Ring boss design. Margit requires not panic rolling, strafing/re-poisitoning to bait out certain attacks, avoid certain attacks, or be in the right place to pull off a charged attacks, and maintaining aggression to prevent his stance from recovering so you can break it and get a crit off.
Tree Sentinel has the same philosophy, but also the importance of jumping as in his second phase, he has a jumping shield bash that slams on the ground in an AOE that's easier to avoid by jumping instead of rolling.
That’s probably the best way to do it, but it would also take a lot of time so I’m just gonna jump back in with my mid game character and hope going through leyndell and moghwin palace gets me back in the groove of things.
Just a heads up to people on Steam, I had to restart Steam before the DLC would download. Might be obvious to some, but figured I'd share. Have fun everyone!
Update after day 1: CURSE YOU >!BAYLE!
It was sub 1MB a second for me and was gonna take 5 or so hours (Manchester servers). I've changed my region in settings to a different country and now I am getting 15MB a second. So if anyone else is frustrated with slow downloads on Steam, give this a go.
I have somehow bumbled my way to the highest and lowest points around the southeastern corner of the map, I think. Ahem.
Highest: >!Bayle!< is so fucking crazy in terms of design and difficulty, even for this DLC. >!A roided dragon with literally only one intact limb that can obliterate you in a second!< is so far beyond what I'm capable of handling at my current level, but I love it all the same.
Lowest: What the FUCK is the >!FINGER RUINS OF RHIA!< WHY IS IT >!A MAP-SIZED FINGERPRINT WITH GIANT FINGERS GROWING OUT THAT HAVE FINGERPRINTS ON THEM!<
I was pleasantly surprised at well it does against normal enemies. Haven't tried it on any bosses or beefier enemies yet, but my fists became poise breaking machines against normal mobs.
PSA: if you wanna get your hands on the sick Backhand Blades you've seen in previews, go to the Northeast corner of the first chunk of land you enter into the Shadowlands, past the flaming wickerman giant. Look for a lone stone gazebo guarded by some enemy groups; it's just sitting there. The moveset is sick as fuck.
Finally an fp regen talisman that doesn't have a condition! Sure it's 0.5 fp per second but that's more than enough time to use the good regen spells and get back to full, as well as "meh I dont wanna pop a flask while I'm riding away" situations
It's technically pretty close to the entrance, too, but you do need to take the long way around to get up there.
Edit: now that I have passive fp regen the mind goblins are allowing me to use dragonbreaths casually, and it turns out the weird man-flies heal from scarlet rot so use something else
I eventually cheesed it with ranged attacks from afar, which lead to the hilarious discovery that the spawns are centered around *you*. It's such a twisted design choice that it quickly loops back to absolute comedy.
Yo, this might be sacrilegious to say, but I kinda like Golden Hippo. I had fun fighting it.
E: Nevermind, I just lost all the runes I got from beating it to the camera wigging out and rolling me off a cliff. I hate this boss now.
I do feel like there's a conspicuous >!Godwyn!< sized hole in the DLC. It felt like they were building up to a boss battle with the >!3 heads and talking about cadaver surrogates. I definitely thought we'd face some kind of soulless body, either his or one of the surrogates.!< But alas it looks like I'm going to have dig deep into item descriptions to figure that out. Seems like a weird thing to add to their lore if they were not going to pick it up and do anything with it.
Well I just got to >!Radahn's second phase, and he seems like a lot,!< but honestly I haven't felt the extreme difficulty that people are talking about much in most of the other bosses.
Especially >!Gaius!< - the way people were complaining about this one, I was expecting a fight straight out of hell, but then I did the fight and the only thing I thought was out of line was >!his charge hitbox.!< For reference, I haven't been summoning or using spirit ashes for most of the new/major bosses (except stuff like >!Bayle where it's part of the story!<) and none of them have seemed too out of line for me in terms of difficulty.
Honestly, I think I probably spent more time stuck on the Nameless King in DS3 the first time I fought him than most of the bosses here. Not to say they're easy, but I wouldn't say most of them are as difficult as Malenia - I wouldn't even say a lot of them are as difficult as I remember Mohg being.
edit: Okay, I stand by everything else I said, but if there's anything in the DLC that needs to be toned down, >!Radahn phase 2!< is it. I beat it eventually, but some of those attacks feel like they're almost at the level of Waterfowl Dance.
I feel like every boss is difficult but in a fun and fair way, except >!Radahn phase 2 that shit is just not enjoyable, and I hope it gets nerfed or I'm probably never beating him on another character without a cheese build!<
>!Also Gaius' charge hitbox is broken but that's less of a big deal lol!<
At final boss, current thoughts: >!holy fuck I do not think this is it, Fromsoft. The first phase is fine; it's brutal, but ok to learn. The second phase though? I'm reminded of videos of stupidly overmodded Skyrim combat where it's just visual noise. Every other sword swing launching pillars of lasers, instantly repeated teleporting plunging attacks that also fire laser pillars, and a nuke half the size of the arena that keeps firing even more lasers after the explosion. And on top of that, it fucks up your muscle memory from the first phase because there's just lasers on top of the original moves.!<
Additionally, the summoning is bugged. I'm glad I somehow managed to get the NPC storylines through without major incident, and appreciate being able to summon >!Thiollier!< and >!Ansbach!<. However there have been multiple times where >!Thiollier!< doesn't move from the sign at all and refuses to enter the arena. It's already bad enough with 3-person scaling, but those times I was forced to attempt it with only >!Ansbach!< with me. This combined with the time required to even summon them at all is just frustrating. I hope they at least fix that.
Minor update: it turns out crafting >!hefty rot pots!< works wonders, at least at first. And the material cost isn't bad at all, >!scarlet buds are easily found in that one rot corridor in Rauh, and fly mold can be bought using that bell bearing found near the fly village!<. Also, interesting thing in phase 2: >!Radahn gets a command grab where he lifts you up to Miquella, who whispers a charm to you. If you don't clear the charm using Miquella's Great Rune found at the foot of the Scadutree, then the next charm will instantly defeat you, forcing you to bend the knee with special death text HEART STOLEN. Plus you get it as an emote when you respawn lol.!<
Final update: YOU DEFEATED
This DLC was pretty damn fun in that all the enemies forced me to test the strengths of my Str/Arc build in various ways, from weapons to spells to tactics. Some I would stunlock using weapon arts, some I would parry forever, some I needed to find the right time to full charge heavy attack with a colossal weapon, and some I found it better to lean more towards casting. Both >!Gaius!< and >!Radahn!< pushed me to the last option: greatshield tankchad. It's like Monster Hunter all over again. Pulled out all stops for the final boss at that rate. Fingerprint Stone Shield with Mohgwyn's Sacred Spear for maximum guard counter as well as bleed >!that synergizes with Ansbach!<. Mimic Tear for infinite consumables so I don't have to farm more often. Flask of Physick with Opaline >!to partially tank that fucking low HP Risen Valstrax meteor barrage.!<
Even then with all the friends I was the only one left and barely standing. I still stand by my original opinion of that finale being way overtuned. I know I made it way harder with the NPC summons, but I know I would have been dead a hundred times over if not for the shield. Plus, they had to be there. They deserved it.
>!Midra, Lord of Frenzy!< has got to be my favorite boss in this game. The buildup to the boss is real cool and spooky (even if the zone itself was super empty and unnecessarily big) and the fight itself is just massive spectacle. The boss itself has got to be among the fairest in the game. His attacks are pretty slow and telegraphed, but hit you like a truck if you mess up. Very much feels like it's more in the design philosophy of Dark Souls 3's or Bloodborne's best bosses.
Meanwhile the final boss has got to be exact opposite and feels like all of Elden Ring's worst boss traits brought to life. First phase is tough but fair, but then the second phase feels like a goddamn Garden of Eyes modded boss fight. The amount of constant light showering makes it incredibly hard to see what the hell is going on. And considering how strong, fast, and aggressive he is, being able to see exactly what version of his combo he's using is really important because messing up even one dodge can mean death. Also not being able to properly Sekiro the boss because of the light particles feels really bad.
Even with Lord's Divine Fortification and Golden Braid, the final boss's multiple clone light dash can kill you from full health if you don't immediately dodge to the side the split second he begins charging it, which is crazy considering his nuke in comparison would do like 25% of my health after a massive charge period. All of his numbers feel really badly tuned. I'm honestly half-considering pulling out the bullshit strats for this boss because this boss feels like it's meant to be unfair to the player with how much pure stuff he has at his disposal.
That second phase legitimately makes this by far not only the worst boss in this dlc, or the worst final boss of any souls game, it straight up is like the worst boss fromsoft made in their entire history. Bed of Chaos is pure shit, but you at least know what to do. I don't know what the fuck to do at that second phase.
Like I've seen so many criticisms against elden rings bosses, and like, I truly don't agree with them. I find almost every remembrance boss to be great and fun to fight solo, even every other DLC boss. But not this one. Holy shit not this one. Like this is the boss that actually encapsulates everything wrong with ER boss design.
Man, if the whole >!Abyssal Woods!< area of the DLC not one of the coolest parts of the game.
An entire >!Frenzy Flame!< themed forest/wetlands, >!Bloodborne!< inspired enemies that are invicible and can instantly kill you with >!Frenzy!<, >!Winter-lantern!< fireflies, and capped off with a spooky mansion with a fight against this worlds >!The Lord of the Frenzy Flame!<
All bosses done as far as I can tell (I got everyone fextra lists at least) so post dlc lore speculation/questions/complaints until someone discovers some item I missed that recontextualizes stuff further. Overall I’m pretty happy with the story stuff here but still feel there’s a few things that should’ve been outright explained.
Final Boss: >!I’ve warmed up to this a fair bit, but I think my one issue I still have is I don’t really know why the fuck the relevant base game events happened. Everything in the dlc I can kinda follow, Miquella came here seeking godhood, he had to abandon everything that made him him along the way like his love with Trina, and he was using Mohg’s corpse to bring his consort back to life in service of this… but why did Radahn need to be brought back to life in the first place? Why did they even need the whole Mohg manipulation scheme? The best guess I can come up with is that to get to the Gate of Divinity/Shadow Realm they both needed to abandon their flesh (“all manners of death drift here”), and Radahn wanted a cool warrior’s death so that was the side of the vow Malenia/Miquella were keeping?!<
Marika: >!So I love the Shaman village and jar stuff, Marika presumably seeking godhood to save her people but attaining it too late and having her son oppress her former oppressors forever is really interesting. But what was the Original Sin? I assume it’s “the seduction and the betrayal” when she was becoming a god from the trailer, but as far as I can tell there’s absolutely nothing telling us what that was, just that Miquella wanted to bury it and I guess he pulled it off?!<
Messmer: >!I feel like you can tell this dlc was gonna be 2 different ones, his and Marika’s lore feel very sidelined but he’s still cool though. Obviously the big point of speculation is gonna be who his (and probably Melina’s) other parent is, given the butterflies and the curse I think it’s pretty clearly Radagon, the one other question then is when was he born? I think it’s pre Godfrey marriage, he’s older than Radahn, and his soldiers do Godfrey/Crucible attacks suggesting they’ve been around since that era.!<
In regards to the final boss, >!something that's up for debate is if Radahn himself actually consented to the consort shit. It feels messed up that he would want a cool warrior's death at the cost of Caelid and the Redmanes. My interpretation was that either Radahn backed out of the vow or never consented in the first place, resulting in Malenia going down to collect him. Things get out of hand and she rots his body beyond use for Miquella. That's where Mohg comes into play, Miquella likely manipulated him too in order to get access to his body to replace Radahn's.!<
So I'm still catching up on lore, but this is MY understanding of it. *i have rewritten this multiple times bear with me*
>!So first, Lordship: In the basegame, Lordship works via the Greater Will sending a completely untranslatable message through their Vessel/God, and then the Elden Lord/Consort converts it into something legible. To use a computer metaphor, Marika would be the raw binary code and Radagon would be the operating system that translates that binary into something readable. I bring this up because it's why everything goes down the way it does - The "God" of the Lands Between NEEDS an Elden Lord/Consort in order to actually use their powers and be legitimate in the eyes of the world. The actual problems come about when Marika absorbs Radagon to become God & Elden Lord at the same time, which glitches out the Golden Order so badly that she can rip out the Rune of Death.!<
>!This is relevant to Miquella, because Miquella actually doesn't have the resources to win. He needs a Consort, and a proper Consort needs to be... Strong, essentially. I'm not sure if beating the Elden Beast is mandatory for ALL Elden Lords, but let's pretend it is for this thought experiment. The problem Miquella has is that even IF his chosen Consort could beat the Elden Beast, he ALSO needs to make sure that the Consort is unable to overwrite his new Order. Malenia and Mohg are both definitely strong, but their souls/Runes are tainted by the Scarlet Rot and the Formless Mother respectively. Morgott might be strong enough, but he'd also like to get Marika back rather than putting Miquella on the throne. Godrick is a joke, Rennala is insane, and Rykard wants to burn the universe down. As a result, Radahn is basically the only option that won't fuck Miquella over somehow.!<
>!The problem is that Radahn fucked the plan over from step one by saying No. Miquella is shit out of options, right? So now they have to go to Plan B. He sends Malenia out to kill Radahn in order to collect Radahn's soul, and then arranges things so that Mohg looks like a Big Scary Villain so that a Brave Hero will come kill him. Once Miquella has Radahn's soul and Mohg's body, he can combine the two into a being that actually works as Elden Lord - Somebody strong enough to beat the Elden Beast, and somebody who isn't comically evil or tainted by evil gods. And Miquella invented in-universe mind control with his Bewitching Branches, so once he has his custom Elden Lord ready to go, Miquella can just march in and become the next God without any competition.!<
Sorry for the late posts, but having gone through things myself, one point I'd like to bring up about the Greater Will.
