Video Games

[Devin]

Allegedly, Rellana’s weakness is bleed, so I’ve geared up accordingly.

In that case may I recommend the Backhand Blades that you get super early near the start of the DLC. Convert it to bleed
and at +25 they absolutely shred; used those on a few bosses that gave me trouble. The default ash of war gives iframes (or at the very least is extremely evasive) and a fairly strong attack at the same time


I can't stress enough how important it is to explore and pick up as many scadutree blessings as you can find

Also, your damage reductions are quite important (which the scadutree blessings will increase); i feel like in the base game survivability is more about having enough vigor and in the DLC it's more about damage reduction

Also don't be hesitant to situationally re-spec with Renalla; I've probably done it 4 different times so far in the DLC alone just to try out new stuff

 

[Whizzinby]

Reads last 5 pages. Puts off starting ER again.

 

[mbenigni]

In that case may I recommend the Backhand Blades that you get super early near the start of the DLC. Convert it to bleed
and at +25 they absolutely shred; used those on a few bosses that gave me trouble. The default ash of war gives iframes (or at the very least is extremely evasive) and a fairly strong attack at the same time


I can't stress enough how important it is to explore and pick up as many scadutree blessings as you can find

Also, your damage reductions are quite important (which the scadutree blessings will increase); i feel like in the base game survivability is more about having enough vigor and in the DLC it's more about damage reduction

Also don't be hesitant to situationally re-spec with Renalla; I've probably done it 4 different times so far in the DLC alone just to try out new stuff

Yeah, that opening section feels like an empty golf course and I probably zipped past some content that would have helped me. I'm only at Scararamouche level 3.

I assume these Backhand Blades you speak of are DEX based? I'm primarily a STR build. Just cranked up the Ghiza's Wheel, which does plenty of damage, but slowly - and it kills your stamina, which is hazardous to one's health. Perhaps it is re-spec time after all. I'll see how I feel after getting a couple more Scadutree blessings... assuming I can find them.

 

[Devin]

I assume these Backhand Blades you speak of are DEX based?

Primarily yes, but the dex requirement is low (13 i think)

My build is also mainly STR based but the Backhand blade still shreds with my 30ish DEX

If you don't wanna respec just for that, the Prosthesis-Wearer talisman and dex physick tear will cover it

Relevant to this weapon discussion:

Spoiler

Even with just 9 Arcane the Blood Backhand blade will have 83 bleed

 

[mbenigni]

My Shadow ire has largely subsided now that I realize there's a bunch more non-boss content to poke through before taking on Rellana. I remember having a sense that I'd played the base game all out of order as well, making things more difficult than they needed to be. Signposting has never been From's strong suit (which I know some people consider part of the charm), and the open world thing compounds this tenfold.

Presently inching my way through the Fog Rift Catacombs. Yeah, things hit pretty hard here...

 

[Devin]

Signposting has never been From's strong suit (which I know some people consider part of the charm), and the open world thing compounds this tenfold.

This DLC brings "I can see that location but how tf do I get there!?" to a whole new level compared to the base game IMO

 

[mbenigni]

This DLC brings "I can see that location but how tf do I get there!?" to a whole new level compared to the base game IMO

My mistake was assuming half of those locations were skybox-style wallpaper. I should know better by now... :)

 

[JiveTurkey]

I killed it at Galaga at the arcade here a few weeks back

 

[laxu]

The scarutree upgrade system is straight up crap. You basically need to gather the fragments to get decent damage output against bosses. So if a boss is wrecking you, ride around and activate graces. There's quite a few fragments just in the environment. Make sure you look for any roads on the map too.

From has really worked their ass off making it hard to figure out how to get to places in the DLC. There's a lot of little hidden routes and confusing geography. It's cool on one side, but also a bit much on the other hand. I do like the actual levels though, most are well designed. I just find fighting the bosses annoying because they have so excessive damage output.

I just got through Messmer by basically getting lucky and my Tiche summon carrying me. Messmer would be a really cool boss if his attacks didn't fill the whole screen with flames, making it impossible to see what is going on. His grab attack is also really hard to avoid but at least is not an instakill.

