Yes, I’m back with another post about Shadow of the Erdtree, the DLC for Elden Ring (FromSoft). At the end of the last post, I was talking about summoning in the DLC the second time through (human summons) because I did it a few times in the second half of the DLC the second time I played through it.
*SPOILER WARNING*
I have to say, I took very vicious satisfaction in killing the Blackgaol Knight on my second try in NG+. This is the first field boss I fought in the DLC, and with 38 Vigor, he was really fucking hard for me to fight. He has poise for days and his weapon skill is a slice of light that never ends up where I think it will.
Side note: this is one of my issues with the bosses in general in the DLC. It happened in the base game as well, but moreso in the DLC. The bosses had combos for days and were really hard to stagger. I was able to mitigate that with my second character, but my first character was not poise-forward, shall we say.
The Blackgaol Knight made me question whether I was ready for the DLC or not. One thing that constantly frustrates me about the DLCs for the From games is how they turn it up to a hundo every time. I know I’m in the minority when I say that thde DLCs are not my favorite part of any From game because everyone else loves them so much.
I died to the BGK over and over again. I went at him for an hour and was getting increasingly frustrated. I had to do all sorts of shenanigans in order to beat him, including dumping 20 points into Vigor. In cantrast, I one-shot him in my second playthrough and two-shot him in NG+. I wonder if FromSoft nerfed him because he was so fucknig hard the first time around. Then again, I waited a bit before tackling him in my second playthrough, and I’m full scadded up for my NG+ playthrough. That means that I was buffed as much as I was going to be to take on this dude. And it went so much better.
This, of course, is to be expected. I am better than I was before, and I knew what I was doing (kind of). On the other hand, he was harder, stronger, and buffed up himself. I expected it to be a dozen or so tries–maybe more. But, I got him in two, and it wasn’t even that close. Blasphemous Blade Ash of War for the win! Which is what I did the first time around as well. That particular Ash of War got nerfed, but it’s still pretty OP.
This is something that From does like no one else. It makes you feel like you got better at playing the game, which you have! Of course you’re better at it because you know what’s going to happen. You’ve been through it already so you know what is waiting for you. This is a power fantasy, albeit not the one you’re used to in a fantasy game. And it’s something people really appreciate about FromSoft games–that you get better. It may take a while and it may be painful, but you will get better. You have to if you want to survive. You rcally have no choice in playing these games.
However, for most of the games, you have the choice as to how you get better–Sekiro, notwithstanding. You could be pure strength, for example. Or you could be a caster. In Elden Ring, you could easily be both.
I love that flexibility. It’s one reason I prefer Elden Ring andthe Souls series because you have more freedom in how you build your character. In the Shadow of the Erdtree, I have tried out a bunch of different weapons and incantations–and some sorceries, too. This is with my second character, and I had a blast just picking up a weapon, leveling it up, and giving it a go. Funnily enough, it turned out that I really liked big bonking sticks that did holy damage. The Black Steel Greathammer, the Shadow Sunflower Blossom, and Demonia’s Hammer. I also really liked the Putrescence Cleaver.
Sorcery-wise, there were a few good ones, including Impenetrable Thorns that was game-breakingly good. It recently got nerfed, but I don’t know by how much. I have fallen off sorceries not because they’re not good, but because I’ve gone all-in on faith-based incantations. This character now has 72 faith, and I can use any faith-based incantation in the game. I am going to work on my arcane now so I can use the two Bayle incantations that require a hefty investment in arcane.
I have to find ways to make each playthrough fun for me. In the base game, I did a pyro run, which, surprisingly, wasn’t my first run; a caster run; a strength run; and a run that is loosely ased on the RKG run, just to name a few. My third run was on NG+ just so I could get the plat. That meant I didn’t do much that I didn’t have to do–I filled out a lot of it after I got the plat. With my current character, I deliberately broke the sequence so I could get to the DLC as quickly as possible. Even still, I could not stop doing certain things. But now I’m in the DLC yet again and doing it in a very weird way.
First time I played it, it was me plodding about and trying to explore everything. Even still, I missed stuff. I knew I was going to; I just wish it hadn’t been such important NPC stuff. Again, that was half on me and half on the game.
In the end, I have a much better feeling about this DLC than I have about the others in the past. I still think they are too much, but at least I can accept it and move on. I am really tired so I’m ending this now and will probably have one more post tomorrow.
I included a video from Mugthief above about the ‘git gud’ crowd in the FromSoft community. Just because he made some really good points and I felt like it.