Elden Ring - From Software + George RR Martin

This guy does great videos, especially the several on Elden Ring. He makes an important point here that the internet's obsession with pushing these games as "super-hard games for an exclusive club" is the kind of thing that scares people off from trying the series, and isn't even all that true.

Personally I don't consider any of the Soulsborne games to be that hard, and I'm not great at them or anything. Any game where you can overlevel to trivialize things isn't a hard game.

Sekiro is a hard game, Cuphead is a hard game, those bullet hell shooters are hard games.

It's a shame that this internet meme culture has kept these games from being as popular as they could and should have been.

Oblio said:

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And we don't even know what it is yet... Oh My Gooooooood

(It's probably Armored Core, and likely due out in January or February)

I'm still holding out hope for an ER DLC announcement or a Bloodborne Remaster announcement. From has me waiting for announcements about games for the first time since like 2015.

I am a console person, but I have friends who use it on PC and they love it. Makes the game even easier of course, but meh no invasion anxiety and no screwball coordination, and only having to defeat a boss once for all players is worth it imo.

So I wrapped up my arcane (mostly) dagger run last night. I spent the vast majority of the run dual weilding Reduvia and Misericorde (Blood) and at 60-80 Arcane. I picked up that one sword that scales off of arcane as a backup, but eventually used Black Knife and Calling Dagger in that role. Eventually, getting close enough to hurt anything became next to impossible, due to the ramp up in the last few zones, so I ran Rivers w Waki (Occult) offhand combo for certain fightrs, notably Radigan/EB, Placidex and Melania. Shield came out for a few specific sections (rooftops of Liturgical city, certain undodgeable BS enemies like Astel, ect). But I otherwise stuck with the daggers. Avoided using the farm spot unless I needed to top off a level or a point here or there I would have grinded to meet stat reqs, but I broomed the entire map ending the game around level 160.

It is sad that Reduvia, which I had within an hour of starting the run, was still the best weapon in my arsenal. The art has less reach than Corpse Pilar, but with all the same usual talismans (Blood Icon, Alexander Shard, ect), the weapon art on it actually does more raw damage and bleed than Pilar all through the game where I had both. I just could not bet close enough without being AE cheesed on the Placidex and Radigan/EB fights to use it at all. And the fire elemental aspect of ROB makes it pretty much the essential end game weapon, due to the ludicrous immunity/resists of the last couple of bosses. When the bleed proof shit started showing up, Black Knife w an offhand was fun, but the damage drop off was just too much and all the same shit is resistant to Holy. I am kind of curious how a magic dagger run might work with the solid choices of INT scaling daggers, but I think you would just end up using sorceries since you have good INT. Where daggers really shine is applying status, and I wish there was a wider array of status arts to place on mundane daggers (poison especially seems egregiously absent), but given how busted bleed is I cannot complain about the run. I just wish there was a little bit more to daggers than spamming bleed and Reduvia weapon art.

Well I think that means I am done with the game for now. If I do a consecutive 5th play, my wife might stab me in my sleep.....

MusicForFish said:

Has anyone tried the seamless co-op mod yet? Any complaints?

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Wow just saw this: Seamless Co-op

That looks awesome. Wish I had the game on PC.

PS on the Dagger run with things that were unique about it:
Having a high attack backup alternative for bleed proof mobs is pretty much essential. The arcane scaling straight sword was great for this, until you can get black knife, but if you want to stick with theme you should build up a pair of Occult scaling daggers to fil that role. The basic daggers you can nab early on are pretty good for this, mostly off of vendors. But the sickles from Windmill Village are probably the best option for this purpose, once you hit Atlus region. Of course by then you can grab the black knife, but if you are speed rushing to drops the festival guys are a lot easier to kill than what you need to clear for that weapon.

I found I was actually starved for regular smithing stones much more, due mostly to relying on Ashes of War to get high status buildups on daggers for certain purposes. I basically had a bat utility belt of options on this front, all boosted greatly by a high arcane. As a result, think much more carefully about how you upgrade until the bells become more readily available. Also give some consideration to holding out for the Serpent Bow before upgrading a ranged attack weapon. It is only a touch shorter range and attack than the Pulley Bow, but the Arcane scale boost it gives to status arrows is flat out ridiculous. Speaking of which , don't waste any materials on arrows other than the Fletched Bleed Arrows. You can buy any other critical type of arrow, but the Bleed Arrows on the Serpent Bow with high arcane are just flat out insane. I am talking bleed procs nearly every other shot on some enemies. And you will need a bow, because you will want to get all the benefits of your decent DEX/ARC combo and some things just plain have to be done at range (Liturgical Town being the major one).

