Elden Ring - From Software + George RR Martin

Ambiturner said:

Think you also get the dragon incantation seal. Don't think getting that immediately is going to help much

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It's actually not a bad idea, you can get a dragonspell somewhat early by killing Agheel which is pretty easy if you get Reduvia or Uchigatana early on, and it's a solid seal for early game even for standard spells that weights 0 and is upgraded by somber stones.

The main reason why starting with 2 keys is worthless is you can literally get 2 keys in ~3-4mins, there's one in stormhill shack and one in agheel ruins(and one on the bridge leading to weeping peninsula if you want a 3rd), so you can generally open everything you need pretty easily with those. And then you can buy a bunch of keys off early vendors for 2k if you need more or look where to loot more(there's one in that starting dungeon with the eerdtree/dragon seal for example as a half refund kind of thing).

I think the only good stuff to start with is Golden Seed, and even that is debatable if you start by doing a long prep before you start playing running around collecting things, since you can get a lot of golden seeds just running around. Past that it's speedrunner shit like getting the imp ashes or the 3k runes so you don't have to backtrack or whatever. I still mostly get the golden seed as I don't want to spend 2hours preping for a run and starting with a +9 weap and shit.

Ancestor Spirit is really easy even at level, it does heal a bunch but depending on RNG you can get a lot of free hits in when it does if it doesn't teleport too far, and the base moveset otherwise is pretty weak besides the rolling attack(which once you know how to dodge is pretty simple too). It's very telegraphed slow hits, and if you're anywhere close to him, a lot of his shit outright misses you by going over your head anyway, so as a melee the only annoyance is the whole teleporting away part. One speedrunning tricks that's useful for bosses like that is as you're sprinting towards something, if you toggle crouch quickly while running, you'll regain a large amount of stamina while barely dropping speed, which lets you have full stamina once you eventually get back into melee range.

Godrick is the Stormveil castle one right? He's extremely easy once you identify the patterns, there's only a few strong hits, and all of them are surprisingly easy to dodge. The big jump you can literally just rotate around him as he's about to land and he'll miss, you just don't want to be rolling backwards, the flamethrower he does at the start of phase 2 you can just run under it and get free damage, he has another flamehtorwer move where he walks as he's spraying this one you just want to stand behind, and the big stomp attacks as all ground attacks the best way is to jump over it rather than try to dodge through it, the timing is a lot more lenient when jumping and you can get jump attacks in to punish it at the same time. I found Margitt to be harder and Margitt is already pretty weak.

Grizzlebeard said:

I’m struggling on phase 2 of Rennala. Old and slow maybe but managed to take out magma wyrm and other annoying mobs like that Erdtree Burial Watchdog but she just constantly frustrates me.

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I find she's a lot easier on agressive builds than on "safe" builds. She has no poise so she gets staggered by basically everything, she has relatively low hp, she often locks herself into long-ish animations. The main issue is she has very high damage output if you get hit by her stuff and her summons will block projectiles/just be annoying if you don't finish her fast.

Not sure what build you're playing but there's definitely things you can do to improve probably. Some random tips for her:

- Blood Grease(recipe in limgrave, materials in limgrave/liurna) will increase your damage potential a lot if using a semi fast weapon that can have grease. Takes like 5mins to grind 20-30greases. Bloodflame Blade(drops in liurna) can also provide better results if you can cast it. She has no particular resistance to bleed so you can get some good procs to burst her down. Works to speed up phase 1 too.

- As mentionned she has no poise, so if you have fast weapons like any dual wield setup, you can absolutely murder her. She will break away every now and then but keeping pressure ensures she doesn't really do much. Couple with status. If using slow weapons, look for R2 heavy attacks opening instead, especially jumping R2 since that lets you both reposition closer to her while not being too slow

- On her big beam, if you run at her straight away, you will be under the beam once she fires. She always opens phase2 with it so you can start with that. This lets you get several good hits in, such as charged R2 attacks for a stagger if you have a slower weapon, or stacking bleed status if using fast weapons. If using spells and such, I find it's still best to rush her to not have to time the roll(which isn't hard but if you fuck it up she'll chunk 3/4 of your health) and then cast at point blank. If using incantations for example Catch Flame is great to spam during that move or in general.

- She has high magic resist, so if playing a sorcery build, it's best to switch to a non magic spell. Rock Sling is best for her but can require exploring callid a bit to grab it(it's reachable at lvl 1 easily though as it involves no fighting if you're willing to google the location). Crystal spells are also physical I believe?

- The summons are timed. At first I was trying to kill them, but a better way to deal with them is just run around/block/play safe until they despawn. If she summons dragon or troll, she will use a voiceline, which tells you what to expect. Dragon always breath first(starting from its left, your right when facing it) then flies and does a dive. You can easily keep attacking her during firebreath if you're under/behind the dragon, but make sure you dodge the dive(running away far enough will entirely dodge it, otherwise roll into it). For the troll, it always starts by a big slam, so move away immediately if she summons it. I actually forgot what the other move is, but probably just some slow ass swipe, being under it will make it easy to dodge so run back in after. Bloodhound guy is the most annoying so focus on dodging him until he despawns. Wolves can be a bit annoying but aren't super agressive most of the time