Before you kill Messmer, make sure you do any Leda questline things in the level. There's a few summon fights you can do but one of them disappears after Messmer. You can apparently summon Leda into the Rellana fight too but I could never find her summon sign anywhere.

Raising your health to 50+ does help, surprisingly much. I hate that this game requires so much health investment to not get totally trashed at every point.

That Palace Ledge Road farming spot has gotten a lot of use lately. I would love to see how many Albinaurics I've killed but I'm sure it's in the 1000s by now. You can kill all of them with one attack using the Sacred Relic Sword's skill.

 

[Devin]

Well I'll go ahead and just say it then

Stone-Sheathed Sword > Sword of Darkness or Sword of Light


I was fucking maining the SSS for most of the DLC then unknowingly transformed it in the piece of shit Sword of Darkness.

Do not make this mistake lol

 

[Jarick]

I think I might have finished Rune Factory 4 (the game has rolled credits on me three times now) so looking for something new. No good Switch sales going on right now which is odd.

 

[Aelred]

I used to have Leda at the fog door for Rellana, but she disappeared. I may have talked to someone I shouldn't have. It's easy enough to ask a Group or two for help, pwd = xyz.

The Quests are often rubbish, but more so in Elden Ring: basically telling you to look up a Wiki. If you have played Lords of the Fallen, then From quests are easy and make perfect sense first look.

I am actually enjoying the Ride-Like-a-Fool aspect, but there's a lot of empty space as well as hidden paths and Gaols. I'm just collecting Grace points and Blessings for the moment. I get one first ride around the DLC, next build will aready know some place to head to. Summoning Tiche with Mohg's Rune has been very handy around ruins and villages.

I converted my Dragonslayer Dex/Str/Fth/Arc build into a Blood Sucker (Arcane works for dragon breaths and bleed), and maybe the new weapons and Ashes for the DLC are good for the DLC. I only have a few, but have Backhand Blades, Cirque (bleed) and Milady as well as a couple of larger weapons. The few spells/incants aquired aren't much. I swap to Morgott's Rune a lot for extra hp. Time to get our group Smith into action and get all new weapons max.

We get 1 DLC for this, and I wasn't expecting perfection or ease. Trying to have some balance for people with maxed builds and people with level 11 and everything in between is no easy task, and some patches will inevitably nerf some stuff that folk are already howling about. Blashpemous Blade and lots of other things were nerfed before the DLC release.

My irl buddy and I have had a lot of laughs about how we stumble our way around finding things and giving each other bad directions: "It's the tunnel behind the dragon." "You mean Belurat Gaol?" "No! Behind the sodding dragon. The ghostflame dragon!" "Yeah, that's Belurat Gaol." "There's a dragon near Belurat Gaol?" "There's another dragon?"

I can get summoned and have done a lot of co-op, but the Unable is getting old quickly.

 

[laxu]

I used to have Leda at the fog door for Rellana, but she disappeared. I may have talked to someone I shouldn't have. It's easy enough to ask a Group or two for help, pwd = xyz.

I'm probably way overleveled because even using the Finger item to show co-ops, I'm getting nothing. But I don't mind, I've mostly played these games multiplayer where I'm helping others rather than others helping me.

The Quests are often rubbish, but more so in Elden Ring: basically telling you to look up a Wiki. If you have played Lords of the Fallen, then From quests are easy and make perfect sense first look.

This DLC in particular seems to make it easy to miss them because the NPC locations are not in sensible places but they can even blend into the scenery. Having multiple ways to enter some areas also means you might miss them.

I converted my Dragonslayer Dex/Str/Fth/Arc build into a Blood Sucker (Arcane works for dragon breaths and bleed), and maybe the new weapons and Ashes for the DLC are good for the DLC. I only have a few, but have Backhand Blades, Cirque (bleed) and Milady as well as a couple of larger weapons. The few spells/incants aquired aren't much. I swap to Morgott's Rune a lot for extra hp. Time to get our group Smith into action and get all new weapons max.

I've enjoyed using Milady a lot. Great moveset. There's a great incantation called Wrath From Afar. It fires a ring of light that can easily knock down e.g knight enemies if they are not blocking. I just appreciate that there are now more offensive Faith spells that aren't just fireballs or some really long cast time AOEs.

