There seems to be a bug that was introduced in 1.04 where bosses that have a second phase at 50% health (not sure if bosses that start a second phase at 0 health, like Malenia, are affected), if they’re affected by a status ailment, will just die at the start of the second phase.
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Just elden ring, the video game thread is still around
Replaying as a spell caster because I’m stuck at home for the week, it’s crazy how many sidequests and dungeons I missed the first time around. Also it’s cool how some bosses become vastly easier or harder depending on your playstyle.
Heh, I just went back to do these while being pretty overleveled, since I saw the ashes you get from the boss are part of an achievement. Got through the boss first try without too much trouble on the back of mimic + dragon incantations, but man, all the fucking knights just to get to the boss was the real boss of that dungeon. I only ended up killing a few while running past most. Getting teleported right to the boss sounds like a gift!
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There’s not really much to the palace. It’s got some great loot to pick up, like a somber ancient dragon smithing stone, the blood flies spell, and the boss weapon. But you can largely run through it to pick up what you want and then fight the boss.
Yeah its short and good boss fight. Malenias area is a total nightmare honestly wouldn’t bother but up to you if you like a challenge!
I don’t think I could tell myself I’d beaten the game without beating all the major bosses. Like, skip a catacombs here and there or something, but not a shard bearer.
Yeah I got to the Haligtree and stopped playing. Late game is such a chore without being fun IMO
Went back to fight Godrick and was able to defeat him on 3 or 4th try. I created a bad habit of feeling the need to attempt some redic 7 swing combo attack for max points when he was in his defenseless state and that usually ended uo with me getting hammered and having to use a potion. Once I told myself to just swing 3 times and roll away often saving health it made things a lot easier.
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sounds like the blade of miquella has claimed the mind of yet another victim tbh
Did he try getting gud?
I think he raises some fair points, but I think the main counter is, “Game design is really fucking hard, bro.” Like, just trying to design a fight that is:
- Novel
- Challenging
- Achievable for ~all major build archetypes in a game where players have considerable freedom to build their toons in a lot of different ways
Is really hard!
I also don’t think that bosses demanding a specific approach is something players won’t have encountered before. Crystalians and some others demand the use of strike weapons. Rykard, you’re pretty much expected to just use the spear. I guess you can try other things, but you’re making it pretty difficult on yourself. Agheel you can fight on your own instead of mounted, but again, you’re making it way harder. And Malenia is hardly the only boss that punishes shield users.
Whew, finally finished this thing off, ~160 hrs. Not sure if I’m going to bother with an NG+ play through to try out something INT-oriented, but I’m pretty happy with the game overall.
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Still haven’t felt the need to complete the last 10% of the game, just got way too tedious without much fun 
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Ok I have no idea what I’m doing. What class should I be?
Samurai starts with a very good melee weapon, astrologer if you want to do a magic build. The rest are fine too.
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nothing matters in this game, you cant lose, if you ever get stuck there’s a million paths to becoming hopelessly broken very early in the game
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It’s arguably more important to pick a class based on what you don’t want to do, than on what you actually want to do. Focusing on what you don’t want to do means picking a class that minimizes that stat, so that you have more points in stats you care about. On the other hand, you will be getting so many stat points in your first play through that the difference between any one class is less than 10 levels, which can be resolved with a bit of dedicated rune farming. So, maybe it doesn’t matter. You will have the ability to respec later, so nothing is really locked in.
Bleed is arguably the game’s strongest offensive mechanic. Piling up the bleed status effect deals a percentage of total health, regardless of that total, and it stuns, making amazing for your many boss fights. Some of the best ways to bleed, such as the swarm of flies spell and the rivers of blood katana have been nerfed to be merely good instead of broken, but bleed is, for lack of a better word, good. If you want to make things bleed, plan on investing in arcane, and probably some dex and faith.
Scarlet rot might be the second strongest, but it falls off later in the game. It is also hard to apply, outside of the dragon incantations. But, it’s a great way to cheese or at least augment your assault on early and midgame bosses. This requires investment in arcane and faith.
As a new, clueless player who’d never played a Souls game before, I found having a big toolbox handy. Being able to choose both ranged and melee strategies, and spells or abilities that cost FP as well as basic attacks that don’t, I found empowering. If I was getting my ass kicked, which was often, I could try a different tool rather than banging my head against the wall trying to use the wrong tool for the job. Bows kinda suck in most situations (but are also great to have on hand for certain situations that don’t need much investment), so your best options for ranged combat will usually be spells or incantations. Most people pick just one of those, specializing in Int or faith, respectively. You can do both, mainly thanks to one great sword, but that is less common since that sword got nerfed. Spells tend to involve, rocks, ice, or magic blue stuff. Incantations tend to involve fire and lightning, with or without dragons. Both can work well. The faith incantations include the two best buffs in the game, flame grant me strength and golden vow, which are often used together even by players who otherwise eschew magic things and just want to bonk.
So yeah, perhaps give some thought to how you might want to do some damage at range, and how you might want to just thwack something, and you can definitely build from there. Those two things will probably suggest your primary and secondary damage stats. What sounds fun can almost certainly be made to work, and work well.
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I like the samurai because he has a cool-ass katana and shit.
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Thanks for the advice everyone. I ended up picking a bandit last night because I like sneaking around and stabbing people in the back. The game’s really kicking my as so far. It took me so many attempts just to clear the first little ruins area where you get the whetstone. I was raised on NES games, though, so I’m used to dying a lot.