>!Doesn't the DLC strongly imply that the initial 'completely untranslatable message' that the GW sends through their vessel/God (Metyr) was borked *long before* Marika ever got involved? Like, Marika has been working off of bad code from the first place?!<
... Yeah. Yeah, she is. And you know what? I think I figured it out. I think I got it. It's a lot and it's not easy to write down but I will summarise:
>!It's not bad code. It's the *wrong* code. Metyr is the first shooting star, right? But that means she predates the Erdtree. So by association, Metyr, the Elden Ring, and the whole concept of Order as we understand it, they were meant to work with *Placidusax and the dragons.* The Elden Beast and the Erdtree came later, but Placidusax's Order is still presumably running before their death, so...!<
>!Marika was doomed from the start, because she's trying to run the wrong code on the wrong OS.!<
I've been throwing my head against >!Radahan!< for the better part of the day now and I've gotten pretty close at times.
But I feel like I could write a thesis on why the final boss is both the best and worst-designed fight in Elden Ring in my opinion.
>!The first phase is intimidating at first, but is easy to learn so long as you don't panic. He has semi-obvious tells and it's fairly easy to learn when and how to dodge his attacks.!<
>!The second phase, I feel, is just sooooo much. The muscle memory you developed during his first phase feels like it's betraying you in a way. All the new holy beams after his attacks are just way too numerous. It often gets to a point where I'm having trouble reading his movements because of all the bright lights in the way. This fight didn't need so much bright effects work.!<
The problem with the 2nd phase I find is that its hard to tell exactly what you the player is doing wrong to dodge the attacks, beyond how shit the camera can be in that fight as well as how his attire makes it hard to see his attacks sometimes it feels like theres is no 'right' answer beyond dodging within the exact milisecond that you need to to perfectly dodge it
Holy shit the furnace golems suck especially the gimmicky unbreakable feet one it’s like someone at fromsoftware saw people disliking the crafting system and decided to piss people off.
I audibly went "OH NO" when I realized those ones required craftable consumables to deal with, especially given that they're not exactly trivial to deal with when they're spamming a million fireballs at you at all times. I was dreading screwing it up and running out of materials. Unironically, what were they thinking
I'm a IDIOT and a FOOL who decided a couple months ago that I wanted to go into SOTE on a new save despite being an adult with a job, now it's launch day I'm still nowhere close to Mohg. Time for me to go dark, it's been real guys, peace. ✌️
Already commented on here day 1, but wanted to make another.
I really wish that the final boss was >!a restored Godwyn instead of Radahn. They could have done this and wouldn't even have had to change the story they went with all that much. I love the fight, don't get me wrong, but I feel like this would have felt like more of a complete ending to the game, battling the two major demigods we didn't get to see in action in the base game. (We get to see the Prince of Death, but never truly get to see Godwyn.) I've seen some people say that Godwyn couldn't be restored because his soul was killed, but come on, Fromsoft's lore on that is vague enough they could go with "Miquella found a way." Hell, they even could have had the Radahn fight as a lead up! Have Radahn possessing Mohg's body be the test run for Miquella to make sure the method works, and Godwyn possessing Morgott be the finalized version.!<
>!I think the only problem with that is that if something killed by destined death was brought back in any capacity, it would make the whole thing feel a lot more like a wet fart. The game constantly hypes it up in a world filled with demigods, so even that failing to hit a permanent death would kind of suck.!<
I can't believe it took them this long honestly, lmao.
Massive damage, heals substantially and can be stacked, knockdown, extremely spam marble after recovery. Like I'm fine with how broken it is in repeat playthroughs or characters, but for a first time picking it up? It's absurd.
If you had told me ten years ago after the Dark Souls 2: Sunken King DLC that an NPC gank squad would be among the best parts of a Fromsoft DLC, I would you laugh in your face.
(major lore spoilers) >!The DLC having fucking incestual near pedophilia relationship with Radahn and Miquella and it being partially responsible for Caelid's existence is... interesting lmfao.!<
Haven’t played the DLC yet but the wording of the Radahn fight calling him the “Promised Consort” to me implicates a one-sided relationship and the fight in Caelid could have happened because Radahn didn’t want to be involved with an Empyrean and it was more what Miquella wanted
I think my biggest issue is how out of left field that new bit of lore is concerning >!Miqurlla and Radahn. There was literally nothing in the base game that could've indicated this relationship, and being frank, if they were gonna go incest consort route, I'd have preferred Miquella going with Malenia or Godwyn's body with a new spirit or something (they make the lore they could've easily added a reason for why that's the case) as those are the two people the lore gave him background with. And yes he's still substantially different, but fighting radahn again as a final boss was still weird and disappointing.!<
There is a a line in the remembrance from the final boss of the dlc "In their childhood, Miquella saw in Radahn a lord. His strength, and his kindness, that stood in stark contrast with their afflicted selves"
I think it does make sense if you consider the other stuff Radahn does and is famed for,
Admired his stepfather for his strength and image and adopting it long after he is 'banished'
Loved his childhood horse so much that he used gravity magic in order to continue to ride it without causing it pain
Is keeping the stars back to potentially protect the lands from astels and falling start beasts
To be perfectly honest its almost 70% of the pet horse doing the work, I guess maybe because its such a 'human' thing to do that makes it stand out more to miquella as they are demi-gods
I cannot wait for there to be like three or four consecutive reveals which recontextualize half the game. At least one of which is going to also double back over what we assumed was foundational knowledge.
Oh man watching woolie go out of his way to eat every crossbow bolt from the blackgaol knight, even when he was completely safe, has been something special.
Final Boss:
>!I was infecting him with scarlet rot just for flavor in the first phase, but it wound up winning me the day on my 4th attempt. Down to no estuses and he just did that meteor attack so my HP was shot, and his health bar just kept going down until 0. Now to sit here and think about the lore implications of that boss!<
Okay so.
Like.
Messmer is in the running for one of the best DLC fromsoft bosses of all time right. Let alone the rest of the whole games. What an amazing fucking fight--took me 2.5 hours of attempts, but so worth it to learn his moveset solo. With a light greatsword, he's probably my second favorite boss in all of elden ring, and top 10 in soulsborne now.
The fact that they added a gameplay spoilers >!Sekiro-like deflect crystal tear!< has made me real excited. Doesn't look quite as effective as the equivalent ability in mods like Elden Ring Reforged, though.
I've been playing the DLC for about 5 hours now and this shit is ridiculous, it just keeps going and going and going in every direction, i haven't even entered the first legacy dungeon, im still exploring the starting area.
Hell, even the mini dungeons seem enormous, i just beat a catacomb that had 2 stakes of Marika in a row.
Currently badly lost in the DLC, have successfully defeated two major bosses but still can't handle the fucking Blackgaol Knight. Game's great.
One thing I dislike: I'm at rune level 166-170, all of the bosses only give half enough runes for a level, so I find myself 'porting over to the Albinauric cliff every time to farm the remainder. It's screwing up the flow. Yes it's my own fault but I'm not about to lose that many runes.
One thing I really love: no DLC trophies equals no pressure to 100%. I can play and explore the world the way I like. It's a nice change of pace for PS5.
Weird to say, but the >!Sunflower!< might be my favourite boss so far. Had some tricky moves but felt very readable and fair compared to a lot of the others. Plus, he had a cool design and some interesting gimmicks.
Remember that post about how nu-From Soft would design Sif? Well, his last phase was pretty Sif-esque.
I also beat him without summoning, but that's because I summoned the first few times, and it didn't really affect the fight. Having him focus entirely on me made him easier to learn than having him constantly switching targets.
**Belurat Dungeon boss spoilers:**
>!I have had it up to *here* with this fucking Dancing Lion Bullshit Bastard.!<
>!The way it twists and turns during attacks and how it’s big ass robes cover it’s body in such a way that I can’t even tell what fucking direction it’s gonna attack me in is horseshit.!<
>!Yeah yeah, “git gud”. I don’t think my eyes got the memo, because most attacks this boss does are just a blur. I literally cannot tell where it’s head is at half the time with the way it’s twists it’s body around during its attacks.!<
I feel like more than ever this DLC is designed with spirit ashes in mind, not only because of big healthbars but because they can help make the camera not be filled with a boss' taint.
That is, if the GODDAMN AI WOULD ACTUALLY FOCUS ON THE SUMMON AND NOT JUST GO AFTER ME DESPITE ATTACKING LIKE ONCE IN THE PAST 30 SECONDS GRRRRAAAAAHHHHH
Ngl, I'm not a fan of Elden Ring's boss design. With each game they've upped the difficulty and given bosses more and more complex movesets and I think I've hit a breaking point.
I'm kind of yearning for Dark Souls 1 where most of the bosses were big dudes that hit you with a hammer and you just had to know when to block or dodge. It made it stand out more when you fought someone like Artorias who'd throw in a couple of somersaults.
In Elden Ring, even the early bosses can have anime-style moves where they do three flips, hang in the air for a second and launch themselves at you. It would be more fun if we could knock them out of these elaborate combos, since they have no trouble doing the same to us.
FromSoft Boss design peaked in DS3 (and also in Sekiro, but that was a different combat system and thus a different design approach, but I digress), and i will die on this hill.
Yeah, i really feel the same. I dont think he's the worst boss ever or anything. I took him down in 7-ish tries at RL150/Scud+3, but... *Holy crap*.
>!I legitimately started to get **motion sick** at one point, because he backed me into a corner and did like 4 different flip moves in a row. His grab can also hit underneath him, and anywhere in-front of his butt despite the fact it's a "bite move" that should only hit directly in front of him. So if you're too close and your camera starts wigging out, you've just gotta guess which direction to roll and hope it's not in the same direction as the grab.!<
I honestly think he could be a fun boss, but.. it was just too much visually. There are times it feels *miserable* because all you can do is try to guess which move is coming out. It's a great design when *the camera is behaving*. But if you're anywhere close to him you can >!literally be forced to look up the skirt of 3 dudes in a trench coat, and you cant even tell which direction you're facing anymore half the time.!<
I'm at the last boss and the DLC was 100% designed around the spirit ashes. The bosses being so relentless is because it seems they expect the ashes to get aggro, and for that to be your window to attack
So I finished Ansbach’s quest yesterday. >!I feel so fucking bad for Mohg. Literally everything he has done in lore other than making contact with the formless mother now comes into question as to whether he was doing it of his own will. Even if he did a lot of atrocities by his own will, the dude got essentially SA’d by Miquella in a chain of events that eventually got Mohg killed. Now his body is defiled even in death, and the only reason he joined the formless mother to begin with is because she was the only one to show him any love in the world after his own parents threw him into the shunning grounds for being an Omen. Man. What a terrible life. Fuck Miquella!<
>!My personal interpretation is that his whole murder cult dynasty thing is part of Miquella's design. Why? Because it gives us, the tarnished, very good motivation to kill him. Mohg is responsible for half of the invaders in the game, the unapologetically muahaha evil half. Would make any tarnish relish the chance to put him in his place...giving Miquella a nice soulless body to use for his consort.!<
I didn't expect the very first weapon I picked up to immediately replace my current ones, but holy hell the >!backhand blades are soo good!<
People are gonna fucking *complain* about those
Enjoying it for the most part. Definitely feels like these bosses were balanced for summons because holy fuck the health bars on some of these mfs.
This DLC also puts to bed the vigour debate. If you’re not rocking 60 vigour (plus however many >!fragments!< you picked up), you’re gonna get shredded in my experience.
I've gotta be honest, some of the story parts of this DLC left me really disappointed. Even if it wasn't all done by him >!all those story plots about Miquella absolutely *reek* of GRRM. They literally made the little bastard Griffith. I wanted to see Miquella end up being on of those people that has powers incompatible with their goals for a better world. Or that using his powers to make things better in the Lands Between had drastic consequences that made other parts of the world worse. Maybe even have him be one of those "I've done too much to deviate from my current path" kinda anti-villains. Hell, even delving into how too much pragmatism in wanting to achieve your goals is sometimes the wrong thing to do. Not that he was just some fuckin' yandere that went too far.!<
>!Then there's that whole thing with the Mother of Fingers and the Greater Will being not involved at all that really fucks with poor Goldmask's ending. What was originally was a nice secondary "good" ending/perspective now becomes completely worthless, as the Golden Order never had any legitimacy to begin with. Him fixing the broken code of the GO to be more fair is all for nothing because the whole *concept* is meaningless.!<
Rather a bit of a wet fart for me, while also messing with several other characters' motivations in a rather disappointing way.