We get 1 DLC for this, and I wasn't expecting perfection or ease. Trying to have some balance for people with maxed builds and people with level 11 and everything in between is no easy task, and some patches will inevitably nerf some stuff that folk are already howling about. Blashpemous Blade and lots of other things were nerfed before the DLC release.

Their solution was this garbage scarutree upgrade system. The DLC supposedly scales with your character, but I don't know about that. To me there's this vast disparity between level enemy difficulty (mostly spot on) vs boss difficulty where the bosses are just too high damage for almost every attack. I leveled up to 55 health and that helped a lot, but I still use a talisman that gives me back more health from each flask to make them last longer.

My irl buddy and I have had a lot of laughs about how we stumble our way around finding things and giving each other bad directions: "It's the tunnel behind the dragon." "You mean Belurat Gaol?" "No! Behind the sodding dragon. The ghostflame dragon!" "Yeah, that's Belurat Gaol." "There's a dragon near Belurat Gaol?" "There's another dragon?"

I swear, when From doesn't know what to do, they just drop in another dragon somewhere. They are not fun to fight!

 

[laxu]

Well I'll go ahead and just say it then

Stone-Sheathed Sword > Sword of Darkness or Sword of Light


I was fucking maining the SSS for most of the DLC then unknowingly transformed it in the piece of shit Sword of Darkness.

Do not make this mistake lol

I haven't upgraded it to either of those yet, but it looks like the transformed version just changes it from Str C/Dex D scaling to Str D/Dex E/Faith E scaling + split holy damage + special attack. I can see how that would make it worse if you have low Faith, and I don't know how many enemies are weak to holy.

I should try this, it would be perfect for my str 55/dex 30/faith 49 build. I farmed this character to a level where I could just use almost any weapon and spell.

 

[Jynx]

Some balancing tweaks made for Shadow of the Erdtree.

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[Devin]

I haven't upgraded it to either of those yet, but it looks like the transformed version just changes it from Str C/Dex D scaling to Str D/Dex E/Faith E scaling + split holy damage + special attack. I can see how that would make it worse if you have low Faith, and I don't know how many enemies are weak to holy.

I should try this, it would be perfect for my str 55/dex 30/faith 49 build. I farmed this character to a level where I could just use almost any weapon and spell.

The SSS itself is unique in that it's a somber straight sword that does strike damage (only one in the game) and it has Square Off which is one of the best ash of wars in the game IMO. Poise breaks for days

The Darkness/Light versions just turn it in to a generic non-strike faith sword with extremely shitty (though admittedly very strong) AOE ash of wars

If anyone on playing on PS5 has a +10 Stone Sheathed Sword I'll trade you a +10 Sword of Light for it

 

[mbenigni]

Cleaned out Fog Rift Catacombs last night. Relatively easy if you take your time... but I did bring in a summons for the boss.

Still no Backhand Blades.

 

[mbenigni]

I've enjoyed using Milady a lot. Great moveset. There's a great incantation called Wrath From Afar. It fires a ring of light that can easily knock down e.g knight enemies if they are not blocking. I just appreciate that there are now more offensive Faith spells that aren't just fireballs or some really long cast time AOEs.

I just about maxed out Milady (held on to my Dragon Smithing Stone) hoping a faster weapon would do better against Rellana, but it just didn't do enough damage. I love the idea of a light greatsword, though. Maybe it will come in handy later.

 

[Devin]

Still no Backhand Blades.

I feel like the spoiler is warranted since you should have them already but ignore this if you'd like :)

Spoiler

They're laying near a coffin right off the road north of the very first site of grace in the DLC if I remember right. The grace right off the road that runs thru the middle of the big ruins

 

[mbenigni]

I feel like the spoiler is warranted since you should have them already but ignore this if you'd like :)

Spoiler

They're laying near a coffin right off the road north of the very first site of grace in the DLC if I remember right. The grace right off the road that runs thru the middle of the big ruins

I usually avoid spoilers, but I really appreciate this one. I think it's ridiculous that FromSoft expects players to more or less mow a 500 acre lawn to find these completely random item placements.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: "soulslike" and "open-world" don't actually complement one another all that well.