I platted Elden Ring last night, and I’m still flying high about it. As we all remember, I had four bosses left (well, five, but one was inconsequential–or so I thought), and my plan was to do one area with two of the bosses yesterday and then the last area with the last two (three) bosses today. That WAS the plan, but I blew through the second-to-last area in about an hour-and-a-half. The hardest part was people I summoned for the second boss fight either fighting the Tree Sentinel guarding the boss door and not coming in (at least I got the TS’s gear when they killed him) or peacing out at the beginning of the second half of the boss fight–the ‘real’ boss fight. Oh, and spoiler warning for the whole post.
I had that latter issue more times than I care to remember, by the way. I don’t know why people do it. Actually, I have a theory that some people do it to be dicks. You get an added boss HP bump (a big one) for each summon you call on and that does not go back down once they die or leave the world. So, it’s a way to troll. Another reason I conjure is because several of the fights have two distinct bosses and they are good at the first boss, but not the second. It’s enraging, regardless, especially as I was just trying to get through the game as fast as possible on NG+.
I will say that summoning was plentiful. I never had a problem with getting a human or two to help me. I’m glad that so many people are still enjoying the game. Once in a while, I got a summon who died in one or two seconds–not good. But, for the most part, if people were being summoned, they were hard as nails.
I will say that I loved summoning NPCs for boss fights because of story reasons. I got to fight with Melania by my side, next to Alexander–the bestest pot boi ever, Bernahl–the one who sells me Ashes of War in the beginning of the game at the Warmaster’s Shack.
Side Note: Bernahl is the guy who made me think I would not be able to get my plat on the one playthrough plus save-scumming. You meet him early on in the Warmaster’s Shack where he sells you Ashes of War. This is within the first five hours of the game. He tells you his name and I’m sure I wrote it down (I was making a note of all the NPCs back then. Until FromSoft got smart and added them to the map), but then I promptly forgot it because I didn’t pay that much attention to Ashes of War. They’re very important, but most of the weapons I used had one tied to the weapon so I couldn’t change them.
MUCH later in the game, literally more than a hundred hours later I ran into him in a completely different area. But, I didn’t recognize it was him, of course, and I went about my playthrough. A hundred hours later, I looked up what I needed for the plat and one achievement is getting all the legendary weapons. They noted that their was one that you could miss if you didn’t do a certain chain of events in a very specific order. This revolved around Bernahl and the things you had to do in the Volcano Manor (where he’s from). The wikis said if you don’t go to the second-to-last area of the game before killing the boss of Volcano Manor, you can’t prock Bernahl to invade you in that second-to-last area. You need him to do that so you can defeat him and get his weapon–one of the legendary weapons. Otherwise, you have to wait until NG+ to rush to the Warmaster’s Shack and kill him.
I had already killed the boss of Volcano Manor before going to the second-to-last area so I thought I was screwed. Then, I went to the place where he would have invaded because there’s a talisman there as well. And, what I didn’t know, a bajillion enemies. As I was being attacked and trying desperately to get the talisman, Bernahl invaded. I opened the chest but did not manage to grab the talisman before I died. I raced back to get the talisman before dying again. Then, I needed to take care of Berahl. Who hit like a tank.
This was on my first character, who was not strength at all. Beating him was difficult because he was so strong. Plus, he stole my health with his weapon (it’s the Ashes of War on that particular weapon), which I was not a fan of at all. I had to resort to my main cheese, spamming Swarm of Flies while staying away from him as much as possible. It worked in the end and his weapon was mine. The achievement popped, and I thought I would get the plat in one go.
That didn’t happen, obviously. But once I was able to decide I had the plat in my heart, I was able to set it aside and just continue to play. I started a second character, this one was supposed to be pure intelligence. But, with a little strength. Strengthcaster is my jam. I fell in love with Blaidd’s weapon (do not ask how I got it) and jacked it up to the highest upgrade. I used it for the rest of NG and all of NG+. Well, expect for specific bosses.
I can’t tell you how much joy it gave me to smack an enemy that took me five or six blows to kill in my first playthrough and get him in two or three with my Colossal Sword. Plus, it has Wolf’s Assault as its skill, which is similar to Hoarfrost Stomp. Basically, frostbite, which is good at draining stamina and lowering damage absorption. It’s considered OP in the game.
I love the Royal Greatsword with a passion that is unseemly. It got me through the game and I thank it for that. It’s meaty and hefty and hella slow. I’ve two-handed it a few times as well, which is not like me at all. It wasn’t until the beginning of NG+ that I reached the coveted 70 points in Intelligence mark, needed for the hardest spells. The two moon spells, one for Ranni and one for Rennala.
Side Note II: There’s a staff that you can get fairly early on called the Meteorite Staff. It’s good for Gravity spells. It’s not upgradable, but it’s S-tier for the first half of the game. Then, there are other staffs that supposedly are better in the later game (with upgrading), each for specific categories of spells. I changed staffs in my first playthrough, but did not bother in my second because it did not seem to make much of a difference.
I’m not a min-maxer at all so I pretty much just use whatever I have at hand that seems to be the best at a glance. It’s worked OK for me thus far.
I have much more to say about this game and the plat, obviously, but it’s running long. I’ll end this here and pick it up in the next post. For now, I just look at you smugly from my throne as the Elden Lord.