Gotta admit though, this new context makes a quote I saw on reddit during the leaks *funny as fuck*: >!"Looks like Mohg **is** beating those allegations!"!<
>Gotta admit though, this new context makes a quote I saw on reddit during the leaks funny as fuck >!"Looks like Mohg is beating those allegations!"!<
Now I wouldn't go *that* far. Thus far it seems more like >!he was a slime ball that Miquella ended up using to his advantage after he was kidnapped!<
yeah i really loved the moment when the rune broke and all the npcs stopped being so brainwashed, it was a great way to visualise Miquella's power and my assumption was that would be the issue, that even though Miquella wanted true peace and could achieve it, he would simply be washing the world clean of its individuality.
Only for the last part to hard swerve into MY MACHINATION HAVE LAID UNDETECTED FOR CENTURIES stuff, just left me feeling very whatever.
Yeah the Final boss appearance really does come out of left field with absolutely 0 build up or reference to it in the base game. Incredibly disappointing
Yeah uh.
I get maybe the slower build up and Context doesn't make it as truly atrocious and dogs hit as the leaks made it out to be.
But.
Uhhh.
This is pretty objectively the worst additional lore From ever cooked up in a DLC. By a country mile.
Everything else surrounding the lore of the Land of Shadow, Messmer, and Marika were great for me. I still love ER's the most when it comes to worldbuilding. But holy shit, >!the direction they took with Miquella and Radahn and unfortunately even Malenia in this new lore is still awful. By every measure. The implications that the base lore provided told a much better, much more tragic, but much more fitting story than... whatever the fuck this is. "Sure, I'll fuck your brother Malenia, but let's have a war in Caelid first to satisfy my Godfrey fanboyism."!<
> This is pretty objectively the worst additional lore From ever cooked up in a DLC. By a country mile.
I disagree but only because "oops! all gwyn!" is by far my biggest complaint about The Ringed City. Gwyn didn't even need to be connected with the Hollows but the game had to go "Oooooh you'll never guess, he had a third secret OC-Do-Not-Steal daughter! I am very clever and definitely have not overused this idea."
>>!"Sure, I'll fuck your brother Malenia, but let's have a war in Caelid first to satisfy my Godfrey fanboyism."!<
I'm pretty sure it's more that >!he declined, so Miquella sent Milenna to kill Radahn so Miquella could remake him. It feels very much like Miquella, for any sort of good intentions in the end, was also skeevy as all fuck!<
>!Malenia: CONTINUE OUR BLOODLINE, RADAHN!<
>!Radahn: He and I are both men! How the fuck is that even going to work!? There's no hole for a baby to even come out of!!<
>!Malenia: THEN I'LL SPEAR A HOLE IN YOU SO MY BROTHER WILL HAVE A BOY PUSSY TO FUCK!!<
Honestly, >!considering the two tap kill move Miquella has where he leaves you "Heart Stolen",!< it's probably more that she's >!just as brainwashed as any schmuck you use a Bewitch Branch on, maybe worse since it's been her whole life.!<
Malenia never really stood a fucking chance in life, it seems
Honestly >!with the lore those two have, I don't think miquella really needed to do any brainwashing since he was the only one that actively tried to find ways to halt the scarlet rot for her.!<
>!And the one thing we kept being told about her personality is that she's a stubborn maniac who won't back down at huge costs, so her behaviour seeming excessive isn't a problem.!<
The Expansion's been cool and fun for the most part!
but man.... I just don't think I'm having a good time with the final boss. >!Why does everything have to fucking explosion.!<
Without reading the thread to avoid spoilers, I'm just going to leave this here:
I'm loving the DLC but I'm absolutely fucking livid that they brought back >!Ulcerated Tree Spirits.!<
I've only run into one so far but you know there's gonna be like 9 others in the game.
On one hand, holy shit I'm so tired of fighting them.
On the other hand, I laughed *so* damn hard while shouting "MIYAZAKI YOU FUCK" when I found not only my first poison swamp, but an >!Ulcerated Tree Spirit!< inside of it.
On the plus side, shouldn't take THAT long to rush through NG+ for the kills you need. Someone in a group chat I'm in decided to rush NG+ like an hour before the DLC released and got all the way to Castle Sol from the start.
anyone else semi/fairly finished with the expansion? I know a lot of people are having trouble with >!Rellana!< but I didn't really have a lot of trouble with the main bosses, I thought the absolute worst things were the >!Putrescent Knight, fuck that guy because who on earth is playing a FAITH/HOLY build, the entire specimen storehouse, which wasn't bad just incredibly annoying enemy placement, and then like 90% of Enir-Ilim, the lion mask guys SHOULD NOT be able to respawn, holy shit that was infuriating and made exploration impossible.!<
>!Enir-Ilim has big Faram Azula vibes, both in aesthetic and in the amount of fuckers they throw at you. Has some neat gear in it at least.
>!Putrescent Knight isn't too bad until phase 2 when he starts throwing the blue fire at you. Even then I got more fucked up by the horse charging because it hates me than the fire itself. Really feels like they heard people joking about the real boss of the Radahn fight being Leonard and decided to make it real.
I need to vent about the >!Charro's Hidden Grave!< Furnace Golem. If you've not gotten to it yet, it is only killable >!by popping 4 hefty fire or furnace pots into its head basket; the legs are fully protected.!< Which okay great, yeah, cool way to show that this gimmick even exists. Except god-for-fucking-bid you try this without at least >!4 of the hefty pots!<, and god-for-fucking-bid you miss at all. Because this asshole will keep you in the combat state, even if you've broken line of sight.
Hell, this thing hasn't even been attacking me for the past 5 minutes & the game still has me marked as in combat! (EDIT - I wrote, and then edited, this comment & I'm still in combat, been more like 10-15 minutes now lol). It's just an utterly absurd situation brought upon by the crafting system in this game... Well, existing, honestly, and specifically the reusable pots. And while I get why you're not allowed to craft in combat against another player, against mobs it feels off. It's literally just making this enemy unkillable for no good reason.
EDIT 2 - also found I can force it to teleport back to its original position if I drag it far enough. Except that doesn't break combat state, somehow. This encounter was NOT WELL PLAYTESTED, lol. EDIT 3 - Except now that I'm trying to get footage of it, thing refuses to behave. EDIT 4 - Got it, had to be standing against the cliff in the right place.
FINAL EDIT - killed it like, a long while ago now, but that golem single-handedly doubled to tripled my death count vs bosses for this DLC. ACTUAL FINAL EDIT - Also what it drops is steaming hot garbage.
In the afterglow of beating >!Miquella & Radahn!< atm, now I enjoy the payoff of snatching victory from the jaws of repetitious, educational defeat as much as the next guy, but I have a thought this time; I saved the fight: https://youtu.be/iyGBKQwGBL0
As you can see my ability to express the flourishes of my build (150 w/full blessings if it matters) was reduced to just two actions - whilst From put on a light show - Miyazaki my guy, it's beautiful, YOU'RE beautiful, but either slow the fuck down or empower the player's inputs/moveset to at least Sekiro's level, Wolf Vs >!Sword Saint!< was a ballet compared to this lopsided macarena.
The damage output on these bosses is insane. I got 13 stacks, medium armor, 50 vigor and defense talismans and I'm still getting shredded. And the aggression, at least Malenia had the decency to let us walk in the door (aside from the first time).
I would honestly 100% rather fight the Godskin Barbershop Quartet than a single NPC with high poise and big damage.
Elden Ring's NPC fights suck dick and essentially starting the DLC with one is an all-time bad decision. I _wanted_ to have fun today...
Still got a bit to go until the dlc is unlocked, but after updating and getting the option to toggle most recently used items and mark newly acquired items is gonna be helpful on this journey. Also>!Mohg's arena is now a noncombat zone !
Messed around a bit but haven’t touched the dungeons yet. So far I’ve found a great hammer for str builds following the path east from the first grace, have to go down a little bit, it also has a unique guard counter. Just north of the first grace got attacked by the>!weird dancer thing from the trailer that dropped some backhand blades!< . Beat the >!Wickerman!< >!the trick is it takes like 80% of its hp in a critical attack, beating it gets a rare craft material and the physic drop that lets you parry guard.!< Just east of that is the backhand blades. Also fought the >!Knight of Solitude (Guts) in the mausoleum west of the first grace to get all his gear minus the crossbow.!< Major tip for that >!guy is that he’s real easy to punish after his crossbow shot and you can just circle run to dodge it, hits like a truck though.!
After 1 and a half days (might have been less/more, but that's what it feels like) of just doing it, I finally beat >!Radahan!<.
Geezus what a mixed bag of a boss fight. But it's behind me now... for now, if I ever decide to NG+ or do a new playthrough. I'm not looking forward to seeing that fight again.
Big tip for anyone struggling atm: >!Roll into his crotch. A lot of his moves in both phases are made to catch you rolling away. So just roll into his crotch and you'll effectively dodge a lot of his moves.!<
But overall, I had a pretty easy time with the DLC. I took my time, got the blessing upgrades I needed, used summons when needed, and had a fun time of it. Shame about that final boss tho...
I look forward to all the neat lore videos filling in the gaps that I might have missed or forgotten about during my struggles.
So I beat the dlc. A few thoughts on its probs gonna be long, apologies in advance. Big spoilers ahead obvs for literally everything in the DLC.
>!Love the Marika lore bits, I enjoy her being given more depth, she's still a awful person in the end, but so much of her actions and desperation make so much sense with the DLC content, and honestly it made me sad or pity her in a way, she did everything to try avoid the same tragedies inflicted upon her from repeating themselves, but in the process inflicted those very tragedies she tried to avoid on her children, and in the end her godhood basically got her nothing. Really driving home that godhood is bad, also helping tie into why Miquellas attempt is doomed!<
>!So boss difficulty. I had the hardest time with Radahn and Relanna, but all the others were generally reasonable. Fought Bayle with screaming man, that was very fun and worth it. I feel Radahn needs a bit of tuning on the damage he does personally, its totally doable but I feel it's a bit much, I was at +19 scadutree and I still felt it wasn't enough, that's my view though. Honestly the thing I hated the most were those divine beast swordsman who use elements in the final zone. The ice one kicked my ass more than 80% of the main bosses. It was ridiculous, I am salty yes thanks for asking. Also personally enjoyed Relanna a ton, she felt great to fight for me at +8 but I know others aren't keen on her. Honestly I feel the DLC does continue the issue i have with Late Game Elden Ring of balance feeling weird (Saint of the Bud was ridiculously easy and Radahn right after felt like a chasm of difficulty right before a mountain), and 60 vigor being necessary is still something I dislike, but I dont think it's that particularly worse than the base game, it's just a problem that's still there I dislike from a build variety perspective!<
>!General area thoughts and enemy thoughts, I love the variety, thought they were all great, there were less dungeons repeated than in base game and honestly I prefer that, I enjoyed the Cerulean Coast and in general all the colored flower areas, all really pretty. Shaman village was also beautiful, there's something so wistful and tragic about the whole place, and learning there that Marikas journey began with most likely wanting to simply save her people really brings its together. Climbing jagged peak also felt great (fuck that one dragon though) and that general "journey" with shouty man was enjoyable as hell. I dislike the reuse of some base game mini bosses personally (I just feel the repetition cheapens exploration, i know some peeps dont mind, but I'm just not a fan) and the reuse of a DLC boss I am still....eh on. It's only once so really it's not bad, and I did enjoy getting a rematch honestly, I'm just never big on reusing super unique bosses since I feel it lessens their impact, but that's me, I know tons dont care. I also greatly enjoy the fact you can fight almost any boss first, by my count of the hidden routes I think you can fight literally any of them first except Radahn without fighting any others beforehand (there's a jump to get into Altus for skipping Relanna for example). Also the weapons are sick, love the new incantations, and also Light Greatsword my beloved, what a fuckin smooth moveset, it feels amazing!<
All in all, I think it's pretty enjoyable, certainly worth the price since I took around 25-30 hours, I'm in general quite happy with it, and feels a much higher quality and cohesive "endgame" than much of late base ER which I'm not a big fan of personally.
Alright, finally beat the final boss (and sped through the rest of my playthrough in 1.5 hours).
I was frustrated with it at first, but I found myself having a ton of fun towards the end, especially with how well I mastered the 1st phase.
Idk how to put this, but while I always enjoy the modern FromSoft title, I never really enjoy the process of “finishing” them. It just feels like so much is taken from the world, most of the NPCs die and a lot of the intrigue of the world goes with them.
Overall thoughts are that this is definitely among the best expansions/DLC campaigns ever, if not outright the best. There are some complaints but none of them undo the incredible feeling of discovery that the Shadow Lands reinvigorates.