As for Sombers, well take Reduvia to +10 and anything else is up to how easy you want it to be. I personally had a maxed Rivers of Blood, Mohgs Spear (for the art in certain places), and Bloody Helace in my arsenal. If you don't want to go full easy mode but want some reach, Bloody Hellace is a nice strong option to mainhand, maybe with an offhand blood art Peeler/Stitcher if you want to keep the dual wield theme going. I will say that the last few areas when I caved and dual weilded the RoB w offhand Waki, it was like taking lead boots off. So I guess my run was more of a dual weild run, I just happened to really like the Reduvia for most of it. The Hellace is nice as a spearlike weapon for certain enemies and has ridiculous reach, especially on a running attack. I used the Hellace w Shield for Melenia, for example, because the block punish on it just wrecks her and it still has really good bleed buildup. The art can be a ghetto version of quick step for evading Water Fowl Dance, though the timing on that is harder, so you might be better off with Buckler Parry in that specific fight. I actually considered riding out the end game battles with the Hellace when I gave up on the dagger reach, but I was bored, fire from the ROB works best out of what I had, and I just wanted to wrap up the run.

Armor wise, I had a pretty low Endurance over the course of the game. Given that I was dodging for defense, almost exclusively, I fashion soulsed it for most of the early game. But, once you get to the Forbidden lands and Liturgical town, the Black Knife armor is amazing. The stealth effect really let me close the gab on enemies when trash clearing, as well as running past some serious bullshit that daggers/dw just plain sucks at. With the Misercorde mainhanded, I cleared entire areas with backstabs. Amazing fucking armor for this setup. You will need to build up a set of Rot/Poison resist armor and Lightning/Holy resist for certain parts of the game, but other than that armor is almost a passing concern in the game when you run DW. You also should get at least enough Faith to use Flame Cleanse Me, which along with the Mogh spell and beast spells give you a few more tools to use in those sections of the game. If you can spare enough for the basic Lightning Bolt spell, even better. Loading up on Crab meat helps, as well.

And since I am word vomitting here, I may as well cover a few of the nuances on the more notorious bosses I had on this run:
Crucible Knights- Fuck these guys. Their Poise 3million basically means you have to chip and run constantly. If you ever fuck up and enter one too many L1s into the input cue, you probably get gakked. I cheesed or Reduvia arted every one of these guys.

Twin Gargoyles- I was expecting this fight to suck a lot, but once I settled in on a strategy of the Reduvia art and geared for it, I downed them in two tries. Forget ever trying to melee these fuckers, because they evade even long reach weapons while shitting out poison. Daggers will just be swinging at air. Reduvia weapon art does great damage, even without the bleed.

Draconic Tree Sentinal- Yeah Bloody Hellace helped here, since his lightning AEs make closing with daggers rough.

Fire Giant- Shockingly easy compared to other runs. Bleed spam on daggers just murders the guy. But you can never lock on and you need to constantly fuck around with riding and dismounting to close distance. I never really ever had a hard time with him, compared to other people, but this run I two shotted him which was pretty damn good.

Godskin Duo- Needed the summon for this one as a distraction so I could get in, but the daggers smoked them so fast I was actually waiting around for them to respawn. Complete reversal of how this fight normally goes. You just need to avoid the fatroll and AE stomps and its a cakewalk.

Placidex- Actually the fight that gave me the most trouble and had me bust out the Hellace and shield. The AEs are just too fucking big to even try to get in with Reduvia, even the weapon art. Ultimately, I kept geting close but caved in and went with the DW ROB/Waki to be done with it. Way too much RNG in this fight. Probably the hardest boss of the entire run, due to its quirks and the teleporting bullshit.

Mellikith- Surprisingly easy. If you can get close, one or two dagger combos are enough to drop him thanks to bleed.

Radigan/EB- Probably would have been ok with black knife or Hellace, but by this point I hate this fight for the tedium, so I went ROB/Waki again.

But god damn what a great game.... I want to play it again...... Its ruined me for every other game.

I say again, fuck those Rune Bears. I did not even try to kill one on my dagger run.