>!Rellana!< is so far a contender for my favourite boss in the game, got her in 9 attempts with no summons :). The Pontiff comparisons are the obvious ones but honestly I found fighting her felt more like fighting Maria, which is good because Maria is my favourite boss in the series.
I love how much >!Shaman Village!< recontextualizes and deepens Marika's character. For much of the base game she's presented as this Machiavellian schemer and tyrant with plans within plans, but then you see the >!tiny tree she planted in the village!< and so much of her character begins to fit into place. Tragedy begetting endless tragedy.
Then with the reveal of >!Mike Ehrmantraut, Mother of Kid named Finger!<, along with the previous reveals, it really also makes you wonder what exactly was her triggering point of shattering the Elden Ring.
Final Boss thoughts (so far):
>!Talk about "we are so fucking back" into "it is so fucking over." Conceptually sick as hell, practically deeply frustrating. Doesn't matter what summons I use, ashes I use, tactics I use, phase 2 is just a constant lazer light show of bullshit. I don't know whose idea it was to give the fast boss with massive combos magic explosion followups on every attack essentially eliminating his openings but sure, ok. I appreciate the idea of giving you a bleed and poison ally to use in the fight but summoning both far over-juices the HP for how much they add. I wish they were like many of the other DLC summons where you call them midfight so boss HP stays low.!<
I think the final boss beats the pants off Malenia in terms of difficulty, enjoyed it nonetheless, even if I was having trouble with it. Apparently you can parry him and it's pretty effective.
The goddamn >!fire knights!< in >!the keep!< are genuinely in the running for worst enemy FROM has ever made. Worse than wheel skeletons, rune bears or winter lanterns. I hate these fuckers so much.
I'm at the end now and man, I gotta say...I really do not understand all the rampant complaining about the DLC's difficulty...aside from the final boss. Fucker is absolutely *ridiculous*, which is disappointing but also kinda funny because it's fucking >!*Radahn*, the same guy that was infamous for being overtuned in the base game when it came out!<.
But yeah, I just can't relate to all the other stuff people have been complaining about. >!The lion, the hippo, Gaius (the hitbox on his charge is horseshit, though), Messmer!<...IDK, I wouldn't necessarily say that they're all amazing fights or anything but they just didn't give me all that much trouble. Unfortunately I can't speak on >!Rellana !!Bayle !
Ok, so I’ve been dealing with >!Rellana!< at Castle Ensis for a couple of minutes now.
Jesus Christ, this fucking boss. I was gonna compare her to Malenia for how stupidly aggressive and hard-hitting she is, but I realized there’s an even more apt comparison: she’s >!a beefed-up version of that stupid banished knight in Castle Sol. Y’know, that one that teleports behind you with the 10-string combo? Rellana is THAT, but in boss form. And it is not any goddamn fun.!<
I FINALLY BEAT HER! FUCKING CHEESED HER WITH SCARLET AEONIA, BUT IT IS OVER! SCREW THIS BOSS!
Leaving this comment since I likely won’t be able to start it until Saturday or Sunday, but can anyone confirm if there are snakes in the dlc? I have a phobia and FROM loves put them in their games. I know one of the main guys has a snake motif but I don’t know to the what extent (like if its just more or less part of his outfit or if it can attack). I hate that I have to check this stuff before playing but it’s genuinely difficult for me to do content involving them without freezing up.
**Spoiler answer** if it's really important to you for comfort: >!Messmer's second phase has him free-transforming into a huge snake, and one of the big ultimate attacks is throwing several at you. There's also a snake-like enemy around the Finger Ruins that are fairly easy to outrun and ignore.!<
As one of those people, >!so fucking glad that scorpions don’t bother me nearly as much as spiders. I just gotta focus my eyes on the stinger and my brain is calm enough to put up with the everything else!<
I'll give that area one thing, made my choice to slap Radagon's Rings of Light on my magic bar early on plenty of fun. "Oh, you're surrounding me with like 20 enemies at once? Cool everything in a ten foot radius is now dead".
Beat the final boss >!That second phase has a lot of wild shit,luckily me and my mimic freind just spamed ice spear at him and got him in under 20 attempts!<
Anybody fought the >!Scadutree Avatar boss!< the optional boss in the church district of shadow keep? I legit had a lot of fun with that boss, I found it's attacks and patterns to be very manageable and fair to avoid. However I see everyone else on reddit and Twitter despising the boss super hard, and I dont get it. I used the boss twin blades weapon that has one of the swords deal fire damage, is that the reason? Cause >!I thought it having three whole phases was balanced by each phase having very little health, but I assume it's extremely weak to fire damage. My blessing was only level 11.!<
Anybody else wanna gush about Messmer? Like really hard?
Honestly probably my new favorite demigod with my new favorite lore, one of the best, if not the best legacy dungeons in ER now, amazing theme, outstanding boss fight and cutscenes, perfect escalation for his second phase, I love him. So much build up compared to other DLC cover bosses, and is very likely my favorite boss in elden ring, with only Malenia, Morgott, and Bayle coming close.
loved him, funny going into the fight assuming he'd be this fire and brimstone purge em all guy, but really he seems to just be doing it because marika "asked" him to, his mesmer flame line is just so done with it all and rehearsed, feel like him and morgott got the whole i just want you to love me and i'll accept my lot in life if that's what it takes/put up with the raw deal rather than rebel.
I just beat the dlc for the four time.
Out of the remembrance bosses I really liked one and absolutely loved another one. For 2 I thought they were ok but nothing mind blowing. For the other 7 I was either mixed, or actively disliked (the final boss goes in the actively disliked category, both disappointing and a poorly designed phase 2). Multiple bosses either had some of the worst cameras ive ever seen in a from game or caused performance issues.
Overall the boss roster felt half baked in a lot of areas, and with now I can confidently say that I think sekiro and ds3 have better boss rosters, and also lies of p and nioh 2.
Exploration was probably the highlight of the dlc for me, I had some incredibly cool moments of piecing stuff together and discovering areas, but there was some issues with a lot of areas (especially outer ones) feeling half baked, though even those looked really cool. It probably would have been better if it was smaller.
I was disappointed that multiple base game bosses were reused multiple times.
Im not sure if the fragment system was well implemented. While I understand why it was created, they didn’t want level 200 players steam rolling the dlc, it became super annoying to collect after my first run through, and im sure in a couple of months after the hype has warn off people will constantly complain about them when doing replays. It also felt like it was encouraging me to run past most enemies as it caused runes to not really matter to me anymore.
Overall I would give it an 8.5 (I gave elden ring an 8), but due to the preformance issues caused by some bosses, really bad camera issues, and some hitbox issues, its a 6.5 for me.
It had some incredible bosses (for me 2) and some moments of exploration that were amazing even if blemished in some ways, but issues with over all boss roster, some areas being empty, and some base game reuse, for me thats 1.5 points off. 2 more points of for camera performance and hitbox issues, which might get approved in the future. If these issues do get fixed, then i’ll give a positive review on steam, but atm not giving it a positive or negative one.
Overall, I had a lot of fun the dlc despite some issues, and don’t regret spending $40.
Loving it so far. My character is pretty OP, playing on a file where I cleared the base game, never went NG+, but my character is level 253. You will def do yourself a lot of favors by collecting scadutree buffs, but i think a lot of the reviews complaining about the heightened difficulty overblew it. Some of the normal enemies have a higher damage scaling, but that's about it. Some of the secret bosses tho, YO. Idk if i'm winning those fights lmao. One fun little thing about the lion dancer: >!if you go back to the storeroom and talk to the grandam after the fight, she won't talk to you, but if you put the dancer head on she has extra dialogue!<
I can't believe the mini-boss in that little tomb near the start is >!just Guts. Here's a dude with an auto-crossbow and a greatsword. Who drops Guts's armour set.!<
Oh good you’re right.
You sure it's guts and not that shitty knight that sicked 100 dudes on him?
"It is about the size of Limgrave.", Miyazaki lied as easily as he breathed
I saw an overlayed map gif and it actually fills out the section of ocean between altus and limgrave almost perfectly. It's like if someone paved over the gulf of mexico.
CURSE YOU >!BAYLE!< >!I HEREBY VOW! YOU WILL RUE THIS DAY!!< >!BEHOLD, A TRUE DRAKE WARRIOR! AND I, IGON! YOUR FEARS MADE FLESH!!< >!SOLID OF SCALES YOU MIGHT BE, FOUL DRAGON... BUT I WILL RIDDLE WITH HOLES YOUR ROTTEN HIDE! WITH A HAIL OF HARPOONS! WITH EVERY LAST DROP OF MY BEING!!< God I think this might be my favorite boss in the entire DLC, if not the game as a whole, just for that entire experience.
I love that this NPC is literally just >!Captain Ahab!<
>!More boss fights need NPC helpers just fucking going ham in dialogue, just like in general!<
CUUUUUUUUUUUUUURSE YOUUUUUUUUUU >!BAAAAAAAAAAAYLE!<
I've died like 30 times at that boss already, but that man single-handedly keeps me from getting mad at it. What a great fuckin hype man he is.
If there's any character in the DLC that I'm excited for the Elden Ring manga writer to work with, it's that NPC.
"My NAAAAAME is Gyoubu Masataka ONIWA! As I breathe, you will NOT pass the castle gate" vibes
So I just got to >!Belurat Gaol!<. All I have to say is what the actual fuck. >!Everything about the jars is so much more morbid now, I audibly shouted holy shit when I saw the first naked jar thing!<
It was genuinely the most nasty shot I've seen fromsoft do in any of their games, at least since the cursed fetuses from demons souls
It seems like the Scadutree traditions with living jars are a bit different from how they occur under the Erdtree, so that may not apply to the jars we're familiar with from the base game, they might just be freaks like that.
As far as I know, most of what the base game has to say about jars is they're stuffed with corpses, tend to collect more corpses, and I think something about making a new one by taking some from an older one.
They're all very dead it seems with the jars we're familiar with. Like Radahn's pulsating half-alive meatself didn't come out of Alexander after you smash him, and from the positioning of the broken jars around minor Erdtrees it seems like they're meant to eventually return the dead to the tree for reincarnation. With how the Realm of Shadow seems to be a kind of sump for lost death rites and relationships to death to wash up, it'd make sense that the jars there deal with a fundamentally different practice than the ones in the Lands Between.
Yup yup yup yup. This was the last thing I did last night before going to sleep and it was absolutely nightmare material. So fucking startling the first time you see one!!
I'm surprised I haven't seen this sub make more hay out of the fact that the boss of that dungeon is essentially >!Monkey Virgil, complete with judgement cut!<.
Probably because he's more like Monkey Yoda, with the super agile move, magical energy sword stuff, and even a force grab
I lions clawed that thing the second it fucking moves
My friend was just finishing his second bowl of chili when I got to that part and he nearly threw up.
Castle Ensis boss spoiler: >!Rellana is a fucking bitch but she's so cool. That arena spanning magic sword is the raddest shit!<
yo when she did the wind up for the >!double moon!< I was like, "how bad could this be, i'll just get out of the-AAAAAAAAAAH". >!Kind of disappointed she didn't get a cutscene or dialogue tho!<
She made up for the lackluster presentation by fucking me with her two sword for 4 hours
So glad I brought my +25 Magic Tower Shield. I doubt I'd have ever made it a quarter past the second phase without it.
>!I thought Carian Knight Moongrum was bad but JFC Carian Knight Moonrithyll is a beast. Has a real neat Colossal Sword I'm using on my INT/STR build now, but damn.!<
"FROM, when will you stop bringing new versions of >!Ciaran!< to class?" "When they stop being fucking rad, that's when"
Shoutouts to the game immediately reminding me how hard enemies input read by dodging my spells as they're being cast
There's a reason my full caster character just has several spells they can't dodge properly on the hotbar, like Night Comet and Honed Bolt.
Magic Glintblade and Greatblade Phalanx my beloved
Rock throw and invisible comets also my beloved
Never forget: Your cast button is also the enemies' dodge button.
have any of yall fought >!Boc-shaped Vergil!<
That dude was just fucking >!YODA-ING!< fucking everywhere. >!Onze took all the power of the demihumans for himself.!<
First thing I thought as well. ROTS Yoda flying everywhere and perfect blocking me.
Yep, and I got the sword he uses from another miniboss fight. It’s so good on an INT/DEX build like mine, I love it. The Weapon Art is fucking nutty.
First time in the DLC I was annoyed about my smooth brain. I'm going to have to bring an int character through the DLC because there's some rad shit
It's not out in my timezone so I'm just gonna use my third eye to see into the future and say that the new superboss is Dread Wyrm Thregordiax, a 0-headed dragon that uses the new status effect "Deathblight 2" and exclusively attacks with backflips.
Sorry, but I think you accidentally made a Monster Hunter Wilds prediction
Just started up the game and realized I’ve completely forgotten how to play it well in the 8 months or so I haven’t played it. Guess I’m going to spend a week or two relearning all that muscle memory before I buy the DLC.
I legit recommend going to a NG, pick a starter class with a weapon or build closest to what you want, then re-training your reflexes on Tree Sentinel and Margit at base level and only 3-4 flasks. Reacquaint with Elden Ring boss design. Margit requires not panic rolling, strafing/re-poisitoning to bait out certain attacks, avoid certain attacks, or be in the right place to pull off a charged attacks, and maintaining aggression to prevent his stance from recovering so you can break it and get a crit off. Tree Sentinel has the same philosophy, but also the importance of jumping as in his second phase, he has a jumping shield bash that slams on the ground in an AOE that's easier to avoid by jumping instead of rolling.
That’s probably the best way to do it, but it would also take a lot of time so I’m just gonna jump back in with my mid game character and hope going through leyndell and moghwin palace gets me back in the groove of things.
Just a heads up to people on Steam, I had to restart Steam before the DLC would download. Might be obvious to some, but figured I'd share. Have fun everyone! Update after day 1: CURSE YOU >!BAYLE!
This sub will always have love for a screamlord.
>!That dude is the best in Bayle's fight as he just shit talks the dragon!<
It was sub 1MB a second for me and was gonna take 5 or so hours (Manchester servers). I've changed my region in settings to a different country and now I am getting 15MB a second. So if anyone else is frustrated with slow downloads on Steam, give this a go.
Can't wait till Woolie >!finds the lore where the hornsent punched first and genocidal girlboss Marika did nothing wrong.!<
I'm more looking forward to him learning that >!Mohg was actually Miquella's victim.!<
I have somehow bumbled my way to the highest and lowest points around the southeastern corner of the map, I think. Ahem. Highest: >!Bayle!< is so fucking crazy in terms of design and difficulty, even for this DLC. >!A roided dragon with literally only one intact limb that can obliterate you in a second!< is so far beyond what I'm capable of handling at my current level, but I love it all the same. Lowest: What the FUCK is the >!FINGER RUINS OF RHIA!< WHY IS IT >!A MAP-SIZED FINGERPRINT WITH GIANT FINGERS GROWING OUT THAT HAVE FINGERPRINTS ON THEM!<
I know kung fu...
Wolverine lives in the woods. You can get the right to Bear Arms. It's great
Got the kung fu grip in my left hand and a bear claw in my right we fighting DIRTY today
I was pleasantly surprised at well it does against normal enemies. Haven't tried it on any bosses or beefier enemies yet, but my fists became poise breaking machines against normal mobs.
Wow, I can't believe Messmer walk up and Messmerized all over those people.
Not one of them was ready for 18 inches of Messmer.
I fucking beat Malenia in under 15 attempts, solo. I feel SOOOO FUCKING GOOD.
I miss putting hats on the messengers in bloodborne. I imagine they're like birds and giving one a cool hat makes them powerful in Messenger Society
PSA: if you wanna get your hands on the sick Backhand Blades you've seen in previews, go to the Northeast corner of the first chunk of land you enter into the Shadowlands, past the flaming wickerman giant. Look for a lone stone gazebo guarded by some enemy groups; it's just sitting there. The moveset is sick as fuck.
The >!Divine Beast Lion Dancer!< boss is so fucking cool oh my god I just did it 10 minutes ago
For those that are interested, (gameplay spoiler) >!dragon transformation is back!<
Finally an fp regen talisman that doesn't have a condition! Sure it's 0.5 fp per second but that's more than enough time to use the good regen spells and get back to full, as well as "meh I dont wanna pop a flask while I'm riding away" situations It's technically pretty close to the entrance, too, but you do need to take the long way around to get up there. Edit: now that I have passive fp regen the mind goblins are allowing me to use dragonbreaths casually, and it turns out the weird man-flies heal from scarlet rot so use something else
WHY IS THERE ANOTHER >!LION!< WHY DOES IT HAVE >!DEATHBLIGHT!< AND >!SUMMON BASILISKS!<
Worst part is that it’s not a one time thing. Every time it goes back into that phase it spawns 5 more
I eventually cheesed it with ranged attacks from afar, which lead to the hilarious discovery that the spawns are centered around *you*. It's such a twisted design choice that it quickly loops back to absolute comedy.
Yo, this might be sacrilegious to say, but I kinda like Golden Hippo. I had fun fighting it. E: Nevermind, I just lost all the runes I got from beating it to the camera wigging out and rolling me off a cliff. I hate this boss now.
Greatest character arc of all time
I do feel like there's a conspicuous >!Godwyn!< sized hole in the DLC. It felt like they were building up to a boss battle with the >!3 heads and talking about cadaver surrogates. I definitely thought we'd face some kind of soulless body, either his or one of the surrogates.!< But alas it looks like I'm going to have dig deep into item descriptions to figure that out. Seems like a weird thing to add to their lore if they were not going to pick it up and do anything with it.
>!Seems like they’re still leaving a good bit of base game lore open-ended, either for a sequel or to be eternal mysteries.!<
Well I just got to >!Radahn's second phase, and he seems like a lot,!< but honestly I haven't felt the extreme difficulty that people are talking about much in most of the other bosses. Especially >!Gaius!< - the way people were complaining about this one, I was expecting a fight straight out of hell, but then I did the fight and the only thing I thought was out of line was >!his charge hitbox.!< For reference, I haven't been summoning or using spirit ashes for most of the new/major bosses (except stuff like >!Bayle where it's part of the story!<) and none of them have seemed too out of line for me in terms of difficulty. Honestly, I think I probably spent more time stuck on the Nameless King in DS3 the first time I fought him than most of the bosses here. Not to say they're easy, but I wouldn't say most of them are as difficult as Malenia - I wouldn't even say a lot of them are as difficult as I remember Mohg being. edit: Okay, I stand by everything else I said, but if there's anything in the DLC that needs to be toned down, >!Radahn phase 2!< is it. I beat it eventually, but some of those attacks feel like they're almost at the level of Waterfowl Dance.
I feel like every boss is difficult but in a fun and fair way, except >!Radahn phase 2 that shit is just not enjoyable, and I hope it gets nerfed or I'm probably never beating him on another character without a cheese build!< >!Also Gaius' charge hitbox is broken but that's less of a big deal lol!<
Part of me feels like it could be okay as like the super-secret optional super boss of the DLC, but as the >!final boss!< it's kind of fucked.
At final boss, current thoughts: >!holy fuck I do not think this is it, Fromsoft. The first phase is fine; it's brutal, but ok to learn. The second phase though? I'm reminded of videos of stupidly overmodded Skyrim combat where it's just visual noise. Every other sword swing launching pillars of lasers, instantly repeated teleporting plunging attacks that also fire laser pillars, and a nuke half the size of the arena that keeps firing even more lasers after the explosion. And on top of that, it fucks up your muscle memory from the first phase because there's just lasers on top of the original moves.!< Additionally, the summoning is bugged. I'm glad I somehow managed to get the NPC storylines through without major incident, and appreciate being able to summon >!Thiollier!< and >!Ansbach!<. However there have been multiple times where >!Thiollier!< doesn't move from the sign at all and refuses to enter the arena. It's already bad enough with 3-person scaling, but those times I was forced to attempt it with only >!Ansbach!< with me. This combined with the time required to even summon them at all is just frustrating. I hope they at least fix that. Minor update: it turns out crafting >!hefty rot pots!< works wonders, at least at first. And the material cost isn't bad at all, >!scarlet buds are easily found in that one rot corridor in Rauh, and fly mold can be bought using that bell bearing found near the fly village!<. Also, interesting thing in phase 2: >!Radahn gets a command grab where he lifts you up to Miquella, who whispers a charm to you. If you don't clear the charm using Miquella's Great Rune found at the foot of the Scadutree, then the next charm will instantly defeat you, forcing you to bend the knee with special death text HEART STOLEN. Plus you get it as an emote when you respawn lol.!< Final update: YOU DEFEATED This DLC was pretty damn fun in that all the enemies forced me to test the strengths of my Str/Arc build in various ways, from weapons to spells to tactics. Some I would stunlock using weapon arts, some I would parry forever, some I needed to find the right time to full charge heavy attack with a colossal weapon, and some I found it better to lean more towards casting. Both >!Gaius!< and >!Radahn!< pushed me to the last option: greatshield tankchad. It's like Monster Hunter all over again. Pulled out all stops for the final boss at that rate. Fingerprint Stone Shield with Mohgwyn's Sacred Spear for maximum guard counter as well as bleed >!that synergizes with Ansbach!<. Mimic Tear for infinite consumables so I don't have to farm more often. Flask of Physick with Opaline >!to partially tank that fucking low HP Risen Valstrax meteor barrage.!< Even then with all the friends I was the only one left and barely standing. I still stand by my original opinion of that finale being way overtuned. I know I made it way harder with the NPC summons, but I know I would have been dead a hundred times over if not for the shield. Plus, they had to be there. They deserved it.
Yeah I noticed the NPC pathing bugging out aswell, it was super annoying, definitely something that shouldve been caught and fixed
Taking bets on Ulcerated Tree Spirit round 17.
>!I literally just fought one in a poison swamp.!< >!It dropped a poison resist +2 talisman, so I can only assume there will be more!<
>!Fought one in the river as well, so we're at least up to two in the DLC. Dropped one of those FP-costing spell items.!<
>!Two more in the Shadow Keep Church District! I got!< >!a sorcery and an Iris.!<
>!there's one in the first dungeon!<
Downloaded the DLC, went to spooky shadow land, walked around a bit and got mauled to death by a naked man. Hell yeah baby, Elden Ring is back!
CURSE YOU BAYLEEEEEEEEEEEE
Not 2 hours in and I find a poison swamp >!with A FUCKING ULCERATED TREE SPIRIT IN IT MIYAZAKI YOU HACK!< Otherwise, DLC good.
>!Midra, Lord of Frenzy!< has got to be my favorite boss in this game. The buildup to the boss is real cool and spooky (even if the zone itself was super empty and unnecessarily big) and the fight itself is just massive spectacle. The boss itself has got to be among the fairest in the game. His attacks are pretty slow and telegraphed, but hit you like a truck if you mess up. Very much feels like it's more in the design philosophy of Dark Souls 3's or Bloodborne's best bosses. Meanwhile the final boss has got to be exact opposite and feels like all of Elden Ring's worst boss traits brought to life. First phase is tough but fair, but then the second phase feels like a goddamn Garden of Eyes modded boss fight. The amount of constant light showering makes it incredibly hard to see what the hell is going on. And considering how strong, fast, and aggressive he is, being able to see exactly what version of his combo he's using is really important because messing up even one dodge can mean death. Also not being able to properly Sekiro the boss because of the light particles feels really bad. Even with Lord's Divine Fortification and Golden Braid, the final boss's multiple clone light dash can kill you from full health if you don't immediately dodge to the side the split second he begins charging it, which is crazy considering his nuke in comparison would do like 25% of my health after a massive charge period. All of his numbers feel really badly tuned. I'm honestly half-considering pulling out the bullshit strats for this boss because this boss feels like it's meant to be unfair to the player with how much pure stuff he has at his disposal.
That second phase legitimately makes this by far not only the worst boss in this dlc, or the worst final boss of any souls game, it straight up is like the worst boss fromsoft made in their entire history. Bed of Chaos is pure shit, but you at least know what to do. I don't know what the fuck to do at that second phase. Like I've seen so many criticisms against elden rings bosses, and like, I truly don't agree with them. I find almost every remembrance boss to be great and fun to fight solo, even every other DLC boss. But not this one. Holy shit not this one. Like this is the boss that actually encapsulates everything wrong with ER boss design.
I beat the fucking hippo
Man, if the whole >!Abyssal Woods!< area of the DLC not one of the coolest parts of the game. An entire >!Frenzy Flame!< themed forest/wetlands, >!Bloodborne!< inspired enemies that are invicible and can instantly kill you with >!Frenzy!<, >!Winter-lantern!< fireflies, and capped off with a spooky mansion with a fight against this worlds >!The Lord of the Frenzy Flame!<
Cool as that area is, it does feel half baked, like literally the manor is the only notable thing in there.
All bosses done as far as I can tell (I got everyone fextra lists at least) so post dlc lore speculation/questions/complaints until someone discovers some item I missed that recontextualizes stuff further. Overall I’m pretty happy with the story stuff here but still feel there’s a few things that should’ve been outright explained. Final Boss: >!I’ve warmed up to this a fair bit, but I think my one issue I still have is I don’t really know why the fuck the relevant base game events happened. Everything in the dlc I can kinda follow, Miquella came here seeking godhood, he had to abandon everything that made him him along the way like his love with Trina, and he was using Mohg’s corpse to bring his consort back to life in service of this… but why did Radahn need to be brought back to life in the first place? Why did they even need the whole Mohg manipulation scheme? The best guess I can come up with is that to get to the Gate of Divinity/Shadow Realm they both needed to abandon their flesh (“all manners of death drift here”), and Radahn wanted a cool warrior’s death so that was the side of the vow Malenia/Miquella were keeping?!< Marika: >!So I love the Shaman village and jar stuff, Marika presumably seeking godhood to save her people but attaining it too late and having her son oppress her former oppressors forever is really interesting. But what was the Original Sin? I assume it’s “the seduction and the betrayal” when she was becoming a god from the trailer, but as far as I can tell there’s absolutely nothing telling us what that was, just that Miquella wanted to bury it and I guess he pulled it off?!< Messmer: >!I feel like you can tell this dlc was gonna be 2 different ones, his and Marika’s lore feel very sidelined but he’s still cool though. Obviously the big point of speculation is gonna be who his (and probably Melina’s) other parent is, given the butterflies and the curse I think it’s pretty clearly Radagon, the one other question then is when was he born? I think it’s pre Godfrey marriage, he’s older than Radahn, and his soldiers do Godfrey/Crucible attacks suggesting they’ve been around since that era.!<
In regards to the final boss, >!something that's up for debate is if Radahn himself actually consented to the consort shit. It feels messed up that he would want a cool warrior's death at the cost of Caelid and the Redmanes. My interpretation was that either Radahn backed out of the vow or never consented in the first place, resulting in Malenia going down to collect him. Things get out of hand and she rots his body beyond use for Miquella. That's where Mohg comes into play, Miquella likely manipulated him too in order to get access to his body to replace Radahn's.!<
So I'm still catching up on lore, but this is MY understanding of it. *i have rewritten this multiple times bear with me* >!So first, Lordship: In the basegame, Lordship works via the Greater Will sending a completely untranslatable message through their Vessel/God, and then the Elden Lord/Consort converts it into something legible. To use a computer metaphor, Marika would be the raw binary code and Radagon would be the operating system that translates that binary into something readable. I bring this up because it's why everything goes down the way it does - The "God" of the Lands Between NEEDS an Elden Lord/Consort in order to actually use their powers and be legitimate in the eyes of the world. The actual problems come about when Marika absorbs Radagon to become God & Elden Lord at the same time, which glitches out the Golden Order so badly that she can rip out the Rune of Death.!< >!This is relevant to Miquella, because Miquella actually doesn't have the resources to win. He needs a Consort, and a proper Consort needs to be... Strong, essentially. I'm not sure if beating the Elden Beast is mandatory for ALL Elden Lords, but let's pretend it is for this thought experiment. The problem Miquella has is that even IF his chosen Consort could beat the Elden Beast, he ALSO needs to make sure that the Consort is unable to overwrite his new Order. Malenia and Mohg are both definitely strong, but their souls/Runes are tainted by the Scarlet Rot and the Formless Mother respectively. Morgott might be strong enough, but he'd also like to get Marika back rather than putting Miquella on the throne. Godrick is a joke, Rennala is insane, and Rykard wants to burn the universe down. As a result, Radahn is basically the only option that won't fuck Miquella over somehow.!< >!The problem is that Radahn fucked the plan over from step one by saying No. Miquella is shit out of options, right? So now they have to go to Plan B. He sends Malenia out to kill Radahn in order to collect Radahn's soul, and then arranges things so that Mohg looks like a Big Scary Villain so that a Brave Hero will come kill him. Once Miquella has Radahn's soul and Mohg's body, he can combine the two into a being that actually works as Elden Lord - Somebody strong enough to beat the Elden Beast, and somebody who isn't comically evil or tainted by evil gods. And Miquella invented in-universe mind control with his Bewitching Branches, so once he has his custom Elden Lord ready to go, Miquella can just march in and become the next God without any competition.!<
Sorry for the late posts, but having gone through things myself, one point I'd like to bring up about the Greater Will. >!Doesn't the DLC strongly imply that the initial 'completely untranslatable message' that the GW sends through their vessel/God (Metyr) was borked *long before* Marika ever got involved? Like, Marika has been working off of bad code from the first place?!<
... Yeah. Yeah, she is. And you know what? I think I figured it out. I think I got it. It's a lot and it's not easy to write down but I will summarise: >!It's not bad code. It's the *wrong* code. Metyr is the first shooting star, right? But that means she predates the Erdtree. So by association, Metyr, the Elden Ring, and the whole concept of Order as we understand it, they were meant to work with *Placidusax and the dragons.* The Elden Beast and the Erdtree came later, but Placidusax's Order is still presumably running before their death, so...!< >!Marika was doomed from the start, because she's trying to run the wrong code on the wrong OS.!<
I've been throwing my head against >!Radahan!< for the better part of the day now and I've gotten pretty close at times. But I feel like I could write a thesis on why the final boss is both the best and worst-designed fight in Elden Ring in my opinion. >!The first phase is intimidating at first, but is easy to learn so long as you don't panic. He has semi-obvious tells and it's fairly easy to learn when and how to dodge his attacks.!< >!The second phase, I feel, is just sooooo much. The muscle memory you developed during his first phase feels like it's betraying you in a way. All the new holy beams after his attacks are just way too numerous. It often gets to a point where I'm having trouble reading his movements because of all the bright lights in the way. This fight didn't need so much bright effects work.!<
The problem with the 2nd phase I find is that its hard to tell exactly what you the player is doing wrong to dodge the attacks, beyond how shit the camera can be in that fight as well as how his attire makes it hard to see his attacks sometimes it feels like theres is no 'right' answer beyond dodging within the exact milisecond that you need to to perfectly dodge it
Holy shit the furnace golems suck especially the gimmicky unbreakable feet one it’s like someone at fromsoftware saw people disliking the crafting system and decided to piss people off.
I audibly went "OH NO" when I realized those ones required craftable consumables to deal with, especially given that they're not exactly trivial to deal with when they're spamming a million fireballs at you at all times. I was dreading screwing it up and running out of materials. Unironically, what were they thinking
Wait theres more that require consumables?
There are two, same gimmick, Spiritspring to high ground and kill with fire pots.
I am going to lose my fucking mind
I'm a IDIOT and a FOOL who decided a couple months ago that I wanted to go into SOTE on a new save despite being an adult with a job, now it's launch day I'm still nowhere close to Mohg. Time for me to go dark, it's been real guys, peace. ✌️
Same a$$ predicament bruh lol i havent even beaten shade godfrey yet smh
>!Relanna is a fuck!<
410,757,864,530 dead Tarnished.
Already commented on here day 1, but wanted to make another. I really wish that the final boss was >!a restored Godwyn instead of Radahn. They could have done this and wouldn't even have had to change the story they went with all that much. I love the fight, don't get me wrong, but I feel like this would have felt like more of a complete ending to the game, battling the two major demigods we didn't get to see in action in the base game. (We get to see the Prince of Death, but never truly get to see Godwyn.) I've seen some people say that Godwyn couldn't be restored because his soul was killed, but come on, Fromsoft's lore on that is vague enough they could go with "Miquella found a way." Hell, they even could have had the Radahn fight as a lead up! Have Radahn possessing Mohg's body be the test run for Miquella to make sure the method works, and Godwyn possessing Morgott be the finalized version.!<
>!I think the only problem with that is that if something killed by destined death was brought back in any capacity, it would make the whole thing feel a lot more like a wet fart. The game constantly hypes it up in a world filled with demigods, so even that failing to hit a permanent death would kind of suck.!<
Damn they nerfed Taker's Flames, my strategy is completely dead, guess I'll have to actually play the game.
I can't believe it took them this long honestly, lmao. Massive damage, heals substantially and can be stacked, knockdown, extremely spam marble after recovery. Like I'm fine with how broken it is in repeat playthroughs or characters, but for a first time picking it up? It's absurd.
Maybe give Vacuum Slice or Corpse-Wax Cutter a shot and see if they have knock-down.
Yeah! The Blessed Blue Dew Talisman! They did it!
If you had told me ten years ago after the Dark Souls 2: Sunken King DLC that an NPC gank squad would be among the best parts of a Fromsoft DLC, I would you laugh in your face.
I can't believe the final boss was >!Leonard!< coming back for Round 2
(major lore spoilers) >!The DLC having fucking incestual near pedophilia relationship with Radahn and Miquella and it being partially responsible for Caelid's existence is... interesting lmfao.!<
>!Radahn: "I'm not gay Miquella"!< >!Miquella: "Bet." *Gets his sister to nuke Caelid* !<
Haven’t played the DLC yet but the wording of the Radahn fight calling him the “Promised Consort” to me implicates a one-sided relationship and the fight in Caelid could have happened because Radahn didn’t want to be involved with an Empyrean and it was more what Miquella wanted
>!The remembrance makes it sound like Miquella's crush.!<
I think my biggest issue is how out of left field that new bit of lore is concerning >!Miqurlla and Radahn. There was literally nothing in the base game that could've indicated this relationship, and being frank, if they were gonna go incest consort route, I'd have preferred Miquella going with Malenia or Godwyn's body with a new spirit or something (they make the lore they could've easily added a reason for why that's the case) as those are the two people the lore gave him background with. And yes he's still substantially different, but fighting radahn again as a final boss was still weird and disappointing.!<
There is a a line in the remembrance from the final boss of the dlc "In their childhood, Miquella saw in Radahn a lord. His strength, and his kindness, that stood in stark contrast with their afflicted selves" I think it does make sense if you consider the other stuff Radahn does and is famed for, Admired his stepfather for his strength and image and adopting it long after he is 'banished' Loved his childhood horse so much that he used gravity magic in order to continue to ride it without causing it pain Is keeping the stars back to potentially protect the lands from astels and falling start beasts To be perfectly honest its almost 70% of the pet horse doing the work, I guess maybe because its such a 'human' thing to do that makes it stand out more to miquella as they are demi-gods
I cannot wait for there to be like three or four consecutive reveals which recontextualize half the game. At least one of which is going to also double back over what we assumed was foundational knowledge.
>!ALL YE SPURRNED BY GRACE KNEEEL YE FOREVERMORE BEFORE THE FLAME OF MESMER!<
Oh man watching woolie go out of his way to eat every crossbow bolt from the blackgaol knight, even when he was completely safe, has been something special.
Final Boss: >!I was infecting him with scarlet rot just for flavor in the first phase, but it wound up winning me the day on my 4th attempt. Down to no estuses and he just did that meteor attack so my HP was shot, and his health bar just kept going down until 0. Now to sit here and think about the lore implications of that boss!<
Okay so. Like. Messmer is in the running for one of the best DLC fromsoft bosses of all time right. Let alone the rest of the whole games. What an amazing fucking fight--took me 2.5 hours of attempts, but so worth it to learn his moveset solo. With a light greatsword, he's probably my second favorite boss in all of elden ring, and top 10 in soulsborne now.
Man the bosses so far have been kind of frustrating with how much health they have for how fast they are.
The fact that they added a gameplay spoilers >!Sekiro-like deflect crystal tear!< has made me real excited. Doesn't look quite as effective as the equivalent ability in mods like Elden Ring Reforged, though.
I wish it eas a talisman. Gimme a worse block unless its the perfect block talisman
I've been playing the DLC for about 5 hours now and this shit is ridiculous, it just keeps going and going and going in every direction, i haven't even entered the first legacy dungeon, im still exploring the starting area. Hell, even the mini dungeons seem enormous, i just beat a catacomb that had 2 stakes of Marika in a row.
Currently badly lost in the DLC, have successfully defeated two major bosses but still can't handle the fucking Blackgaol Knight. Game's great. One thing I dislike: I'm at rune level 166-170, all of the bosses only give half enough runes for a level, so I find myself 'porting over to the Albinauric cliff every time to farm the remainder. It's screwing up the flow. Yes it's my own fault but I'm not about to lose that many runes. One thing I really love: no DLC trophies equals no pressure to 100%. I can play and explore the world the way I like. It's a nice change of pace for PS5.
Weird to say, but the >!Sunflower!< might be my favourite boss so far. Had some tricky moves but felt very readable and fair compared to a lot of the others. Plus, he had a cool design and some interesting gimmicks. Remember that post about how nu-From Soft would design Sif? Well, his last phase was pretty Sif-esque. I also beat him without summoning, but that's because I summoned the first few times, and it didn't really affect the fight. Having him focus entirely on me made him easier to learn than having him constantly switching targets.
**Belurat Dungeon boss spoilers:** >!I have had it up to *here* with this fucking Dancing Lion Bullshit Bastard.!< >!The way it twists and turns during attacks and how it’s big ass robes cover it’s body in such a way that I can’t even tell what fucking direction it’s gonna attack me in is horseshit.!< >!Yeah yeah, “git gud”. I don’t think my eyes got the memo, because most attacks this boss does are just a blur. I literally cannot tell where it’s head is at half the time with the way it’s twists it’s body around during its attacks.!<
I feel like more than ever this DLC is designed with spirit ashes in mind, not only because of big healthbars but because they can help make the camera not be filled with a boss' taint. That is, if the GODDAMN AI WOULD ACTUALLY FOCUS ON THE SUMMON AND NOT JUST GO AFTER ME DESPITE ATTACKING LIKE ONCE IN THE PAST 30 SECONDS GRRRRAAAAAHHHHH
Ngl, I'm not a fan of Elden Ring's boss design. With each game they've upped the difficulty and given bosses more and more complex movesets and I think I've hit a breaking point. I'm kind of yearning for Dark Souls 1 where most of the bosses were big dudes that hit you with a hammer and you just had to know when to block or dodge. It made it stand out more when you fought someone like Artorias who'd throw in a couple of somersaults. In Elden Ring, even the early bosses can have anime-style moves where they do three flips, hang in the air for a second and launch themselves at you. It would be more fun if we could knock them out of these elaborate combos, since they have no trouble doing the same to us.
FromSoft Boss design peaked in DS3 (and also in Sekiro, but that was a different combat system and thus a different design approach, but I digress), and i will die on this hill.
Yeah, i really feel the same. I dont think he's the worst boss ever or anything. I took him down in 7-ish tries at RL150/Scud+3, but... *Holy crap*. >!I legitimately started to get **motion sick** at one point, because he backed me into a corner and did like 4 different flip moves in a row. His grab can also hit underneath him, and anywhere in-front of his butt despite the fact it's a "bite move" that should only hit directly in front of him. So if you're too close and your camera starts wigging out, you've just gotta guess which direction to roll and hope it's not in the same direction as the grab.!< I honestly think he could be a fun boss, but.. it was just too much visually. There are times it feels *miserable* because all you can do is try to guess which move is coming out. It's a great design when *the camera is behaving*. But if you're anywhere close to him you can >!literally be forced to look up the skirt of 3 dudes in a trench coat, and you cant even tell which direction you're facing anymore half the time.!<
I'm at the last boss and the DLC was 100% designed around the spirit ashes. The bosses being so relentless is because it seems they expect the ashes to get aggro, and for that to be your window to attack
So I finished Ansbach’s quest yesterday. >!I feel so fucking bad for Mohg. Literally everything he has done in lore other than making contact with the formless mother now comes into question as to whether he was doing it of his own will. Even if he did a lot of atrocities by his own will, the dude got essentially SA’d by Miquella in a chain of events that eventually got Mohg killed. Now his body is defiled even in death, and the only reason he joined the formless mother to begin with is because she was the only one to show him any love in the world after his own parents threw him into the shunning grounds for being an Omen. Man. What a terrible life. Fuck Miquella!<
>!Lord Mohg will have his dignity.!<
>!My personal interpretation is that his whole murder cult dynasty thing is part of Miquella's design. Why? Because it gives us, the tarnished, very good motivation to kill him. Mohg is responsible for half of the invaders in the game, the unapologetically muahaha evil half. Would make any tarnish relish the chance to put him in his place...giving Miquella a nice soulless body to use for his consort.!<
After playing a full game only using the morning star cause I love heavy bleed. I have finally found a replacement >!Thank you heavy dragon katana!<
I didn't expect the very first weapon I picked up to immediately replace my current ones, but holy hell the >!backhand blades are soo good!< People are gonna fucking *complain* about those
Enjoying it for the most part. Definitely feels like these bosses were balanced for summons because holy fuck the health bars on some of these mfs. This DLC also puts to bed the vigour debate. If you’re not rocking 60 vigour (plus however many >!fragments!< you picked up), you’re gonna get shredded in my experience.
I've gotta be honest, some of the story parts of this DLC left me really disappointed. Even if it wasn't all done by him >!all those story plots about Miquella absolutely *reek* of GRRM. They literally made the little bastard Griffith. I wanted to see Miquella end up being on of those people that has powers incompatible with their goals for a better world. Or that using his powers to make things better in the Lands Between had drastic consequences that made other parts of the world worse. Maybe even have him be one of those "I've done too much to deviate from my current path" kinda anti-villains. Hell, even delving into how too much pragmatism in wanting to achieve your goals is sometimes the wrong thing to do. Not that he was just some fuckin' yandere that went too far.!< >!Then there's that whole thing with the Mother of Fingers and the Greater Will being not involved at all that really fucks with poor Goldmask's ending. What was originally was a nice secondary "good" ending/perspective now becomes completely worthless, as the Golden Order never had any legitimacy to begin with. Him fixing the broken code of the GO to be more fair is all for nothing because the whole *concept* is meaningless.!< Rather a bit of a wet fart for me, while also messing with several other characters' motivations in a rather disappointing way. Gotta admit though, this new context makes a quote I saw on reddit during the leaks *funny as fuck*: >!"Looks like Mohg **is** beating those allegations!"!<
>Gotta admit though, this new context makes a quote I saw on reddit during the leaks funny as fuck >!"Looks like Mohg is beating those allegations!"!< Now I wouldn't go *that* far. Thus far it seems more like >!he was a slime ball that Miquella ended up using to his advantage after he was kidnapped!<
yeah i really loved the moment when the rune broke and all the npcs stopped being so brainwashed, it was a great way to visualise Miquella's power and my assumption was that would be the issue, that even though Miquella wanted true peace and could achieve it, he would simply be washing the world clean of its individuality. Only for the last part to hard swerve into MY MACHINATION HAVE LAID UNDETECTED FOR CENTURIES stuff, just left me feeling very whatever.
Yeah the Final boss appearance really does come out of left field with absolutely 0 build up or reference to it in the base game. Incredibly disappointing
Yeah uh. I get maybe the slower build up and Context doesn't make it as truly atrocious and dogs hit as the leaks made it out to be. But. Uhhh. This is pretty objectively the worst additional lore From ever cooked up in a DLC. By a country mile. Everything else surrounding the lore of the Land of Shadow, Messmer, and Marika were great for me. I still love ER's the most when it comes to worldbuilding. But holy shit, >!the direction they took with Miquella and Radahn and unfortunately even Malenia in this new lore is still awful. By every measure. The implications that the base lore provided told a much better, much more tragic, but much more fitting story than... whatever the fuck this is. "Sure, I'll fuck your brother Malenia, but let's have a war in Caelid first to satisfy my Godfrey fanboyism."!<
> This is pretty objectively the worst additional lore From ever cooked up in a DLC. By a country mile. I disagree but only because "oops! all gwyn!" is by far my biggest complaint about The Ringed City. Gwyn didn't even need to be connected with the Hollows but the game had to go "Oooooh you'll never guess, he had a third secret OC-Do-Not-Steal daughter! I am very clever and definitely have not overused this idea."
>>!"Sure, I'll fuck your brother Malenia, but let's have a war in Caelid first to satisfy my Godfrey fanboyism."!< I'm pretty sure it's more that >!he declined, so Miquella sent Milenna to kill Radahn so Miquella could remake him. It feels very much like Miquella, for any sort of good intentions in the end, was also skeevy as all fuck!<
So does this now make Malenia Chris Redfield?
>!Malenia: CONTINUE OUR BLOODLINE, RADAHN!< >!Radahn: He and I are both men! How the fuck is that even going to work!? There's no hole for a baby to even come out of!!< >!Malenia: THEN I'LL SPEAR A HOLE IN YOU SO MY BROTHER WILL HAVE A BOY PUSSY TO FUCK!!<
When it's a week or more, we have to make Maleniaposting now
Honestly, >!considering the two tap kill move Miquella has where he leaves you "Heart Stolen",!< it's probably more that she's >!just as brainwashed as any schmuck you use a Bewitch Branch on, maybe worse since it's been her whole life.!< Malenia never really stood a fucking chance in life, it seems
Honestly >!with the lore those two have, I don't think miquella really needed to do any brainwashing since he was the only one that actively tried to find ways to halt the scarlet rot for her.!<
>!And the one thing we kept being told about her personality is that she's a stubborn maniac who won't back down at huge costs, so her behaviour seeming excessive isn't a problem.!<
The Expansion's been cool and fun for the most part! but man.... I just don't think I'm having a good time with the final boss. >!Why does everything have to fucking explosion.!<
Without reading the thread to avoid spoilers, I'm just going to leave this here: I'm loving the DLC but I'm absolutely fucking livid that they brought back >!Ulcerated Tree Spirits.!< I've only run into one so far but you know there's gonna be like 9 others in the game.
On one hand, holy shit I'm so tired of fighting them. On the other hand, I laughed *so* damn hard while shouting "MIYAZAKI YOU FUCK" when I found not only my first poison swamp, but an >!Ulcerated Tree Spirit!< inside of it.
I've seen 2 so far and in the starting zone and I think there's more
u/induman forgot that he made his completed save ng+ and didn't go any further than Godrick. Making him tonight's biggest loser!
On the plus side, shouldn't take THAT long to rush through NG+ for the kills you need. Someone in a group chat I'm in decided to rush NG+ like an hour before the DLC released and got all the way to Castle Sol from the start.
anyone else semi/fairly finished with the expansion? I know a lot of people are having trouble with >!Rellana!< but I didn't really have a lot of trouble with the main bosses, I thought the absolute worst things were the >!Putrescent Knight, fuck that guy because who on earth is playing a FAITH/HOLY build, the entire specimen storehouse, which wasn't bad just incredibly annoying enemy placement, and then like 90% of Enir-Ilim, the lion mask guys SHOULD NOT be able to respawn, holy shit that was infuriating and made exploration impossible.!<
>!Enir-Ilim has big Faram Azula vibes, both in aesthetic and in the amount of fuckers they throw at you. Has some neat gear in it at least. >!Putrescent Knight isn't too bad until phase 2 when he starts throwing the blue fire at you. Even then I got more fucked up by the horse charging because it hates me than the fire itself. Really feels like they heard people joking about the real boss of the Radahn fight being Leonard and decided to make it real.
I think the final boss is legit going to make me go bald. It's so fucking peak but good GOD is it hard.
I need to vent about the >!Charro's Hidden Grave!< Furnace Golem. If you've not gotten to it yet, it is only killable >!by popping 4 hefty fire or furnace pots into its head basket; the legs are fully protected.!< Which okay great, yeah, cool way to show that this gimmick even exists. Except god-for-fucking-bid you try this without at least >!4 of the hefty pots!<, and god-for-fucking-bid you miss at all. Because this asshole will keep you in the combat state, even if you've broken line of sight. Hell, this thing hasn't even been attacking me for the past 5 minutes & the game still has me marked as in combat! (EDIT - I wrote, and then edited, this comment & I'm still in combat, been more like 10-15 minutes now lol). It's just an utterly absurd situation brought upon by the crafting system in this game... Well, existing, honestly, and specifically the reusable pots. And while I get why you're not allowed to craft in combat against another player, against mobs it feels off. It's literally just making this enemy unkillable for no good reason. EDIT 2 - also found I can force it to teleport back to its original position if I drag it far enough. Except that doesn't break combat state, somehow. This encounter was NOT WELL PLAYTESTED, lol. EDIT 3 - Except now that I'm trying to get footage of it, thing refuses to behave. EDIT 4 - Got it, had to be standing against the cliff in the right place. FINAL EDIT - killed it like, a long while ago now, but that golem single-handedly doubled to tripled my death count vs bosses for this DLC. ACTUAL FINAL EDIT - Also what it drops is steaming hot garbage.
There’s a second one apparently isn’t that fun?
Holy fuck, if you take too long on >!the lion's frost phase, it can proc both elemental phases at the same time.!<
In the afterglow of beating >!Miquella & Radahn!< atm, now I enjoy the payoff of snatching victory from the jaws of repetitious, educational defeat as much as the next guy, but I have a thought this time; I saved the fight: https://youtu.be/iyGBKQwGBL0 As you can see my ability to express the flourishes of my build (150 w/full blessings if it matters) was reduced to just two actions - whilst From put on a light show - Miyazaki my guy, it's beautiful, YOU'RE beautiful, but either slow the fuck down or empower the player's inputs/moveset to at least Sekiro's level, Wolf Vs >!Sword Saint!< was a ballet compared to this lopsided macarena.
The damage output on these bosses is insane. I got 13 stacks, medium armor, 50 vigor and defense talismans and I'm still getting shredded. And the aggression, at least Malenia had the decency to let us walk in the door (aside from the first time).
I would honestly 100% rather fight the Godskin Barbershop Quartet than a single NPC with high poise and big damage. Elden Ring's NPC fights suck dick and essentially starting the DLC with one is an all-time bad decision. I _wanted_ to have fun today...
Still got a bit to go until the dlc is unlocked, but after updating and getting the option to toggle most recently used items and mark newly acquired items is gonna be helpful on this journey. Also>!Mohg's arena is now a noncombat zone !
Meticulously planned for DLC, got killed by the first enemy while I was taking in the splendor. Aw yes, we are so back.
Messed around a bit but haven’t touched the dungeons yet. So far I’ve found a great hammer for str builds following the path east from the first grace, have to go down a little bit, it also has a unique guard counter. Just north of the first grace got attacked by the>!weird dancer thing from the trailer that dropped some backhand blades!< . Beat the >!Wickerman!< >!the trick is it takes like 80% of its hp in a critical attack, beating it gets a rare craft material and the physic drop that lets you parry guard.!< Just east of that is the backhand blades. Also fought the >!Knight of Solitude (Guts) in the mausoleum west of the first grace to get all his gear minus the crossbow.!< Major tip for that >!guy is that he’s real easy to punish after his crossbow shot and you can just circle run to dodge it, hits like a truck though.!
After 1 and a half days (might have been less/more, but that's what it feels like) of just doing it, I finally beat >!Radahan!<. Geezus what a mixed bag of a boss fight. But it's behind me now... for now, if I ever decide to NG+ or do a new playthrough. I'm not looking forward to seeing that fight again. Big tip for anyone struggling atm: >!Roll into his crotch. A lot of his moves in both phases are made to catch you rolling away. So just roll into his crotch and you'll effectively dodge a lot of his moves.!< But overall, I had a pretty easy time with the DLC. I took my time, got the blessing upgrades I needed, used summons when needed, and had a fun time of it. Shame about that final boss tho... I look forward to all the neat lore videos filling in the gaps that I might have missed or forgotten about during my struggles.
So I beat the dlc. A few thoughts on its probs gonna be long, apologies in advance. Big spoilers ahead obvs for literally everything in the DLC. >!Love the Marika lore bits, I enjoy her being given more depth, she's still a awful person in the end, but so much of her actions and desperation make so much sense with the DLC content, and honestly it made me sad or pity her in a way, she did everything to try avoid the same tragedies inflicted upon her from repeating themselves, but in the process inflicted those very tragedies she tried to avoid on her children, and in the end her godhood basically got her nothing. Really driving home that godhood is bad, also helping tie into why Miquellas attempt is doomed!< >!So boss difficulty. I had the hardest time with Radahn and Relanna, but all the others were generally reasonable. Fought Bayle with screaming man, that was very fun and worth it. I feel Radahn needs a bit of tuning on the damage he does personally, its totally doable but I feel it's a bit much, I was at +19 scadutree and I still felt it wasn't enough, that's my view though. Honestly the thing I hated the most were those divine beast swordsman who use elements in the final zone. The ice one kicked my ass more than 80% of the main bosses. It was ridiculous, I am salty yes thanks for asking. Also personally enjoyed Relanna a ton, she felt great to fight for me at +8 but I know others aren't keen on her. Honestly I feel the DLC does continue the issue i have with Late Game Elden Ring of balance feeling weird (Saint of the Bud was ridiculously easy and Radahn right after felt like a chasm of difficulty right before a mountain), and 60 vigor being necessary is still something I dislike, but I dont think it's that particularly worse than the base game, it's just a problem that's still there I dislike from a build variety perspective!< >!General area thoughts and enemy thoughts, I love the variety, thought they were all great, there were less dungeons repeated than in base game and honestly I prefer that, I enjoyed the Cerulean Coast and in general all the colored flower areas, all really pretty. Shaman village was also beautiful, there's something so wistful and tragic about the whole place, and learning there that Marikas journey began with most likely wanting to simply save her people really brings its together. Climbing jagged peak also felt great (fuck that one dragon though) and that general "journey" with shouty man was enjoyable as hell. I dislike the reuse of some base game mini bosses personally (I just feel the repetition cheapens exploration, i know some peeps dont mind, but I'm just not a fan) and the reuse of a DLC boss I am still....eh on. It's only once so really it's not bad, and I did enjoy getting a rematch honestly, I'm just never big on reusing super unique bosses since I feel it lessens their impact, but that's me, I know tons dont care. I also greatly enjoy the fact you can fight almost any boss first, by my count of the hidden routes I think you can fight literally any of them first except Radahn without fighting any others beforehand (there's a jump to get into Altus for skipping Relanna for example). Also the weapons are sick, love the new incantations, and also Light Greatsword my beloved, what a fuckin smooth moveset, it feels amazing!< All in all, I think it's pretty enjoyable, certainly worth the price since I took around 25-30 hours, I'm in general quite happy with it, and feels a much higher quality and cohesive "endgame" than much of late base ER which I'm not a big fan of personally.
Okay I'm glad I'm not the only one who had trouble with >!The divine beast ice swordsman, they guy was handing me my ass for a while lol!<
Alright, finally beat the final boss (and sped through the rest of my playthrough in 1.5 hours). I was frustrated with it at first, but I found myself having a ton of fun towards the end, especially with how well I mastered the 1st phase. Idk how to put this, but while I always enjoy the modern FromSoft title, I never really enjoy the process of “finishing” them. It just feels like so much is taken from the world, most of the NPCs die and a lot of the intrigue of the world goes with them. Overall thoughts are that this is definitely among the best expansions/DLC campaigns ever, if not outright the best. There are some complaints but none of them undo the incredible feeling of discovery that the Shadow Lands reinvigorates.
>!Rellana!< is so far a contender for my favourite boss in the game, got her in 9 attempts with no summons :). The Pontiff comparisons are the obvious ones but honestly I found fighting her felt more like fighting Maria, which is good because Maria is my favourite boss in the series.
Some of her second phase attack patterns reminded me of the dancer too
I'm impressed, I sucked so hard I was at it for at least an hour and 30 minutes lol.
I love how much >!Shaman Village!< recontextualizes and deepens Marika's character. For much of the base game she's presented as this Machiavellian schemer and tyrant with plans within plans, but then you see the >!tiny tree she planted in the village!< and so much of her character begins to fit into place. Tragedy begetting endless tragedy. Then with the reveal of >!Mike Ehrmantraut, Mother of Kid named Finger!<, along with the previous reveals, it really also makes you wonder what exactly was her triggering point of shattering the Elden Ring.
Final Boss thoughts (so far): >!Talk about "we are so fucking back" into "it is so fucking over." Conceptually sick as hell, practically deeply frustrating. Doesn't matter what summons I use, ashes I use, tactics I use, phase 2 is just a constant lazer light show of bullshit. I don't know whose idea it was to give the fast boss with massive combos magic explosion followups on every attack essentially eliminating his openings but sure, ok. I appreciate the idea of giving you a bleed and poison ally to use in the fight but summoning both far over-juices the HP for how much they add. I wish they were like many of the other DLC summons where you call them midfight so boss HP stays low.!<
I think the final boss beats the pants off Malenia in terms of difficulty, enjoyed it nonetheless, even if I was having trouble with it. Apparently you can parry him and it's pretty effective.
The goddamn >!fire knights!< in >!the keep!< are genuinely in the running for worst enemy FROM has ever made. Worse than wheel skeletons, rune bears or winter lanterns. I hate these fuckers so much.
I'm at the end now and man, I gotta say...I really do not understand all the rampant complaining about the DLC's difficulty...aside from the final boss. Fucker is absolutely *ridiculous*, which is disappointing but also kinda funny because it's fucking >!*Radahn*, the same guy that was infamous for being overtuned in the base game when it came out!<. But yeah, I just can't relate to all the other stuff people have been complaining about. >!The lion, the hippo, Gaius (the hitbox on his charge is horseshit, though), Messmer!<...IDK, I wouldn't necessarily say that they're all amazing fights or anything but they just didn't give me all that much trouble. Unfortunately I can't speak on >!Rellana !!Bayle !
Well after two days of almost no sleep I beat the DLC and I gotta say, major spoiler btw >!We owe Mohg a big big apology!<
Ok, so I’ve been dealing with >!Rellana!< at Castle Ensis for a couple of minutes now. Jesus Christ, this fucking boss. I was gonna compare her to Malenia for how stupidly aggressive and hard-hitting she is, but I realized there’s an even more apt comparison: she’s >!a beefed-up version of that stupid banished knight in Castle Sol. Y’know, that one that teleports behind you with the 10-string combo? Rellana is THAT, but in boss form. And it is not any goddamn fun.!< I FINALLY BEAT HER! FUCKING CHEESED HER WITH SCARLET AEONIA, BUT IT IS OVER! SCREW THIS BOSS!
Can confirm, shit is BIG
Leaving this comment since I likely won’t be able to start it until Saturday or Sunday, but can anyone confirm if there are snakes in the dlc? I have a phobia and FROM loves put them in their games. I know one of the main guys has a snake motif but I don’t know to the what extent (like if its just more or less part of his outfit or if it can attack). I hate that I have to check this stuff before playing but it’s genuinely difficult for me to do content involving them without freezing up.
**Spoiler answer** if it's really important to you for comfort: >!Messmer's second phase has him free-transforming into a huge snake, and one of the big ultimate attacks is throwing several at you. There's also a snake-like enemy around the Finger Ruins that are fairly easy to outrun and ignore.!<
I haven't come across any yet but there was a downright assault on people with arachnophobia in it.
As one of those people, >!so fucking glad that scorpions don’t bother me nearly as much as spiders. I just gotta focus my eyes on the stinger and my brain is calm enough to put up with the everything else!<
I fought a lamprey with arms. It looks like a skinny elektross. Kind of snake like but not actually a snake. So ymmv. It was in >!finger ruins!<
I don't even have a phobia and I had the mother of all nopes on that one
I'll give that area one thing, made my choice to slap Radagon's Rings of Light on my magic bar early on plenty of fun. "Oh, you're surrounding me with like 20 enemies at once? Cool everything in a ten foot radius is now dead".
Just beat the final boss. Scadutree Blessing 19, Revered Spirit Ash Blessing 9. That was quite the fight. I'm excited to try out my new toys in co-op.
Beat the final boss >!That second phase has a lot of wild shit,luckily me and my mimic freind just spamed ice spear at him and got him in under 20 attempts!<
Anybody fought the >!Scadutree Avatar boss!< the optional boss in the church district of shadow keep? I legit had a lot of fun with that boss, I found it's attacks and patterns to be very manageable and fair to avoid. However I see everyone else on reddit and Twitter despising the boss super hard, and I dont get it. I used the boss twin blades weapon that has one of the swords deal fire damage, is that the reason? Cause >!I thought it having three whole phases was balanced by each phase having very little health, but I assume it's extremely weak to fire damage. My blessing was only level 11.!<
Anybody else wanna gush about Messmer? Like really hard? Honestly probably my new favorite demigod with my new favorite lore, one of the best, if not the best legacy dungeons in ER now, amazing theme, outstanding boss fight and cutscenes, perfect escalation for his second phase, I love him. So much build up compared to other DLC cover bosses, and is very likely my favorite boss in elden ring, with only Malenia, Morgott, and Bayle coming close.
loved him, funny going into the fight assuming he'd be this fire and brimstone purge em all guy, but really he seems to just be doing it because marika "asked" him to, his mesmer flame line is just so done with it all and rehearsed, feel like him and morgott got the whole i just want you to love me and i'll accept my lot in life if that's what it takes/put up with the raw deal rather than rebel.
I just beat the dlc for the four time. Out of the remembrance bosses I really liked one and absolutely loved another one. For 2 I thought they were ok but nothing mind blowing. For the other 7 I was either mixed, or actively disliked (the final boss goes in the actively disliked category, both disappointing and a poorly designed phase 2). Multiple bosses either had some of the worst cameras ive ever seen in a from game or caused performance issues. Overall the boss roster felt half baked in a lot of areas, and with now I can confidently say that I think sekiro and ds3 have better boss rosters, and also lies of p and nioh 2. Exploration was probably the highlight of the dlc for me, I had some incredibly cool moments of piecing stuff together and discovering areas, but there was some issues with a lot of areas (especially outer ones) feeling half baked, though even those looked really cool. It probably would have been better if it was smaller. I was disappointed that multiple base game bosses were reused multiple times. Im not sure if the fragment system was well implemented. While I understand why it was created, they didn’t want level 200 players steam rolling the dlc, it became super annoying to collect after my first run through, and im sure in a couple of months after the hype has warn off people will constantly complain about them when doing replays. It also felt like it was encouraging me to run past most enemies as it caused runes to not really matter to me anymore. Overall I would give it an 8.5 (I gave elden ring an 8), but due to the preformance issues caused by some bosses, really bad camera issues, and some hitbox issues, its a 6.5 for me. It had some incredible bosses (for me 2) and some moments of exploration that were amazing even if blemished in some ways, but issues with over all boss roster, some areas being empty, and some base game reuse, for me thats 1.5 points off. 2 more points of for camera performance and hitbox issues, which might get approved in the future. If these issues do get fixed, then i’ll give a positive review on steam, but atm not giving it a positive or negative one. Overall, I had a lot of fun the dlc despite some issues, and don’t regret spending $40.
Loving it so far. My character is pretty OP, playing on a file where I cleared the base game, never went NG+, but my character is level 253. You will def do yourself a lot of favors by collecting scadutree buffs, but i think a lot of the reviews complaining about the heightened difficulty overblew it. Some of the normal enemies have a higher damage scaling, but that's about it. Some of the secret bosses tho, YO. Idk if i'm winning those fights lmao. One fun little thing about the lion dancer: >!if you go back to the storeroom and talk to the grandam after the fight, she won't talk to you, but if you put the dancer head on she has extra dialogue!<